Fear Not The Elf Who Knows 10,000 Spells - Chapter 31

Ancient Einsam POV:

It was a monster of regrets. It's earliest memory was of a man falling down a cliff.

The Einsam was not sure what was that a memory of.

Was that its first victim, running after the image of a loved one?

Was that its first illusion, a trick image, used to making someone else run after them and fall to their death?

Or perhaps that memory was from its first prey, from the first time it connected a tether to another human?

Or was that man falling down the cliff perhaps...?

All it known was longing. A longing for what? It didn't know, didn't understand. A nostalgia without a past to connect to, thus it was only a painful want.

Thus its instinct was to find a human, someone that can understand this pain, someone that can share it.

Someone that can be consumed by loss... till they tasted the sweetest.

The longing ache and hunger were one and the same for the Einsam. To long was to hunger. To eat was to have closure.

The Einsam was particular more talented than others of its kind. It devoured all kinds of humans. From knights to farmers, from elders to children, and many, many more.

No one was sure why Einsam's hunted humans exclusively. Sure they can try to trick and eat other sapient races, but they prefer humans.

One reason was because humans are numerous. Mostly though? It's because feel deeply, mourn deeply.

Long lived races tended to develop a stronger heart, growing more callous to sorrow from age. They learn to get used to it, so even if it hurts, it fades with time.

Humans however have short lives. Eventual lives. Fast lives.

They die so quickly and leave behind a well of sorrow.

A well of meals. A simple reminder and the well becomes sweet as honey.

As said, the Einsam was more than others of its kind. So talented that the forest is hunted in eventually became a place no human would venture.

What few and ignorant humans stumbled upon its forest, the Einsam easily ate. A quick look into their mind, and it brings up a loved one, a respected one, even a feared one. The humans tended to either run to the illusion or run away from it. They all end up in the Einsam's mouth, or fall down a trap and end up eaten by the monster all the same.

The Einsam could have spent all of its time in its forest without a need to leave. It doesn't need to consume humans, just as any other monster doesn't need to devour people either. It can sustain itself on mana gifted by the living world alone.

Yet the Einsam wanted to eat. It preferred to eat. For to eat was to have closure. To eat was to end the longing.

And so, this particular Einsam had something that no other of its kind had. All monsters had wants for sustenance, such was their nature.

But this Einsam had desire.

And due to having desire, it did something other Einsams do no do, until forced to by a stronger predator.

It left its forest.

It ventured beyond its territory, it tricked, it ate.

And then it moved on.

That's what made it terrifying. It had no territory that it locked itself in.

It wandered and through that it grew.

It ate adventuring parties. It would go inside a village at the dead of night, eat humans in one of their mini-constructed lair, and disappeared. It ventured into one of a caravans' traveling carts and vanished with the occupants.

Many lands weren't safe, but then again due to its traveling nature, and the dangers of the world, no one would even know of this Einsam.

If someone dies or disappears, it could be for any number of reasons, as long as their was no repeat of the incident within an area. If a pattern is not established, then there was nothing to look for.

The more humans it ate, the more it wanted more.

The Einsam didn't know more of what, only that it wanted more.

Eventually a pattern of its activities emerged, simply because stories of this Einsam spread around enough for people to form a pattern to identify it.

A Wandering Einsam.

There was a consequence to its new actions. Once stories circulated, more people became cautious of it, but also stronger adventurers would arrive to where the Einsam was suspected or sighted much quicker.

Thus the more danger the Einsam faced. Yet the more danger it faced, the more it survived and ate... the more it evolved.

It's ability to read into its victims mind became more thorough, more controlled, rather than instinctively bring up the image of the most prominent person in its victim's memories.

Then the images themselves. At first see-through and obvious, breaking from a hand weaving through them. Even if the image never dispersed just reforming, or allowing the prey to go through the illusion into a trap, or the Einsam's mouth and claws. The image became more solid, more tangible, and thus another claw to take down the prey.

Then it learned how to bring more than one image, then several... then make images not of people from the victims' memories, but of places, of sounds, of touch.

