Chapter 425: Unable to Scream

"A little more," Alex whispered, sending a Wizard's Hand into a behemoth’s throat. The spell squeezed the vial, glass shattered, the monster began to stagger.

The hive-as-one lodged on its shoulder raised its hands, channelling mana until another Wizard's Hand dropped in its face, releasing a mana soothing potion. Drifting mist disappeared in the blowing snow, but it had already done its work. The clot of insectile forms swayed on the behemoth’s shoulder, and as its inner energies calmed, the magic glowing about its hands died.

It followed an instant later.

Isolde's lightning flew, striking it in pulses while Claygon's fire-beams lanced into the behemoth it rode on. Both spawn vanished in an abrupt shriek and blast of heat.

"There's no end to them!" The young noblewoman cried, Alex's air elementals lashing the swarm around her.

"That's alright!" He shouted back above the wind, trying to soothe his fraying nerves. "We just have to hold on for a little longer! Baelin’ll—"

He nearly missed mana that was building at speed, joining with the power from below. Alex whirled, the hairs on his neck rising, his eyes expecting to see a hive-as-one. But he saw nothing but defenders and monsters locked in battle: Watcher Shaw and his group, crushing through Ravener-spawn alongside the war-spirits. No, there was something more. A bit farther beyond the knots of fighting...the spot that looked like there was nothing in it.

The mana was building, and his sharpened mana senses had only just caught it. His thoughts raced. The surprise attack. Those clawed monsters. The power in the dungeons below. That feeling of foreboding.

Then, dread spiked.

Watcher Shaw cut down a bone-charger, then suddenly whirled on the invisible space.

He spoke a word of power. His eyes flew wide. "Invisible monster!"

Isolde turned toward the voice.

Swarms of spear-flies parted, opening a path between Alex and the invisible space.

Claygon raced for his creator.

"Isolde, move!" Alex yelled.

Her lips parted. She started climbing.

Beams lanced through the wind. Five rays of power raced for Alex. All spread out. All would cage him in.

He called on the Mark, spinning and dancing through the air. Barely, just barely, weaving through the rays like thread through the eye of a needle. Isolde was not so lucky. A beam slipped through her guardians—the three air elementals—hitting her dead on.

The young noblewoman froze as though she'd been cast in ice, eyes wide and panicked. Jaws stiffened. Lips trembling.

The next beam came faster than the others.

Think! Adapt!

He barked a single word in an elemental tongue of air, and her guardians swarmed around, blowing hard, moving their charge. His forceballs came in from the side, pushing her down. The beam strafed empty air, slicing past her, coming for Alex, but catching one of the air elementals defending her.

His eyes widened as the elemental froze, emitting a howling scream before its air currents hardened into a mass, it plummeted. The beam kept sweeping toward him.

He weaved, he ducked, he rolled.

The ray blazed with power as it passed inches beneath him; his back muscles stiffened, recoiling as it came too near for comfort. It sputtered into nothingness.

A heartbeat later, a desperate scream cut the air.

Alex whirled, spotting a single beam streaking through a group of wizards fighting beside a war-spirit. A sound like a rock face straining and shifting when the ground moves, followed. Wizards twisted, their bodies writhing in the sky, then turning grey. Slowing. Shuddering, growing still until flesh and blood became nothing but cold stone. Even the war-spirit was pertifying, its silvery sheen fading to the dull, deadness of slate.

And then, they all fell, plummeting through the wind. Shattering on impact. Screams arose. Chaos swept the courtyard, and Isolde—recovering while floating near the ground—gaped in horror.

'What in the Traveller's name is that?" Alex turned his attention back on the invisible enemy, as another volley of beams shot toward him. He climbed through the sky, desperately dodging each beam, escaping their touch by inches. His heart was racing.

"Claygon!" Alex called to his golem, trying to get clear of the other wizards. If this invisible thing was targeting him, he needed to be away from them, and as high in the sky as he could get. "Go over there and stop that thing! Use your fire-beams! Use your war-spear! Use—Shit!"

