Exclusive #4: Watch It Burn

Malachi fumbled the rune-covered spear in his hands and almost dropped it. Fortunately, Rodrick was nearby. His muscular friend jumped forward and brought down his comically large sword to chop the head off the hyena with tentacles. Both of them leaped back to avoid the splash of inky liquid and the foul mist it decomposed into. The very first rule of fighting the monsters was to beware their miasma.

“What was that, Malachi?”

“It has octopus arms!” Or at least it had. The form of the hyena was no more than a puddle of sludge by this point.

Rodrick shrugged. “It died all the same.”

“If monsters are able to mix morphic traits, the soul of this world is already lost.” Malachi looked to the sky, where a Jinn war barge was surrounded by a maze of lasers. Flying creatures dropped dead from the sky all about it. None of them even got close to their target.

“That’s not your concern, Malachi. Command will tell us when it’s time to leave. Until then, don’t let yourself get distracted.” Rodrick rested his sword over his shoulders as they both turned to look at the source thunder in the distance.

A lone Xian was surrounded on all sides by monsters. The man thrust his palm forward at a hulking form and a violet line of light shot out. No sooner did the ray of energy connect with a Minotaur than the entire length of the beam exploded outward in every direction with cataclysmic violence, causing more of the echoing thunder. The Minotaur was reduced to a miasmic haze on the wind. Somehow the Xian was mostly immune to the violence he had unleashed. He simply spun to point his hand at another opponent.

“Damn show off,” Rodrick muttered.

Malachi didn’t comment on the source of the cracks of thunder. He might not ever want to socialize with a Xian savage, but he certainly would not object to having their strength as allies. The idiot that had caught their attention was breathing in quantities of miasma that would require prompt medical attention for either of them. The Xian might cough a few times to clear his lungs. The savages might not have a lot of versatility, but no one could deny they were extremely durable.

Suddenly the overcast day became noonday bright as an ominous humming began. The noise came as much from inside Malachi’s body as outside. He squinted back towards the war barge floating in the sky on its gravitonic field. The front end had dipped down and a blinding white beam shot forth to connect with the ground miles in the distance.

“By the holy ones,” Rodrick said, “that’s a schism beam.”

Malachi swallowed to work up some moisture in his suddenly dry mouth. The Jinn might use their antimatter to toast entire unempowered worlds, but nothing resisted a schism beam. It was a line of space rotated to produce the most potent cutting force ever conceived. What could War Barge Kevin be shooting that required one of his ultimate weapons?

As soon as the painfully brilliant beam of white winked out, an explosion fed by underground gas took out a few thousand monsters. Malachi blinked. Apparently there hadn’t been a single powerful opponent to kill. Kevin just decided to take advantage of the terrain. That was a very Jinn thing to do.

Rodrick slapped him on the shoulder. “Come on, I want to catch up with Zelda!”

Malachi jogged after his friend, wondering how Rodrick could stand to wear armor in the heat of the battle. The man came from a family with a longstanding martial tradition, he knew, but that didn’t mean he had to be such a stereotype. “You’re chasing after Zelda now? I thought you liked Vivian?”

Rodrick hacked a giant ant in half lengthwise before responding. “Vivian is never going to happen. It turns out that I’m really not her type.”

“I don’t think you’re anyone’s type, Rod,” Malachi jested.

“Women like big strong warriors.”

“They might think that ridiculous sword of yours is compensating for something.”

Rodrick gave a single sharp laugh. “It’s compensating for the fact that I don’t want to get close to the monsters.” He spun the massive sword about with a single arm. “You really should form your externality. I can talk you through creating a sword.”

Malachi grunted an acknowledgment. It was past the time he should have formed an externality. He just couldn’t decide on his path. Once he shaped his externality into a summoned object, the form would be set for the rest of his life. A weapon sounded great in the middle of a military campaign, but Malachi didn’t intend to stay a soldier for life. He’d been swept up in the patriotic fervor back home and signed up with his best friend to fight monsters in defense of their homeland. His best friend didn’t survive the first battle of their campaign, which led to Malachi falling in with an unlikely group.