On and on the Einsam grew. It was becoming more. Changing from a mere ghost bringer of regret and sorrow to something else.

Becoming something that ruled image and perception and soon thought itself. It was becoming more, a higher being, ego was starting to form. Horn slowly growing to crown its head.

Time passed and the Einsam hunted, played and ate. So, so, many seasons.

And through it all?

The Einsam would laugh at all the prey that came to challenge it. Meals that sought it out, delivered right to it. Human really were the stupidest yet most convenient food. Rather than scatter and run like any natural prey, they went and fought the predators.

The swordsman with a thin long blade rather than a normal one. He was skilled, perceptive, the fastest foe the Einsam faced. An illusion of a home gone, and a loved one wanting to reunite and he fell to the Einsam's claws.

A rogue with a poisoned metal string. It was a satisfying game of cat and mouse, if the Einsam was even within the same floor of the manor they fought in. Giant old human lair can be hazardous all on their own.

That mage so sure of her spell of sky noise and flashes, of her lightning spells, she never noticed she aimed her magic at her party. The horror of seeing what she's done made her frozen in place without the Einsam doing anything.

A warrior so sure of his strength. Drowning him was the simplest of meal preparations.

Mages were favorite for the Einsam. Or any adventurer that mastered their craft, as their mana was more dense, more complex, giving a unique taste. Mages were better for quantity and on a rare occasion quantity and quality.

Then, naturally as its abilities progressed it reached the point of recalling the mana of its prey, able to bring back their memories to use for itself without an anchor, a prey to draw the illusions from. No, it made itself the anchor. It remembered the memorable prey and so it made them part of its illusions forever more, for when it needed to fight much stronger foe/preys.

Soon enough, and with enough mage foes, both fought and studied once eaten, the Einsam could manipulate its own mana, to use for ways beyond its natural ability.

Then the Einsam reached the point of controlling it's own mana, that it could control its own core. The flesh started to matter less, as long as its core was intact.

And then?

Soon, soon, soon, soon it would finally take that last step and—

Orange Mage.

A old woman. A mage with hair like a greying sun.

An Orange Mage that the Einsam thought would be another prey, another meal. Elder humans might be dangerous, holding a lot of tricks, but they tasted the best with their mana refined after a lifetime of magic use.

The Orange Mage... treated the Einsam as prey.

Its illusions were torn down easily. Laughably easily, like the Orange Mage didn't see them. Even the solid illusions melted when near the Orange Mage.

The Einsam couldn't trick the Orange Mage at all, couldn't overpower her, couldn't even touch her mind or mana.

The Orange Mage, Flamme simply burned all.

And thus the Einsam remembered terror.

It ran. It ran with every fiber of its being. It used every trick, every technique, everything it knew over the course of its massive lifespan.

All it needed was time. Humans, old one specially all perished to time.

It just needed to wait this mage, this Flamme's life out. Just wait for her to die and then—

"My aren't a persistent bug."

No.

No, no, no, no, nononononono—! SHE COULDN'T HAVE FOLLOWED IT TO THE ENDS OF THE LAND! SHE COULDN'T HAVE FOUND IT!

"Ooof, my back hurts. Not as young as I used to be. I guess I can't just chase demons, or monsters in this case, across the continent like I used to."

Wait? Could it be? Was this its chance? Was Flamme finally weakened? Yes, yes, yes! It can win, it can lure it deeper into this tunnel and trap her. Kill her. Devour her.

"And, you're an annoying little bug. Going inside that tunnel could end up as a death sentence for me if I'm not careful."

The Einsam expected her to come after it though. Mages were prideful. When they are sure they can win despite the odds, that's when they make their gravest mistakes. That's when they let their guard down.

"Buuut on the other hand, this place is far away from any civilization. Yeah, I don't feel like dealing with this anymore."

The Einsam was confused on what Flamme was talking about.

Then it witness magic on a scale it couldn't comprehend. A magic that enveloped the mountain of the tunnel the Einsam hide in.

Magic that sealed and anchored the Einsam within the tunnel for as long as the mountain stood.

