Chapter 56: The God of Magic Returns

Sen closed his eyes. He had to work, and he needed to act quickly.

“Obscure Sight. Obscure Zone. Seal History. Seal Zone. Hidden Truth. Forbid Scan. Ultimate Authority over Domain. Evidence Destruction. Forbid Tracking. Peerless Barrier. False Memory. Wave of Chaos.” He uttered one spell after another, filtering them through his cloak and Malleore rather than using Maximizers. Haste was of the essence. Even if the other gods became aware of his presence in this world, he could still move in secret. 

He knew almost nothing about his counterparts. But they had entire textbooks, courses, and scholars dedicated to the study of his work. These people had risen to godhood at a time when the System allowed far more growth than it had him. If they realized his identity, there was a good chance they would band together hoping to eliminate him. Especially after he’d just erased a god from existence. Even if that god had been killed halfway once before. He’d just set a clock into motion, and he needed to get far away from here before anyone of significance came to investigate. 

That was what made the newcomers’ appearance so troublesome. 

Sen turned as a mass of flesh suddenly surrounded Tatter’s body. It rose into the air until it took the form of a towering flesh golem. Sen sighed. This was beginning to annoy him.

Tatter

When his eyes opened, he was surrounded by a dark, wet mound of flesh. He gasped for air, but realized he could breathe just fine. Though he couldn’t move very well at all. He looked around, his eyes scrambling to find a way out. He froze when he heard a voice. 

“Tatter, how are you doing?” Marrow asked.

Relief washed over him. “Master Marrow! I need your help! That boy…he’s a monster. He…he erased Harpis, but I still have his power. Together, the two of us can get revenge!” Tatter said. “I just need your help to get out of here.”

Marrow leaned over Tatter’s shoulder to look down at him. “Why would I help you? Our masters are enemies.”

Tatter blinked. “What?” 

Marrow laughed. “You never wondered who would be powerful enough to grant you the ability to bring your god back? Who could force the God of Demons to make a contract with weaklings like you? Tatter, my boss is the one who killed your god.”

Marrow had an odd sense of humor, and now really wasn’t the time. “Harpis died four hundred years ago…a mere human could not…” He turned to look at Marrow. A memory of a man with black hair and a long trench coat filled his mind. “Who…” 

“Harpis was inside your head, wasn’t he? You have some of his memories. Do you see the man in his last moments? The man with black hair? That’s my god. He killed Harpis. He wiped out your cult. Now, centuries later, he’s using both of you to get what he wants. Again. It’s kind of poetic if you think about it?”

Tatter ripped his hands free and held the sides of his head. “No…I’ll kill you. I’ll end you!”

Marrow sucked his teeth. “No, you’re about to become a flesh golem. Even if that guy out there didn’t kill you, I planned to. I wanted to see what would happen if I turned the avatar of a god into a golem. A lot of my peers are so much stronger than me. It’s frustrating, ya know? But with this? Well, that won’t be a problem for me anymore. Don’t fight it, just become my pet, alright?” Marrow’s face shifted, and he turned to look outside. “What’s he doing?” 

Sen

He could feel the powerful combination of avatar and flesh golem forming. Whoever this newcomer was, he’d lost his mind if he thought he could act as he pleased. Their time on this cursed island was ending. It seemed this Marrow didn’t get the message. Still, Sen allowed it to go on a little longer for the sake of eavesdropping. He’d at least gotten some interesting information out of it. 

He took hold of his elementless shell artifact. Then he turned his attention to Tutor. “I have an unused reward I’d like to claim. One of my elemental magic spheres, I’d like a stone element one, please.”

[Stone? Feels like a waste…but alright.]

A moment later, an elemental sphere made of pure rock appeared in his hand. Sen held the shell up to it, transferring the element into it. Then he walked up and pressed it against the still-forming, giant monstrosity of a flesh golem. 

Flesh wasn’t technically an element. But it was being used as one here, so in theory…

The artifact activated. He placed the shell on the empty magic sphere while he waited. The glass sphere suddenly shifted, full of flesh element. He didn’t need to appraise it to know he’d just created a high-grade or better flesh element sphere. And…he already wanted this out of his possession as soon as humanly possible. The surface of the sphere wriggled. 

