0107 Siege

Xia Kui had not failed to notice what was happening on the other mage’s side, nor was she short of the strength to intervene. Yet whenever she tried to reach out, the pale-gold magical element surrounding that mage pricked at her nerves and reason. It was a strange element she had never seen, and she did not want to see it—least of all when it was at her side.

She could never forget that this pale-gold element—the earth element—was meant only for forbidden legend. It was precisely the kind that the once-unstoppable four-element mages could wield; ordinary mages could barely sense its presence, much less use it.

Xia Kui remembered the year she had just crossed into master level as a wind mage. Through relentless effort, she had joined the Kairenia Mages’ Guild Assembly as an auxiliary wind mage and attended her first council session.

After the aged guildmaster had finished reciting all the rules and taboos to the newly elected young mages, he added gravely: “Everyone here today should remember: at any time, in any place, anyone seen using multiple branches of magic at once or the pale-gold earth element must be killed immediately.”

“Why? The number of people who can use the four elements now is nearly extinct. They can’t form a great force. If those four-element mages can still contribute to Kairenia…” one of the young mages, no older than Xia Kui, asked timidly.

“Contribute?” the old guildmaster said with a dark smile. “Fine—suppose they did contribute. What then? They are still human beings, and ordinary mages have no real power against them. Once such people are touched by power and greed and such, we will only watch the tragedy of a thousand years ago repeat itself. Are you willing to gamble?”

The young mage immediately saw the flaw in his own words, lowered his head, and meekly admitted fault.

“In any case, the Mages’ Guild exists to keep balance in the mage world and protect the rightful interests of mages. Remember this: in every era, some sacrifices are necessary to preserve the majority’s peace.”

Then, still young, Xia Kui thought only of maintaining calm and stability in the mage realm. She accepted the guildmaster’s logic without hesitation and trained harder. Later, in order to keep normal relations between two human kingdoms that had long been estranged, she accepted a peace marriage and wed Li Yi, then Great General of the White Tower. After that she lived quietly as a wife and mother.

Still, she never forgot her oath and her faith. To prevent a greater calamity, she chose to give up that small number of people. Even if she were later scorned and condemned, she would never regret it.

With her thoughts set, Xia Kui slowly lowered her head. Her wand kept gathering power to aid the human soldiers, and the wind-elemental dragon she had summoned still circled and struck at the demon-beasts, but she did not look at the other mage again.

Now that mage was in a state of near frenzy, staring as the cold, blue, sinister little spikes marched in neat lines behind the first scouting spike and drifted, wavering, into the crack in her shield. She had no way out. If she stopped channeling energy into the shield, she would face only the five beasts surrounding her. If she kept it up, she had no spare strength to stop those spikes. The leading spike, acting as the vanguard, had already broken through her defenses and was speeding toward her heart.

A faint crack—almost too soft to hear—made her heart quiver. A bone-deep chill spread from a tiny wound in her chest through her whole body. Soon her entire upper half turned numb with cold. From the inside out, the cold made her feel as if she stood at the Antarctic in a single thin robe. Cold sweat soaked her clothes, while her lower half still surged with heat. The clash of opposite temperatures nearly drove her to slam into a wall.

Just then, following spikes rose from the crack in the same orderly way, no less relentless. She only felt another surge of cold, and with a shaking hand raised her staff toward the breach, swallowing a mouthful of icy saliva she could barely taste.

Whoosh! Tens of ice spikes came at once. She knew there was nowhere to dodge. Biting down hard, she abruptly collapsed her 360-degree shield with no blind spots and quickly condensed the power sustaining it into an offensive form, striking viciously at those spikes.

Crisp! A sharp, brittle sound rang out, and the spikes disappeared into dust, carrying tiny fragments of themselves, resentful and silent.

The five beasts that had been attacking her, no longer blocked by her shield, bared their claws without mercy and summoned each their own spells, lunging at her. She had no time even to cry out before she was swallowed up in the massive bodies of the monsters and vanished from view.