Capítulo 18: Dance of Death

Das immediately creates a barrier around him as his eyes burst with white mana.

"Wait-"

She tries to speak but the archmage chooses to act first. She raises her arms to cover her face and in doing so, a wall of bones emerges from the ground right in front of her just as a bolt of lightning strikes it.

The woman then levitates as shadows seem to pull her off the ground and the wall of bones, or what's left of it, breaks apart and flies to her crackling and begins enveloping her like a current of water.

"No! I won't let you!" Das shouts as he too levitates off the ground and summons a magic circle in front of him.

A dozen bolts of mana are shoot and they move around the woman as living flames before launching themselves at her from all directions.

"Fine, have it your way" She speaks with the same distorted voice of the phantom as her radiant blue eyes burst with energy and the bones stick to her body like armor, her head hidden beneath a helmet of bones that resemble a skull.

The projectiles clash against shadows that shoot up from the ground, keeping her safe from their attacks.

As the moon blesses the decayed groove, crows fly in circles around the two opponents that hover above the ground that splits open as several rotten skeletons wearing rusty pieces of ancient armor dig their way out.

"But I warn you, Archmage" She moves her right arm behind her and a large scythe of bone grows out of her armor itself "You are not ready"

The corpses stare at Das from below with blue, spectral mana coursing through their empty bodies, eyes glowing with the mystical fire.

The woman then launches herself at Das with the scythe ready to slice him in half. he reacts fast and shoots a beam of light from his staff that swallows her whole.

However, the scythe then cuts right through his barrier, shattering it like glass as it vanishes and the blades open a thin red gash on his torso. Before he can do anything, the skeletal arm of the woman pushes through the beam and firmly grabs his staff, forcing it upwards as the beam stops its assault.

"You think yourself able to defeat me?" Smoke gently emanates off her armor as the woman stands in front of Das "Don't make me laugh"

She then strikes the still shock archmages with a powerful kick and sends him crashing on the rough ground beneath and roll several times. Once he begins to stand up the undead take a hold of him, grabbing his arms behind his back and pushing him to the ground.

"They used to call this place cursed because nothing ever grew, It was a perfect myth to keep them away as I taught that young fool my art" She speaks as she touches the ground and walks up to Das "Just let me-"

"NO! You will pay for what you brought to this land!" Das shouts in return as his body explodes in a bomb of light.

The skeletons that get swallowed by it shriek and fall apart while some are even lit on fire before they drop on the ground, in pieces or just going limp.

The woman has raised a dome of bones around her that return to the earth as soon as the light is no more. She looks for the archmage but before she finds him the wall of bones appears behind her and it's hit by a large fireball.

Turning around she calmly walks towards the archmage who stands far away from her with his staff pointed at her. The large magic circle in front of him then glows with fiery fury as multiple fireballs as twice as big as the woman shoots out of it.

But the wall of bones keeps sprouting out of the ground and sparing her from any harm before returning underground.

Once she is close enough she lunges forward ready to slice at him a second time. Das panics and pushes himself off the ground several meters away from her, he then stands levitating, staring at her, his mind racing through countless options of what could he do.

The woman laughs with amusement before being raised to eye level with the archmage by the smoke-like shadows that carry her.

"Do you think you are safe at a distance?"

The shadows grow in number and begin to burn blue around her body as they quickly resemble flames, she raises her free hand and the flames travel to her palm creating a concentrated ball of blue fire that soon explodes sending several fireballs towards the archmage.

He summons one, two, three magic circles with complex runes that stop an equal amount of fireballs but the rest of them continue their path unopposed. Realizing he can't cast enough shields in time he flies as fast as possible away from the fire that seems to follow him with deadly precision.

As soon as the last fireball has been blocked the woman casts a new dozen to follow him, forcing him to fly around the groove summoning shields to stop the attacks.

"I can feel my mana depleting fast! I have to do something NOW!" He thinks to himself as he gets slower and the shields weaker.

The woman does this four times before she stops.

"I can do better, wanna see?"

She holds the scythe with both hands and the flames travel to its blade, swinging from one side to the other only once sends flying a monstrous amount of fireballs that Das stares at with dread before he desperately creates as many shields as he can around him.

The fireball impacts shield after shield but soon a dozen go through and catch up to the much slower Das, hitting him so hard that he is pushed in the opposite direction of each exploding fireball until the last one hits him directly on his face.

His smoking body falls to the ground with a loud thump as it crashes on it.

The flames vanish as the shadows return on the body of the woman and she flies to where Das has fallen. Once she touches the ground she looks at the mangled body of the archmage.

Every place where the flames struck is now exposed flesh and bone, including his disfigured face, eyes black charcoal as he seems to be choking by lack of air.

"Maybe you are too weak to help me...guess I will have to do it on my own" She says kneeling in front of the dying archmage "It didn't have to end this way"

She stands up and turns his back on him as she walks away.

Das feels his mind slowly drifting away as the pain of his wounds can be felt no more. Everything is dark and cold.

But there is heat, warm, somewhere deep within him.

"Don't, give in" He thinks to himself as the darkness is slowly replaced by fiery red "Just enough, just a little bit"

Red mana erupts from his mouth and eyes as a tornado of fire consumes him. The woman turns around ready to fight when she is taken by surprise at the sight of the large and furious unnatural fire in front of her.

