Grey Spatium 30

The pale man shook his head again and, strangely, seemed to relax. “Already too late. Can’t run, can’t talk, can’t win.”

I cocked my head slightly. “I’m not running, but I promise you, I can win. But I am about done talking. If you can’t—”

“Not you, ascender. He is watching.” He pointed to his red eye. “My eye to his. He knows. So it is already too late.”

“He? You mean Agrona? He’s—” I took an involuntary step back as mana swelled within and around the Wraith.

He let out a choked gasp and fell to one knee, then looked up at me with a wide grin on his face, dark blood trickling from the corners.

Regis, back!

I slipped into God Step even as the mana erupted.

From several hundred feet away, with aetheric electricity still arcing over me, I watched as a nova of black mana and blood iron spikes burst from the Wraith’s flesh, spraying outward in a deadly dome that ripped the ground apart for a hundred feet in every direction. A rain of black metal spikes continued to fall for many long seconds after the explosion.

I was still staring at the field of spikes as Regis came padding up beside me. “These Alacryans and their blood curses.” When I didn’t reply, he added, “Think that’s it? Attack deflected?”