Chapter 165: ERIZERH

Chapter 165: Chapter 165: ERIZERH

Ifrith looked down at him with a faint, almost pitying interest.

"Then he’s weaker than I thought."

Valerath coughed violently. The pressure of the forest, the ancient, rejecting weight of it, pressed down on him from above, and Ifrith’s aura pressed down from the front, and between the two he could not draw a full breath. His vision swam.

Ifrith appeared in front of him.

BOOM!

His foot caught Valerath under the ribs and sent him flying backward. The supreme general skipped across the forest floor, plowing through brush, and before he could stop, Ifrith was beside him.

Another kick. The impact whipped him sideways into a tree, which exploded.

Then another. Ifrith was a blur, flickering between footfalls, driving the general through the forest like a ball between two players. Valerath tried to raise his arms to block, but his arms were never where the blows landed. He couldn’t even defend himself. He couldn’t even see his attacker.

Ifrith finally stopped. He caught Valerath by the throat in mid-air and hauled him back to the earth.

He dragged him through the forest.

Every tree he passed began to die. The trunks blackened. The canopy overhead went dark. Spirits poured away from him in all directions, flickering lights fleeing into the deepest reaches of the wood, as though even they understood that a being of greater power walked amongst them.

Ifrith stopped in a clearing and lifted Valerath into the air by the neck. The general’s feet kicked uselessly.

Then Ifrith threw him upward.

Valerath rose through the broken canopy, spinning, past the highest branches and into open sky. Dark clouds were gathering overhead. They had formed out of nothing, boiling together in a ring directly above the clearing, black at the center and edged with violet. Lightning crackled between them.

Ifrith raised his hand.

His voice was calm.

"Eternal Void."

The clouds opened, and a single bolt of black lightning descended.

It was not like any lightning Valerath had ever seen. It had no glow, a line cut out of the world, and where it fell, everything near it seemed to lean toward it.

BOOM!

It struck Valerath in the chest.

The Supreme Demon General had time to open his mouth. Then he was simply gone. The bolt faded, and a few drifting flakes of ash fell slowly through the clearing.

Ifrith stared at them for a moment.

"You’re surely weaker than I thought."

He lowered his hand.

"The demons of this world have become weaker than they were back then."

Far away, on the balcony of the Imperial Academy, Theon watched.

His eyes were fixed on the distant column of smoke rising from the forest. His hands had gone cold around the railing.

*I knew he was strong.* He said. *But I never knew he had this much power.

In the clearing, Ifrith turned his head, as though he had felt the look, and found the small figure on the balcony far across the plain. His expression softened.

Master...

Master...

Master...

When will you see the true potential of the power within you?

He could feel Theon’s aura even from there, a thin, bright thread of pressure stretching across the miles. It brushed against him like a hand on his chest.

Even from this distance, your aura is enough to make me choke sometimes.

Ifrith sighed.

Then he looked toward the plain, where a second battle was still going on. Silver was fighting the seven generals at the edge of the forest. Or, more accurately, she was playing with them.

She had moved through them like a dancer through a crowded sky. One general lay curled around a fist-sized crater in his own breastplate. Another was pinned to a tree by his own sword. A third had lost his horns. They kept getting up and kept coming. Silver kept stepping out of the way at the last possible moment, her hair barely stirring.

"Are you done playing with them?" Ifrith called.

Silver glanced back. She smiled, bright and unbothered, like a child interrupted at a game.

"All right."

She rose into the sky, higher and higher, until the seven generals and their scattered soldiers were small dark shapes below her. The wind at that altitude whipped her hair across her face. She brushed it aside.

"It’s time to end this."

She lifted her hand toward the clouds.

"ERIZERH Twist: Crystalline."

The world froze.

It started at her fingertips and ran outward in a ring, a wave of white that raced across the plain, across the forest edge, across the whole field of battle. Where it passed, everything stopped. Banners turned to ice. Swords turned to ice. The seven generals went rigid mid-motion, a layer of frost racing up their legs, across their torsos, over their faces, and sealing their open mouths. The army behind them went the same way, rank after rank of frozen soldiers standing like statues in the glittering light.

For a single breath, the whole field was perfectly silent.

CRACK!

The sound came from everywhere at once. Hairline fractures raced across the ice, and the bodies inside them shattered like glass. Thousands of pieces. They fell in a bright, ringing rain that chimed softly as it hit the ground.

