Reitz was exhausted.
He stood alone in the center of the scorched canyon, air shimmering with residual heat. Every inhale rattled in his chest like loose stones in a metal pan, and every exhale left in short, ragged puffs of steam through the slits of his burning helm.
His side throbbed.
He pushed mana toward it again. Reinforce the tissue. Clamp the vessels. Slow the bleed.
The area stayed wrong, like pouring water into a cracked jug.
Mana seeped out of him in a thin, constant trickle—bleeding into the air before it could circulate.
Constant.
Every spell cost more than it should. Every adjustment of his armor burned more fuel. Even standing upright felt like bracing a shield against a current.
Definitely a leak.
Reitz grimaced behind the helm. Somehow his mana expenditure had gotten much worse.
Artifact.
Initially he thought it was his mind playing tricks.
But now he had confirmed it: someone had equipped Allister with a cursed blade—an enchantment built to maim mana flow. Nothing else fit.
"That rat-bastard," he muttered, tasting iron in the blood.
He shifted his weight and looked up.
Thirty-two mages.
They spread across the basin, lowering a deliberate net. Grey cloaks. Mixed armor. Rock dust smeared over helms and masks.
They telegraphed their next move. They were going to rush him from all sides.
Baron level—most of them Third-circle. A few flared hotter: fourth.
A terrifying force for anyone else.
Reitz snorted and spat a dark mouthful of blood onto the glassed ground. It hissed and evaporated at the edges.
Tough.
On a normal day, thirty Barons would've been a warm-up.
Today—wounded, leaking—his mana math wobbled.
Bad math got you killed.
He forced his posture straight anyway. The [Flame Armor] flared brighter, licking up his shoulders and along the flame helm. The plates thickened just enough to look fresh.
A show.
Never let them see you sag.
He rolled his shoulders, lifted his chin, and roared:
"I'll let you little fuckers off if you get out of my sight right now!" He bluffed.
The sound boomed off the canyon walls, amplified by magic and rage. For a heartbeat, even the dust-laden wind paused.
The mages hesitated.
They had watched him turn men into ash and glass. They had seen him erase comrades, hunt others down like dogs, and reduce Allister—traitor Knight, once trusted—into nothing.
Even wounded, the Ashbringer was an argument against close-range arrogance.
They saw the sway he barely managed to hide.
They knew. Two moved first—light-footed, hands empty, eyes fixed on him. Bait. Behind them, ten others slammed their palms into the ground.
"[Sandstorm]," one barked.
Dust and grit erupted from the canyon floor in a column, then collapsed outward into a rolling storm that swallowed half the basin.
One moment he had silhouettes and spacing; the next, he stood in a whirling desert, heat and sand clawing at his senses.
Reitz narrowed his eyes behind the visor.
"Smart," he breathed.
They want me to spread my Field so I can sense them. They know it'll cost me.
Reitz crouched and jumped.
He exploded upward, dumping mana into legs and core, and launched himself twenty yards into the air.
They moved below like ants—dark figures darting through the haze, shifting positions, spreading, trying to encircle what they assumed still stood on the ground.
"Got you," he hissed.
Reitz extended both hands.
The [Flame Armor] over his forearms thinned and flowed backward, feeding the spell. Mana rushed forward—hot and eager—condensing in front of his palms.
[ Fires that blaze forth, and burn everlasting! ]
[ Scorch and burn those that seek mine life! ]
[Infernal Blaze]
The words locked the construct.
His armor flickered, protection draining from chest and helm to feed the forming torrent.
A river of fire erupted downward, punching into the dust and igniting it at once.
Screams rose immediately.
Earth barriers pulsed too late. Stone went red, then slumped into slag, and the two mages who tried to flank him were incinerated.
Reitz cut the spell before it ate more mana than he could afford.
BOOM!
While he still hung mid-air—before he could set a landing—a stone projectile the size of a cannonball came screaming in like a runaway comet.
A [Stone Bullet] struck the exact point Allister's dagger had found.
Reitz choked, wet and ugly, and blood burst past his teeth, spraying the inside of his helm.
His [Flame Armor] flickered out for a second.
"It shouldn't have cost this much," he rasped, unsure if the words left his mouth.
The hit threw off his landing. The canyon floor rushed up—then moved. Stone split along a controlled seam into a jagged maw, and spikes erupted like teeth.
They predicted his fall, guided by the spell.
Fuckers predicted my arc. These bastards know Imperial doctrine. They know how to stack cheap spells until the payoff turns lethal.
Reitz's hand snapped to his hip.
He unsheathed his sword and threw it.
Clang.
It lodged just above the spike bed, hilt jutting out like a rung.
Reitz twisted in mid-air, flared his Field just enough to nudge his trajectory, and brought his boots down hard on the sword hilt.
He kicked off, landing some distance away.
He rolled, armor screeching, and stopped on his back, staring at the dizzy sky.
He wheezed.
Every small act of mana use—every brace, every adjustment—burned more than it should.
"Can't jump anymore," he muttered, a bitter laugh under it. "They've got the air mapped. I'm grounded."
As he said this, the ground shook.
Spikes erupted around him in irregular patterns.
Reitz moved on instinct, dancing between them, [Flame Armor] scraping and hissing.
Fuckers won't let me rest.
He felt them now that the dust had thinned—anchors of pressure along the canyon walls and floor.
They lured him here.
