“You have met my pursuers in Aggwool?” Voyse asked, hoping that Julia had disposed of them.
“Yes yes…they tricked me in ‘the Pit’ and escaped. I could care less where they are now,” Julia exasperated, throwing her hands up in the air at the thought of it.
Voyse’s shoulders slumped a bit. “So, they continue to dog me then,” He mumbled to himself.
“No more talking, especially if you don’t include me in the conversation,” Julia grumbled. “Now, be a good boy and die quietly.”
“I’m afraid that isn’t going to happen,” Voyse said, standing up. He looked over at the necklace resting not he pedestal beside him, a grin forming behind his mask.
Suddenly, he turned around to see a huge disk of dark energy with ancient runes glowing all about it flying towards him. He had no way to react. He couldn’t even reach for the amulet. Without thought, his mask started to glow red again, and the disk hit him head on, but did no damage. His mask cracked from the left eye down to the bottom right, until finally shattering all together. Voyse was launched backwards, flipping over the pedestal and falling all the way off the platform towards the ground below. He could hear Julia shout in disgust and jump down after him. He finally gained control of the upper part of his body again, and threw out both of his arms towards the ground. A quick burst of dark energy cushioned his fall, and he collapsed to the ground, startled.
Julia filtered through the shadows until she reached the bottom safely. Voyse slowly rose to his feet, one hand covering his face, which felt naked without his mask.
“You’re full of more surprises than I could ever expect,” Julia congratulated.
Voyse uncovered his face and looked up at Julia with a hateful glare.
“Y-your face…so that is why you wore the mask. I am sure your entire body is like that, isn’t it? Is that the price you’ll pay for power?” Julia asked softly.
“That and much more…” Voyse said quietly, reaching for a dagger.
“You’re truly amazing. You’re willing to give up your own body to make yourself stronger…It is a shame I have to kill such a surprising man,” Julia said.
“Yeah…well this ‘surprising’ man isn’t dying just yet,” Voyse said quickly, bringing up his dagger to bear. A swift gash across his left hand sent a small trail of blood after his upraised dagger. Voyse uttered some arcane words and then slammed the dagger into the ground. Suddenly, a huge purple dome of energy erupted from the dagger, stretching far beyond the tower walls and taking out everything in its path.
Julia’s eyes widen in disbelief as she raised her hands up to block with a shield of void energy. “A dome…of destruction?! But not even I can use such a spell!” she screamed as the wall of the dome reached her.
The tower began to collapse, and the three massive pillars crumbled, dropping the platform with the artifact. Many minutes passed as the tower fell in on itself until finally the dome of destruction dissipated. The smoke cleared to reveal Voyse crouched over at the epicenter, bandaging his left hand. He looked up, well aware that Julia had survived his attack.
Sure enough, Julia staggered into view, the left side of her face covered by her hair, which was matted to her head with blood. Her right eye was still widened with shock, however.
“L-look what you have done! Y-you’re a demon!” she screamed.
“Call me what you like…this fight is just about over,” Voyse said calmly, standing straight up and popping his right foot back into place.
“That’s right it’s over! Over for you, because you have no energy left. I, however, can still fight,” Julia said victoriously.
“Oh, I can fight, and I won’t need magic to defeat you,” Voyse responded.
“Really now? Then you’ll have no problem with this,” Julia snapped, holding up one hand and standing sideways. A tiny orb of darkness formed in her outstretched palm, and then black sparks began to feed into it from Julia’s fingers. Suddenly, the orb turned into a large disk, and a massive beam exploded from it in Voyse’s direction.
Voyse stared at the beam calmly. As it closed in on him he kicked up the artifact, which had been wrapped around his right foot when he found it in the rubble after using his dome of destruction, and caught it. “Dead zone, come unto me!” he shouted.
Just as Voyse spoke the words, the double V-shaped artifact began to spin and glow. The beam simply disappeared as a dome of ant magic formed around Voyse. Everything in the dome seemed to be black and white with tiny glowing dots everywhere.
Julia realized what was going on and spun on her heels to flee. Voyse was faster to the initiative. The duel mage knew she couldn’t get away, so she pulled out a gleaming, curved sword from her heavy robe. Voyse grabbed Julia’s shoulder then, and leaped right over her head to land face to face with her.
“A shame…it is rare to find a beautiful woman that also has a keen sense of intelligence. Most are rather stupid,” Voyse said with a grin. He swiftly kissed Julia on the lips, which startled the duel mage. What startled her more, however, was the sharp prick of pain that followed, which ran through her entire body. She looked down to see Devil’s Sin impaled in her stomach to the hilt. All strength left her, and it took Voyse no effort to take her blade and stab it into her, right next to Devil’s Sin. In one swift movement Voyse jerked both blades free and sun around decapitating Julia with Devil’s Sin.
He stood there for a long moment, staring at nothing. Finally Voyse began to chuckle. “Dead zone: an area of anti-magic where magical attacks and items don’t work just the same. How ironic…it is also the resting place for any mage coming at me,” Voyse said at last. He looked at Devil’s Sin, content with the fact that the calling from the blade was completely negated for the time being. He sheathed his blade and slipped Julia’s blade on his belt as a trophy. Slowly, he made is way out of the ruins. Along the way, he passed the remains of the pedestal for which the artifact once lay. It said on it, “The Silencing Charm”. Voyse chuckled again and slipped the artifact over his neck. Next he relaxed the dead zone affect and headed south west, the direction towards Tier Bastion. Drops of blood fell from Voyse’s blood-soaked bandage around his hand. He didn’t care. His body was used to it…
**********
Omurai, who was still weak from his last battle, slowly made his way up beside Asher, who was standing atop a hill, a horror-struck look on his face.
“What is the matter, my friend?” Omurai asked. He turned his head and needed no answer.