Corvis Eralith
The heavy, cold metal of the activation key felt like a shard of finality in my grasp. This wasn't just boarding; it was crossing a line Aldir had explicitly drawn.
The key slid into the switch with a resonant clunk, a sound that echoed in the sudden, expectant silence of the cavernous Castle hangar built specifically for my creation. Then came the awakening.
A deep, subsonic thrum vibrated through the reinforced cockpit floor, up my spine, settling into my teeth. It wasn't just sound; it was the Barbarossa's heartbeat.
Across the curved, dark visor display that wrapped around the cockpit, complex arrays of runes—my own intricate spellforms, scaled up and amplified—flared to life.
Lines of crimson, emerald, and sapphire light ignited across the massive internal display, painting schematics of limb integrity, mana flow, and weapon readiness.
Outside, through the visor, I knew the same runes were blazing across the Barbarossa's blood-red armor plating, transforming the mechanical titan from dormant sculpture to a predator poised to strike.
Below me, through the feedback systems woven into the pilot's throne, I felt the immense exoskeletal reinforcement within the limbs coil and tense, hydraulics hissing softly, like a great beast drawing its first conscious breath after hibernation.
"So," Romulos's voice purred, materializing in the co-pilot's seat I have decided to install due to Tessia's insistence—a spectral form lounging with infuriating nonchalance amidst the thrumming power.
"Where are we going, Captain?" His tone was pure, polished mockery, the dragon savoring my defiance.
To the Wall, of course. The mental reply was flat, devoid of humor. My fingers danced across secondary consoles, confirming system checks even as my mind replayed the intercepted radio burst. Professor Glory's voice, strained but controlled, cutting through the static: "...Prin—Vice Commander, there is a... powerful… north… acidic magic… casualties severe…"
Captain Glory now. And the signature description… it couldn't be coincidence. Jagrette. Alea was heading north. Alone. Against a Retainer.
"Ugh, Jagrette," Romulos wrinkled his nose in disgust, a surprisingly human gesture. "What a pathetic, grasping creature. Honestly believed her acidic parlor tricks could earn her a Scythe's mantle? Serve directly under Dad?" He scoffed, the sound like dry scales rasping.
"Blasphemous. The only ones remotely worthy of such… distinction," his red spectral eyes gleamed with dark amusement as they met mine through the visor's reflection, "are me and you, little brother."
His words, once venomous barbs, now landed with a strange familiarity. A constant, sardonic commentary in the maelstrom of war. Annoying? Always. But also… a perverse anchor.
A reminder that even amidst the horror, there was an intelligence, however alien, that saw the same enemies, understood the same stakes.
His disdain for Jagrette, for all Vritra not of pure blood or simply not Agrona, mirrored my own revulsion for Agrona's weapons. He was the devil on my shoulder, yes, but he was my devil, whispering strategies in the chaos, sharing the burden of impossible knowledge.
He was... my brother.
"We are going to support the Wall's defense," I stated aloud, the words solidifying my resolve against the phantom pressure of Aldir's disapproval. "And intervene directly if the Lances or Grey require aid."
Especially against Jagrette. Time was a luxury I didn't have. Being an asura Aldir's senses were keen; the Barbarossa's activation wouldn't go unnoticed for long.
My gaze swept the cockpit displays. The Dark Visor showed a perfect, unobstructed 360-degree view of the hangar, runic overlays highlighting structural integrity and potential threats. Clear. Green lights pulsed across weapon status boards.
The Mana Wreath—the mana sword's hilt positioned on the waist of the Barbarossa—charged and ready. The Mana Stinger—a torso-mounted dagger for pinpoint, armor-piercing strikes—hummed with contained energy.
The Krakatoa – the siege flamethrower, named for its earth-shattering potential—sat dormant on the back of the Barbarossa, but primed, a sleeping volcano. And secured magnetically to the Barbarossa's right flank, sleek yet brutally functional: the Cannibal.
My hand hovered over its control rune. It wasn't just a weapon; it was an answer. A fusion of concepts: the close-quarters devastation of a shotgun, the hyper-velocity precision of a railgun, built on the scaled-down frame of a heavy howitzer.
Spellforms etched into its grey, unyielding metal allowed it to switch seamlessly between shredding power at point-blank range and delivering focused annihilation miles away.
