Grey Dura 12

As I prepared to yet again activate God Step again, a force like the hand of a god itself came down on me. The floor beneath my feet ruptured, my body growing so heavy not even solid stone could support me. My back bent and my head bowed. I struggled to move, even to step into the aetheric pathways.

Cecilia fell upon me like a thunderbolt. She was again wreathed in her otherwordly mana form, blasts of wind, ice, fire, earth, and lightning erupting from her mana mana-forged limbs to rain down atop me.

I raised one hand and unleashed an aetheric blast. A cone of vibrant purple force crashed against her mana, and for an instant, I felt a reprieve.

Raking my aether through the air like a hand through cobwebs, I tried to disrupt the illusions affecting my companions, but the air was so thick with the distortion of Cecilia’s mana that it was impossible to isolate and cancel Viessa’s illusions.

A white hot beam of radiant fire-attribute mana enveloped me. I carved through it with the aether blade, splitting the beam in two, the twin shards carving fifty-foot-long trenches in what little remained of the throne room to either side of me. As the blade whirled in the air, I was already activating God Step, the aetheric pathways lighting up before me like so many arcs of amethyst lightning.

The light faded, and my gaze met Cecilia’s.

Her stare, had I seen it on Tessia’s face in any other circumstance, it would have cut right through me. But just for a second, I thought I saw something else too. Regret? Understanding…maybe even a strange, twisted reflection of my own complicated feelings.

My jaw clenched at the choice that had to be made.

The aether blade plunged into the interwoven threads of aether.

A scream rent the air.