Nero had finally killed the general of Gloris, one of the strongest and most renowned warriors and light weavers in the world. The victory came at a heavy cost. In the end, he had barely managed to withstand the dying man's final attack. Cracks had spread across his entire body, running from his remaining arm almost to the magical heart embedded in the right side of his chest. They showed how close he had come to losing. A single additional surge of magic and his heart would have simply stopped.
That did not mean instant death, as Nero had discovered after extensive research, yet every second without the pulse of the arcane heart worsened the condition of the body.
The longest any of the test subjects he and Ester had experimented on had endured without a magical heart was twelve seconds. During those seconds, the body had shriveled into a sickly gray, the skin collapsed on the bones, hair fell out in clumps, and the cracks widened until, in the twelfth second, the brain died, and the heart shrank into a dry gray lump.
Nero awoke slowly. Dozens of Polykenas had gathered around him and worked to mend his injuries. One of them had found his severed arm and reattached the limb to the stump at his shoulder. Nero looked down at his chest and saw that the cracks were healing little by little.
None of the Polykenas could close these wounds for him. They healed only on their own, and until they finished, he was unable to wield powerful magic again.
He lifted the hand of his reattached arm. Cracks had already crawled over its skin in the moment it had been grafted back to his body, reaching all the way to the fingertips. The hand trembled and remained numb, yet feeling would eventually return.
He rose with effort. For a heartbeat, he almost collapsed, but he steadied himself. A Polykenas handed him a fresh shirt, and he pulled it over his head before stepping outside the building that had served as his quarters during the siege.
He looked toward the sky. Far in the distance, flashes of light erupted in the heavens where the battle between Xersies and Luis continued at full force.
Luis launched a spear of pure light at the fleeing Xersies. The demon turned sharply. Both claws rose, and he caught the glowing spear from the air, although the tip still drove several centimeters into his chest. Instead of blood, brilliant light streamed from the wound while Xersies pulled the weapon free. Luis cursed when he realized that this version of Xersies was an illusion once again. He turned to pursue the other figure, the one with the dragon of living light soaring behind him, yet a sudden blow struck him from behind. The Xersies he believed to be a clone had fired a bolt of pure light into his back.
Luis survived because a layer of condensed light clung around him and absorbed most of the attack. Most, but not all. The bolt had embedded itself between his shoulder blades. Xersies spread his fingers to detonate the arrow and inflict catastrophic damage, but Luis had already ripped the bolt from his flesh. It exploded the instant it left his hand, releasing a violent pulse of radiance. Luis raised his palm and blocked the wave. He snarled at Xersies as he realized that the glow in the wound had been false. Now that it faded, true blood was visible beneath it.
Fury shot through him. Xersies had deceived him yet again.
Fortunately for Luis, a layer of light wrapped around him and absorbed most of the attack.
It blocked the majority, though not everything, and the spear drove itself between his shoulder blades. Xersies spread his fingers to make the projectile detonate and tear deeper into him, yet Luis had already ripped the spear from his back.
The weapon exploded the moment he flung it away, releasing a pulse of piercing radiance. Luis raised his palm and stopped the shock. He glared at Xersies with a low growl and recognized that the light in his wound had been artificial. Now that it faded, real blood was visible.
Fury flashed through him as he stared at Xersies, who had outwitted him once again. A twitch ran through Luis's right hand, and the golden dragon immediately veered and flew toward him and the real Xersies. The illusion the demon had projected dissolved as Xersies released his control over it.
Xersies watched the dragon approach.
Unlike his illusions, the beast had a solid presence. He crafted his illusions by splitting light into specific colors and impressions, but this dragon was a genuine entity that seemed capable of lasting indefinitely. Xersies lifted both claws, and bright light flared from his palms. Luis braced himself to counter the strike, only to freeze when he realized Xersies was not aiming at him. The demon directed his attack at the golden dragon that raced toward him with a silent roar.
Luis ordered the dragon to pull away. Before it could respond, two massive pillars of light shot toward the beast. Thin cracks began to form on Xersies' skin, yet he did not stop. The dragon was struck directly in the flank, and the force of the beams pushed it backward.
The demon's light drove ruthlessly through the creature's form. Under the relentless pressure, the dragon began to break apart. Luis sent an attack toward Xersies, who dodged the blast. Luis surged forward to stop him, clapped his hands once, and unleashed a wave of light that tore toward the demon. Forced at last to defend himself, Xersies abandoned his assault.
The damage had already been done. The once sturdy dragon had become fully transparent. Its shape thinned and lost cohesion, shrinking as its power diminished.
