Finale (6/28): Light Over the World

The tower had been asleep with a massive amount of holy mana stored, just waiting to be used. Most of it would fuel the ceremonial spell, but there was still plenty stored for other expenditures, like making the tower itself extremely hostile to anything that did not belong inside.

Now that the tower finally woke up, it became more and more treacherous for the undead within and even around it. As countless lesser undead poured toward the tower to reinforce their masters inside, the tower destroyed them all with a pulse of magic, leaving behind motionless corpses.

Within the tower, the walls began to glow golden and the thin aura of golden light grew bolder. The jack-class could no longer ignore the burning pain that came from contact with the aura and they hurriedly protected themselves with their own mana. Worse still, the aura acted like tiny hands that grasped at them and slowed their movements ever so slowly.

“What’s going on?” Elise asked. She had just parried the sword of the huge warrior skull lord, intercepting it before it could hit one of her guards. However, the force of it knocked her back, though not for long. It was then that the sudden change in the tower swept up from behind them, sending the undeads reeling.

Victoria shrugged. “I don’t know, but whatever it was, it came from the final chamber in the tower. Camilla is doing something.”

At the mention of Camilla’s name, Elise’s eyes grew cold, and she huffed once and turned away from Victoria. She didn’t agree with what Victoria did and she wasn’t afraid to let Victoria know. As she returned to her battle with the undead, she found to her delight that they’d become slower and weaker.

“I don’t know how long this effect will last, so let’s take this time to mount a counter-offense!” she shouted, raising her scythe. “Come on!”

“Aye, yes ma’am!” her guards cried along with a weak “Understood, Mother” from Ismelda.

Victoria pursed her lips and sent a wave of blood mana crashing into the undead ranks, forcing back a step, but her magic was quickly counteracted by the enemy lich lord. Normally, her magic would have been shattered, but thanks to the holy aura around them weakening the enemy, her magic persisted. The two powers warred with each other until the mana provided by each side was exhausted, and as soon as the first magic was gone, Victoria launched a second wave to create more space.

As the enemy lich tried to stop her once more, Victoria’s grimace turned into a small grin. Within a twirl of her fingers, the overwhelming wave of death magic that would have crashed into her magic began to spin and disperse, leaving the lord lich stunned.

“Impossible. How did you stop my magic?! Argh!” The crimson wave washed over him first and would have crashed into the jack-classes if it wasn’t for the lord warrior slashing apart the magic.

The split wave twisted and turned back, wrapping around the lord lich, rising to engulf him like quicksand. The lord began to struggle, flaring his magic and trying everything to get himself out of the crimson tide, but Victoria just laughed at his attempts. “Since we began fighting, I’ve been analyzing your magic and your habits. It would’ve taken some more time before I would’ve been able to stop you normally, but since we are now equals, you don’t stand a chance!”

With a clap of her hands, the magic that had been gathering in the jack-class liches’ hands faded away into useless mana, leaving them unable to help their leader. It left them helpless as Elise led a charge straight into their ranks.

Rising up to meet them were the jack warriors and the skull lord with his huge shield and sword.

Compared to before, the skull lord looked tattered. His shield was filled with gashes from strikes from Elise’s strikes, as was his armor. Nicks filled his sword, once again courtesy of Elise. Since she gave up trying to end the fight as soon as possible, she focused on destroying the skull lord’s weapon and armor, peeling him like an onion so that when the time came for Elise to reap his life, he would be helpless.

He had trouble before, not to mention now that he was slower. 

“Where are you looking? Don’t even think about ignoring me,” Elise growled as she jumped and swung her scythe at the warrior’s face. He hurriedly ducked and held up his shield to block, but the cruel tip of the weapon was like the point of a warpick. It stabbed into the shield and Elise landed on the shield as well.

Normally, the weapon would be stuck and Elise be rendered helpless, but it was impossible to trap Elise’s weapon. Stepping on the shield, she pushed off and ripped her scythe out, tearing a whole piece of the shield off. Slowly, the shield was shredded down and the lord warrior was left without his protection.

Like a snowball rolling down a hill, Elise’s advantage grew with each armor that the lord lost, until finally she knocked him down onto the ground and knelt on his chest, her scythe on his exposed neck, grinning.

All the while, her guards and Ismelda fell upon the jack-class undeads like wolves into a herd of sheep. A flash and a boom and a head was flying through the air. Ignoring her screaming muscles, Ismelda stepped out of the way of another jack warrior and shoved him into his comrades. Her spell put too much strain on her body.

“I can’t go on anymore…” she muttered as she parried another sword. If she had a bit more strength, she could have cut the sword apart, but she was just too tired now.

As she was about to dispatch the skeleton in front of her, it suddenly disappeared, knocked out of sight by a blast of wind. A figure flashes by after it in pursuit. “Leave it to us, princess!” one of her mother’s guards, the wind mage, shouted. “Take a break!”