Then, a mighty beam of fire is shot at her so fast the wall of bones barely manages to protect her in time. Yet the strength of the attack is so much that it pierces through and forces her to utilize a second wall, this time of shadows, to protect herself while getting pushed all the way to the edges of the groove.

When the beam is over, the tornado is gone and in its place stands the archmage, all his wounds completely healed but both his tunic and cloak so burnt and torn that they fall off his body.

His black nails like claws, and the bandages of his arms that burnt away, showing the red livid flesh beneath as the white mana from his eyes have been replaced by the pure crimson of wrath.

Das feels the extend of his burns increasing and he looks at his shoulders, small but noticeable stretches of twisted flesh are steadily gaining ground.

"No!" He thinks of Drachen and forces the burning rage to cool down.

The red of his eyes turn white as the damage to his body stops, he looks calmer and raises his hand to call his staff to him. He scowls as his eyes fixate themselves on her.

"Well, well. You have more to offer" She says, her eyes burning brighter as more skeletons emerge from the ground.

Das looks around him as the undead increase in number, he knows that the difference in power between him and her is too great, but he gets an idea that while extremely risky, maybe his only chance of victory.

First, he gets off the ground. Das charges directly at her as fast as he can, his eyes burn stronger than ever as several magical circles appear around him. They move around apparently at random.

The woman grows suspicious and flies in the opposite direction.

The two begin a deadly game of chase as she shoots one of her deadly blue fireballs at him but instead of blocking the incoming projectiles, Das focuses all his energy on dodging them while new magic circles of different sizes begin to appear around him.

"Interesting, but I think is time I give you a taste of what I'm able to do!" She yells flying up until the moon lays right behind her.

The scythe shrinks and gets absorbed by her armor as the shadows keeping her above the ground become flaming infernos of blue fury.

"Perish beneath my firestorm!!" She yells in her many voices as the flames explode from her body into so many fireballs that the previous attack with the scythe seems like a joke.

Das grits his teeth and looks behind him at the undead below, he points his staff and mana emanates from his entire staff as all of them, around forty, are launched from the ground into the deadly storm of blue fireballs.

The undead hit the fireballs, taking both to oblivion. In one move Das had made her attack useless.

The woman is taken by surprise by the ingenuity but loses no time, he is now too close. The scythe grows back and she charges back at the archmage ready to slice him one more time.

Das sees her coming down to meet him and prepares to risk it all.

The opponents charge headfirst against each other as the moon rests behind them. Das points his staff at her and summons a fireball three times bigger than before.

She summons the shadows to create a barrier in front of her and block the entire fireball that is so big that the explosion covers more than half of the groove in size.

Yet, she immediately realizes, that attack while big, was the weakest he has thrown at her.

It is then that lightning shots down from the sky right in front of her and in less than a second, it strikes again, right behind her.

Das holds his staff with both hands pointing directly at her back and the dozen magic circles position themselves in front of the other from bigger to smallest. The ones at the bottom are five meters wide while the last at the head is as big as a hand.

Time has stopped for him as he thinks the word of the spell.

"Burn"

The circles turn orange and a beam of fire shoots with so much power it sends a mighty sound wave with its incredibly loud blast for hundreds of meters all around.

Shadows appear and try to shield her back but they are too slow as the beam of fire the size of an apple strikes her on her back and pierces through her chest, going all the way to the ground.

She lets out an ear-splitting scream as time resumes for Das and the crows, scared away by the fire, blast or scream, fly in all directions far away from the groove.

The beam dies out after just two seconds of being cast and the woman drops to the ground like a bird struck by an arrow. As she falls, the skeletal armor breaks and turns to dust.

She hits the ground and a small cloud of dirt raises where she hits.

Das is left panting as he slowly descends.

He touches the ground and collapses on it. His entire body going limp out of exhaustion, he spent every last bit of mana he had.

He wouldn't even have enough to return to the palace.

Das somehow manages to turn his body around, the moon stares at him from the endless dark beyond the sky. If it didn't smell like moss and burnt meat he could consider sleeping right then and there.

But then, he hears the sound of something being dragged, very close to him.

"Impossible" He thinks as his eyes are wide with true fear.

Doing all he can, he moves his head to look a few meters away from him and sees the woman struggling to stand up, but soon enough, she is on her feet.

He can see right through the hole of her back.

She turns around, bent over, and placing one foot in front of the other with noticeable difficulty, her steps are heavy and her hung head moves from one side to the other as she moves.

Soon she stands right above him as their faces meet. Her stare is akin to a hungry wolf that just stumbled upon an injured fawn. Her smile is wide and seems...pleased.

"That would have killed me...if I had a heart" She whispers as if she never tasted a drop of water in her entire life.

Das's eyes turn red as the red mana courses through his veins but he isn't fast enough.

She falls to her knees and grabs his head with both hands and begins to suck in air through her mouth, but soon, it is Das's soul that leaves through his mouth and eyes. A green essence, like mist, that the longer she sucks the more of the hole in her chest grows back while Das loses more and more of his mass, slowly looking like a mummy.

Everything goes black and soon, silent.