Luis pressed his counterattack without pause. Xersies gave ground and blocked as he retreated. Suddenly, Luis broke away after blasting him backward with another radiant explosion. He slipped back into the dragon's dissolving form, and light flooded from him. Xersies struck the creature, yet with Luis inside it, the beast thickened at once. The beast grew denser and regained speed. It roared with Luis's voice, repelling another strike with a pulse of light, then inhaled.
Xersies recognized the technique. He retreated sharply while a flood of luminous fire surged toward him. He raised both claws and brought them together. Two small spheres of concentrated light formed, and he sent them into the blaze. This time, there were two rather than one, and both absorbed the dragon's breath. They expanded as they drank in the radiance.
The dragon halted instantly and climbed higher to avoid the spheres. Xersies tightened his claws again and drew them back. The spheres had swollen into massive orbs, moments away from exploding. Heat rolled from them so fiercely that the surrounding air dissolved into plasma and the night turned bright as dawn. From the battlefield below, it looked as if two suns had risen at once, warming everything beneath them.
Luis flew in a wide arc and closed in on Xersies. The demon seemed entirely focused on commanding the twin suns and did not even glance toward him. Luis refused to use the dragon's breath again while the orbs were so near. He stepped out of the dragon's form, which now drifted above him, lifted both hands, and clapped them together. A razor-thin crescent shot forward, sharp enough to slice the air itself. It rushed toward Xersies with alarming speed, ready to cut him in half.
Xersies twisted to the side, which made him lose control over the two miniature suns. They erupted in enormous explosions that released all the accumulated magic at once. Even Luis had to turn his head away to avoid being blinded by the blazing light.
The radiance expanded faster than either of them could react. Luis shot upward, yet the swelling brilliance surged after him with greater speed. He commanded the dragon to fly ahead and shield him. The luminous creature obeyed and absorbed most of the blast. It managed to block nearly ninety percent of the explosion, but the remaining force overwhelmed the construct.
Its form disintegrated and vanished in the glare. It had taken enough of the impact that Luis could withstand the rest on his own.
When he looked down, he saw Xersies hovering below, apparently unharmed, staring back at him. Long cracks ran over the demon's skin and reached almost to his shoulder. Two streams of light extended from his right and left. Luis followed one beam and saw another Xersies connected to it. A second beam linked that one to another clone, and then another, and another. Dozens of illusions formed around Luis, and more emerged behind him.
Luis growled with fury. "More of your illusions."
He raised a hand and attacked one of the images. The phantom mirrored him, lifting its own hand as light burst from it to parry the strike. Luis allowed himself a confident grin, thinking he had identified the real demon, but a sudden blow hit him in the back. The hit came so unexpectedly that he had no time to defend himself. The crescent of light carved a deep, burning wound across his flesh.
Anger twisted his expression as he spun around, only to be struck from another angle, then another, and then another. Alarmed, he extended both hands and created a barrier of light around himself.
How was this possible?
A ripple of panic shot through him. How could illusions deliver real attacks? His thoughts raced, and the answer struck him within a heartbeat. Xersies had copied the very technique Luis had spent two decades perfecting. Luis had created a dragon of living light but had never succeeded in giving that construct its own ability to cast magic.
He had always been required to be inside the creature and channel power through it. In the limited time they fought, Xersies somehow had discovered a way around that limitation. Luis realized that the beams connecting the clones were the key to that.
The long golden beam was the actual figure of light; the dozens of Xersies were merely appendages. This implies that the genuine demon must also be one of them somewhere.
He searched frantically for the real, yet found no way to distinguish him as more and more attacks rained down. They came from every direction and from every clone. Each individual strike lacked the overwhelming force of the dragon's focused breath, but the sheer number made them devastating.
Luis compressed the glowing bubble into a thin shell and transformed into a streak of light in a desperate attempt to escape. A small spark struck him in the back. His defense shattered instantly, and the impact tore him out of his light form. Blood erupted from his facial openings as a severe wound ripped through his body.
He spun again and saw a smiling Xersies at his side. That one had delivered the blow. Luis hurled a spear of light in anger. It tore through the phantom and erased it completely. Another tiny spark hit him from behind and destroyed another illusion. No matter how often he destroyed them, fresh attacks kept coming. Xersies shifted the focus of his power between clones the same way Luis transferred his strength into the dragon.
Luis could endure no more. The king of Gloris, the one chosen by the sun god, the leader of the light weavers, lost the last fragment of strength he had. Dozens of holes now pierced his body as he plummeted from the sky. Xersies allowed the illusions to fade until only one remained. That single figure dove after Luis.
The bleeding holy man fell helplessly toward the earth. Xersies descended alongside him, headfirst, and looked directly into the eyes of the dying king. The demon raised his claw. The last thing Luis ever saw was light, the light of the god he worshipped, as it severed his throat.