Rodrick slid to a stop abruptly, almost causing Malachi to run into him. Ahead, Conflagration swung his fire whip in a circle above his head like he was preparing to throw a lasso. Anything touched by that whip burned to ash in an instant. Malachi barely had time to notice body types before the monsters were being blown away as dust on the wind. They didn’t even leave miasma behind. Somehow the Sage of Conflagration burned the essence of chaos away.

Their sage looked almost bored as he swung his whip. Monsters had zero sense of self-preservation, so they never hesitated to throw themselves at any target. Their hateful tenacity was terrifying when they came at Malachi, ignoring fatal wounds with an insane single-mindedness. When they rushed Conflagration, though… well, it seemed like they were politely positioning themselves so that a sage wouldn’t have to inconvenience himself by moving about the battlefield.

Vivian popped into existence beside them, dropping the lens externality that warped light around her body. Malachi almost dropped his spear for a second time that day before he realized it was a friend. She held an identical spear as his own, one engraved with runes of power to increase durability, sharpness, and deadliness. They were incredibly effective tools, the result of potent rituals.

“Want to hear the latest headache?” Vivian blew her auburn hair out of her eyes.

Malachi raised a brow. “You mean other than the fact that we haven’t retreated yet?”

“Oh, it’s even dumber than that. Conflagration has Zelda setting up a ritual to burn a rift.”

That hurt his head. Burn a rift? How was that supposed to work? A rift was a tear in space that let miasma pour into a universe. You couldn’t burn a tear. If he ripped a sheet of paper, applying a flame would never cause the gap to burn. It would only destroy the fabric of the paper. “That doesn’t make any sense, Vivian.”

Vivian shook her head. “Are you going to say that to Conflagration?”

Malachi turned a hopeful gaze to Rodrick.

“Don’t look at me,” the large man said.

Suddenly Conflagration jumped and began to walk across the air on pillars of flame that emerged from his boots. The sage cracked his fire-red whip at a billowing cloud of miasma. The bend in the whip glowed white-hot as it traveled to the tip. Ghostly flames consumed the chaotic particulates floating on the air for hundreds of meters in every direction.

The clear line of sight allowed them to see a rift floating at chest height. It was a gash of angry red leaking dark gray substance that dripped to the ground before twisting and compressing into the form of various creatures. Not far away from the rift, Zelda was frantically using a stick to dig lines into the dirt in a complex diagram. Malachi never progressed beyond basic ritual class in high school, so he was utterly incapable of interpreting the design.

Conflagration flicked a spark from his fingers to burn away the half-finished wolf forming beneath the rift. Then he turned his stern gaze on them. “You three, join Zelda for the ritual.”

Malachi gathered his courage. “Sage? I don’t think we can burn a rift.”

Conflagration tilted his head as he regarded Malachi. “If I say something will burn, then it will indeed burn.” The absolute conviction in those words…. Well, the man was a sage.

Still. Malachi couldn’t afford to have his energy drained in a pointless ritual just so that a sage could entertain himself. “Sage, I don’t think I can afford the energy expenditure. The campaign has barely begun. I need to reserve my strength for future battles.”

That gave Conflagration a moment of pause. The man habitually stood hunched over like a prowling beast, eyeing everything around him as if searching for an interesting material or victim to light on fire. At the moment, he seemed shocked to learn that a walking bundle of kindling had needs of its own. Malachi forced a friendly smile, already regretting his words.

“I will arrange a way for all of you to recover the energy you spend today.” The sage gestured towards Zelda. “Now join us.”

The three of them didn’t dare hesitate. All sages were worthy of veneration, it was known. Some warranted a healthy degree of fear due to their specific abilities. Conflagration had all of that and was known to be borderline insane. The man spent every evening in camp staring at fires like they revealed the secrets of existence to him.

