The First War Mage: City in the Sky

My arms raised up in front of me, fear was racing through my body when I found myself staring Geldin down. I desperately wished that my sword hadn’t just been blown away in the hurricane of sand, it felt like I was staring down a titan.

He was controlling an entire sandstorm! How could I even compare to that?!

“MOVE!” Geldin shouted with such force that I could feel the pressure shift in the air, as if just his lungs alone held the power to flatten a building. “FIGHT ME!” He continued as he took another step forwards, threatening to close the distance and continue pummeling me.

Adrenaline was running wild through my body—I felt ready to puke from the terror as if it would help me somehow.

Desperately I sucked in a breath to try and steady my heart while my eyes steeled alongside my posture fixing itself. The burning pain of inhaling sand didn’t help in the slightest.

“Why do you think I have potential?” I found myself asking once his words rang in the back of my mind again. Even Levi’s own words about my potential rang in the back of my head in that same moment.

“Because there are three types of mages in this world,” Geldin answered with an annoyed tone. He clearly didn’t want to talk more. “Those who are skilled, those who are born with incredible amounts of mana, and those who have both.” He continued without elaborating further as his eyes settled onto me in a deep glare.

“Now come and show me which one of them you are!” He shouted out as his temper finally got the better of him, his front foot slammed into the ground leaving him to take off charging straight towards me.

I could easily tell how much he was limiting himself, after all there wasn’t even a shadow of a doubt in my mind that he outclassed even Tyrosa in raw strength. He could have easily moved faster—but instead he kept himself at a pace I could keep up with, to an extent at least.

His left arm moved in high aiming into a downwards strike thanks to the height difference between the two of us. I moved my right arm up quickly; My reflexes guided it to try and block the incoming strike before it could hit me.

I clenched my teeth down hard as the impact struck my arm with a painful crunch. I felt my legs give in to the force for a moment before I was able to push back. The mana dancing through body turned into electricity on my arms and leapt across my skin and towards Geldin, yet he didn’t so much as flinch when the magic hit him.

I could feel the aura of annoyance forming around Geldin as I pushed back to get some amount of distance from him. My entire body was shaking, I could feel the edges of the wall of sand just behind my back. The storm itself was creating a wall, an arena to close me in and fight Geldin.

“Okay, okay,” I muttered to myself. I couldn’t run, no matter how hard I tried I would be stuck fighting Geldin, against probably the second strongest Mage I had ever met. “Fine, I’ll fight.”

I slowly raised my arms while trying to harden my gaze, Geldin for his part smiled with a pearly white grin once more. He stepped back with his arms moving out wide to invite me in—to invite me to strike him.

My heart felt like it was ready to jump out of my throat while my mind started racing for ideas, but I didn’t have time to think. I just needed to act now and think later to keep myself alive. Mana began surging around my body rapidly, while I searched for that instant of strange control and power that had allowed me to save Lilly and Erde from Andrew; Hoping that maybe with that I could manage to impress him enough for him to let me to survive.

Yet despite my attempts at a search I couldn’t find that surge of raw power again, at least I couldn’t find it easily. Instead I resorted to leaning in, and running around Geldin in a wide arc to circle him while mana rushed down to my hand—swirling together on my palm while the energy charged up rapidly.

I could feel the pressure building on my palm while a bright blue glow accented my hand as I ran around Geldin’s right side. He didn’t even bother to turn and follow me as I slid to a stop behind him raising my right hand.

The swirling sphere of brilliant azure blue mana sat on my palm like a pearl shimmering and reflecting the sand coated sky surrounding me. My eyes remained fixated on it for a moment before the pressure released; I couldn’t even register how much mana I let pour into the sphere but it was glowing brilliantly enough to be nearly painful to look at.

The sphere tightened into a cone before launching forwards in a massive burst of raw mana nearly as wide around as my entire arm. It cut through the air with a soft buzzing sound—Geldin turned his gaze towards me as the burst launched out but he made no move to protect himself.

Bang

There was a massive explosion when my burst impacted Geldin. Dust scattered everywhere through the air blocking my view of Geldin with a heavy haze, I was left paused in place while waiting for the dust to clear with my mind racing.

