Chapter 42 | PoV: Aisha
Aisha froze, blinking. How? Was that even possible? Maybe . . . Erm . . . No. She didn't have any explanation for this. It would be foolish to pretend she knew how her spell worked, or any possible workarounds. She merely knew how to cast it.
Her [Temporal Sundering] should have paused everything and everyone for her whims. So why could the monster laugh?
“Temporal magic doesn't work on the dead, for some reason. We get pulled along with you . . . Ah. And monsters from the Abyss as well,” The monster grabbed something from the altar with his empty hand. Something that had been blocked to Aisha's view, because of the monster's body being in the way.
“You're dead?”
The monster had picked up his staff. “I'm on borrowed time. I wonder how much you'll give me? On top of your temporal magic, of course. [Temporal Sundering] . . . What a curious spell . .”
Well. That had kind-of been her plan to easily beat the monster? Could she do it anyway?
Sure, she could probably beat up this man even without temporal magic. It would just be more difficult. Maybe sloppier. Plus, she would have to deal with whatever magic the monster had.
“Did you know that each mage has their own [Sundering] type spell? So interesting that you found temporal's . . .”
Aisha ascended the first step of the altar. Then the second.
“Hmm . . . It might be a little tough to get you onto the sacrificial slab . . .”
Aisha scowled at the monster. She left the steps behind her and stood upon the altar.
“Wow,” the monster said. “I thought it was a trick of the dark light, but you're very purple. I hope you don't keel over and die before I can sacrifice you.”
Aisha snorted. “I'd rather die than fall victim to your ritual.”
She also might rather die than listen to another sentence from this royal miscreant.
The two of them stood there, facing each other. The monster only looked curious and amused. Aisha glared with murderous intent.
She charged forward and struck with her staff, bringing it down with a swing.
The monster held up his own staff in time and blocked. Metal clanged against metal.
“[Grasping Hands],” the monster incantated.
Something cold held onto each of Aisha's calves. She tugged with her leg, something held her in place.
She looked down, two skeletal hands poked out from the ground and kept her bound.
Aisha growled.
She yanked with a foot, trying to free herself. Well, that wasn't fair.
“[Breathless].”
Aisha lost her breath. She couldn't breathe! She began to choke, gasping for air that couldn't come.
The monster had cast an aeolian spell. How?
“You are far too easy,” the monster stepped aside and brushed the corpse off the slab. It thumped against the floor on the other side from them, robes and all. He was probably preparing the sacrificial slab for Aisha.
Aisha threw up a time bubble, desperate for a time advantage. She kicked away the [Grasping Hands], they vanished into dust.
“You do realize that I will be included in your time bubbles? . . .”
Alas, it was a futile attempt.
[Breathless] broke. Aisha gasped for air like she hadn't breathed in forever. She panted and panted and—she couldn't just stand here forever.
The monster smiled. “[Breathle—]”
Aisha ran forward, swinging her staff.
The monster once again blocked her. Aisha continued to bash down her staff. The monster kept up, though took a step backward, then another. Aisha's brute force put up a fight—but nowhere near as strong and divisive as she wanted to.
“[Life Drain],” The monster cast.
An all-consuming maw of pain opened up in Aisha's chest. Her heart skittered. Aisha groaned, she fell to her knees. She watched as necrotic mana left Aisha in rushes and got absorbed into the monster.
Aisha's vision swam.
The monster stepped up to her and kicked her in the face. Aisha collapsed.
It felt like something was eating her from the inside. On top of that, her strange purple wounds from another world continued to pulse in numb, cold pain. Her entire body screamed for relief, or for release.
Maybe this was where she died.
The monster dropped his staff, then held Aisha by the wrists. One forceful squeeze caused her to drop her staff. Then, the monster began struggling to haul her onto the ritual table.
There was one monster. Then two. Then three. Then two again. Blurry. Wobbly. Dark. The dim lighting of the room danced. A headache split through her skull.
This was it. This was where she died.
“Do I try making you my thrall? That would be glorious. Alas, who needs friends when you can do it all yourself? Am I right? Where’s Fazl? Where’s Rafiq?” The monster grinned at that last line.
“Stop . . . monologuing . . . and just—”
Something insistently tugged at Aisha in the back of her brain. Or rather, something tried to beat against a locked door, begging to come out.
Aisha looked around and saw the temporal mana all around her. She still had [Temporal Sundering] up. She just couldn't do anything relevant with it because apparently dead people could cheat her temporal spells.
This meant the world around them was paused. Fazl couldn't come to Aisha’s aid. Any lackey of the monster’s couldn't come to help.