Perfect for the shifting ranges of the Wall, for punching holes in fortifications or vaporizing high-value targets from afar. Its cold presence was a comfort. A promise of decisive force.
Satisfied, I gripped the primary control yokes. The Barbarossa responded instantly, a low growl vibrating the cockpit as mana conduits flared brighter. Sylvia's core, nestled deep within the machine's back, pulsed with steady, immense power—her legacy fueling my arsenal.
I walked the titan forward, its massive footfalls echoing like thunderclaps in the hangar, shaking the reinforced stone floor. It stopped at the very edge of the precipice—the massive hangar doors wide open, revealing the expanse of the Beast Glades far below.
No hesitation. I pushed the yokes forward.
The Barbarossa stepped off the edge.
For a terrifying heartbeat, we fell. Weightless. The Glades rushed up. Then, the small, strategically placed engines embedded in the limbs and back roared to life. Not the thunderous blast of the Krakatoa, but a powerful, sustained whine. Fueled by Sylvia's core, they arrested the fall with brutal efficiency.
The descent slowed, transformed. The Barbarossa stabilized, hovering fifty feet above the treetops. The engines' thrum settled into a powerful, resonant drone, the sound of contained fury ready to be unleashed.
The Barbarossa surged forward, a crimson comet skimming the treetops, leaving a wake of disturbed air and shattered silence as it arrowed towards the distant storm of battle. Aldir was a distant concern now, drowned out by the engines' song and the pounding of my own determined heart.
———
The hour-long flight to the Wall stretched into an agonizing eternity. The Barbarossa's engines thrummed with relentless power, a deep, resonant drone vibrating through the reinforced cockpit where I was sitting, a constant reminder of Sylvia's core burning bright within its mechanical heart.
Yet, even at maximum velocity, skimming the treetops of the Beast Glades, the distance felt insurmountable. Every second was a grain of sand slipping through an hourglass filled with the blood of Dicathen.
Images flashed behind my eyes: Alea potentially facing Jagrette, Grey locked in earth-shattering combat with Dragoth, Tessia fending off hordes of mutants, soldiers falling beneath waves of corrupted beasts and Alacryan steel. The weight of responsibility, of knowing I could be there, should be there, pressed down like the mountains themselves.
Fuck. The curse was a raw scrape against my throat. If only Olfred hadn't blocked my oath towards thr Tempus Warp integration. The Relictombs held secrets, fragments of aetheric manipulation that could have bent space, slashing this torturous flight to minutes.
The memory of the dwarf Lance's attack felt like a fresh wound now, stinging with the bitter taste of lives potentially lost due to bureaucratic caution.
"Stop picking at the past scab, Corvis." Romulos's voice cut through the spiraling frustration, materializing in his spectral co-pilot seat. His tone was unnervingly calm, a stark contrast to the storm raging within me and outside the visor. "Focus on the present. And speaking of present… what's that mana signature blooming on your fancy display?"
My gaze snapped to the Dark Visor. Amidst the chaotic tapestry of lesser signatures—distant skirmishes and normal mana beasts—a new, potent flare pulsed on the eastern periphery, the direction of the advancing Alacryan main force. It wasn't familiar.
Not the brute-force furnace of a Scythe, but still stronger than a Lance—before I shattered Alea's seal or I gave the Acclorite to her, Varay and Aya at least.
Beyond the Meta flared, analyzing, cross-referencing… nothing. Alien, yet undeniably Alacryan, radiating a cold, focused intensity that set my nerves on edge.
"I know that pathetic signature," Romulos hissed, his spectral form coiling with sudden, venomous disdain. "Nico Sever."
Nico? Here? Targeting me? The disbelief was a physical jolt. Why?
Romulos rolled his eyes, the gesture dripping with contempt. "Really, brother? Use that brilliant mind. Dad undoubtedly whispered sweet lies—told him you could bring his precious Cecilia here without messy anchors like Grey, which you could actually do. And Nico, the loyal, brainwashed lapdog he is, scrambled straight to Dicathen, lurking like a vulture, waiting for you to poke your head out of the Castle." His spectral lips curled into a sneer.
"Pathetic."
But why show himself now? Why not earlier? The war has been raging on for a year.
