She could feel every blow that her friend took, every cut and stab, every burst of fire. But she was also proud, knowing that they were winning slowly. Altracia performed a barrel roll before reaching out and grabbing one of the fiends in her front claws. With barely a jerk of her shoulders, she brutally yanked its wings off.

  A part of Sara knew that she should have been shocked by the violence they were inflicting, but she wasn’t. She reveled in the thrill. She felt powerful, as she could sense each of Altracia’s muscles working in unison to drive her body through the air.

  Together they chased the second winged terror, which was now desperately trying to avoid the fate of its mate. She hurled air and fire magic back at them, but it was never enough. Each beat of the drake’s wings slowly closed the gap. Finally, when she was in range, her neck struck like a serpent, and her foot-long fangs closed on the fiend, biting it in half.

  One more loop around the town showed that the monsters were gone. So too was their home. Where it had been there were waves of energy rolling off Mira and a fiend she was battling. Sara wanted Altracia to go to her rescue, but those waves of energy buffeted her away so that she couldn’t get close.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “Your magic. My magic. Mere semantics. I see no difference.”—A meta-mage whose name has been blotted from the annals of the Imperial Academy.

  Eris’ Rise- Mira Nelson

  Mira was as shocked as the creatures she was fighting when half the roof of their home was ripped off. She simply recovered quicker when she recognized Altracia. Seeing Sara leap up on the back of the drake actually produced a great deal of relief for her. The biggest limitation on what she could do in this fight had been her concern for protecting her little sister. Now she was free to cut loose.

  The shock this caused gave Mira a second to cast Assess Enemy. She channeled extra mana into it, trying to gain as much information as she could about the robed creature with three eyes on stalks rising from a neckless set of shoulders. The form of the spell took shape, and Mira saw where she could deepen its structure. She sank anchors from the spell into the creature, and the spell form reshaped before her eyes.

  Stalk Fiend

  Level 36

  Health: 2410

  Immunities: Fire

  Resistance: Electric (75) Cold (50) Acid (50)

  Special abilities:

  Eye 1: Control

  Eye 2: Distortion

  Eye 3: Disintegration

  That was not good at all. More than half her spells would be of no use against it. She activated her mage shield in order to buy herself an extra second. It had too much health to be killed easily. Two of its eye attacks seemed obvious. They were no less scary for that, but at least she could predict what she was dealing with. The distortion one, though, was one that she wasn’t sure what it did.

  Even with the extra four levels she had gained, it was still one level higher than her. She had spread her stat points out already, but the only character points she had used were in Agile Strike and Item Focus, which she maximized. Both because her continued training with the whip showed her how useful it could be. Given the elemental resistances this thing had, that might be her only hope. The problem with an increased Intelligence, though, was that as she was calculating her options, her odds seemed low whichever avenue she took.

  Running was the most logical choice. That point was driven home when a single blast of its green disintegration ray obliterated her mage shield. Still, if it couldn’t hit her, it didn’t matter how hard it could hit. She streaked forward with her new running speed until she was across the room in an instant.

  Just before she exited the house, magic flared in her senses, and she saw a dome of magic as it came into existence, covering the entire house. There was no time to do anything but react. She shifted her next step so that she ran up the inside of the wall and hoped it wasn’t like her shock shield spell.

  Luckily, she correctly guessed that a magical barrier that size was unlikely to have secondary effects. One more step and she pushed off from the dome and flipped over to land on her feet. Even as she was in midair, she uncoiled the whip from her waist. There was no time to play around with something dangerous.

  As she landed, she simply pivoted her feet with a twist of her hips, and she lashed out with the whip. It sprang forth as an extension of her will from months’ worth of training inside the dungeon’s time dilation. She charged her mana drain through the whip. The tails crossed the distance, but before they could entangle the enemy, they struck a magical barrier in midair and fell flat.

  So no escape and no quick end. Time for a new tactic. “What do you want?”

  “I am here to kill you, of course. At least, that is the most likely outcome of this encounter. You may choose to serve Seimion’s master, unlike your father. If you do, then you will be spared, even granted power. One such as you might learn much. I can sense you have a tremendous talent with magic. Given a few more years, you could easily become more than a match for me. Not only this, but you are fast and react quickly. Most humans spend so much time figuring out what they want, but you did well.”

  Mira scoffed as only a teenager can do. “I won’t betray my family.”

  “That is to be expected. Seimion is strong enough to summon and control me, but he has little understanding of humans or elves. His race is too different from most mortals,” the fiend responded in its raspy voice.

  “And you aren’t a mortal?”

  Something Mira took for laughter elicited from the creature as its robes shook. “I like you, girl. You are a true mage, still interested in learning, even facing certain death.”

  “Would you believe that less than a year ago, I didn’t even think magic was real?”

  The creature didn’t answer, but she figured that every moment they were talking rather than fighting was another opportunity for someone to come to her aid or for a sudden idea to occur to her. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. She already had an idea, but it required her to be able to land her whip on the creature. She had to be able to penetrate that shield.

