“Let’s go!”
That hurt, but Ziel didn’t say anything. He controlled the Array, feeling the authority of the Rune Queen pass over him and alter something fundamental to reality.
With manipulations of her ancient script, he changed his and Mercy’s relationship to time. The world seemed to slow down as they sped up, though curiously the silver runes seemed to orbit at the same rate.
Only then did he activate the green force scripts. It launched them forward, then the second one caught them and hurled them faster, then the third…
Even with the force scripts that surrounded Ziel, keeping him together, flying in this way felt like drilling through stone with his face. Wind around them exploded as they moved faster and faster, and a quick glance behind showed that they were kicking up hurricanes in their wake.
He hurriedly adjusted their path upward so they wouldn’t destroy anyone by accident just from the wake of their passage. Every few seconds, before they could slow down, he Forged another script-circle.
Ziel found himself fortunate that his Oathsign technique was so madra-efficient, since most of the power came from the aura the scripts manipulated rather than from the Forged runes themselves. Otherwise, his spirit would have drained itself dry in moments.
It seemed he would arrive in good enough shape to fight. Especially since they were looking to arrive sooner than he expected.
Mercy was trying to shout something, though Ziel couldn’t hear it. The distant battlefield rapidly approached, the presences becoming clearer and clearer.
As he grew close, he could feel who was fighting.
He almost lost control of his technique.
Then he launched himself even faster.
Mercy was grabbing him with her amethyst gauntlets and shaking him—though not too much, lest she send him outside the script and drop him to the land below. He was paying her no attention, nor did he sense Yerin, even when she was close enough to shine like a crimson star right in front of him.
His perception was locked entirely onto one lone figure. A familiar presence whose power crackled with the hungry lightning of the Weeping Dragon.
The Sage of Calling Storms.
Every channel in Ziel’s body flinched in remembered pain. He could see the Sage torturing and slaughtering his people one at a time, leaving Ziel—his defeated foe—there as a witness. Keeping him alive as a twisted trophy.
Ziel filled himself with the Stone Anchor, force madra holding him together, and pulled his shield from his soulspace. That and his hammer flowed with madra. Maybe too much madra; at this rate, he would be out of power in minutes.
But one way or another, his fight with the Storm Sage wouldn’t be a long one.
Mercy shouted at him again, but he was beyond hearing her. The Sage was in his sight now, turning his direction with arms wide and welcoming. A Forged dragon appeared over his head, aiming at Ziel, but Yerin tore it apart before her attention was recaptured by Yushi, the Thunder Fairy.
Ziel hurtled at the Sage like a thrown spear. The Sage flew to the side, but he was swimming through honey to Ziel’s accelerated perception.
He Forged another circle to send him shooting after the Sage. Only him.
Mercy flew past that circle, continuing to fly on momentum alone. Ziel aimed for Calling Storms. By the time the Sage tried to open space, Ziel had already operated the Array.
For just an instant, Calling Storms was locked in time. He broke the working a second later.
Then Ziel hit him like a meteor.
The face of his shield crashed into the entire front side of the Sage’s body with a crunching of bones. Even with the empowerment of Ziel’s Enforcer technique, his own arm cracked.
He felt nothing.
Ziel was moving much too fast to stop. He and the Sage hurtled together into the side of a cliff, which they destroyed with their impact. They tore a trench through the landscape for what felt like a mile before they ground to a halt.
Ziel let his shield fall from a broken arm, raising his hammer in the other. The Sage stirred, his figure covered in blood and dirt.
Ziel’s hammer crashed down on him.
The earth exploded again.
Lightning erupted from beneath Ziel’s feet, throwing him back. Sages were no tougher than any other Archlords—that is to say, they were made of wood next to the steel of Heralds—but that was no secret. Every Sage had their own way of compensating for that vulnerability.
Calling Storms, it seemed, had invested in regeneration.
His body reconstructed itself from mush, starting with his manic grin. “I knew—” the Sage began, but Ziel had activated the Array again.
His hammer was propelled by three force scripts and accelerated in time. It crushed the Striker technique the Sage sent out on reflex and continued to crash into the left side of the man’s body.
He would have flown into the distance, but instead he ran into a bubble of manipulated time. He was stuck like a fly in syrup, and Ziel only released the grip of the Array when he had readied another blow of the hammer, this time coming down on Calling Storms with the weight of the heavens.
The Storm Sage’s whole body exploded, but that still wasn’t enough to satisfy Ziel. He scanned hungrily for the man’s Remnant.
Until he realized the pieces of the Sage’s body were pulling themselves together. It was a powerful working of blood madra and aura, and the small analytical part of Ziel’s brain that still functioned recognized that this was probably a Divine Treasure gifted to the man by the Sage of Red Faith.
Ziel used the time to Forge more scripts to enhance himself.
He had waited years for this. How many times had he wished this man had killed him? How many nights had he been unable to sleep, thanks to the unnatural knots the Sage had tied in his spirit?
As soon as his body was capable of it, the Sage of Calling Storms started laughing. “It’s you, it’s you, it’s you! I knew I would see you again, I just knew it! What was it like?” The man’s eyes formed, and they were crazed and hungry with sparks of the Weeping Dragon. “You’ve looked deeper into the Void than any living man. What did you see?”
Ziel answered by crushing him again.
“That’s it!” Calling Storms shouted as he flew. He must have been speaking through a manipulation of aura, because his body wasn’t intact enough for that. “Yes, that’s what I wanted! Show me your answer!”
The man had blathered about his goals and his philosophy last time too, but they only stoked Ziel to a more furious rage.
This time, he surrounded the Sage in force-scripts, pushing them together. Crushing him.
Ziel didn’t let up until his core ran dry and the Forged runes of his script flickered, but this time there was no doubt. That would have killed even a Herald.
The silver Array around him faded away along with his own scripts.
He wouldn’t have the strength to do battle with the Sage’s Remnant, but that was all right. His fury wasn’t exhausted yet anyway. Yerin could capture the spirit for him, and he could keep the Remnant in his void key, slowly breaking it over time.
A lance of blue-gold energy speared from the crumpled mass of flesh that was Calling Storms, and it pierced Ziel through the gut.
His spirit screamed out in familiar pain, though Ziel himself only grunted. He fell to his knees, body weak.
With a painful-sounding grinding and crunching, the Sage formed himself again. His spine straightened and his head inflated. He twisted his neck into place with one last click.
The insane smile on his face was unharmed.
“I could feel it, Brother Ziel!” the Sage whispered. “The honesty of your anger would move the very heavens themselves. You’re close to the truth. You just need a little more motivation.”
Ziel swung a fist, but Calling Storms slipped aside. The Sage rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he scanned the battlefield.
Then a blade of madra descended on him like the divine scythe Ziel had seen in Eithan’s hands. Yerin took a blow from her own Herald opponent to strike at the Sage, and he could sense her rage.