"Yep, that should keep you locked here for a few hundred years. Well, given that it will leech off your own mana, it till be till you die, you annoying phantom."

It didn't make sense. It was too grand for a monster to understand. It was too monumental a feat for it to grasp.

Why couldn't it ever trick Flamme? How did Flamme kept finding it? Why did all of its mana burn within the presence of Flamme?

"While this isn't a permanent solution, I have faith someone in the future will come along and put an end to you."

Anger. Anguish. Despair.

For the first time in its life the Einsam felt thought emotions.

It's own intelligence meant that it understood those concepts, that it experience those emotions as its own, rather than viewing them through its victims.

It raged, it battered against the seal, it bashed the tunnel walls, even attempted to dig through them. All for naught.

It couldn't leave. It couldn't escape. The Einsam was finally trapped for good.

The only momentary pleasure it had was when some idiot human stumbled into it's hunting ground, it's prison.

And so it lived. It waited It felt it's progress crash into a halt, its growth stagnate. It couldn't hunt, it couldn't grow.

The meals were parsley, for it became known that the tunnel it was imprisoned in housed it. Only rarely could it trick a meal into its prison. Only rarely was it lucky for food to stumble into its den.

It hungered. It longed. The ache grew more than it ever felt in its life.

That's why it savored every meal even more. They were sacred to it. The Einsam had to make sure each meal, for as few as there were over the decades, or century at times, would be as exquisite as possible.

And then a day came were a Blue Whelp arrived to its den.

At first the Einsam treated the Blue Whelp like any meal. It played with him, scared him. It didn't expect to actually eat the boy, as the wooden post and length rope placed their by Flamme made it clear of what the range of the tunnel's safety, before entering the monster's sealed area.

And with the seal siphoning the Einsam's mana drop by drop, it had to conserve what mana it did have. In all these years it didn't have to exert much effort for the rare prey it did capture. Mostly because those humans were so stupid, they outright ignored the signs of danger, and the rope that would ensure their safety.

Sometimes the Einsam did get lucky in tricking people to letting go of the rope while they're within the tunnel, within it's mana's grasp. That luck got less and less as more humans learned of its lair prison, and thus learned to avoid it, or how to safely for their sake navigate it. Simply by not entering it, or using the rope to pull themselves back to safety.

Those the avoided becoming a meal to the Einsam were usually scared enough to never returned even near the tunnel, having learned their lesson and valuing their lives.

The Blue Whelp didn't seem like a normal human. The boy actively returned, a while later, and starting coming into the tunnel (rope tied around him and all) to actively fight the Einsam.

The boy wasn't... what was the word? An animal who's instincts were fried. An animal who's clinging to life was gone.

The Einsam learned words, language from all the people it consumed over the millennia, thus only one presented itself to describe the boy aptly.

Mad.

The Blue Whelp was mad.

He would face the Einsam near everyday, regardless of the illusions spun, regardless of all the death, horror, fear or even with emotions renewed to be felt all over again, the boy kept to face the Einsam.

The Blue Whelp was relentless, almost like...

No. The boy was simply idiotic and lucky.

Lucky that he never let go of the rope. Lucky to have that elf covering him, using arrows of wind so thin and so silent that the Einsam only notice them at the last minute. When the Einsam would finally manage to get the boy fall to one of his more solid illusion, or land a true blow, not a false one, a silent wind arrow appear to knock the Einsam's fang away.

The Einsam wasn't even sure if the boy knew this. He never seemed to react as if he did.

Worse though, was the constant battles. The boy kept facing the Einsam day by day, that mana the Einsam had kept dwindling faster and faster and not getting replenished as there was no meal yet.

If only it could get the boy, his mana felt odd. A quantity larger than what a child should have. A mana reserves of an adult. The Einsam felt this prey could replenish all the mana it had spend. More than that, all that fighting was pushing the Einsam, even if it didn't want to.

It might even be able to evolve, truly, finally. But the boy would never become prey with all those safeguards in place. With that elf looking after him.

If only the child could act as his age.

...And then finally he did.

