“Soul magicks are a Western machination,” Sorina had once told me when I prodded her about different sorts of magicks. This was before I learned about The Fundamental Theory of magicks, so I was just asking about whatever I saw come up in Sorina’s limited collection of novels. “They are pretty rare. It's inherited. And… unlike most other magicks, it's not something you can improve upon.”

  “So… you either have it or you don’t?” I asked. She nodded. I scratched my chin, trying to ignore the steady drip of water from her underground cave. “What does it do?”

  “To be honest,” she shrugged. “I have no clue. I’ve never seen a soul mancer because most of them are immediately taken up by royals of greater nations than Catolica. From what I’ve heard it's a sort of magicks that ignores everything in the physical plane in an effort to attack the very essence of…well everything. The soul.”

  It seemed like an arbitrary concept to me.

  Now, it is brought into ultimate clarity.

  The blue fire does not burn physically. It burns through me—to the very essence of what I am.

  I feel the contours of my soul—an orb shrouded in darkness and holding within it a crackling storm of rain and hail, thunder and hell. I feel the blue fire attempting to grasp the orb, turn it into monochrome negative darkness.

  “How do you counter it?” I asked Sorina.

  She pursed her lips. “Again, I’m no expert, so don’t take this advice all to seriously: but, once, my husband told me of a time he fought a soul mancer. Apparently, to counter the soul magicks, he… hit himself.”

  “What? Like, self-flagellation? Mutilation?”

  “No no, like… using his elemental affinity upon himself. Since he was born with a rare affinity for darkness, he employed dark magicks upon his own soul.”

  It seems so stupid.

  Yet, with a gasp of effort, I place my hand upon my chest and splurge lightning. The self-inflicted shock does nothing but incur pain at first.

  But then, one of the webs of lightning pierces into that unknowable plane, that storm orb being consumed by blue fire.

  And, ever so slightly, some of the blue fire dissipates.

  Again.

  Another shock. More of the fire breaks. I don’t know how, but I think it's a mix of my lightning and regeneration that saves me. Otherwise, I would be destroyed.

  I can’t imagine how Sorina’s husband did this with darkness and without any sort of regenerative curse.

  For I am already breaking at the seams.

  A third shock fully dispels the flame. My chest burns with veiny, webbed lightning scars. But, I can breathe once more.

  The forest is vibrant around me. Full of color. And life. It seems that the wildlife in this Western area has not been deterred, for I hear birds musing and crickets chorusing.

  It takes a while to stand, but once I do, I notice the ground around my chest has turned black and white, much like the other parts of the forest touched by the elk’s domain.

  The elk. Baroth.

  How do I beat this thing?

  Blue soul fire from its antlers. No matter what, I can’t let that flame touch me again.

  Deft flight capabilities.

  And eyes that hypnotize and attack my mental state.

  I shake my head. What type of monster is this? Some eldritch being? And how does Baroth, the mountain djinn, have access to it?

  Why did the witch free him? Does she know me?

  I try to remember a time where I’ve fought a witch. Nothing comes to mind—never in my ten years at the tower did I fight anything remotely close to her.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  My thoughts are interrupted when I hear a crackling from the trees. Cursing, I jump up, lightning still flowing relatively strong through my body. Grasping one of the branches, I pull myself above the foliage of trees to witness the elk touching down upon the tallest of oaks, straddling the overgrown rounded crown of the uppermost branches, black eyes hunting for me.

  I dash across the treetops, silently, as I used to back when I hunted for Sorina in Takemeadow.

  I take Baroth by surprise with a lightning-bladed slash from the flank. He screams as the energy ripples across the elk’s skin, leaving a scorching mark. I follow up with an Iron Winter kick to his underbelly, flinging the elk upward, high into the sky.

  Rather than chase him, I lasso lightning and lob it at the beast. It spins around the elk’s body, trapping its wings. With a grunt of effort, I pull as hard as possible, tugging the lightning rope ‘round and wrenching Baroth’s vessel down.

  At the right moment, I dissipate the lightning rope.

