Malfrasius Patoal—or as he called himself, Mal—was the most powerful wizard in the history of wizards.
At least, that was what he liked to tell himself on days like this.
He leaned back atop his obsidian throne, his pale white hands propping up his chin. A scrying orb linked to the gates of his castle floated in front of him. In it, he saw the heroine slice through one of his soldiers.
The heroine turned and glared at Mal, her shining metal helmet glistening through the orb's surface. She bent her knees, then jumped up. Her sword stabbed into the orb and the feed cut out with a burst of static.
Mal sank into his chair. After a long battle in which they'd taken out all of his lieutenants and generals, the heroine and her party were only minutes away from him.
He held out his hand and a dark light flashed from it. Orders to his soldiers—slow them down. He needed as much time as possible.
He felt something tug back on the connection. Acknowledgement.
He paused.
"If anyone wants to retreat, they may," he said.
He shut the connection off.
Mal glanced at his hand.
A black tattoo in the shape of a dragon—a divine symbol, the mark of the Endbringer, the priests had called it—seemed to mock him, its edges glowing with an eerie light.
Mal checked the progress of the potion. It still needed another hour, but he didn't have time.
If only he'd done something else. If only he'd been succesful during negotiations. If only, if only, if only.
He tried persuading them that it'd been necessary. That there was a greater evil coming, that they needed to work together.
It hadn't been a lie. He had been entirely sincere, and it seemed as if the heroine even believed him. For a moment, her sword hand had stayed, and it appeared as if a compromise could be reached.
But there'd been this cold timbre to her voice. Even behind her mask, he could tell that she was firm in her decision.
"Perhaps you were trying to do the right thing," she'd said. "But that does not justify the blood that you've shed."
There was a small part of him that wondered if she was right.
If there'd been another way.
He certainly wasn't happy about all of the damage he'd caused. The innocent lives that had been thrown away in his pursuit of power. But at the time, he didn't have any other option.
He held out his hand, and a potion appeared in front of him with a flash.
He'd never been much of an expert in the field of potions—not compared to traditional spellcraft and dark magic. But nonetheless, he knew enough to get himself in trouble.
And what trouble this potion was.
Composed of a dragon's heart, frost giant horns, and the blood of an innocent, it had been a nightmare to brew.
In exchange, he would receive a power boost beyond anything he could reckon with, increasing the strength of his mana to something tenfold.
It would be so easy to throw away the potion. To let the heroine slay him and finally be put to rest.
His hand clenched around the bottle.
To do that would be to spit upon the memory of every single sacrifice he had made. Every single crime he had committed.
If he simply gave up now, it would mean that their lives were wasted. That everything he did was for nothing.
He opened his jaw and allowed the potion to flow into his gullet. Strength flooded his veins, even as the bitter taste made him gag.
It reminded him vaguely of Lusia's tea.
A half smile cracked on his face.
In his school days, Lusia had been his constant companion.
Though he'd been an insufferable ass even then, he still held a strange fondness for her as the one person who tolerated him.
The smile slipped off his face.
He knew there'd been no saving him when he'd killed her.
The door slammed open, light streaming in from the outside.
Mal lifted himself off his chair. He held out his hands and thick, black robes flashed onto his person.
It was time to do his duty.
***
Mal's eyes wandered over each of the usurpers who had entered his domain. Rolam, an elven mage with bright red hair and sharp eyes, held a staff in his hands and eyes full of hate. On the other side of the heroine was Philo, a hulking draconid easily twice Mal's size. His long, sharp claws glittered dangerously in the light, and his expression was neutral as he stared at Mal.
He took a sniff. Their mana leaked from their bodies like a fountain. Hints of grass and sand permeated the room. But the most pungent odor was the raw light that followed the heroine's magic like a dog after its owner.
Most mages could smell mana to some degree, but Mal's sensitivity had always been unusually high. It had saved him from a bad fight more than one time when he was younger.
It also helped him to hunt down his enemies when he was stronger, but that was a digression.
"Schoolyard rivals, reunited," Mal rested his elbow on the arm of his chair. "Fate truly has a sense of humor."
He supposed that if this were a play, he would've chuckled.
But he didn't. There was nothing funny about this.
His eyes flickered to Philo.
"You've found a workaround," he said. "After the damage to your core, I thought you'd leave the war. Your mark grants you instant understanding and memorization of spells, but you're no longer capable of casting anything after what I did."
Mal kept his face impassive. He needed to play the monster one last time. If they couldn't defeat him, they had no chance against what lay ahead.
"It's doing fine," Philo said. "I have no need of pity."
Rolam glared at Mal. "You know, there was once a time I felt bad for you." His hand tightened around his staff. "Now I wonder how I didn't see you for what you were from the very beginning."
