Chapter 33
“Do you recognize him?” Rys asked Fara.
“Grand Magister Graem Harpersmith. He’s the head of the Black Sorcerers,” she hissed.
Rys let out a whistle, although it was lost in the chaos of the battle. The cacophony of spells and explosions from the League’s entry into the battle overwhelmed all other sounds, save for the shouts of soldiers.
Annoyed, Rys snapped up an aural barrier around them so that he could hear himself think. Mave and Graem raised their arms instinctively, but didn’t respond with spells.
“What’s a mage like you doing in a shithole like this?” Rys called out. “Aren’t you Black Sorcerers close to Maliah? Can’t say I thought he’d care about some demihuman city-state up here.”
Graem’s good eye narrowed. “Please. Spare me the bullshit. We all know that this is a proxy war.”
That got a chuckle out of Rys. “I figured you might try plausible deniability.”
“That time has passed. The League cannot allow your power to grow unchecked.” Graem stroked his beard. “There is an alternative, however.”
Ah, here came the proposal. Rys had wondered why it had taken this long.
“Let me guess: join the League, swear eternal fealty to Maliah, help him conquer the archipelago, and then become global pariahs along with all of you?” He laughed.
Mave spoke up, his artificial voice piercing Rys’s skull, “You are completely uninterested?”
“Look, I’ve been offered deals like this countless times. I don’t work for others anymore.” Rys shrugged. “If the League was a little less… polarizing, I might have approached you. As it is, I’d be a pretty awful conqueror not to use you all as a distraction while I expand my own power.”
“You’re more like Maliah than I anticipated,” Graem said. “What happens after us, then? When the pariah is gone, everyone will turn on you.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. You’d be surprised at how easy it is to convince people that they need you more than they really do,” Rys said.
“Such confidence.” Graem stared at him. “I’d be more assured if you were doing something about the battle raging around you.”
Given Rys had two demon princes out there, he wasn’t too worried.
Even so, he turned to Fara, “Deal with the mages. Prioritize your own safety.”
“Rys, there are two of them,” she warned, her eyes darting back and forth between him and the League mages.
“I know, it’s not a very fair fight. They should have brought their entire tower.” Rys ensured that Graem and Mave heard him, and he swore the old man rolled his eye in return.
“Don’t come crying to me if he blows your arm off,” Fara muttered.
Then she dashed away, her tails already casting disruption arrays. He saw the density of spells reduce immediately.
Both armies were avoiding this area, purely because of the destruction that had been wrought.
Only an idiot came close to mages who had effortlessly blown open craters the size of companies. A hundred soldiers could vanish with a flick of a wrist from either Rys or Graem. Maybe even Mave, although Rys didn’t know how strong the armored enforcer was.
A roar announced Grigor’s arrival. He slammed into the ground beside Mave and Graem, hefting his runic axe.
Myrne shot to his feet, reminding Rys that he existed. A moment later, he exploded as Grigor turned his torso into paste.
“We meet again, young one,” the demon prince boomed at Mave, ignoring the Kinadain general that he had just obliterated. “It is time for me to test your strength.”
Grigor’s human form rippled, then burst apart into that of his thirteen-foot-tall demon form. Mave stared up at the Kashlovian beast that towered over him, then raised his guard. Both of their runic weapons glowed, as if in sympathy.
“Ah. It’s you,” Mave said. “So you are Grigor. I didn’t realize.”
“Hmph,” Graem snorted. “If you aren’t interested in Maliah’s offer, then let’s end this charade.”
The old man raised his hands and a dozen magical lances appeared above him. Rys summoned a wall of hellfire in response. Both spells exploded upon contact, to little effect.
To the side, Mave and Grigor dueled. Despite the size difference, Mave held his own. His armor and weapon glowed with countless runes. Every blow between the two produced shock waves, and their weapons sparked with magic upon contact.
Grigor had the advantage in strength, but Mave was skilled. Raw speed kept Mave from being overwhelmed as well, as he was able to dart out of the way of Grigor’s massive swings. A single hit would send the tiny man flying, no matter how strong his armor was.
“Worry about yourself,” Graem uttered.
Suddenly, he appeared on this side of the wall of the hellfire. The flames licked at his body but didn’t harm him. Blue light crackled on his skin and clothes.
Rys barely had time to react before a weathered arm thrust toward him, pumped full of magic. His axe slammed into Graem. He hadn’t had the time to use an infernal blow, but it should have cut through mere flesh.
