The Restored: Chapter Thirty-Eight

Becoming an archmage, breaking Odril free from her long-holding seal, and fusing with her felt like it should have been enough to allow me to instantly blow apart the Arenamaster with a single shot. 

It wasn’t. 

For all that we had managed to stall Alyphize and the Arenamaster, for all that we had managed to stop the collapse of two thirds of the city, for all we had done to damage her access to components, there were still hundreds of thousands of souls pouring into the Throne of Sacrifice. The Soulwitch’s throne, which I was guessing to be the Throne of Souls or Magic or something like that, held only a fraction of the once-Sundered Throne’s power. But even a fraction of such a vast sea of power was enough to match an archmage.

Match, but not defeat. Each of my attacks, empowered with Odril’s war magic, was capable of injuring both the physical form and the soulstuff that made up the Arenamaster, doing damage on a deeper level than an ordinary bullet would have. With soulstuff and demonic magic coursing through my biological modifications, I was much faster than her, and though she never engaged me in melee, I would have bet that I was stronger. 

On the other hand, the Arenamaster could create demons more than willing to take blows for her and to attack me, and she seemed to be capable of throwing out red orbs of light that forcibly ripped my aura out of me with every strike. As if depleting my aura wasn’t enough, she was capable of pushing back against Odril’s magic, breaking it apart through some sort of variant of abjuration magic, allowing the demons to attack me. 

It kept us at a stalemate. Every time I could push forward, the Arenamaster was able to pull out a new demon and push me back. Every time she threw out her painful ripping attacks, I was able to close the distance. A stalemate.

Though I was clearly the more skilled fighter, and with Odril’s battle sensory spells helping to guide my motions, I was able to predict nearly every motion that the Arenamaster made before she made it. I wasn’t seeing the future – though it was possible for some demons to could read the souls of others for their intentions in a version of future sight, Odril was not one of them. No, it was just that I was able to read the Arenamaster’s motions, the twitching of her humanoid body before she acted. 

But while I had the advantage of skill, the Arenamaster had the advantage in raw, overwhelming Aura. Some people looked down on sorcerers as brutes, throwing aura into a problem, rather than constructing complex spells. That wasn’t entirely fair – plenty of sorcerer spells required absolutely intense levels of memorization and ability to make on the fly modifications to the spell’s array in order to adapt for changing conditions. 

But it was true that sorcerers benefited vastly from raw power. I’d gotten used to being able to out-muscle my enemies in contests of magical muscle, and then rely on my personal skill to negate whatever advantages that their skill gave them. Now that I was finally met with someone with whom that was reversed, it was difficult to win. 

If I’d had my full stockpile of aura in my first arch-star, I would have no worries about winning. It would have been slow, and it would have been painful, but I had so much aura stocked up within it that I could have restored myself. 

As things were, it seemed dangerous, but… less than I expected. For whatever reason, my metal-based Aura recharge was able to drink in plenty of power from the air around me. It wasn’t enough to let me be confident that I’d be able to win, but it was enough to match the Arenamaster in a stalemate. 

It was only later, after the battle, that I’d pick up that my recharge spiked a few moments after the Arenamaster’s magic struck me. At the time, I was rather more preoccupied with surviving. 

As Odril and I battled, I slowly started to make shifts. I let Odril handle more and more power, since her reserve of decades of untapped excess soulstuff was much larger than my reserve of aura. I kept one of my split minds on the process of constructing spells and fighting the Arenamaster, while with the other half I retreated into myself and began examining for something that I could do to win. 

A stalemate couldn’t last forever, after all. Eventually, one of us would make a mistake that the other would be able to press into a complete victory. It would be a coin toss as to who made that mistake, and I wasn’t keen on betting my life on a fifty-fifty chance. 

So as I continued to channel more and more of Odril’s magic, the demonic red light around my body growing brighter, and half my brain focused on the fight, the other half began to construct a series of spells. I couldn’t rely on amplifying it with Odril’s magic, since it wouldn’t work on this at all. This needed to be done with my human magic alone – I couldn’t even rely on her infusions. Besides, I needed those to fight. 

The first spell clicked into place, a simple variant on a metal sensory spell. It didn’t sense all the metal in an area, but rather only looked for a single, specific type of metal. 

I spun and angled a leap, kicking off down the street. I streaked away with a blur of speed that would have probably caused my muscles to rip in half just a few hours ago. I spun and fired back at the Arenamaster as I did, manipulating my shots so that the bullets tore through the demons she conjured and landed on her, but she restored the damage in a second and was throwing spheres of damaging red light at me. I swept to the side as I landed near where I needed to be. 

I spared half a second to look at the window. There were wards etched into it, but with the power drained from this entire third of the city, they were inactive. All of their redundant power systems were off, which was honestly the only reason I’d been able to find this place – and I hadn’t expected it to lead me here, even knowing that. I’d expected something smaller. 

