Looking at the figure wrapped in the cloak, Hadjar felt like it was familiar to him. Of course, it wasn’t the Black General, as the elixir had appeared long before the Enemy had come to the territory of the ancient civilization.
It seemed like the civilization had formed around the gods’ gift and the cloaked figure was its progenitor. Hadjar didn’t understand why he knew the story of such an ancient being. It was older than Mage City …
Hadjar’s train of thought was interrupted by the light at the end of the corridor. Bright and eye-catching, it contrasted sharply with the dimness of the library and the subterranean corridors. Shielding his eyes, Hadjar stepped out onto a wide balcony. A light breeze caressed his body. A hum, and some sort of noise filled his ears. After the recent silence, they were as refreshing as the breeze.
As his eyes adjusted to the light, Hadjar once again realized that this world still had plenty of things left to impress him with. Below the balcony was a mountain plateau. Or so Hadjar presumed at first. However, the grass and moss weren’t growing on stones, but on ancient bridges, columns, and platforms.
The area looked like... Hadjar couldn’t find the words to describe it. In the center, on a huge column, was a square platform. Covered in various prints, patterns, and runes, it gathered energy using a huge crystal hovering above the columns standing on the perimeter. All of this energy accumulated and formed a blue ‘bush’. Ephemeral, created from pure energy, it, in turn, poured the energy into special crystal troughs that ran beneath Hadjar’s feet.
Apparently, this was what had kept the library running. However, it wasn’t this gigantic ‘altar’ and the buildings around it, whose huge parts were floating in the air, that made Hadjar gape in awe.
He stared at a huge tree that grew on the other side of the blue energy ‘bush’ and the stone platform. Although, ‘grow’ was the wrong word for it.
The base of the tree encircled a floating island big enough to build six houses on. Its great roots entangled the island and, intertwining with it, went somewhere down a wide pipe. The lilac tree crowns radiating blue light would’ve been able to cover half of Kurkhadan. The tree had no trunk. Instead, an orange crystal swirled in its center, emanating bright yellow light. Sankesh was standing on the pipe into which the mighty roots descended, and Serra and Erra were lying at his feet.
Hadjar didn’t know which of them the elixir was — the crystal, the tree, or the blue bush — but he didn’t care at the moment. Blurring into the shadow of the Seven Ravens, he covered the distance between himself and the giant of a man in less than a minute.
“You’ve come at last.” Sankesh didn’t even turn around. He stared at the huge crystal spinning inside the tree. “You can take them away. They’ve fulfilled their purpose.”
With two careless kicks, he sent the little girls flying away from him. Hadjar barely managed to catch them and gently put them back down.
“Are you all right?” He asked the girls, but instantly realized they weren’t.
Serra was still breathing, albeit with a lot of difficult. Erra’s body gradually grew transparent. Her heart was no longer beating, and her eyes were empty.
“The library is dying, Hadjar,” Serra whispered very softly. “My sister is gone. It will be my turn soon.”
Hadjar suddenly realized why Rahaim had been searching for the library so desperately. What did death mean for a golem? Nothingness. Absolute, all-consuming nothingness. Soulless creatures didn’t get an afterlife. The only thing that would be able to give Serra a soul, a short period of mortal life, and, most importantly, a new life after that, was the elixir of the gods.
“Get to cover.” Hadjar tucked a stray strand of hair behind the girl’s ear. “It’ll be all right. Don’t be afraid. Everything will be fine.”
The girl nodded and, summoning the last of her strength, limped over to the columns with the blue crystals.
Hadjar rose and took a step toward Sankesh.
“Stop-”
Hadjar didn’t manage to say a word more. Sunshine Sankesh whirled and swung his halberd. If Ragar’s energy had been like an avalanche, Sankesh’s was more like a fiery inferno. He was much stronger than the northerner had been.
His slash generated a wave of light. Cutting through the stone, it rushed toward Hadjar. Thirty feet high and three feet wide, it could’ve cut through an entire fortress with ease.
Hadjar always used every opportunity he could. Despite his pain and wounds, he summoned the sleeping little dragon and visualized using the black sword and the ‘Calm Wind’ Technique within his soul. In the physical world, he performed the ‘Rustle in the Treetops’ Technique.
The strong defense couldn’t even slow the desert ruler’s strike. The wave of light that held the Halberd Spirit within it cut through the wind and tore it into small fragments.
The dragon, which had a sword for its body, got in the way of the light, but could only withstand it for a fraction of a second. The light swallowed it up, losing about a twentieth of its strength. All of its titanic might struck Hadjar, who had raised his sword to block it. Energy surged out of Hadjar’s body. The wisps of black mist on his blade widened. They connected with the black cloak around his shoulders, forming a sphere of darkness, but compared to the wave of light, this sphere looked like a speck.
Sankesh ignored him. Realizing that Hadjar didn’t have enough power to block his attack, he turned away and continued studying the crystal.
Hadjar held on with all his might. Large patches of his skin and muscle tissue were torn from his arms and shoulders. Blood drenched the moss-covered stones.
With a roar, Hadjar put all his strength and willpower into blocking the attack. In his eyes, a dragon raged. Darkness oozed from the depths of his soul. The wave of light gradually faded. Hadjar was able to take half a step forward, pushing back the halberd’s strike... Sankesh was about to turn around, when…
Crack!
A shard of Mountain Wind pierced Hadjar’s chest. A moment later, the sword snapped and split in half. Hadjar felt no terror, no icy fingers of death on his throat. He was only mildly saddened by the fact that his sword was too weak to endure such a battle.
The wave of light struck Hadjar. It dragged him at least twenty yards across the ground. His lifeless body, sporting a hideous wound that had almost cut him in half and had exposed his entrails, lay unmoving on the edge of an abyss.
“Weakling,” Sankesh snorted.
“Hadjar!” Serra exclaimed.
***
“...Hadjar... Hadjar...”
Silence ruled. It was dark and cold here.
So this is what death looks like! Hadjar thought.
He’d seen darkness in his life. Tangible darkness, the kind that was so scary that even the color black looked white compared to it, but this... it wasn’t darkness. It wasn’t light. This was nothing. It was just death.
His last flashes of consciousness stretched out for eternity. During these last gasps, mortals saw the Heavens or Hells, but practitioners... Their will was too strong to be lost amidst the chaos of their own fading soul.
It had been foolish to think that he could fight a monstrously powerful Spirit Knight on his own. He and two others had defeated Ragar by using the exploding artifacts, and even then, they’d only managed to do so because the northerner had been struggling with his soul wounds at the beginning of the fight, and those wounds were sometimes much more damaging than any bodily ones could ever be.