Gwenesphia watches Ahok work with a surprisingly energetic level of haste as she works on setting up a device to try to ‘counter-portal’ the portal that refuses to close. It has started to warble and even grow in size before their eyes, indicating that the portal has runaway with exposure to the intense mana coming off of the pseudo-inferno that Daniel and the others are battling out in the field hundreds of miles away. The portal connects the two places like a door to an adjacent room, ignoring that distance. And, as such, it poses an unprecedented threat because it is a doorway directly into the heart of the Citadel.

Ahok activates the first device, which she hastily assembled on a wheeled tool cart. It looks like one of the mana sensors they made for the brief shuttle mission, and probably is one of them being recycled, since lead does resist the intense energies of mana as a sort of passive barrier. She used a smaller version when Wenlianna and the goblin magic artisan were testing their theory to “mine” the mana coming off of the fire.

As such, chunks of the carbon nanotube material from Kernuules’ summoning columns are all but literally sashed onto the length of the device with mana conductors streaming away in a messy web to try to rob the portal of its magical energy and direct it into the Citadel. While it was ineffective against the mana fire at large, the design should be able to overtake the portal and drive it out of existence in the way the shutdown should have. The fact that it’s self-sustaining is a problem they didn’t expect, but Ahok has been working quickly to try to break the chain reaction.

Gwenesphia feels a little bad for Ahok, since she’s blaming herself for creating the void artilleries in the first place. She apparently ran with a niche spellcrafting theory in an extremely unpopular scholarly tome; the perfect reading material to be given to a gifted prisoner goblin in order to make a mockery of her, only for her to turn it into one of the most enviable weapons in the world after rising to royal court artisan rank.

More concerning, though, is Kuboen, who is Gwenesphia’s beloved brother. She may be the “mischievous youngest child” in the sense that her family has allowed her to be part of Daniel’s inner circle, and all of the implications that come with it, but it has never not been clear that Kuboen cares deeply about his family, including Gwenesphia.

In turn, she’s worried about her elder brother, who is with Klur on the other side of the portal where the mana fire is closing in on the wrecked airship, which finally crashed, according to Wenlianna’s last moments aboard before Silence managed to throw her through the magic doorway to the Citadel. The interference from the mana fire’s intense mana prevents telepathy and the magic radios from working, so there’s no sure way of knowing what is happening on the other side of the portal.

Nor whether or not Kuboen is still alright.

No. I can’t drift to thoughts like that. I need to find something I can do to…

A crackling noise startles everyone and draws their attention to the portal. It is wavering even more intensely, changing colors before their eyes as it starts to waver. Ahok nervously backs away from her device, which is still powering up and hasn’t started pulling mana yet.

Objects can pass through the portal. That much is obvious. Objects that have mana can carry mana through the portal. This was what they were counting on with the airship plan. But, what everyone hoped would be the case was that, if everything around the portal did end up in the mana fire, the embers and mana fire itself, being a strange spell spitting out pure mana, both of which can’t cross the portals themselves.

But, in the way that regular flames wouldn’t cross the portal by themselves, but can be carried by the torch that does, an object crashes through the portal with a violent suddenness that Gwenesphia’s instincts tried to predict. She narrowly dives into and tackles Ahok to the ground, with a massive beam swinging upwards and narrowly missing both of them because of the arc. The beam itself is severed by its swing through, clunking across the ground several times before coming to a stop that destroys Ahok’s mini mana extractor, and it wounds several of the assistants and destroys several golems.

That would be reasonable if it was all.

The hairs rise on Gwenesphia’s arms and neck as something makes her skin crawl, and her ears start to tingle. Her instincts are way ahead of her, but the itching sensation rapidly grows as she scans around frantically. People are checking on each other or casting healing magic, but a bright light catches the gatonine’s eyes.

The end of the beam that led the swing into the Citadel and crashed in with several other pieces and chunks of the airship is a torch to a cataclysm.

Black flames lick at the beam and are already spreading onto the floor of the Citadel, with white embers and a rainbow-like outline to the unnaturally black flames themselves making it clear exactly what crossed over the portal.

No! Not here!

“Everyone! Mana fire! We have to put it out!” screams Gwenesphia. She scrambles to her feet, pulling Ahok up along the way. “Hit it while it’s small! Anti-magic! Find anti-magic plates! Bullets! Bombs! Anything!”

