Chapter 95 (2 of 2) - Grand Spell: The Dearth of Darkness (Patreon)

I'm very sorry. I made a ton of promises about how I'd get back into my writing habits, and then covid hit. I'm trying.

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Everything went pitch black.

...that actually wasn’t a direct effect of the Grand Spell, ‘Dearth of Darkness’. While it was certainly a result of it, that was neither the goal nor the intention, and a normal location wouldn’t be plunged into darkness by the spell.

They were, however, miles underground in a room lit up by only artificial mana lamps, where even the sparse electric equipment was powered by mana. No natural light existed. That was why the entire building went dark.

Because Lucille had just cast a spell to absorb and steal away the mana and power of everything in the facility. A Dearth... because of Darkness.

Especially for the wizards, who were now defenceless.

“Blighted staff, activate by Tartarus!” the head wizard roared. “Wizard Solus, what happened to your Star Orb spell?!”

“It-it disappeared, sir!” a voice replied in the darkness. “My mana is being drained and every time I try to cast a-” In the pitch black, a small spark of light manifested for a brief second but was whisked away into the ground. “See! It disintegrates!”

“It’s the same for me!” a third voice yelled.

“And me!” another echoed.

Lucille pointed ahead as the wizards struggled to recover. “Scytale, it’s your time to shine. Activate your Brilliant Beacon bloodline spell.”

There was silence. She turned to look at her bond, able to see him with her spiritual energy. “Scytale?”

“A pun?! Really?!” he replied, looking aghast.

“Scytale, if you don’t hurry up and change form, it’s possible that none of us will ever see the light of day again,” she replied calmly.

“I’m not a flashlight,” he grumbled, but the rumbling of the ground alerted them to him changing into his massive serpent form. The sound of his scales sliding across the smooth stone floor made the wizards go into frenzied panic, and many of them stumbled over their long robes in the dark.

Scytale snuck up behind them and grew to his Primal Descendent size, the room large enough for him to even flare his wings. The wizards froze as soft hissing was heard behind them.

Then the amphiptere’s silver body gleamed and his Colossus Armament wings let out brilliant light. “Boo!”

The weaker wizards screamed with fright once they saw the massive magical beast behind them, and bumped into the others. The fifteen wizards total all bundled up together, several attempting to activate defensive artifacts. Some of them even worked, but Lucy narrowed her eyes and flicked up a finger.

The misty darkness pooling around their feet swirled faster and faster, a perpetual whirlpool of disappearing mana. Their artifacts’ light flickered and died. Everyone froze as a sickening crack sounded... and they looked to see spider-web like veins of black corroding the walls and roof.

Lucille covered her mouth and blinked. “Oops.”

Marellen flinched when a crack spread near his foot. “Lucille... this looks extremely dangerous...”

“Of course it is. I’m absorbing the very mana of the Ancient and even Legendary materials that exist within this facility,” she answered lightly. “How could they possibly retain their physical form with their age after this?” She turned around and crossed her arms. “Now, go.”

They all stared at her. She tilted her head. “Well? What are you all waiting for? I’ve laid the elite forces of a Supreme Institution defenceless at your feet. Knock them out and tie them up so we can get Sedric out of his cell.”

“Which would be great considering I’m over here and nobody has even seen me yet!” a muffled voice yelled.

They looked over to a glass wall that showed Sedric on one side, banging on the glass with a scowl on his face. Random equipment lay strewn across the floor. The sealing ward preventing him from escaping was quickly fading as it struggled against Lucy’s spell, but even with that Sedric wouldn’t be able to escape, as the mechanical lock on the outside had no way of allowing him to alter it from the inside.

“...Garthe, go free Sedric,” Lucy said.

“Roger that.” Garthe saluted and skirted around the wizards, who were bringing out different magical tools and testing them.

One device caught Lucy’s attention and she turned to the rest behind her. “The Head Wizard has spiritual talismans which don’t need mana to activate. They might have other spiritual artifacts from the Heavenly Realm for times like these. I can’t help you right now. I need to fully concentrate on the Grand Spell.”

Because I didn’t only cast it to nullify the wizards’ spells.

Larena, Roa and Marellen nodded. They went after the wizards, free to use spells when they needed as Lucille had intentionally avoided affecting them with her Grand Spell.

Raegan was about to move to follow but Lucy blocked him with a hand, standing in the doorway.