Aisha mentally reached for that sealed door and pulled at it with all her might, now translated into her mind. The door held—strong, resistant.
Yet, Aisha was strong too. She gave one more tug. Forceful. Determined.
The door burst open, and something flooded back to Aisha. She gasped in revelation, and as if she had just come back from a minute submerged in water. Her body went limp as she used the last of her strength.
Aisha's head hit the sacrificial slab. Then her torso. Her legs followed until her whole body was on the slab. The monster still worked.
Aisha couldn't move.
But she could speak.
“[Temporal P—]”
“[Breathless],” the monster cast without a second thought. “We can't have any of that.”
Aisha blinked. The monster did not hold his staff. He couldn't cast the spell.
His expression dropped.
“[Temporal Parting]!”
Huh. Even without her staff, it worked. Was it because it required a [Temporal Sundering] to already have been cast? There was something there . . . Aisha could work on the theory later. For now, she could thank Heliux that it worked somehow.
Aisha excised the temporal mana from around the monster. The strange hint of orange in the air disappeared completely. The monster no longer moved with time—for time no longer existed in that spot.
The [Life Drain] spell seemed to have stopped.
Aisha let out a sigh of relief. Was that it?
With limp limbs, Aisha moved her feet off of the sacrificial table. She pushed herself up.
She slid off the slab and fell onto the floor with a thud of flesh and the fluttering of robes. Her limbs felt like soup. Muscles gone, only her bones kept her structure.
Aisha crawled towards the monster with weak, reluctant movements. Her entire body throbbed with a weird numbness. She saw hints of purple creeping out of her robes and onto her hands.
Aisha grabbed onto the monster at the wrist, then pulled him down.
He moved in surprise as he entered a space with time.
Aisha excised that too.
The monster crumpled to the floor, frozen in his own little cut-out without time. Temporal mana slowly tried to fill in the now-empty spaces. It would take a few minutes, but it would eventually come back.
Aisha took her staff and swung at the monster, trying to crush him.
Her swings were like an infant's tired slap. Even with her strength, her weakness barely amounted to anything.
The darkness in her vision crept up from the edges. Everything blurred.
Aisha fell even further against the cold stone beneath her.
Still, she stabbed the monster with the butt of her staff, over and over, like a dull chisel against rock.
Something happened.
A white light began to spill up from the monster, pooling into a floating orb maybe a pace or two above him. Aisha didn't know what it was or what to make of it. Her thoughts came slowly, if any, they only focused on her pain and fatigue.
Aisha's spells fell apart from her exhaustion. [Temporal Sundering] broke and Aisha lost the sense for the ubiquitous temporal mana. Before that, the mana washed back into place from Parting.
That's when she heard it again.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Footsteps against stone. Heading into the room. Quiet. Aisha shouldn't even have heard them. Yet, the entire place was deathly silent.
Aisha turned her weak head.
She saw nothing.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The sound continued, from the entryway to the altar steps. Then, up those steps to the raised area with the sacrificial slab.
A foot kicked against Aisha. Then, someone snorted.
What? . . . So . . . There was an invisible person. Why had she been kicked? To check if she was dead? Did the person believe that she was?
The footsteps went forward, towards the corpse of the monster.
Towards the strange, glowing white orb.
No . . . Something in Aisha screamed at her. She couldn't let that orb be touched. She couldn't let this person . . . have whatever it was.
She threw up a time bubble around herself, body tearing itself apart all the while. Her body couldn't sustain a bubble of this magnitude, yet she cast it anyway. She directed the backlash towards the invisible body. Aisha noticed the purple on her body creep up much faster. Consuming her entire body. Not a finger left unblighted.
On shaking, aching limbs, Aisha pushed herself up. She swung at the invisible man.
Her staff collided with something, that was for sure.
Reluctantly, Aisha dropped the bubbles.
A cloaked man fell to the floor, face bashed in, blood all over it and Aisha's staff. She had enough strength to do that with one swing? What about when she had been beating the monster?
Aisha didn't know what to think. She didn't know how to react. She was too tired.
Aisha did not recognize this person. Who was he? What had he done?
Was this the assassin of the temporal mages? How could he go invisible? Another new type of mage?
Aisha took a hobbling step for the white orb.
What would happen if she—?
She reached forward with a hand, like a moth to a light.
She touched it.
Her body tore itself apart. She screamed, but could not scream. She existed in a place where noise could not travel. Where her body could not make those sounds.
She . . . absorbed the strange sphere.