Chapter 36

“There is nothing in the universe more loathed than the eidolon. It is a being of pure destruction, with no mind, no conscience, nothing that can be reasoned with. They destroy people, they destroy worlds, they will destroy all of reality if given the opportunity. There is nothing more important than opposing them. They are evil. Not in the sense that they are in opposition to the ideals of good, but evil in the sense that they are incapable of even understanding such things. They are not in opposition of any ideals, they are in opposition to the ongoing existence of anything other than themselves. If there is any cause for hate in this life, let it be directed towards them. If there is any cause for fear, it is the eidolon. Remember above all else, no matter what else you encounter in the universe, the eidolon is your enemy.”

—Edicts of the Ardent, Hephan Lorleas

It was one of the most familiar to Sylvas. A Parching Charger. One of the great blade faced beasts that did nothing but stampede at the nearest foe. Its sudden appearance startled him, of course, but not nearly so much as the tether of mana stretching from it to him. As it broke the surface, it was immediately entangled by Malachai’s spell of grasping hands, halted before it could charge at him. Of course that didn’t stop it from beginning to buck and tear at the ghostly grasp almost as soon as it made contact with the air. Further across the arena, a second broke the crust of sand, another Charger, another one of the hidden deposits that Sylvas had been drawing on, mistaking them for some long buried Etherium.

“Malachai!” He called out to the other mage the moment the monsters came into sight, but it seemed his rival either couldn’t hear, or had no interest in anything that he had to say. Sylvas unleashed a focused Gravity Spike at the closest of the Chargers, collapsing it in on itself like crumpling a can, but there were already more breaking the surface. Every one of the deposits that he’d been drawing on had been an eidolon, long forgotten and buried beneath the red sands. More chargers, yes, but the skeletal looking Gaunts too, along with a pair of Baleful Plovers slowly extricating themselves from the sand that had bound them for untold centuries. They never died, they just waited until the opportunity came to kill again, and he had called them out, dug them up. 

“Malachai, we have to stop!” He tried again.

“Why? Just because our teachers decided to finally make things challenging for us?” The necromancer laughed as he cast another of the lethal skulls up at Sylvas amidst his usual flurry of blades. It was pure luck that got Sylvas out of the way, that and Mira’s persistent predictions. “This is how it should be! Us against the chaos of the galaxy!”

But while Malachai clearly thought the surprise arrival of the eidolons was a part of the match, Sylvas could see that outside of the arena that the recruits and instructors were swarming the arena edge, clearly readying for a fight. But until the barrier was lowered, there was no way they could get in. They were locked out just the same way Sylvas and Malachai were locked inside. 

More importantly, even if they make it in here, Malachai’s magic covering the floor won’t let them get far, Sylvas thought, frantically trying to find a way to get through to the other man.

“I concede!” Sylvas cried out in an attempt to get things under control. “The match is over. You win!”

But much like the first time, Malachai’s competitive streak refused to let go of him, the man simply laughing once more in response. Then, the next thing Sylvas knew there was a great darkness whirling around him as the other man readied his next spell, losing himself in the casting. A move that boded poorly for Sylvas.

That was because from the first moment that he realized what he had done, Sylvas had stopped drawing on the mana coming from the eidolons in revulsion, instantly feeling as if he somehow tainted himself. But even so, he could free the faint trickle of Etherium still continuing to grow on his arm, as though the mere presence of the monsters was enough to produce a trickle of it. As things stood right now, he had just enough mana available to him to fight either the Eidolons or Malachai, but not both. Worse, he couldn’t turn his attention from Malachai if he hoped to survive until the barrier was lowered, fearing that he would end up blindsided by an eidolon and getting killed before his crest could activate. He was truly trapped. 

That is until Mira came to save him.

Follow this route.

Without even stopping to consider what was being asked of him, he launched himself along the trajectory that Mira was projecting. It was towards the death-bomb, but all the same, he didn’t hesitate for even a moment.

Malachai may have been lost in his magic, but now that the Gravity Spike had been released, his arms were in constant motion and his scythe was unleashing slice after slice of raging death that expanded out the further from him it travelled. Sylvas goal was no longer to avoid those lethal blows, but to direct them. One cut clean through a Plover’s legs. Another intersected with a Bellicose Drifter as it snaked its way up into the sky, splitting it vertically along the midline.

As he passed under the shadow of the death-bomb, the myriad eidolons that had already broken free of the sand and the grasp of the dead pursued him down below. He didn’t know if he was somehow still shining like a brighter flare than Malachai, or if the connection he’d made with the eidolons was drawing them to him, but regardless the result was the same, he ran and they gave chase until as many of them as had broken free were gathered on the red sands beneath him. Taking a deep breath, he cast Inversion.

Up became down. The eidolons gathered under the massed murderous chaos raging overhead were suddenly falling towards it, tumbling and scrambling over one another to try and escape the inevitable fall. Mira plotted out their ascent perfectly, letting Sylvas stay in amongst them while avoiding their grasp, neutralizing the pull of his own Inversion with a simple drop in his own weight. The death bomb sizzled as they made contact, each one of them burning away in the pure mass of death. He couldn’t fight both eidolons and the necromancer, but he could use one against the other.

Malachai’s spell was completed, and lurching up from out of the ground came the dead. All of the spectral arms he’d called up were attached to spectral bodies, and they rose now as one, an undead army that set on the Eidolons with all haste. Each one that died fed more power to Malachai.