“Raegan Verdon, do not move a muscle outside this room until Sir Albrecht asks you to,” Lucille said in a tight voice.

He frowned at her. “Why? It’s as you’ve said. The wizards are defenceless.”

“It’s not the wizards I’m worried about.”

Raegan opened his mouth to argue but a brief look at the others and he went deathly pale. Lucille noticed and stared at him. “When?”

“I- uh, um-”

“Raegan, I cannot do anything to save us unless I know what’s going to happen,” Lucy said in a firm but cold voice. “When will it appear?”

“...a couple of minutes,” the boy whispered. “It... it looks like Scytale is its first target, but I can’t tell what will happen to him because of Scytale’s-”

“Unusual fate, I get it.” Lucy frowned as she analysed her bond’s positioning and came to a conclusion.

Scytale, turn back to your human form.

‘Hell yeah! That’s one point in my favo- wait, what? I’m nowhere near strong enough to have the same advantage over them in human form!’

Undead approaching. No time to explain. Just trust me.

‘Ugh- I- alright, I’ll change. This’ll make things harder though.’

We have bigger problems.

“...I think that helped. A little. I can’t be sure,” Raegan murmured as Scytale shrunk down.

The now-humanoid snake clicked his tongue and threw a clenched fist at the nearest wizard out of frustration. The wizard was knocked out cold and Scytale held his fists up threateningly to the rest of the wizards behind him. “Who’s ready for the next?”

Lucy’s hands flinched towards her snake-swords but she restrained herself. Not... now. I can’t make myself seem like an even bigger threat. Spiritual weapons would surely attract the attention of a spiritual entity such as itself. At least Scytale’s defeat won’t be its highest priority anymore.

Raegan wrapped his arms around himself and shivered. “It’s getting c-c-closer. A-a-and I’m f-f-freezing, for s-some reason.”

Lucille could feel it too. The others seemed oblivious, outside of the wizards and Trisroa. She frowned and looked up, as did the wizards. Those with high soul power or spiritual energy could certainly feel the brittle chill descending on them.

Scytale knocked out another wizard. “Nice! Wait-” He stopped to look around. “Is anyone else feeling weirdly cold? Like, really cold? All of a sudden?”

“L-Lucille, it’s-”

“I know,” she interrupted Raegan. “I can sense it too.”

The whirling chaotic force of soul power and inhuman, chilling killing intent ploughed through the stone. A pulse of grey energy crashed into them all and they were sent flying. Larena and Garthe barely kept their footing as they gritted their teeth, but Marellen and Roa smashed into the walls and let out cries of pain.

Scytale rolled to the side to dodge the flying wizards who were pushed back from the centre of the room. He returned his eyes to the centre and widened them in surprise.

Surrounded by ghostly black mist and burning dark red flames, the bearded man with dark hair and pitch black robes stood strangely still. An ebony staff topped with the image of a crescent moon was gripped in one semi-translucent hand webbed with blue veins. The man didn’t even move to breath, yet what was astonishing was the silver symbol of a 12 pointed star on his cloak, showing he belonged to the All-Aeon Athenaeum.

The head light wizard seemed to recognise the figure, because he coughed as he pulled himself forward while using his staff to struggle to his feet.

“...A-Archwizard Peros,” he coughed, wiping away the blood dripping from his split lip. “It is fortuitous to meet you here, although the manner of your arrival is questionable... nonetheless!” He staggered as he straightened up and swung an arm to point at Lucille. “I beseech you to defeat these intruders and return them to the Athenaeum for interrogation! They dared to launch an attack on the... light... tow... er...” His voice dwindled away as the mysterious figure in the middle slowly rotated his head.

The head light wizard went pale when he saw the blank, luminous grey sclera of the former Archwizard.

Then the Archwizard’s body disappeared in a cloud of ice-like, bitter black power. He reformed in front of the wizard and held the unfortunate man’s neck in a vice-like grip. He lifted the light wizard up – pale, empty orbs fixated on him.

“N-No! Sir Peros, I know you’re in there- don’t do this, there’s no reason for-” A blood-chilling screech sounded from the wizard’s mouth as his body began to shrivel and dry, blood leaching from his skin. A dry-rattle echoed from his mouth one last time as grey, smoke-like mist floated up and then into the open mouth of the waiting Archwizard.