"Because Nico is weak," Romulos spat, the word laced with profound scorn. "He lacks the spine, the ingenuity, the sheer will that defines true power. Even after Taegrin Caelum, he was barely a shadow of Arthur. And I trained Art." He shrugged dismissively. "So, hardly a fair comparison."
He was right. Nico, in the canon story I remembered, relied on treachery and Cadell's intervention to defeat Arthur when he unlocked the third phase of his Beast Will. Alone, against focused power… he faltered. But I wasn't Arthur.
I was Corvis. Brilliant, maybe, but physically vulnerable. A silver core mage piloting a machine of war.
"You are more than enough," Romulos stated, his voice shifting to a chilling certainty. "Stay inside this metal shell. If, by some cosmic joke, the whelp manages to land a lucky blow…" His spectral eyes glinted with predatory promise. "...you still have Berna... and more importantly: me."
The unspoken threat/offer hung heavy: possession. A last resort, a surrender to the dragon within.
"This might even be a gift," Romulos mused, his tone suddenly light, almost cheerful, which was infinitely more terrifying. "Didn't your dear friend Grey specifically ask you to help him with Nico? Well, here's your chance! Subdue the puppy, drag him back, free him from Dad's leash. Grey would be so grateful." The sarcasm was grotesque.
This reeks of a trap, Romulos. My mind raced. Why send Nico alone? Why not back him with a Retainer, or even another Scythe? Why this obvious, direct confrontation?
"The answer is deliciously simple, dear brother," Romulos purred, leaning forward with spectral glee. "Dad despises Nico. Almost as much as I do. He only tolerated the nuisance because of that unstable little girl, Cecilia. He's not sending an asset; he's sending garbage. For you to take out and further prove yourself."
He beamed. "Consider it… initiation! Binman first, then colleague, then son! All great dynasties start with taking out the trash, don't they?"
Binman. The term landed with grim finality. Agrona wasn't just testing me; he was using me as his disposal unit for a tool he found irritating. The sheer, calculated cruelty of it, the casual dehumanization of Nico and me, ignited a cold fury beneath my fear.
Nico's signature was closing fast, a malevolent star on the Dark Visor. Turning back to the Castle was impossible—too far, too risky, potentially leading a vengeful Nico straight to our heart. Fight was the only path. Like always.
Suddenly, the ground erupted. Not explosions, but jagged spears of obsidian darkness—Blood Iron—lancing upwards with terrifying speed from the corrupted forest below, aimed precisely at the Barbarossa's flight path, targeting its massive feet and leg joints. An ambush sprung from the shadows.
Instinct, honed by countless simulations in my mind and real battles, took over. My hands flew across the controls. The Barbarossa's engines roared in protest as I wrenched the yokes, vectoring thrust violently. The massive frame shuddered, tilting sharply upwards.
The cruel spikes, gleaming with malevolent energy, scraped harmlessly against the reinforced crimson armor plates centimeters below the soles with a horrific metallic screech. We gained altitude rapidly, leaving the forest spikes behind.
Through the crystal-clear Dark Visor, enhanced by mana-tracking runes, I found him. Perched defiantly atop a tree, Nico Sever stared directly at the looming form of the Barbarossa. His face, cold and pale as the light of the moon and etched with a fanatic's determination, was visible even from this height.
His eyes burned with a cold, focused hatred that had nothing to do with Agrona's commands and everything to do with me—the perceived obstacle to Cecilia.
"Just avoid letting him touch the Barbarossa," Romulos warned sharply, his earlier amusement gone, replaced by tactical coldness.
"His regalia… it's a cheap, crude imitation. Lets him understand materials, deconstruct them on contact. Like a child playing engineer compared to Meta-awareness. But dangerous enough if he gets his hands on Mother's core or your rune networks."
I knew. Nico's regalia was a twisted echo of his past life's engineering genius, a discount version of the fundamental understanding I possessed with Meta-awareness—using Romulos' owrds. Letting him analyze the Barbarossa's unique alloys or Sylvia's core structure was unthinkable.
Hovering for a heartbeat, I met Nico's gaze through the kilometers of air and the layers of the Dark Visor. Understanding passed between us—predator and prey roles momentarily undefined. Then, resolve hardened.
My hand moved to the Cannibal's firing control. The sleek, grey weapon hummed to life, spellforms along its barrel flaring with hungry light. Targeting runes superimposed over Nico's figure on the visor, calculating trajectory, wind shear, mana interference.
