Discordant Note | TBATE

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Arthur Leywin

Cylrit stepped backward uncertainly as that unending aura focused on him, crushing inward and making steam rise from his black plate armor. His dark hair clung to his head as he grunted, stumbling under that weight.

My mind was awhirl with questions and worries as the mage leveled their weapon down at Cylrit threateningly, waiting for a response. But while my thoughts struggled for purchase beneath that stifling aura, I knew instinctively I needed to take action.

My intent pressed back ever-so-slightly against that of 'Chul,' trying to shelter Cylrit. I was only partially successful, but the Retainer thankfully managed a deep breath. "You are interrupting private business, asura," I pressed out, forcing my voice to be even. "Your kind is forbidden from interfering in this war."

Asclepius, I thought internally as I hovered slightly, putting myself between Chul and Cylrit. I felt the eyes of the mage turn to me, those contrasting pupils of ice and fire sending a tremor through my body. Sylvie said something about them. A former clan of the Great Eight that left to join Agrona. One of phoenixes.

But if they joined with Agrona, why was this man—likely an asura—threatening Cylrit? Spellsong—a phoenix hybrid—fought on his side, after all.

I felt my rising tension and worry shift slightly, however, as the phoenix bowed to me in the air, his free hand smashing into his chest in a thunderous beat. He kept that mace—which looked like a star had been captured in the center—leveled at Cylrit. "I meant not to disturb you, Good King," he said. I doubted it was intended as such, but the words echoed like a yell. "I have quested far and wide, searching for your hearth as I slay monsters and beasts."

My eyes widened. "The Rogue Hero," I said, the dots aligning. I'd sent Sylvie—who was now frantically asking what was wrong—on a mission north to track sightings of this person. They'd been eliminating slight offshoots of the Beast Hordes all on their own.

Move south, Sylv, I thought quickly, unable to spare too much thought. The Rogue Hero is here.

"I'm a hundred miles away from you!" my bond thought back. "What do you mean he's there?!"

The suffocating aura lessened slightly as Chul looked at me intently, a slight glimmer in his eye. "The fell dragon pursued me greatly, Good King, but I would not let myself be caught by an Indrath. They know not the arts of the hunt and misleading prey. It was my duty to speak to you alone when poisonous words were not dripping into your righteous ears.

"But such is not of import now," the man barked, focusing on Cylrit again, who had stood motionless with an expression of supreme concentration. "The Vritra seek to mislead you, human king. They know naught but lies and riddles meant to confuse and baffle. I will dispatch this one in glorious combat as a testament to my words, and I shall take knowledge of my Mother from his defeated form."

His mother? I thought, feeling horrifically confused. I was missing something. "Your actions have been beyond helpful, Chul Asclepius," I said, trying to maintain a calm voice as I reasserted my stance to the asura. "The fires you have wrought and the people you have saved speak to your intentions. But you cannot interrupt a–"

"Your mother…" Cylrit's even baritone rumbled out. He slowly, haltingly rose into the air. Though I knew he struggled to present himself beneath that aura, he looked once again entirely unfazed. "I know of her, Chul Asclepius. But we thought you would be at the Hearth."

Chul's aura redoubled once more, slamming into both me and Cylrit. I gritted my teeth as the house behind us began to burn from the heat. "You, from the southern infestation… You know of the Hearth," he whispered, his words hot despite his frigid tone. "That is unacceptable. The Vritra cannot know of my clan's home."

"I have spoken with Aurora!" Cylrit pressed out, his armor smoldering. "She yet lives, Chul of the Hearth. I can tell you all you wish to know if you listen."

Chul's eyes narrowed, but his intent withdrew slightly. "You wish to spare your skull my mace, Vritra? Your lies will roll over me like fire off a magma mallard's back."

"We are not enemies, son of Dawn," Cylrit countered sharply. "Her ghost persists, leading another on."

My mind was working feverishly to try and understand everything that came together, but I recognized one name. Aurora.

Aldir had mentioned that Aurora Asclepius haunted the steps of one man. That was what gave Taci the precedent to intervene in the war in the first place.

The pieces aligned instantly.

"Spellsong," I blurted out, looking at Cylrit. "The ghost that follows him. Aldir Thyestes claimed it to be of Aurora Asclepius."

"The Vritra speaks true?" Chul said, his booming voice softening. He lowered his mace slightly, his expression morphing into something profoundly… hopeful.