Princess… princess… 

“I’m not a princess!” she shouted. “I’m Ismelda!” 

No matter how much her body hurt, this was still far from her limit. If she does not keep on surpassing herself, she will forever be in her mother’s shadow, forever just the princess of the Violet Blossoms, and forever the daughter of Elise.

“Stay out of my way!” A flash and another body head separated from the skeleton’s body, along with the sharp clink of metal breaking. The veins all over her body were visible as her heart worked harder and harder to carry blood and magic all over her body. Each movement made her bones creak, but it did not matter, as long as she could continue to surpass herself. She was Ismelda.

As Ismelda and the others turned the tides against the enemies that they had been struggling to hold back a moment earlier, Camilla and Kagriss faced off against the skull king. 

“You’ll pass judgement on me? What a joke…!”

“Whether or not you choose to believe me doesn’t matter,” Camilla said, swinging her sword as she got used to her new strength. Fragments of the flugel’s memories flashed through her mind and melted into her own until they were almost indistinguishable, bringing with it a mild headache. However, her mind was still her own. “Kagriss, are you ready?”

“Been ready. Let’s begin.” Kagriss once again sent her chains after the skull king. This time, the heads of the chains were in all sorts of different shapes. Spikes balls, sharp tips, hooks. With Camilla helping, she no longer needed to focus purely on the strength of her chains. She had some leeway.

The skull king jumped back and smashed the ground with his mace, repelling the surging chains with a shockwave, but in that instant after the smash, he left himself open. Waiting for that opening was Camilla. 

A bright flash blinded the skull king’s eyes and the mana sent false signals through his senses, and for a moment, he was closed off to the world. Only his instincts that took over at the last moment saved him from an upward slash that threatened to take his head.

“A mere ant!” he roared, punching downward at Camilla as soon as his vision cleared. His fist smashed straight through Camilla’s head, but the skull king wasn’t happy at all. The feedback from the punch was off and there was movement from behind him…

He lifted his mace to try and block Camilla’s sneak attack, but then, the Camilla he had just punched exploded before he could react. The explosion swallowed him and the force pushed everything back, including Camilla and Kagriss’s chains.

“Did we get him?”

“I don’t know, but that was smart,” Kagriss said. “Wait, he’s there!”

By now, Camilla and Kagriss were so in tune that they could practically see through each others’ eyes and senses. It took just a vague reminder for Camilla to see what Kagriss was seeing: a shadow bursting from the smoke and circling behind Camilla for a strike.

The skull king didn’t say anything. Quiet fury burned brightly in his eyes.

Half a dozen relatively weak golden shields appeared over Camilla’s back along with a mass of black chains over it all. The skull king’s huge mace dragged the chains along with its sheer force, but much of its force had always been absorbed. It smashed through one, two, three shields, and stopped at the fourth.

Already, Camilla was retaliating, spinning around with her sword.

Although her sword was too short to reach, the magic from the tip was more than enough. A scratch appeared on the skull king’s face, right over his nostrils. Flames sprouted to life in that scratch and the skull king lurched back, clawing at the flames.

“Ahhh!”

“Kagriss!”

“You don’t even need to ask!”

While the skull king was busy flailing, Camilla jumped up and cut again, severing the skull king’s fingers. The mace fell and before it could reach the ground, chains wrapped around the unattended handle of the mace and pulled, dragging the huge weapon away from the skull king and toward Kagriss. 

“No!” The skull king quickly noticed and chased after it, but a line of flames sprouted up in his path. He looked at the source, a smiling Camilla and her sword. Rage filled his mind and darkness wreathed his fists. “You dare mock me!”

As Camilla shrugged to anger him some more and make him lose his mind, she suddenly felt a pang of pain. The burning on the surface of her skin creeped inwards. She didn’t have much time left.

We need to hurry…

A brighter flame burned out faster. She had been greedy and holding some of her power back because she feared death as much as anyone else. She didn’t want to die and she wished to stall as much as she could. But now it’s become clear that if she continued to hold back because of her greed for life, she could lose everything.

She closed her eyes for a brief moment to prepare herself. That brief moment was all it took for the skull king’s fist to appear in front of her face.

But instead of knocking her head off like he had done to the trap she left earlier, a flaming wall of solid mana rose up in front of her from the floor, stopping the king in his tracks. Camilla did not even give the king a chance to make a sound before she circled behind him and cut at his neck.

Her easily cut through the bevor that protected that vulnerability, and the skull king’s head came flying off. It wasn’t over yet, though. Mere decapitation wasn’t enough to stop an undead. Destruction at the chest was the most reliable way, although other methods worked in a pinch as well as the trauma was enough.

