Ferrocefra

  Frein ignored the mass of undead heroes lumbering his way, his attention directed more towards the faunel. He considered his options while grasping the skull of someone bold enough to rush ahead of the pack.

  Sparks ignited from his hand, sizzling the rotten skin of the undead and the Nightmare meiyal residing around it. Frein half-heartedly observed its reaction. Ignorant, was his chosen word to describe it. This one, specifically, didn’t even bother trying to come up with a plan to get out of its predicament. These poor creatures, living without a soul and corrupted by foul powers, cared only about performing a task given to them by someone behind the scenes.

  Someone probably more powerful than Alphazzel.

  Frein ignited the spark, allowing for the pattern of a small, black rod within his meiyal system to Draw the Art.

  Ferrocefra.

  The origin of it was simple, and something quite unique to himself. The pattern was a depiction of a ferrocerium rod, a synthesized metal of sorts used by many campers to ignite campfires. The rod, when struck with enough friction, ignited sparks which, at its peak, had heat comparable to a spacecraft entering a planet’s atmosphere. Something in that sense, at least. Frein’s vast supply of reference books claimed different measurements, after all.

  What mattered was, it could cause fires.

  However, such a material might or might not have existed here in Brymeia. So he had consulted with the world herself when she had reached out to him during his imprisonment.

  “Sure. It’ll work. Why wouldn’t it?” she had said. “Evanclad made the discipline pretty flexible. Anything that exists can be used as a pattern. And those that don’t has some possible work arounds. You just need to explore those possibilities in order to find the limits, and if they can be broken.”

  And so the Meiyal Art had come to be. An amplified version of the ferrocerium rod, in which his hands acted as one. The heat emitted by this Art ignited exponentially higher than its original, and required much less friction. And, in the same vein as its metal origin, shaving off sparks cost him almost no meiyal at all.

  Frein had seen how much meiyal both Ferenfra and Diferenfra consumed. He didn’t appreciate it. Sure, it covered a lot of ground. Arguably, the amount of meiyal it took to Draw Ferrocefra could be mathematically just as efficient as the other two. But it was more of a preference than anything.

  At this point, although he was capable of Arts with wide coverages such as Meteoric Lightning, he still preferred fighting with his hands and weapons. There was no denying the truth. Katherine had taught him the best Meiyal Art for him from the very beginning.

  Siffera, elevated to its Sandai-level, allowed Frein to navigate the battlefield with ease. Those Nightmare undead sprung to life whenever he was within proximity, Weaving meiyal in ways he wasn’t familiar with.

  A few commanded wind, another group molded earth, and more utilized the powers of other elements. They used their Weaving in combinations worthy of cognizant practitioners, not mindless abominations.

  As far as Frein was concerned, none of them stood out from the pack. Heroes, then, slowly fell into context, and his heart sank at the realization.

  These undead had been soldiers during their lifetime. People who had sacrificed themselves in order to protect their country—in this case, their world. He saw his parents in them, giving up their lives and their time with him for their duty.

  Of course, he had hated that fact. It felt unfair to care for his sister alone because some war that they had nothing to do with, had decided to take away their parents for good. But over time, he matured. He understood the sacrifice they had made for him and his sister. And he understood his sister’s sacrifice for him.

  And so, despite relating to these undead Nightmares surrounding him, desperately trying to end his life, he couldn’t give them that wish. Nor did he have the time to grant them their deaths.

  Frein cleaved his way through the pack, unperturbed by their attacks. Easy, was not the word he would use. Some of them grouped up in teams to make their obstruction more difficult to pass through. Some of them attacked relentlessly. Some of them even served as fodder to find an advantage.

  The Visitor forced his way, piercing through obstacles, withstanding attacks, and shrugging off anyone who tried to stop him. It didn’t take him long to reach Alphazzel.

  The faunel, bewildered by Frein’s appearance, had transported Smyl to wherever their hideout was. The portal behind him closed.

