The Forsaken Hero

My heart skipped a beat as a tremendous amount of mana poured from the Life Hero’s soul into the spell. Seeing such a vast ocean come from such a small figure seemed absurd, but I felt a touch of irony as I realized I probably looked the same. My build was no different than R’lissea’s, after all.

Her seventh-circle spell was beautiful, beginning as a winding mass of thick tendrils of life mana that curled around each other like tree roots. As the seconds passed, they began to take form, carving runes in the air and forming the frame of the seven magic circles.

Shortly before the spell was completed, the mana cannons fired again, this time four of them, eighth-circle, centered on me. It seemed they hadn’t quite realized I wasn’t just resisting their magic but utterly immune to it. Perhaps they were like Luxxa and the other Star Guard had been. It truly was unheard of that anyone could just be immune to sixth-circle spells.

As both of our spells neared completion, I locked eyes with R’lissea. We were hundreds, if not a thousand, feet apart, but I could still see the pain and reluctance in her gaze. She broke away first, biting her lip and taking a hesitant step back.

But her spell never wavered, and it completed before mine did. The seven magic circles came together to form one giant circle, and it stiffened, recognizing it as the exact same sequence as when I summoned an elemental spirit. Only this was a seventh-circle spell, a life spell, cast by the Life Hero. My elementals were strong, but I could only imagine how powerful one would be that matched the attribute of its caster, a hero no less.

A brilliant sphere of life magic coalesced at the heart of the magic circles. It swelled in size—ten feet, fifty, a hundred, then three hundred. It became impossibly dense, a blinding emerald radiance that obscured its inner workings from both my natural eyes and the Oracle of Eternity.

I didn’t have long to wait, however. In a fraction of a second, the sphere imploded, collapsing inward and taking on a draconic form. The creature that emerged was a hundred feet long, sculpted from the very essence of the forest—trees, leaves, and unworked stone. Layered horns of gnarled branches twisted from its head, and its wings were a magnificent canopy of leaves, each shimmering with vibrant green energy. Bark and rock formed its body in place of flesh and scales, covered in patches of prickly moss. Its eyes shone a startling green, and as it opened its maw to roar, it revealed rows of jagged, stone teeth.

R’lissea shouted a command, her voice swallowed by the winds that whipped around the colossal creature, stirred into a frenzy by its sheer presence. Each beat of its majestic wings created miniature cyclones that descended on the warring armies below, tossing soldiers aside like dried leaves in a hurricane.

I couldn’t fathom what kind of creature she’d summoned, or the spell that had conjured it, but it was clearly some form of life elemental, one far more powerful than any summoned entity I’d ever seen. It radiated an aura of strength, powerful enough to challenge any of the heroes, perhaps even overpower them.