  “For a moment there I thought you were trying to play some game with me, but the more I stare at you, the more I see there is something different about your aura. It is subtle enough that I didn’t notice it at first. I’ve seen an aura like that before but only once.” The fiend spoke while muttering to itself.

  “Different how? I really am trying to learn here.”

  “Then look at my aura. Compare it to what you have seen in the auras of other people and friends. No one can look at their own aura, but you should see a difference.”

  “I can see the forms of magic, but I’m not sure what an aura is,” Mira admitted.

  “Such a child. No wonder the purge was necessary. Enough with the banter. If you will not bow, then you will die.”

  With that, the creature started to walk slowly towards her. She threw out a quick-cast Magic Missiles just to see how it would respond. A pale silver beam shot out, and the missiles were knocked off course. A spell that never misses missed.

  She saw the flash of green with just enough time to jump to the side, her greatly enhanced speed coming into play. From there she kept moving, refusing to stay still and trying to be as erratic as possible. As she moved, she cast a spell to summon her elementaling. She enhanced the spell form and kept moving.

  Hopefully her Earth Minion skill would allow her to create an elemental strong enough to do what she wanted. Rather than making it hard like rock or even compressed dirt, she focused on making the creature she was conjuring as loose as possible. After a long minute of dodging all around the room and too many close calls with that green beam of death, her summons finally responded.

  The wooden floorboards, which had been charred by her earlier fireball, burst up as a massive creature composed of what looked almost like a continually shifting mass of loose earth and sand. The stalk fiend immediately redirected its disintegration ray at the elemental, and Mira’s hope came true. The beam cut off a piece of it, but the wound was just sealed up. It didn’t seem to be able to destroy the creature in one swipe, and that was all that Mira needed.

  She ordered her elemental to swoop up under the floor and topple the fiend over. Again just as she had planned, its shield didn’t have a bottom, and it was flung onto its back, and the defensive measure winked out of existence. This gave her a moment more to see the nature of the fiend. She studied it for the few seconds that it took for her elemental to be sliced into piles of dirt all over the room.

  If she understood what she was seeing, it wasn’t wasted time. She immediately began to quick cast Lesser Regeneration, followed by Heal. Her target was the enemy, though, rather than herself or even her summoned minion. As soon as the Essence Magic spell landed on the fiend, it shrieked in agony.

  For lack of a better term, it appeared to her mana sight as though the spells she was casting carried a positive charge and the creature was negatively charged. The mana of her spell form barely took shape before the energy was sucked into the creature and began weakening its aura. Mira didn’t think this would allow her to finish it off. She simply didn’t have enough healing spells to do so.

  What it did allow her to do, though, was to land her whip on it. She first quick-cast a Minor Webbing spell through the whip, which, combined with the barbed tips, served to tangle the fiend up in contact with the whip. Even as she was casting that spell, she began pouring mana into her Sap Stats skill. She began draining the Intelligence of the creature.

  The rush was amazing as it lost twenty points and she gained the same amount of Intelligence. Again though, that had only been a stepping-stone to her final spell. She began casting Inferior Banishment through her whip, using it as a focus for her spell. Far cooler than any wand, in her opinion.

  The spell went off, and immediately the creature began to contest the magic meant to drive it back to the abyss from which it had been summoned. Mira didn’t hold back now, but poured all her focus, all of her energy, into this spell.

  Time seemed to pass interminably slowly, but still she pushed. Her body felt as though she had run a marathon. She was hungry and thirsty and so tired she felt like she could barely keep her eyes open, but still she pushed. She persevered through pain and exhaustion until the tails of her whip fell to the floor as the fiend was shunted from this plane.

  Mira ended up on the floor even though she didn’t remember collapsing. She knew the battle outside might still be going on, but she looked up and saw Altracia hovering overhead with Sara on the drake’s back. They would have to fend for themselves for at least a minute. She had to catch her breath.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “If darkness is deep and endless, can forgiveness be any less so?”—Excerpt from the private journal of Emily Nelson.

  Eris’ Rise—Emiri Nelson

  Finally, the tide was turning. Walls of earth rose and then flattened ghouls. Deoca streamed arrow after arrow into the shadow fliers. Balayria ran back and forth, setting traps and snaring more of the monsters for the others to destroy.

  Emiri kept glancing at the hobgoblin shaman, who was still inscribing the ritual circle on the ground. A dark energy was rising off it that made her feel uncomfortable, but the fighting had been too fast and furious for her to spare a moment to interrupt its casting.

  Then as the last of the fiends around them fell, she rushed toward the hob. The ground around it flared to life with a black unholy light. A dark design became clear, and the smell of fire and sulfur burst out of the ground.

  The hob shouted, “Now you shall all fall. I call forth a grand horned fiend from the abyss…”

  The air behind him rippled, and a previously invisible moon elf stepped out. He plunged a dagger into hob’s back, which burst forth from its chest. The body fell to the ground, blood pulsing out to mingle with the glowing symbols on the ground. Aerith said, “The fool failed to understand the ritual. Such a fiend can’t be called forth without both a blood sacrifice and a vessel.”

  Emiri didn’t recognize this moon elf. “Who are you? Why are you doing this? This is an abomination.”