The Einsam was overjoyed. The Blue Whelp acted as a whelp does and entered the tunnel with false bravado thinking surviving so long was a sign of his strength.

The Blue Whelp came from the other end of the tunnel, the one without security. He thought he as so clever. Humans always think they're the first figured some secret out, when really, it's always been tried before. Even the first time a human tried that, they couldn't trick the Einsam. It's senses were too sharp from living in the isolation of the tunnel. A bug's steps were audible for the monster, even a worm could be smelled.

The Blue Whelp came for the glowing moss, likely hoping for a cure to poison. Sadly the those cold vines whse poison those moss cures, were burned centuries ago, but another mage, who wanted to at least remove one of the Einsam's weapons to hunt its meals. Or that it threw at travelers that successfully escaped it.

The whelp didn't know that all the real moss was in the center of the tunnel, hidden behind a rock by the Einsam. It made many false copies of the moss just in case some desperate traveler or adventurer came for it, they'd be trapped inside the Einsam's lair, shortly to become another meal.

The boy didn't even have his guardian elf this time. The Einsam was overjoyed, it would finally have its meal. It could finally...

The Blue Whelp wasn't an easy prey to chew. The boy wouldn't stop moving, wouldn't stop fighting. The boy smiled at danger.

The boy's self-preservation instincts were broken. Mad, he truly was.

But worse, the Einsam began to feel something it never felt for a very long time. Warriness.

The Blue Whelp was a mage, usually a good thing, more mana made for a better meal. But more than that, the Blue Whelp was a warrior too, how the Einsam didn't understand.

The Blue Whelp was fast. Terrifyingly for the Einsam, the boy actually could keep up with the Einsam's movement. The true Einsam, the movement of its own core that it could displace as long as there was a place with its own mana, it could send its core to. Thus it could survive anything. Most never even perceived it's true self, even as they managed to stubbornly hold out to reach its body. It's core would be gone, leaving just a strong shell behind.

It was a pain to rebuild the shell, but that was better than dying.

Yet the boy could move as fast as the Einsam's core.

Then bit by bit, terrifyingly fast, the Blue Whelp began to perceive the Einsam. Perceive its true form, its true location.

The Einsam spent more and more of its mana, or its precious resources to entrap, to hunt down this damnable child. Yet the Blue Whelp kept preserving, kept surviving, kept growing stronger.

More and more of its powers had to be utilized. More and more of its secrets had to be unveiled.

The Blue Whelp kept surviving. The Blue Whelp devoured its mana!

The Einsam got desperate as the boy kept coming, till finally, finally, finally!

It captured him.

Lured him in close, making him think he could land that decisive blow, and that's when the Einsam used its last and ultimate master illusion.

It needed to touch the prey's head, and it would be able to make them fall within their own mind. Let their mind create a false illusion world. The Einsam provided the mana, but their mind provided everything else.

After all, doesn't every living being wish for its own paradise and hell?

Every prey that fell for the ultimate illusion was as good as dead, even if the Einsam didn't eat them, they'd never wake up again.

The ultimate illusion made the prey perfect, for they would never wake or fight again. The Einsam could thus savor them.

The Einsam felt a mana link from the boy, and followed it to another elf far away from it's prison. A strong elf. The Einsam couldn't deal with it now, but it could at least sneak through that link to see what knowledge it can use against the boy, to keep him within that dream world.

Unnoticed by the Einsam nor the Elf Great Mage, two motes of mana belonging to neither swept in, sneaking into the illusion. One came from the Einsam's sealing, and another came from within Minus.

It brought the annoyingly fighty child to its embrace, it was going to enjoy this meal.

The Einsam dismissed his strongest armor to reveal its true face, opened its true mouth to start taking a bite and...

Grrrr.

The boy somehow had his mana empowering his body up, even while unconscious. The Einsam tried to guide the illusionary world so the boy would drop his spells and power, yet it never seems to work for long.

The Blue Whelp kept fight in his own way.

The Einsam decided to just bite down and forcibly tear the boy flesh bit by bit if it had to.

This it opened its mouth once more and bit down.

