Mortal Magic: Broken
Madness And Death

Without losing a moment Lars pulled on the mana around him and used it to create dozens of projections in the air that he fired at me. Not making even the slightest movement I made the same projections in less time than he needed and fired them with much more speed and power than his had in them. The moment the projections touched they broke to tiny pieces that seemed to sparkle in the air as they vanished into nothingness.

I heard him grunt and then he moved towards me firing more projections than the last time and holding a sword in his hand. Just like mine his projections were empty inside and easily breakable with the same light purple color and light in them. I countered all his projections like they were nothing; and that was exactly what they were to me. As he came closer I projected a random sword in my hand and when he slashed with his own I just put mine in the way and both shattered in the same way as the rest in the air.

Grunting he took a few steps back and looked at me furious and confused at the same time. He didn’t realize that the same power only counters itself. We were both useless against each other like this; no matter what we did we were never going to keep a single projection intact from hitting another. I had counted on this at first but this wasn’t really needed now that I had Blood Realm on my side. I could be faster, stronger and better than him in any and all ways and he had no clue about it. It was almost cruel to postpone his death for my entertainment but it would be worth it when he drew his last breath.

“Don’t act so surprised, everything we make is fake, fragile and weak. There is no way our makings will last when put against one another, and I can make more than this before you even blink”. He kept looking at me with rage in his eyes and I couldn’t help but relate to that emotion. That was the way I looked at him when he took my sister from my arms that fateful night, but now I didn’t even need to look at him like that. He couldn’t pose a threat to me now so there was no point in being blinded by rage when he can’t fight back. “Give up Lars, you have lost. I won’t let the eclipse shine in here and you can’t kill me to force the destruction of the realm”.

“You would dare look down at me when I have everything you do at my disposal? Foolish boy whatever you try I can do better. I will kill you before the eclipse ends”. If that was how he wanted it there was nothing I could do or wanted to do to change his mind. He was going to die either way so it might as well be fighting. I looked at my friends and with a bored glance I spoke to them. “Whatever happens you don’t get involved. He is mine”. I could see that in their eyes I was not in the right state of mind and I could feel it too inside me. This realm was playing its part again in taking away my sanity but right now I didn’t care. I cared only about survival.

Before he even started running again to charge at me I had fired three projections at his feet surprising him and gaining the advantage of moving first. After the initial shock he passed by the swords at his feet and charged like me holding a sword in his hand again. I projected one myself and as we were coming closer weapons of our making started falling from the sky to pierce us and each one of us broke the other’s projections. The fight over our heads was fierce as countless swords, hammers, knives, arrows, spears, maces, lances and daggers were being destroyed only to be replaced by many more that would follow the same fate.

On the ground we were fighting as best as we could as each projection on or hand meant only one hit before we had to replace it. I felt the mana inside me being burned from all this magic that I was using, making swords in the sky, maintaining the reality arte fueling my swords with mana to make them faster and deadlier. But even all that was nothing compared to what I was making every second. My mana reserves were limitless and I could feel the mana around us lessen so I let mine flow freely from my body for him to use. By doing this I was helping him fight me but that was what I wanted, a fight, not an execution.

Soon he seemed to realize that something was wrong with the mana he was drawing to his body as mine held a different sensation from what he found naturally, not as clean but still the same as the real thing, it could be described as an imitation of mana that only I could produce. But it was still mana that everyone and everything could absorb so long as I let it out of me. He looked at me puzzled for a moment when we crossed our swords again and they broke before we conjured three more one after another to attack desperately.

He was thinking something I was sure of that but he wasn’t concentrating entirely on the fight. I pulled back and just stood there catching my breath as he did the same still looking at me puzzled but with some sort of realization in his magenta colored eyes. What was going on in that mind of his right now? What did he realize now that was worth his death? I didn’t get an answer as he dashed at me with unnatural speed just like I usually do when I reinforce my body, but I felt that his case was different. He wasn’t using the same ability I was using, but something else entirely. “It was you all along wasn’t it? You were the key”. His words surprised me and I didn’t understand their meaning. To what was I the key all along? I didn’t get much time to think about it though.

Before I could get out of the way he hit me with a big pole that looked like a tree trunk and threw me feet away like before but this time it was less painful. The pole did replace its mark but it wasn’t as resilient as the real deal and my fall was shorter this time around. I got back on my shaky feet and saw the projections he was firing at me hoping that my disorientation would be enough for at least one of them to sink in my flesh.

