Magus Reborn

In the magical history Kai knew, soul magic had always stood apart from the elemental arts.

Part of that was because of how deadly it could be. The rest came from how little warning it gave. Fire could be seen. Wind could be felt. Ice announced itself in the cold. Soul magic often did neither until it was already inside you.

That was also why it had taken centuries to develop properly.

No other branch of magic had needed so much time to be understood without constantly killing the ones practicing it, and even then, most Mages only learned enough of it to fear it. Kai knew more than that. He had been taught enough to understand that, in this moment, it was the only thing that might actually matter.

The instant he used [Soul Rend], the world around him split.

It was not like the spell he had used for his advancement. That one had torn his soul free almost completely. This was different. His body remained under his control, but his attention was divided in two. He could feel and see through both at once—through flesh and through soul—though the soul’s sight was far sharper and far stranger, and it threatened to drown out the rest if he let it.

The spell would only last a minute.

Kai needed less than that.

As he watched his body being dragged through the air toward the spirit king, he forced it to move on instinct, pouring what little mana he had left into his defenses. At the same time, he moved in soul form.

The distance vanished in a heartbeat.

That was the reason he had chosen a soul attack. Spirits, even when they wore physical bodies, were still creatures whose existence leaned heavily on mana. Against beings like that, an attack aimed at the soul could be devastating in a way ordinary spells could never be.

And there was also the fact that Vaelthoros would never see it coming.

Kai doubted the spirit king understood enough about human magic to expect something like this. That doubt proved true almost immediately. Vaelthoros was still smiling as Kai’s body was dragged closer, as if the battle had already ended and all that remained was to take what it wanted from him.

So Kai slipped behind the spirit king before it fully understood what was happening.

Its body, for all its size and power, was still bark and mana shaped into something solid, and that was enough. Kai drove forward with the attack he had already been building, pouring everything he still had into it. His astral hands stretched out, and golden light flooded the space around them.

Only then did Vaelthoros sense it. It tried to turn, but it was too late.

Kai’s hands punched through the bark with far less resistance than flesh should have offered. They sank in easily, and the life force burning through the spell began eating through the spirit king’s body from within, disintegrating what it touched into fading motes of dying mana. Vaelthoros cried out at once, the sound rough and furious, its body twisting in shock as pieces of it broke apart before it could even properly face him.

The feeling under Kai’s hands was strange.

He felt something closer to dense sand forced together and made to hold shape, yet even so, he drove his hands deeper and tore more of it apart. And that was more than enough. He caused damage, confusion and opened the gap he needed.

Before Vaelthoros could recover enough to answer with something worse, Kai cut the spell.

His soul snapped back into his body instantly.

The return was violent.

For a few seconds, the world around him tilted hard enough that he had to fight just to understand where he was again.

Everything shook. The poison spread farther through his flesh, leaving a sharper sting than before. He had already formed a mana barrier over his body, but it was obvious by now that the poison had begun seeping through it anyway.

Kai ignored it.

He had no room left to care.

With the spirit king still screaming and thrown off balance, the vines around him loosened enough for Kai to wrench himself free. The moment he did, he turned and forced himself toward the ritual circle. Whatever remained of the dragon around him, he spent without hesitation, driving the last of its fire down into his legs to push himself harder through the air.

But the ritual circle had not yet come into view when a loud cry rang out behind him.

Kai turned at once, and his heart dropped.

The spirit king was still coming.

Part of its chest was still breaking apart where Kai’s soul attack had torn into it from behind, the wound shedding motes of dying mana as it moved, and its eyes had gone wild with pain. But none of that stopped it.

The only mercy was that it had slowed. Not by much. Just enough for Kai to feel the difference.

If he judged the gap right, he had perhaps twenty seconds on Vaelthoros. Maybe less. And he had no idea whether that would be enough.

The spirit king’s voice tore through the burning air behind him. freewebnøvel.coɱ

“I will give you the most painful death imaginable for daring to strike at my life!”

Kai did not answer. He turned back and kept all of his focus on reaching the ritual circle.

A hundred thoughts moved through his mind at once. The ritual had to begin the instant he reached it. There was no room left for delay. But what then? There was every chance the spirit king would interfere before the escape was complete, and Kai had no clear answer for how he was supposed to stop that.

He did not know what the next minute would look like. Only that he was about to find out.

That was all he thought of as through the smoke and burning trees, the ritual circle finally appeared.

Kai saw the bodies of dead spirits scattered around its edges, and beyond them his entire party was already in position. Their expressions brightened for the briefest second when they saw him coming. frёeωebɳovel.com

Then they saw what was behind him and their faces drained. But none of them ran.

That, more than anything, was all Kai could have asked from them.

He had not even landed yet when he thrust both hands downward and emptied what remained of the mana in his first five circles into the ritual circle below.

Because of the distance, part of the mana bled away into the air before it could fully reach the ritual circle, but Kai had no choice. Stopping to land properly would have cost too much time.

Even so, the ritual responded.

Light spread through the formation almost immediately, running along every line and symbol before gathering toward the mana essence placed at its center. The moment Kai saw that, he shouted. “Veridia, now!”

But she was already moving.

Crouched low at the edge of the circle, she drove all of her mana down into it without hesitation. The bright blue radiance of the mana essence flared harder, then began mixing with the deep purple of her shadow mana, the colors twisting together across the formation.

Behind them, Vaelthoros roared again.

“You are not escaping me!”

Kai heard the crack of the vines before he saw them.

They came whipping through the air fast enough that he had to twist midflight to avoid them. The vines tore past where he had been a breath earlier, and by then he had already lost most of the lift from his flying spell. The last of his momentum carried him down hard onto the ground, and he rolled straight across the ritual circle as it brightened more and more beneath him.