An explosion of mana rocketed through the Blue Whelp's frame, a feeling of sharpness passed though the Einsam's mouth from the inside, through it's face and eyes, and hit the tunnel's ceiling.

The Einsam cried out in real pain as it jumped back. That attack got close to its core, too close!

The Einsam roared in anger, in pain and fury at the boy's last ditch effort and—

"Ȟ̵͙A̸̭̎ ̸̼̈́H̴̗͠Ą̴̐ ̷̜̌Ĥ̴̢Ä̸̹́ ̶͎͑H̸̛̫A̶͓̐ ̷̛̜H̷̫̾A̶̹͂ ̴͓̂H̸̺͝Ä̵͙́ ̷̹́H̴̱̆A̴̢̾ ̴̟̓H̸͜͝A̵̯͗ ̵̰̒H̵͝ͅÄ̶̗́ ̸̛͉H̷̺͘A̷̩̐ ̶̦͗H̸̜̆À̵͈!̸̬̎" The Blue Whelp laughed.

...What? The boy laughed, a sound like the Einsam's own. Yet worse. More. Not the various echoes of the dead that the Einsam used to scare its preys. It was a laugh that grated on the sound itself.

Of course the monster couldn't comprehend the sound. For the sound of digital shredding had never existed in this world.

Then music and song played. The Einsam didn't understand why the boy made his mana do that. There was no music wielder. Bard. The boy wasn't a bard, nor was their a bard around.

Yet music dreadfully played.

The boy stumbled into standing, his head tilted to the side and down, a wide deranged smile on his face.

The Einsam understood. It lived long enough to understand the nuance.

The Blue Whelp was mocking him. The mana kept swirling and growing around the boy. Violently and steadily spun around him.

The Einsam growled in fury, it gathered it's mana once more and retook his armored form.

It was an amalgamation of all the phantoms it made in its life. An armor of memories that empowered it by all the skills of all the prey it slaughtered in its life.

Even if the Blue Whelp somehow broke through its ultimate illusion, it was now too weak to fight the Einsam in its best form—

The mana that exploded from the Blue Whelp's frame was colossal. More than the boy's own.

In fact, the mana didn't feel like the boy's own, but that Elf linked to him. The mana burst outward like a dome, an explosion expanding, till it covered the mountain.

No.

The mana formed a dome that solidified and immediately started shrinking swiftly.

An old fear echoed like a whisper.

The mana passed into the mountain, through, dirt, sand and rock.

And captured every single mote of mana the Einsam had left around. The Einsam's vision began to shrink.

It could no longer see through the mountain.

It could no longer see the outside roads.

It could no longer see except what's within the tunnel.

And that area was shrinking even more by that dome of mana.

The Einsam's mana struck it, but more so, the monster focused on striking the Blue Whelp. Get into his mind once more. It would be so easy, as it paved the path from repeated doing so, and knows how to do so subtly.

The boy could never snip his millions of mana tendrils.

The wave of the monster's mana fell upon the boy like a crawling sea.

And it all burned.

The Einsam froze in place.

The Blue Whelped mana burned. It burned anything that got close to it. No links for illusions could be made.

Burned. Just. Like. Hers.

"̸I̷.̴"̴ The Blue Whelp grinned.

Nonononononononono.

̵"̸S̴e̴e̷.̸"̸ The Blue Whelp spoke.

He's not her. He's not her. He's not her.

̵"̵Y̸o̷u̴.̴"̴ And his voice echoed in the Einsam's mind.

The discarded sword suddenly blasted from from its place and flew to the boy's hand. He grabbed it and that weak lightning of mages burst off and around him. The electricity stuck to the walls and ground filling the air.

The Einsam recognized that spell, it was one a mage used to direct rocks and launch them at the monster at high speeds. Too bad they were never aimed at it.

The Blue Whelp was suddenly in front of the Einsam, slashing down. The monster brought it's bulky arms up on instinct but the burning blade cut through the body, muscles, mana and all, almost grazing the Einsam's core.

It needed to run.

It needed to run. It needed to run. It needed to run.