Seeing Gwenesphia suddenly shouting, everyone quickly notices the mana fire as well, which is the most important part. It’s still small, and Daniel himself said it was

his biggest regret in just the last couple of days that he let the mana fire get out of control. He was understandably afraid that the void artillery spell could detonate at any moment like a dud bomb or bullet, or a delayed activation spell, and because of the massive amount of power of the void artillery attack rivalling the God-smiters, aka nuclear weapons, Daniel opted to evacuate and hoped it would be a one and done moment.

Instead, the condensed powerful magic became the unstoppable fire wreaking havoc on anything exposed to its intense mana, annihilating everything it touches, and showing no signs of stopping at all.

In the heart of the Citadel, it could erase the very power they’ll need to stop the mana fire and prevent Yaulander from using his remaining void artillery to conquer the continent.

“Water jet!” “Water jet!” Ahok’s assistants, a dattakorien and an Uhl’tall, each try water spells to put out the fire, but Gwenesphia has already heard that it’s ineffective, and in fact, the water ‘burns’ like everything else. As she feared, it only serves to spread the mana fire a bit faster where the water catches embers and reaches the floor before disintegrating. “No! Stop! Water isn’t effective! We need something else!”

“Black fire! Are there any Gloom Inferno casters here!?” “Move anything tall away from the flames!”

“My staff…” groans Ahok. “I… I can try… my staff.”

“Your staff?” Gwenesphia hears the words of the wisest person present, and she glances briefly at the goblin who is injured from Gwenesphia tackling her. The gatonine Empress quickly searches the area. She spots a magic staff, though it’s far from a natural bough of an ancient spirit tree nor a meticulously crafted instrument made from the heart of a dragon’s bone. This staff has installed fixtures on it, including an abundance of diamonds serving as enhanced magic crystals, with the full variety of elemental magic colors charged into the crystals. The staff itself is made of metal, and the most recent addition is a small braid of hair around the base of the main crystal at the end. The braid itself is made of black hair that glows faintly blue in the presence of a large amount of mana, retrieved from the Sovereign Empress of the Fievegal herself by Daniel for Wenlianna’s and Ahok’s experiments.

“I’ll get it! Do you need anything else!?”

“N-No,” replies Ahok. “I… Well, Wenlianna would be helpful, but I think I can do it by myself.”

“Someone find Wenlianna and bring her back, now!”

Gwenesphia knows there was a low-level plan the moment they promised to let her go after Kuboen and Klur to look for silence to keep Wenlianna distracted long enough to close the portal. It’s the obvious answer, since she technically ranks high enough as an Empress for the Citadel golems to obey, as well as the Stalvaltan Guardsmen to back her up. As daughter to Aramellianna and sister to the current Grand Duchess of the Stalvaltan family, Wenlianna can pretty much get whatever she wants, depending on who her obstacles are.

But, now, if Ahok needs her, it’s an absolute pittance to bring her back and stop the mana fire in the Citadel in its tracks.

Gwenesphia is starting to show her pregnancy, and her belly is rather doughy, but she can still run, and she reaches the staff quickly. It looks to be intact, given that it was knocked over with some of the debris that thankfully isn’t on ‘fire’. She rushes the staff back to Ahok as everyone gathers around her. Golems rush in with Wenlianna, since teleportation in the immediate vicinity of anything giving off strange mana is many times more difficult due to the intense interference, but Ahok is already on the move. She takes the staff from Gwenesphia, and the gatonine falls into step behind her to help with whatever she can.

“Your Grace, I don’t know what else to try, so… I want your permission to try the Void Annihilation spell.” The goblin looks up at her urgently, and Wenlianna rushes close.

“I’m here! How can I help!?” She glances at the mana fire, but she still doesn’t have new glasses yet, so she likely can’t make it out.

“Wenlianna, if you know what else to try, I’ll do it. But, we don’t have time, and I can probably cast Void Annihilation by myself. If… If you were to help…”

“Let’s do it,” replies Wenlianna without hesitation. She looks at everyone, even if she can’t actually see. “We can’t afford to delay, not if it’s here.”

“I… intend to hit the portal as well,” states the goblin, looking more distinctly at Gwenesphia now.

The gatonine realizes why. Her brother is still on the other side.

The emotional part of her mind immediately wants to object. Her brother is her precious family, and he’s trapped if they close the portal. She wants to rush through and find him before they close the portal, but she’s a soldier. She knows that time is against them.

“Do it,” replies Peiburi.