I started to craft a second spell in my mind. 

As I did, a pair of absolutely massive demons, ones that resembled thirteen foot tall humans with dozens of mouths spread across their body, each mouth filled with long fangs, appeared and leapt at me. The Arenamaster let out a long, heaving breath – she must have put a lot of effort into conjuring this pair of demons. 

My second spell was built and working, but it would take time. I needed to be fairly subtle – there was already too much of a risk of the Arenamaster figuring out what I was doing if she just had the time to stop, fully take in her surroundings, and think it through. Having masses of metal moving around might be enough to tip her off. 

I raised my hand, and a spinning bronze blade, covered in bright red demonic war magic launched at one of the many-mouthed monsters. Its dozens of sets of jaws unhinged and snapped at the blade, catching the bright metal in its teeth and shattering it.

In the same instant, the other one erupted forward, teeth wiggling and flexing inhumanly, like the hard bone was nothing more than an octopus’ tentacles. The teeth wrapped around me even as I punched out, brass knuckles suddenly transforming to have the mass of an entire horse, more of Odril’s war magic rushing down my arm to grant me even more strength. 

My blow hit the tongue of the mouth that was holding onto me, and all of the demon’s many mouths opened in pain, letting out an absolutely ear-shattering screech. Odril was forced to cycle soulstuff to my ears to empower my partially-demonic body and enhancements, just to stop my eardrums from exploding. I used the opportunity to leap away, and threw a building at my trio of opponents. 

Well, that was a touch dramatic. Odril’s magic wasn’t especially well suited to that kind of magic, and I wasn’t running on full power. Even if I had been, the buildings in the center of elderglass were old and well-built, and many of them weren’t in ruin. 

Many wasn’t all, though. I picked up about two and a half tons of concrete with copper rebar that had broken off when the enchantments strengthening the metal had failed, and threw that at them. With my power so depleted, I wouldn’t have even been able to do that if I hadn’t cheated with my mass magic, negating the mass on the block, then lifting it with metal magic, throwing it, and dropping my spells to let natural law do the rest.

The pair of many-mouthed demons screamed again, and all of their dozens of mouths unhinged to take the blow. Both were sucking and draining something from the stone, and for a second I could have sworn that the demonic magic was mimicking the grayish color of my own aura. One of the pair was crushed before whatever working they were building could be completed, but the other managed to slow, then stop the stone. The demon and Throne were both thrown back by the forces, but neither one of them looked to be even seriously hurt by it. 

I raised my gun and shot it in the head while it was distracted from recovering, even while the Arenamaster threw her orbs at me, and I zipped around the battlefield to dodge them. My shot, empowered as it was, tore the many-mouthed demon into a spray of soulstuff and blood. 

Blood? That was a new one, none of the other demons I’d shot had blood. 

I didn’t have time to dwell on that, though, as Odril pulsed a warning. I tried to leap out of the way, but the Arenamaster predicted it, and an orb winked to life right in the path of my jump, slamming me in the chest. My aura was ripped out of me, worse than it ever had been thus far, and I was forced to make a decision: did I keep empowering my coat and other battle spells, or did I let the other half of my mind keep working? 

Odril and I flicked through the possibilities we could think of in an instant, and came to the same conclusion. My coat ran out of power, and I hit the ground hard. Pain flared in my ankle, and I knew I’d be visiting a healer’s as soon as the worst injured were healed. With how badly the city was wrecked, and with how terrible healing magic was, it was possible that I’d have a limp the rest of my life. But it was better to have a limp, or even die, than to let the Arenamaster keep living.

I pulled myself to my feet, the battle still coursing through me enough to let me walk, and started to take slow steps back. As I did, I called out to the Arenamaster. I was almost done, I only needed a few moments. And if there was one weakness that the Arenamaster had always had, it was that she liked to gloat. 

“You’ve defeated me,” I said. “I shouldn’t be surprised. Even though I became an archmage, it’s generally accepted that only the weakest and newest of Thrones is on that level. You might be new, but you aren’t weak.” 

A smile curled at the corner of the Arenamaster’s lips as she drifted forwards, the diagrams on her Throne wiggling and writhing under the magical power held within. 

“Of course I am not weak, child. I was an elf. I have been preparing for this day for far longer than you could even conceptualize. Mortals love to throw about centuries like they are nothing. But do you know how long a century truly is? How much things chance in so long?” 

“Am I to be infected, then?” I asked. “To take on the Throne of… Assassination? Unwilling Sacrafice? Ensuring That Those Who Try To Cheat On Deals Wind Up Getting Their Comeuppance?” 

“Don’t be a pedant. But yes, the spot must be filled,” she said. “It will be harder, but we can do it.” 

“I just have one question, before you start? Won’t you answer me one last question?” 

The Arenamaster rolled her eyes and made a gesture for me to get on with it. I smiled and released my spell. 

“Where are we standing?”