His formation—his men—sat distant now, muffled by ridges and earthworks.
Nowe he stood alone.
He checked his reserves. It was about a third, maybe less, with the leak.
His hands trembled inside the gauntlets. The armor felt heavier than it had in years.
Slow down, some sane part of him insisted. Stabilize.
The canyon shook harder and cut the thought in half.
Reitz staggered.
Three boulders shot toward him from three angles—left, right, and straight ahead.
Synchronized. He had no choice but to jump.
He threw himself through the window, [Flame Armor] flaring to soften near misses as stone thundered past.
Three stone bullets—fist-sized, packed to absurd density—shrieked in from the opposite side, timed to catch him as he exited.
Tzzt. Tzzt. Tzzt.
Hammering the wound Allister gave him.
The [Flame Armor] vaporized them into dust on contact, but the force still connected through.
Reitz grunted, knees buckling.
He caught a glimpse of the casters.
He ripped his [Flame Armor] from legs and outer plates and jammed everything into his right arm.
A blade of coherent plasma erupted—twenty-five yards of compressed fire—and he swung.
The three mages vanished before a scream could form.
For a heartbeat they were silhouettes in blinding light; then their bodies split cleanly, top halves sliding from bottom halves along cauterized lines.
Reitz let the blade vanish.
He dropped to one knee.
"Fuck," he whispered. "Am I going to die here?"
He counted again.
Twenty-seven left.
They moved again, tightening the circle.
His reserves sat at maybe a fifth.
Less, with the leak.
Hm. Maybe I can use that.
The remaining mages stayed at range, casting [Stone Gauntlet].
They meant to beat him to death.
Reitz watched them, lips peeling back in a grin that had no business on a man in his condition.
"You want to kill me?" he rasped. "Then you fuckers…"
His grin widened.
"…have to die with me."
The air wavered.
[ The brightness of ten thousand dying stars… ]
The globe swelled.
Armor creaked under the pressure radiating from it. Dust lifted from the ground around him. Pebbles trembled, drawn toward the light.
The ten gauntleted mages saw it and hesitated.
"Stop him!" someone screamed. "Interrupt the cast!"
Too late.
Fire had stopped mattering.
A singularity of mana—heat, light, pressure—coiled into a ball.
Reitz opened his eyes.
He smiled, manic yet serene.
[SUPERNOVA]
BOOM.
The world vanished.
Evaporated into a blooming sphere of white. The ten mages that were closing in were erased in an instant.
Only warped glass and drifting grey.
The pressure wave kept going.
It smashed ridges and boulders, pulverizing loose stone and collapsing half-formed bulwarks.
Four of the more distant mages died on the spot, pulped by overpressure.
Three more flew like dolls, slammed into rock faces, and collapsed in broken heaps, auras guttering.
Reitz lay on his back at the center of the devastation.
His armor was cracked and blackened. The helm had warped, demon-face twisted into a lopsided snarl.
Steam rose from seams in thin threads.
He tried to move a finger.
Nothing.
His mana was gone.
He stared up at the dusty sky.
"Well," he wheezed. "It was a gamble."
Nearly all remaining mages had vanished or dimmed.
Seven mages still stood—battered and shaken, but alive.
They walked toward him.
Reitz let his eyes slide shut.
"It was a good run," he murmured.
His mind drifted.
It skipped the Western Front.
Skipped the Tribunal.
It went to the nursery.
To Ezra standing in the crib, tiny hand raised, saying in that strange, too-clear voice:
"Could you teach me magic, Father?"
"Damn," Reitz thought, an ache that had nothing to do with wounds tugging at his chest. "I should've talked to you more, boy."
He saw Ezra stumbling through the study, dragging books bigger than his torso.
"I should've shown you how to hold a sword," he thought, half-delirious. "Taught you how to break a man's stance. How to drink without puking."
Some distant, intact corner of him laughed.
"I wish I'd had one more minute with you," he admitted—to the image, to the memory. "One more stupid joke. One more time Aerwyna hitting me with a parchment for corrupting you."
"Ezra…" He could almost feel a small hand gripping his thumb. "You show these fuckers who's boss someday."
His thoughts slid to his wife.
Aerwyna—ice and paranoia, soft hands and steel spine.
Standing in the doorway with a ledger tucked under one arm, scolding him for wrestling on the nursery floor when he should've been in the war room.
"Aerwyna…" he thought, the words heavy and plain. "Forgive me for dying here. Take care of our little boy."
His vision dimmed further.
The seven mages stopped ten yards away.
He couldn't see their faces. He felt their auras instead—trembling with fatigue, sharpened by fear and grim determination.
They began to chant in unison, keeping their distance. They wouldn't risk closing in on Reitz; their comrades had paid the price.
Their voices overlapped, a harsh cadence that made the air vibrate.
The sky directly over Reitz distorted.
Dust, shards, gravel, and flecks of shattered rock surged together, drawn into a tightening ball.
It swelled and darkened, layers compressing until a boulder larger than a carriage hovered overhead, dense enough to warp the air around it.
Reitz watched through half-lidded eyes.
At least I took most of you with me.
He smiled.
The boulder dropped.
CRASH!
Stone slammed into stone.
A man stood atop the wall, cloak fluttering in the heated wind, looking down at the terrified mages with eyes like cold granite.
Reitz's throat worked. His voice came out a rasp.
"You're late, Aaron," he wheezed, and found a grin anyway. "You little fuck."