Magical Soul Parade

Himothy cursed one more time in visible frustration. A sentiment that was shared by the dark-skinned, white-haired priestess behind him, who was watching with an equal, and perhaps even greater rage in her eyes. The rest of the Ossuary’s major forces — Nocturne, Storm, the Elara vessel, Ailin, and Seer, all watched with varying expressions, but a shared feeling of terrified awe and trepidation was visible on their faces.

Finally, in the distance, the combined output of the Transcendents bore fruit. The incoming sphere of blackness slowed to an absolute crawl under the relentless bombardment of conceptual magic. It reached its maximum threshold of stabilization, shaking violently before collapsing inward upon its own center.

A moment later, it detonated, releasing a massive but completely neutralized wave of raw kinetic force. The shockwave rocked the earth, sending a fierce, biting gust of wind tearing across the plains and whipping the hair and clothes of the Ossuarists at the battlelines about.

Once the snow in the air settled, Himothy, along with every single Ossuarist on the Ossuary’s side, sucked in cold breaths.

For countless miles leading back to the original boundary of the world tear, a massive chasm now scarred the face of the planet. It was nearly a hundred meters deep and over a mile wide, looking as though a titan had slammed a cosmic blade straight into the crust of the world.

Sue hovered in the air, her chest heaving as she fought to regulate her breathing. She felt an overwhelming, deep-seated weariness settling into her soul after nearly a full minute of continuous, uninhibited burning of her soul energy reserves.

“He has won the opening act,” she heard Casmir say, his voice dropping into a solemn, heavy cadence. He looked toward the stretching chasm with a weary gaze. “If his power was somehow not able to strike terror into the hearts of our soldiers, then this will do the work for him. It is more than enough to kill whatever confidence they were holding onto.”

Sue couldn’t even manage a reply. She simply stared down at the impossible canyon Finn had carved with a single invocation, unable to comprehend how a single human entity could possess such destructive authority.

“And now the second act has begun,” a gruff, low voice vibrated through the air. Sue blinked in surprise, realizing it was the Soul Transcendent who had spoken, his voice marking the very first time he had broken his silence since their gathering.

But before she could process the rarity of the moment, a distant, high-pitched whine reached her ears. It sounded like a localized tear in the atmosphere, rapidly increasing in volume and intensity as if something blisteringly fast was plunging toward them from the upper reaches of the sky.

“Above us!” Casmir barked, his voice sharp with warning. The entire party of Transcendents looked up in unison.

High in the gloomy, overcast sky, thousands of tiny, glowing dots began to break through the dark clouds, puncturing holes in it like a sieve with their many numbers.

“So he brought an army after all,” Lyris growled, her fiery aura flaring back to life as she watched the sea of stars begin their rapid descent toward the battlefield far behind them, riding upon an array of specialized flying artifacts.

“Hold your positions!” Casmir barked. “The main threat is still incoming!”

His gaze darted through the falling mass of black figures. The true target, the Error Bearer himself, was still hidden from sight, but the piercing whine of the descent had grown loud enough that they knew he was near.

And right on cue, a massive, obsidian dragon head sliced through the heavy cloud cover from an incredibly steep angle. It moved with such tremendous velocity that it looked as though it had been dropped directly from space itself.

Casmir’s eyes widened to their limits as Ryuga’s colossal form closed the distance in the blink of an eye, bringing a terrifying wave of kinetic momentum with it.

“Move!” He screamed, using his space magic to flash away from his position. The rest of the Transcendents scattered in every direction, clearing the airspace to avoid the meteor-like momentum of the beast.

By all the laws of physics, the massive black dragon should have driven itself straight into the ground given its extreme speed. Instead, the beast performed an impossible, graceful maneuver, banking sharply just a few dozen feet above the earth. Its long, serpentine body followed the abrupt angular shift like an eel in water.

Then, taking advantage of the opening the scattered Transcendents had provided, Ryuga reared his massive head back, his jaws splitting open to reveal a brilliant, blinding light. He belched a terrifying beam of pure, white-hot flame directly toward the wide-open wall of ice guarding the mountain passes in the far distance.

“No!” Casmir roared. He forced his exhausted soul to move, cutting through the spatial fabric in a series of rapid, successive bursts. He materialized directly above the grand wall of ice a split second before the beam could impact the structure.

In the same exact moment, he employed a use of his spatial ability, creating a singularity that swallowed the attack whole. But it was not without a cost on his already low reserves. The attack had been so fast and so energy dense that cutting it off had cost him more soul energy than he’d intended.

He grit his teeth and forced himself to look away from the dragon, which was now being swarmed by the other Transcendents who had recovered their composure. His eyes frantically swept the darkened sky, searching for the singular mastermind behind the entire assault:

The Errant.

There! Among the many black figures coming down from the sky, he spotted a different, blisteringly fast figure shooting towards the mountain peak with absolute intent.

A thunderous roar shook the entire valley as a figure from the summit launched himself into the open air to meet the descent. Himothy’s voice boomed across the peaks, thick with rage and challenge as he swung his fist upward.

“Finnegan Slade!”