Chapter 89 - Ruin

  From the moment they were out of sight of Envoy, they had been teleporting almost the entire time, only taking rests when Mason was running low on Mana. They had arrived just a mile out when Mayry spotted something.

  “Is that smoke?” she asked, staring into the sky. “It’s coming from Sparksford; oh no, we’re too late.”

  He put a hand on her shoulder and teleported several times in quick succession, bringing them about a hundred feet away from where they should be able to see the town before he was too low on Mana to continue. They ran the rest of the way but stopped short when the town finally came into view.

  It was clear now that the smoke was coming from the town, with thick plumes billowing up from several of the buildings, the dark smoke clear against the blue sky.

  His heart sank at the sight as his mind raced through possibilities. So many of the town’s defenders had died during the fight with the basilisk, and then even more had fallen when Gael had turned up, now this.

  Looking over at Mayry, he saw her expression mirrored his own; they hurried closer, their footsteps quickening with each step until his mana had recharged enough. He grabbed Mayry’s shoulder and appeared just in front of the town gates.

  The amount of damage was apparent even from where they stood. Buildings were engulfed in flames, people ran in panic, and cries for help echoed through the chaos. Mayry's hand tightened around his as they took in the scene before them.

  Mayry hesitated only for a moment before she sprang into action, shooting powerful jets of water into any of the buildings still on fire, all the while barking orders to any town guards within earshot. Urgently directing them to gather more hands to help search for survivors amidst the wreckage of the collapsed buildings.

  He was shocked at it all but refused to let the devastation he felt stop him from helping. He ran up to a guard who had collapsed on the floor, checked for a pulse, and once he confirmed the man was alive, started healing him. As he gained consciousness, the man abruptly tried to sit up and struggled when Mason held him down. “Hey, hey! You’re hurt. Let me finish healing you.” When the injured man didn’t stop struggling, Mason shook him gently and spoke louder, “I need you to tell me what happened here!”

  The man blinked at him a few times as if only now seeing him and then shouted words that Mason felt like a knife through the chest. “YOU! THEY WERE HERE LOOKING FOR YOU!” after the words came, the man fell silent. He was fully healed but likely too exhausted to stay conscious.

  Mason recoiled and stumbled away, barely feeling the injury he had absorbed from the man.

  Was this his fault? How could it be?! Were the Others here for him? The Town that had taken him in was in ruins, and he was to blame.

  A few streets over, a stone house had been destroyed; his enhanced senses caught movement. It wasn’t much, but he had definitely seen some of the rubble moving. Someone was trapped. Before he could move and try to help, a small child’s hand pushed its way out from the wreckage and then went limp.

  In an instant, he was there, doing all he could to get to the survivor. If this child died, it would be one more death that was his fault. All those that died when Gael attacked and now this! He was going to save this child no matter what. He was able to get to the child quickly, and as he pulled her out, he saw that it wasn’t a child but Viv. He hadn’t realised it, with the town looking severely different, but this was where her shop had been.

  He used his healing ability and dragged her back into consciousness. She was less hurt than the guard had been, and so was instantly able to recognise him. “Mason?!” She slowly pushed herself up and then whipped her head around. “Is Mayry with you!? Her father…” She trailed off.

  He was confused but pushed past it. “She’s here. We just got here.” He turned in the direction he had last seen her and called out. He got no reply and so turned back to Viv. “Viv, what the hell happened here?!”

  She tried to speak but just coughed. He grabbed her arm and pushed his healing ability into her again, this time keeping it going. It seemed to help. She cleared her throat and then spoke, “A few hours ago, a group of five people appeared out of nowhere in the middle of town. They screamed and shouted, demanding to know what happened to a woman who apparently came here. I watched from my shop for a bit but stopped when I got bored. A few minutes later, there was a crash, and people started screaming and shouting. I ran back out again to see what had happened and the Mayor was there! A few of the buildings were destroyed, and there were people all over the place just lying there!” She gestured across the street and froze as she saw the bodies.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  He moved, positioning himself so she could no longer see them, “Then what happened?” he asked delicately. The look of horror and sadness on her child-like face made him feel awful for pushing her, but he needed to know.

  She shook her head and looked back at him, “The Mayor was talking to them, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. The talking turned into shouting, and then one of the people shot some sort of beam at the Mayor. It bounced right off and destroyed another house. All five of them started attacking the Mayor. Something hit him in the chest…. But that’s the last thing I remember. I think one of their attacks hit my shop…. She looked around at the destroyed potion shop around her as if only just noticing. Panic flooded her, and she grabbed him. “Mason! My shop! What am I gonna do?! That was everything I owned! I’m ruined!”