Instead, Rys felt like he had struck solid steel. His axe bounced off Graem and sent a numbing wave flowing through Rys’s arm.
Cursing, he dropped to avoid whatever spell was being thrown. A wicked blast of flames shot out, tickling Rys.
Both men pulled away. Graem moved as fast as Fara, despite his apparent age.
“That’s some impressive empowerment magic,” Rys called out. “I’ve heard that you combat magisters are as strong as demon princes, but now I can believe it. How many decades did you spend perfecting this?”
Graem didn’t respond. His eye merely glowed brighter. Magic built up in his arm.
How boring.
Rys cast a ritual spell in response, as a ball of concentrated magic appeared above Graem. It appeared to be the same spell that the old man cast when he first appeared.
This time, Rys was ready. When the orb came flying at him, he unleashed his ritual. Cracks burst from the ground between him and Graem. The old man darted away like a rat, too fast for Rys’s spell.
Hellfire exploded from the ground a moment later. The raw density of it vaporized even the air and turned everything it touched into prismatic light. The magic that Graem had summoned was consumed in the blaze as Rys’s magic destabilized it.
“Do you have many tricks other than hellfire?” Graem asked.
“You seem to favor using raw magical energy yourself,” Rys retorted. “We’re not in an atelier. I’m casting the most efficient and powerful spells that I can. Leave the experiments for home.”
The pair traded spells again, to no avail. Nearby, Grigor landed a blow against Mave and sent him flying.
Somehow, he got back up and kept fighting. Sturdy bastard. Those dwarven runes on his armor weren’t for show.
“You’re better educated than I thought,” Graem said, stroking his beard. “What tower did you learn at? I’m guessing you trained as a combat magister at some point.”
“Ruathym,” Rys replied, grinning from ear to ear.
“Cute,” Graem drawled. “An infernalist who learned from the infamous capital of the Infernal Empire. Then I shall extract the information myself.”
Once again, he moved faster than Rys followed. One moment, Graem stood perfectly still. The next, he was in front of Rys with magic charged in his arm.
This time, Rys had an infernal blow prepared. His axe met Graem’s spell. A moment later, Rys realized his mistake.
Graem’s spell immediately spiraled out of control. The magical energy he brought into the world reacted with Rys’s spell.
The explosion ripped into Rys and knocked him backward. Pain blossomed along his arm and upper chest. Even his face felt burned.
“Fuck,” Rys swore.
He immediately cast a regeneration ritual, pumping infernal energies into his body to heal himself.
Later, he’d see a Lilim for proper healing. This was just a patch job that covered up whatever wounds he’d sustained. The skin on his arm felt as if it had been fried with boiling oil, and he couldn’t feel anything below his shoulder. The damage to his chest and face felt superficial, so he ignored it.
What didn’t kill him could be put off until later. While Rys wasn’t a true infernal, he wasn’t as reliant on his internal organs as humans. Just like when Barul had punctured his chest, Rys knew that he could take a serious battering.
The moment his ritual activated, he regained control of his arm. Graem watched him in surprise. The old man’s hand was mildly burned, but that was it.
“I had expected that to vaporize your arm,” he said. “An unstable magical reaction of that size would have incinerated a dozen men.”
Unstable reaction, Rys’s ass. That had been a genuine attempt at intentional immolation, which involved summoning and releasing large volumes of magical energy at once. To a normal mage, immolation was suicide.
“You say that, but you’re perfectly fucking fine,” Rys snapped. “Here I am, marveling at my own body, but you’re made from goddamn steel.” His eyes narrowed. “You’re not using empowerment, are you?”
“It’s rather unusual that there is yet another person like me on this island. That makes four now,” Graem said.
Four?
Rys realized what was going on. Human enchantment. Although it had been called something else back in the days of the Infernal Empire.
“My interest in you and the League just went up several notches. Successful body modification with magic isn’t easy, and humans have so little magic in them that the result is almost always death,” Rys said, his eyes glittering.
Graem looked at him in confusion.
“But it’s time to end this battle, and decisively at that,” Rys continued.
He looked above and saw the barrage of spells continuing. Fara was only one fox, and dozens of trained League mages were too much for her to handle herself. While Margrim and his Ashen rained hellfire, they were in danger.
Reaching out, Rys knew that he had already lost many infernals today. A few had died, but most were banished. Recovering from this would be painful.
