Chapter 17 #2
Zayn and I slammed our hands together, then the orbs shot forward at the hostiles who were rapidly incoming, just a few feet from hitting us, and then Vaxan, Ambrose, and Ketheron, who we couldn’t allow to be impacted or interfered with at all.
With bright flashes of light, the orbs exploded all over the hostiles, halting their creepy marching. Inhuman screams rang out, making me wince from the pitch of them, and sparks inundated their magical forms.
That was it.
It was done.
“Now!” I called out behind us to Remnant and company.
Not split seconds later, blurs of movement shot past us, and then they were slamming into them, some of the constructs ricocheting off the chamber walls, others being thrown clear across the space and out into the open, where I heard the Guardians moving in to finish them off.
Growls, snarls, thuds, the breaking of bones filled the battlefield.
I saw Remnant slam his boot into the ground and create an insane shockwave that downed fifty of them in one shot, where Rhyza then moved in, working in concert with him, and tore their magical heads from their bodies.
It was… appropriately brutal.
In the meantime, Zayn and I beat back any hostiles sneaking past the onslaught and trying to go for Vaxan, Ambrose, and Ketheron.
I thrust both fists out, shattering some, blowing others back.
Zayn used his magic as might, and executed some impressive agile kicks, sending hostiles spinning out into the chamber walls, some even falling into the lava and being lost to it. Well, so we thought, until they burst out moments later.
And then something caught my eye through all the chaos of battle.
Bubbling.
The lava was fucking bubbling.
Lashes of midnight blue shot through it.
And then it started rising.
The ground thundered.
It was erupting!
Ruxnoth was forcing the volcano to erupt!
“Get back!” I yelled over to Remnant, Rhyza, and Lazriel. “Clear out!”
Just as they all blurred back in one shot, toward the arched cave doorway that led outside, the two dozen remaining soldiers of Ruxnoth’s dropped abruptly, then dissipated into nothingness, not even ash or liquid left behind. The lashes of the psycho’s magic through the lava cut out as well.
“Got him,” Ambrose told us. “Ruxnoth is now unconscious. Temporarily.”
But it was too late where the eruption was concerned. Ruxnoth had already set it in motion, now nature was taking over.
Zayn grabbed my arm. “I can unleash a Wrath Surge to hold the eruption off long enough for them to finish their work.”
An Ifrit Wrath Surge involved using intense emotional fury that could boost his Ifrit fire in a mammoth way and send out a sustained rush of power that had the means to hold back dragon fire for a time.
“No,” I told him.
For one thing, he’d come so fucking far with stabilizing his emotional state, and this could undermine that.
And then there was the physical impact of unleashing such a thing. It could burn him out and even put him in a long-term coma.
“Evira—”
“Zayn, no,” Vaxan rumbled.
In the next moment, he stopped the vibrational resonance from emanating from his right hand, then his citrine magic sparked and he materialized the river rock I’d given to him a while ago.
It was a shimmering pastel-blue object fused with glacial magic. When activated, it enveloped the wielder in a dome of the strongest dragon ice-frost fusion, which could hold against pretty much anything. Aside from Celestial magic, but Ruxnoth’s Celestial power had just tapped out.
He grasped Ambrose’s shoulder, Ketheron already holding Ambrose’s as it was while Ambrose channeled him, so the three of them were briefly connected as he then slammed the river rock down. As it shattered, a glacial dome shot up, enveloping the three of them.
“Go,” he told us, and signaled Remnant and the others to get clear as well.
At Remnant’s resistance to leaving, Ambrose shook his head at him. “There’s nothing you can do against this. Leave now.”
Remnant ground his jaw.
But then in several rapid-fire bursts, they all cleared out.
“Zayn, go with them,” I said.
“Why aren’t you including yourself in that?”
Vaxan and me exchanged a look.
“Guys? What is it?” Zayn pushed.
I grimaced and told him, while keeping my eye on the rising lava, “The river rock won’t hold indefinitely against a volcanic eruption.”
“Maybe not long enough for them to finish the spell?”
“Yeah.”
“Evira, get clear!” Vaxan yelled over at us. He peered down at the gateway below, and his right hand was shaking as he called his vibrational resonance to that hand again as well and thrust it through.
“That interruption cost you,” Ketheron spoke.
“Cost him? How?” Zayn asked.
“I need to be on the ground down there now. The process is… stuck. I’m going to try to see to it. I’ll know in a few moments if it’s possible.”
“Oh fuck, you’re not going in there alone,” Zayn cried. “Ruxnoth is still down there.”
All that panic surged when a red blast of power erupted.
“That was Sylas,” Ketheron told us. “He’s mass-teleported the necromancers out. They’re now on the mortal plane with him.”
“And Winter is with them?”
“No,” Ambrose said. “He’s resisted. And he’s also still in the Veil.”
“He’s what?” I cried, panic taking me too now, despite how hard I was fighting to check it, all of it. “No. No. No.”
“Go,” I said, looking at Zayn and Vaxan.
“What? Really?” Zayn questioned.
“Yes. Pull Winter out. Vaxan will finish the material destruction faster down there. Ambrose can hold off Ruxnoth if you’re attacked.”
“And you?”
The question answered itself in the next second as the eruption surged, lava blasting out high into the chamber like a tidal wave.
I burst forward, my glacial magic streaming violently as I thrust my palms at the lava and worked on cutting into it, freezing it, wrecking its structural integrity.
“Holy shit,” Zayn exclaimed as I managed to push it back, my boots finding purchase on the ground steadily.
It wasn’t enough, though.
I had to give it everything.
“Hurry, pass through now,” Ketheron told Vaxan and Zayn.
“See to the material decimation, Vaxan. Zayn, shock Winter awake with your power. I’ll message Sylas and he’ll lock onto his necromantic link to Winter and send that through your magic.
Then, when you shock Winter, they’ll be necromantic, which will be needed to yank him forcibly from the Veil.
Until he wakes, he’s vulnerable to Ruxnoth, and Ambrose will need to keep flooding the construct beyond what was required of him. ”
Vaxan and Zayn looked back at me, not wanting to leave me.
I smiled. “Trust in me, my boys.”
A whimper came from Zayn, a disgruntled hiss from Vaxan that it had come to this.
And then he grasped Zayn’s shoulder, wrapped him up in his magic, and dropped them down through the gateway.
I unleashed a torrent of my ice and frost, screaming as the immense potency of it tore through me, as I used every ounce of power and might that I had against the lava.
My ice rushed through it, cutting into it deeply, all over, until blistering heat became null. Until the vibrant red and orange hues gave way to pale-blue ice.
Until every drop of lava turned to ice.
The wave shattered and crumbled into tiny glass-like pieces all over the floor.
And the cavern became a pool of frost.
At least for now.
It would settle gradually over a few days and return to its former state—before Ruxnoth had forced an eruption.
I choked and collapsed to my knees a few feet from Ketheron and Ambrose.
“Duly impressive, dragon princess,” Ketheron said, smiling out at me. “Rest now for a little while.”
I didn’t have much choice.
The last thing I was aware of was Ketheron pulling me under the river rock shield for protection, before I passed out.