Two fools were still fighting in the scorched battlefield.
One was a bird monster, a humanoid creature whose colorful feather had dimmed to ink, wearing the attire of a priestess and swinging a lengthy scepter. She had a thin beak, eyes warded and talons for hands. The scepter bore tiny bells that could not ring here.
The other was me. The clay golem, ironclad and coated in silver, with a badger helmet to please the human eye. My polearm was Adhipatya, the weapon of domination with a curved blade that forced all monsters to bend.
Around us rocky carcasses still warped from anti-magic, devoured by the void, enveloped by darkness. Our two bodies held the most mana in this cursed place and so we glimmered like two candles alit.
This was a one-sided battle in my favor.
It took all we had just to move. Our bodies were slow and sluggish. We were aiming for each other but the poles kept clashing, weapons unable to cross the distance and hit.
Each time the weapons met, sparks of magic reignited, then fizzled in a gust.
While our reach was equal, I had the deadlier weapon by far. And while she moved faster, that slow pace gave me ample time to react. I could count on my armor to carry me; she was channeling her very life force to keep going.
And she was frail, her feathers exposed to the raging battlefield. Her very flesh bare. I had two layers of iron over my clay plates crafted for exactly such low-mana conditions. That bird could not count on attrition and hardly had but her talons to hope and crack that cuirass.
So why was I the one getting hit?
Hit. And again, hit. The back of her scepter kept slipping through my defense, now and then, to pummel the iron and send shockwaves in my body. It did little and still, I staggered.
I had no time. She was between me and my master.
And she had experience. With each hit I could feel the months of struggles she had gone through to survive with nothing but claws and beak against the worst the realm could throw at her. All I had to oppose to that was technique and raw potency.
Another it. And another one. They did nothing for her. What little stun it produced faded quickly.
But I had to break through and fast! The human needed me, the human was beyond her and that pest would give way or be trampled!
So I pushed forth once again, pressed her own defense and got hit. Pressed once more, learning a bit more each time, getting ever closer. All I needed was just one time. Just one mistake from her that was bound to arise if only through fatigue.
It came.
One slip up, her scepter swinged too far and I was on her. The distance reduced to nothing. In that instant the curved blade could have plunged and finished it but I missed! Gashed her shoulder and in a lunge only grazed her side.
She took the moment to rip at my chest with her talons. It left marks, but hardly more, and now she had to parry my fist while our weapons clashed again on the side. Her leg hit and forced me back, not enough! Another thrust skimmed her head by a feather.
With one hop the bird had escaped and our weapons met midway in a barrage.
"What is it you seek?" She held me in a lock. "All that awaits you is death."
"You are already losing strength!"
Just the small wounds I had extracted were draining in this harsh environment. I could practically see her essence degrade through them.
And still she stood before me.
But now her state made it more difficult for that bird to keep me at bay. Hit! Hit! Her scepter could do little to stop it. I was the one forcing her back now.
Another opening! Three times our weapons crossed, three times closer until all I had was to swing and cut her neck clean off. That was it, with her off-balance I had the finishing blow.
I missed!
Again? The curved blade had slashed above her chest instead, and then her arm, a shallow wound from which black blood tainted her dress.
Immediately her retaliation followed. She used my motion against me, hit her head against mine, lost the exchange and still broke my stance. Her scepter started to pummel me.
All this time it had done nothing but battering the clay body under my armor and now the effect was acute. I was brought almost to a halt, limbs unresponsive. Like moving through rocks.
Then she grabbed a plate on my cuirass and pulled.
With all the strength in her talons she tried to rip the armor and the iron cracked at the hold, but held. Another second before she was forced to break off again.
Her scepter intercepted my polearm, but barely, and still the distance was nothing. I pressed, forced another opening and swung, only slashed her leg. The tissue flew in tatters.
She was practically at my mercy!
Hit, hit and hit again, I found myself completely opened, stumbling back against the scepter's hammering, then a kick pushed me out of reach.
"The human is gone." She warned me. "He has returned home."
She was lying. She wasn't lying. We were above that home and that home was surrounded by the void. To return home meant death.
But he was not gone yet!
"What do you even gain by stalling me?! Answer me, Nadjal! Why do you seek death!?"
"I still wear this dress."
We clashed once more. She could do nothing but defend anymore, pressed hard by attacks her body could not sustain. All of her speed, all of her art went into dodging. Parrying.
And when an attack got through, she could not even block.
Another gash!
She let out a small shriek, staggered back and braced for my next charge. I was struggling myself, perhaps from her earlier pummeling. Never had my arms felt this heavy.
I could see what moves I could do next to create the opening, break through and land the death blow. I could see three or four such paths and yet, they all blurred. Was it fear? Did I still fear that bird even now?
"Just stand aside!" I yelled.
She attacked.
