Ends of Magic

Nathan watched the half-dozen huge lamprey-headed eels tear apart the Maelstrom ship with disgust. It was like watching a pile of writhing worms, but each worm was as thick as a four-lane highway and slick with rainwater cascading off pale wrinkled skin. The sounds of splintering wood carried through the storm, eerily reminiscent of snapping bone. He bounded up the stairs to the raised rear of the ship, joining Stella and Khashi next to Eolinne’s command throne and noting another figure sprawled against the railing with their head caved in. They wore dark leathers and still held a pair of long daggers.

Somebody who slipped past us to take a shot at Eolinne or Stella. Glad Khachi was here.

“What are those?” Nathan asked Eolinne, who was still playing a frantic tune to drive the Grace of the Winds away from the monsters behind.

She took her flute away from her mouth and inhaled deeply before responding. “That is a hydra eel, a monster of the deeps. Beware its blood, and do not cut off any of the heads.” She directed that last towards Aarl before resuming her song and driving the ship forward.

Wait. That’s a single monster? With some kind of healing abilities and toxic blood. That’s not great.

Nathan walked over to the rear of the ship and examined the monster with senses both mundane and magical. It didn’t seem particularly magical to him - just huge. The giant heads battered each other over the scraps of the ship that they’d consumed, growing fainter as the distance grew through the storm.

We’re moving pretty quick. Maybe we’ll make a clean getaway?

Nathan cursed himself a moment later as one of the giant heads turned to face their direction and let loose a keening howl before launching itself in pursuit. It surged through the water quickly, arching between waves as it rapidly gained on the Grace of the Mists. The other heads were still searching for scraps of wood bobbing in the water, and the giant worm chasing the Heirs pulled up short as the others yanked against it. But they turned to see the ship, and a second and then third of the hunting cries cut through the storm.

Nathan glanced nervously at Stella, who was studying the hydra with a curled lip.

She saw his glance and spoke over Eolinne’s flute music. “Endings-damned weather will interfere with my spells. Can you clear it?” She didn’t wait for a response, lifting her hands and starting to channel water mana into the ocean underneath them. The wake of their ship grew at her command until it blocked the view of the hydra eel.

“I can hit that target.” Khachi stepped up on Nathan’s other side. He set his shield against the railing and racked his hammer at his side before raising both hands upwards towards the storming sky. “This storm is summoned by thieves and murderers. We have slain them in righteous battle. Let sunlight shine upon our victory.” His voice was calm, a statement uttered with calm certainty instead of a beseeching prayer. Divine mana surged through him and shot upwards into the sky like a spear aimed for the heavens.

Nathan followed the path of the divine mana as it traveled beyond visible range. It didn’t seem to be doing anything in particular, just going upwards. Then at the farthest edge of his range he felt it break through the cloud cover and blossom in the sunlight. Th relatively miniscule amount of power drank in the light from above and pried apart the clouds to allow a ray of sunshine to break through and illuminate the ship.

With everything I know about magic, that shouldn’t have worked. It was less mana than Stella was using and wasn’t as expertly wielded as what the storm mage was doing. But I already knew I didn’t fully understand divine mana. It’s more motivated by emotion and significance than normal cause and effect.

The area illuminated by the sunlight expanded rapidly. The rain morphed from a heavy downpour into a light drizzle, and the winds calmed down to a light roar. The waves ahead were still large, but nowhere near the mountains of water they’d been at the worst of the storm. They all paled beside the giant wave that Stella was dragging behind the boat. It was taller than the ship now, and large enough that the edge was starting to tilt the Grace of the Mists forward. But Stella continued to pour mana into the construct, treating it as if it was one of the lightning capacitors she’d grown fond of.

Nathan sent his aura outwards, attempting to get a bead on the hydra eel but getting nothing. He didn’t know where it was, and that made him nervous. It could be swimming underneath Stella’s wave at this very moment and he wouldn’t be able to tell. He darted a look towards Eolinne. She seemed unconcerned, and he clenched his fists helplessly.

There’s not much I can do here. It’s not a magical creature. It’s just… huge.

Stella’s wave continued to grow, and it was large enough that the Grace of the Mists was properly surfing down the leading edge now. She was pouring an enormous amount of mana into the water, but it was working. They were accelerating, and dragging the sunlight with them.

Then the water halfway up the wave bulged outwards and one of the lamprey heads of the hydra eel burst forth, water cascading away from inwards-facing teeth as it keened out its hunting call. From this distance Nathan could see a ring of a half-dozen eyes spread around the rim of the mouth, each the size of a tennis ball. One of them popped in a spray of ichor as Sarah’s rifle cracked. The beast flinched backwards, disappearing back into the wave.

Aarl had drawn the instant-death knife and was studying the beast. His thoughts were obvious, and Nathan met his friend’s eye and shook his head. He knew what his friend was thinking, but it didn’t seem like the wisest course of action. Not yet, at least.

We don’t know if it will work on something this large. Especially something renowned for its ability to heal almost any wound.

