Yet, regardless of their individual whims, every blade remained tethered to the young magis—a loyal, bristling wing of steel to guard his person.
"Ventus Levitatis!"
"Ventus Turbino!"
"Ventus Windwalker!"
Seraph incanted, invoking high-velocity transit.
[Whirr!]
A brilliant emerald radiance erupted from his frame. He ascended into the void without a single muscle's twitch; his boots now hovered high above the Greatwood canopy, defying gravity with effortless grace. His white cloak snapped and billowed against the mountain gales.
Simultaneously, the legion of armaments ascended in his wake. They began to revolve in a magnificent, celestial dance—a constellation of steel orbiting a solitary human core. Their movements achieved a singular, haunting synchronicity, as if bound by a shared, indomitable will.
As the first rank of the chain mission neared its conclusion, the Raffbloom swarms had indeed ascended, their lethality heightened manifold. Yet, the entity who had undergone the most profound and perilous transmutation within the Darkwood was not a demon.
Every fiend Seraph had slaughtered had yielded its Origin Light Dust to him in full, and the Raffblooms were no exception. He had reaped the ultimate harvest, ascending in strength at a rate that was nothing short of staggering.
Seraph cast his gaze toward a distant corner near the forest's periphery, where a faint, orange luminescence flickered against the gloom. Though the light was frail—wavering as if on the precipice of extinction—and situated over thirty kilometres away, his vision pierced the distance with absolute clarity.
"Ventus Jetstream!"
Seraph unleashed the incantation with abrupt, violent force.
[Vroom!]
An emerald flare erupted. A concussive gale blasted forward, carving a linear tunnel through the void as a massive gravitational pull manifested within the slipstream. Instantly, the young magis surged into the current, taking flight with the unbridled freedom of a Great White Eagle. The roar of displaced air followed in his wake—a tempestuous force cradling him as he shot toward his mark.
A vanguard of over a hundred blades pursued him, a loyal constellation of steel acting as his personal guard.
Each prior spell had lightened his frame, granting him the grace to hover; yet the Jetstream was the crucible that simulated true, high-velocity flight. He soared through the violet firmament like a mageia creature of legend. Flight had remained the perennial aspiration of mankind, and it was his cherished dream as well.
Though his current capacity was not yet potent enough to sustain flight without weaving a complex tapestry of spells...
Though he could now traverse the distant sky in mere minutes...
Though his velocity generated a sonic resonance akin to the roar of a thundercloud...
This fleeting interval of soaring nonetheless kindled a flicker of exultation within his spirit.
Within seconds, Seraph reached a remote corner, far removed from the Darkwood's heart. Here, at the very edge of the woods, the titan briar-wall loomed in the shadows. Beneath him, the hideout of another human contingent lay exposed, their frantic chaos laid bare before his eyes.
The predicament of the host was as grotesque as it was critical. Every soul within this throng was human—a contingent of nine hundred, the largest force remaining in the Darkwood. Yet, they were locked in a fratricidal slaughter, a visceral madness that had usurped any instinct for survival.
Some snarled and bared their teeth at one another in a fever of unbridled fury...
Some hurled vitriol with a hatred so ancient it seemed to transcend their very lives...
Some relentlessly plunged their blades into corpses that had long since grown cold and breathless...
Some drove a sword through an adversary's throat even as a spear was buried deep within their own heart...
Some howled at the void as if the man had been supplanted by the werewolf...
Some feasted upon the gore and rent the flesh of their closest kin with primitive savagery...
Every soul was intent on butchering his neighbour, as if the person beside them were an arch-nemesis who could no longer share the same world!
Surrounding the humans, a spectral orange luminescence emanated from the shadows. The lights flickered like dying candles, wavering as if a single breath might snuff them out. Fifty of these entities drifted mere decametres away, hovering like malevolent spirits of a lingering curse. Their dull, amber glow exerted a constant, suffocating influence over the nine hundred. Now, they shrieked in unison, projecting that eldritch orange light in an attempt to seize the consciousness of the newly arrived magis.
"Flamus Catharis!"
"Flamus Redemtus!"
The mageia flared with defiant brilliance, expelling the curse that sought to tether his mind. A white barrier manifested around the young magis, refusing to allow the murky demonic miasma of the illusory fel to encroach upon his domain. Spells of purification and redemption were unleashed—a solitary, sacred beacon amidst a churning sea of malevolence. A brilliant white radiance erupted, swathing both the human host and the spectral lights in its cleansing fire.
In a flash, the murky shroud was swept from the vicinity, as if a beam of argent moonlight had lanced through the world to purge a fathomless abyss. The cowards lurking in the shadows were unmasked by the brilliance; pumpkin-shaped demons, previously veiled behind desiccated trunks, were wrenched into view. These were the Jackblooms, dozens of them, who had been pulling the strings of the human mind for a great length of time.
[GARK-SKREEE!]
A chorus of shrieks, as harrowing as a slit throat, erupted from the entities. Fifty pairs of wrathful eyes flickered within the darkness they had once commanded, their internal fires sputtering in a fit of malevolent fury.
In that same heartbeat, every human ceased their frantic butchery. Yet, they were powerless to recall the souls of their comrades, who had departed into the eternal silence of grief and agony.
The Jackbloom is an illusory demon of the pumpkin variety—a strain of Raffbloom whose entire anatomy is comprised of a singular, bulbous fruit. Devoid of limbs or tendrils, it nevertheless drifts through the firmament, buoyed by the potency of its own demonic fel.
The creature's visage is a grotesque mirror of the ancient fables; maws and ocular slits are carved into its rind, fixed in a permanent, manic leer. An orange luminescence pulses from within the hollow of its head, reflecting against its outer shell to create the haunting likeness of a wandering soul lost in the gloom.
Though capable of flight, the Jackbloom moves with a sluggish, laboured gait. It stands approximately a metre in height, with a frame as fragile as spun glass.
Yet, despite this physical frailty, the Jackbloom is far from impotent. Its illusory fel allows it to weave a demonic curse capable of shattering the minds of those lacking mageia protection with terrifying ease! Any mortal who ventures within ten paces of these entities is doomed to be ensnared by their deceptive, malevolent power.
The Jackblooms possessed a depraved obsession with commandeering the human psyche, inciting fratricide to satiate their own warped appetites. To witness humanity butcher itself into extinction was the ultimate delicacy—a feast of madness they craved above all else.
When their influence was violently recoiled by the mageia of a solitary human, the entities erupted in high-pitched shrieks of unbridled wrath! They loathed any interruption whilst they brewed their vintage of human despair, and now, they hungered to transmute the white-clad figure before them into their newest, most exquisite marionette.