I pulled on my mana and directed to my muscles making them burst with life. Grinning I said the name of the arte loud enough for him to hear and I felt my body getting lighter, faster and stronger. With enough distance between the projections and me all I did was to summon the same swords coming at me in my hands and slashed at them every time they got close enough. The world seemed to move slower as I calculated the movements I would need to make to break every single projection without fail or slowing down, and when I finally moved so did the world around me.

One by one the weapons came my way and I twisting around here and there I crushed the replicas moving faster than even them. When I was done there was a cloud of dust surrounding me and I moved to Lars emerging from it before it faded away. He looked scared for a bit before he took a fighting stance again with another sword. Smiling I spoke up. “Before this is all over, I will teach you fear, then pain, and when fear and pain is over, let’s just say I will show you your next permanent home”. With those words I closed the significant distance we had between us with two steps that carried me further than one might think possible. He put his sword in front of me but in my fit of rage I didn’t care about it so I grabbed it in my hand and held it there as I looked into these purple eyes I hated.

He was frightened by my action since no man in his right mind would willingly wrap his hand around a sword, even a weaker fake. I felt the sting of the pain and the tickle of the blood running on my skin before it gently fell on the transparent blade and stained the ground. My smile never wavered but I could feel my sanity fading as the rage and thirst for vengeance came back from the depths of my mind. I wouldn’t rest before I took his life one way or another.

His expression gave out pure terror in my presence and it was justified. Having someone so lost in his madness that he would do this and smile like he just cornered his next lunch was terror worthy. I tightened my grip on the sword and broke it with my hand making Lars take many steps back looking at me with disbelief and fear that I wasn’t used to seeing in his eyes but I enjoyed. I let out a maniacal laugh and slowly made my way to him one step at a time that he took back at the same time. The sky was at last clear from the swords that were clashing above us and you could see the blood moon shine eternal upon us coating as in that bloody light.

“I said I would protect her no matter what with those bloody hands of mine and meant it. You are going to die here tonight Lars. There is no escaping me this time”. With every step I made I could feel my mana bursting out of me in an ever increasing pace and the vibrations it caused to not only the ground but reality itself. In Lars’ eyes I saw myself coated in a bright blue aura that faded away from me like smoke but it kept renewing over and over. When I spoke to him my voice was like before, a distorted sound that seemed to be coming from a demon inside me, taking control over my body as I was giving it willingly.

On my way to him I made three projections and imbued them with more mana than I usually did and fired but when they hit the ground a small explosion of mana was caused. I hadn’t intended to do this but this new way of using my weapons now was mesmerizing, yet it did require immense amounts of mana to do so. Feeling the rage I harbored for this monster in front of me take over I projected a set of twin swords that I never imagined before and allowed them to take my emotions inside them. My crimson spear held the power of my hatred for myself for what I did, taking the color of the blood I so willingly spilled to achieve my goal and regretted moments later.

These swords would take the rage I held for that man for everything he took from me. My whole life he destroyed, he took my home and my sister, he took what little dignity I had left when he forced me to kill again and again and again without end, and he took my father who I held in my arms while he let out his last breath. These swords will forever be known for their meaning that no one takes from me and is left unpunished. As the swords were being formed in my hands the bright purple light changed to a dark abyssal black that rivaled the night sky with small shining stars mixed in the black. The swords like my spear were not transparent and they held more power than any real weapon in this world or the next.

Feeling the power of the swords in my hand Lars took more steps back but then he stood firm and ready with two projections in his hand. He was ready for a frontal assault but that wasn’t my purpose at all. Smiling again I created my spear feeding it all the mana that I could make and then some, and felt it pulse with the same power as it levitated to my right. “Let’s see you live after this bastard, Last Phantasm”. With my command the crimson spear cut through the air with his heart as its destination and to my surprise it was blocked by another spear just like mine but like any other projection in color. He was trying to nullify my arte using the same technique but he didn’t realize that there was no escaping this attack.

I kept pushing and pushing my spear to break the weapon that was acting as a shield and the only thing I was getting was pointless struggle. He was using the mana I was expelling without thinking about it to fuel his projection like I did. So I had to do something else. I dashed under the spears to him and we locked swords as to my surprise again his projections didn’t break when we clashed. The same power was coursing through them like his spear and they proved to be formidable enough to block me. He was using his core as a conduit to transfer my mana to the weapons not using it on his own which would allow him to do so indefinitely so long as there was mana around.

I was running out of patience and my rage was boiling beyond my limits as I roared in pure anger fueling even more mana into my projections to push him, and he did the same. Finally having lost what little sanity I had to my anger I found myself using a brand new arte that I never had imagined. “Broken Phantom”. As my booming voice called the arte the swords in my hands started cracking all over and from the cracks they expanded until they were as long as a long sword but way wider too, like they had undergone a transformation.