The body of the head light wizard sagged and the Archwizard let go, seemingly watching as the desiccated corpse and stiff, dry robes flaked away into dust.

The ‘Archwizard’, if it was even that anymore, turned its empty eyes to the remaining wizards.

“Th’orwn Asu Frag N'fdea Raftu-es,” it said, its mouth not moving. It was unmistakeably belonging to the entity in the centre of the room, though.

“...what?” Scytale stated.

“Th’orwn Asu Frag N'fdea Raftu-es-”

“Detestable infiltrators, who dare to exhume the force of this plane’s departed-” Lucille suddenly said, taking a step forward. Her eyes were fixed on the figure of the Archwizard, but something was wrong. Her lips were blue and her hands trembled so badly that she had to tuck them under her arms.

The ‘Archwizard’ slowly turned to look at her. “Çp Agf Žimen Outri Plaq Lyspad. Arf Mysq Unta Relevo.”

“This unearthed tomb will be your grave, for I am the Champion of this domain. Master... Mystic Channeler... Relevo,” Lucille translated.

Her group and the wizards all stared at her. Marellen groaned as he staggered to his feet, clutching his abdomen. “Myst... Mystic Channeler?” he repeated weakly. “Is the Archwizard possessed by a ghost?”

“Not a ghost. Evil spirits aren’t sapient things, though they can be mistaken for ghosts at first glance in some circumstances,” Lucille replied. She winced as the strong biting cold she felt in her digits became stronger. “What you’re currently looking at is a Wight... an entity formed from disorganised and unconscious particles of memories and mindless thought that brought hell to all the departed residents of this plane...” She gained a bitter smile. “...and the Wight that absorbed the remnant consciousnesses of all of the people it killed on this plane, including the Master Mystic Channeler.”

“Which means...”

“Which means that while it may pretend to be a former human, it contains only pure malice for the living as it was born from the hostile intent of the dying,” Lucille stated coldly. “Understand this: it has the knowledge of the Mystic Channeler, the abilities of the Archwizard, and the combined soul power of all souls it devoured, but it cannot be reasoned with... and it can’t be killed.”

The Wight hit the base of its staff against the ground. The air around it cracked, as death mana sprouted from the gaps in space to crawl towards the living observers. A jagged shard of death mana pointed itself at Lucy then shot out, but she swiftly withdrew Ouroboros and deflected it with the snake-sword’s shield.

“Can’t be killed?” Raegan hissed, ducking around to hide on the other side of the central table. “Then what are we going to do?”

“Stall it. Until the right moment,” Lucille replied indifferently. Her face was growing paler by the second.

Raegan noticed. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Ha. Well...” She gave him a short, meaningless smile before turning expressionless and focusing on the Wight again. “It’s a side effect of my 2nd primary skill combined with The Dearth of Darkness. My Grand Spell was to absorb the mana of everything here, then redirect it to me so I could perpetuate the spell- but as it’s absorbing the death mana too, it’s wreaking havoc on my body. More so than usual, because... my skill set revolves around recycling mana.”

And the Aspect core to it doesn’t include safeguards for death mana.

Her own physical condition was the least of her worries, however. Scytale would say it was a bad habit, but when she wasn’t in immediate danger, she tended to push it off.

Master Mystic Channeler. This is the worst case scenario. The most dominant personality that the Wight absorbed has surfaced  to increase and control its power, and has the memories and knowledge of the people on this plane. It’s no longer an uncontrolled avoidable disaster. It has an agenda, which is seeing us dead.

Within her body, her dark mana was conflicting with the light mana she summoned to attempt to purify it. Unfortunately, the draining nature of the Grand Spell which funnelled mana into her had ripped the death mana-corrupted dark mana out of her control, and her light element wasn’t being created quickly enough to both heal the damage and defend against the mana. Turning elemental mana to its direct opposite required vastly more concentration than an adjacent element such as wind to water, but Lucille was already subverting the Wight’s soul attacks on everyone else without their awareness, them having souls unable to defend against such power.

The Wight was far, far stronger than her, than even spiritual and soul power. But it was chaotic and conflicting, with many personalities arguing with each other internally. Hers was pure, unadulterated with others’ spiritual energy, and she had perfect control over it. She was able to pierce and shatter the waves of soul power at specific break points to limit the harm.