Even while sliding to a stop, he pushed more mana through his legs and into the formation, forcing it toward activation.

But when he looked up, Vaelthoros was right above them.

The spirit king hung over the circle like a storm about to break, its vines bursting outward and rushing down toward them all at once. Elias, Elder Caelith, and Claire reacted immediately, throwing their spells upward to stop the attack, but the difference in power was too great. Their magic struck the vines and barely slowed them.

They kept coming, spreading wide as if to wrap around every one of them at once.

Then the ritual triggered.

It happened in the same instant the vines reached them. Power erupted from the circle beneath them, and Kai felt two opposing forces catch hold of him at once—one dragging upward, the other pulling downward. The sensation was wrong in a way that went beyond pain. It felt as if his body might simply split apart between those two directions.

He did not wait to see what came next.

Kai moved immediately to form another spell, hoping it would be enough to force the spirit king away before the ritual finished taking them.

But before he could release the spell, Vaelthoros roared.

More vines burst toward them at once, this time not to grab, but to tear the ritual apart before it could finish.

Then something changed.

Out of nowhere, the earth sovereign rose into the air.

Kai barely had time to register it before the giant spirit opened its mouth and fired. Spikes shot forward and drove straight into Vaelthoros’s back, many of them punching into the wound Kai had already opened there. His eyes widened at the sight.

The spirit king twisted at once and screamed, the sound jagged with pain. Its vines lost all force for a moment, their momentum breaking as they loosened around Kai and the others.

He tried to wrench himself free, but Killian was faster.

The Knight tore himself out first and immediately swung his sword. Lightning ran across the ritual circle and into the binding vines, cutting them away from the rest of the group. The grip around Kai slackened, and he lifted his head just in time to see the earth sovereign fully engage Vaelthoros in the air above them.

For one brief second, Kai wanted to speak. He wanted to ask why—say something—maybe try and help. But he knew he had nothing left.

The ritual had already claimed him.

The force around his body tightened again, and the circle beneath them exploded into brilliant light. Before Kai could gather another thought, he was falling.

Through realms.

For a moment, it felt like the space between worlds had opened around him again—cold, empty, and endless.

Then came heat, sudden and suffocating even through the darkness.

After that came cold again, deeper than before, followed by voices that sounded old enough to have died long ago. “Join us…” the melancholy voices whispered.

The whole experience was so strange, so layered on top of everything that had already happened, that for a second Kai thought his mind might finally break under it.

Then all of it stopped.

Just like that. As if none of it had ever happened at all.

Voices rose around him.

Then he felt a hand on his shoulder, trying to shake him awake, but Kai did not want to open his eyes. He already knew he was alive, and right then that felt like enough.

Still, another part of him needed to know. Had they truly escaped the earth plane? Were they actually safe?

So he forced his eyes open.

The first thing he saw was the sun. Bright and steady above him.

That alone made him let out a breath.

Then he slowly turned his head and took in the rest. They were in a grassland. Long stretches of it rolled out in every direction, open and bright and painfully ordinary after everything they had just survived. His whole party was there too. Veridia stood over him, and from the look on her face, she had been the one trying to wake him. Claire was still unconscious. Elder Caelith and Killian were both shaking slightly, as if their bodies had not yet decided the danger was over. Elias had made it to a boulder off to the side, but now he was slumped against it, curled a little and clearly trying to breathe through pain.

But the important thing was simple.

They were all alive.

Kai looked back at Veridia. She was staring at him with an expression too tangled to read properly. “You should get up.”

He gave a small nod. “I will. But where are we?”

Her frown deepened at once. “How should I know? I woke up a minute before you.” She glanced around the grassland with obvious dislike. “But we’re out of that hellhole, so I’m not complaining. You made such a mess back there I thought I was about to die a thousand times in a single second.”

That drew a faint smile from Kai as he pushed himself up. “But you didn’t,” he said. “That’s what matters.”

Veridia scoffed. “Yes, thank you for that. Right now, I just want somewhere safe to sit and recover. That ritual drained every last bit of mana out of me.”

Kai nodded again, then moved toward the others. He reached Killian first, helping steady him, then did the same for Elder Caelith before finally lowering his eyes toward Claire.

A quick check told him Claire was still breathing.

That was enough.

She had likely just been drained by everything that had happened, her body finally giving in once the danger passed. They could deal with that. They could get her back on her feet.

After making sure she was stable, Kai straightened and turned toward Elias.

The old Magus had stopped writhing by then and was simply watching him with a sharp, almost accusatory stare.

Kai frowned slightly. “What?”

Elias let out a small snort. “Did you know the earth sovereign was going to help us?”

Kai did not answer immediately.

Because the truth was not simple. He had expected the possibility, yes, but not certainty. Part of him had understood well enough how deeply the earth sovereign hated the spirit king, and from that alone he had thought there was always a chance it might intervene if things turned desperate enough. There was also no way such a being would remain ignorant while half its plane burned and its ruler fought in the sky.

But that had only ever been a chance. Not something he could have relied on.

“We were lucky. And that luck kept us alive.”

Elias clicked his tongue. “Yes, well, I’d prefer to stay alive for another century if possible.” Then the old man narrowed his eyes. “So, did you get it?”

At once, the attention of everyone shifted to Kai.

Kai immediately reached into his robes.

The moment his fingers brushed the shape of the seeds inside his pocket, a smile touched his face before he even took them out. Then he finally opened his hand and let the three seeds rest in his palm for all of them to see.

They all leaned closer.

Out of everyone there, Elder Caelith was the first to react. The moment he saw the three golden seeds, tears sprang to his eyes.

“For nearly destroying a plane and fighting a spirit king, I’d say this isn’t such a bad reward,” Kai said, a smile blooming on his face.

***

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