No words. No grand declarations. Just the cold logic of survival and the imperative to protect the Wall. My finger tightened on the trigger inside the cockpit and the Barbarossa copied my move.
The Cannibal's whine climbed to a piercing shriek, gathering devastating potential. The gift for Grey, the disposal of Agrona's trash, the defense of Dicathen—it all converged in this single, decisive act.
The Barbarossa trembled with contained fury as I unleashed its long-range wrath upon the reincarnated engineer turned fanatical weapon. The thunderous roar of the Cannibal shattered the tense silence, a spear of hyper-condensed mana screaming towards its target.
Nico Sever
The crimson behemoth looming against the sky wasn't just a simple machine. It was a jagged piece of my own fractured past, a monstrous echo of something lost. Red metal… gears… hydraulics… the words surfaced like bubbles from a drowned memory, murky and indistinct.
Earth. Etharia.
But before the images could solidify, they were swallowed whole by the all-consuming darkness that had become my reality—the suffocating void left by Cecilia's absence, and the searing, endless hatred for the man who took her life.
King Grey.
He stood in front of her, his face impassive as stone, that damnable sword in his hand. Then the flash of light, Cecilia's gasp cut short, the terrible stillness… and Grey, always Grey, escaping. First in that life, fleeing the consequences like a coward and becoming King.
Then again in this one, fleeing Taegrin Caelum, fleeing me, fleeing the debt of blood he owed. He escaped to play the hero here? To strut around Dicathen while my Cecilia remained lost to oblivion?
This machine, this abomination piloted by some elven princeling, Corvis Eralith, was the only barrier. Capture him. Deliver him to the High Sovereign. That was the bargain. Agrona's voice, smooth as honey, resonated in my mind: "Bring me the Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Elenoir Corvis Eralith, dear Nico, and your Cecilia will be restored. Whole. Yours. The life stolen from her by King Grey, returned."
A life meant for us, free of Grey's shadow, free of this pain. All I had to do was break this red shell.
The behemoth moved with unnerving fluidity. Its arm—a construct of spell-forged metal and humming mana—rose, wielding a weapon that defied simple naming.
Rifle? Shotgun? The terms dissolved like ash before the furnace of my rage.
My former life's knowledge, the engineer's understanding, was buried deep beneath layers of grief and the backlash of Agrona's reincarnation—despite everything not even the High Sovereign was almighty, but at least the memories of Cecilia didn't vanish.
Only the image of Grey's sword piercing Cecilia's heart remained pristine, a brand on my soul. I'd spent that life hunting King Grey trying to plot a murder; I would spend this one reclaiming what he stole, starting with this arrogant child in his metal cage.
The weapon fired. Not a projectile I could grasp, but a searing lance of pure blue energy, cutting through the air with a high-pitched shriek. Instinct screamed. I threw myself sideways, the beam scorching the earth where I'd stood, vaporizing stone, wood and root alike.
The heat washed over me, a physical reminder of the power I faced. I wove through the trees, using the thick canopy as cover, but the machine tracked me relentlessly. My mana signature. Of course. Agrona's gifts were my strength, but also a beacon in the dark for my enemies.
Desperation clawed. I clamped down on my core, suppressing the flow of mana to a bare trickle, becoming a ghost in the Beast Glades' mana-rich atmosphere.
Like a shadow, I crept closer, the massive red legs of the behemoth like pillars supporting a malevolent god.
My plan formed: a sudden leap, Blood Iron spears erupting to pierce the cockpit's presumed weak points, drag the elf out, activate the Tempus Warp Agrona had gently given me… and vanish. Cecilia, almost within reach.
Then, the behemoth shifted. With a smooth, horrifying motion, it detached a second weapon from its back. A flamethrower? The word surfaced, cold and clinical, divorced from any warmth of memory. A torrent of hell erupted.
Not just magical fire, but a viscous, chemical inferno mixed with raw mana—a sickening fusion of worlds.
Orange and crimson waves, high as castle walls, engulfed the trees around me, the very air igniting. The heat became an agony, searing my skin even through my augmented defenses.
My cover vanished in an instant, consumed by roaring, unnatural flames. The scent wasn't just woodsmoke; it was acrid, synthetic, wrong.
