Tessia Eralith
The name Lucas Wykes curdled in my stomach like spoiled milk. That petty, arrogant noble who had hounded Grey since day one like a rascal. The instigator, the puppeteer pulling strings to ignite racial tensions within these very walls. And the worst sin of all? He had used my brother's name.
Corvis's reputation, the legacy of the person who meant more to me than breath, as kindling for his disgusting agenda. And now? Now this twisted caricature of a human being thought he could use me as bait? A lure for Grey?
Rage, cold and sharp as winter steel, sliced through the terror. It wasn't just fury; it was a protective firestorm ignited by the violation of everything sacred.
"You won't harm anyone, Lucas," I stated, my voice low, vibrating with a certainty I forced into my bones. My grip tightened on the wand-sword, the familiar grain of the silver's handle a grounding anchor. Deep within, I called upon the Beast Will I have absorbed from the beast core gifted to me by Grey for my twelfth birthday.
Integrate Phase. Emerald light, fierce and alive, erupted from my core. Intricate, glowing green sigils, like living vines woven from pure mana, spiraled around my eyes. A vibrant aura, the verdant pulse of ancient woodlands, shimmered around my entire body. My gunmetal hair bled into a luminous, leaf-green cascade.
With a swift, practiced motion, I dismissed the wand-sword momentarily into its sheath at my hip. Both hands now free, I reached deep into the earth's song, the power amplified by my Beast Will. From the cracked, smoldering cobblestones, I pulled. Not just summoned, but grew.
A longsword materialized in my grasp, forged not of metal, but of living roots and braided vines, thorns glinting like emerald daggers along its edge. It hummed with raw, earthy power—it was the same type of weapon Grampa Virion had first placed in my small hands after awakening, now refined through relentless sparring with Grey, imbued with the resilience of my spirit itself.
"Oh?" Lucas threw his head back and laughed, the sound harsh and grating, devoid of genuine mirth. It was the cackle of something unhinged. He brought a hand up to his face, fingers splayed dramatically over his bloodshot eyes.
"You want to play, Princess?" He lowered his hand, revealing that unnerving, predatory grin. "Don't make me laugh! You are no match for me, elf!" The slur dripped with venomous contempt.
Hypocrite. The thought was a venomous dart. He draped himself in noble lineage while spewing hatred that would shame a gutter rat while he himself was a helf-elf. He raised a hand, almost lazily. No chant. Just a flicker of intent in those crimson eyes. A wave of pure, concussive heat, visible as rippling air, roared towards me.
Instinct screamed: wind barrier! I slashed my wand-sword free again, conjuring a gale-force wall. But the fire… it wasn't just hot. It was heavy. It slammed into my wind like a thundering hammer, dispelling its currents immediately.
Raw heat seared my face, singeing my green-tipped hair. Panic flared. Heartwood Shell! I poured mana downward.
The ground buckled, and thick, gnarled plates of hardened oak, radiating emerald light, erupted around me, forming a protective cocoon just as the fire-wave crashed over it. The wood screamed, charring instantly under the onslaught, the smell of burning sap thick and acrid. Inside the shell, the heat was suffocating.
How? The question was a scream in my mind. I had just broken into the dark yellow stage! Among students, only Grey surpassed me. Yet Lucas… his power felt dense, suffocating, monstrous. It battered my defenses almost like a silver-core mage's assault. What vile alchemy, what poison had he ingested to become this?
"Surprised, Princess?" Lucas taunted as the flames subsided enough for me to drop the smoldering shell. He stamped a foot. The cobblestones beneath me glowed red, then erupted in a geyser of molten rock and fire. I threw myself sideways, the searing heat licking at my legs, the root-sword singing as it deflected a spray of magma.
Pain flared along my calf where a droplet seared through my trousers. "I told you! You are nothing before the Great Lucas Wykes! Scion of the illustrious Wykes House!" His voice boomed, filled with manic pride.