But of course, Mal's eyes couldn't help but wander to the masked, fully armored woman in the middle. The so-called destined heroine. The Herald of Victory, and his mortal enemy.
He didn't know her name. He doubted anybody but her two companions knew. She'd simply shown up one day, and that was when everything went to hell for Mal. His armies were crushed, one after another. His conquered territories exploded into rebellion, fueled by the presence of a hero.
She was responsible for everything that had gone wrong.
And yet, in spite of that, he couldn't really find it in himself to hate her. She had her own convictions, and he had his. It was unfortunate that they were at a crossroads, but he couldn't blame her for fighting against him.
Still, that wouldn't exactly be good for a dark lord of evil to admit to.
"If it isn't the Herald of Victory herself." Mal clapped his hands together slowly. "Finally had enough bloodshed to sate your appetite?"
Rolam growled, his hands clenching tightly around his staff. "They wouldn't have been here if not for you. Luring these people to their doom—how dare you!?"
"They came to me of their own free will."
"They were coerced!" Rolam shouted. "Just like everyone else in your so-called army."
"Are we really here to argue morality?"
Mal's voice sounded tired to his own ears. He forced a little more steel into his words.
"You have your opinions, I have mine," he said. "There's no reconciling them, so we might as well get this over with."
Rolam shut his mouth and continued to glare at Mal. He ignored the look and glanced at the heroine.
"And you? Anything that you'd like to say?" Mal asked
She remained silent.
"Typical."
Mal let out a sigh, shutting his eyes. He focused his core, allowing the mana outside of him to flow into it and come out as pure, unaligned mana. It swirled around him in thick, dark streams, a strange glow filling the room.
His eyes snapped open.
"Let's just get to the point."
He pointed his hand at Rolam, and an orb of inky black mana appeared in front of him. It fired out, and Rolam jumped out of the way. Behind him, the orb continued traveling onward, dissipating everything in its path as smoothly as an eraser on paper.
Mal watched Rolam's shocked expression with grim satisfaction. No matter how many times people saw that orb, they were still amazed.
It was the height of unaligned magic, the theoretical end. The magic of nothing.
Nullomancy.
A magic that interacted with matter and simply deleted it from the world. It was thought to be impossible, a mere theoretical construct.
And yes, maybe he'd cheated a little by getting all the knowledge from an eldritch god, but what of it?
He summoned two more orbs and sent them out toward both Philo and Rolam. Both jumped out of the way. Rolam threw out his own attack—a standard Arcane Sphere, admittedly more powerful than normal.
Mal responded with the same Void orb only for the Arcane Sphere to whizz around and nearly clip his cheek.
Mal slapped it out of the air and growled. That damned five-second future vision!
"Cheaters," he muttered. "Why doesn't my mark do something like that?"
Mal's honed instincts detected something coming from his side. He backpedaled to his throne, barely avoiding a set of claws swiping his face open.
Philo's draconic eyes flickered over to Mal with a cold expression.
Mal squeezed his hand into a fist, and a Void Orb began to form directly in front of him. Philo jumped clear, avoiding the attack.
Mal breathed deeply and pushed himself off the throne and back into a standing position. He was clearly in the dominant position. With his Nullomancy, they couldn't even get close. If they did, it was an instant finale for their little story.
The Void Orb split apart in half, then popped like a bubble.
Mal blinked.
The heroine's blade had sliced through it as easily as a hot knife through butter.
His focus startled, Mal's next spell nearly recoiled and ripped through his core.
No, I can't get hit with runic backlash now! If I do that, I won't be able to summon another spell for a good five seconds!
Quickly grabbing hold of himself, Mal pushed the backlash back and summoned two orbs, one from the upper left and one from the bottom right. He slammed them together and they propelled toward the heroine like a hammer and an anvil.
The heroine's eye flashed. Her blade whipped through the air, faster than he could see, deflecting one with a slash. Her legs tensed and she jumped into the air to dodge the other.
He focused his power and redirected the orb upward—it clipped her side—
An orange light flashed from the impact and the orb came to a sudden stop.
Mal's eyes flashed. He summoned another Void Orb and shot it forward.
The heroine's feet flashed and the air below them exploded with a gust of wind. She flew toward the wall of the castle and cratered the stone with her feet from the force of the impact.
Kinetic redirection. Mal's teeth gritted together. She perfectly tracked the angle of the Orb to receive as much energy as possible, then immediately redirected it to shoot herself to the side. Inhuman reaction speed and calculation.
Her feet flashed again.
She still has energy stored!?
