CHAPTER 1121: RETURNED

Sylmira turned away from the window, the flashes of lightning lit her sharp thoughtful face. Magic power still lingered faintly in the air from their earlier work.

Arty looked up from the table, her fingers still glowing from the residue of the enchantment.

"What do you think this storm really is?" she asked, her voice hesitant. "It’s not just weather and even I can feel that something about it feels wrong. What is hidden behind this storm?"

Sylmira pressed her lips together, her mind already racing through countless theories.

"We have been sensing disturbances in the leyline flow for days now," she said, pacing slowly across the room. "And we confirmed it that there’s necrotic energy awakening beneath the northern valley. The Magic that should have long been dormant is stirring again. But this—" she gestured toward the window, where lightning crackled like veins through the sky— "this storm does not align with that kind of energy."

Arty frowned, standing and following her mentor’s gaze. "Necrotic energy doesn’t cause storms like this, does it? It corrodes, decays, and raises things from dead, but this... this feels it has its own life."

"Exactly." Sylmira nodded, her voice tightening. "The two shouldn’t be related. Necrotic Magic consumes and feeds on death. But what we see here is forceful, violent life energy. This is a tempest of elemental force. If both are becoming violent like this at once then either something is forcing them together..." She trailed off, her eyes narrowing slightly as another flash lit the horizon. "...or something stronger than both is manipulating them."

The implication made Arty’s breath catch. "You mean this entity is doing all of this at the same time?"

"Its possible," Sylmira said softly. "This entity probably knows how to command the fundamental balance between the elemental force and the necrotic energy. But we lack proof. Right now, we can only prepare for the worst."

The younger woman hesitated before asking, "Then what should we do now?"

Sylmira turned from the storm and faced her directly, her expression resolute despite the tension etched in her features. "We prepare for battle."

Arty’s eyes widened. "Battle? You think an attack will come?"

"I don’t know for sure yet," Sylmira admitted, "but I have seen too many signs to ignore. The flow of Magic power in the leyline has become erratic. Our barrier crystals are flickering one by one, the expeditions we sent are silent, and every post reports the same phenomena of the Magic storm. When Magic and nature start to rebel together, it means a will is behind it. Something wants chaos."

Arty swallowed hard, nodding. "Then I’ll start preparing myself as well."

"Do that. I will tell the soldiers to arm the cannons and my Mages to reinforce the wall sigils," Sylmira said, her voice steady and sharp. "Whatever is coming, this storm is only the beginning."

As Arty hurried out into the hall, Sylmira turned once more to the storm sky. Her eyes glowed faintly with azure light, reflecting the restless flashes above.

—

Arty ran down the long corridor with the weight of the storm pressing at her back. She thought of the gears she had already selected in the forge she had prepared in case she needed to go to battle.

She turned her head as she passed a high window and saw the rain fall in sheets, lightning splitting the sky in furious veins while thunder chased the flashes like a distant drum.

The world outside thrashed as if some invisible fist hammered the air. The heat of righteous anger rose in her chest. How dare whatever that thing was twist nature and Magic as if the world were a toy?!

Her teeth clenched until her jaw ached and a low, hard sound of anger escaped her throat.

"If I get the chance, I will tear them apart!" she thought.

The anger flared so bright it swallowed everything else for a breath, then pain struck like a sudden weight behind her eyes and a vise around her ribs.

She stumbled, her hands scrabbling for a hold, and she sank to her knees. Her shoulder pressed to the cold wall of the corridor.

Her fingers dug into the mortar as a hot line of agony lanced through her head and down into her chest.

She grimaced and shut her eyes, her breath becoming ragged.

She did not understand why the old pain returned now. She had thought the purge Sylmira performed had cleansed the influence, but the memory of that darkness crawled back under her skin, whispering in a language of anger and hunger for blood.

Panic bubbled beneath her anger. No! not now! not when everything was already on edge and the world itself seemed to tilt toward ruin.

"Not now!" she told herself. "I can’t—"

Then realization struck her. The entity’s mark had not been fully erased from her body.

The thought opened into a cold chamber in her chest, proof that the thing’s fingers still curled around some part of her mind.

Her breath came faster, her heart pounding like a drum. Images she had buried rose again now. The images of whispers, flashes, and the sensation of being pulled like a marionette when she fights those noble kids in the forest.

For a moment she thought she would collapse beneath the weight of it. She could not run to tell Sylmira about this yet. The fortress needed every set of hands ready, and worse, the battle could erupt while she was speaking.

The things she needed to do felt more important than her fear.

She forced herself to push up, palms scraping the stone, jaw clenched until her molars ground together, and she reached for the resolve that had always steadied her in the heat of action.

Her head that had threatened to split cleared as if something inside her loosened. The pain receded enough for her to stand.

She inhaled deep.

She strode toward the forge.

"I will report to Sylmira as soon as I can," she promised herself, "but first I need to get my gear. So when that thing comes, I will be ready."

The corridor’s torches flickered as she passed. Outside, the storm kept screaming, and Arty kept moving.

—