I surveyed the destruction around me, hovering high above the ground.
The whole forest was burning with purple, corrupted flames. I conjured another fireball, condensing mana into my hand and shaping it into a large sphere, and hurling it with great force towards the armies of Ragni that were steadily marching towards the waves of undead that I lead.
Dozens of soldiers within the impact radius of the fireball were instantly vaporised, leaving piles of ash in their place. My undead armies mindlessly surged forward, overwhelming the humans.
I sensed something behind me, and immediately spun around and caught a thin metal spear, which had been flung at me and would have struck my head, had I not acted.
Narrowing my eyes, I snapped the spear in half and waved my hand, conjuring a wave of corrupted flames and pushing them towards the general direction of the soldier that had thrown the spear. Within seconds, I could hear the screams of agony of many men.
I willed my armies to press forward, and to kill anything that stood in their path.
I sighed. Did these humans know no self-preservation? They had repelled so many smaller hordes of undead, but this time, my master had ordered me to personally lay waste to this little province. Yet, the humans, stupid but brave, were still standing up to me in a last-ditch attempt to save their precious fort.
They were so weak that I didn't understand why my master couldn't just have sent a greater amount of undead in my place. The mana signatures of these weaklings was barely even detectable; even this simple assortment of skeletons and zombies could deal with them-
A loud explosion in the distance caught my attention. I lifted my gaze and found that several legions of undead had been blasted backwards and high into the air, but I could not see the culprit behind the explosion due to the thick smoke billowing in all directions.
As the smoke cleared, I saw him.
A human boy, no older than eighteen.
But the power radiating from him was something I had never seen before.
He wielded a spear in one hand, and a staff in another. Both were infused with mana of every element, glowing vibrantly in red, blue, green, yellow and white. I almost flinched at his hard gaze, which was filled with hatred that burned like a raging fire.
"You," the human seethed. "You will pay for what you have done."
He raised his staff, pointed it at me, and said firmly, "Meteor."
My eyes widened as I sensed a large object hurtling down towards me at a rapid pace. I was barely able to conjure a draft in time to pull the rock off course, sending it flying back towards him.
As quick as lightning, the boy leaped upwards, as if flying, and electricity laced his spear. He struck the meteor with an impossible amount of force, and it shattered on contact as though it were a glass ball.
He used earth magic to shape the split pieces of the meteor into sharp little darts, conjuring gales of wind that pushed them towards me. I easily deflected them with gusts of my own, but nonetheless, this display of magic was impressive even in my eyes.
I summoned a wave of Corrupted flames that roared towards him, disintegrating any unfortunate soldiers to have been caught in our crossfire.
"You're a monster!" the boy roared, erecting a wall of earth in front of him to block the attack whilst calling down a barrage of meteors, seemingly materialised from nowhere. "My mother died because of you!"
"My condolences," I said with a sneer. The lives I had taken in my conquest mattered not; all in this province was doomed now that my master had ordered its fall. I conjured a shadowy blade of Corrupted essence in my hand and sliced through a meteor that was going to land on me. The rest crashed into the ground, causing a miniature earthquake and leaving large, smoking craters.
With a guttural roar, my opponent surrounded himself with a protective barrier of wind, and summoned orbs of fire, lightning and water and merged them together.
The sphere of the three elements grew in size as he concentrated harder and harder. Every now and then, a gust of wind would push my undead backward, preventing them from doing anything as they were too weak to counter his attacks with magic.
Sighing, I decided to actually attempt to fight.
Purple flames roared around me and coated my body, and my normally onyx black eyes glowed magenta. In this form, I would be able to cast much more magic and have a greater mana pool, allowing for more complex spells.
The boy's expression became one of shock, but at that moment, I found out he had been holding back too.
A prismatic aura surrounded him, pulsing with pure energy. Immediately, I knew I stood no chance.
This kind of godly power... where did he obtain it?
Still, my master had given me specific orders to wipe this province off the face of the planet. If I failed, my punishment would be worse than death. It was no wonder he had sent me here to this godforsaken place.
Setting my concerns aside, I gazed down at him. If this boy managed to defeat me, he would still not stand a chance against the others.
As of this moment, I was the only Corrupted intelligent and cooperative enough to lead the undead, but as my master had told me, he was preparing more. More even stronger than myself. They would storm this pathetic province and eliminate them all, I assured myself.
The child rose into the air as well, using the winds to fly. I had never needed such elemental powers to fly; it had just come as naturally as breathing when my master taught me to use my powers.
The boy finally gathered up the sphere of elements into its maximum power. Looking at me, he let a smug smile appear on his face.
Without a word, he released it.
114 years later
The carriage jerked and rumbled across the harsh landscape that was the path to Ragni. I fumbled with my wand, trying to figure out how to cast a basic spell.
I remembered absolutely nothing of my past before the last hour or so. The most vivid memory I had was myself being led to a carriage that already seated one person, who had introduced himself as Tasim, and another in the front steering the horses, Aledar.
