Black Magus

Jamettus Deapou.

***

With the horrid, amused, or shocked stares leaking into my awareness, I calmed myself and turned my attention away from my oldest friend and back to the event at hand. Or, I did on the outside. Internally, uncountable matters plagued me.

First and foremost was what Ev said. Frankly speaking, Amun did not strike me as the lustful type. Sir Nojo, perhaps, but not the Grand Duke of Odissi. That said, I would rather it be Amun to take my daughter's hand than anyone else. Such a trivial matter, that scenario was. But a distraction from the true hauntings of my mind. Yet, its importance remained true all the same.

Beyond that was the matter of competence. Or rather, incompetence. Incompetence on the Necro King and I and the Guild Association's part. Perhaps it was both of us, perhaps neither. It was very well possible that this new generation was in a league of its own. A previously unseen class of potential granted by some mutation or divine right that permitted them affinities of a higher quality and quantity. Whatever the reason, it was clear that even two Magus’ were unable to test these individuals atop this Cast Iron Summit. They needed proper facilities to be tested. If not a proper battlefield. They required an expanse placed far from civilization, filled with empowered and magical creatures that could test them to their limits. They needed the Bodhi Tree. Only then, would they be unchained from these rules and risks of collateral damage.

Only then, could we see their true potential.

I only hoped Roheisa met the expectations set for her. And I prayed to live to see it.

The fire within me died a bit when Jonet Fischer was called into the arena. That said, it was replaced by an ember of curiosity upon realizing the young Lady was the daughter of my head maid, Sarah. That said, I was unaware if she could still be considered a witch-to-be, as her file had her documented as more a fighter than a healer. Regardless, I vowed to give Sarah some time off to rekindle and reconnect with her daughter before my thoughts were ripped asunder by way of her spearing my golem with an ice lance and defending against its barrage with a simple ice shield.

My and everyone else’s curiosity was piqued when she used what was registered as thermal magic to either vaporize the bullets completely or freeze them to their core in midair, leaving them to shatter into bits after being casually dodged. The effortlessness of her movements left everyone bewildered and awestruck. Such traits were only compounded once she used reverberating pops and clicks of the mouth to bombard the golem, its bullets, and our ears from afar. Only for the sound to reach down to such levels to allow for open conjecture upon her usage of poison bogs to slow and corrode the golem’s bullets and flesh.

Much like Ev’s descendant, I remained silent and open while the Necro King poured a massive amount of mana and yet another demonic soul into the conjuration. Once Ev returned to his seat, however, I leaned back further and leaned into him to subtly mutter. “Hopefully this one meets a challenge.”

“Lower your hopes, old friend.” He dryly snorted. “This one’s the most ruthless of them all.”

“Oho?” I turned towards the glass, frowning in disbelief. Like her mother, she was a naturally quiet girl with a placid and easily ignorable visage. And though her mana well was potent, she seemed far too aloof and harmless to be as ruthless as Ev claimed. But of course, it was those types who were often the most dangerous.

Unlike with Toril, the demonic necromental crouched low and lunged towards Lady Fischer without as much as a creak of its iron bones to signal its attack. It closed half the distance within an instant; yet, Jonet stood stark in place with her arm held out towards her opponent, and like she turned a dial, she cranked her wrist counterclockwise and muttered something under her breath, spreading a frigid domain across the arena that had to be upwards of ten meters in radius.

“Was that a Curse Spell?” I gasped in disbelief. “What was it that she said?”

Though it had been caught near the outer edge, the necromental met the same fate as the landscape surrounding it. The very stone tiles below and its igneous skin were both caked in a film of dusty frost that formed from a silent cold. A cold frigid enough to make the northern reaches of Deapou feel like a Vaguan summer. And as she did with the bullets, she easily sidestepped the now-frozen necromental and even turned to watch its momentum carry across the arena until it shattered into uncountable fragments.

Without skipping a beat, Jonet muttered her somethings again before turning the dial clockwise this time. Instantly pitting the domain in a light that dwarfed that of the sun.

“Seventy-five Kelvin, she said the first time.” Ev gasped much as I did. “Then, fifty-five hundred Kelvin. But, it was only half of the equation. Not a true curse spell.”

“And yet powerful all the same.” I chortled dryly at the aftermath. All that was left around her was a molten puddle of rock and not much else. For ten meters in every direction, the very floor had been melted and sent up into the air as ash that caked her in a film of gray-black dust. Yet, she beamed wide and bowed at the crowd on her way out as if she was a bard who just finished a performance.

‘And… who is Kelvin?’ I wondered.

“Roheisa Deapou!”

Law’s announcement served to pry such meaningless inquiries right from my mind and force me to the edge of my seat in the blink of an eye. “Finally.’ I muttered. “It is time.”

If Everandus and the others heard my comment, they didn’t respond in any way; though, even if they had, I doubted I would have noticed, as every ounce of concentration I could muster had been magnetized towards Roheisa, taking the stage.

