Die Together
Contrary to Sheikh's expectations, Chris's mana was still plentiful. Only now had he begun to spend it in earnest.
"Ghk."
A groan slipped from Chris. A wraith had bored through his barrier and set its teeth in his skin.
"Hahahaha!"
Sheikh burst into a victor's laugh, sneering up at the flame pooled overhead.
"Your magic is pathetic."
He wasn't wrong. Chris's spells were crude, and their efficiency suffered for it. Once they had been cruder still. What he had learned from Jerome had raised that efficiency a great deal, and this was the result — crude enough that the mockery was fair.
But Sheikh had missed something. Contrary to everything he assumed, Chris's mana ran deep.
Chris made up for the waste with sheer abundance. If half his mana bled away to sloppy casting, he simply spent twice as much. That was what he was doing now, and not merely twice. Three times. Four. Five.
As the flame's heat climbed without mercy, Sheikh's composure cracked.
"Push yourself like that and your realm will drop back to Jenyeom. Your Klpandi will shatter. You'll never recover it."
Chris ground his teeth.
"I'm about to die. What do I care about a Klpandi?"
"Ignorant bastard."
Sheikh was rattled enough to curse. His mana was starting to fail. A Chukhwan fighting a Sikbae, and the Chukhwan's mana running dry first — an absurdity.
If Chris charged now, he could seize the advantage. But he had stopped dead within arm's reach of Sheikh. The wraith.
When it first touched his skin, he had expected it to gnaw inward the way it had gnawed his barrier. He trusted the body he had raised to a Grandmaster's realm. Tough hide against a wraith's teeth ought to buy him a little time.
He was wrong. Like a ghost passing through a wall, the wraith slid straight into him, seeping in the way air seeps into the lungs.
Once inside, it drove toward his Thought Space. In this situation, only mana could stop it.
Mana is a vicious force. Circulate it through the flesh the way one turns ordinary inner mana, and the body pays for it. A mage with a hardened frame — put another way, a mage of Chukhwan or above — can endure that circulation, but even they have a limit. Given enough time, a high-rank Chukhwan takes damage too.
Compress that vicious mana and keep it turning, and even a Chukhwan struggles to survive. There was a reason Chris compressed the mana he sent into another mage's brain and heart whenever he made a threat. Compressed mana detonating in the brain kills without fail.
He tried to whip mana along the paths of Iron Body and scour the wraith out. It did not go easily. The thing clung on, stubborn, and kept boring deeper.
This much mana won't hold it.
He had no choice. Accepting the damage, he compressed his mana and drove it around, and the compressed current planted itself in the wraith's path.
From the outside, the fight looked as if it had stalled. The two of them simply stood there. Inside, it was the opposite. They were fighting harder than they had since the battle began.
Chris kept pouring mana into burning through Sheikh's barrier, dumping it like a waterfall, and at the same time diverting a portion to hold the wraith back. Sheikh, for his part, drove the wraith on to smash his enemy's Klpandi while his barrier strained to hold the flame.
That his life was actually in danger unsettled him, but he still did not believe he would lose. Black smoke was already closing over Chris.
Chris was watching the smoke as well. He peeled away a portion of the flame bearing down on Sheikh and wrapped it around his own body like a barrier.
Hiss.
The black smoke struck the flame and burned away.
"Heh heh heh."
Pleasure rose on Sheikh's face. Press a flame that hot against your own skin and use it as a shield, and your hide burns with it. You die in a fire you lit yourself.
"This bastard really has no tomorrow."
"What are you talking about?"
"Your body's burning. You planning to live only for today?"
"That's right. I live only for today. What about you?"
"I always keep the future in mind."
"When a man who lives only for today fights a man who draws up tomorrow, who wins?"
"The one who draws up tomorrow, obviously. Meaning me."
The cascading flame could not burn through Sheikh's barrier, but it did shove it down. The shield sank, and the heat reached his scalp. His hair kinked into curls like Tower Master Hal's.
Even so, Sheikh still believed he would win. Even accounting for the ring's mana running dry, defeat did not seem possible.
Lose to a Sikbae with even a single ring, and a Chukhwan ought to bite off his tongue and die.
Still, he looked likely to take damage. No point suffering a wound he could avoid, so he decided to spend a spare resource.
"David. Quit playing around and attack."
Harvey was still face-down, spine broken, organs burst. A Jenyeom mage, so he was breathing, but he was in no state to cast.
David had worn himself out shooting fire arrows and was resting. Of the four, his mana had run out first, and he had been drawing in mana to replenish it. At the order, he started toward Chris.
Chris put real weight behind the warning.
"David. Last chance. Attack Sheikh."
"You think I'm a joke?"
"A mage, a joke? Hardly."
"Then why do you keep trying this pathetic little scheme to turn me?"
"Because it's the best move for you as well as for me. Among the son-of-a-bitch mages of Mick Magic Tower, I figured you were the least rotten, so I'm giving you the advice. Attack me, and that's the end of it. You die."
"Crazy bastard."
He slid to Chris's flank and loosed a fire arrow from the side.
"Eat this."
Boom.
The arrow slammed into the flame at Chris's ribs. It did not punch through, but the impact carried into him.
Thump, thump, thump — boom.
David kept firing.
Chris had to admit it. Unless he staked his life, he could not kill Sheikh.
I've been too careful with this body.
He had meant to finish the man at the smallest possible cost. That judgment had been pure arrogance.
Fine. I'll stake my life.
Chris clenched his jaw until his molars ached.