  It sounded to him like others were sent to find out what happened to Gael. So this was his fault, at least partly. He didn’t have time to feel guilty right now. He needed to find out what had happened after Viv had been knocked out; where was the Mayor? An iteration of Chaos would have survived anything a few Others could do, surely.

  “It’ll be fine, Viv. I’ll come and find you after things die down and make sure you have enough to rebuild.” Before she could reply, he teleported away towards the Mayor’s office.

  He reappeared and felt a shiver run down his spine as he heard the flapping of giant wings overhead. Why would Envoy have followed them, had the dragon realised that they had been lying to him? If that were the case, they were in deep shit.

  Looking up, he felt a massive wave of relief hit him as he recognised the dragon that was flying overhead, not Envoy but Nina in her fully ramped-up dragon form. The relief soon turned sour as he saw the condition his friend was in; many of her scales were dented, and she was bleeding from multiple wounds. There was a much smaller figure zipping around her in the air, slashing with a blade and shooting off bolts of green energy at her. His mind went blank; all he could think about was getting his hand on that Other’s ability to fly. He also desperately wanted to help his friend, but he had always wanted to know what it felt like to fly.

  Teleporting midair was all fine until he started to fall. He timed it well enough that he managed to pass the flying other in the air. Dagger in hand, he slashed in her direction, but the air around her seemed to warp, and suddenly, what he was sure was going to be a direct hit missed by barely an inch.

  Wow, the ability to fly, some sort of auto dodge and the green energy beams? No wonder Nina was having trouble with this guy.

  Unsheathing Nightsong, Mason rolled his shoulders, “Time to see what this baby can do.”

  The flying Other didn’t appear to have wings or anything else keeping her aloft, so grounding her would be difficult. Fighting her in the air wasn’t an option unless he somehow managed to sprout wings. She was moving too fast for his Identify skill to gather any information, so he needed to get creative. Drawing on mana manipulation, he formed a translucent, ten-foot sphere of energy around himself, focusing intently on maintaining it. He watched as the flyer dove toward Nina. Timing it carefully, he waited for her to stop accelerating before teleporting himself and the sphere into her path, trapping her inside his bubble of mana. Unable to stop her momentum, the flyer crashed into the sphere’s barrier. Mason allowed gravity to affect his sphere, and both he and the Other were forced to the ground. Now that she was unable to fly, the fight would be far easier to finish. She recovered quickly and leapt at him with her sword. Nightsong hit her sword and cut it in two. The Other’s face twisted in surprise and rage as she jumped back. Mason pressed his advantage and attacked her with Nightsong. What happened next was somewhat hard to explain. In the space of less than a second, the Other’s auto-dodge ability activated and reality warped around her, making the attack miss, but Nightsong vibrated in his hands and reality warped back, and the blow landed, leaving a gash in the side of the other’s chest. She fell back, unarmed and injured, she raised her arm to try to attack him with some other ability, but before she could, Nightsong moved, and the flying other was no more. It seemed that his new sword had somehow undone the effects of the Other’s ability.

  It took him a moment to catch his breath. The fight wasn’t difficult, but he was still pretty winded for some reason. Hearing the ding of notifications, he took a look.

  Notification 1/4

  You have slain - Level 26 - Chaos System User

  You have received 260 XP

  Chaos system detected, additional XP received

  You have received a total 1330 XP

  Notification 2/4

  You have absorbed the ability. ‘Flight’

  Flight (Expert) - Its a bird, its a plane, Oh, its just Mason

  Active effect: You can fly. There isn’t really a more flowery way of saying it. Flight speed starts low; the longer you fly, the faster you get. Certain abilities can not be used while airborne. Scales with Endurance.

  Ahhh, this was awesome! He wanted to test it out immediately, but there was every chance that there were more Others around. He was in a town that had been destroyed because of him, and his girlfriend’s dad was possibly hurt. Those thoughts snapped him out of his momentary good mood and put him back on guard. He flinched as something big landed behind him. He turned and saw a rapidly transforming Nina.

  “Thanks for the assist! Hitting that little shit was almost impossible.” She said. She looked pretty rough, bruised, battered and favouring one leg.

  “No worries, I’m sure you would have finished him off without me, I just thought it would be easier if I jumped in. Want to tell me what happened?”

  She looked around as if to try and remember what had occurred. “I had only just arrived back when those guys started making a fuss about something. They argued for a bit and then everything went a bit crazy. I jumped right into the fight with that asshole, but I couldn’t even hit him. His attacks were pretty weak so I’ve just been keeping him from getting away the best I could.”

  Throwing her a health potion, he put a hand on her shoulder, “You did really good! Drink that and go and find your father. See if he’s okay; I’ll come check on you later.”

  She nodded and he continued his way towards the Mayor’s Office.