And maybe those fires did speak to Conflagration. Only one in a thousand would ever develop a true insight. Depending on the depth and utility of that insight, a small minority earned the title of sage. For most who achieved that honor, that was the end of their road. Not so the Sage of Conflagration. People said that the man had burned away his personality to make room for his insight to grow larger. Malachi never knew if that was a joke or honest speculation.

Zelda smiled at them as they stood outside the ritual circle. “Do any of you have training in classical languages?”

Shaken heads all around. “A quick primer then. Ignis is fire, rima is rift, and combustum is burn. The chorus line is then ‘ignis rima combustum’. There are hand gestures for each word.” Zelda reflected their exasperation back at them. “Don’t even try to question me on my specialty. We need a multi-modal approach to maximize efficiency for this. In theory this shouldn’t require too much energy. It’s all a matter of providing a clear enough path.”

Zelda demonstrated the gestures for the words and performed a quick rehearsal. Meanwhile, Conflagration kept them safe, casually slaying beasts large and small by throw tiny sparks. When they were ready, Zelda indicated that her nodding would dictate the pace of the chant. They would be increasing the speed, volume, and pitch of the chant until the conclusion.

They might be the cornerstone of Arahant power, but Malachi had always hated rituals. He had no natural talent, so he was always treated as nothing more than a power source to be drained. The three of them joined Zelda facing the rift from across the drawn ritual circle. Conflagration took his place between the circle and the rift. Their illusory energy would flow through their voices and gestures, be refined by the ritual circle, and then pour through Conflagration for his vast talent to mold it into the final shape.

“Ignis rima combustum,” they chanted, making the indicated gestures. Their fingers wiggled upwards for fire. They held their palms slightly apart to indicate the rift. Then they dramatically twisted their hands up like an explosion to demonstrate burning.

Again and again they chanted and gestured.

Malachi felt when the ritual came to life. Their shared intent, channeled through the symbolism of the ritual, manifested as a malevolent weight in the air. This was certainly no healing ritual they performed. It wanted to destroy. Hopefully Zelda did a good job of defining the target. Rogue rituals were known to consume their initiators on occasion.

Zelda brought the chant ever closer to its conclusion. Her gestures became wider and somehow harsher even as her voice grew into a hateful shriek that seemed to echo endlessly like the world was joining their effort.

Hallucinations of flames sparked to life over the ritual circle. Though Malachi didn’t understand the symbology used, enough of his peers did that in their shared ritual he could see the truth of the intertwined and layered runes. The hole in the world would be burned away, it said. In the grip of the ritual, he believed it. A void could burn. It would burn. It was burning.

The power surged through Conflagration, twisting into a horrifying shape. Malachi no longer saw the sage. In his place was only a raging inferno that existed only to burn. Conflagration released the power of the ritual and the gash in the sky caught fire. Flames licked at the edges, drawing them closer together. The fires raged deeper within the tunnel outside of the universe, burning everything within. It would burn. It would all burn. It would –

The rift sealed, concluding the ritual.

Malachi, limbs shaking, turned to vomit the contents of his stomach. He felt horribly feverish in the aftermath of their working and being human shaped momentarily felt disorienting to him. He’d drained his energy reserves to below half of his capacity. Not good, but not as bad as he’d worried. In the moment, the psychological backlash of the ritual bothered him far more than the energy lost.

He’d never participated in one led by a classically trained ritualist using a sage as its focal point. The minor workings were a different experience entirely. It was usually just donating some energy. The ritual would feel like a subtle presence that gently followed the delineated paths. This one was a raging beast that infected Malachi’s very existence for a few moments. If it was up to him, he’d never be part of something like this again.

Maybe he should stop hanging out with the understudy of a sage.

One of the Jinn shuttles landed not far away from them and a couple of commandos rushed out, plasma rifles held at the ready. “Sirs! We’re evacuating the world now! Please come with us!”

Conflagration had been studying the absence of the rift with a moderate degree of interest, but he spun now. “Will Kevin be using antimatter?”

“Elliott volunteered to torch this world, sir. If you come with us, Kevin has an observation lounge where you can watch it from.”

The Sage of Conflagration seemed to grow taller. “I wish to see a world burn.”