I opened my mouth, about to say that yes, there was merit in Cylrit's words.

But then King Grey returned, reminding me of what I was looking at. An asura. A rogue one, if my internal guess was correct. I didn't understand everything that was going on, but there was one thing that was certain.

This asura couldn't join with Seris Vritra. An unchecked threat like that would invite further escalation from Epheotus and Alacrya both, with Dicathen caught in the middle. I already barely managed to keep the continent together with Taci haunting my footsteps, but if another asura were to join with the Alacryans…

"Things are not so simple," I said instead, trying to balance everything that I saw. I couldn't let Chul join with Cylrit, but neither could I afford to alienate Cylrit too deeply lest the parlay end. "Sources from Epheotus claimed that a ghost haunted Spellsong's steps, but it is unclear how much of that ghost remains or what its part is."

The young asura slowly hovered to the ground, his eyes uncertain and strained as they darted between me and the Retainer. "I knew that my mother yet lived," he said in a quiet voice, the hand holding his mace trembling. "I knew it could not be pure folly born of my heart."

His eyes sharpened as they honed in on Cylrit. "You, Vritra. Tell me what you know immediately. If any treachery leaves your lips, I shall slay you where you stand."

Cylrit's blood-red eyes flicked to me, then back to the phoenix. He stepped forward, past me so that he could stand closer to the asura.

Cylrit was a wall of dark metal, and my memories of him at the summit just before the war had left a deep impression on me. While Uto was tall and lanky like a scarecrow, there was something daunting about how silent and reserved Seris' Retainer was.

But compared to the tower of muscle and sculpted power that was the phoenix, even Cylrit looked small.

"I can tell you very little, Chul Asclepius," he said. "Your mother's survival was kept secret and safe from all who might do her harm. It is my master who knows more. And the one they call Spellsong."

Then, Cylrit held his massive greatsword of black metal out to the side, letting it dissipate. His hands were empty. "We of Sehz-Clar are not your enemies."

Chul slowly lowered his mace, his tensed muscles relaxing beneath his orange martial robes. He opened his mouth, about to speak.

"Regardless of any of this," I interrupted, flexing my aura in an attempt to regain control of the situation, "You cannot join with Alacrya, Chul Asclepius. To do so would warrant escalation and hellfire from Epheotus. There is a balance that any asuran intervention will break."

Chul looked at me, and I was almost struck dumb by the purity of the emotion written across his features. If before I could only see pure anger, now… Now I saw a hope that burned as bright as a pyre. "I will return to you, Good King. I shall tell you of the treacherous horrors of the Indraths so your rule will be untainted by their touch," he said, something raw clawing its way from his throat. "But I must know the truth of my Mother."

That's not what I meant, I thought, trying to think of a way to intervene. Even through the swirls of ambient fire mana that seemed to follow the man, it was hard to decipher that he was an asura. Something was hiding it from my senses. But his strength alone belied the truth of his nature.

I cannot let him join either side. My hands clenched and unclenched as Chul walked toward Cylrit slowly, like a shadowcat sensing a trap. And in turn, Cylrit held out a gauntleted hand in a gesture of peace.

I found the words I would say next quickly. Already, Cylrit and I had been negotiating for Spellsong's healing of Virion. If I played my cards right, I could push for this Chul to wait and take on a noninterference policy until we negotiated Toren Daen's healing.

If I push for the phoenix to meet Toren Daen under neutral grounds such as this, it gives me more time, I thought, opening my mouth to speak.

And my eyes caught on King Grey. The phantom that haunted my steps, with his empty steel eyes, choppy blonde hair, and impossibly golden crown…

He had never, ever taken his eyes off of me. Never in the entirety of the time this crack in my sanity had presented itself had the ghost turned his gaze from my face as he judged my every action.

But the rictus image of my previous life was not looking at me. He was staring at Chul's back.

My eyes followed the gaze of the wraith-like shadow of King Grey as if drawn by a magnet.

I couldn't sense it; not really. There was a… mask over it that made it nigh impossible to see. But the dark particles gathering around the base of Chul's shadow were familiar.

I was moving before I was even conscious of the action. I blurred forward, Dawn's Ballad flashing purple as it swung down at the phoenix's shadow with an imbuement of strengthening earth.

The blade carved a crescent arc just in time, intercepting an oily black spike as it surged upward. The bloodiron spear—far, far stronger than anything Uto had ever conjured, and poised to spear right into Chul's core—sparked as it rebounded off my sword.