“But, Kuboen…” starts Wenlianna.

“There’s not leaving anyone behind, and then there’s no longer an option to use a route.” She points at the portal. “That debris is from the airship, and likely also has mana fire embers on it. That means it’s too late already. I trust Kuboen to have reacted quickly and found a proper escape route. If not… I don’t think we can get to him from this side. So, before it gets worse and threatens the Citadel…” She looks at the others. “I would expect Kuboen to make the same decision if I was the one who went through.”

Everyone hesitates, but Gwenesphia finally says softly, “Do it…” I know she’s right, but… Why does it hurt so much?

Peiburi places her hand on Gwenesphia’s shoulder, adding, “Kuboen will be fine. We won’t do anyone any good, though, if we go through and immediately burn.”

The elder gatonine sister nods at Ahok to give her the go ahead, and the goblin magic artisan returns the nod, though she doesn’t take the weight of the decision lightly. Regardless, she immediately steps a little closer to the fire. “Everyone, please clear the room as much as possible! I don’t know what’s about to happen, but it won’t be much worse than not stopping the mana fire!”

“Go! Clear the way,” orders the Uhl’tall man, and the non-essential personnel retreat.

Wenlianna stands next to Ahok, asking, “What do I need to do, Ahok?”

“If I collapse, you should be able to catch the staff and finish the spell with whatever I have already summoned.”

“Can’t we help cast?” asks Gwenesphia.

“Not if you don’t know the spell. It’s too dangerous, and Count Baumalde and I rehearsed it. I can handle the spell itself, but if it’s too much of my mana…”

“We’ll share the mana burden, then,” replies Wenlianna. “Most of it is carried by the crystals of the staff anyways, right? And, we haven’t tried casting anything since adding Hekate’s hair.”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” jokes Ahok nervously. “But,... I won’t refuse the help.”

“I have ogres and dattakoriens retrieving carts of anti-magic plates,” states Xyreko’s voice as the three prepare to hold the staff together. “But, don’t wait. We don’t have many of them, and Daniel… may need them.”

The trio nods at her. But, Wenlianna asks, “Shouldn’t you retreat, Xyreko?”

“The core is right there,” replies the golem Caretaker with a simple wave of her hand. “If this all fails, then I’m gone anyways. Good luck, Ladies.”

Wenlianna grimaces nervously. She can’t see Xyreko, but the tone of the golem’s voice is fearless, but not all that reassuring.

“Focus on the spell for now, Wenlie. I can only help with what little mana I have,” replies Gwenesphia. The two taller women hold the staff where Ahok instructs, and the goblin holds the end as she starts speaking the spell, forming a slightly-sloped angle towards the portal.

“Try not to panic,” calls out Wenlianna, her own voice trembling as mana starts to swirl forebodingly around their hands. The spheres of the spell form at the crystal end, but the mana is almost tangible on its own. Especially because the mana fire is rapidly flooding the area with strange mana, which fuels the spell even further.

“Like Xyreko said, we have to win here, or we lose everything. So… I… I won’t fail.”

Peiburi remained behind as well, saying from further back, “Gwen, I want you to know, I trust you as much as I trust Kuboen. So, just focus on what you have to do.”

Gwenesphia smiles softly. She mostly just has to hold on and channel what little mana she has, but it is nice to hear her elder sister cheering her on.

That is until the black spheres appear just over a foot ahead of her directly alongside the crown crystal at the end of the staff, which is the final, largest crystal attached to the hand-made, unnatural staff.

It’s an unnatural, total lack of color and light, with a darkness so truly black, that not even a drawing with the darkest charcoal could seem to capture it. The mana fire is similar, but the void spheres truly do appear to be a complete absence of existence within their volume. It’s in direct contrast to the immense amount of mana swirling and streaming around and into the spheres themselves, growing them in size.

Wenlianna and Ahok both gasp and whimper as the staff trembles in Gwenesphia’s hands, and she manages to open her eyes in spite of the fear driving her to look away. The human is wobbling on her feet, sweating almost immediately. Ahok doubles over and throws up on herself.

Both of them are immediately being swallowed by the intense clash of energies tearing the room apart.

Gwenesphia can feel the intense ‘pressure’ coming off of the black spheres, which is blending with the already-nauseating energy radiating from the newly-sparked mana fire.

