Transcendence?

***Island Nation of Mist***

***Ascathon***

Both opposing parties start a combination of hand to hand fights and ranged attacks. I follow Celestial and barely evade a yellow glowing orb. The one who fired it was the guy with the iron mask.

“Den. Go and get our targets. I will play with the masked leaders.” Another glowing orb is shot at me and this time I counter it by shooting a small blue orb of mana at it. The magical force disperses without further harm.

Den rushes past me and bulldozes over an enemy soldier who tried to block his path. The huge and bulky Den tackles him like playing a football game and the enemy is thrown aside like a doll.

“You don't have time to watch others!” The iron mask pulls a sword and charges at me with extraordinary speed.

I try to evade, but I am too slow. His sword swings down at me and the enemy's blade is about to slice into my mask when a sharp metallic sound is heard and the blade is deflected.

One of the blue orbs, which I summoned earlier, activated. The spell offers nice protection against physical attacks. Mana orbs are normally only used to counter projectile spells, or as magical attacks.

Though in my case I combined them with a barrier spell and gave them a small set of rules. They activate when something enters the protected space around me and intercept the attack on their own.

My masked opponent is a little baffled, but strikes at me again without reservation. Another mana orb changes it's course and intercepts the sword. This time I use the chance and step forward to give my enemy a punch straight to the face.

His head is thrown backwards and he retreats to gain some distance. He raises one hand and a storm of ice shards is let loose. I raise both of my hands and a stone wall rises to separate us.

Cracks appear in the rock in front of me, which proves that the ice shards have power. But I don't marvel at the enemy's strength and summon a phantom of myself. The spell Mirage is commonly used by many mind magicians to distract the enemy. Since the line of sight is blocked by the wall, it's the perfect time to use it.

The phantom of myself runs to the left and I wait a second to conjure a small fireball. Then I step around the wall, just as my phantom is pierced by a glowing lance of light. I throw the fireball immediately at the masked guy, who is concentrating on my phantom. The Fireball impacts his shoulder and sets his clothes aflame.

My grin is wiped out of my face as the enemy disappears and reappears right next to me in a striking position. The sword strikes down and I block it with my guarded arm. The blade sinks into my armour and cuts me. But the wound isn't deep.

I grab the blade with my other hand and send mana through my body to enhance my strength. The blade snaps with a metallic sound. Still holding onto the blade, I turn the tip back towards its owner and ram it through the chin of my enemy, directly into his brain.

But my victory is short lived. Something impacts hard into my side. I am catapulted away and fall hard. Luckily I had enhanced my strength, so I didn't suffer any injuries.

As I try to get up, I realize that the one who tackled me was Celestial. “What are you doing?”

“Just fighting two strong people alone.” She gets up and points with one of her swords at the other two masked fellows. “It's unfair. They don't stay dead like they should!”

The head of the nature woman is bent in an unhealthy way, but she is still standing. I watch in disgust as her head snaps back into position.

“Creepy!” There is nothing else I have to say to this.

Both of Celestial's opponents are approaching from a destroyed barricade. There is a hole with Celestial's size in the wooden construction.

Even iron mask is moving again. One hand moves and draws the blade out of his head. Then he stands up and his wound closes.

“That's unfair! His brain was destroyed! I can't do that!” I call out. They are cheating! That's against several laws of nature! “Are they zombies?”

“The gods gave us their blessing to smite the ones who oppose them!” A ridiculous line comes from iron mask's lips.

“They move faster than zombies and are tougher.” Celestial stretches and I hear her bones crunch. “I guess dismembering them is our best option. How about a little teamwork?”

I nod and cast a regeneration spell on Celestial while the enemies become active again.

Roots grab my feet, but I ignore them to disrupt the forming attack magic of garbage face. That's my new nickname for the guy with the crying mask. No wonder that he chose a sad expression.

In an instant Celestial reaches nature woman and sends her flying with a straight kick. The roots loosen, but they held me long enough for iron mask to reach me. He grabs me and I suddenly feel my mana being sucked away.