‘Did I get him?’ I thought, almost saying the words out loud while my eyes were struggling to focus. For an instant I could have sworn I saw the shadowed black outline of Geldin sitting inside the dust before my eyes lost it and moved on with their search.

I barely had the time to take in a sharp breath—my arms didn’t even make it away from my sides where they had fallen to before I saw Geldin’s fist come flying out of the dust cloud aimed perfectly for my face.

My heart began pounding through my chest as I felt the pressure building from Geldin’s mana, I just barely had time to push mana down to my left leg kicking it out to the side with a burst that let me take the punch in the shoulder.

I was thrown back and sent rolling through the sand from the impact. I felt a horrible pop in my shoulder when his fist impacted it, a white hot fiery pain ached through my shoulder as I was sent rolling over it again and again until I finally found a stop to my rolling and slid a little further along my back until a series of loose, shattered bricks caught me.

I wanted to let out a groan of pain and to just lay where I remained for as long as I possibly could. The pain was overwhelming, not on a physical level but more on a mental level that was made even worse with the intimate knowledge that I was bound to lose sitting in the forefront of my mind.

“Why can’t he just kill me already?...” I found myself thinking. Why did he have to drag this out, just to make me suffer more? Why did it always happen this way? Why was it never quick? Why couldn’t it just end already?

“Never wish for Death! Even in the face of death itself, straighten your spine and scream your warcry, for there is no worse crime than solemnly accepting a fate you can change!” I heard Darek’s words in the back of my head. Like my own body was screaming at me to fight back, to stand up and fight.

My eyes finally snapped open as I heard the stomping of steps rapidly approaching; They were charging towards me in a full blown sprint.

Desperately I gasped a breath trying to fill my lungs with as much air as I could. A flash of pain followed deep inside my shoulder near the center of the joint but I bit down the pain as I put force on my forearm to roll myself over and get to my feet.

My jaw was clenched down so tight it was almost numb, my mana flared out hastily to form some semblance of defense around myself in a crude shield. My eyes flashed around, searching for the source of the sounds I was hearing, footsteps echoed like drum-beats, like an entire army marching in unison with every footfall hitting the sand at once.

Finally I found a shadow running through the barriers of sand. It was circling around where I stood like a blur inside the storm, yet it never moved so fast that I couldn’t keep up.

Geldin was inviting me in again, demanding for my actions to prove my will to live.

The breath I had been holding finally released explosively when mana blasted through my body. I felt the raw power surging through my body as if I suddenly grew in strength and speed tenfold with my mana cycling through my body in sync with my heartbeat.

Just when I was about to take off and chase after Geldin I saw the shadow slow down—it turned on a dime and with one smooth motion brought an arm up and across with sand rushing forwards at me.

I bent my legs and I shoved myself to the side, and while I was forced to roll again it was at least better executed leaving me to roll back to my feet in the same motion and shove myself forwards while avoiding too much force on my shoulder.

Electric mana was slowly charging across my arms, I hadn’t the slightest idea of how to use my element properly. It was alien to me but, but then again the entire concept of magic still was. But I did know that its presence alone felt like it increased my power more than just raw, unattuned mana did.

Once my eyes focused again I saw Geldin mere feet away, already spinning for a powerful kick that was aimed with terrifying accuracy at my head.

I pushed forwards with my front leg, slamming it through the sand and into the bricks underneath to find some semblance of grip. I felt the sand scatter around my foot with the impact similar to how water would with a sufficient stomp as energy exuded from my leg and was pouring off of my body in uncontrolled bursts.

My arms moved up in a sort of cross block—I was expecting Geldin’s kick to be deceptively weak compared to what I assumed he could do. And just like the rest of his strikes it was weak enough for me to block it, and almost easily at that.

“Much better,” Geldin smirked as his leg was forcibly stopped in place by my block. “Now that you’re using magic why don’t we actually fight?” He chuckled as his leg pulled back.

For an instant I was confused by his motion before he slammed his right leg that he had just used into the ground before turning into a powerful spin towards his back with the heel of his left foot coming around with a whistle from its speed as it flew through the air.