Mal cursed and summoned five orbs in a split-second. His core groaned and his body flooded with pain.. It wasn't made for this—for all the upgrades he'd given it, for all the artificial enhancements he'd applied to himself. Deep down, he still only had an F-grade core.
The heroine kicked off the wall and went directly for Mal.
He shouted and sent all five directly toward the heroine.
The heroine's neck snapped toward each of the orbs in sequence. Her gaze honed in on the first one. Her sword deflected it at an impossible angle and it redirected toward the ceiling.
The second and third met the same fate as the first and passed through the walls.
The fourth was about to hit her—
The heroine's leg shot out and kicked the orb back. It flew right past Mal's ear and crackled with the promise of instant death.
Mal flooded the fifth with energy. Every bit of power he had, every bit of control went into moving the orb as fast as it could go.
The heroine moved her sword to block, but it was too late. Rolam's eyes shot open and he rushed forward to do something.
It slammed into her from below and she seemingly vanished, the orbs continuing onward into the sky and breaking open the roof.
"No!" Rolam yelled.
Mal breathed deeply, sweat dripping down his forehead.
Not even the heroine could survive such an astronomical drop. Even if she could control kinetic energy, there had to be an upper limit to how much she could contain.
With the heroine gone, it would be child's play to take care of the other two.
"Now then, where were we?" he asked.
The draconid, Philo, moved like the wind. One second he was there. The next, he was in front of Mal. Mal reacted quickly and flooded more mana through his core, a new spell he'd been working on coming to mind.
What he needed was more time.
And luckily for him, he had a spell that could do exactly that.
The claws slowed to a crawl as they approached his face. Mal slowly turned his head back and barely dodged the strike. His body moved at a snail's pace while his mind was leagues ahead.
Time travel was impossible.
But time manipulation?
That was perfectly possible, if a tad difficult for the average wizard.
Granted, there were limitations. He couldn't move his body—too much matter, see. His brain and his core, on the other hand?
He snapped his fingers in slow-motion, and two Void Orbs appeared to his left and right. They remained suspended in midair—unfortunately, while his time spell affected him, it wouldn't affect his spells once they were out of his body.
He let the time spell dissipate and launched the two Void Orbs toward both Philo and Rolam.
They were too slow.
Rolam managed to throw himself forward at the last second—but Philo . . . the orb clipped his shoulder, removing bone and muscle. He winced, breath coming out in a pained huff.
"Philo!" Rolam shouted. "Are you okay!?"
Philo lifted his other hand to the shoulder that had been injured. Green blood gushed out of the gaping wound, but he didn't make a single expression.
"I'm fine." His claws flashed. "Let's finish the job."
Rolam's eyes snapped back toward Mal. Mal snorted at the depths of hatred within those eyes.
What was the use of such emotion without the power to back it up?
"Another stolen power?" Rolam asked.
"I was gifted it." Mal inclined his head forward. "But I made it my own."
Rolam scoffed.
"Let me show you what real power looks like," he said.
The ground shook. Mal felt his breath taken away by the amount of mana being sucked through that elven bastard's core. One by one, Arcane Sphere after Arcane Sphere appeared around Rolam like some kind of army. It was an obscene amount of mana being used all at once beyond anything Mal had ever seen before.
"Wow, that's a lot of magic," Mal muttered.
Mal had to admit it was an intimidating sight. When you're using enough mana to the point where Mal could physically feel the difference, that was a sign you were doing something right.
Rolam pointed his staff at Mal.
"Perish."
The hundreds of orbs shot forward like a storm of arrows. Mal quickly formed a shell of nothingness, the inky black cloaking him like armor. Even inside his shell, he could still feel the Arcane Spheres being absorbed into his Void Orbs.
A droplet of sweat rolled down Mal's head. The Void Orbs . . . were incomplete.
In theory, they could be overloaded with mana or matter. He hadn't found the upper limit yet, but there was a good chance Rolam might hit it at the rate he was going.
Mal could sense something straining in the spell. The orbs were hurting. If they cracked—that would be the end of him.
Mal reinforced the barrier as much as he could. He waited. Even now, he could still feel mana pounding away at his barrier.
But it was slowing down.
Bit by bit, the litany of attacks slowed to a stop.
Mal let out a breath of relief. He let down the barrier, revealing the outside world. Around him, the ground had been scorched from the friction of the Arcane Spheres. Behind him, the stone wall had been blown open and shattered to rubble.
He scoffed. "You did your best—"
Something punched into his side. He stumbled backward and looked down at where the sensation had come from. It looked as if a claw had ripped directly through his clothing and into his shirt.
He looked up to see Philo, those snakelike eyes watching him carefully.
His eyes flickered back and forth between Philo and Rolam. They'd planned it. They knew Mal would have his guard down.
