Chapter 103 - The End Is Nigh

Looking up at the Professor, Ryan felt… nothing. It was as if his mind refused to believe what it was seeing. Professor Kal's skeletal form stood imposingly, with its arms spread wide, looking up at the cracked ceiling of the weapons shop with intensely burning flames. The exquisite magical robe billowed in a silent breeze as mana continued to surge around him. Then… a blinding flash of light overpowered Ryan's senses, immediately followed by darkness as his consciousness slipped away.

Opening his eyes, Ryan cast his gaze around in confusion, his mind taking a few moments to recall everything that had happened. Struggling to his feet, Ryan found himself standing in the middle of a veritable hellscape. The weapons shop he was in was no longer standing, it had been reduced to nothing but scattered debris and one, solitary stone wall only held up by a smoldering timber beam. In fact, all of the tall, grandiose buildings that surrounded the plaza had been flattened, only a handful of stone walls hinted that those buildings once stood there.

A raging fire was currently burning in every direction he looked, the hot wind prickling his exposed skin. The flames were so tall that he could not see anything behind them and the heat so intense that every breath he took was agony. Black smoke filled the sky, the carrion crows had long been driven off, and everything took on an orange hue as the ravenous flames devoured the numerous wooden buildings.

Sitting ominously at the epicenter of this hell on earth, was a wall of steaming earth piled so high that he was unable to see over it. With no other clues to go off of, Ryan carefully made his way over to it, patches of molten rock still dotted the area, causing Ryan to have to weave a careful path. Taking great care not to burn his hands, Ryan clambered up the sloped wall, his feet digging into the loose soil and sending clods of clay cascading down to the ground. Once making it to the top, he peered over the ledge and was greeted by an immense crater, more than one-hundred feet across.

He had never seen anything like it, he knew of no spell that had the power to deform the landscape like what was in front of him. It was as if an angry god had reached down from the heavens and gouged out the earth like a child would sand on a beach. Pooled at the foot of the nearly bottomless hole was molten rock, shimmering bright red and distorting the air above it with its dangerous heat. He coughed as noxious, acrid gases reached his lungs, irritating them with their toxic presence.

Generating a fresh, although hot, breeze with his magic, Ryan was able to at least catch his breath as he scanned the rest of the crater below. The walls of the crater were surprisingly smooth, the sparkle of black glass catching his eye as he moved his head from side to side. As his gaze focused on the bottom of the large bowl, he noticed a dark spot near the center of the burning lava. The light was much too brilliant for him to see it clearly, he leaned forward, straining to see what it was from so far away.

Suddenly, the loose soil underneath his hands fell away, sending him tumbling over the edge and down the steep, smooth walls. The walls of the crater were not a sheer drop but were much too steep for him to be able to stop his rapid descent. He frantically dug his fingers into the slanted walls, they may have seemed smooth, but that was only from a distance. The small bits of glass formed after the impact bit into his fingers and hands, dirt mixed with blood, forming dark red mud that encrusted his hands as he screamed.

Tumbling uncontrollably, Ryan's mind couldn't form any coherent thoughts, let alone any spells that could have saved him; he was completely at the mercy of gravity as he quickly approached the bottom of the crater. His body turned unexpectantly, bending his leg the wrong way, breaking it cleanly just below the knee and causing his spinning vision to waver. Just as Ryan thought, not for the first time that day, that his death was all but certain, the earth that had so far done nothing but beat his body and soil his robes, rose up and engulfed him, instantly halting his perilous fall.

Turning back to what he was focused on before his clumsy student decided to fall to his death, Professor Kal looked down at the humanoid monster laying severely wounded in a small, bubbling lake of molten rock. He was currently floating above the lake, his dark violet robes billowing in the rising heat. He would usually try to stay away from such a hazardous area, as fire was widely known to be the bane of all undead, but magic was the solution to many problems, all much greater than a little heat, so he had no issues bearing the temperature.

In all honesty, he was a little worried. The spell he cast, Star Fall, was one of the most powerful incantations within his rich arsenal. He had used it once before, a very long time ago, it was only a few hundred years after he had first become a Lich. He was high up in the Aalenian Mountains, trudging through powdery snow that piled up to his waist, the wind pushing drifts that challenged the tall pine trees that dotted the area.

He was searching for a cave that had been mentioned in several legends passed down throughout the years, a dragon's cave, one filled with untold treasures that hadn't seen the light of day in eons. After countless months searching up and down the perilous mountains, crossing vast, bottomless ravines and braving fractured glaciers threatening to collapse at any moment, he had finally discovered what he had been looking for.

The entrance to the dragon's cave was quite large, making him crane his neck to view the ceiling fully, it was also very well hidden, tucked away behind a massive rock on the easterly side of the largest mountain within the range. As he entered the dragon's lair, he was immediately chased out by the owner of the cold and dark abode. It was a massive frost dragon, every bit of twenty feet tall at the shoulders and boasting a tail that was double its height. A pair of antler like horns topped its large head, three rows of neat teeth lined its hungry maw, and a pair of ice blue eyes, burning with rage, glowered at him as he ran.

Needless to say, he was no match for a fully grown frost dragon, at least not a head on confrontation. After being harassed for two days and three nights by the enraged frost dragon, with none of his tricks he knew of working to help his escape, he was finally cornered inside a small crevice with nowhere else to run. As the saying goes, 'A cornered rat will bite the cat', and right now, he was the rat. With nothing else to lose, he took the time to cast the spell he had only read of in an ancient tome, ignoring the dragon's sharp talons as they gouged deep tracks into the stone right in front of him.

In the end, he failed to kill the dragon. He hadn't nearly the amount of mana back then as he had today, so the spell was comparatively quite weak. But it did succeed in driving off the legendary creature, giving him a chance to escape down the mountainside, licking his wounds as he did so.

He didn't have very many complete memories from that far back in his unlife, so thinking of it made him smile to himself. Although, at the moment he was still in his lich form, so there were no lips to complete the action, but the sentiment was still there. A pained gurgle from the monster baking within the molten lake drug him back from his sunny reflection of the past, grabbing his complete attention.

"How are you still alive?" He asked it, his insatiable curiosity causing his brain to itch.

The humanoid monster swiveled its dull, grey eyes in his direction, an amused, bloody smile stretching across its face. "Look, this fire does not burn me, your spells are all but warm summer breezes upon my skin. Even your most powerful spell can only draw some blood and break my bones, only delaying the inevitable; how pathetic."

Professor Kal scowled, what the beast said was true. Even now he could see its body mending itself back together, closing the open wounds and setting the fractured bones back into their proper places.

"This mortal world will fall to me, only serving to fill my belly." It continued, struggling to stand. "Even you, undead, will be consumed; there is no escaping your fate."

"Who are you to decide the fate of an entire plane, to boast of its destruction as if it is certain?"

"Who am I?" A low chuckle filled the boiling crater, reverberating off its steep walls. "I am the end of all things, the devourer of souls. I carry no name, for no man nor God remains to whisper tales of my passing. I leave empty husks in my wake, only barren lands and hollow, silent skies remain.. Now, cease your frivolous resistance, let me delight in your soul, become one with me and then you'll finally grasp the eternity you so desire."