All or nothing.
The flame shielding his body tore free and rushed Sheikh. At the same time Chris kicked off and sprinted. Black smoke, held back by the curtain of fire, sheeted over his skin, and as it bored inward the compressed mana grappling the wraith began to shudder.
He pulled that mana back until it plugged only the passage into his Thought Space. Black smoke claimed more of his body. The wraith charged the passage, trying to break through.
Sheikh raised one more barrier across his front and stopped the flame shot at his chest. Under the savage assault of wraith and smoke, Chris's focus slipped. The fire falling from above still raged, but the flame attacking from the front was scattering.
Chris burst through the guttering fire. A long punch cut the air with a whistle and crashed into the barrier.
Bang.
The fist smashed through Sheikh's forward shield and struck his chest.
Thud.
It buried itself there. Chris had meant to punch clean through, but the black smoke occupying his body kept the strength from landing true. He managed only to break bone and shock the heart and lungs.
"Puhak—"
Sheikh sprayed blood. Heart and lungs were not destroyed, but this was a grave wound. The shock shook his mind, and the barrier shook with it. Flame from the air burned down through the shield and wrapped him.
"Aaagh!"
Engulfed, Sheikh screamed. It still was not the end. Mana drawn from his Klpandi, and the magic laid on his robe, resisted the fire.
He kept attacking Chris's insides with wraith and black smoke, and he called for help.
"David! David!"
He sounded like a child who had tripped on a stone and was crying for his mother.
David sneered inwardly.
He's scared witless.
Even so, he answered. He took up his staff like a sword and ran. Mana poured from it, and the feel of that mana was dangerously wrong — wrong enough that the fine hairs at the nape of Chris's neck stood on end.
Chris could not throw another punch. The black smoke had taken his limbs, and worse, it was gnawing his mana. Once it finished the mana, his life force would be next.
The fire resistance on Sheikh's robe broke. Blisters rose on his skin. Every hair on him, scalp included, burned away to ash. Even then he did not doubt his victory. Inwardly, he shouted.
Just a little longer.
He could feel the wraith boring into the enemy's Thought Space. If David landed one blow on the back of that bastard's head, the shock would tear the Thought Space wide open. Sheikh was certain of it.
He was right. Chris was in mortal danger. He was barely holding wraith and smoke; one more attack and he would not last. David's staff would be the finishing blow.
"David. It isn't too late. Stop."
Chris made his last appeal.
The appeal was dismissed in cold blood.
"Drop dead!"
David shouted it with malice and swung. Flame leapt up along the staff driving toward Chris's back.
"Yes. That's it."
Sheikh endured his skin burning away and crowed his triumph. Then the flame took the shape of a sword, and his eyes flew wide.
"A fire sword! David — you're Sikbae!"
He could not understand why the man had hidden his strength, but in the moment he was only glad. Struck by a fire sword, the enemy would be finished.
Chris was facing Sheikh, so he could not see what was happening behind him. Even a Grandmaster's keen senses would not answer properly under the wraith and the black smoke. But Sheikh was shouting the play-by-play, and from that Chris could tell exactly how it was going.
Sheikh. That mouth of yours is what's going to kill you.
He muttered it inwardly, then opened a connection to the mask. Once he was in, he would be blind to the world outside, so he had to be fast.
Into the thrust he poured the willpower he had forged by enduring agony on the road to completing Iron Body; the desperate wish to live; the killing intent that swore this man would die — his entire heart. And with it, every shred of mana he could still command. He drove it all into the fifth window of the mask. A shout. A scream.
Die!
The mental attack that poured through the mask shook David's brain. In that instant Chris cut the connection and locked onto the world in front of him.
David's head felt as if it were splitting. He lost control. Chris dropped like a puppet with its strings cut, and David, unable to correct the fire sword's path to follow him, swung it through anyway.
Shhhk.
The fire sword passed the place where Chris had been and sank into Sheikh's chest.
Thuk.
Sheikh took it with nothing he could do. His defensive implements had been smashed at the start, and the protective spells on his robe had already failed under the flame. What little mana he had left was barely enough to hold back the enemy's fire eating his body. When the fire sword came, he could not stop it.
"Betrayal..."
He had trusted David. He had never imagined the man would turn on him at the decisive moment.
David was dazed. He had not expected contact from the mask. He certainly had not expected it to barge in and assault his mind.
"Who...? What...? Why...?"
Chris was the only one who understood what had just happened. Unshaken, he drove his mana harder. The flame burning Sheikh intensified.
Sheikh felt it. The fire sword had dealt a fatal wound. Survival was no longer realistic. He made his declaration with the last pride of a Chukhwan mage.
The wraith rampaging inside Chris drew together and became one. Its teeth grew longer and sharper. Denser, too.
Time is on my side.
Drag it out a little longer and he won. Enduring that time was the hard part. The wraith punched through the compressed mana he had raised inside his Thought Space and charged — toward the Klpandi.
Sheikh realized the wraith had broken his enemy's last barrier, and he laughed. Because of that, flame poured through his open mouth and seared his esophagus and windpipe. Even wrapped in agony that immense, he was satisfied.
Break a Klpandi, and a mage's life as a mage is over. Whatever comes after, living will not be living.
Chris watched the wraith charge his Klpandi and made no effort to stop it. He was preparing a final measure.
Through the wraith, Sheikh looked upon his enemy's Klpandi.
A weed. A sorry little weed.
He sneered and gave the wraith its final command.
Tear the Klpandi apart. Chew it down. End it.