Another ghost of Earth, just out of reach, useless.
Panic, cold and sharp, pierced the haze of hatred. This wasn't just a machine; it was a predator designed for me. The Alacryan army whispers flooded back—the Devil of Dicathen.
I understood why. It crashed down, landing with an impact that shook my bones. Then, theatrically, it drew a weapon from its hip.
A hilt, then blinding white light erupted—a blade of pure, condensed mana, humming with lethal intent. It pointed the searing tip directly at me. Mockery. Pure, arrogant mockery.
How? The question screamed in my mind, battling the roar of the flames. What powered this monstrosity? The mana expenditure felt… impossible. Like drawing from a well as deep as Agrona's own breathtaking reserves.
I launched a spear of Blood Iron, obsidian and sharp, aimed at a joint. The behemoth's hand snapped out, impossibly fast, and crushed the spike to dust. That's when I saw them—intricate runes etched across its crimson armor, glowing faintly.
Not Dicathen simple glyphs. Not even standard Alacryan spellforms devised by Agrona for his people. They were… more. Refined. Complex. Superior.
Ice water seemed to flood my veins. Grey didn't know how Agrona's work functioned. Cynthia Goodsky couldn't have known this too. Agrona guarded his secrets with ferocity.
The secrets of Taegrin Caelum, the core principles of Vritra magic… they were locked away, known only to the Sovereigns and their pure-blood kin. And many of them were known to Agrona only.
Yet here they were, replicated, improved upon, by an elven prince into his teens. The sheer, terrifying impossibility of it sent a shiver of primal dread down my spine. What kind of mind resided inside that cockpit?
What knowledge did Agrona truly covet about Corvis Eralith?
The shotgun-rifle snapped up again. This time, it didn't fire a beam, but a deafening roar. A cloud of hyper-accelerated mana pellets, dense as hail, filled the air.
No dodging. Nowhere to run. I threw up a desperate thicket of Blood Iron spikes, a forest of obsidian erupting before me. The pellets slammed into them, shattering the outermost layers, cracking the inner ones. I was pinned, shielded only by my failing creation.
Fury and terror warred. Soulfire! Black flames, cold and devouring, erupted from my hands, washing over the crimson behemoth. It wouldn't melt the metal, but it would feast on the mana sustaining it, drain its lifeblood… but again, the impossible.
Tiny vents opened across the machine's surface. Not magic, but precise, mechanical apertures. Wind, amplified and focused by unseen mechanisms, blasted outwards, a hurricane contained.
My Soulfire, the devouring essence gifted by Agrona Vritra himself, was scattered like ash in a gale, rendered impotent.
The shadow fell over me. The behemoth stood colossal, blotting out the bruised sky. Its massive right hand, palm open, lowered towards me. Not to crush. To capture.
Before I could react, two small, barbed projectiles shot from its palm. Not magic bolts. Darts. Connected by thin wires crackling with energy.
A taser! The recognition was instantaneous and horrifying. Not just magic. Technology. Earth technology, fused seamlessly with Dicathen's mana and Alacrya's principles.
The darts struck my chest. Agony exploded. Lightning—raw, violent electricity, amplified by a surge of mana—ripped through every nerve, locking muscles, scrambling thoughts. I tried to push mana against it, to break free, but the current was too strong, too alien in its fusion. It wasn't just overwhelming my body; it was overwhelming my understanding.
As the world dissolved into spasms and blinding white pain, the final, crushing realization settled upon me, colder than the deepest void. Agrona hadn't sent me to capture a prize. He'd sent me as bait. As a test subject.
A disposable tool to gauge the capabilities of his true fascination—Corvis Eralith. Not Cecilia. Not Grey. Not even me.
We were all just pieces on his board, distractions from the elven prince who dared to blend worlds and made it seem so... normal, the elf who built from the bones of Agrona's own secrets.
The darkness rushed up, thick and welcoming. The image of Cecilia's smile, the promise of our life together, flickered… and then faded, replaced not by love, but by a face etched with cold determination, pale blonde hair catching the light of a different world.
Grey… the name formed in the dissolving remnants of my consciousness, not with love, but with a final, bitter pang of shared betrayal, the only anchor left before the void claimed me entirely.
He'd escaped Agrona's game while I was just another piece sacrificed on the board.