Tasim was a slim man with blond hair and a beard, donning a simple beige garb. His navy blue eyes seemed to hold a weariness and wisdom that I hoped to understand one day. His companion, Aledar, had a long bushy beard and curly orange hair, mostly covered by the hood of his ocean-blue robe. Tasim was sociable and kind, while Aledar was the complete opposite - grumpy and mean. It was a wonder how the two had stuck together for so long with such contrasting personalities.
Both Aledar and Tasim had refused to give me much information regarding "my" sudden existence in this world. It was as if I was a newborn in an teenager's body. Whenever I tried to dig for past memories, I felt them - like an itch in the back of my skull that I couldn't quite scratch.
Tasim had been very helpful, giving me information on the world and telling me about the history of wars and such.
According to Tasim, there were four 'classes' in this world. The class a player was selected to be was determined by their innate affinity with the magic of that class. For example, when Tasim had tested my magic, he found that I was especially adept at conjuring things out of thin air. Hence, he handed me a simple wooden wand and declared that I was to be a mage.
We were now headed to the kingdom of Ragni, and had just departed from the province of Fruma. I knew basically nothing of Fruma, except for the fact that it was once my hometown and it was the reason why I had been wiped of my memories and sent to be a recruit of the King of Ragni.
Suddenly, a scene flashed into my mind.
I sat before an imposing guard, who was dressed in a simple black robe. Despite his plain attire, I knew that he held magical abilities far beyond my comprehension.
Voices echoed in my head, "Powers... unknown... how?" I was so close... I could feel myself on the verge of a breakthrough...
"-att!" I was shaken out of my stupor by Tasim, who was looking at me with concern.
"Are you all right?" he asked, studying my frustrated expression.
"Yeah, it's fine, I've just-" I paused, not wanting to reveal that I'd been trying to recover my memories, as that would get me in unwanted trouble. "I've just been practising my mana cycling." Tasim still looked slightly wary, but visibly eased.
Mana cycling was a simple exercise that Tasim had taught me while we were passing the time. Tasim, along with Aledar, was a skilled soldier who had once been like myself, wiped of his memories and sent to the kingdom of Ragni as a recruit for the King. Once he had reached the peak of his power, however, he had been withdrawn back to the original kingdom and asked to be an escort for new recruits. To this day, he still had not been granted his past memories.
According to Tasim, mana was a crucial aspect of all forms of combat, and one needed to be able to regain mana quickly as it would be drained quickly in a battle. Hence, the soldiers of old had developed a technique called mana cycling. This technique allowed one to cycle mana through the body and the atmosphere, where there was constantly ambient mana. While mana cycling was by no means complex, even skilled mages used it to replenish their mana quickly.
I imbued mana once more into my wand. Suddenly, a spark flew out its tip.
Was I actually making progress?
As if reading my thoughts, Tasim explained, "You're close to a breakthrough. Usually, most mages first develop the ability to channel mana through their staff to cast a beam of mana. The sparks tend to indicate that you were doing something right. Just keep pushing mana through your hand into the wand, and you'll get it in no time."
I thought back to the story Tasim had briefly read to me earlier. He had mentioned a prodigy, a force of nature by the name of Bob. This 'Bob' had been able to manipulate all the elements, as well as wield magic from all four classes, at the age of eighteen. With his insane amounts of strength, he had been able to defeat the leader of the undead armies, Bak'al, and restore peace to the kingdoms of Wynn.
I was almost sixteen, yet I was failing to even grasp the most simple concept of channeling mana into my wand. Was I really cut out for this job?
Seeing my hopeless expression, Tasim chuckled. "Don't worry," he assured me. "Nobody has been able to even compare to Bob. His mastery of the elements and classes is, and most likely always will be, unmatched.
"That doesn't mean you won't become powerful, though," he continued. "I sense great potential in you. You just need to train, and I'm sure you'll surpass me and Aledar."
"How did you sense this 'potential'?" I asked.
"I- It's best that I don't speak of that." Tasim cleared his throat, looking guilty. "The Queen would slaughter me if I revealed anything regarding your past."
Frowning, I returned to my train of thoughts. He knew something that caused him to believe that I would have great potential in the future. What could that be?
I focused more mana into my wand. I felt the veins of my hand coursing with the magic energy, and I willed all the mana there into my fingertips, such that I could transfer it into my wand. I could feel the mana particles slowly flowing into the wand, yet once they reached the wand, they started drifting around in all directions.
Damn it! Because the wand wasn't an extension of my body, I wasn't used to manipulating the particles there, and therefore couldn't gather all the mana into the tip to fire a concentrated beam. Me managing to conjure a spark earlier had just been a fluke; I had been able to push the mana towards the tip fast enough that it couldn't drift apart before condensing into a spark.
"Guys!" Aledar's gruff voice suddenly rang from the front. "We have an issue."
Tasim immediately peered out the window, and he paled.
"What? What happened?" I practically scrambled out of my seat and craned my neck to get a better view. However, whatever important must've been on the other side of the carriage, because I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary on my side.
Tasim slowly lifted his spear and spoke, his back still turned away from me as he gazed out the carriage.
"Wyatt, don't panic when I tell you this, but there is a horde of undead right outside."