  “You’re not trying to run away, are you?” Frein asked, noting that his adversary had a clear chance to escape but chose not to.

  “Are you sure you have the time to worry about me?” Alphazzel asked in return. He found his confidence, curving his lips into a smug grin.

  Before Frein could completely close the gap, the faunel formed a barrier in between them. A forcefield, one meant to return a strike with double the strength. The Visitor punched it lightly, just to confirm.

  It was an odd move, all things considered. Sending Smyl away but not himself at the same time, simply meant some conditions hadn’t been met.

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  “You can’t afford to transport yourself,” Frein exposited calmly. “That’s why you’re trying to buy time. Do you really think this flimsy shield can stop me?”

  “Be my guest, Visitor,” Alphazzel said, his confidence unwavering. “It’s your life on the line. If you don’t destroy this shield in a single strike, you might lose more than just a limb or two. And don’t forget those monsters behind you.”

  Frein could sense the undead heroes gathering behind him. The cause of the faunel’s smile. Not to mention the gathering Nightmares coming from the Nightmare Signs of the Incursion. Darkness had enveloped Befall once more, and all sorts of monsters surrounded them.

  But Alphazzel misunderstood something.

  “Let me ask you something, faunel,” Frein started, leaning on the shield with a smug look. He could feel it push back, but without enough force, it didn’t really bother him. “You rely on Destiny too much, don’t you?”

  Alphazzel’s face contorted, but not enough to take away his smile. Frein continued.

  “You see a future of yourself after your fight here. That’s why you’re so confident you can live through this. But you’ve never seen this part of Destiny, haven’t you? Me standing in front of you after absorbing a Fragment of Zerax’thum’s Core. You haven’t seen the outcome of this fight. And yet, you still believe that there’s a future for you.”

  “You’re talking nonsense!” Alphazzel spat. “Of course there’s a future for me. My Destiny continues because yours ends here! I don’t need to see the outcome of our fight. That’s already evident.”

  Frein drove a fist into the forcefield. Immediately, it resonated, sending a feedback twice as strong. In the same instance, he doubled his strength, forcing the reverberation back. In response, the barrier did the same. It went on in rapid succession until his fist pushed through the protected space, sending ripples into the shield.

  And then he pulled back, using Siffera to strengthen his arm and protect it from getting ripped off.

  Alphazzel was speechless. The faunel knew he wasn’t even trying.

  “You don’t have the time to break my shield,” he said, faking his confidence. Frein could read him like a book, could see him grasping at straws. “They’ll eat you alive if you keep ignoring them!”

  The Visitor couldn’t help but laugh. It was the most comical ‘look behind you’ phrase he had ever heard.

  “Do you think I’m joking!” Alphazzel screamed. “That’s fine by me, Visitor. Go ahead and die!”

  “You serious?” Frein asked. “Did you really forget the people I’m with?”

  “Juudai-Katastro-Diferenfra!”

  A thousand sword slashes followed by a thousand explosions covered the entirety of Befall.

  Then the Nightmares were gone. Even the undead heroes.

  Alphazzel’s face froze in disbelief, his eyebrows unable to frown as he tried to find an explanation. Frein ignored him.

  Katherine, with her shining, beautiful white hair, appeared beside him, breathing heavily. Signs of Art fatigue caused smoke to rise from her back. But she was still Gathering and Milling.

  “Took you longer than fifteen minutes,” Frein commented.

  “Well, excuse me for making sure Kristel and the others are safe first,” Katherine bit back. She shot a glare towards Alphazzel. “What’s going on here?”

  “He’s playing hard to get,” Frein said. “I’ll handle it.”

  “You’d better. How long do you have left?”

  “Fifteen minutes, give or take.”

  Katherine returned her attention towards the faunel. She looked like she was about to beg, but they all knew Alphazzel wouldn’t give up his life. She shook her head and faced the Nightmare Signs that survived her ambush.