This story has been stolen from novelbuddy. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

From the sounds of everything Gwenesphia has heard since the sorceranium discoveries, the mana fire, and strange mana in general, those with powerful mana of their own tend to be more heavily affected by the exposure to strange mana. Not everyone is driven to nausea, per se, but if they do have a reaction, it is generally more negative than someone like Gwenesphia, who has a fairly average level of mana by eastern standards, which, in the grand scheme of things, isn’t much more than Daniel when addressing magecraft or other magic standards.

The problem is, Wenlianna is quickly weakening, and she is within contact range if she falls forward into the black sphere. Ahok is safer, but she’s basically on her knees already as her strength and focus falter, still trying to choke out the words of the spell.

What do I do? Should I pull away? But, we need this spell, right? But, if they both collapse? I thought this would be easy, but… Is the void artillery closer to strange mana than we thought? Is that why it’s hurting them? That means I can’t stay, right? But… No, we need to stop the mana fire.

The gatonine tries to think. She can feel her heart racing, since everything is falling onto her, and Peiburi asks as she gets close, “What’s going on!? Are you alright!?”

Ahok retches again, still trying to warble even a single syllable more to direct the spell.

“Peiburi!” shouts Gwenesphia. This startles her elder sister, but it gets her attention as the younger gatonine acts quickly. Wenlianna nearly topples into the spheres, and desperate to save her, Gwenesphia shoves the human with her right arm. She pulls the staff free of Ahok, who is suffering from her own mana depleting and the radiative strange mana from the mana fire clashing within her.

Wenlianna topples into Peiburi, who manages to keep them both upright, and Ahok completely collapses onto the floor. She chokes out, “J-... Just… throw…” The half-goblin magic artisan slumps down onto the floor amidst her own mess, and Gwenesphia is left holding the futuristic, unnatural magic staff with dangerous, merciless masses of pure arcane energy capable of erasing virtually anything.

Thankfully, the spheres of absolute black colorlessness follow the end of the staff while Gwenesphia is holding it. The last step of the spell must be to project it forth, which she doesn’t know, and Ahok is unconscious now. But, Gwenesphia was never a particularly skilled magic caster anyways.

She is however a skilled fighter of the Honeydip Barony, a former Lieutenant stationed at Fort Peony, and now, one of the unrivaled Empresses of the Fievegal.

She may not be a magic caster, but she has always been adequately skilled at throwing spears where necessary.

The gatonine takes a breath. Forgive me, everyone. Mom, Dad, my precious brothers and sisters, and… Daniel. I hope you appreciate how much trouble you and your Fievegal have caused me.

She smiles at this lightly humorous notion. Her own mana is sustaining the spell through the staff, which is hungrily consuming what she has, but seems to be sated a bit by the rampant mana around them. The spheres are each about the size of smaller melons, but the power within could far exceed her furthest throw.

That said, she doesn’t have much choice. The mana fire won’t stop and wait for Wenlianna and Ahok to recover, nor for anyone else to arrive to save them. If Hekate, Serrentuk, Senn, Vaergraes, Kera’tai, or Daniel were present, there would be different options pretty much as diverse as the people that just came to mind.

But, they aren’t present.

Gwenesphia runs forward, preparing the staff in the appropriate position. She just needs to get them close and then retreat.

“Gwen!” screams Peiburi as she believes the youngest Honeydip daughter is about to sacrifice herself.

If all goes according to plan, she’ll be just fine.

Maybe a few hairs short.

She can live without a couple toes, but she really wants to be okay.

Once she’s in a short throwing range, where her gut tells her is the butter zone, Gwenesphia throws the staff overhand, aimed directly for the center of the small and rapidly growing mana fire. It’s obviously much heavier and more awkward than a traditional spear, but she manages to get a good arc, and she doesn’t even wait to see if she lands her shot.

The gatonine continues her throwing momentum right into a reverse pivot, sprinting away as fast as her feline legs can carry her, her belly all but literally sliding across the floor. Her heart is pounding in her chest, and sweat feels like it’s flinging off of her triangular ears and tail in a continuous stream of mist.

There’s a bright flash that illuminates everything even more brightly than the Citadel’s star-like core or the artificial magic lighting, and it flinches Gwenesphia such that she trips over her own feet. The gatonine cries out as she faceplants and slides. Her angle shifts slightly as she hugs her belly instinctively, trying to shield the budding life within. Dangerously foreboding energy crawls across her skin like an army of insects, not causing pain in and of itself, but, she can see violet sparks hover past her somewhat idly. They aren’t as erratic or violent as lightning bolts, but they definitely have a similar distinctly imposing presence as they stream past in a sort of portentous, or rather, reaffirming warning.