His bragging was a grating, maddening counterpoint to the city's screams. Attrition? Could I outlast him? Mana Rotation—the technique Corvis had painstakingly taught me when we were small kids, drawing ambient energy to replenish my core—hummed within me.
But, the sheer volume of power radiating from Lucas was staggering. His core pulsed like a miniature sun, dense and chaotic, burning with that sickly, corrupted energy. It wasn't just strength; it was an ocean compared to my river. Elixirs? Probably... I didn't know. But this felt… deeper. Wrong. Like his very soul was fuel.
"I wouldn't want you scampering off," Lucas sneered, snapping his fingers. "Inferno's Cage!" Four walls of roaring, white-hot flame erupted from the ground, sealing us in a twenty-foot square arena.
The heat intensified exponentially, making the air shimmer violently, sucking the breath from my lungs. Inside this hellish box, the roar of the flames was deafening, the light blinding. He conjured a small, deceptively calm sphere of blue-white fire, tossing it idly in his hand like a toy.
"Fetch, puppy." He smirked and lobbed it towards my face. "Or do you only perform tricks for Grey? Debasing your royal blood for a gutter-born commoner?"
The insult to Grey, the implication, ignited a fresh wave of fury. But beneath it, a colder, sharper edge: strategy. Distract. Survive. Wait. Corvis's lessons echoed—strength wasn't always raw power. It was endurance. It was using your enemy's arrogance against them. Even the seemingly weak could be deadly with patience.
My brother, coreless but indomitable, was proof. I raised my wand-sword, not like a blade, but like a crossbow. Wind Darts! A rapid barrage of compressed air projectiles, sharp as needles, streaked towards him. They wouldn't pierce his corrupted defense, I knew, but they forced him to flinch, to raise a hand, disrupting his focus for a crucial second.
While deflecting his lazy, contemptuous fireballs—each one forcing me to pivot, to parry with my root-sword, sending showers of sparks and charred vines flying, careful not to be backed into the incinerating walls of the cage—I was weaving a different spell.
Subtly, almost invisibly beneath the raging firelight, I channeled the verdant aura of my Beast Will down. Not into an attack, but into the scorched earth beneath our feet. Feeding it. Asking. The ancient Elderwood Guardian within me resonated, its power seeping into the ground, seeking dormant life, hidden moisture, the deep resilience of the earth itself.
"You are so annoying, Princess!" Lucas hissed, finally losing patience with the game. He planted his feet, crimson energy flaring violently around him as he began a deeper chant. This wasn't a tossed fireball. This was building power.
Now! I stomped my foot, pouring every ounce of focused will into the ground I had prepared.
The cobblestones exploded upwards not in fire, but in a geyser of pure, concentrated life-force. A colossal, spear-like sprout, thick as an ancient oak trunk and radiating blinding emerald light, erupted directly beneath Lucas with terrifying speed.
It wasn't just wood; it was solidified will, hardened aura, designed to impale, to entomb.
But Lucas, enhanced by whatever vile power he wielded, moved with unnatural reflexes. He didn't just dodge; he blurred, a streak of crimson and orange, leaping sideways just as the verdant spear tore through the space he'd occupied. It slammed into the fiery cage wall behind him, causing the flames to roar and spit violently, leaving a deep fissure in the charred earth.
He landed lightly, dusting imaginary soot from his sleeve, his expression a mask of profound disappointment.
"You seriously thought that would work, Princess?" He rolled his shoulders, the muscles rippling unnaturally under his skin. "Truly pathetic. Enough of this distraction. I still need to deliver you to Grey. Wonder where the gutter rat is hiding? Maybe playing hero with his other mongrel friends?" His eyes scanned the fiery cage, then the smoke beyond, genuinely uncertain. He doesn't know.
A sliver of hope? A potential weakness? But analyzing it was a luxury I didn't have. Lucas's demeanor shifted abruptly. The mocking playfulness vanished, replaced by cold, lethal intent. His hand snapped up.
A flame lance!
