Chapter 202: Tenth Circle [BONUS]

"We have to destroy the Span," Encrid said.

He said it before he had finished thinking it. It came out of him the way the numbers sometimes did, all at once.

Everyone on the rise turned to look at him.

They understood why Encrid was suggesting it.

Even if they escaped to the other side of the span, even if they managed to hold the horde back for now, the moment the Magus’s shield broke, the roamers would pour through.

Despite all their fighting and everything they had done to stop them, more than twenty thousand roamers were still alive. Once the shield fell, they would flood north and overwhelm everything in their path.

If they wanted to stop that from happening, there was only one way left.

They had to destroy the span.

"The Riven is three hundred feet deep and half a mile wide," Encrid said. "Nothing crosses it. Not the Roamers. Not the Elder. There’s only one way over it for thirty miles in either direction, and it’s the Span."

He pointed at the dark arch of stone behind them.

"If the Span is gone, the horde can’t follow us. They’d have to go around, and the nearest crossing is weeks away."

Gareth was frowning.

"The Span has stood for a thousand years," he said. "The Empire has tried to bring it down before. They brought barrels of black powder and it didn’t even crack the surface."

"Then we need something stronger than blackpowder."

Encrid turned to the Grand Magus.

The old man was already looking at the Span. He had been looking at it since Encrid said the word destroy. His face was very tired.

He sighed.

It was the longest sigh Encrid had heard him give yet.

"I was afraid you’d say that," he said. "The Span isn’t just stone," the Grand Magus said.

He walked to the southern edge of the rise, where he could see the whole arch, and he leaned on his stick and looked at it for a while.

"The deep-folk built it. They didn’t build things the way we do. They didn’t stack stones and hope they stayed up. They sang to the rock. They asked it to become a bridge, and the rock agreed." He shook his head. "And then they bound it. There’s old work woven all through that stone. Bindings on bindings. That’s why your Empire’s blackpowder didn’t do anything. The Span doesn’t want to fall."

"Can you break the bindings?" Encrid asked.

"I can." The old man’s voice was flat. "It would take a tenth circle spell."

Nobody on the rise said anything.

Encrid did not know much about magic beyond what he had read in the novel and what he had learned during his time at the Wall.

Mages and cultivators both drew upon Star Energy, but that was where most of their similarities ended.

Cultivators used their Stars directly. They strengthened their bodies, refined their Star Energy, and developed Skills that allowed them to shape that power according to their own nature. Their strength could be measured through Stars, Realms, and the Skills they had mastered.

Mages followed a different path.

They used magic circles to shape Star Energy into specific phenomena. A circle was not simply a measure of how much energy a mage possessed. It represented how complex a spell they could understand, construct, and control. The higher the circle, the more complicated the structure became, and the greater the amount of Star Energy required to maintain it.

A mage could spend years studying a single branch of magic and still struggle to advance to the next circle.

That was why most mages never went beyond the Fourth Circle.

Fifth Circle mages were already considered accomplished. Sixth and Seventh Circle mages were rare enough to earn positions of importance, while Eighth Circle mages were the kind of people whose names could be known throughout an entire country.

Gareth had told Encrid that there were only three mages in the entire Empire capable of casting Eighth Circle magic.

That alone told Encrid how absurdly rare advanced mages were.

The Ninth Circle was even more extraordinary.

And the Tenth Circle was not something people seriously discussed at all.

It belonged to legends, ancient records, and stories told by people who had never actually seen such magic.

Yet the man standing before them had just admitted that he could cast it.

"You can cast Tenth Circle magic?" Zuri asked slowly.

"I can."

The Grand Magus did not look pleased by the admission.

"It has serious aftereffects on my body. I probably won’t be able to get out of bed for a month afterward-"

Zuri interrupted him again.

"But you can do it."

"Of course, I can, who do you think I am?"

He turned around and looked toward the others.

"But there are three problems."

He held up a finger.

"The first problem is time. Tenth circle is not a thing you do by tapping a stick on the ground. It has to be casted verbally from beginning to end, without stopping, without a single mistake." He paused. "It takes a full minute."

A second finger.

"The second problem is the barrier. I can hold this barrier, or I can cast the tenth circle spell. I can’t do both. The moment I start speaking, the barrier comes down."

He looked north, at the horde, at the Elder pressing against the cracked gold.

"And when the barrier comes down, all of that comes straight at the Span."

"And the third problem?" Encrid asked.

The Grand Magus looked at him.

"The third problem," he said quietly, "is that when the spell falls, anything on the Span goes with it. Stone, Roamers, people. I won’t be able to choose. I won’t even be able to see. For one minute, I’ll be casting with my eyes shut and my whole mind on the words."

He let that sink in.

"So somebody has to stand at the northern end of the Span and stop the entire horde from crossing it for sixty seconds. And when the minute is up, they’ll still be standing on it."

? ? ?

No one spoke for a long time.

On the Span, the last of the column was crossing. Encrid could see Merta at the northern end, still counting. She held up her hand to him. Five fingers, closed into a fist, and open again.

Five hundred.

Fifteen minutes.

He looked at the barrier. The crack had reached the ground on both sides of the Elder now. The golden light around it was flickering.

Fifteen minutes. Perhaps.

Encrid turned back to the others.

Every face on the rise had turned toward the same person.

Ysolde Marr.

She was standing a little apart from them, looking at the Span. She had not said anything since the old man began talking. She did not look surprised that everyone was looking at her.

She had known they would.

She was the strongest person on the rise, except for the Grand Magus. She was a peak Grandmaster. She had held the Wall for nineteen years. If anyone could stand at the end of the Span for sixty seconds against the horde, it was her.

And everyone knew she would not walk off it again.

Ysolde turned around.

She looked at Zuri. At Gareth. At the Grand Magus.

Then at Encrid.

She opened her mouth.

"No," Encrid said.

Ysolde stopped.

"Not you," Encrid said. "You have three hundred men of the Second Watch on the other side of that bridge who have already lost the Wall. They don’t need to lose you too."

"Then who?" Ysolde said. Her voice was very quiet. "Sir Gareth? I admit that he is strong, but he won’t be able to stop them all. Your sister? Rael, with one hand?" She shook her head. "It has to be me."

"It doesn’t," Encrid said.

He took a breath.

"I’ll do it."

? ? ?

Thank you @Stingdragon for the Magic castle~