“Gwen!” screams Peiburi. “Gwen!”

Gwenesphia can hear her elder sister, but she can’t quite respond yet. Something feels very wrong, and she manages to sit up in her daze, looking over her shoulder.

Now, it’s Gwenesphia’s turn to nearly expel her entire lifetime’s stomach contents.

A perfectly hemi-spherical ‘crater’, which hardly matches the impact site of a meteor, has been formed. Everything in a perfectly round radius has been perfectly erased from existence, and not even a single wisp of smoke nor a single white ember of the mana fire remains.

And, the terrifyingly powerful ‘crater’ reaches well past where the portal was, spanning nearly one hundred and twenty feet in total and stopping inches shy of having lanced through Gwenesphia’s ribs, skull, and posterior, if not worse.

The problem is the hot liquid she can feel pooling around her legs and her hips. She has no idea if she lost control of her bladder, but her eyes go wide when she finds the real source. Red streaks are quickly trailing down into the spherical hole, and the gatonine’s entire body feels like it runs cold.

Just as the Void Annihilation spell missed her body by inches, it left her with exactly that much remaining of her feline tail.

The shock overwhelms her, and Gwenesphia flops down onto her chest and face, losing herself in an instant.

***

Kuboen drags Klur while carrying Silence on his shoulders, all but lumbering through the wreckage of the airship. Every step over uneven and destroyed flooring threatens to trip the gatonine once more. Every sharp angle promises wounds they’ll risk dying of before the mana fire can catch them. Every dark corridor promises salvation only to lead to a dead end.

Kuboen knows now that, although it was effectively the bottom of the airship’s interior, the gunnery bay with Wenlianna’s modified shock-pulse cannon, which she rigged to function as a mana extractor for the current mission, is still more than a full story above the actual keel of the airship, and they aren’t quite on the ground yet. As such, with the mana fire consuming everything above and below, the airship has started to tilt towards the crater of the all consuming false inferno, meaning ‘uphill’ is both more tiring, more dangerous because the mana fire can ascend faster than its horizontal movement across the ground, and it means that their escape from the vessel will almost definitely include an ankle- or back-breaking drop from high up.

But, he can worry about that if he finds the hull. There are a couple of bodies that he passes, but he can’t do anything for them. Silence and Klur are still, as far as he can tell, alive. One of the bodies is a Death Knight, but it lacks the distinct uniqueness of Arachne, and another belongs to a Stalvaltan Guardsman who died during the crash. It’s possible that the Death Knight was still in the process of evacuating him when it happened. The angel-like beings that share similarities with Silence were primarily the ones bringing people through the portal in a hurry, but several of the Death Knights evacuated with soldiers when the engines were destroyed. Clearly, not all of them made it.

I can’t do anything about them now, thinks Kuboen with disgust. He would kill to have Zuzia’s or Hekate’s strengths, but he knows the body he is in. And, he refuses to fall now simply because of what will never be.

The gatonine scion growls as he surges his strength, working his way up through one of the sloped corridors. He stumbles when the airship groans and leans a little further, but he refuses to surrender.

He reaches a door that, to his memory, leads to a catwalk along the side of the airship. He has no idea where he’s at for certain, since he has been navigating through a sickening mess of disorienting light and darkness inconsistent with natural causes of either, smoke strangling the air, the smell of blood raising his alertness even higher, and the slow, relentless pursuit of the creeping apocalypse.

The door doesn’t budge, noticeably jammed by the damage the airship suffered in the crash.

There is a silver lining, though not much of one. Unlike the Citadel, or, if Daniel is telling the truth, the ship he served aboard on Earth, the doors are not made of stone or metal respectively. They are reinforced wood stylized and bonded with metal adornments and braces, but they remain breakable panels of carefully fitted lumber. A boruan could probably bullrush through the doors with nothing but their armor and the strength of their legs, but Kuboen doesn’t have even a trace of boruan in his ancestry.

That said, the door is already compromised partially. He looks around quickly for anything, finding his gaze sweeping down the corridor he just painstakingly climbed. The glow of the mana fire is looming behind him, rapidly ascending the ceiling and catching up to him, while the floor isn’t far behind.