Silver descended, her boots touching the frozen earth without a sound. Ice crystals scattered from her shoulders as she landed.

Ifrith had arrived at her side. He looked at the glittering ruin, then at her.

"Why didn’t you end the fight sooner?"

Silver shrugged. "What would be the fun in that?"

She smiled, but her emotions were measuring.

"I wanted to see how powerful the demons of this realm are."

Ifrith looked at the remains scattered across the plain. He sniffed.

"They aren’t even as powerful as my expectations."

Silver nodded. "I agree."

A presence suddenly approached from behind them, steady and unthreatening, and Ifrith turned, his hand drifting toward his side.

The Headmaster landed beside them, robes settling, rod resting lightly against his shoulder. Ifrith narrowed his eyes.

The Headmaster raised both hands, palms open.

"Don’t worry." He smiled, mild and tired. "I already told your Master that I won’t harm anyone ever again."

Ifrith studied him for a long moment. Then he sighed.

"Fine."

He turned and flew back toward the academy. Silver followed, and the Headmaster came after them, and the three of them crossed the open plain in the pale light of the dying beam.

They landed on the balcony together.

Theon was waiting. He had not moved from his spot. He looked at Ifrith, at the dust still clinging to his coat. Then at Silver, still shaking frost from her sleeves.

He looked at her for a while.

"I thought you said you couldn’t cast powerful spells quickly."

Silver’s expression stiffened.

"Actually..." She looked away. A faint flush crept up her ears. "I was holding back."

Theon stared at her.

Then he turned his head and looked at Ifrith.

"Both of you."

He crossed his arms over his chest. It would have been funny, the stern little prince in his rumpled clothes, if either of them had felt like laughing.

"I have some explanations to demand."

Ifrith bowed his head at once.

"Understood, Master."

At that moment, the chamber door opened. Cryvathar and Seraphina stepped out onto the balcony.

Cryvathar’s gaze moved across the group. It landed on the Headmaster and stayed there. His eyes contracted, slow and dangerous.

Theon noticed.

"It’s fine, Cryvathar."

Cryvathar held the stare for another heartbeat. Then he looked away. Seraphina, standing a half-step behind him, did the same.

"The ancient elf won’t hurt anyone anymore," Theon said.

Several meters off, near the far edge of the balcony, the dragon girl stood alone.

She had been watching everything in silence. Her arms were folded tight against her chest, and her face betrayed almost nothing. But behind her eyes, her thoughts were running fast.

*There are still beings capable of catastrophic destruction in this world.*

She looked at Ifrith. Then at Silver. Then at the Headmaster.

And somehow, they are all around that boy.

Theon turned toward Lyra.

"Lyra," he began. "I want to—"

BOOM!

The word never finished.

A massive aura erupted from Theon’s body.

It exploded outward in a ring, hurling loose papers off the table, shattering every glass in the chamber. Green and red. The two colors tore out of him in spirals, twisting around each other, climbing into the air, dyeing the clouds above the academy in streaks of jade and crimson.

Cryvathar’s spiritual form was ripped out of the air in mid-step. It streamed backward, a rope of light, and was dragged into Theon’s chest. He didn’t even have time to cry out.

Then NIVARETH shot out of Theon’s sheath.

The sword hung above his head, blade pointed down, spinning slowly. Its edge hummed.l and everyone froze.

Theon’s body began to glow, the green and red light bleeding from his skin, wrapping him in a coat of fire. His hair lifted. The stones under his feet cracked.

The pressure came down all at once.

Ifrith dropped to one knee before the sound of it had finished. His fist hit the stone. A heartbeat later Silver followed, forehead nearly touching the ground. The Headmaster was forced to his knees. The dragon girl bowed, her hair falling around her shoulders. Seraphina lowered herself to the stone, trembling.

Even Captain Voss, who had been standing near the balcony door with his sword half-drawn, was crushed under it. His knees buckled. He hit the floor, one hand slamming flat on the stone to hold himself up.

*What is this power?*

He could not lift his head. He could barely breathe.

Theon began to float.

His feet left the ground. His small body rose, slow and graceful, until he hung in the air at the center of the swirling aura. And then his body changed.

His small figure grew. His limbs lengthened. His shoulders broadened. The child’s face sharpened into the lines of a young man, and his ten-year-old body transformed into that of an adult. His clothes stretched and reshaped themselves around the new frame.

His eyes opened.

One was green. The other was red.

But those eyes were not Theon’s.