"What do you think?" Urag asked Kilian as the 300 suras encircled them. Of the group, 276 rivaled top-level High Emissaries, 23 rivaled low-level Archons, and the leader reached the mid-level.
"Fehl mutations? No, corruption. A high-level fehl must have corrupted them through some ritual, bringing them infinitely close to daemonhood," Kilian hypothesized.
"Yep, those bitches are more daemons than suras. I guess we can call them fehl suras. This shit's serious son. At the very least, they have a Fehl Prince behind them," Urag said in the gravest tone he'd ever used before Kilian. Below the Prince rank, fehls didn't have enough power to corrupt a race on this scale. Still, the knowledge that a Fehl Prince backed the suras didn't startle Urag. After all, high-ranking fehls enticed and bargained with lesser races all the time. The scope was the real issue.
"Find a god and pray that those 300 are the end of it because if we face legions, things will get nasty." Although Sura Magic didn't have many destructive abilities, in terms of versatility, few disciplines could compare. Let's not mention their physical changes; once those fehl suras combined their innate abilities with Fehl Magic, their overall strength would skyrocket.
"Third Circle Spell: Reinforcement Link!"
"Third Circle Spell: Maximized Potential!"
Through the instantaneous fehl casting, the 300 suras conjured a slew of silver, arcane circles that rotated above them as their spells kicked into gear, making their magical abilities overlap and their battle-prowess reach its full potential. Worse, each could now see through the eyes of their peers.
"Fourth Circle Spell: Ground Conversion," the 24 Archons whispered, conjuring clouds of gray smoke that spread across 6,000 square meters. The smoke seeped into the earth and trees, changing their properties and turning the battlefield into the suras' ally.
With one glance, the leaders realized that Urag and Kilian didn't play in the same league as the fallen students. Therefore, they pulled no punch.
"I considered the von Skolls, considered the Technocracy, but never anticipated that once in, the suras would turn into the biggest threat. My mistake. Urag, I will send you to Lena. Watch over her from the shadows and don't reveal your presence unless absolutely necessary. Kilian ordered, activated his Eye of Distortion, and opened a space vortex aimed at Lena's location.
Alarmed, the suras fired myriads of purple bolts at the portal but instead clashed with an energy shield raised by Kilian.
"You sure about that? They ain't no pushovers. Oh well, just don't make my girl a widow." Not bothering to wait for Kilian's answer, Urag leaped into the portal and vanished within. Unable to break Kilian's energy shield in time, the fehl suras could only watch Urag depart and the portal close behind him.
"You should have left with him," said the leader. Although Kilian's third eye marked him as a fehl mutant, in the suras' eyes, it changed nothing.
"You shouldn't have come," Kilian replied. At first, he considered striking a bargain, but the more he studied the suras, the more he realized that "discussion" no longer existed in their vocabulary.
Gray smoke billowed from the ground, forming a magical screen that prevented the average magus' Mage Sight from locating the suras. Closing his useless eyes, Kilian activated his Revelation, and for three seconds, the suras observed him in silence. Predatory gazes nailed Kilian from all sides, registering everything from how he breathed to the flutter of his eyelids.
A cracking sound broke the silence, and the battle began. Armed with their fists, 37 suras pounced on Kilian. Purple lightning cracked around their forms, enhancing their speed and destructive powers to the limit. At their back, their peers chanted:
"Fourth Circle Spell: Fehl Shackles!"
"Fourth Circle Spell: Withering!"
Massive white chains sprang from all sides and surrounded Kilian while the pressure of an invisible force barreled into him to enfeeble his muscles and bones. In perfect tandem, the 37 pugilists neared Kilian, and riding on their peers' chains, unleashed an explosion of punches.
The energy shield collapsed, blasted into pieces by the chains' constriction. One of the major advantages of Fehl Magic was that unlike other disciplines, it didn't have weaknesses. Fehl spells englobed all attributes, surpassed all and feared none. But as chains and punches neared him, Kilian's third eye went from gray to crimson.
"Aversion Field!" There was no fancy display, no theatrical move—but the chains ignored Kilian and wrapped around the 37 suras instead. Alarmed, they strove to break free by thrashing against their peers' binds. At the same time, the hidden suras tried to cancel their spells but were a step short.