I followed the path of that dark mana, swinging my blade. A crescent of purple-tinged wind blurred toward that strange amalgamation of shadows. Within, I caught a flash of orangish hair and deep horns, but I was unsurprised to see a surge of caustic sludge coalesce from nothing, catching my wind blade and tearing it apart. I could feel the mana in my spell degrading, even with the aether supporting and assisting it.

Chul was already whirling, pivoting as he roared in fury at the attempted assassination. That mace of his pulsed, flames leaking from every inch, before he swung it to the side.

It impacted a massive tower shield, one that hadn't even been there a heartbeat before. Fire erupted in a catastrophic boom over that blue-black protection as the blue-haired mage behind it was sent skidding backward, electricity snapping outward like coiling serpents. The woman retaliated with a darting clip of her spear, but Chul batted it aside with casual ease.

The dark lightning traveled up his mace, trying to sink into his nerves. But a simple flex and a dreadful snarl washed it away.

I only had a moment to think. Wraiths. Four mana signatures were suddenly apparent as they flickered. Their ability to hide was almost like Mirage Walk, but now that I had honed in on that failure in their technique…

"Liar!" Chul boomed, hefting his mace as Cylrit was pulled away by a tendril of acid. A Vritra-blooded man with corkscrew-like horns and earth-brown hair snarled contemptuously as he dragged the Retainer free of Chul's retaliatory swing. "Treacherous, traitorous basilisk!"

"Chul, you need to—" I started, already struggling to keep track of everyone and everything. But before I could say anything, the asura erupted in fire, throwing himself at Cylrit and the Wraith wielding corrosive magic with an explosion.

I barely switched to fireborne in time before the heat washed over me, engulfing me in a conflagration of heat. Even engrossed as I was in the sensation of all that fire was, I still—impossibly—felt myself start to burn.

Need to act fast, I thought as those fires engulfed me. Need to kill them all!

I Burst Stepped from the center of that nimbus of fire, little less than a blur. Black spikes shot up from a dozen different places, each trying to impale me. Acid gleamed maliciously, coating every spear.

With barely a twitch of my mana, spires of earth erupted in turn, their edges bathed in flames as they matched each spear of oily metal. The flickering tongues of heat around my earthen spears banished the shadows that strengthened that dark art, allowing them to punch through and obliterate each other in an array of obsidian shards and crumbling rock.

I locked eyes with the one conjuring the spikes. With thickly braided blonde hair and horns that nearly touched under his chin, I knew him to be a Caster.

The Shield is fighting Chul, along with two others, I thought, engaging windborne as I evaded the rising spikes with contemptuous ease. Only four Wraiths? Not five?

I swung Dawn's Ballad, conjuring a storm of aether-laden wind that picked up chips of dust and created a torrent of power.

The Caster darted to the side as a golem of black bloodiron erupted from the shadows, seeking to embrace me with a body of obsidian blades.

I shifted to earthborne as the thing swung at me, deflecting its hammer blow with a gauntlet of stone. A simple twist on my core made my acclorite-infused body take on yet another element: waterborne. My sense for both fire and wind mana cut out, but I was more powerful in the arts of the boulder and the dance of the lake than ever before.

I grabbed the construct of black spikes, flowing and redirecting it against an incoming nimbus of soulfire. The two detonated into a million glimmering shards of decay-tinted deviants.

But in that conflagration, the blonde-braided Caster had already vanished. The ground beneath my feet was alight with greenish mana for an instant, but I was already moving. A spire of earth larger than a house thrust from the ground, carrying me up and away from the roiling mass.

A swamp of corrosive, stinking sludge squelched into existence right where I'd been a heartbeat before. It seeped into the nearby lake, which had once been pristine and peaceful. The corrosion bubbled and churned around the base of my spire, eating into it.

I let waterborne drift away, instead embracing fire alongside the stone. And I activated Thunderclap Impulse, the lightning magic enhanced greatly by the burning orange translucency of my body. Electricity surged along my nerves, heightening my perception, and the lurching world around me ground to a halt. My auburn hair–tinted in motes of red and yellow–stood on end from the lightning coursing along the strands. And despite the raging clashes of battle, I had a chance to think.

I need to get to Chul, I thought, battle fog threatening the edges of my perception. He was engaged with three flitting forms that darted in and out, testing and clashing with him as he roared in fury. Cylrit was with the Wraiths, his face masked and unreadable as he swung that massive greatsword at the raging phoenix. I can't win against all these Wraiths alone!