If he wanted to salvage this battle, the only way to do it was with a huge show of force.
“We are evenly matched,” Graem declared. “We’ve proven that.”
“You’re damn strong,” Rys admitted. “I’ll even say that you know a lot more about magic than I expected, given what I’ve read. Good grasp of theory, based on how quickly and easily you manipulate energy. But you have nothing on me.”
Rys focused himself and began to cast a grand ritual. A pair of concentric magical circles appeared around his body.
For a moment, Graem wanted to interfere.
But Grigor roared and sent Mave flying. The demon prince leaped across the battlefield and landed in front of Rys. Even without mindspeak, Rys’s old friend knew what this spell meant. He leaped to Rys’s defense instantly.
So Graem instead pulled Mave up. The armored mage bled from gaping holes in his armor. His runes ceased glowing due to the damage they sustained, and Mave appeared to be on his last legs. Grigor had pushed him beyond his limits.
Rys continued to cast. This ritual was phenomenally complicated.
He had borrowed it from Azrael, after all.
Stole, more like.
When Azrael had attacked him during the Cataclysm, he had deactivated all magic before leaving. That feeling of complete powerlessness had never left Rys. Being completely disconnected from the source of his power had made him reflect on what strength truly was.
And, of course, he had recognized a new form of power. That of denying others their own strength and magical ability.
Disruption magic was nothing new. Angels loved the stuff. Fara’s entire existence appeared to be dedicated to it.
The principle behind it was to disrupt the magical energy that made up a spell, or possibly the spellcaster’s attempt to control magic. Both attempts had merit.
But Azrael had gone one step further. He had denied Rys the ability to feel magic entirely. If somebody couldn’t feel magic, he couldn’t even begin to cast a spell.
Centuries of research had gone into the ritual that Rys cast now. Rys called it Absolute Disruption, although it paled in comparison to Azrael’s ability. At best, Rys could disable one type of magic. He had been certain that the archangel could disable all magic, save that of the most powerful spellcasters.
Plus there were some other kinks that Rys hadn’t worked out.
Nevertheless, Rys loved the spell. He had regained the knowledge since shattering the last power conduit. Now he planned to cement his power in the minds of everyone around him by demonstrating it.
After a solid minute of casting, Rys finished his spell.
And just like that, all normal sorcery winked out at once.
Every magical lance, fireball, and blast of wind vanished overhead. A blinding rainbow shimmered in the air as dozens of spells collapsed at once.
Hellfire continued to fly, however.
A dull feeling clogged Rys’s head, as if somebody had jammed wax into a set of ears he didn’t know he had. If he tried to sense the surrounding magic, he had serious difficulty doing so. Not even the hellfire could be sensed, although he saw it blowing apart enemies.
The battlefield stopped. Almost everyone alive had some level of magical sensitivity, and they felt the same feeling that Rys did.
More to the point, they had seen the magic vanish. Knights could no longer cast spells.
Then the screams started. Avolar’s military panicked. They began to flee.
Booming laughter rose up from the demons. Rys heard Fred above it all.
Graem stared at Rys, his eye wide open in shock. “What have you done? What are you?”
“Forget that,” Mave snapped, trying to pull the old man away. “Graem, we’re leaving!”
Rys slipped his axe back onto his belt. “If you want to find out, come find me at my palace. I may not be interested in Maliah, but we might have something to discuss.” He winked at the two mages.
Both of them paused. Then they nodded at him and jumped away.
That was one of the kinks, unfortunately. Absolute Disruption stopped external magic, but couldn’t affect enchantments and any intrinsic spells. While magical empowerment didn’t work, Mave relied on runes and Graem had an inhuman body.
What secrets did the League possess to make them a true threat? Rys felt excited for the first time in ages.
“Rys, what the hell have you done?” Fara screamed as she dashed up to him.
Spiritualism also wasn’t affected, as he had only disrupted sorcery.
“I turned off sorcery,” he said glibly.
Fara visibly shook. Her tails and ears drooped.
“Don’t react like that,” he said, raising his hands while Grigor chuckled. “It’s just a disruption spell. It’ll wear off any second now and only affects a relatively small area.”
“As if that matters. You…” She swore several times and ran a hand through her hair. “Do you know what this looks like? To everyone here, you’re basically a god. You turned off magic, Rys. That’s insane.”
He winked at her. “Should I change my title to God-King Talarys, then?”