A cough comes from his goblin passenger, and though Klur hasn’t yet regained consciousness, the gatonine secondary heir immediately starts scanning the Field Marshal’s kit. If Daniel didn’t have the backing of the Fievegal or the renown of slaying dragons –and then ‘taming’ the rest–, he would likely have been accused of being a demon or a madman if he tried to overtly demonstrate the things he has weaponised in this world.

The human from another world has taken the ever-so-slowly fading arts of mundane combat with bows and spears and kicked over the tower of superiority provided by magic. According to the history of Mattarglos, the beast-kin races were once feared the world over because of their martial prowess. But, as magecraft continued to be pursued in all avenues of life, and stronger and stronger bloodlines of mages emerged, the balance of power shifted away from warriors of blade and bow to weavers of mystic arcana.

But, few can simply avoid Daniel’s bullets. His explosives can crack armor, barriers, and mountains alike. And, his weakest soldiers can be and often are armed with the means to take down the most skilled battlemages and most fearsome monsters the world has ever known.

Klur’s primary firearm is modeled after the ‘revolver’ Daniel often carries, which the goblins have coined the name ‘Lifestealer’ for. It uses a bigger bullet than the small rapid fire guns issued to goblins, but it’s not as powerful as the Dragonslayer rifles. Regardless, it’s a powerful gun, and Klur has one that is still slung across the small of his back, which is usually obscured by his mantle.

Kuboen doesn’t have a long line of national heroes in his ancestry, but there is a fairly common line in Mattarglos spawned from a tenacious champion that was believed to have been slain by an army on three separate occasions, only to reappear and continue fighting. The saying goes, ‘If you leave a gatonine naught but his pinkie toe claw, you have yet to disarm him.’

Kuboen still has all of his claws, and now he has an otherworldly wand of death.

The feline man quickly crouches, careful to keep Silence balanced on his back. If they fall, there’s a chance they’ll tumble down towards the fire. And, if he falls, his exhaustion and injuries already may prevent him from being able to get back to his feet.

“If this thing isn’t loaded, Klur, I really will rob you and leave you to die here…” growls the gatonine to himself as he pulls the Lifestealer from its holster. There isn’t much time, but he doesn’t have any other obvious options. He won’t be able to retreat from a bomb, assuming Klur has one, and he doesn’t see the goblin’s void bag. The revolver will have to be enough, or Kuboen, Silence, and Klur are going to die regardless, cornered and trapped at the end of a corridor rapidly being consumed by the unstoppable mana fire.

Kuboen aims at the bottom hinge of the door, particularly the iron pin that the door pivots on. His thinking is that his downward angle on the hinge will destroy the whole thing, and he only knows that Daniel’s firearms are highly destructive and can go right through metal.

The gatonine fires, and he momentarily blacks out from the ear-ripping pain caused by the shot. It feels like it was ten times as loud as the rifle Kuboen has used, and echoed directly back at him from the wall, door, and floor. He can’t hear his own cries of pain, and he has to nurse his ear with his wrist, which is in pain from the immense kickback. Kuboen understands the basics of the firearm rounds; they are a directed explosion with the “arrow-head” propelled by that explosion. But, the revolver’s ‘small’ size compared to the Dragonslayer rifle or the assault rifles deceives the wielder.

That said, wood has exploded, and the hinge is absolutely demolished outwards in line with the shot. Kuboen just has to survive one more.

Probably.

He glances through watering eyes, and there are maybe ten yards before the mana fire catches him. It means he has a few minutes at most, which is a lot of time, but he still needs to drag Klur and Silence through whatever hole he manages to make, and then retreat from the airship all the while.

The gatonine sighs and grits his teeth. “I better have my pick of princesses after this, Daniel…”

Kuboen aims at the top hinge next, doing his best to use both hands to brace it this time, while keeping Silence precariously balanced on his shoulders.

His hearing is still ruined for the moment, so the second shot doesn’t ‘pierce’ in the same way, obliterating the hinge and pieces of the wood, which are flung in every direction. He can feel some of the splinters pelt his cheeks and forehead, narrowly missing his eyes.

Most importantly, though, the hinges are both destroyed, and Kuboen shoves the revolver into his belt line. He winces from the heat of the barrel, but it’s nothing compared to the fear he has of being evaporated into nothing but pure mana.

The door is obviously taller than him, but just blasting out the hinges with the Lifestealer is enough to loosen it. He finds where it is resisting towards the opposite side near the top, and he moves his right hand into a gap that formed by its weight shifting without the hinges to anchor it.

