Magical Soul Parade

A wide grin colored Finn’s face as Himothy, the Glory Bearer, bellowed his declaration into the freezing air:

“Your charge ends here!”

The moment those words were spoken, reality itself trembled. Himothy’s right fist became a sudden focal point in the world, glowing with a dense, golden authority. It was as if the laws of nature had rewritten themselves to dictate that his hand was the definitive weapon meant to bring those words to life. The conceptual weight of the universe bent toward him, ensuring the Error Bearer’s momentum would be forcibly broken.

But just as the words were spoken, Finn’s descending form dragged to a furious stop in mid-air. Two large, sprawling wings erupted from his shoulders, slicing through the air to grind his meteor-like momentum to an immediate halt. These were his Ferropteryx wings. They gleamed like polished metal blades under the bleak, snowy sky, humming and groaning furiously as they caught the wind and anchored to a stop him in the sky.

Finn had intentionally completed the total cessation of his movement just yards before the incoming fist could reach him. And Himothy’s eyes widened as he instantly understood the trick Finn had played.

By uttering the decree that the Error Bearer’s charge would end, Himothy had tethered his power to a specific outcome. Finn had simply chosen to fulfill that outcome on his own terms before the fist could connect. He had ended his own charge willingly. In doing so, he technically satisfied the condition of the declaration, severely limiting the absolute destructive force the Glory Bearer’s fist would have otherwise delivered.

Of course, the exact definition of “charge” that Himothy had intended differed entirely from what Finn had just done. But in a high pace battle like this where declarations were made, definitions were malleable because there was no time for precise water-tight specificity.

It was what led to this outcome, where Finn’s quick reaction had thoroughly dampened the blow. Even if the fist landed now, the inevitable, crushing effect Himothy had anticipated would no longer manifest.

By the time Finn reached a complete standstill in the air, his grin had turned entirely smug, and Himothy’s expression grew livid. Unable to abort the momentum of his own strike, he brought his fist forward, punching straight at the stationary figure hovering above the peak.

Finn raised his forearms, crossing them to block the incoming strike head-on. His crimson Fist Tyrant soul mass flared to life in tandem with the Ferropteryx wings already active, coating his limbs with a hardened defense of pure soul energy.

The Glory Bearer’s fist struck the crossed arms with a deafening, metallic crack that echoed across the mountain ranges. The sheer physical power of the blow sent Finn’s body shuttling backward, rocketing further up into the gloomy skies like a displaced missile.

Yet, as Finn soared backward through the clouds, his guard remained perfectly intact. Both he and Himothy knew that the hit was entirely empty. The strike had carried a tremendous amount of physical weight, but it had failed to achieve its true, definitive purpose. The concept had been bypassed, and the second exchange had yet again belonged to the Errant.

Himothy forged forward continuously, refusing to let Finn have any reprieve at all. He intended to follow up immediately and continue pounding him into the upper atmosphere, but the moment he charged, he saw a dark mass spread out across the sky before him.

The individual components of the dark mass were incredibly tiny, practically imperceptible to the naked eye. However, the Glory Bearer’s heightened senses picked them up nonetheless. To his vision, the sky suddenly became filled with countless distinct flecks of microscopic soul masses, and he instantly went on high alert.

He’d heard about this from Seer’s report. Apparently it was the same soul mass Finn had used to dominate the battle at the new soul Sanctum, enabling him to break into the barrier they had placed around it back then.

Himothy frowned. He had expected Finn to call upon his wolf soul mass. At least if it were the wolf, he had a clear counter and knew exactly how to dismantle it. But this was something entirely outside his expectations. Even with the report from Seer, the exact mechanics of the powers of the microscopic swarm still remained vague.

Not knowing how to react to them, Himothy immediately shifted onto the defensive, bracing his aura to see what tactical effect the little things would have as they drew near.

Far below the aerial clash, Casmir, the Space Transcendent, also moved into action. Cutting through space with precise bursts, he headed straight for the Error Bearer, who was still shuttling backward into the upper reaches of the sky. His spatial jumps allowed him to entirely bypass the cloud of the Collective that Finn had left behind to stall Himothy, bringing him within striking distance in seconds.

But Finn was not done. Immediately after releasing the Collective to tie down the Glory Bearer, he summoned Syf. The towering figure of the obsidian black wolf materialized out of his shadows, her massive form shifting smoothly against the bleak sky.

She lunged directly downward at the Space Transcendent, her fur cracking with purple lightning. However, seeing her charging down at him, Casmir only snorted. Did Finn really think a beast soul mass was enough to stop a legend of space? The matchup was entirely tilted in his favor!

He prepared a specialized spatial slash, intending to cleanly cleave the wolf in two.

But before the blade of compressed space could leave his hand, two figures emerged from the clouds behind Finn. It was the two Anaelle space fragment holders, Madoc and Osmund. Casmir looked at them and sneered, watching as his cleaving attack on Syf was caught and utterly nullified by their combined spatial distortion.

He roared, his voice shaking the atmosphere. “Is this all you have, Finn?! Using pieces of my own fragments to fight against me?! Did you think mere slivers of my power could ever be greater than the whole?!”

With a violent, grasping motion, Casmir drew both Madoc and Osmund toward his position, actively tugging on the greater spatial fragments they bore inside their souls. The two Anaelle’s eyes widened in shock as their bodies moved involuntarily across the sky without their consent.

To them, it felt as though Casmir was a massive, roaring star and they were simply stray meteors being dragged back home, helpless against the gravity that sought to consume them.

But the moment they were pulled into close proximity and their forms made contact with Casmir’s outstretched hand, a jarring sensation rippled through space. A violent, conceptual recoil flung Casmir’s hand backward, forcing his eyes to widen in extreme shock.

“A clause?” he muttered, staring at his trembling fingers.

The extraction should have been seamless. Pulling his own soul fragments out of Madoc and Osmund should have been a clean, instantaneous merging, yet it had been forcibly halted at the very last second.