He was already ablaze with all of the death, a dark star shining on the floor of the arena, surrounded by a borealis of ghosts and fresh made eidolon remains. His magic flooded into the Eidolons, filling them up with his will, turning those that they had slain into his foot soldiers too. Sylvas had never heard of necromancy being used to reanimate the bodies of Eidolons, but then again, Malachai was nothing if not inventive. Those that the sickle blades of death had slain now came for Sylvas once more as he released his Inversion. Infused with death mana, so that their attacks leapt out from them the same way that Malachai’s sickle had.

But still more eidolons rose. It was as if there were an endless supply of them beneath the sands, buried there since the world’s fall. Strife disgorged all of its killers into this arena, and it was only a matter of time until one of the more distant. But distressingly the large deposits that Sylvas had been drawing on had all made their way to the surface and this went from a fight he could win, to one that they’d all lose. He needed to end this now, and he needed more power than he had to do it.

His forth circle had brought him a boon of available mana, the crystals growing out of his arm had brought him more, but he needed to overwhelm Malachai if he hoped to win. All the time he’d been in flight he had been casting, storing away spell after spell in his fractured mind, but to complete all of those spells would kill him without question. He needed more mana, more mana than even his newly enlarged core could hold.

There is one solution.

Looping around a scything blade and a Plover’s beam, Sylvas snarled through gritted teeth. If you know that, I know that.

Do you need convincing?

He flung himself down, not to the writhing swarms of the dead, but to the newly emerging Charger just breaking the surface. The eidolon was entangled in the dead already, the legion of ghosts crawling around its legs as they came out, but the upper half remained clear, and it was atop it that Sylvas landed, planting his hand, almost completely vanished into the crystalline growth, on the flat shell of the beast.

It was as easy as breathing, ripping the mana out of the Eidolon. It flooded through the scars, into his channels, and filled them with solid etherium just as it had coated his skin. The whole channel was made solid and full as it rushed up into him, like petrification from the inside out, except etherium was mana made solid, and mana inside his body moved as he commanded it. He pulled and he pulled until every last drop was wrung from the eidolon and every part of him but his core was filled with raw condensed mana. He tore his hand away as it lost cohesion, the magic that gave it form stolen.

Then he cast.

The first teleportation spell brought him in close enough to land a jaw shattering punch on Malachai, the next moved him behind so he could deliver a double handed blow to the back of the necromancer’s head. All of his strength and weight were thrown into each of them, enough that it would have torn his old body apart. But for the death infused Malachai, reinforcing his form and cushioning each blow, it still wasn’t enough. Another journey through the null and he was back at Malachai’s side as the mage tried to bring his scythe to bear as an actual weapon. A flurry of blows to the ribs. A kick to the side of the knee, then he was gone again. A straight kick between Malachai’s shoulders and then another blink of darkness. A rising punch to the face as the necromancer fell forward.

Sylvas burned through every teleportation spell at his disposal, a dozen of them, rapid fire, too quick for the dead to grab at him. Each blow just a little too weak to end Malachai’s relentless assault. As the last of the fragments of his mind but one folded in, he caught a hold of the necromancer and rode him down to the ground. All around him the dead were coming, their freezing grasp reaching for him. Behind them came the Eidolons. The things of nightmare made flesh. Summoned here, by him. Again. 

Just like his very worst memories brought to life. 

He caught Malachai by the chin, fingers hooked into a claw to pin him in place, crystals biting into the other man’s face and through to the bone. Still, all he saw in the other man’s face was defiance, right up until the moment that he let the final piece of his mind click back into place. He cast Focused Gravity Spike, straight into Malachai’s head. The spell cracking his skull just enough to cause the crest to flare to life, only to cut Sylvas’s spell short, but to also whisk him away, the imbued teleportation spell taking him away from the battle. It was an act that was promptly accompanied by a profound crack of air all around Sylvas as all of the magic, conjured creatures, and who knew what else that Malachai had created winked out all at once.

Leaving Sylvas standing all alone at the center of an Eidolon horde.

There…it’s…it’s done, he thought completely exhausted from his ordeal, so much so that pulling his body up to a standing position was a challenge. Now…now I just need to—

It was a thought that Sylvas never had a chance to finish, for right there and then, the barrier surrounding the arena came down in a heaven shattering blast, sending him crashing back to his knees. Head swimming from the titanic implosion, Sylvas lost himself for several precious seconds, his body all but screaming out in pain from unexpected assault.

But even as he was nearly squished flat, Sylvas was able to hear the sound of a horn that split the air, its arrival all but instantly cut off by the sound of countless screaming voices and thunderous magic. Quickly realizing what had happened as his scrambled mind reasserted itself, Sylvas looked up just in time to see the entire training cadre of the Ardent charge onto the field with a roar.

As the Eidolons rose from the very same blast that had flattened him, they were met with an army trained specifically to kill them, their attention all but instantly turning away from Sylvas. It was a welcome opportunity for him to severe his connection to the remaining eidolons he’d been tearing mana from, and with a thought shatter, and disperse the etherium that still clung from his arm. A new, and admittedly terrifying, development that Sylvas had no doubt he would be called to answer for.

Which was of course when Vaelith arrived.

She fell like a green comet from the stands, leading with a kick that shattered a nearby Charger’s chitin to shreds, and following up with a flurry of blows that shredded it apart. Her wolves of green flame burst out from her shadow, tearing across the red sands and reaved through every Eidolon in their path. Everyone that Sylvas had trained alongside, or who had trained him, had found their way to the floor of the arena, and together they laid into the Eidolons with such ferocity that he almost felt sympathy for the monsters. 

Almost.