He veered, escaping a beam, its power hissing past his cheek.

"Use anything!" He finished his instructions.

And his golem...

...did not turn. He charged his fire-beams, but he didn’t swing his war-spear at the attacker, nor did he fly toward it

Instead, he kept racing toward his creator while the young wizard dodged for his life. Alex's eyes grew wide, his heart pounding.

'Claygon!' he thought. 'Claygon listen to me!'

But the golem would not. He was ignoring his directions, or disobeying them, either way, Alex couldn’t dwell on that, whatever was down there, it could turn flesh to stone with the blast of a beam, and those beams were after him. He glanced at Claygon and felt a pang in his chest.

Below, the battle became a desperate struggle.

The invisible assassin seemed to be moving across the snow at terrifying speed, the angles of its beams shifting with mathematical precision. Invisible force lashed out around it, crushing defenders where they stood. Its presence invigorated the other Ravener-spawn, they rampaged through the courtyard with renewed fervour.

"Everyone, get back!" Watcher Shaw shouted, his black beard bristling in the wind. "This creature is mine. Back down to the pit with you!"

The Watcher levelled his staff at the invisible menace and spoke an incantation. Power built at its tip. A deadly beam lanced toward the invisible space. A disintegration spell: a beam of matter-reducing energy shot forward with uncompromising accuracy.

The snow churned as the unseen menace sped through the courtyard, trying to dodge, but the leader of the Watchers arced his ray after it, tracking it like prey.

The beam caught up, within inches of connecting...when a spear-fly veered downward, taking the hit, vanishing in a flash.

The invisible monster responded with a sweep of its grey, petrifying beam as the Watchers were already shouting spells, beginning to raise a stone barricade around it. Alex was still its main target, and it was taking all his haste-enhanced reflexes to get away.

Two of his air elementals froze in mid-air, trapped by the paralysing magics. Alex's mind raced, as he pulled out potions. The beams were too swift to risk the Mark's interference.

He shouted in every extraplanar tongue he knew, calling on his summoned monsters. "Everyone, attack wherever those beams come from!"

The summoned monsters broke off their assault against Ravener-spawn to charge the invisible creature, while Watchers unleashed cones of utter cold. Snow churned. Ice sprayed, the spells blasted over the snow.

But the enemy was quick and sure. Even as it pin-pointed Alex in the sky, it shot at fighters on the ground and in the air.

‘It’s like it has eyes in the back of its head!’ He thought.

As it weaved through enemy attacks, its beams lanced out again, striking the Watchers.

Shaw dodged away, levelling his staff, releasing a whirlwind of force blades. They spun through the snow, spiralling forward when above the noise of the gusting wind, came a loud tearing sound.

Followed by an inhuman scream.

Something hit the ground writhing, leaving snaking channels in the snow, slowly becoming visible. An eye. An eye at the end of what looked like a thick tentacle. Alex looked down at it frowning, cheers erupted through the Watchers ranks.

Suddenly, a beast sprang from where the invisible thing’s eye had come from, surprising most.

The clawed monster leapt at them with blurring speed, and Watcher Shaw didn't hesitate, thrusting his enchanted blade in mid-leap, spearing the creature and twisting the blade.

It slumped over on the weapon.

He snarled at its corpse.

And then the snarl froze on his face. Alex's breath caught. The invisible monster’s beam had washed over the powerful battlemage in his moment of distraction.

Distracted only for a heartbeat.

But that was enough.

Grey magic swept and paralysed Watchers, Alex's summoned monsters, and defenders nearby, casting them all in stone. Even a strapping red clay golem hardened into unyielding granite.

Then came the earth-shattering scream, bringing ear piercing pain with it.

A scream so powerful, Alex's hands shot up, clutching the side of his head, trying to block the agonising sound. It stretched out for what felt like minutes before rising to an octave that faded into silence. But Alex could feel terrible energy resonating in his bones, and the rigid figures of defenders began to shudder. Near, a pair of stone golems shook like leaves caught in a gale, and Alex's eyes fell on the bearded form of Watcher Shaw, his face twisted in defiance.