Lucille would no longer be in danger from death mana if the Wight’s dominant mind had a severe shock to its psyche and unravelled, thereby forcing the rampant evil energies out of its weak mortal vessel that could no longer contain it, but that required Lucy to know something personal about the Mystic Channeler, who she knew nothing about.

Plus, that would put everyone else in even more danger because Lucy could not longer protect them from the combined energy of billions of long dead souls.

Die on the plane to death mana and have her friends follow soon after, or unleash the Wight’s true form to expel it from the Archwizard’s body so it has no mana. Then try to fight an immaterial entity with the ability to shred their very core beings.

Dying might sound like a better alternative with all their multiple lives, but it was soul damage and came with extreme levels of mental degradation and amnesia that even time might not fix. She couldn’t let that happen to anyone.

Her chattering teeth from the deathly cold caused her to bite and split her lip, but she swiped away the dripping blood with the back of a hand. Without her there, everyone would just die sooner. That was undeniable fact.

She contacted the Paladin who was their only chance of escape, dropping the honorifics.

Albrecht, the Wight is here. I need you down here now.

He was slow to respond.

‘...I am still several floors above you. I’m close enough to sense the Wight’s presence, but there is no doubt that I’ll be too late as it is. Also, Prophetess Verdon is insistent that she can help for reasons I can’t comprehend.’

Lucy pushed his statement about Annaliese to the mental backburner and rapidly considered solutions that would give them the greatest chance of escape.

What’s your relative location to the Wight right now?

‘Directly overhead. Goldcroft, I cannot plough through another nine stories of Legendary-level stone and metal to reach you unless I activate my Penultimate, and if I did that I wouldn’t have enough strength left to-’

-to purge the Wight, I know.

Her nails dug into the skin of her arms, still crossed. Crimson blood welled beneath as she made up her mind. She’d just have to do what she did best- acting. And hope she could fool even the pure malice of the dead. She spoke to Jasten one last time, as the Wight was still preoccupied with killing the remaining light wizards.

Albrecht, send Annaliese with Vincent to the far west stairwell. How long do you think it’ll take?

‘Ten minutes. But even with this, there are still the layers of stone-’

That’s for me to deal with, not you. Ten minutes. In ten minutes, you will activate your Penultimate.

‘...fine. As you say. If events go haywire, I’ll be taking the Prophetess and her brother and leaving here.’

You would be a terrible guardian if you did otherwise.

Lucille uncrossed her arms and held them out. Black necrotic energy spun in front of her palms. Her fingers were white as bone.

The floor shuddered as the thin, black veins began to spread out with increased intensity and speed, snaking up the walls. Streams of dark mist spouted from the cracks and corroded the minerals around them, widening the cracks. The whirlpool of dark mana that filled the room and had reached all of their knees suddenly sunk into the floor, as if it was gone.

But it wasn’t gone. Lucille had just set it to do its true task.

“Raegan, if you suspect anything will happen to one of us, you must immediately tell me,” Lucy stated curtly. Her eyes remained fixed on the Wight, but she was watching the others slowly get up and recover from the initial attack.

“Y-yeah, I get it.” Not even Raegan was ready to complain in this situation.

“Alright.” She looked around, waiting for the right moment. “Keep out of sight. You have no way of defending yourself right now.”

The boy shakily nodded and ducked back under the control table, taking her words to heart.

There were three wizards left when she calmly but purposely walked forward towards the centre of the room, and even as she walked towards the Wight, the third last wizard’s horrific screams died as her throat’s flesh dried out and she crumbled to earthen dust.

The sound of her boots hitting the stone floor must’ve finally registered in the senses of the Archwizard vessel, and the entity turned to face her. A soft near-hiss escaped its puppeteered lips and it turned to face her.

Lucille slowly withdrew Apophis and extended the demonic blade to its longsword form. The Wight snarled and gripped the black staff tighter in its cold, pale hand.

Then she suddenly collapsed onto one knee and held Apophis flat in the palms of her hands, her neck bare and unprotected from any lethal strike. “Master! You’ve returned to save us from these infiltrators!”

And even as she waited, black splotches began to appear on her deathly pale skin as dark and death mana bled from her body. Ten minutes until Jasten can arrive, ten minutes until her goal with The Dearth of Darkness is realised... and ten minutes until she either became an undead... or succumbed to the power of death and became the first to die out of all of her group there that day.

With no idea if her soul port was even functional enough to resurrect her.