At last, the skull king began to react, floundering for her, but Camilla kicked his back and sent him crashing to the ground. Immediate, black chains broke through the ground, rising up and wrapping around the skull king, layers upon layers.

All of the other chains in the room disappeared and Kagriss used every single chain she could maintain and hold the skull king down. As much as the king struggled, he could not break free.

“Release me!”

In grim silence, Camilla rose up into the air and pointed her sword at the writhing mass of chains. A wave of nostalgia washed over her as she looked upon the familiar sight. 

“Finally, it’s over,” she whispered as her armor faded away, gathering on her arm. From her arm, it ran down onto the tip of her sword where the golden light became almost iridescent. Camilla caught glimpses of many colors. When the last of the flames had gathered on the tip of her sword, she let the tip explode forward in a blinding flash of light, concentrated so that it would do no more than it was meant to. The column of light washed away the darkness it covered and rose up high, splashing against the ceiling. 

When it all disappeared with agonizing slowness, there was nothing left of the skull king or the chains that bound him. The only people still left in the room were Camilla and Kagriss.

As the light left her body, it left behind only the weak dark magic that had returned when Kagriss revived her. A wave of exhaustion crashed over her and her mind spun. She would have fallen to the ground if it wasn’t for Kagriss’s newly created chains moving over to catch her and bringing her over into Kagriss’s arms.

She looked up at Kagriss’s familiar face, even though many things have changed.

“You’re even prettier now. Hehe, you said you wouldn’t leave me behind and evolve by yourself, but look now…” she said, struggling to stay awake. There was no blame in her voice though. Then she winced.

Even if the light left her body, the pain remained behind. The pain came from the black lines that ran all over her body.

As she watched, her skin darkened and began to flake, and Camilla knew that her time was up.

“Don’t you have anything to say?”

Kagriss nodded and then shook her head. Camilla sighed and laid back. Right… there was nothing to say. Everything they wanted to say to each other had already been said in the days leading up to this one, and everything that still needed to be said could be plucked straight from each others’ minds.

A never ending stream of sadness came from Kagriss through their bond and Camilla reached up to wipe a tear from her face. Kagriss took out the box that she had kept safe through the entire battle and offered it to Camilla.

“Can you help me? I can’t get up.”

“Okay…”

Although she tried to stand up, Kagriss wouldn’t let her. Instead, Kagriss picked up her whole body, and Camilla could feel Kagriss’s surprise at how light she was. Considering that she was already half ash starting from her feet, that was hardly surprising.

With careful steps, they reached the pedestal. Still in Kagriss’s arms, Camilla opened the box and took out the little stones inside. One by one, she placed them into their slots, but when she reached the last one, she hesitated.

The moment she put it in, Kagriss’s fate was sealed, unless she decided to destroy the pedestal before the spell could activate. Her death was inevitable, but Kagriss still had a long life ahead of her.

“Milla!” Kagriss’s sharp voice interrupted Camilla’s thoughts. 

A cool chain took Camilla’s hand that held the stone and slowly guided it toward the slot. All she had to do was let go, and the stone would slip into place by itself, and from there, they would only have to wait… 

That sharp voice sounded again and with a shake of her hand, the stone fell from Camilla’s weak fingers and into the slot. She stared at the formations that appeared in the pedestal and began to spread over the whole tower and she began to laugh.

“It was an accident!”

“I know! I didn’t think that you’d be so startled that you’d drop it!” Kagriss said, beginning to laugh as well. 

Camilla stopped and stared at her, mouth agape. It was the first time Camilla had ever heard Kagriss laugh. She knew that Kagriss had begun to smile more, but a true laugh was too rare.

Hearing that laugh, something settled in Camilla’s chest and she snuggled into Kagriss’s arms with a feeling of “it was all worth it in the end.” It was like countless flowers blooming in her heart.

“What’s there to worry about?” Kagriss said all of a sudden. “Don’t you know that we undead have conquered death?”

“...Huh?” Camilla blinked, unsure that Kagriss was talking about, but she listened attentively nonetheless.

“We’ve conquered death once, and we can do it again. Milla, we’ll always be together!”

Tears fell from Camilla’s eyes and she nodded. “Kagriss…”

“I love you too,” Kagriss said, interrupting her, and then she kissed her, not allowing her to speak. Just like that, Kagriss had the last word, for now.

The golden formations around them became brighter and brighter until it was like the whole world was filled with light. The light flooded the entire tower and destroyed the top, rising into the sky in a blazing column and piercing the clouds, before falling down over the lands like tiny little raindrops.

The unimaginably huge amount of holy mana, accumulated over a thousand years, moved in unison according to an ancient spell, welcoming a new era.

When Ismelda and the others rushed into the final chamber, there was nothing left but rubble and the other aftermaths of battle to prove that there had ever been anyone else in here. There were nothing but two golden feathers that floated up toward the heavens to drift in the wind.