With that disturbing sight still etched in his mind, he watched as the Flesh Golem twisted and contorted, trying to free itself. But it couldn’t free itself from its magical nature. Which was now stone. The writhing wall of flesh slowly petrified, starting from its core and spreading in either direction. 

Tatter screamed. Sen felt not a single pang of pity. He hoped the process was anything but pleasant. But his attention shifted toward Marrow. The man who pried himself free from the creature’s neck and jumped down. “Well, there goes that.” He smiled and waved. A glass portal opened in front of him, and he half stepped through with surprising quickness. 

Sen held a hand up. “Fireball Maxima.” 

The portal shattered, but the man had already stepped through. That was annoying. He turned his attention to the now completed stone flesh golem statue. Orttha and Ilm hurried over. “Master Sen!” Ilm cried out, throwing her arms around him. Orttha placed a hand on his shoulder. 

“That was…incredible,” the librarian said. They turned in unison as Sen’s replica joined them. He’d discreetly called it over. 

“Milim,” he called out to her directly in her dreams. 

Her eyes opened, and she blinked in surprise when she saw two Sens. “What?” Her eyes turned to Ilm, and they grew wider. “Three?” She shook her head. “Ilm! Sen! And…no, this one still looks like Sen,” she said, looking up at the replica. She lowered her legs to stand on her own, but stumbled. Sen, the real Sen, reached forward and caught her. The replica smiled and waved and then returned to mana. 

Milim took a minute to process that. “Does anyone else feel that? It’s like a…”

“Calling,” Sen said.

Milim nodded. 

Sen’s temporal world opened, and something he’d hoped to give her for a while floated out on its own. Milim’s staff. The one he’d been working on when Brightsail Academy had been invaded. 

He didn’t need to tell her to reach out and take it; she did so by instinct. When she did, her eyes widened, and the bond was completed. “Where did you get this?” she asked.

Orttha and Ilm looked just as fascinated by the high-grade magic weapon. 

“I made it for you. I’m sorry I couldn’t give it to you sooner.”

Milim laughed at that. “Yeah, well, I’ve been busy.”

Sen chuckled. He turned and spread his awareness throughout the castle. There were still cultists lingering. He would deal with them on the way out. For now, Sikar and the others were still outside, and from what he could sense, they were on their last legs. He turned to Milim. “How about we try it out? That new weapon of yours.”

Sikar 

He slammed his staff into a cultist in front of him. Blood splatter filled the air. Behind him Girch lumbered through the portal. He wasn’t the first. They were all reaching their limits. He’d started sending them back to avoid risking anyone dying. Now, only he, Laurette, and Mori remained. 

A blast of energy from behind erased a bombardment of magical attacks and turned charging cultists and demons to dust. Mori approached from behind and put a hand on Sikar’s shoulders. “The two of you should head back now. I’ll hold the line until they finish up.”

Sikar evaluated himself. Was he too weak to still be an asset here? No, he didn’t think so. But he was close. Laurette would stay regardless. That woman didn’t know when to quit. 

“Not a chance,” she said simply. 

Mori nodded. “I understand. From this moment forward, I won’t be able to resurrect anyone. I’m at my limit as well. But let’s do our best until the others return. Shall we?” 

Laurette’s blade fell to the ground. Sikar looked at her, alarmed. At first, he thought she was injured, but then he followed her gaze. In the air above the castle floated two figures. One was clad in white robes with golden trim. His robes rippled as if the wind was breezing through them. Long white hair poured out on either side, and the man’s face was obscured by his hood. Beside him floated a woman with a grand staff filled with power. It was covered in a pink aura, so he couldn’t quite make it out. She too wore a robe; hers was a vibrant pink, and it was covered in stars. A hood protected her face as well. “Who is that?” Sikar asked.

The cultists and demons turned. The cultists raised their hands. Some in terror, some in worship. A pit formed in Sikar’s stomach. “Is that…Harpis?” he asked.