Two were focusing on me. One had thrown that gout of soulfire, another Caster. This one was bald with patches of marbled skin and spots of ash-gray. His dagger-like horns sprouted from his head in a statement of his blood.

The other was the sneering one with long, earthy hair and corkscrew horns. He'd been the mage that conjured the corrosive swamp and tendrils of poisonous gas.

A Shield, I recognized, immediately marking this half-Vritra as a threat. I needed to eliminate the Shields first!

My core ached from the constant merger of two separate manaborne forms, and I could already feel the strain on my mind like fog drifting down from the clouds. But I pushed through it as I gathered my mana.

A hundred tendrils of cloying sludge erupted from the Shield with corkscrew horns, each dipping and weaving and twisting toward my position in the air. The Caster, recognizing that my intent had been on him with utmost focus, backed away in the air, sending out a gout of soulfire that sought my body with deadly efficiency.

The tendrils of sludge wrapped around me and the rising spike of earth with the grace of a whip eel, the greenish toxins sizzling and popping against the heat of my body. I could feel the increased defenses of earthborne struggling against the encroaching poison as it lashed at me.

The sensation was horrible. As those green particles sank into my translucent skin, I knew they were designed to instill pain. I had no true nerves in my manaborne forms, but the greenish particles didn't seem to care. It burned and tore and rotted all at once.

But pain was nothing. I clung to the mantle of Grey as the tide of black soulfire approached me, roaring without heat. I held tighter to fire and earthborne as it eclipsed my entire sight.

In the space between heartbeats that Thunderclap Impulse afforded me, I acted. I strained against the tendrils of caustic rot that kept me bound, but the ambient mana still reacted to my call.

Deep orange flame, touched and enhanced by the call of aether, erupted around me. A firestorm of my own conjuring met the soulfire, but I could immediately tell it was going to be overwhelmed. The black fires consumed and gorged on mine as they encroached closer and closer. I could just see the soulfire Caster's sneer as they thought my fate sealed.

I gritted my teeth, then gripped the binding tentacles around me with my other hand. I siphoned more mana from my core, feeling the caustic burns as they cinched deep inside. Splitting my focus, I extended the electricity racing along my nerves, sending it thundering down the funnel of the deviant water mana entangling my arms and legs.

The effects of my aetherically-enhanced lightning spell obliterated the tendrils binding me, then nearly crashed into and through the corkscrew Shield. With a snarl, he let his tendrils dissipate.

His mistake.

Everything happened in that single, fractured second. I felt my acclorite-infused body strain in protest as I bent my legs, imbuing mana into my limbs as fire gathered at my feet. The massive spire of rock below me began to melt and churn as Thunderclap Impulse deepened, my nerves screaming in protest. But the insulating effects of earthborne kept the lightning contained. The insight I gained into the deviant from fireborne kept me in control.

I Burst Stepped, the mana firing in precise movements along my muscles as I blurred toward the toxic sludge Shield. Behind me, the conflagration of black hellfire engulfed the place I'd just been, before splashing into the forest in a spray a few hundred feet in diameter. I could sense the Caster's surprise and panic as they yelled out in alarm to their teammate.

The toxic Shield barely had time to respond as I blurred toward him. Dawn's Ballad flashed as I streaked past. My enemy howled in pain as I slammed into the dirt, one bloody arm falling to the ground in a wet squelch.

"Ifiok, on me, damnit!" he snarled, already pivoting. He conjured a wave of caustic mist through gritted teeth. "Blaise isn't enough!"

I released fireborne, then became water. Thunderclap Impulse sputtered out, but I didn't need it now. With the determined tide of the ocean itself and the steady surety of rock, I flowed around the sudden wall of mist, then grabbed the Wraith in a joint lock as I released Dawn's Ballad. My eyes darted to the shadows around us, noting the gathering black mana particles there.

I could just hear the one called Ifiok—the one who conjured soulmetal golems—growl out another name as he reoriented on me and my captive. Richmal.

The Casters are switching their targets dynamically! I realized, feeling my body protest slightly as I called on the ambient water mana. The Wraiths can't afford to divert from that monstrous phoenix, but they're ensuring two are always facing me! Maybe more!

I was certain I could face two of these Wraiths and emerge victorious: but three?

I took a deep breath, inhaling caustic gas. The green mana ravaged my lungs and made every orifice burn, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make.

