Chapter 167 – The Archmage Mirian Castrella

Mirian sheathed her wand of levitation and looked up at the transformed Apophagorga. There would be no running. In one hand, she held Eclipse like a conductor’s baton, in the other, Archmage Luspire’s spellbook. She looked around again. Most of her little army was decimated.

She had one more trick to deploy. She also had a reserve force: her.

Mirian telekinetically opened Luspire’s book and cast an enhanced prismatic shield.

Apophagorga raised one of its new, huge scythe arms and swung it at Mirian. There was a screeching sound, like steel being shredded and the arm—stopped.

Luspire had thought of everything: every energy type was accounted for, and the spell was even inertially anchored. The titan’s scythe smashed into the shield, but all it did was crack the bone-blade of the limb.

Mirian continued to pour mana into the shield as she flipped to the next spell: sunfire conflagration. She stepped forward, drawing from both her soul repository and aura to unleash a blinding torrent of fire. Apophagorga roared again as the flames seared it, but she weathered the withering winds. Pieces of her outer aura were stripped away, but it drained the beast’s soul faster.

Another scythe arm came down on her shield. As the blade hit, it sent up sparks and a flash, but again, the shield held. Mirian continued her attack, sending cascading inferno spells at the beast—fireballs that exploded into more fireballs. The titan’s flesh bubbled and blackened.

Apophagorga slammed its body back down, elephantine legs sending fissures through the earth as it impacted. Mirian stepped to the side to avoid a fissure forming beneath her, while prismatic shield kept the tremors from unsteadying her. That brought its mouth close enough to Mirian she could smell its breath. It reeked of sulfur and—strangely enough—garlic. She could also smell its burned flesh. The titan’s eyes glowed with wild desperation. The spined tendrils around its mouth all lashed out at her at once, gripping her shield like an egg it wished to crack.

Mirian poured mana into the shield. “Torres! Second package!” she said through her remote speech spell.

“But it’s right on top of you!” she sent back.

“Now!” Mirian shouted. She downed a mana elixir, then another. She stopped casting offensive spells and directed all her mana to the shield, reinforcing it with soul energy. With Eclipse, she swung at the tendrils holding her fast, the adamantium edge tearing great rents into the appendages. The titan hissed and spit, ichor from its wounds covering the shield until Mirian could hardly see in front of her. She drank a third mana elixir, then grit her teeth.

Just need to hold on a little longer…

The remaining Praetorians and hunters were giving the titan everything they had, but Mirian had prepared one last surprise for the beast. Her ‘seeds of chaos’ weren’t particularly powerful individually. Each one had only a tiny charge, and while it burned hot, it didn’t burn for very long. When Apophagorga’s aura was at maximum capacity, it was doubtful they would have done anything at all.

However, they were easy enough to make that even an apprentice artificer could churn them out. The limiting factor was the antigravity glyph, but once she’d gotten Voran’s permission, it was the only thing left to add.

One seed of chaos wouldn’t do much.

Several thousand seeds, though—that would do something.

Her aura waned. She drank a fourth mana elixir, but cracks appeared in the prismatic shield. She fed more soul energy into the spell to add resistance to it. At the edge of the barrier, she could see her cast soul energy eroding at the edges of the titan’s like so much acid. But the beast’s eyes were locked on her. It took another step forward, then another, its mouth feet away.

Then, the tendrils released her. Apophagorga let out a scream as the air filled with popping and cracking noises.

Yes! Mirian thought triumphantly.

The seeds came in waves from every direction, like the sheets of rain from a desert thunderstorm. The beast reared up again in pain, towering above Mirian. All along its splayed wings, fire burst forth, until its wings were in smoldering tatters. The titan’s flesh melted as the seeds continued to ram themselves into it. It collapsed as the seeds smashed apart its four rearmost legs. Part of its shell rematerialized, held above its head. The beast continued to writhe and scream.

Mirian cast sustained gust and arcane gust to keep the toxic mana left over from the seeds away from her. She maintained her shield, but lessened the intensity of the spell. Her auric mana was nearly depleted.

The sound of the seeds crashing and burning continued, coming like endless thunder. Then, finally, there was silence.

Mirian dropped the gust spells, breathing heavily.

Apophagorga’s eyes were closed. Had she done it? Had she actually done it?

Then the titan’s eyes snapped open again.

Several of its eyes were blinded and covered in its foul, tarry blood. Its legs were mostly ruined, and its back looked more like a charnel pit than anything that should still be alive. Both its scythe arms had shattered so that only two stubs of bone poked out.

The damn thing was relentless.

With its front two legs and its mouth tendrils, it dragged itself forward, the ground shaking as it did. Mirian leapt back and cast levitation, but the beast’s soul was still burning hot. It lashed out, first with a nullifying ray that grounded her, then with its tendrils.

Mirian again found herself inside her prismatic shield, trapped. She slashed at the tentacles again, sending bits of spine and flesh flying, but the myrvite titan’s grip was ferocious. It snarled at her and redoubled its efforts.

She reached for another mana elixir, but there were none left at her belt. She reinforced her shield from her soul repository, then realized the last one was as depleted as her aura.

She couldn’t fail, not now. The beast was nearly dead. Could she outlast it?

Through her focus, she looked at it. It’s still regenerating somehow. Even though its soul had been ravaged beyond belief and body burned, it was healing. She could see thin tendrils of soul energy going into it. It was pulling from everything it could—blades of grass, shrubs, little rodents hiding in their burrows.

Even if she had dealt it a fatal blow, it was far too tenacious to die before she did. She wouldn’t even last another minute; her aura was nearly gone, the prismatic shield full of glowing cracks.

Mirian’s mind raced. The beast’s soul was still far too large to bind entirely. But did she need to bind it entirely? I just need to weaken it and strengthen myself. But soul energy isn’t enough. I need mana.

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Soul energy would eventually bring more auric mana, but she couldn’t wait for it to regenerate. She needed it now.

The Last Fires of the Phoenix form could burn foreign soul energy for strength, but not mana. If it can be transformed into one type of energy, it can be transformed into another. There has to be a way.

More cracks formed around her shield. She was out of time.