Cracks rippled through a stony snarl.

Then, the battlemage exploded. All exploded: golems, people, summoned monsters, cobblestones and even sections of nearby buildings. In an instant, they were gone, and shattered remains fell from the sky, staining the bloody snow grey with rock-dust.

Alex's mind recoiled. How many had just died?

Twenty? More?

He had no time to count, for they weren't the only victims.

"Claygon!" he screamed.

The sound was wreaking havoc through the golem. Cracks spiderwebbed through his body as clay was battered by sound energy.

More beams came at Alex.

The young wizard focused, measuring their paths, calling on the Mark, weaving and dancing.

One swept by. He whirled past another, teeth clenched, focus narrowed: it was taking everything to dodge them. Each passed closer than the last as his invisible enemy adjusted its aim.

He moved quickly.

He moved gracefully.

And then...

He did not move at all.

A terrible force wrapped him, squeezing, freezing him in place. His every muscle strained, his sinews twitched and his nerves fired...but his body would not move. His breath came shallow and fast. He controlled his breaths, calming them as well as he could. Blinking was slow, his eyes barely responding. Through force of will and what felt like moving through muck, his left eye slowly tracked downward.

There. It had struck him there: the beam had caught an ankle.

Panic. What was happening? He fought the panic threatening his nerve.

Think. Adapt.

He sent mental commands, he screamed them, told his force spells to push him like they’d pushed Isolde. Forceballs and Wizards Hands followed his commands, shoving, nudging, pushing against him, but it was all in vain. Alex remained like a statue, fixed and unmoving.

Three beams hit: one to the chest and one to either arm.

His breath slowed.

He was static. Fighting for breath. His force spells kept trying, but still couldn't move him.

Think! Adapt!

His mind raced. What could he do? He couldn’t use potions. His spells couldn't help. His air elementals were close, but his mouth wouldn’t budge. He couldn't cast anything.

Hope drained as mana built, powering the petrifying beam.

And then came the scream. Stronger this time: it rose to an octave so high, that it seemed to die, but was still very much alive; he felt it deep in his core. Stone shattered, his teeth chattered, grinding in his clenched jaw.

His head and his vision swam. He felt like he would suffocate.

'Think!' He screamed in his own mind. 'Think! It wants to kill you. To turn you to stone! Think! Think! Adapt!'

Panic fought for control, but he tried to push it down, seeing Theresa’s face, Selina’s, his parent’s, Claygon’s, his friends,’ drifting through his mind. His eyelids grew heavy; his eyes felt like grit had replaced tears, his vision blurred, barely catching something streaking toward him. It was Claygon, looking battered, looking damaged: broad cracks spider webbed through his massive form. Grey dust rained as he flew toward his master, and in the centre of his trunk...his golem core was laid bare.

‘No Claygon!’ Terror seized Alex’s mind. ‘Get away!’ The thought was frantic: if anything struck his core...

'Claygon! Please! Fire your beams at that invisible monster and throw your war-spear! Then get us out of here!’

But his golem didn’t alter his path: his face was fully focused on Alex.

'No!' Alex pleaded. Listen to me, please, listen to m—'

The grey beam fired when Claygon was a handspan away.

Alex could only watch as it raced toward him.

It was moving too fast, even if his golem pushed him aside, the invisible monster could simply sweep it after him.

Think! Adapt!

Then his sight was abruptly blocked.

Claygon was before him—limbs spread, shielding his creator—just as he had when the dungeon core remains and chaos essence exploded. And, he was right in the middle of that terrible scream. Cracks ran like webbing, continuing their spread.

That petrifying beam shot up.

'Claygon! Claygon, no!' Alex's mind shrieked, powerless to act.

He'd shatter. His core would explode.

The grey light consumed the golem he and Selina had sculpted together. The golem he and his friends had hunted a mana vampire to power. The golem who had saved his life. Cracks, sounding like frazil ice on a frigid winter’s night, spread through Claygon.

Yet, Alex couldn't even scream.