The lake itself erupted outward under my call, heaving like the inhale of some great beast. Just before the spikes of black metal could shear through my mana-body, the one-armed Richmal and I were swallowed by a whale of water, then dragged underneath the waves.

The Wraith I'd seized had been struggling and fighting, erupting with caustic mana and trying to burn me away the entire time. The stump of his arm had been popping and squelching as it slowly shifted, healing in real-time. But as we were both suddenly brought underwater by the crashing waves, his snarls and insults cut off as water rushed into his lungs.

With the grace of my waterborne form, I felt like I'd lived beneath the waves all my life as I pulled us deeper and deeper toward the lakebed. Richmal continued to struggle, but the water diffused his toxic nature and spared me any more burns. We sank like stones.

Before I could get comfortable, however, a black spike erupted from the lakebed, thrusting upward and piercing the sky. One after another after another created a cage around me and the weakening Wraith.

The one he'd called for, Ifiok! I thought, cursing.

And then the mana signatures high above shifted slightly. Hastily, I released my grip on the toxic Wraith. I let go of waterborne as decay-aspected lightning raced down the conductive paths of that dark metal, poised to rend me apart.

Before it could hit me, I let myself be swallowed by the silt. The earth welcomed me like a mother as I sank through it, not unlike a stone swimmer fish from the depths of Darv. My lungs burned as I held my breath, weaving through the rock.

Black spikes shot through the earth, following me as I moved. High above, I could sense as the Wraiths continued their deadly duel with the phoenix.

When it was only three on one, I thought the blustering asura might've had a chance. But the phoenix was slowing down at an unnatural pace. It was almost as if he were losing mana. And as I sensed Ifiok return back to the fight and Richmal pull himself to the shore, I knew that I only had one chance.

My mind felt stretched and my core ached from the constant use of magic and aether. I still couldn't breathe, underground as I was, and I could already feel my body starting to lock up from the lack of oxygen. Furthermore, I knew the Wraiths would be waiting for me to erupt from the ground to try and strike again.

I needed to move fast, and I needed to move smart if I wanted to survive.

Get rid of their Shields, I thought hazily, clearing a long, long tunnel in front of me with an absent flex of earth mana. I slid my feet back as I settled into stance. As I released my earthborne form and embraced fire, I recognized something that made my lips creep into a slight, exhausted grin.

There was no air in this little pocket of earth I'd created for myself. No wind to offer resistance. I would go even faster.

I called on my bond with Sylvie, summoning Dawn's Ballad. Fire and lightning threaded along the blade as I engaged Thunderclap Impulse again.

Let's hope that training with Taci has finally paid off.

I engaged Bust Step, the earth heaving me forward as I streaked like a javelin. Space warped.

And I emerged high in the sky, directly behind a specific Wraith: the one with short blue hair, a vicious spear, and a massive towering Shield. The heat cascading around me, conjured by the wild sweeps of the phoenix, was hot enough to sear flesh from bone. But under fireborne, I could bear that as I needed.

The Wraith reacted far faster than I anticipated. She whirled, dark lightning trailing along her massive spear as she prepared to thrust it toward me.

But something something pulled on her mana in a way that made her ever-so-slightly twist. And I could feel the tiniest distortions in Thunderclap Impulse from–

My eyes locked with Cylrit halfway across the battlefield as he ran interference for the Wraiths, darting in and out and scoring tiny cuts on the slowing phoenix. He'd changed his blade to attract lightning magic or something of that effect.

Thank you, Retainer, I thought, before I engaged a fiery Burst Strike.

Even as caustic tentacles from Richmal tried to pull the Wraith away, Dawn's Ballad was unerring. The Vritra-blooded woman tried to thrust forward with her spear, tendrils of black lightning unable to reach me from Cylrit's strange magic.

My purple blade—moving so fast I couldn't even fully comprehend it—sheared through her spear with ease. It parted steel, flesh, and then bone. The blue-haired Wraith's eyes were wide with shock as her head fell from her shoulders, unable to comprehend what had led to her defeat in the first place.

"Ulrike, no!" Richmal's gravelly voice snarled. The caustic Shield whose arm I'd relieved. "Damn you, lesser! I'll–"

That massive mace of the phoenix nearly took off his head. Instead, it obliterated his entire shoulder and arm, which had barely started regenerating.

