The City of Mages
The City of Mages
Anna Heleminus.
Alabaster skin untouched by a single wrinkle, vivid green eyes that seemed to glow with their own light—by appearance alone, no one would guess she was a mage who had lived more than two centuries.
A woman who had used the Transmutation School's body-altering magic to stretch her lifespan far beyond its natural limit. A living legend, in every sense that mattered.
When she arrived, the City of Mages and Hatun had won their independence from the Kallus Empire and become a sanctuary safe from priestly incursions.
She no longer held the title of Master, but she commanded the unreserved respect of every mage who mattered. Her record of accomplishments was beyond counting. She was an archmage in truth.
The previous Master of Magic had been the Duke of Polaina—until a Warrior Monk tore his head from his shoulders with grotesque ease. And the current Master of Magic was a deeply problematic figure. By any honest reckoning, the greatest mage alive was Anna Heleminus.
Every god save the War God acknowledged her. Every human who knew her name did the same. She was the real thing.
That was the confidence that let her unlock Aslan's cell and seat him before her in full armor without a flicker of hesitation.
No matter how sturdy the plate he wore, none of it would hold against her Manifestation School magic if she chose to act.
Then again, if it came to that, Aslan would have crushed her heart with Knight Slayer before she ever finished a spell. But it wouldn't come to that, which made the hypothetical meaningless.
The real problem was that she seemed to know it just as well as he did.
That was probably why she'd sent soldiers to the armory to retrieve his weapons before this meeting began.
If Aslan had genuinely wanted her dead, he would have done it long ago.
So he sat across from her now, the Wings of Stymphalos and Storm Sword worn openly, his seobsaeng at his hip.
Between them stood the table where the guards had been playing cards until moments ago. Anna Heleminus sat opposite him. A private audience.
She spoke first.
"So. When exactly did the Master of Combat become the Last Descendant of the Ancient God?"
Her tone was utterly flat. Aslan flicked his gaze sideways to Angie at the words.
"I am not the Last Descendant. That is my companion. She travels with my party."
Anna Heleminus raised an eyebrow. Curiosity flared across her impassive gaze and receded just as quickly.
"That doesn't match what I saw when I looked at you before."
Aslan blinked, uncertain of her meaning. The woman fixed those faintly luminous green eyes on him, as though his confusion perplexed her more than anything he'd said.
"The mana flowing through your body. It's grown beyond all comparison to what it was. Did you not know?"
Aslan closed his mouth and narrowed his eyes, barely perceptible.
Anna Heleminus could see mana. Its volume, its flow through the body—she perceived all of it with perfect clarity.
Aslan knew that about her. He'd always known it.
That was why her words puzzled him now. If she'd never seen him before, she would have assumed his mana was simply innate. Nothing to compare it to.
But Anna Heleminus was certain it had increased. As if she had seen him once before.
"Have we met?"
The question came out before he could weigh it. The woman did not answer immediately. Instead, expressionless, she looked down at the cards scattered across the table and toyed with one corner.
The guards' hand-grime still marked the card. It fluttered faintly under her touch.
Aslan was about to press her again when she whispered,
"The day Beryl burned."
The words locked every muscle in his body.
"I saw you."
Her voice was quiet. Frail, almost, carrying through the cell like something that might break. Aslan's throat worked. He swallowed.
"Back then, you held barely a handful of mana. But now you carry reserves on the level of an archmage. So..."
She kept her eyes lowered as she spoke, then lifted her head and met his gaze—and stopped.
Something cold moved behind Aslan's expression. Not directed at her. Aimed inward, toward the man he had been that day. Heavy and thin all at once, a killing intent too fragile to be rage.
Anna fell silent at the sight of it.
Feeling the shape of his own face, Aslan exhaled slowly and forced his expression to loosen. He spoke again, softer, by way of apology.
"You're right. I... shared the power of the Last Descendant with someone else. We split it between us."
Strictly speaking, it was Angie who qualified as the Last Descendant of the Ancient God. But the benefits of that status touched Aslan as well.
In any practical sense, he carried half the power himself.
The woman stared at him in silence for a moment, as though still weighing the killing intent he'd let slip moments ago.
When she spoke again, her voice was stiff. Guarded.
"I won't waste words. You came here for a reason. I'll help you with that. In return, answer one question."
"Of course."
The guardedness faded quickly under Aslan's gentle tone, but something else crept in to fill the space it left. A tension. The particular tightness that comes when someone edges close to a forbidden secret.
"A god's power could topple this world's balance. It could tear down the barrier protecting it and let the Evil Gods walk in. What do you intend to do with that power?"
Gods. Ancient Gods, she meant—not Evil Gods. The word choice was not a matter of origin.
Anna Heleminus had lost her entire family to the Evil Gods and their priests.
She wanted revenge. She wanted the Evil Gods dead, and she wanted it with a hunger that had outlasted her own aging.