It was a clever tactic.
Mal grinned.
But ultimately, it wouldn't be enough.
Philo brought his claws up for one more strike—!
Mana flooded Mal's core and ejected out. Time snapped in place like a rubber band.
He checked his mana core. It wouldn't take much more abuse before shutting down. This was his last go, he'd have to put everything he had into this attack.
He held out his hands to the left and right, the motion as slow as molasses. Void Orb after Void Orb spread from side to side, not as massive as that ridiculous wall Rolam had managed to make, but no less intimidating. There would be no dodging, no blocking.
This would be the end.
His core strained with each orb he summoned. Droplets of sweat poured off his head and onto the floor below before freezing in midair.
He stopped summoning the orbs. He let out a long breath.
It was time.
The course of time ran once more at its normal pace, and he dropped to his knees.
The orbs shot forward in an encirclement, attacking from every direction for both of his targets. They ripped through them and left nothing in their wake.
One second they were there, the next?
They were gone.
The only thing that remained of the draconid was a single scale. The elf's staff had survived as well.
A small pain appeared in his gut when he looked at their remains. He crushed the feeling under foot and the pain disappeared.
Mal stood back up to his feet and dusted himself off. There was a part of him that was surprised at this outcome. Perhaps even disappointed. It was clear that the heroine and her party weren't strong enough to fight what was ahead.
A flash of light.
His head snapped up toward the hole in the roof he'd torn to see a gleaming blade pointed straight for him.
Mal choked on his spit. How had she survived?!
No time. He threw himself forward and attempted to freeze time at the same instant.
His core screamed. Something cracked inside of him and a horrible pain rushed up his body.
The spell had failed.
The sword pierced into his chest and nailed him to the floor. Pain rushed up and down his body like a million needles stabbing into his spine. His arms flailed from left to right in a desperate attempt to do something, anything.
The heroine stared down at him.
He wondered what her expression was behind that metal mask. Pity? Anger? Or perhaps it was nothing at all. Perhaps he was nothing more than another obstacle on her path.
He laughed, blood spilling out and down his cheeks.
"H-how?" he asked. "Not even you could've survived a fall from that height."
The heroine was silent. She shook her head.
"You underestimated me." Her voice was rough, as if it hadn't been used in weeks. "I manipulated the vectors on the kinetic energy applied to me and looped around in a circle."
Mal let out a laugh. That should've been impossible. The number of calculations she would've been making per second would've been absurd.
Of course she did it. She's the heroine, after all. I never stood a chance.
Mal wondered if things could've been different. It didn't have to be this way. Not really.
If only he'd known what he knew now, if only he knew there were other paths to power besides blood and murder and foolish pacts with dangerous spirits.
Maybe he never had to become a mage. Maybe he could've simply lived out his days in peace. That would've been ideal, wouldn't it?
Black crawled at the edges of his vision. A hot sense of rage rushed through him.
Not like this, damn it! Not like this, she's not strong enough to face what's coming—!
His mana core thumped.
He felt the half-completed time spell click into place.
The world around him started to fade. Lights and sounds the likes of which he'd never heard or seen before flashed across his brain. The world faded away into an infinite white void, and he began to fall down, down, down, down, down, down—
Was this what dying felt like? For some reason, he felt as if this wasn't what it was supposed to feel like. It seemed like something else was happening—and that time spell, what had happened—?
He continued to fall backward, an invisible pressure building on his skin from every angle. He was being compressed incrementally, one small portion at a time. His mind screamed at him, his body melted away.
He shut his eyes in a desperate attempt to shut out the sensation.
And just like that, it stopped.
***
Mal opened his eyes.
He was seated in a chair. His hands were on his lap, both of them a healthy tan color and conspicuously missing the mark of the Endbringer that he used to have.
He still had a pounding headache, but it was already disappearing. There was a neigh from up ahead. He perked up. He poked his head out a side window to see the road moving underneath him. The edges of the path were wet grass, the color of fresh mint. It smelled like it was spring, pollen on the air in every direction.
There was another whinny. His head snapped over in the direction of the noise, two horses were pulling the box he was in and sending him to some sort of location.
He was in a carriage.
…what was he doing in a carriage?
"Master?"
Mal stiffened.
His hair stood on end. Every part of him screamed with familiarity at that voice.
"What are you doing?" the voice said.
The voice was emotionless. There was only the slightest uptilt at the end of her question to even indicate that it was a question.
He'd recognize that particular tone anywhere.
He slowly turned his head around, and when he saw who it was, tears came to his eyes.
That short, wavy black hair. Those dry amber eyes. The completely blank expression.
His voice cracked.
"Lusia?"