  The elk spins back, falling, wings scorched slightly. A pillar of its blue fire shoots up, sundering the sky as the creature disappears below the treetops, hitting the ground with a loud thud.

  The fire remains for a bit before dissipating entirely.

  Silence reigns.

  Did I—Did I get it? I wonder.

  I wait, feeling my lightning reserves diminishing. I’m willing to break another amulet though. This beast would be worth the trouble.

  There’s a certain hate that’s being reawoken in me. I remember how much Baroth tortured me that night in the tower. The nightmares he’s inflicted; casted himself as lead actor in.

  The nights I would wake up shaking with sweat, piss boiling down my leg, hands feeling for my scalp. I was twelve. Just a damn kid. And now, he’s the one who dares to want revenge? Pathetic. He thinks he can break me?

  I’m going to fucking murder him.

  A series of crunching movements sounds off below me. Before I can react in time, the elk bursts forth from the branches, charging directly into me. I wreathe my hands in lighting before grasping its burning antlers and headbutting the beast. That doesn’t stop it.

  “LET’S GO FOR A RIDE!” Baroth screeches.

  Thus, we begin to fly into the distant horizon, continuing our battle with as much vitriol as two old enemies can muster.

  …

  Sorina:

  Sweet mother of spirits, I think, looking at the monochrome desolation of the forest. What in all the hells is Raiten fighting?

  The battleground they left behind is obliterated. Trees crackle and fall under the strain of blue fire. Lightning marks scorch the grass where the negative colors don’t touch. Negative colors. A ghostly domain of white and black and some splashes of dark grey. This is some deeper Eldritch magicks. Different from the modern green and venom, I think, surveying the ground. Kara and her band spread forth from behind me, their faces set in looks of shock and awe. It truly seems as though we have stumbled upon the remnants of a storybook battle.

  We certainly heard the damn thing.

  Crashing trees. Fluttering birds. Lightning and chaos reigning through the forest. These were the sounds that assaulted us as we made our way back down the cut path, to where Hilda had abandoned Raiten. The cowardly bitch.

  I look at Umbrahorn. “What do you think it is?”

  He shakes his head. “It’s certainly not a spirit. That fire is soul flame—no spirit, no matter how great, can produce that. It takes something… different,” he pauses, sniffing the air. “They have gone far. Towards the west.”

  Worry frays my nerves. If he’s struggling, even with the angel dust, then…

  I shudder. “We have to find him. Where—”

  I am cut off as a blaring roar comes from the west. Across the creek, in that denser treeline, a pillar of blue fire surges towards the sky, peeling apart a gray cloud. It looks like an angel’s staff—or a giant’s. Despite it being soul fire, I can feel its vibration, its sensation of oppressive heat, from across the forest.

  It is a sight unlike any I have witnessed. Such holds true for everyone else, for they gaze reverently upon that hypnotic blue fire. Even Umbrahorn is brought to awe.

  “Dear Primordials,” one of Kara’s men says. “I don’t want to go anywhere near that.”

  They are afraid.

  And why shouldn’t they be? My own hands rattle like a drum. No longer do I think Hilda is a coward.

  This is beyond me. And yet… Raiten fights on.

  “Umbrahorn, let’s go,” I say, taking the shark’s harness and attaching it to my belt. He gives me a fearful look.

  “We’re… going after that—” he begins, but I slap him on the back.

  “Snap out of it! You wanna be a great spirit? Prove it. Kill this monster with me.”

  Umbrahorn looks as if he’s about to bite my head off. Then, the hammerhead shark laughs a bellowing laughter that startles the other members of Kara’s group.

  “Right. Nothing can beat me. For I am the greatest of spirits.” It's all voice-cracking bravado, but I don’t dare to tease for that now.

  I stick my dagger loosely in Umbrahorn’s hide to help brace myself. Then, I look at Kara's group.

  “We’ll be back. Just… remain here. In fact, send some of your men to move your people away.” I’m sure this will get even uglier from here on out.

  Kara gives me a simple nod.

  “Alright then Umbrahorn,” I say, pulling the harness taut. “Let’s go for a ride.”