Magus Reborn [Stubbing in Three Weeks]

Kael watched as Lord Arzan flew straight toward the gaping maw of the sand elemental, and instead of fear tightening his chest, a completely different thought crossed his mind.

This is going to make an incredible chapter.

The image burned itself into his memory: the king descending without hesitation, cloak snapping in the desert wind, diving willingly into a monster’s mouth large enough to swallow a fortress gate whole. Readers would love that. He could already imagine the opening lines. The Great Lord did not retreat before the desert’s wrath…

His earlier manuscript had already spread through the tribal camps, copied by hand and passed from fire to fire at night. Warriors argued over their favorite scenes. Children reenacted battles with sticks. Once trade with Lancephil officially opened, he planned to distribute proper copies there too. Maybe this battle would become the centerpiece of the next volume—

“Bastard! Why are you just standing there?” Neris shouted from across the dunes. “Do something or we’ll get swallowed too!”

Kael blinked, snapping back to reality.

The elemental Lord Arzan had weakened was moving again.

Its massive body sagged unevenly, half of it had turned to heavy mud, its movements sluggish but far from harmless. Unlike their lord, Kael and Neris didn’t have the luxury of flight. They stood on the desert itself, exactly where the creature was strongest.

A tremor ran beneath Kael’s boots.

He reacted instantly.

Mana surged through his legs as he leapt backward, wrenching his shield upward just as the sand beneath him split open. Jagged spears of compacted sand erupted from the ground where he had stood a heartbeat earlier, slicing through the air with lethal force.

Grains rained against his armor as he landed hard and slid across the dune.

He looked up.

The elemental loomed above them, its massive frame streaked with wet sand and cracks of hardened glass left by Lord Arzan’s attacks. A distorted roar rippled through its body as it reformed its limbs.

Kael grinned. “Alright,” he muttered, planting his feet. “Let's see how strong you are.”

He drove mana into the shield.

Seals carved along its surface flared to life, glowing line tracing outward like veins igniting beneath metal. A deep hum filled the air, triggering the enchantments at once.

Fire and shadow burst outward in violent pulses.

The blasts slammed into the elemental’s torso where they struck the dampened sand. As a result, explosions tore chunks free, mud scattering across the desert in heavy clumps. Steam hissed into the air as heat met moisture.

On the opposite side, Neris moved constantly, never staying still for more than a breath. Flames arced from his weapon in sweeping strikes, burning away portions of the creature while he circled it, forcing its attention to split.

Unfortunately, the sand elemental showed no appreciation for their efforts.

The desert erupted again.

Hands burst from the ground without warning, massive pillars of sand shaping themselves into crushing palms that slammed toward Kael. He reacted on instinct, throwing his shield forward just as the blow landed.

The impact thundered through him.

His arm shook violently, bones rattling beneath enchanted armor as the force drove him half a step into the sand. Grit sprayed into the air, the pressure immense enough to buckle his stance, but he held.

“Not today,” he muttered through clenched teeth.

Mana surged through the shield. Another seal ignited, and a violent burst of energy exploded outward. The sand hands shattered apart, collapsing into loose grains that rained around him.

Kael didn’t wait.

He turned and ran again.

The shield strapped to his arm was absurdly useful, but it wasn’t meant for what he was doing. Its enchantments were designed to anchor defensive formations, to stand firm while battalions of Mages cast behind it, not for sprinting across dunes while fighting living disasters.

Every step felt heavier.

Still, he endured.

He only needed to survive until Lord Arzan emerged from… wherever he had gone inside that thing.

Does an elemental even have a stomach? Kael wondered briefly, ducking another ripple in the sand.

Though, whatever Lord Arzan was doing, it was working.

The second elemental thrashed wildly nearby, its massive body collapsing and reforming in uneven waves. Sand surged in chaotic bursts, movements erratic, and almost desperate. It looked like it was in pain, though without a face, it was impossible to be sure.

A sharp whoosh suddenly split the air.

Kael twisted around just in time for a volley of hardened sand projectiles to slam into his shield. The impacts rang like hammer blows. One shard slipped past the edge, striking the ground beside him and exploding into dust.

He barely noticed.

Because something else froze him in place.

Neris.

One of the elemental’s massive hands had risen behind his companion and closed around him completely. Sand tightened like a vice, crushing inward. Neris struggled inside the grasp, armor grinding as pressure mounted, his spear already knocked free and half-buried beneath shifting dunes.

The elemental was dragging him downward.

Sand climbed higher around Neris’s body, swallowing him inch by inch as he coughed, trying to force mana into his defenses.

If Kael didn’t act now—

Neris was going to die.

Kael refused to let his friend die like this.

With a sharp breath, he charged forward.

Sand spears erupted from the ground in his path, but he ignored them, raising his shield and forcing mana into it as he ran straight toward Neris. Impacts slammed against the barrier, rattling his arm and shoulders, grains spraying across his armor, yet he didn’t slow.