So I return the favour while stabbing my fingers into his eyes. He screams and lets go of me. The next second one of Celestial's swords stabs through his chest. She threw it at him while fighting the garbage face.

I conjure as much power as possible and unleash a series of wind blades on iron mask. His body is torn to tiny pieces. To my horror, I witness the gore in front of me starting to reform! I decide to set the entire area aflame. Hopefully that will keep him down for a while.

I turn towards Celestial, who is still fighting garbage mask. He is about to evade Celestial's attack when I concentrate on his foot with telekinesis and trip him.

Celestial's sword claims his head when the nature woman finally rejoins the fight. Roots shoot up from the ground and entangle Celestial.

I raise both hands and pour all my mana into a flame cannon spell. A howling inferno shoots out at the last enemy. Nature woman counters my spell with a barrier, but it gives Celestial time to untangle herself and she starts to hack the beheaded garbage face to pieces.

As my mana reserves near their end, I stop my flame cannon before I become completely defenceless. Nature woman's barrier held. Celestial is still ready to fight, but she looks a little weak and starts to back off.

“Please tell me that you have some power left.” She calls out while retreating into my direction.

I can almost imagine a grin on nature woman's face, as she starts to walk forward with confident steps.

Then I find Celestial's second sword on the ground and grab it. “Seems like I will need this...” I talk to myself.

The fighting around us is dying down and my warriors start to shoot at the nature woman from all sides. Nothing helps. Her shield is indestructible. Then roots start to penetrate the earth all around her and something starts to grow.

“Retreat!”

I call for the easiest solution. If your enemy is a slow moving indestructible fortress, you simply have to run.

Our soldiers pick up their wounded comrades and retreat into the direction of the coast. In the distance I see Den exiting the mansion. He has the limp Fingulf over his shoulder and a screaming boy under his arm. Four soldiers are following him, each of them is needed to carry a screaming woman at her feet and arms.

Then my foot is caught by a root, which penetrated the ground. I look back at the living, swirling mass under her, as it expands in all directions. I hack at the root, but it's persistent. Celestial grabs my free hand and starts to pull, but it's no use.

It feels like my hand will be ripped off by Celestial and I drop the sword to raise my hand against the nature woman. Whatever she is, I will test if she survives a little soul magic. I ready myself to cast one my new experimental spells.

*THUNDER*

A deafening sound caused me to wince and a bluish white thunderbolt came from the sky. It struck the nature woman, turning her into a crispy piece of charcoal within an instant. Celestial and I are frozen as we watch the carpet of roots die.

“Did you do that?” Celestial asks with suspicion.

“No?” I quickly try to untangle the evil root from my foot. “At least I think I didn't?”

Suddenly the ground under my feet starts to rumble and a huge cloud of dark dust starts to rise from farther inland.

“Volcano!” Celestial grabs me, lifting me in a princess carry. The root rips while my bone breaks. I cry out and then she starts to run while I try to ignore the pain.

For some reason I take a look back and witness a cataclysmic scene, as the island comes apart behind us.

“Run faster!”

"I'm trying!"

***Floating somewhere above the Sea of God***

***Lidith***

“~I drew a Wrath of God. Shananana.~” I am dancing on my chair while the others look at me with sour faces. “~And you lost three heroes. Lalalala.~”

I point at the strange scene in the globe at the middle of the table. Celestial is running for her life with Ascathon in a princess carry, while a shower of lava pieces rains down around them and a dark cloud of hot dust is following on their heels.

“~And my Immortals will survive.~”

“Yeah... yeah. That's enough. Sit down.” Aneth grumbles while he watches the scene. “Damn. I would never let myself get carried like that.”

“You are right, it's pathetic.” Charon nods with enthusiasm.

I turn to Wynne, but she shows no reaction and stares at the globe. I wave my hand in front of her eyes, but I get no reaction. “Wynne? Wake up? Come on, those guys were assholes anyway? Did you ever watch what they did in their free time?”

Suddenly Wynne snaps to attention and screams at Aneth. “You ruined my island! Again!”

Aaah... now I remember. Didn't this whole story start because Aneth destroyed one of Wynne's gardening Islands?

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