The Blue Whelp had Flamme's flames!

The Einsam jumped back, summoning phantoms, launching countless mana arrows of its own, make illusions over the terrain.

The electric field acted on the boy. He simply zipped to the side, left, right over and over again, dodging all the projectile attacks, while strolling toward the Einsam.

When the phantoms lunged upon him, he weaved between their attacks, cutting them down with a familiar ease of the swordsmans and warriors the Einsam had tricked and felled in his life.

The Blue Whelps eyes never left the monster, the smile never changed either.

The Einsam slammed into the barrer and hissed, jumping back as its body burn.

Wait, the seal? When did it reach it? When did it forget it was there? The Einsam thought with horror.

Suddenly a heavy blow slammed into its back, a kick from the body, strong enough to make the monster smack back into the barrier, and bounce off of it, burning and sizzling.

Only for the boy to be there when the Einsam rebounded, and uppercut it. The monster left the air break as it smashed into the ceiling and feel down.

The Einsam didn't have time to process this. All the illusions, solid or not were gone. His phantoms were undone and for some reason weren't coming back.

What was happening? It could only think, an instant since it fell from that last blow to the ceiling.

"̴G̵e̵t̴.̵ ̶U̷p̸.̷"̶

The Einsam looked up wide eyed, only to get a kick that launched it so far back, through rock pillars, grazing the walls till it felt a different air around it.

The Einsam couldn't believe its eyes. Somehow, somehow it was thrown all the way out of the tunnel. He looked at the blue sky with manic glee.

IT WAS FREE—

̸"̶W̸a̸k̶e̵.̸ ̷U̸p̷.̵"̵

A fist enveloped it's world, its view and smashed into its face, rocketing it into a hole in the ground.

The Einsam was stunned for a moment. It couldn't believe what happened. It took a second to process it as the boy calmly walked toward it enchanted sword in hand.

It had been tricked. It fell for an illusion. Perception and memory affected to forget the seal momentary, and to believe the sky it saw was real.

The Einsam stood up and roared. In rage. In terror.

The Blue Whelp turned its own power against it? Impossible.

Impossible. Impossible. Impossible.

It's pride wouldn't allow it to accept that.

The Einsam roared and lunged forward. It mutated its body to elongate it and change it as it pleased. The final layer of control it held, to manipulated its body made of mana particles as it pleased.

No matter what the Blue Whelp tried, eventually it will overwhelm him. Even his his seemingly new endless mana, he will mentally break eventually. He had to, from channeling all that power, all the remnant wills of those phantoms in the Einsam's mana it absorbed.

The Blue Whelp dashed forward, and almost as if he saw the Einsam's next move before it made it, he slashed off the other limbs coming at him, then the Einsam's chest, before spinning and cutting off the elongated limb that circled around to him.

That slash on the Einsam's body once more came close to its core.

The Einsam summoned the memories of the warriors its ate, and this time used them himself, while changing the environment. Even if it can't affect the boy's mind, it can affect the surrounding, and it's not like it can't make solid ground to remove later, so the boy would stumble and misstep.

The Blue Whelp through any illusion, parried the Einsam's blows, diagonally from the left, from below upper slash right, and any other attack. The boy had the strength to block and parry all the monster slashes naturally, but that was fine, it was luring him toward a foot hole in the ground.

The Blue Whelp stepped on what looked like solid ground, which it was for a moment. Then the ground disappeared.

The Einsam lunged with glee, only to get a slash that cut off its head. The monster was shock, confused, and as it reformed it's head, it saw that the boy's leg stood on air. He was casting the flight spell all along.

The monster roared in frustration, as it kept attacking with everything it had. Phantoms it summoned would breakdown from the fiery mana in the air. The dome the boy made was filled with it.

Voices, shapes, illusions of people the Einsam saw and knew within the boy's mind, knew how important they were were placed in his path. The boy didn't so much as acknowledge them, almost like he couldn't see them even.

It tried to attack through that avenue only to be cut down once more.

Over and over any attempt, any method of attack it tried, they all failed.