I turned as fast as I could with my arms raised, taking the blow that had more than five times the force behind it. I was shoved back, sliding through the sand but to my surprise all I could feel was the faint stinging of pain from the impact.

I didn’t have time to think about the strike, instead focusing as much as I could on my arms until I could hear the crackling of energy. I felt it dancing across my skin, I could see the faintest of violet glows in the corners of my eyes alongside it.

My legs began pumping through the sand, guiding me back into striking distance with Geldin. His right arm twisted in for an uppercut while I turned my entire body to throw as much weight behind my right arm as I possibly could. My fist tightened while the glow of violet light grew brighter, I felt Geldin’s fist hit my ribs in near the same instant my fist collided with his jaw.

There was a bright flash—An explosion of some kind in the instant my fist hit his jaw. And yet my own head rocked back, all I could hear was a ringing in my ears and nothing but bright white greeted my eyes until the blue sky quickly filled in my view.

I was left confused for several moments when I felt no ground under my feet. The momentary feeling of absolute weightlessness before pain rocked my mind back into reality nearly in perfect sync with my eyes refocusing from the clear sky to the sand that was quickly approaching me.

I landed hard on my chest, fiery pain screamed through my body again, yet by miracle or magic my ribs weren’t broken. Though they were bruised bad enough that they may as well have been.

I slowly turned my head up, trying to take in the view of Geldin before my inevitable death. I couldn’t feel any mana when I tried to move it through my body, all sense of control was gone and replaced by exhaustion filling my body again.

Geldin had a hand to his jaw like he was shifting it around for a few moments until an audible pop reached my ears with a low grunt from him.

At least I could die happily, knowing I had at least landed a respectable hit on him.

“Impressive, honestly,” Geldin muttered in an almost slurred tone as he turned to look at me.

His jaw was mangled from where my fist impacted him, or at least as mangled as it could be after I hit him. Flesh was torn away showing the edges of bone in a few places, it left him bleeding a fair bit but it was far from any sort of injury that could kill him, or be anything more than an inconvenience to him.

“Injuring a High Mage, as nothing more than a rather low leveled Sage,” He nodded with what looked almost like respect as he paused again. “A shame honestly, I would have gladly taken you in to train you in the ways of magic. But a contract is a contract. And they want two heads now.”

I couldn’t even struggle as I felt sand crawling up around my body, the force slowly crushing down on top of me. It was all consuming from all directions, the only thing left uncovered was my face.

I just closed my eyes, trying to focus on something other than the crushing pain surrounding my entire body.

“Fracture.”

I heard the word scream into my mind like a warcry—yet I couldn’t find any place of origin for them. All the same I knew the owner of that voice, the sand receded rapidly, an instant before a leg clad in silver armor landed a few feet in front of me.

“Kirin, get out of here. Now. Find Tulip and run,” Brimrose gave her command without even looking back to me. I could feel the roaring power from her, so grand that it could have easily blanketed the entire city and then some. Maybe even for miles around it if she wasn’t fighting against an aura just as oppressively powerful as hers.

“Oooh now the Queen finally shows up? Are you done trying to just throw rocks at me?” Geldin taunted as I slowly got back to my feet. I felt mana roar out from him in a surge that physically blew the loose sand away from him. “Fine then, you’re a far more interesting fight than the kid.”

“And yet that kid struck you and made you bleed. Have you really grown so weak, Geldin?” Brimrose replied back with an icy calm as she shifted her weight forwards ever so slightly.

I didn’t even have a chance to see either of them move before they collided against one another, they traveled dozens of feet faster than I could blink. Brimrose had drawn an ornate blade, and yet it was stopped in place by nothing more than Geldin’s skin now that he was letting his mana run wild.

I knew immediately how utterly hopeless it was to even think about trying to fight Geldin more.

My legs felt weak and fear gripped my heart as I saw, and felt just how powerful a High Mage was. And with two of them fighting each other in close quarters combat I knew it was hopeless.

I turned and ran, I ran as fast as I could. I ran to the only structure that still stood out in the entire city, the large bell tower that I saw Tulip run towards. My legs started moving as fast as they could take me, while a second fight that made James and Tyrosa look like a pair of cats fighting next to two great dragons began.