  “I believe in you, Frein,” she said. “But please don’t drag it until the last second.”

  Katherine left without waiting for a response.

  “She’s right, Frein,” Elizzel followed. “We don’t want to lose you.”

  Frein sighed, standing in front of the faunel’s forcefield. “You heard her. I’ve spent all the time I can to convince you, Alphazzel. I’m afraid I can’t wait until you can redeem yourself.”

  Without waiting for the faunel’s response, Frein stepped closer, letting the bend of his fingers touch the shield. He positioned himself sideways, relaxing his entire body as he steadied his breath.

  “What… What are you doing?” Alphazzel asked.

  “You’ve never seen anything like this before, Alphazzel,” he said as he emphasized Godai-Siffera and Ferrocefra to their utmost capacity.

  Frein felt an odd sensation. Someone else was looking at him. In fact, there were many of them observing him blatantly from different directions. The most peculiar of them all was someone from above. Not above the clouds or the skies, though there were others from there. No. It was a presence far beyond the atmosphere.

  Frein was confident he could point out Schrodie from any of those onlookers, but he found none of her presence. So he shrugged them off. There was no time to hesitate.

  In his moment of distraction, Alphazzel pulled one, final, desperate move and tried to freeze the meiyal around Frein.

  The faunel had forgotten how fast and absurd the Visitor was when it came to Gathering and Milling meiyal. Much to his surprise, his Weave fizzled out.

  Frein pushed off the ground, converting the force into precise torque. At the same motion, he closed his fist and delivered a devastating one-inch punch.

  Alphazzel’s shield bent from the sudden force before shattering like glass.

  Then Ferrocefra sparked.

  White was all there was for an instant. Frein, unaffected by the blinding light, saw everything beyond his punch disintegrate into nothing. The Nightmares, the rotten trees, the Signs, the ruins, gone. Even a mountain cradling Befall had its peak scraped away, then the clouds far above were torn asunder.

  “What in Brymeia’s name happened?” Katherine said, approaching from behind him. Her eyes were in awe at the destruction before them. “Was that a Deitar Art?”

  Frein turned to see that she had finished her own task, getting rid of the Signs on her end of the Incursion. Once again, they had prevented the disaster from expanding further.

  “We’re not done,” he said, ignoring the question. He wasn’t exactly sure what had happened either. The amount of power he had unleashed had been exponentially more destructive than he had anticipated.

  “Go get the others. I need to finish things with Alphazzel before he fully recovers.”

  Katherine only gave a short stare before deciding not to insist on helping out. Frein could see her anxiety, despite how much she tried to hide it.

  The Visitor walked, dropping down onto the land he had devastated. There, lying on the carved dirt ground, was Alphazzel. The entirety of his torso and everything below it was gone. His right shoulder was still intact, connected to his neck that barely held what remained of his head.

  The faunel turned towards him.

  “You didn’t have to go that far,” he said, trying to sound sarcastic. “I never thought I’d see the day… where a faunel would die by sheer brute force.”

  “Your Destiny didn’t see it,” Frein said.

  “No. Not until before you punched my shield. You’re a Contradiction. It’s your job to convince Destiny of a different possibility. I wouldn’t have the foresight to see whether you succeeded or not. I only record the past, not the future.”

  Frein kneeled beside the faunel and held a hand over his head.

  “It was well fought, Alphazzel,” he began. “I’ve never had to exert myself this much in a fight before. Now, it’s time you and your mother have that heart-to-heart talk.”

  Alphazzel stared in disgust, before giving up with a sigh. “Fine. You won. You get to call the shots. Just don’t blame me for what happens after.”

  “Sure,” Frein said with a smile. “I can take care of it.”

  “I’m not going to like this, am I?” Elizzel said, sighing as well. “Let’s get it over with.”

  With a hefty investment of his will, Frein Gathered Alphazzel into his Mind Palace.

  See you on the next release!

  Shall Allren

  Universal System: Earth!