I took a deep inhale, finally allowing oxygen to touch my lungs once more as the Wraith's blood steamed off my fireborne form. The scent of iron and copper was rife in the air, and a dozen miles of the forest all around were on fire. Smoke rose high into the skies as the remainder of the Wraithsquad battled against the phoenix, who I could tell was flagging.

My limbs chafed from the places those caustic tendrils had dug into me, and my lungs burned even more. I could feel myself healing already, the mana of a white core mage more than enough, but I still felt exhausted and tired in a way I hadn't in a long time.

But I still had work to do.

I arrayed windborne atop my current fiery state, my mind stretching as I whirled away from a few black spikes. A dozen of Ifiok's obsidian golems charged at both me and the phoenix, but without the Shield, I knew this battle was over.

I drifted backward like a leaf, planting my feet against the still-falling tower shield of the dead Wraith. I locked eyes with their decapitated head for a moment, my nerves heightened by Thunderclap Impulse.

Then I focused my attention on the blonde-braided caster again. The one who had constantly been summoning bloodiron like Uto and harrying my shadows. He sneered, his face a mask of pain and fear as the blood of his comrade steamed off the purple edge of my sword. He was covered in a hundred burns, and most of his hair had been charred away from his combat with the phoenix.

"Blaise!" Richmal roared again, his face entirely charred. "He's aiming for—"

I Burst Stepped again, the shield beneath my feet rocketing into the ground with a catastrophic boom.

A massive spike grew from the center of the Caster's chest as I approached like a javelin. His eyes gleamed victoriously as I streaked for that edge, no doubt expecting me to impale myself on it from how I'd been moving.

But Burst Step was not so linear when I was the wind itself. The air currents guided me sideways, the spire only scoring a gash along my ribs instead of piercing my core. The Wraith barely had time to conjure a barrier of bloodiron to block the swing of Dawn's Ballad as I finally closed the distance.

My blade sunk deep into the shield, sparks and creaking metal my reward. Blaise smirked, seeming to think he'd successfully blocked my attack.

That didn't spare him the fist that cratered in his face. His horns crunched and snapped in an explosion of mana as my fire-coated punch slammed into the side of his head, then followed through with a conflagration of heat.

The Vritra half-blood shot toward the lake, smoking as he screamed in abject agony. His cries were immediately swallowed by the churning waters in an explosion of foam, but I wasn't done.

I thrust Dawn's Ballad high, calling on the winds as I wove lightning into a turbulent pull. Particles of aether darted in and about the little stormclouds as they danced over the churning water.

I sensed Blaise's mana signature below the surface. Weakened and hurt, but not dead. Already, he was trying to rise and escape the trap I'd laid for him.

Then I swung down my sword, exhaustion deep in my bones.

Like the hammer of Thor, lighting erupted from a hundred different stormclouds as they lanced into the water with vicious fury. The sky cracked and boomed as each volt slammed into the water over and over and over again. The water carried that charge, electrifying every inch of the expanse.

I could sense as my attack hit, feel a bit of the voltaic particles as they churned across my enemy's form. Like a fly trying to flee from an electric net, my foe had no recourse. No escape.

And finally, the electric booms of my storm subsided, my mana core squeezing from use. I heaved for breath as I stared down at the lake, my manaborne forms misting away. I slumped, looking at the charred and blackened corpse of the Wraith as it slowly floated to the surface. Sweat dripped down my face, and a steady stream of blood leaked from a deep gash on my side right beneath my ribs.

I clenched my teeth, pressing a hand to that wound. Liquid crimson streamed beneath my fingers as I took in the state of the battlefield lethargically, Dawn's Ballad limp in my hand.

"Arthur!" Sylvie cried desperately over my link, only clear now that I'd distanced myself somewhat from my battle fugue. "Arthur, I'm coming! I'll be there soon, just hold on!"

It's… It's fine, Sylv, I thought tiredly. We're–

I spun, much slower than usual as I raised Dawn's Ballad. Still, I managed to catch the swing of Cylrit's massive greatsword as I braced with two arms in a high block. Sparks flew as black metal met perfect purple.

I caught a gleam of the Retainer's bloody eyes, before he pressed a little harder. The grinding sound of metal on metal echoed in my ears. I shot back down toward the ground from the force, the earth rushing to reclaim her child. I skidded back through the dirt slightly, feeling my legs burn from my constant use of Burst Step.