The gatonine takes another deep breath, and he uses all of his strength to pull the door inwards, narrowly backstepping out of the way as it grinds inwards and pops free, immediately sliding down the corridor and slamming one of the walls before descending into the ever-prowling abyss, vanishing forever.

Kuboen sighs. His own mortality is definitely riding waves like a beach being battered by the sea, constantly returning his mind to the nearness of death from one simple and quick rescue mission through a magic whole that instantly transports a person hundreds of miles.

Yeah, what the hell was I thinking? Kuboen crouches down and pats around to find Klur’s collar, taking hold to drag the goblin once more. They’re almost out of the airship, but it will be a long time before they are safe.

“Now I know why our eldest brother remained in the Barony when Gwen first sent her letter…” He trudges through the doorway carefully, navigating the unconscious angel and goblin through without hurting them. By some miracle, the catwalk is partially intact, but many of the timbers are broken, so Kuboen doubts he can trust them fully.

Fortunately, a nearby portion of the catwalk that remains is low enough that he’s comfortable he can safely drop Silence and Klur without killing them, and he can survive the drop well enough to recover them without injuring himself.

“How long…?” He glances behind himself again, and the fire is still slowly stalking towards him at a pace slower than a normal walk.

Not exactly time to take the careful route, huh?

The gatonine sighs.

They are already half-dead… How much worse can it get?

Kuboen crouches and does his best to lower Klur as far as possible, and he does the same with Silence. The two hit the ground ten feet below with their own thuds, and the gatonine winces. He hopes they survive, or it would all be for nothing, but he doesn’t have the time to take the ‘safe’ route, since the mana fire isn’t just spreading up the corridor.

As the gatonine is about to step through to bound over the two to land safely, he has to brace against the doorway when the airship lurches backwards. It is collapsing the rest of the way, and Kuboen nearly loses all of his progress in an instant.

“Damn it!” He curses and launches himself through the doorway, since the wall of the airship is toppling with the crunching and popping of the superstructure of the remaining parts of the ship’s hull. Kuboen is now running down the rapidly leveling hull, which has pulled him back towards the mana fire as it quickly erupts through the hull that is now overtop of it.

Kuboen dives to the ground and rolls, hurting his shoulder and knee, but adrenaline is pumping now, tingling every vein in his body. He scrambles through the pain to Silence and Klur, and with his new burst of strength, he swiftly chucks them both onto his shoulders like sacks of potatoes, managing a desperate, limping jog away from the rapidly disintegrating airship and the ground that is starting to catch ‘fire’ as well.

He pants heavily as he ‘runs’ as fast as his body will allow, which is a rapidly decaying brisk walk, and then a limp, and finally, a painstaking trudge. His breaths are heavy and wheezing, and his arms are feeling numb already. But, he doesn’t have the option to stop. Every foot he gains on the mana fire is lost seconds later if he comes to a stop. He’s not even sure he’s still walking faster than the mana fire at this point, but he doesn’t look back. He focuses on the horizon and carrying Silence and Klur.

As he pants breathlessly, he tries to keep his spirits up to keep his focus off of his aching knee, his burning shoulder, his throbbing back, or his tingling veins. “Hah… Hah… I-Instead… Instead of a princess… M-Maybe I should… make Daniel keep that… damn threat… ‘Galu verashanda gurai.’ Ha!... Filthy lecher… Hah… To hell… To hell with pride… I’ll settle…” He swallows the tacky strings of saliva in his dehydrated, winded mouth. “I’ll settle… for… ugh… ‘Royal Favorite’. Long as… hah… As long as… I can do… whatever the hell I want the rest of the time…” He flops his head back as his lungs burn and he does his best to inhale the whole sky to try to catch his breath. “‘Concubinus to the Emperor’ has to be better than this…”

Kuboen realizes he was quick to volunteer for the rescue mission, but he expected a quick in and out.

Now, he’s in the middle of foreign wilderness where the Fievegal is, at best, considered rather adversarial normally, and no one with any authority knows where he is.

And, he has an alleged Princess of the Fievegal –a juicy hostage if true– and one of their high-ranking officers in tow.

Maybe being vaporized by an annihilation fire is better than being captured…

Regardless of his idle thoughts, Kuboen keeps his feet moving forward with long, trudging steps focused on balance and progress rather than speed, since he can’t do all three.

It’s all he can do to stay upright without dropping either of his wards.

***