Chapter 833 – Two Hundred Miles an Hour

Ultimately, this book does need to cover the manipulation of magic through a living-catalyst basis. Sorcerers, and as mentioned before, they had to be sorcerers, can be communed with and then their bodies can be used as the outflow valve for the casting of magic. These are the single most effect, size wise, form of catalyst available.

Of course, it is a practice rarely studied, and one I have thought of manning several times. Although the will to ban is entirely personal, I simply do not want to grant Anassa even a modicum of influence over how the War College trains its mages. The real cause of the rarity is twofold: one, getting a sorcerer to submit is an incredibly difficult task and the subjects have to be willing, as a communion is entirely voluntary magic.

Two, although less common, burnouts are far more common: Both on the casting magician, who suddenly feels a massive gateway that he or she will immediately understand as a challenge, even if they are not capable of such magic. And on the side of the sorcerer, who is entirely at the whims of the magician as to not burn them from the inside out.

I myself typically force burnouts at a rate of one in two.

- Excerpt from “Magical Compendium, Volume Four.” Written before the Great War, by Goddess Elassa, of Magic.

Days of Rage, Hour 15

Anassa look down at Enoa, a port city, which handled inbound shipments for Pbeonix Nest on this side of the Eparika. The waters, after being mixed with the Alanktyda for the past couple of months and having a full crew still cleaning them, had gone from dark-grey-black slurry that resembled industrial waste into just the sad colourless grey of a lifeless sea. Enoa itself stood wide, the buildings all low and gleaming, a container ship docked in its port.

The local garrison was fighting still. Artillery had been brought in, a massive contingent of troops, probably the majority in the city, had secured a path and planted themselves on the rooftop balconies as they fired sporadic burst upwards to anything that approached the killzone. This city only had a meagre fifty angels, they would come back whenever a lucky hit brought another to the ground. But the airforce was going to assist Ilan, the navy had orders for orders more important locations, Alanktyda still could not send men into this poisonous waters, and the garrison number less than times the number.

Anassa snapped her fingers and red beams shot out from her, invisible thin, faint strings of sorcery that wove through the air and into the bodies of the flying invaders. And when they touched, they exploded, spikes ripping apart bodies from the inside, severing wind and limb.

The local garrison stopped fighting.

There was nothing to fight against.

And Anassa took another step on her long route to Arcadia.

Days of Rage, Hour 16

Elassa raised her hands into the air and cursed Fer once again for breaking her one of a kind whitewood staff. The thing had been an artefact of Eras which existed long before Elassa had even incarnated into the world, grown out of trees which no longer existed, with gemstones that no longer formed, in the confluences of leylines that had long since run dry and transferred their magics to other locations. It had been the only weapon of its kind, and it had been the only object that could allow the Goddess of Magic to channel at her full strength without the need for catalysts.

With the Skysplitter Greatsword slowly descending onto Arcadia, as the blade always did, Elassa wished she had pestered Arascus for more Catalyst research. Or that she raided the national museums of magic for their own artefacts. Or that she did something, anything, to prepare for this. Skysplitter sauntered towards the ground, pushing down winds as Elassa readjusted the half-sphere into a full bubble. The expenditure was greater, but a full bubble could have flows and circuits that looped in on themselves, rather than wrapped around.

A moment later, the lights in Arcadia went out. Water started leaking out of the ground where Elassa had just cut through plumbing and the wind within the sphere cut off. She had locked them in, the entire school would drop a centimetre when the barrier was let go, but that was better than letting Skysplitter pierce through the heart of this institution and then start humming with its waves.

A bead of sweat burst out over Elassa’s forehead. Not from the exertion of magical power in itself, but from the amount of control she had to use to monitor the catalysts in her rings. The fact gemstone on her neck was large enough that it could hold, but the small crystals in her rings, on the fine silver chains that wrapped around her hands, in her earrings, all started to flare.

Help could not come some enough.

Days of Rage, Hour 17

Anassa stared down at Ilmatia, getting closer to Gracja now. The Ilmatian, had taken ten minutes to cross by blinking, although Anassa was going at an angle. She was out of Rilia now, getting closer and closer to Arcadia. And this was another city on the list she had to clear out, even if there was not much clearing left to do. The place had been fortified during the Tartarian War. It, and the surrounding countryside, had been filled with sprawling bunkers.

Anti-air was already in position, establishing the first kill zone on this side of Arda. Artillery had dug in and the second kill zone, on the Paradeisian side, should be up although the camera drone tests had failed to provide any usable video on what the other side looked like. Anassa stared at the city for a few moments, she saw a few angels high in the sky, looking down at the city, unsure of what to do exactly. Getting too close meant dealing with anti-air meant for downing entire swarms of demons at once, but likewise, they couldn’t just stay up here forever.

And then, golden sets of eyes met Anassa’s crimson gaze, and the Goddess of Sorcery just smiled where she stood in the air. One hand came up, she didn’t even need to summon copies for such a small number. Crimson burst out from Anassa. Crimson burst out of the angels. And crimson bodies fell to the ground.

