Weight of Worlds

Onward they fought. The nature of their struggle swallowed the horizon in quick jumps, rushing wind, and blasting sand. Between the passage of realms, and through the realm itself. And as they chewed the distance, so did time chew them.

Day churned on and eventually fell to the vile stroke of dusk. Midnight purples, darker and more sinister than the radiant violets of their clashes, swallowed the sky, then sank with decadent slowness onto the ground. But just as the coming of night struck down the bearing of day, so too did dawn eventually brandish its sword.

Onward, their conflict rose. Giants striding across fields worked by the hands of dozens, to plains untouched by the eyes of man for decades. All that remained from each of their clashes was the grainy dust of sand and guttering sparks of space. Colors of conflict are unknown to all who claimed the ground they fought above, yet understood by all.

And so a trek was spawned, passaging merchants and rumormongers forging a path that would stretch southward, past the sparsely manned villages and onto richer grounds. Onwards they would travel, forging a path through inhospitable winter as they had for centuries before then. Roaming into the break of spring when the thaw would lay itself on the land. From each of their little hideyholes these carriers, of tales, news, and lies fashioned as rumor, would emerge like rabbits from warrens, swarming to the capital.

Carrying their goods and, for an extra shine of a copper eye, a tale of gods in the north. Of their clash. Their stories would be manifold, yet they would come to understand that the capital they’d traveled to was more changed by these gods than they ever could be.

Yet the merchants came. Their caravans grew thinner and shorter, their routes coming from further north until finally, as summer burned down, the leaves browned and people settled in to weather their new lives, the last story of the ‘Purple Gods’ reached the City.

Ranvir burst through the soil and snow, seizing Saleema’s ankle in a tight grip. His shoulder ached from the force of his swing as he threw her into the distance. She didn’t hesitate, throwing stones at him that howled through the blurry snow.

He could hardly detect the noonday sun sitting high above the snow cover, yet he understood the passage of the last two days in his bones. Knuckles ached from striking her, eyes hurt from straining to catch wind, and his wings ached from the constant onslaught of wind.

She’d healed her body entirely and dropped the energy lines, opting instead for simple throws. Yet with the change that had come upon her during the fight, the slight loss in accuracy didn’t matter.

Her range had increased. Massively. More than doubled, as he would expect from someone on a fourth stage. Her Discipline of Wings reached an awful five-hundred meters, and he could only be thankful that she appeared to not have grown much as a fourth-stage tethered.

He blasted out of her range, feeling her Lancer Discipline lock onto him. Rocking from side to side, it moved sluggishly enough that he could somewhat evade its mile-long grasp.

With a bit of breathing room, he vanished into a pocket-space, slashing forwards. Her tether-sense, mountainous in proportions, washed over his own sense, tracing a path to his space.

Having learned his lesson, he emerged before she could break it. Cold attacked him like a rabid dog, ripping and tearing at his limbs. The snow cover had become a blizzard thick enough to obscure his arms before him. Shivers racked his body, tearing simple bodily control from his grasp.

Fighting Saleema was a learning experience. At one end, it was like seeing a master who’d spent centuries honing their craft, but on the other, he was fighting a drunken despondent who wouldn’t take care of their own form. He could not kill her spirit through her body, so she turned it into a simple puppet for her purposes. Dismissive even of its repair.

Horrifying, even as it was interesting. Something had gone horribly wrong when she’d ascended the third stage. Again he cursed himself for not being awake when the Drowned King dispersed the storm mana from the Orykto Fold. Or simply paid more attention to Kyriake when she’d been training him. He must have been blind to learn so little from her.

He descended slowly, straining his senses and Perception trying to pierce the veil of chill wind. All he felt was ice mana, tinged with an affectation of something simpler and deeper.

He could not simply destroy Saleema’s body and kill her that way, but if this plan worked, he’d have the time to figure out an alternative. He’d already been forced to adapt his Abilities and regular techniques in order to function against her. Yet in this place…

Chill bit at him now, too deep and too harsh for him to continue his descent. Reluctantly, he rose. The mana altered for a single moment, the flicker of energy disconnected from cold.

Ranvir tensed, but she didn’t show herself. He licked his lips and examined his surroundings. Nothing…

Above the swirling fall of wind and snow, perpetuated solely by the ice mana. Below something far more insidious, a vile contradiction. Cold mana rushing along the depths of the glacier, an energy aligned solely to the lack of itself. A force perpetuating itself, driving all else from it. In the depths of his senses, he understood that within this cold mineral lay eventual death.

Not his, not even his people. The death of Vednar. The plane itself. Energy turning on itself, feeding off all else. Fading, dying, and then converting. A joining of the masses.

Rocks shot through the blizzard, torn off-course by the harsh environment. One simply shattered, pelting his head and shoulders, the other ripping past his shoulder fast enough to tug at the sleeve.

Ranvir shot forwards, tearing his tether-sense free from the pit below him. She was right there, her field already expanded. He rushed into her control, fighting for each step. She raised solid barriers, forcing him to break or go around them, as she curved stones to strike at him.

Each impact hurt, but the air was thick with ice and punished any inertia it had. He twisted Sand Bastion, changing it slightly to alter the way it took the impacts. Dismissing the message he felt coming from Amanaris, before it even appeared, he finally closed enough to see her.

Her lips were turning purple, and she was shaking as badly as he was. Her Discipline made the area feel thick as rock as he shoved his own Dagger through. Cutting at her control to assert his own seizure on her movement.

She frowned at him, yelling into the snow. Though her words were lost, the meaning carried through their souls. She was questioning the sanity of his mind. Ranvir laughed and opened one of his trump cards behind him. Heat washed over him. Scalding. Agonizing, it wormed like needles into his flesh, yet he endured the wash.

She sensed his space but not yet its purpose. Her confusion was clear on her stiff features, yet in not understanding his goal, she could not comprehend her weakness. She didn’t realize her body was freezing to death. Freezing solid.

Sensation was returning to his fingers, and with it a fierce pounding. Ranvir winced, looking down at his hands. Frost crept across them, even now melting and falling off, only to return once more to ice. Flexing his fingers, a twinge of pain shot through his bird arm and a talon fell off. Dropping cold and fragile to the ground. He winced, despite feeling it no more clearly than the rest of his limbs.

Saleema attacked him, comprehension bleeding through their connection. He looked up to see one filmed over yellow eyes glaring at him. Ranvir grinned and burst into motion. He couldn’t really keep her locked down, but he could make it difficult. All he needed was for the glacier to make up the difference.

They clashed once before she started fighting her way free of his Dagger. Pain ripped through Ranvir’s head, originating from directly behind his eyes. He curled up, clutching his face as she tore his Dagger apart. His spirit howled, yet this kind of damage would no longer cripple him.

His spirit was no longer so vulnerable as to fall to that. But it would slow him down, something he could ill afford. He surged after her, lost to her senses. She shot a surprised look at him as he locked fingers around her arm. She felt solid to his touch, frozen to the bone.

But she’d noticed what he hadn’t. Cold descended on them.

Fire mana. More than two score artifacts created by fire typed animals, each of them painfully picked out. Anyone could’ve started a forest fire in the wettest jungle. Opening his fire-space for this long would’ve lit his surroundings on fire. Fire mana guttered.

A glacial chill in the apocalyptic sense descended on him, tearing the fire mana apart one instant and the items the next. The cold seized him and all efforts changed. With a combination of wills forged by sheer desperation, Ranvir and Saleema vanished from the Northern Glaciers.