I could feel the mana inside them gather to the saw-like edges, they started shining a bright white along with the cracks on the rest of the blades. I pushed them further down on Lars’ weapons and soon they broke and he moved back making one more set. Dashing towards him I slashed with my swords and they were so long that they hit the ground but instead of bouncing back in recoil they cut through the ground and stone like it was paper.

Again I reached Lars and we locked swords this time both growling like savages or beasts in our blind rage. “Is this anger I sense from you boy? Is this all because I had your stupid father killed”? He was taunting me with every single word he was saying, taunting my anger and making me lose control. And he was succeeding. My skin started to crawl and my mind went blank from rage. He was admitting the fact that he was behind his death right in my face and mocking me. “You are right, it is anger. At first it was all for taking her away, but now it for vengeance. I will kill you for taking away his life like that if it’s the last thing I do”.

I was beyond saving now and I knew it. Everything I knew was fading away, my memories, my thoughts, even my own sense of self. I thrashed him as far as I could and he just landed on his feet a few feet away and taking some steps back. In my blind rage I ran towards him yet again as if I had learnt nothing from the past when I acted on impulse and he did the same with a smirk on his face. I was about to bring my swords forward and inside his body when I felt something pierce through the flesh on my left shoulder barely missing my lung or anything else that I needed to live. I looked down shocked by this outcome and I saw that what was embedded inside me was none other than my own spear intended for Lars’ heart.

That was when I made the realization of his plan. He had used my emotions to blind me, make me think too bluntly and he used my weakness to his advantage. I never realized that he had led me in front of my own spear to just let his break and dodge so that I will impale myself. He was craftier than I imagined and Ashe was right when she said he was cunning enough to make up for the loss in power. The blood was running on my body, hot and scalding as I looked at my spear. I kept hearing voices screaming but they were so very distant now that I was lost. I wasn’t going to survive after all, so I might as well just take him with me to the grave.

That thought brought a smile to my face and I started laughing like a deranged man once again eliciting a look of fear and confusion from Lars. “If I can’t kill you and live then I will take you with me. I told you that you are dying here today”. His face constricted in fear again and as he tried to move away I grabbed him by the shirt and held him in front of me as he fought to leave. The pain on my body from moving with the spear was unbearable but I had to put up with it for a bit longer.

Laughing again like a maniac I pulled on my mana and like that time I made wave after wave of projections on the sky and created a cloud of purple weapons above us waiting for my command. This was it. This was what I have been waiting for all these years, to finally kill him and now that I was about to do so knowing that he was terrified was all the more satisfying. I heard a voice in the distance that probably belonged to Yuto and surprisingly I could make out what he was saying as he was moving closer and closer to us. “Archer stop, this is suicide. It’s pure madness; you won’t survive this close to the target”. His words barely registered to my mind as the need for vengeance was all I had inside me now. Ignoring the pleading words of caution I was given I went along with my plan. “You are done old fool. This maddening thirst for vengeance must be quenched at all costs. Mana Overdrive”.

In that moment I felt my mana being drained from inside my body as it was expelled to create a shield around my body to reflect the projections aimed at me and the rest was going to the projections themselves. One by one they fell from the sky as if to smite us with their blades in divine retribution and they sank in Lars’ body again and again before they disappeared leaving holes on him. His blood was running like a river since he was pierced countless times and the holes remained letting the blood flow with nothing in its path to stop it, staining the ground beneath us along with mine and my body that was so close to his.

Most of the weapons found their mark on him while others landed mere inches away from us and some even managed to sink inside me. My legs were trembling as they were both pierced by swords on different places and I had another sword protruding from my right shoulder and a spear had found its way to my waist missing my stomach by only so much. Still I tried to keep my body up and Lars’ now dead corpse with me not letting the pain or the weight drag me down yet.

I had never imagined what it would be like to be actually impaled in so many places like the men I killed in Redgard. There was pain everywhere even with my rage consuming everything I felt. I felt my blood leaving my body slowly and painfully as I never allowed the weapons to fade and leave behind holes. And then I felt hands on me as my eyes closed and I dropped the dead body in my hands. I was laid down gently trying to avoid making the wounds worse but that wasn’t happening as I was skewered by my own power.

I heard voices in the distance even though I knew that the people they belonged to were standing above me or beside me. Soon the feeling of their hands on me faded away and the warmth of the blood on my body left as well. The voices ceased to sound and I lost the feeling of my own body before nothingness took over.