He turned to look at Laurette but noticed Mori smiling. “I don’t believe it is.” 

The demons fled in droves. They hurried toward the ocean as if they could swim away from this new threat. Whoever this figure was, it terrified them. But with the wave of a hand from the floating man in white, the ocean rose and formed a wall all around the island. Then the woman in pink moved. She waved her staff and pointed it toward the battlefield. In the night sky above, a shooting star shot by. The demons and cultists stumbled on their feet. And then they fell.

“She killed them…all?” Laurette asked in disbelief. 

Sikar hurried forward as fast as he dared. He didn’t want to invoke the wrath of these beings, whoever they were. The nearest cultist was still breathing. He turned to look back at Laurette and Mori. “They’re asleep.”

The man in white held his hands out toward them. A sense of dread washed over Sikar. He closed his eyes, preparing for death. He only hoped Sen and the others would make it out somehow.

“Absolute Eviction Maxim.” 

Sikar felt a shift. When no pain followed, he slowly opened his eyes and found himself in the forest. Behind him, the portal had closed. Laurette was only a few feet away. He shook his head in disbelief. The being had sent them off the island unharmed. That was…unexpected. 

They weren’t the only ones. He saw others. Alari, Dasai, Snake, all the missing students were suddenly in the forest around him. Had that being somehow gathered all of them at once and sent them off the island? How was that possible? What was going on? 

Sen

With Harpis dead, and his own authority usurping the castle, he’d been able to send everyone off the island at once. At least, the people he wanted to save. The students and faculty were safe now. The only ones remaining on the island were the cultists, the demons, Mori, Milim, and him. 

Milim turned to him and laughed. “I’ve never felt such power before,” she said. She twirled her staff in her hand. “How did you make this, Sen?” She was so enamored with the staff she’d already forgotten how scared she’d been when he’d floated them at first. But it was worth the entrance. Below, Mori waved ecstatically to him. 

Sen nodded. “Milim, let’s go home.” She smiled, and he willed their descent. It was a short walk to the portal when they landed. 

Mori lowered his head. “I trust everything went well?”

Sen nodded. “It did. We’ll debrief when we get back.”

Milim stepped up to the portal, but hesitated.

He sighed. “Go on ahead. I need to close this as I move through to make sure the portal is sealed for good.”

Milim nodded. She turned and walked through the portal. He cast a spell to turn her robes back into her usual school uniform. 

Mori watched her, then turned back. “Do you require assistance?” he asked. 

“No, I’ll handle it.”

Mori bowed, disappearing into the portal without a word. 

Sen turned and faced the sleeping enemies on the battlefield. He cast his senses over the castle, and on the cultists that had escaped via boats and demons who were trying to swim away. The ones who’d been out of range of Milim’s powerful mass dream decay spell. He sensed the man in black robes who had escaped, hiding in a safe room in the depths of the castle. The one Tatter had called Marrow. Good. One less loose end to deal with later. 

“Judgement Decree Maxima,” he said. “Condition - has killed a human, or willingly partook in actions that led to the death of a human. Has involved themselves in the kidnapping of human beings. Has involved themselves in the harm of human beings.” 

[All targets have met at least one of these conditions.] Tutor said, analyzing the mass of information the spell had taken in seconds. It was one of the two final spells that Sen would cast before returning his cloak to his temporal world. 

The second he could now cast without regret. A spell he hadn’t used since his fight with Garlon. “Heaven Fall - Conditional Annihilation-Maxima,” he said. 

A giant white hex encompassed everyone present on the island, and those who’d escaped into the sea. It extended well beyond them as well, at least a mile in either direction. It would pass harmlessly through any living being that hadn’t met the conditions he’d set. But for those who did meet them, there was no longer any hope of survival. He watched as the beam slammed into the earth, and through its blinding white light he saw the Cult of Harpis and the demons that had fought alongside them annihilated. Hundreds dead. His temporal world opened of its own volition, and his clothes returned to his academy uniform. When he stepped through the glass pane portal behind him and into the forest where everyone waited, he was Sen Locke again.

But a secret was out. The other gods of this time now knew the God of Magic walked among them.