“Neris!” he shouted, already channeling spells into the shield, preparing to blast apart the hand crushing his companion.

But before he could release them—

Something impossible happened.

The other sand elemental suddenly collapsed sideways.

No, it threw itself forward.

The massive body crashed into the first elemental with overwhelming force. Sand exploded outward like a tidal wave as the two titans collided. A horrifying, grinding scream tore through the desert, loud enough to make Kael’s ears ring.

The grip around Neris loosened instantly.

The hand shattered apart, and Neris dropped heavily onto the sand.

Kael didn’t hesitate.

Despite the shield dragging at his arm, he sprinted the remaining distance and grabbed Neris by the collar, hauling him free from the sinking sand that tried to reclaim him.

Neris coughed violently as he was pulled out, face pale, eyes wide with disbelief.

Kael slapped his cheeks repeatedly. “Stay with me! Come on, wake up! We need to move!”

Neris blinked weakly. “W… what’s going on…?”

“Like heck I know,” Kael snapped, glancing back.

Behind them, the elemental Lord Arzan had entered was thrashing wildly, its massive body rolling and crashing into the other one again and again as if something inside it was tearing it apart. The desert shook beneath every movement.

“It’s going crazy,” Kael muttered. “Whatever Lord Arzan’s doing in there—it’s working.”

He hurriedly grabbed Neris’s buried spear, yanking it free from the sand before tossing it toward him. Neris caught it clumsily and managed to stand.

“Run,” Kael said firmly. “Now.”

Neris nodded, still unsteady, and the two of them turned and ran across the dunes as the elemental’s screams grew louder behind them. It was like the sound of something enormous dying.

Sand trembled beneath their feet. And despite the danger clawing at his back, one absurd thought pushed Kael forward harder than fear ever could.

There was no way he was dying before writing this battle into his next book.

But as Kael ran, instinct forced him to glance back, just for a second. That second nearly stopped his heart.

The desert behind them was moving.

Not shifting, but moving. Waves of sand rolled forward like a collapsing sea, pushed outward by the two battling elementals. Their massive bodies churned the dunes apart, flooding the land with avalanches of loose sand that rushed toward Kael and Neris.

“... fuck,” Kael muttered under his breath.

He tried to run faster, boots sinking with every step, lungs burning. But the shield dragged at his arm like an anchor.

For a brief, desperate moment, he considered dropping it.

But the thought of explaining to Lord Arzan how he had lost a priceless enchanted artifact hurt almost as much as dying.

So he kept running. Praying to every goddess and spirit he could remember while gasping for breath.

Then, he finally saw salvation.

Ahead of them, two mounts raced across the dunes.

Maari and Khalid leaned forward in their saddles, shouting over the roaring sand.

“We’ll save you two!”

Beside him, Neris wheezed, “I don’t want to die in this desert…”

“Same,” Kael panted.

They pushed forward with the last of their strength and, by some miracle of fate, reached the tribal leaders. Hands grabbed them, hauling them onto the mounts. The beast beneath Kael lurched under the added weight of the shield, but Khalid immediately urged it forward, steering hard across the dunes.

Kael clung tightly, breathing hard.

Then he looked back again. The wave of sand was almost on them.

“Hurry!” he shouted.

The mounts accelerated, legs pounding against the desert, but it wasn’t enough. The sand wave caught them.

It slammed into Kael’s back like a collapsing wall. The mount cried out as the force lifted all of them off balance, and in the next instant they were thrown through the air.

The world spun and sand filled his vision.

He crashed hard into the ground, breath knocked from his lungs as grains swallowed him halfway. The shield pinned beneath him made moving nearly impossible.

For a moment, panic surged.

He forced himself to move—shifting, pushing, clawing his way free until he could finally breathe again.

Slowly, he lifted his head. Around him, the others stirred, equally buried but alive.

They had taken the edge of the wave, nothing more. They had survived.

Kael turned toward the battlefield. The desert had gone strangely still.

And there, standing amid settling sand and drifting dust, was Lord Arzan.

In his hands rested a massive red stone, glowing faintly with inner light. And once again, Kael thought how good this scene will be in his next book.

***

Kai looked down at the elemental core resting in his hand and smiled.

For a moment back there, he had genuinely thought he would be buried alive. Sand had forced its way into his throat and nose, choking his breath and breaking his concentration, but instinct and training had taken over. His wind armour had reformed a heartbeat later, pushing the crushing weight away just long enough for him to survive.

Now the proof of victory pulsed warmly in his palm.

The core was cracked but mostly intact, its red glow flickering like a dying ember. With it half-destroyed, the elemental itself had already begun collapsing from within. Once the core destabilized, the rest had been easy. The massive body had crumbled apart, losing cohesion as Kai carved his way out.

He exhaled slowly, steadying his breathing and looking to his left.

At least he wouldn’t need to waste time fighting the other elemental.

