With my failing vision, I could only see the silhouette of the man approaching me through the haze of dust and dim light. No matter how I tried, I struggled to muster up the strength to move, my body refusing to respond as if weighed down by iron. I could only manage to sit up slightly, getting my broken arm out from under me with a strained effort. Damnit! Not like this. I did not survive all those tribulations just to get shot in the back. The closer the figure came, the more I knew that I had to do something drastic. For the first time in a long time, I drew on prana to strengthen myself. Strength began flooding into me like a violent wave, allowing me to get to my feet despite the protest of every muscle in my body.
My vision began to clear, giving me a clear view of the oncoming Bargrave. Or at least what was left of him. Half his face was charred, with bits of blackened flesh hanging loosely from the bone. An eerie blue light glowed in his eyes. More like glowed in his one eye and his empty socket, flickering faintly like a dying flame. His gaze was piercing as he regarded me, cold and unfeeling. The smile looked unnatural on his charred face, stretching skin that should not have been able to move. Yet he did not seem bothered in the slightest. "Yet again, you surprise me, Drakkus." His voice was inhuman, more like a low rumble of a distant storm rolling across the sky than the voice of a man. "Even now, you choose to defy us. But, unfortunately for you, this will be the final time that you do so." As if to illustrate his point, lightning crackled between his fingers, arcs of energy snapping through the air with a sharp hiss.
With a single flick of his wrist, the lightning flung towards me, tearing through the space between us in an instant. If not for blink I would have been reduced to ash where I stood. With my face pale and covered in cold sweat, I turned towards Bargrave again. "Bargrave, what is the meaning of this?" I managed to spit out the sentence along with clots of blood, the metallic taste filling my mouth.
The colonel turned to me with genuine confusion on his face, tilting his head slightly. "Bargrave? Oh no, sweet child, Bargrave is no more. Hahaha, no, you have me to deal with now." The smile on his face brought shivers down my spine, deeper than any physical cold.
"And if I may be so bold as to ask, then who are you?" I was doing everything in my power to continue distracting him while I drew more prana from my source. I began forming a pattern in my chest, each line etched with painful precision. One I had never used in this life, in fear of what the extreme strain would do to my illness.
"I must admit I am surprised you do not recognize me. I know it's been a few hundred years since I walked openly." The rain began pouring with greater intensity through the holes in the roof, droplets striking the stone floor in rapid succession. A chorus of thunder rumbled in the distance, illuminating the sky for a few seconds with blinding flashes of light. Bringing his hands up for dramatic flair. "I am Vaelus, the God of Storms, of course." His predatory gaze pierced through me with a hint of amusement in his eyes. When he saw my own eyes widen, his grin deepened. My vision began to focus exclusively on Vaelus, everything else fading into the background. It felt like the walls were suffocating me, closing in from all sides. The sheer pressure of his aura felt enough to smother me without raising a hand.
But even that fear left me when the final line of the geometric pattern in my chest completed. A light red glow appeared just above my skin, faint but steady. The prana skill I used was of the highest level. Known only as Divine Might, it brought out 100% of the body's potential. The problem was that so much prana was coursing through me that my veins felt like they were on fire, heat surging violently beneath my skin. And to some degree, they were. The skill was supposed to feel like a gentle warmth in my body, but with my illness, there was nothing gentle about it. All of this happened within a few seconds.
However, those few seconds consumed my entire attention. I had to adjust to the strange state of being that the skill brought, my senses sharpening and distorting at the same time. So much so that I did not even see when Vaelus had moved. Faster than even my blink spell, he appeared right next to me. Our faces centimeters apart, close enough that I could feel the unnatural heat radiating from his ruined flesh. "And what would this be? As far as I can recall, any other forms of magic were banned nearly three hundred years ago. So, not only are you a thorn in the church's side, but a heretic as well." The world slowed while his burnt hand came closer to my face, each movement deliberate and inevitable. My mind worked as fast as possible to come up with a solution to escape his grasp. I realized too late that it was an exercise in futility.
His fingers clamped shut around my face, iron-like and unyielding. His palm was the only thing visible to my eyes, blocking out everything else. With barely any effort, he flung me to the side. He threw me directly into one of the stone pillars at the side of the room. He threw me so hard that when I struck the pillar, it broke in half with a loud crack. Dust and debris flew in all directions, and my breath left me along with it in a violent exhale. The Divine Might skill dulled my pain significantly, but even then, I could feel the bones in my back creaking in protest, threatening to give way. Getting back onto my feet, I fed even more prana into the skill. Before exploding forward, the sheer momentum I built up in my mad dash caused the skin on my face to push backward from the force.
After reaching the halfway mark, I saw that Vaelus raised his hand, almost lazily. Waving it as if swatting a fly. A bolt of lightning flew from his hand, brighter and more violent than before. While it was approaching me, I saw even more skin on his face burned away, exposing raw bone beneath. That was the last thing I saw before the world was consumed with a white light. Opening my eyes with a gasp, I realized that I was lying on my back again, the cold stone pressing against me. Panic flooded through my system. What am I even supposed to do in this situation? No matter how much I calculated the outcome, it always ended with me dead on the floor. But that last bit intrigued me. Could Bargrave's body not handle his magic? An insane plan began forming in my mind.
Before I could act on my new plan, a shadow fell over me. Vaelus stood directly above me, looking at me with disdain. More than half of his face was burned away at this point, making him look even more fearsome, something barely resembling a man. "Is that it?" His voice rumbled above me, heavy and oppressive. Bringing his leg up, he stood directly on my broken arm. A pain-filled scream escaped my lips when he began applying pressure to the broken limb, grinding it further into the stone. "They promised me that you were strong enough to entertain me." Blinking away the tears in my eyes, I could see genuine anger in his eyes, cold and merciless.