The igneous blade shrieked through the air with high-velocity precision, transfixing Norak's shoulder with a concussive impact.
Only the traitor's burgeoning demonic instincts spared him from total erasure; a frantic twitch in the final heartbeat prevented the rapier from impaling his heart. Norak was launched backward by the kinetic force, spinning like a discarded rag until he slammed into the base of a distant sentry tower. His shriek tore through the night as the enchanted flame bored a blackened, cauterized hole through his shoulder.
The young magis hovered in the air like a vengeful eagle. His white cloak began to crackle with erratic discharges of static, while his heterochromatic eyes flared with lethal brilliance.
"Don't you dare..." Seraph said, his voice a sepulchral whisper. "Lay your filth-ridden talons on another soul in this realm again."
"Flamus Multitelus—"
"Nyxus Rottenbind!" Norak bellowed, his voice a demented roar of curse spell.
Norak's voice shifted once more, descending into a rasping, sepulchral baritone that seemed to crawl straight out of the gullets of Hellheim. A score of corrupted souls, manifesting as an ashen-grey miasma, exhaled from his frame to saturate the air. He loosed his demon curse, thrusting a jagged talon toward the young magis.
The cursed souls were instantaneously devoured, coalescing into a viscous, obsidian orb of absolute malice. This eldritch liturgy coiled into a swelling stream—a torrent of sickly emerald smoke that shrieked toward the young man with a concussive tremor. Yet, mid-flight, the corruption fractured, splitting into two predatory arcs.
[VROOO-GHRAAAWR—!]
The twin streams of the curse spell moved with the preternatural speed of vipers, their movements possessed of an autonomy that defied the linear laws of curse. They lunged toward Rosalyn and General Leonis, the air thickening with a cloying stench of putrefaction.
"NO!" Leonis bellowed, his voice a fractured cry of paternal terror.
He vaulted forward, interposing his steel blade against the onslaught to shield his daughter. The General knew his own strength could not withstand such a concentrated surge of curse spell, yet he sought only to buy Rosalyn a single heartbeat of survival at the cost of his own soul.
"Flamus Haloamulus!" Seraph's counter-strike erupted with near-instantaneous speed.
In the exact moment the curse sought its mark, the young magis loosed his own Art. His frame ignited with an incandescent fusion of crimson and gold—a celestial radiance that scoured the gathering shadows.
[CLANG-SHEEEEEE—!]
A mageia circle of vibrant amber-gold appeared, its shimmering particles betraying a rare infusion of light-elemental essence within the solar weave.
This ward did not seek to strike; instead, it ascended above Seraph's head, expanding with geometric precision until it spanned several metres. It hung suspended in the lightless air—an unblinking sun that cast its protective rays forty feet in every direction.
Beneath the young magis's field of power, the atmosphere transformed into a sanctuary of warmth. Solar radiance bathed Leonis and Rosalyn in a protective amber hue, as if a nascent sun had risen to challenge the pale crescent moon. This sudden manifestation of hope pierced the psychological gloom, carving a bastion of light amidst the encroaching shadow.
[KRA-BOOOOOOOOM—!]
The torrent of the demon curse slammed into the incandescent veil of the flamus spell, triggering a concussive blast. A dispersal of emerald soot and golden embers saturated the air, the opposing liturgies hissing like an eruption of steam as they fought for dominance.
Ultimately, the Necromancer's curse spell could not withstand the purity of the solar weave. The emerald corruption withered and dissolved, leaving only the steady glow of the mageia circle suspended above. The putrid reek of the abyss was scoured away, replaced by the sharp scent of scorched ozone and sanctity.
"You insufferable brat!" Norak shrieked, his voice reaching a peak of depravity. "How can a whelp like you know anti-curse wards? This is exactly why we hate your kind—you meddling practitioners have to be erased!"
His vitriol showed a total severance from his human roots.
Seraph narrowed his eyes, regarding the traitor with frigid detachment. Had his primary affinity been for the glacial elements rather than the solar, the entire square would have been entombed in ice. He felt no need to mention the years he'd spent buried in the Basilica archives, devouring the secrets of the ancients.
"RELEASE!" the young man commanded, loosing the Multitelus spell without a second's hesitation.
[Vroo-vroo-vroo-vroo-vroo-vroo-vroo—!]
Throughout the Necromancer's attack, Seraph had kept his own multi-layered liturgy suspended in wait. A hundred spheres of concentrated fire—pulsating like miniature stars—were unleashed from their orbits, shrieking toward Norak with catastrophic intent.
[Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat—BOOM!]
A barrage of over a hundred mageia bolts erupted with frantic, predatory speed. The liturgy was executed with such velocity it challenged the limits of human sight; Rosalyn and General Leonis perceived only a continuous, incandescent blur of crimson streaks lashing across the dark. Even with the curse spell augmenting his frame, Norak found evading such a concentrated volley a near impossibility.
The traitor attempted a bestial ascent, scrambling up the masonry of the surrounding buildings with the unnatural agility of a demon. Yet, though he moved with the fluid grace of a dark mist, the fire projectiles maintained a relentless lock, refusing to yield their quarry. The air was rent by the staccato crackle of the bolts—a symphony of war that culminated in a catastrophic impact.
The solar munitions bored through Norak's ursine hide with clinical precision, provoking a series of jagged, agonizing shrieks. Most of the bolts achieved total over-penetration, tearing through his bulk and exiting to leave a spray of crimson painting the flagstones.
[Kra-kra-kra-kra-kra—THACK!]
The kinetic force of the impact buffeted Norak like the coordinated strikes of a dozen master pugilists. He was tossed about like a broken insect before striking the earth with a heavy, final thud. His lifeblood flooded the square, pooling around his shattered frame in a sanguine tide that suggested his end had finally arrived.
The Multitelus was not an instrument of blunt trauma, but a tool of surgical, high-velocity perforation. Even Leonis and Rosalyn, though still reeling from the cold-blooded betrayal, found the spectacle too harrowing to behold and were compelled to look away, their hearts bleeding with internal sorrow.
They knew his crimes merited an execution, yet the bond of fourteen years remained a jagged shard of glass in their souls.
The young magis descended with spectral grace, landing near the broken form. His glacial eyes remained fixed upon the traitor, who was still attempting a desperate crawl from the theatre of his defeat.
Though the curse spell granted Norak a vitality far beyond any common sentry, he was now reduced to an insect-like struggle for breath.
Despite being riddled with over a hundred mageia bolts, Norak remained conscious, his eldritch vitality allowing him to claw at the flagstones in a desperate, insect-like bid for survival.
[Tap... Tap... Tap...]
Seraph closed the distance with a glacial stride.
[Kra-thwack—!]
Without a second's hesitation, he delivered a concussive kick to the traitor's ribs. The impact of the leather boot against the ursine frame echoed across the stones with the violence of a minor explosion.
"AAAAAAAAGH!"
Norak let out a shriek as he was flipped onto his back, gasping for air.