Three of the hydra’s heads surged out of the water, each of them emerging from high on the wave and towering over the Heirs. They reared back as one to strike at the Grace of the Mists and Aarl tensed to jump forward.

Before he could, Khachi raised his shield and banged his hammer against it. The sunlight shining down on them focused down on the reflective metal and the wave was illuminated in a stark glare like a flashbang. Khachi’s magic was threaded through the spell, causing the light to scorch the pale and wrinkled skin of the hydra. Eyes steamed and all three heads jerked back into the wave, roaring in pain as they retreated from the burning light. The sound of the roar continued, the noise deeper due to being conducted through the water. It sounded like a tortured whale.

Eolinne’s flute blew a long and sustained note and the Grace of the Mists jerked forwards on a sudden gust of magical wind, avoiding another head that emerged from the water where they’d been just a second before. Two more of the hydra’s heads emerged on either side, and Nathan couldn’t tell if these were the other three heads or just the same ones Khachi had blinded. The eyes were whole, but they might have simply healed. They rapidly oriented to chase the Grace of the Mists, and Nathan looked around for somebody else to have an answer. Stella was spooling up a spell using all of the water mana she’d built into the wave but that much water and mana took a few seconds to change direction. The leading head would reach them first.

Sarah’s rifle spoke from overhead, and she must have loaded one of the explosive rounds she carried because the foremost head suddenly fountained gore as part of the central mouth burst outwards. Where the blood touched the water it erupted into steam in a series of small, violent explosions. That head jerked and writhed, tangling up the other two heads long enough for Stella to complete her spell.

The wave they were riding on changed direction suddenly, the currents that had been chasing the Grace of the Mists eddying and swirling to reverse direction. The entire wave pivoted in an instant and shot away from them at high speed. The hydra eel was caught in the hydraulics and tumbled away as it was carried by the wave.

Nathan caught a glimpse of a gray slug-skin central body hundreds of feet long. Sarah’s rifle fired again and another splash of blood was followed by an explosion of steam. Stella sent a quick laser-blast in that direction, further obscuring their view with more steam. The wave sped off into the distance, showing little sign of growing smaller as it carried the monster away into the bulk of the storm.

The Heirs watched it go, wearing concerned expressions. “Huh. Is it gone?”

“Hear me, I hope so.” Aarl said, but he didn’t put away his weapons.

Stella brought her hands together and started channeling a purple fireball between them. “Don’t bait the castlebear.” She guided huge flows of mana together delicately, forming an intricate construct of fire, force and plasma.

With a jolt Nathan realized that she was preparing the spell that had burned down a good chunk of Litcliff. He shot a look towards Eolinne, who returned his gaze with a sour expression but continued playing her flute. Nathan turned his attention back to Stella’s spell. It had taken her several minutes to cast before, and now that Nathan was watching from up close he could see why. It was a hellishly complicated series of constructs based on the [Grand Fireball] spell Nathan had seen demonstrated in the Ascendent Academy, but then with a half-dozen flourishes of Stella’s own added atop that framework.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

For one thing it used both plasma and fire mana. It also had a propulsion function that would accelerate the spell in a chosen direction. There was a steering mechanism to let Stella remotely guide the spell, and multiple layers of protective spellwork to prevent it from being simply countered. But all of it was wrapped around the core of the spell, which was an elegant twist of magic that generated fire mana when things burned.

Nathan studied it in more detail, marveling at what Stella had created. He understood where most of the components came from, but what she’d done with them was truly a work of genius. He probed deeper with his senses, careful to keep his antimagic away from the delicate innards of the spell.

This is bordering on wizardry. It’s twisting the rules of the world in a local area in favor of the magic she’s trying to create.

Sarah thumped to the deck nearby, still aiming down her rifle towards the distant wave. “It’s diving.” She kept her gun leveled, frowning down the barrel. “It might still be chasing us.”

The flute music cut off as Eolinne spoke, her words clipped. “It is, sure as song. Wounding it seriously or leading it on a chase for a day will make it leave.”

“Have you stared this ghoul in the eye before?” Aarl asked without looking back, his gaze panning over the horizon.

Eolinne snorted delicately. “What a hard-grained saying. But yes, I was in convoy with another ship that could sing the song of the winds when a hydra eel scented the treasure we carried. It was smaller than this one, and only abandoned the chase after a day and a night of pursuit.”

Stella smirked, though the majority of her concentration was on the reality-warping fireball she held contained between her hands. “Then let’s kill the problem.”

Sarah sighed in resignation, holding up six bullets marked to indicate explosive enchantments. “A big monster needs big weapons.”

Eolinne nodded reluctantly. “The beast will try to come from beneath. I will mark its approach. You must halt it before it reaches us.” She wrinkled her nose at Stella’s spell. “I wish that magic nowhere near my ship.”

She raised her flute to her lips again and began playing, this time something that was more like a haunting dirge. Mist spread out from the base of the Grace of the Mists, staying low across the water and following in their wake as they sailed away from the violent clouds that were all that was left of the storm summoned by the Maelstrom ship.