"Compression!" Kilian slammed his hands together and pulled by irresistible compression forces, the 37 suras crashed into one another and burst into a blood fog. With no targets left, the chains crumbled in light particles. Bewildered, the 263 remaining suras stared blankly at Kilian.
"It's that eye? The Eye?" The Archons realized. Although suras didn't have much access to foreign planes, they still knew the legends of the Eye of Fehl. However, so rare was the Eye that they didn't associate it to Kilian till now—blaming the previous portal on a teleportation device.
But as reality dawned upon them, red lightning surged from Kilian's chest, and his Philosopher's Stone absorbed the fallen souls.
"Believe me, I understand. You didn't have it easy. And now that you have the means to fight, your bottled hatred indiscriminately explodes. Sadly, blind vindictiveness only lets you play in the palm of your oppressor. Even if you slew all humans across the multiverse, it wouldn't change the fact that the one to whom you owe all your grief—is now a Fehl Prince.
Fourth Circle Spell: Infernal Arsenal!" Four dark-purple circles appeared and rotated beside Kilian as he summoned his handmade Arcana: Abyssal Technomancy.
Six floating obsidian cannons formed around Kilian fired purple dra lasers at the suras. Earthen walls and hundreds of vine barriers condensed before them, resisting Kilian's barrage.
Thundering blasts rattled the peach blossom forest as Kilian's Infernal Arsenal clashed with nature. Abandoning their posts, the suras left the shroud's protection and flew into the sky.
Without a second thought, Kilian followed, threading on dra to soar into the sky, and the two sides met in an aerial battle. Turning into meteors of light, the suras assailed Kilian from all sides, but with the Eye of Revelation, he could not only predict all their moves but see the flaws in the formation.
Using their hands as sabers, seven suras chopped at Kilian but met thin air. Reappearing behind them, Kilian blasted burning holes in their chests with his dark cannons and vanished to avoid another ambush.
Eighteen suras fired dra projectiles at the cannons while four stepped into Kilian's range, aiming at his eyes, neck, crotch and back. Whirling 360, Kilian evaded the killing moves, and slapped the fours' heads off!
In several breaths of time, the two camps exchanged dozens of moves. And as their numbers shrank--the fehl suras realized that at this rate--defeat was a matter of time.
"You can't blame the genocide of 100 million on one man when legions willingly took part in the slaughter! That--is too human!
Fourth Circle Spell: Soul Gathering!" The leader bellowed, and a blaze of gray flames swept the 240 surviving suras, uniting them in one Quasi-Exarch entity. The magnified pressure of the suras bore down on Kilian, forcing him back onto the ground.
"Fifth Circle Spell: Fehl Fury!"
The icy-blue sky vanished under a gathering of magenta clouds that bloated everything across dozens of kilometers. Ayden, Tristan, Estrella, Hanns, the Technocracy's agents, all saw it, and all shivered before this manifestation of Exarch-level might!
Hanns, who better than the others understood the might of Fifth Circle Spells, couldn't imagine who in the Sura Plane might possess that strength. Although he too could cast one, it'd exhaust all he had.
But as Kilian faced the cracking lightning and brewing thunderstorm, fear didn't ripple in his eyes. White-red lightning surged from his Philosopher's Stone, wrapped his frame, and boosted his magical abilities far beyond their limits.
"I guess I can't take anyone alive, after all—Atomic Dissociation!"
Kilian raised one hand, his lightning flashed and all came to a halt. Yes, the suras, the brewing thunderstorm, the smoke and whirlwinds, all came to a standstill.
But as he experienced this unprecedented ability, the sura leader's eyes and lips widened in a mix of horror and anguish.
"Adramelech, you...are Adra…" the leader's words reached an abrupt end. The Fehl Fury collapsed in light particles, and just like it, the 240 sura bodies crumbled into dust. Across 25 hectares, all things from trees to butterflies became...nothing. Only Kilian remained.
His triumph didn't last for long. Blood poured from his eyes, ears and forehead. Shrugging off the pain, he mustered his last bit of strength to swallow the 240 souls in his Philosopher's Stone. Only then did he heave a sigh and collapse on his knees.