Where she found the strength, and audacity, to do that was beyond me. I parried, pressed in turn, got through only to reach too far and have her talons rip all the way to my gorget. And when I mechanically backed away she followed with a new strike.
Why. Our movements had slowed down even more and still I could not find my opening. More claw marks branded my arm when I blocked, then the scepter swung and pushed me again.
Another pass, our weapons met and she disarmed me.
I watched the polearm slip out of my hands, tumble down the ridge. Suddenly the battle had turned and now the hits came like a storm. I could block all I wanted, resist the hits, the pole would only keep coming, relentless.
A hail of strikes that shook my entire body. Shocks that had me nearly fainting.
Could she crack my stone tablet without even touching it?
All I could do was push forward, only to be met by her talons. A flurry of hits tore the iron, pressing the plates to their limit. And still I pushed, until she could not escape and I hit in turn.
Hit! Hit! The shoulder plate shattered under her strike. Hit! My punch smashed her head and made her reel. Hit!
How could she still be standing?!
She struck me with the scepter, one more swing and I finally got hold of it, snatched it away from her and sent it flying away.
"You think I care if you live?!"
"Do you think that human cares for you?"
My fist met her locked arms, broke through and hit her chest. Another jab and then, one swing that she barely avoided. My helmet got ripped, the badger face disfigured.
My arms were battering her. She lurched back, flinching, still parried me and struck. Another iron plate broke off and fell from her tearing. And still I hit, with all the strength I had, and her inky feathers were turning black.
"You have lost enough." She said between two breaths.
I hit and missed her, hit and missed again. But her body was so frail by now that just the pressure around my strikes was making her reel. Miss. Miss. Her talons tore again into the iron, helplessly.
Miss.
I watched her hop back again, stumble and fall. She nearly collapsed down the ridge.
And me, I could not even move anymore. My whole body just refused. As if she had cast a paralysis. We just stood there for too long, her warded eyes turned on me and my badger mask lowered on her.
"It's not too late." My voice was out of breath. "My master is still out there."
"Then finish me and go find him."
Finish her? Why? I could walk over her body. She would not even have the strength to drag herself out of Alunra, let alone cross the dry desert. She had fought a pointless battle and for what? Minutes of delay?
All monsters were deluded.
"There is a ship, outside. Crawl to it if you can."
She said nothing.
"There is a monster onboard. Her name is Chipie. Bring Adhipatya back with you."
"You are still too strong to follow your master." She answered with a weaker, broken voice. "Use anti-magic to drain yourself, then take the leap. His home lays under."
Yes. I had concluded that much.
To anyone it would be common sense: the stronger you are, the better you can withhold the harshest climates. But magic had its quirks. The stronger you were, the more mana you had, the more reactive. Chaos magic thrived on that.
And so, willingly or not, the humans had created a perfect shield of void, chaos and anti-magic where the strong would be consumed.
So even as a clay golem, I was still too strong. Only the weakest creatures would be able to venture into the hole the humans had dug.
Interesting, given that a wyvern skeleton had made that trip.
I watched the bird monster stagger past me, her body torn, her dress in tatters. And Hashal's stelae still tubbornly floated behind her, with a will of their own.
Once she was down the ridge, I let time engulf my iron armor. It had been there, and it was not. The remaining plates turned to rust and shattered, leaving my clay body exposed to the elements.
So then, I sat, brought my arms forth and between my hands started to cast the anti-magic sphere.
The void sphere would be more accurate.
In just seconds, I was falling. Through the ridge, through the ground, through sand. Holding onto that sphere even as it wrecked me. My necklace rattling in the fall.
More seconds before the sand gave way to a cavern without end.
It was so large as to feel immeasurable. But in truth I was barely aware of the surroundings. The sandy walls were degrading, pulled inward where they faded. And in it was nothing.
Not even the void, just nothing.
But I saw him.
"Min-Seok!"
Far below his body drifted, pulled the same way while standing still in the immensity. I was falling right on him.
My master turned at my approach. His eyes met my badger mask.
"Kaele?"
I clutched him. I held him tight in my arms even as he feebly struggled.
"So I could not escape you after all." My master offered a meek smile. "I don't think you should be here."
"Shut up! Min-Seok, what have you done!?"
"Look!" He faintly said.
His finger was pointing at nothing.
"You were right. I see the chains. They are so bright."
I only held tighter.
"Min-Seok, why!? You knew it would kill you! You knew it!"
Because he was already dead.
What I was hugging was just his remains, a trace of what he had been. Even though there was nothing, the human construct, on void magic, had long left him a husk.
And I already knew why he had done it. He didn't want to be a burden.
But now the beads pressed against him had finished to turn even that memory to dust and I was left drifting myself, in the deadliest space the realm could conceive. I clutched my cursed necklace and waited there for destruction to take me.
To finally take me.