Grey Vivium 9

I clenched my fists. The godrune contained within Regis’s essence came alive with hunger and power, and the violet flames burst to life in my hands, giving off a bright, jagged, deadly aura.

A spasm of pain came from my back where the Realmheart rune burned with golden light, and my vision and sense of mana jolted. I found myself caught off guard by the difficulty of maintaining both godrunes, but couldn’t release Realmheart. Not yet.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I considered that the hungry, eager power of Destruction was all I needed.

I lifted my hand.

Destruction lurched forward, wild, uncontrolled flames expanding and devouring as they shed their rageful light across the chamber.

Ifiok’s iron spikes thrust forward to meet it. Purple flames raced across black metal, unmaking his magic as it leapt from spike to spike, chasing them back to their source. Unshackled from Regis’s more compatible insight, Destruction rushed wildly, like a stampede of stallions on fire, and Ifiok began to scream. It raced up his arm and across his chest, converting his flesh and blood and mana to purple light and then to nothing at all.

I spun with a poorly suppressed sense of giddiness, spreading the wave of Destruction haphazardly in every direction.

Richmal dragged himself and Ulrike out of Destruction’s path with his watery tentacles while sending out a flood of green sludge to douse my fire, but Destruction only ate that as well.

“Agrona thinks these lessurans are going to kill asuras for him?” I asked the flames, my voice undercut by the force of Destruction vibrating within it. “Pathetic.”

I grabbed a spear of black iron out of the air and watched as Destruction pulled the spell apart and unmade it.

Noxious fumes were pouring out of Richmal’s skin, staining the air with a greenish murk and filling what little remained of the chamber with the smell of death and rot in a feeble attempt to cut me off from the portal.

Above me, the same static guillotine that had destroyed Regis’s physical body was forming again.

I slammed my will into it, and the mana trembled, caught between my force and Ulrike’s. Wherever Realmheart conjured the purple runes, I began to burn and sweat, but I only pushed harder, Destruction consuming my pain and fear, until Ulrike’s spell broke.