Apparently, while he had been inside destroying the core, the elemental had grown violently unstable. Its movements had turned erratic, thrashing across the desert in blind agitation and it had crashed directly into the other elemental.

Two massive bodies of living sand colliding had done all the work for him.

Kai had emerged just in time to see the aftermath.

The other elemental’s core already lay exposed and fractured. It must have tried to reposition itself while trapped in wet sand, leaving the core vulnerable. The other elemental’s rampage had struck it repeatedly, and the moment the core cracked, the creature had simply… fallen apart.

Both titans collapsing at once had unleashed the sand wave that now blanketed the desert around him.

He lifted his gaze.

Far in the distance, Kael, Neris, Khalid, and Maari stood beside the mounts, staring toward him. Even from here he could feel their disbelief. Amyra stood farther off to the left, safely beyond the reach of the wave, her expression caught somewhere between awe and confusion as she tried to process what she had just witnessed.

Kai glanced once more at the ruined dunes, the battlefield now quiet except for drifting sand.

Then he bent down and picked up the second core.

It was in far better condition than he had expected.

He inspected the core for a while, turning it slowly in his hand as its faint red glow pulsed against his fingers. After confirming that both cores were stable enough to transport, Kai shaped two large hands out of wind beside him. The translucent constructs closed carefully around the elemental cores, holding them suspended in the air.

With that done, he flew toward Amyra first.

He lowered himself beside her, gently lifting her into his arms before rising again and heading toward the others. Sand still shifted beneath him, settling after the collapse of the elementals, and the battlefield looked almost unrecognizable compared to before.

Kael was half buried in the sand when Kai landed, only his upper body visible. The others had managed to pull themselves clear, though all of them looked exhausted.

Kai set Amyra down safely before stepping forward and pulling Kael free with a firm grip, dragging him out of the sand in one motion. Grains slid off the Enforcer’s armour as he staggered upright.

Kai then turned toward Khalid and Maari and said calmly, “The trade route should be fine now.”

Khalid nodded immediately, brushing sand off himself. “It should be. But we’ll definitely have to deal with all this sand.” He gestured around them. “The elementals dying created a whole dune mountain.”

Kai allowed himself a small smile. “At least there was no loss of life.”

He then turned toward the two Enforcers.

Both Kael and Neris were already looking at him, their expressions tense. Kai could clearly see they were expecting criticism. Neris still held his spear, but its tip had snapped cleanly in half, the metal warped from pressure and impact.

They had insisted on joining the battle, and it was obvious they believed they had failed.

Kael spoke before Kai could say anything. “I’m really sorry, Your Majesty. We weren’t able to do well.”

Neris nodded, lowering his gaze. “I don’t know when it happened, but the spear got crushed under the sand. I’m terribly sorry about it, Your Majesty. I’ll pay for it no matter how long it takes.”

Kai immediately shook his head. “There’s no need for that.” He looked down at the broken weapon, examining the fractured tip for a moment. “Balen will probably handle it. He would be happy to work on an old artifact.”

Then he looked back at both of them and added, “And you two didn’t do a bad job.”

“But we weren’t able to kill even one of them.”

Kai shook his head at Kael’s pessimism. “They are grade five beasts, and you two are only just beginning to grasp your elements. There was no way you could kill them yet, even with artifacts. This was never about that.” He paused before adding, “It was a way for you to gain experience. And I’m saying you both did well.”

The two Enforcers exchanged a glance before slowly nodding. The tension in their shoulders eased a little, though embarrassment still lingered on their faces.

Kai left the matter there and turned his attention back to the two elemental cores still floating beside him, held carefully within the wind constructs. Their red glow flickered against the desert light as grains of sand slid off their surfaces.

He looked toward Khalid and Maari. “I will be taking these two with me. Is that alright?”

Both tribal leaders nodded at the same time.

“Yes,” Khalid said. “We had no part in killing the elementals, Your Majesty. They are rightfully yours.”

Kai smiled faintly at that, then turned toward Amyra. “Go back to the tower with Kael and Neris. I’ll be moving ahead. I need to inspect these two cores.”

Amyra immediately asked, “Can I see you doing that?”

Kai shook his head gently. “No. Elemental cores are very sensitive. It can be dangerous.”

Her shoulders visibly slumped, disappointment clear on her face. But before she could say anything else, Kai added, “I’ll be returning to the library afterward. We can read more books together.”

Her expression brightened at once, a smile replacing the disappointment.

Satisfied, Kai lifted himself into the air again. The wind gathered beneath his feet as the two floating cores followed beside him.

As he flew away, his thoughts grew heavier.

Fighting the sand elementals had been easier than he had expected, but this was only the beginning. He still needed two more elemental cores, and that meant finding other high-grade elementals somewhere across the world.

The Watchers might eventually gather information for him, but Kai had no intention of waiting idly.

Fortunately, he had spent enough time in the Grand Library to remember several bestiaries that listed elemental habitats. Now it was only a matter of deciding where to hunt next.

***

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