  “You are the abomination, Lady Emiri.” Aerith spit out the title with vitriol. “I am a true child of the moon. You are no one, yet you seek to follow after the forgotten gods. You would shackle us to their service again. This is the age of mortals. We will make our own destiny, and the Alucien shall show us the way.”

  As the moon elf spoke, a dark tendril wove its way up his leg without him seeming to notice. He was too busy yelling at Emiri. Then as he moved to step out of the summoning circle, he realized that the tendril was there. A small flame erupted off his fingers to burn the tendril but had no impact. A deep booming voice issued from the circle. “Mortal fool. You didn’t think that the sacrifice and vessel were the same. Fear not, though, I will put your body to much better use than you ever did.”

  The voice was gravelly, and fear surged through Emiri as it spoke. She watched in horror as this unknown moon elf began to bulge and swell. His body was being distorted in the most horrific of ways. Limbs twisted around, skin bubbled, and through it all an unending scream burst forth from his lungs.

  Emiri was almost stunned by what she was watching, and most of the people of the village had fled in fear. Her blades, the paladins, Daichi, and Kraden were the only ones around her still standing. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw motion up in the air and turned to see what the new threat was.

  It was Altracia, with Sara atop her back, diving at the newly forming fiend. She yelled, “No! Keep Sara away from it.”

  If she was heard, though, she was ignored, for the drake dove, and right before it hit the barrier created by the summoning circle, she released a great gout of her acid breath. Next to Emiri, Jaselm shuddered involuntarily, remembering the potency of that substance. Yet it didn’t penetrate the circle.

  The fiend’s voice cried out, “Fear not, little dragonling. There will be a place for you. You will make an excellent host for one of my brothers.”

  Another soft and tired voice spoke from behind her, and Emiri turned to see a very haggard-looking Mira. “Mom, we can’t let that thing complete its formation. I don’t know what it is exactly, but it has to be at least Tier 6. It has a power beyond anything I’ve ever seen. It even dwarfs that spider mage.”

  “I’m so glad that both you and your sister are alive. Every attack that we throw against the circle just bounces back, even holy blades from the paladins.”

  “Just trust me, however hard you think that circle is to deal with, the fiend that is trying to claw its way into our world will be a hundred times worse. Maybe I have an idea.”

  Before Mira could expand on that, there was a flash of light as a spell blasted into the circle barrier. It must have been a powerful spell, judging from how the circle rippled. Emiri looked for the source and saw Dave emerging out of a gate. He must have cast the spell before he even fully stepped out. Her heart surged. Her husband was here, and a part of her couldn’t help but feel like her shining knight had just arrived.

  “Looks like an uninvited guest coming for breakfast,” Dave said. “Any ideas on how to handle it?”

  “You have to use your consecration spell, Mom,” Mira said.

  “Sweetie, I’m not sure if that is strong enough.”

  “Aren’t you the one who says that faith can accomplish anything? But seriously, have the paladins and priests and any casters who are here combine with you in the casting like you did when healing Kraden. Dad can help channel power into me, and I will try to shape your spell to destroy the circle,” Mira said.

  “Okay, believe like Shanelle will do everything, and fight like it all rests on us. I can do that,” Emiri said and called for any of the casters willing to join in to form a pyramid behind her. The priest of Shanelle was the first to place a hand on her right shoulder, and one of the other priests moved to place a hand on her left, but Kraden pushed him aside.

  “Thank you for your help, Kraden, but we need casters for this. Those who can control their mana.”

  The mining supervisor said, “I may not be a caster, and I can’t control much of anything, but I can tap into a power greater than any of your casters.” As he spoke, roots burst up out of the ground and seemed to fuse into his arm as he laid his hand upon her shoulder.

  In her mind, Emiri once again heard the voice of the sacred ash treant. She felt the power of nature and knew not only its depths but also its true roots. She trembled as the power poured into her, and said, “Everyone else line up on my right. Kraden and the trees will handle the left side.”

  All the casters present scrambled to make it so, and soon she felt two streams of power pulsing through her. The words of her spell tumbled from her mouth before she even realized she was casting. This spell took a full minute to cast, and she could only hope she had enough time.

  The twisted moon elf was still screaming in agony, but his body no longer even vaguely resembled an elf. It now stood at least twelve feet high with wide, leathery wings, a barbed tail, and reddish fur growing all over its body. His clothes had been shed in the transformation and burned at his feet in tatters. No, not hope. Emiri realized that she had faith. Faith in the God she had chosen to serve. Faith in the people standing behind her. Faith in her husband and daughter and the great power they possessed. Even faith in herself and all the work she had put into learning what it meant to be a Daughter of Redemption and a true citizen of Eloria.

  Then as she pronounced the last word, she felt the spell form. There was no resistance. The evil of the summoning circle was simply swept away. Somehow she had expected there to be a battle between good and evil, but it didn’t happen that way. The lie of evil was revealed. The lives ruined flashed before her eyes. Goblins forced to live in squalor, led to evil things. Selfish souls seeking power and believing that they would somehow be spared the consequences of what they sought to unleash.