The Dawn of the New World

Just the energy surplus leaking from the attack was so intense that Hao Xuan could feel it prickling his skin from a thousand meters away. Countless megatons of raw energy being suppressed into a single point smaller than the tip of a pin increased its potency to an unprecedented degree.

Even other skills were being affected by it as it became obvious by their extremely short-range teleportation.

'I have heard about such effects before but never seen them up close and personal. Only a peak 7th-grade spell could disrupt the surroundings to this degree. Meaning, we can't run away even if we wanted to...'

Hao Xuan fixed his sights on the holy miracle about to take their lives but as bright as that light was, somehow, without any warning, it vanished.

At first, he thought the spell had already gone off killing them and this was how his brain interpreted those last moments but...that was not the case.

He squinted hard trying to get a better view because what he was seeing now did not make any sense.

"Is that-"

There was a cloud of billowing red smoke with a giant mouth. It had swallowed the mass of holy energy whole!

"Illya!" Baba Jezda exclaimed, "That is his 'magnum opus', a blessing given only to the most devoted of the Crimson King's followers!"

She sounded happy, akin to a child opening a present.

"Is that his...astral form?"

"It is. Quite fitting, isn't it? That's what the personification of madness is to him. But the price to pay for that-"

Before she could even let out the remaining sentence the red cloud suddenly expanded to 200 meters shrouding all the beings of light within.

*Sigh*

"-a terrible power traded for the last of his sanity. Let's go," she turned around and started walking in the opposite direction.

"What about him? He's still alive, isn't he?"

"His form is but it has been overtaken by the rage of the King in Red. He will continue to kill and devour everything nearby regardless of whether it is a friend or foe. It should buy us enough time, his rampage will divert their attention long enough for us to pass through."

After they distanced themselves from the constantly expanding cloud of death the surroundings began to darken and the concealment spell came into effect for the last time.

The remainder of the journey was mostly uneventful until the bridge finally ended and they walked onto the last realm.

This plane existed independently of all the ones that came before it as it became obvious by the sheer size of the archaic infrastructure that climbed into the skies. A rotating dial thousands of meters in diameter hovered in between four stone obelisks, slowly revolving at a steady pace without expending any energy.

Hao Xuan could not wrap his mind around its size. Even looking at it as clear as day it still felt surreal for some reason. (Reference Image posted in discord and authors notes)

Baba Jezda pointed towards a small structure located in the middle of the stone obelisks right below the dial, "That is our destination."

"How do we get to it? Just fly over?"

"If only it were that easy. We'll have to go through one of the bridges."

Following her line of sight, Hao Xuan could see two land bridges leading to the central area.

"Will it be that easy?"

It felt a little too quiet, maybe because they were so far away from everything else. It was an abandoned land but there was still life.

All manners of small beasts scurried through the sands and flew through the air. The only thing missing were the people.

She shook her head while reaching into the robe, "No, both of the bridges are under constant guard. We will meet up with the others before going in."

She took out a small pouch full of herbs. One of them was a bright yellow flower without any scent. She picked one of the petals but it withered almost instantly.

"This should be enough," she muttered and crushed the petal into fine dust before sprinkling it on the white sand.

"I don't think we have time for another needless ritual."

She let out a laugh, "We have all the time in the world," and pointed at the dial.

"You know what I mean..."

"The land here might not seem that big but it would take two of your lifetimes to get to the bridge. I could cast a spell or two to hasten our progress but that will make things harder later on."

"And the petal will help?"

"It will," she said cryptically and Hao Xuan did not have to wait long to see what she meant.

The sand dunes began to shift left and right en mass as something big made its way over to them from just underneath the surface.

***

Author's Notes:

All images are posted in the Official Discord.

Link: . gg / AHdSBFQ