More than that, more frustrating, more enraging, more despairing was that each slash upon the Einsam's body got close to its core.

Over and over again. Close but never cutting it down. It was a deliberate chose.

The Einsam screamed in wroth over the realization. That the boy was toying with it. Like it was the prey in this whole hunt.

It never even noticed that it's true body, the actual base it used and core inhabited was revealed, as it was striped of any mana armor, layer by layer through the Blue Whelps attacks.

In response to it's final cry, it got a sword imbedded through its skull. The force launched the monster off its feet that it smacked back into a wall.

A wall that was burning it.

No! The seal's barrier.

The Blue Whelp was in front of it. It didn't even see him move. He just observed it.

The Einsam played dead.

It's final card as it slowly dissolved its body. It would have to hide its core elsewhere and remake its body later on once the boy left. It couldn't beat him. Survival was its priority.

The boy tilted his head like he was seeing a particularly funny play.

He pulled his hand back.

"Are you ready?" The Blue Whelp said.

The Einsam didn't understand what the boy meant, or what he was trying to accomplish. If he whaled upon the Einsam's 'corpse', it will do nothing in order to sell the act.

The mana dome the boy had made earlier contracted like the last bit of air in a ballon.

And now that mana became a form-fitting a barrier over the Einsam's body. All its mana trapped within it. All its mana, its core, its self in one single place.

Fear gripped the monster's heart true.

The Einsam felt mana line link up all over its body. The same spell the boy used to move around, as fast as the monster's core.

Then Blue Whelp launched a punch. Air broke.

The boy roared. He punched over and over and over. His mana breaking, burning, shattering, dispersing the Einsam's own body and mana piece by piece.

Pain beyond pain was inflicted upon the monster. And this time couldn't run, it couldn't hide, it couldn't even dull or escape the pain.

C-Crack.

It heard it. The Einsam felt it and hope bloom in it's core.

The seal was breaking.

Crack.

Its legs were gone. Its arms were gone. Its head was gone. Its torso was slowly, stubbornly holding out, where its core was hiding, as it waited for the thousand year old barrier to finally break down.

If it could just hold on—

CRACK!

The Flamme's barrier shattered. It's torso was gone, but the Einsam was elated all the same as it now finally, after a thousand years had it's chance at free—

The Blue Whelp's hand thrust forward before the core could so much as twitch and grasped it.

The Einsam's hope died.

The Blue Whelp, Trenn slammed the core into the ground.

And then ran, fly while grinding the monster's core into the floor.

"IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT?" He roared.

The Einsam tried to reinforce the last piece of itself, tried to stay alive, to survive.

Trenn in his rage was heading toward the exit on the other side of the tunnel that opened to the sea. The opening Trenn tried to sneak from.

The Einsam's core was durable, it could withstand the pure force of Trenn dragging it through the ground long enough.

Only for the Einsam's being to freeze as it heard laughter.

"THIS IS WHAT YOU'LL FUCKING GET!"

Laughter it hadn't heard in a thousand years. Laughter that couldn't exist anymore.

The ground burned with familiar mana. The mana of the seal.

'What kind of mage uses their fists? Is this what the mages of their era are like?' The Einsam heard Flamme's laughter.

The Einsam realized with horror that the seal didn't break, not completely. It changed itself.

Altered its form due to Trenn trapping all the Einsam's mana within its core, and now, the whole tunnel acted as Flamme's barrier to burn the ensure the core's finally annihilation.

That wasn't right. That wasn't fair.

Flamme's surely dead by time, why was she burning it now beyond the veil of death.

Trenn wasn't satisfied dragging the core through the ground, he fly across the tunnel in a circle, up the walls, the ceiling down to the ground, like a drill's path. He dragged the shredding the core across the whole tunnel.

"YOU MOTHER! FUCKING! SHIT!"

It was close. The exit was right there. It could see the light.

The Einsam died, crumbling to dust, to mana particle.

The last sight it had was walls of it's tunnel, its prison lit by the unseen sky and sun.

The last thing it heard was Flamme's laughter and Trenn's roar, before it vanished away forever.