A searing spear of condensed fire, hotter and faster than anything before, streaked towards me. I twisted, bringing the root-sword up in a desperate parry. The impact was brutal. Heat seared my palms even through the Beast Will aura.
The spear grazed my cheekbone. Agony flared—not just the burn, but the sheer force of the corrupted mana behind it. Only the emerald sigils flaring desperately around my eyes saved my vision. The smell of singed hair and skin filled my nostrils.
Close range. He's a conjurer. The thought was a desperate gamble. I sheathed the wand-sword. The root-sword dissolved back into emerald motes. In my hands now, summoned with focused will, were two short blades—not physical, but pure manifestations of my Beast Will aura.
They hummed with condensed life-force, sharp as diamond, extensions of my own spirit. I dropped low, coiling like a spring, and burst forward, aiming straight for his center.
Lucas's eyes widened fractionally. Not fear, but surprise. He clapped his hands together. Flame Guardian! The air before him detonated inwards, then surged outwards, coalescing into a towering, humanoid figure forged entirely of raging fire. Easily eight feet tall, it swung a massive, molten fist down towards me like a falling anvil.
No time to dodge. Pure instinct. I slammed my palm flat onto the searing cobblestones. Not a shield, but a localized, violent upheaval. A miniature cyclone, infused with razor-sharp leaves and blades of hardened grass I tore from the earth itself, erupted around me just as the fiery fist descended.
Wind and verdant fury met molten rock and flame. The collision was a cacophony of tearing wind, hissing steam, and the sickening crack of superheated stone. The force drove me to one knee, my cyclone buckling, the heat blistering even through my aura. But it held. Barely. I used the concussive blast to push myself back, skidding across the scorched ground, putting precious distance between me and the guardian.
Lucas laughed, the sound echoing within the fiery cage. "Cute! A little whirlwind! Allow me to show you a real storm!" He spread his arms wide, palms facing upwards. The corrupted mana within him surged, visible even without Realmheart as a dark, pulsing crimson aura.
The Flame Guardian dissolved, its fire sucked back towards him. The very air within the cage began to spin, drawn into a vortex centered on Lucas. Fire from the walls, embers from the ground, all spiraled inward, feeding the growing maelstrom.
"Inferno Cyclone!" he roared.
It wasn't just fire. It was a contained hurricane of pure destruction. A roaring, shrieking column of white-hot flame, easily ten feet wide, spinning with terrifying speed, filling the entire width of the cage. It ripped chunks of cobblestone from the ground, vaporizing them instantly.
The heat radiating from it was unbearable, sucking the moisture from my eyes, my mouth, making my skin feel like parchment about to ignite. It filled my vision, a wall of annihilating fire screaming towards me, leaving nowhere to run, nowhere to hide within the cage. The cage walls roared behind me, promising an even swifter, more agonizing end.
I… I can't dodge. The realization was ice water dumped over the burning terror. Pure, primal fear locked my limbs. The cyclone filled the world, its roar drowning out everything else—the city's screams, Lucas's manic laughter, even the frantic beat of my own heart.
Time seemed to slow, stretched thin by sheer terror. I saw the individual tongues of flame, blue at the core, white-hot at the edges, swirling in that deadly dance. I felt the air being ripped from my lungs before I could even try to breathe.
The heat blistered my palms where I gripped the two emerald blades—the Sylvan Shards as I have named them when I first used this spell.
There was only one choice. Brace. Endure. Hope my core, fueled by desperation and Mana Rotation, wouldn't shatter. I crossed the Sylvan Shards before me, not as weapons, but as a final, fragile shield. I poured every ounce of mana, every shred of will, into the emerald aura surrounding me, forcing it to thicken, to solidify into a shell of pure life-force against the oncoming oblivion.
I squeezed my eyes shut, not in surrender, but in fierce, defiant focus, pouring my soul into the green light. Hold. For Corvis. For Grey. For Sylvie. For everyone. HOLD!
The roar of the inferno swallowed me whole.