Aslan knew that about her. Knew the shape of her grief, knew the details of the tragedy.
Anna Heleminus was a mage of beastman blood.
You could call her a half-orc, though among such hybrids she was rare in carrying enough human blood to bear children.
Close enough to human to pass, yet gifted with extraordinary magical talent.
It was the beastmen's innate sensitivity to mana that had made her the Empire's finest mage without ever needing a mana tattoo. Before she turned twenty, she commanded a legion.
She married in her twenties. A child came. Her family and her husband's family all gathered to wish her a smooth and happy life.
By the time her daughter learned to walk, Anna Heleminus had become Master of Magic. And the tragedy arrived, as if it had simply been waiting for that moment.
A well-organized force of Warrior Monks fell upon the city where she lived.
She was barely past twenty and still recovering from childbirth. She could not wield magic properly. The city of Coda fell that day.
Hundreds of soldiers were butchered in the space of heartbeats. Warrior Monks died too, many of them, but their numbers had been calculated to absorb such losses. They had come to offer the renowned Master of Magic as a sacrifice.
Her students died. Her daughter, her husband, every one of her blood relatives—torn apart by Warrior Monks.
Anna Heleminus survived. Barely. And from that day onward, she carried an infinite hatred for the Evil Gods and their priests.
Aslan knew all of this well.
In the game, no matter when or under what circumstances, she would always visit any Last Descendant who entered the City of Mages. She would tell them her past. She would make them an offer.
Her ultimate goal was a single thing.
The death of the Evil Gods.
The problem—in the game—was that killing the Evil Gods was an impossible task.
They were functionally invincible. Their stats transcended any achievable ceiling. They simply could not be killed.
Even in the ending where you became a good god, the Evil Gods remained beyond reach. Unkillable.
And so, in every playthrough, Anna Heleminus met a miserable end. Swept up in the undertow of the Evil Gods she sought to destroy.
Aslan could not let someone like her die that way again.
Her resources, the combined strength of the mages under her command, her own magical ability—all of it was too valuable to throw away.
The City of Mages itself was too crucial a stronghold to abandon.
In this twisted world called Geladrion, he needed every soul who possessed the nerve or the madness to stand against the Evil Gods. One more meant everything.
And more than any strategic calculation, the woman's circumstances were simply heartbreaking.
But the request she had not yet spoken aloud—
He would have to refuse it.
Her question was really about whether his power was insufficient. What she meant to ask for right now ran in a different direction from her ultimate goal.
"The Ancient God's power... I have a use for it."
She caught the evasion before he finished speaking. Instinct more than reason. Her expression hardened.
"I can't tell you my plan. If I speak it aloud, the Evil Gods will prepare countermeasures. But the power itself isn't lacking. What you want... I believe I can do it. It won't be difficult. However."
Mana began to stir across Anna Heleminus's stony features. Aslan did not bother hiding the sympathy in his own.
"Anna Heleminus. I have no choice but to refuse your request. And my answer to it is only this."
To a woman holding equal measures of desperate hope and anticipated disappointment, he said it quietly.
"Let your daughter go."
The green in her eyes blazed up at the words, bright enough to look like light spilling out of her. Her hair lifted and shifted in the current of her rising power.
Aslan did not look away. He went on, voice slow and steady.
"What I can offer you is one thing only. A revenge that leaves nothing behind. The death of every Evil God. I can't give you more than that."
The woman did not startle at the fact that he had anticipated her request before she voiced it. She only pulled more mana into herself. The pressure of it thickened the air until breathing became effort. Aslan closed his mouth and met her glare.
She looked ready to unleash magic at any instant. He knew why.
The necklace at her throat was pouring out a mournful, sickly light.
Aslan let his gaze drop to it, deliberate and pointed.
"Anna Heleminus. Your daughter is dead."
He knew exactly where her request led. Knew how it ended with her dead. It had, in past runs, been a useful way to speed through Eternal Dominion's content.
Anna Heleminus. Master of Magic two generations removed. Governor of the City of Mages.
She carried the soul of the daughter she had lost one hundred and eighty years ago.
A soul that had become a priest when she wasn't looking.
If he accepted her request and completed the quest, she would die at her daughter's hands.
After a hundred and eighty years locked inside the necklace, the daughter would take revenge on the mother who had trapped her. And the mother would die in the grip of her own guilt.
Aslan knew how that story ended. So he had to refuse.
Anna Heleminus was too valuable to lose here.
Aslan set his hand on the Wings of Stymphalos, his voice flat and final.
"I will not help you bring your daughter back."
She could not possibly know that future. The mana trembling around her began to crystallize into a spell. Aslan closed his eyes, opened them again, and pulled his own power up to meet hers.
"Dominate."
The Wings of Stymphalos began to disassemble at the word.
As hundreds of daggers bloomed outward to fill the empty air, one thought crossed his mind.
First, he needed to cool her head.