Aarl gestured in the direction the hydra eel would be approaching from. “How do we get it above water? Can Khachi do it? Or am I going swimming?” His smile at the end made it clear that he hoped the last part was just a joke.

Khachi gazed thoughtfully into the water. After a moment he shook his head. “I can blind, block, and bind a monster such as this. But I cannot raise it from the depths or part the waters to reach it.”

“It’s coming.” Sarah remarked sharply, pointing at a disturbance in the fog that roiled above the surface of the water about a half-mile away. “There.”

Stella exhaled in frustration, adding a few stabilizing touches to her spell. “I’ll do it. Nathan, hold this.” She gave the watermelon-sized ball of purple fire a push. The spell roared to life and shot upwards at an angle aimed towards nothing at all, quickly growing to the size of a horse. Then she clapped her hands together, channeling an enormous amount of mana into the water below them and towards the interruption that marked their enemy. The speed of the ship helped her out, and they left a thick trail of water mana behind them.

Nathan reached out with his aura to catch the ball of flaring purple fire before it rocketed too far away. It took all of his attention to redirect it with [Magical Manipulation] without destabilizing the spell structure that maintained and contained the ravenous fire wizardry.

Call it what it is. I should chat with Stella more about this spell later. If she pushes this concept further it could lead to incredible things. Terrifying things, but if it’s her foothold into wizardry that’s a big deal.

It took him a little while to figure out how to maintain a stable holding pattern, juggling the growing fireball between four tendrils of antimagic like the world’s most dangerous diabolo. He looked back down just in time to see Stella gesture like she was parting the waves.

The fog cleared obligingly as a massive chasm opened up in the water, a tear in the ocean that reached down hundreds of feet to expose lightless depths. Something writhed in the darkness down there, and Nathan’s enhanced eyes picked out the hydra eel at the bottom of the crevasse, heads questing upwards in surprise at the sudden invasion of its realm.

Khachi’s shield shone like a spotlight, illuminating the creature as he spoke an incantation. “You shall not hide from your fate in the depths. Be revealed for the foul creature that you are.” Bands of light wrapped around the necks of the massive creature. It thrashed against the magic but was held firm for the moment.

Sarah fired her rifle, the sound deafening in such close proximity to Nathan’s ear. A splash of gore showed where the enchanted round detonated inside one of the hydra’s heads. That head fell limp as the water around it erupted in steam from the caustic blood. Sarah’s hands blurred as she reloaded the bolt-action mechanism with the enchanted cartridges. She fired again and again, blowing the brains out of each of the six heads in turn.

But it wasn’t dead. The main body still writhed in the grip of Khachi’s magic, which was beginning to loosen. Stella was gritting her teeth against the struggle of holding back so much water.

Nathan brought the ball of purple fire down directly onto the main body of the creature. The spell had grown to the size of a bus from its passage through the air and struck the hydra eel with the roar of a ravenous inferno. The heat from the sudden flare of flame reached all the way up to the Heirs, making them flinch back from the edge of the ship.

With a clap of her hands Stella closed the chasm in the water, sealing the hydra eel in the depths with her purple flame for company. The Grace of the Mists sailed away, and the Heirs watched as the ocean behind them was lit from beneath with purple fire and massive bubbles broke the surface as the ocean started boiling.

“What do you call that spell, anyways?” Nathan asked, watching the bubbles pop against the surface and feeling the spell spread to encompass the hydra's entire body and the area around it.

Stella smirked, her eyes lit from within by a flickering purple light. “I was thinking of calling it firestorm, but now I like the name hydrabane.”

End of Magic has leveled to 834! You and your party have slain a hydra eel, a true monster of the depths, and defeated the feared hunter of the Maelstrom, Wraithstorm!

Spellslayer has leveled to 564! You have contributed to killing a hydra eel and slaying Wraithstorm and his crew.

Status of Nathan Lark:

Permanent Talent 1: Arcane Nullfield 8

Permanent Talent 2: Immortal Body 6

Permanent Talent 3: Airwalking 8

Class: End of Magic level 834

Bottomless Stamina : 24081/84400

Indomitable

The Undeniable Strike of the Antimage

Stamina Burn

Momentum Mastery

Stoneflesh

Arcane Nullification

Galefoot

Close Quarters Mastery

Boundless Aura

Denial of Mysticism

The Ending of Magic

Aura Projection

Selective Dispel

The Living World

Class: Spellslayer level 564

Regenerative Focus: 3602/5740

Catastrophic Blows

Battle Stealth

Mage Infiltration

Forgettable

Sneaky Blow

Antimagic Stealth

Magical Manipulation

Lethal Index

Wizard Resistance

Magic Jammer

Controlled Failure

Utility skills:

Tranquility 3

Inspiration 8

Impulse 3

Mystical Discernment 3

Forewarning 2

Arcane Insight 4

Evasion 1

Mental Vault 5

Tutoring 9

Parkour 9

Visibility Control 5

High-tier Disguise 5

High-tier Battle Cry 3

Aura Control 5