I fell to one knee as I finally reached a stop, heaving as I plunged my sword into the ground for support. As Cylrit tapped down a moment later a ways away from me, I distantly recognized that he wasn't doing much better.

Much of his pitch-black armor had been melted into his body by the heat of the phoenix's attacks. His sculpted face bore myriad cuts and burns. He seemed barely able to stand, and even his massive greatsword was littered with cracks and chips that leaked black smoke.

He leaned on his sword, the sounds of battle echoing around us still as the world burned. I struggled to think coherently through it all, blinking away stars and spots in my vision.

"The Wraiths must deal with the Asclepius…" Cylrit ground out, his very voice sounding burned, "on… their own. It is my mission to… try and slay the King of Dicathen's forces. Theirs? To kill the god. I have no part in that."

I tried to push myself up, leaning on my blade. I felt the sudden urge to laugh as I looked into Cylrit's blood-red eyes, which still gleamed despite the blood covering half his face. Neither of us moved, each too tired to do so.

The rumbles and screams of Wraith and Asclepius continued. I focused on mana rotation as I knelt, trying to regain some energy as the battle beyond reached its conclusion.

For whatever reason, that phoenix lost his mana and strength quickly. But there was only one Wraith left, and there was no chance for them.

"And if the Retainer is forced to flee his confrontation with the King," I replied weakly, "then who can blame him for what happened?"

In the fit of battle, I hadn't even had time to think about the implications of the Wraiths listening in. But Cylrit… wasn't a part of that. From how he had engaged the strange ability of his sword to give me a better opening at the Shield—Ulrike, I thought—I knew that he wished for their execution as much as I.

He… was followed. Or I was. Or Chul, the phoenix, I thought groggily, pulling more mana in as time seemed to stretch. Need to talk to Syl–

And then my eyes burst open wide as I felt something approaching like a hurricane of deadly fire. Cylrit was still leaning on that massive greatsword of his, naught but a statue. But behind him, streaking down like a comet…

"Cylrit, move!" I yelled, trying to get to my feet. "Defend yourself, now!"

Another voice thundered. Furious, wrought with grief and shattered hope as it drowned out my pleas. "Liar!"

With a sputtering application of magic, Thunderclap Impulse lanced painfully across my nerves, making them tender and sore. My perception heightened, slowing the world around me.

Move! I demanded of myself, trying to rise as I used Dawn's Ballad for support. Pull yourself up, Arthur!

But I still couldn't move. Not fast enough. It only allowed me to watch in grim horror as Cylrit's red eyes widened ever so slightly. The urgency in my tone, in my eyes compelled him. But he wasn't fast enough, either. Behind him, outlined like the sun itself, was a nimbus of burning flame and fell vengeance.

All Cylrit did was move his lips, an unintelligible word mouthed there. I saw so much in his eyes as that word ghosted across his features in slow motion. So much I understood.

Seris.

And then the mace struck his back with the crunch of rending metal and breaking bones. Cylrit flew past me like a broken comet toward the water, smoking and empty. I didn't even have a chance to blink before his body smashed into the water, sinking beneath the waves.

And then the mace hit the ground.

The earthquake impact threw me from my trembling feet, sending me to the dirt in a pained tumble. Thunderclap Impulse backfired, leaving me to twist in agony as the electricity danced painfully across my nerves like white fire as it enhanced every sensation of pain I now experienced.

All I could do was stare at the place Cylrit's limp, gauntleted hand thrust from the water, not moving at all as steam rose from the surface.

"My vengeance begins now," the phoenix boomed, looking down from on high. He was covered in a hundred cuts himself. He growled, grabbing a chunk of metal that had been stuck in his shoulder, before tearing it out. The mace rose from the ground, smoking with Cylrit's blood as it returned to the phoenix's hand.

I thought he was weeping.

"The wretched Vritra lie and speak falsehoods, Good King. See it in their actions today! I shall destroy the nest they created in the depths of the dwarvish kingdom. And when I return, I shall be heralded by the blood of their bodies and the weeping of their crushed bones."

I could find no words in my soul as the phoenix turned, orienting toward the south. He sped away, giving me no more chance to speak as he trailed blood and fire behind him. The forest burned around us.

"Arthur!" Sylvie's voice thundered in my head, a dark spot in the distant sky. "Arthur, I'm here! I'm here!"

I groaned, shifting as the forest burned around me. Cylrit's mana signature was… weak. Fading. Need you here, Sylv, I thought, silently terrified. He's dying.