Bearing her training clothes with her longsword on her hip, she stood undaunted in the center of the arena as she sneered at the iron golem standing at around twelve meters’ distance. As I’d seen her do many times before, she effortlessly parried the bullet spells with steel-reinforced arms before taking a step forth and piercing the golem with a conjured lance. Seeming to be as eager as I was to see what she was made of, Roheisa raced on with an obvious flair of boredom to repeat the same processes with her crystal magic and other affinities. Thus prompting Ev to proceed with the ritual and begin the long-awaited moment.

I knew not the specificity of the nature of souls Ev imbued into these conjurations. Only that they were filled to the brim with mana and given sentience through some type of demon's soul. Monstrously powerful creatures, they were. When in their natural flesh.

With the start of the match, the necromental rushed in much the same way as Jonet’s version did. Yet unlike her, Roheisa drew her sword to meet it head-on. With her body imbued with steel and some strange type of magnetic spell coating her body, Roheisa clashed with the necromental in a bright flash of sparks and heat with nary a half-meter of ground lost on her end. Yet she kept the pressure high by reeling back to conjure a steel mace in her left hand and strike the golem in the jaw. And so ensued the slugfest.

They went blow for blow, toe to toe for a few minutes straight. Acting in line with its nature, the necromental unleashed its fury on Roheisa without pause, and Roheisa met it in kind. With each block, blow, parry, and dodge, her movements became sharper and quicker. The steel covering her grew to glow hotter and hotter. Meanwhile, the magnetic field surrounding her spun faster and faster with each passing second. Imbuing her with a curious energy that resonated with a small part of me.

It wasn’t until Roheisa’s swung widely and missed that I realized what it was.

As she followed through with her attack, her heat caused a bit of molten steel to slough off her body, increasing the area of her attack as she had been taught to do. And yet, a blinding blue light arced from the head of her mace to splay across the necromental from head to toe, showering it with countless sprawling fingers of lightning. Capitalizing on the stun she inflicted, Roheisa sheathed her sword to reach out with both hands, expelling a domain to encapsulate the golem in a blistering sphere of molten lava.

As one would assume, the necromental flailed in mad protest, flinging massive chunks of smoldering lava and iron every which way; yet, Roheisa remained undaunted and simply flexed more mana into her arms, conjuring a field of steel spikes around the domain that were sent lunging toward the glowing sphere at a moments notice. Then, as if she weren’t already done, she magnetized both the being inside her domain and the spikes impaling it, lifted their combined mass, and hurled it at the ceiling.

On both its ascent and after its impact, smoking clumps of solidifying lava were sent across the arena as if they were flung from afar by an unseen volcano. Then the sight was repeated as she slammed the thing back into the ground, sending a notable quake throughout the entire structure that grew to repeat again and again until all that was left of her opponent was a decoration of smoldering chunks and self-mending craters.

“She’s as mad and unmerciful as yourself, old friend.” Ev chuckled from my left.

“But of course.” I chuckled. “I trained her myself.”

“Then what the hells were you worried for?” He lightheartedly chided through the shadows in my ear.

“That she wouldn’t be angry enough,” I whispered back.

“Ah.” He silently nodded. “So then it goes without saying that she intends to be a Vulcanox Berserker, like you?”

“Is it unnatural for a snow lion to birth a snow lioness?” I chortled back. Then took a moment to gaze and listen to the many spectators lined around the arena, whispering and commenting and conversing about the night's main event. “The real question is.” I turned back to them. “What is the nature of Emeric’s seed? Everyone is more than eager to see the Grand Duke- your prodigy in action.”

“Prodigy.” Ev snorted.

Meanwhile, Emeric chimed in by whispering through the shadows into my other ear. “If he’s anything like his mother, Your Imperial Majesty, he’s a Cleric on top of being a Sorcerer. Though I doubt they follow the same Goddess. His training seems to place him as a monk. Otherwise.” He dejectedly sighed. “I don’t know what he is.”

“I have known what Amun was since the day I first laid eyes on his soul. And I have fought with him enough times to see the devil dwelling within him.” Ev grimly stated. “Grand Duke Amun of Odissi, my great-grandson, and your son, Emeric, has a divine soul. It shines like the sun, just like those legendary beasts. He is akin to one of them in a humanoid form, stricken with curiosity and boredom. That has remained true since he was a young boy. Now that he’s successfully Assimilated his Well, however, I am sure he has power that rivals the gods.”

“Surely you talk big because you trained him.” I laughed, beckoning the attention of the nobles scattered throughout our booth.

“I only taught the boy the fundamentals of elemental manipulation and how to use his sorcery.” Ev spat in a way that suggested he was nothing but serious. “He was given a single tome to learn, Azrael's spell. When he was ten, I taught him lesser necromancy, made him and his vassals the Tower’s executioners, and had him fight the Necro Army for four years. I also trained them in the ways of both paladins and barbarians. Paltry things when compared to what he has achieved on his own. His prowess is a product of his innate talent coupled with his years of hard work. Nothing more.”

‘The Tower’s executioner, eh?’ I internally grinned as I pulled as much mana as I could allow to form a golem. “Then, this should be very interesting indeed.”

Upon reclining into my throne, I turned on a whim to gaze through to the adjacent booth, wherein I saw Grandmaster Gysil Vilignin perched on the edge of her seat, anxiously shaking her legs while she intently watched Amun enter the arena with an all-too-casual air.

“Very interesting indeed.”