Days of Rage, Hour 18

Elassa groaned as the angels in the air swung their blades again and another wave of invisible shockwaves impacted upon the dome she had created. The Skysplitter, in itself, was possible to hold for an extended amount of time. Whatever creature wielded it, and whatever magic had been used to conjure the sword, if it even was a conjuration in the first place, could be stalled out. A Worldbreaking-Era Archmage could probably have achieved it, and Elassa was strong to split a Continent when she could unleash her power.

But when she did call Starfall upon Arika, that was a different thing entirely. She had forty live batteries, sorcerers, human material of the finest calibre. People so exposed to the magical world that their bodies were little more than doorways without doors. Here? She had flashing gemstones that had to be micromanaged to the finest point. A pair on her left hand already were charred, the gem turning black on the inside when Elassa had given them a sliver too much power. On her right hand, one ring had cracked, exploded, and the shard split and cut her finger.

From the sides of Arcadia, outside of the bubble, the defenders rallied again, calling up another storm. The number of angels had grown larger since Skysplitter had dropped. Totalling more than five-hundred, easily as large as the largest Choir or Host in the Great War. And more were coming out. They arranged themselves in walls, several working on deflecting the magic that was supposed to stop them, others still serving as magical flying artillery to assist the Skysplitter with breaching the shield.

Days of Rage, Hour 20

Elassa felt her legs being to wobble as she weaved thin threads of magic through needlepoints. The threads themselves had to be pulled out from her own power, then stabilized, then controlled, then made narrow even as they wanted to melt wide, and then they had to be forced through the catalysts at speeds not meant for any crystal that could be affixed to jewellery, not even the necklace’s great fat one that rested on her bosom.

If Elassa had to keep this up forever, she would lose. She could feel the catalysts starting to morph already. Gemstones should remain fixed in place, the study of atomics had taught her what a crystal looked like under the microscope. And yet, they still moved. But now, she barely even cared. Anassa, Goddess of Sorcery, her greatest achievement, was in the air.

And Anassa did not hold back. Where there was one Goddess, suddenly there were a dozen. Empty air was filled with crimson drawings of beast and weapon and environmental weather drawn over reality. Snowflakes shattered into swinging swords, lions launched long lances, their maws manifested more munitions. And where there had been six hundred angels, the number was cut by a third in a moment.

The battering of the Paradeisian onslaught ceased a moment later, only to be replaced by the falling of bodies onto the blue. Wings, chests, heads, faces, blades, everything that went into a shoulder, ripped apart by drawings. They raised a defensive barrier, Elassa felt the massive shift in the air as shields began to vibrate more than they did, but Anassa was already gone. Disappeared from where she stood in the air, all dozen copies of her.

The voice came from besides the Goddess of Magic. “Elassa. I’m here.”

Days of Rage, Hour 20

Anassa looked up at that massive blade, pressing itself into the shield above Arcadia, and then back at Elassa. Of Magic’s gemstones were pulsing wildly, wholly out of rhythm and rhyme as they tried to find any sort of steadiness in the streams that Elassa was weaving. “Are you out?” Anassa asked, turning up to that massive blade. Could they hold it together?

“I’m not out.” Elassa groaned, sweat beading out of her forehead, her dressing hanging loose in this still, solid half-sphere that flexed and bent under the battering of artillery, both Imperial and Paradeisian under the sheer weight of the Skysplitter Greatsword. “HOLD IT WITH ME!” Anassa raised her hands, and caught the magic, and amplified it with her own sorcery, and knew she made no difference. It was pouring water and oil into the same beaker. The best she could magic was generating her own barrier, a microscopic distance away.

Moral support, that was the best she could do. “Swap with me.” Anassa said. “I’ll hold it.”

“Do we have support?” Elassa barked the question in a tone that Anassa had not heard for almost two thousand years. That was the sort of righteous rage that inspired people to learn magic in the first place.

“I don’t know.” Anassa replied, still holding her barrier. She would ask for anything stupid, like asking Elassa to open a hole in the barrier so that she could command just that one section. But likewise, the sheer wall of magic would cut off her own sorcery from being able to act.

“Alla? Iri?” Elassa called out. The answer going to be no, and if it was yes, then it would be hours ahead. And that was far too long a time to hold with the situation here. They needed a solution. A catalyst that could hold Elassa’s power. They needed… They needed sorcerers. Real human batteries to channel uninhibited. And there were none…

But there was one. Anassa looked down at her own hands. It had never been done before. They had theorized, long ago, but neither the Goddess of Sorcery nor the Goddess of Magic was willing to brave channelling Divine power through a Divine. The target on their back after the display of power would have been too much to handle, it was an effective binding back then. To be together, forever and ever.

And then, for a moment, Anassa felt something else. It was a disgusting little thing, a cold little flame that tried to incinerate all it touched, the fact it succeeded was even worse: Fear. Complete and total and paralyzing fear. Anassa’s shield of moral support dropped after a second and Elassa groaned. “Anaaaaa…..” The name trailed off into a teacher catching a misbehaving adult.

The decision had to be undertaken though. Elassa could do it. Anassa knew she could. She had not trained under this Goddess all those years ago just to watch the woman give up now. They had not broken rules of magic and sorcery and sent both arts into such a golden age together that Arda decided to stop needing technological advancement for a thousand years. Elassa could do it. Anassa could withstand the current. It had to be done. To prove that it could. That Divinity could be used as a channel for Divinity.

Anassa grabbed Elassa’s hand. “Channel through me.”