The Undying Magician - Book 3 - Intermission (Patreon)

                                          The Barren Pass
                               Year 2850 | Month 4 | Day 6

Cyria lets out a short yelp as she ducks under a bolt made out of pure poison before she straightens up again, a blue spell circle appearing next to her before she sends a spear of water in return, piercing into the shield belonging to the poison magician across the snowy field from her. But the magician just breaks apart into a puddle of poison as cackling echoes throughout the vast field filled with thousands of magicians, all fighting against identical poison magicians.

Just how many damned clones can this guy make?!

“Amelia here,” Cyria hears her voice enter her ear from the earpieces she’s wearing. “Orders from on high to back off.”

Cyria’s eyes widen at that, and she immediately jumps back along with the rest of the team, disengaging with the clones before running as fast as they can towards the coast, where one of the ships is docked. And as they run, a humanoid figure shoots past them above their heads, following which loud explosions sound out mixed in with more cackling.

But the team just focuses on getting back to the ship, only looking back after they arrive, finding the other teams all quickly joining them and filling the ship to the brim as red and black projectiles shoot down from the figure now floating high in the sky above the battlefield they were fighting in. The figure is coated in red and black mana themselves, but even without being able to see his features, Cyria already knows that it’s the Chairman of the Republic.

The asshole who got them all stuck in this war in the first place.

Ever since Nathan was killed in the spark that initiated the true fires of war, the Republic has gotten even worse than it was before. And that’s not mentioning the other nations, some of which fell apart entirely, and others joined together.

“Everyone alright?” Amelia’s voice comes from a little further down the railing of the ship, bringing Cyria and the other’s attention to her as she walks down the railing.

Cyria quickly checks over the team as she should as the team captain before sighing when she finds everyone onboard the ship without injury. Then she focuses on the latest addition to their team who had joined just a month ago after the non-magicians of the Republic began to revolt under the Class S magicians’ provocations.

She grits her teeth as she remembers the sight of the academy being attacked by hundreds of thousands of people in the form of a mob, only for tens of thousands to be mowed down at a time by the magicians running the academy.

The world’s really going to shit now, isn’t it…

Cyria looks up at the sky where the cause of everything can be seen raining black and red bolts of anti-magic on the snowy field as he continues trying to find the real fog illusionist. A man who is clinically insane and only listens to Doctor Leodmir Archeron, the space affinity magician.

“Let’s get inside,” Cyria eventually says after watching them go at it for a few seconds.

The others all nod in agreement before the group passes through the crows on the ship to enter it, following which they quickly navigate their way to their cabin. And when they all arrive at theirs, Cyria just flops down on her own bunk without even closing the door behind her.

“How long do you think this war is going to go on?” Sophia asks, but Cyria is too exhausted to answer. So Amelia answers instead, “However long it takes Leodmir and the Chairman to kill each other.”

“So a long time,” Sophie mutters, seemingly not expecting much else.

After a few seconds of silence, Cyria finally raises her head to find Aidan sitting on his bunk in the corner of the room looking both awkward and gloomy, the man having lost a lot of his previous excitement after Nathan died. He didn’t even say a word when he was left bunking with his team as the only male member now that Nathan was gone, simply because the ship only gives one room per team. Something he absolutely would have commented on before.

Cyria lets out a sigh and rolls over to stare up at the ceiling of their room.

Every now and then, Cyria catches herself thinking about how everything would’ve gone if Nathan were still there, leading their team. Would she have ended up in a relationship with him eventually, following the feelings she eventually realized she had developed for their late team leader? Would their team have done better during the war?

She glances at Rebecca’s eyepatch covering her destroyed eye.

Would he have let her get injured?

“Stop looking at me like that,” the girl says with a frown, making Cyria return her gaze to the ceiling. “You’re doing it again, you know. Second guessing yourself. You should stop. It’s not a healthy habit.”

Cyria doesn’t say anything for a few seconds before letting out a sigh and muttering, “I know…”

Just months ago they were toasting to Nathan’s life, but now? Now she can’t help but wonder if they’re going to end up following him in death.

A dark silence fills the cabin, broken only by the sound of Aidan’s pen scratching on the letter he’s writing – something he does every single day even if they can’t send the letters back home.

Despite the noise though, Cyria can’t help but take some comfort in that. That he still cares enough to do that in the first place.

None of the team says anything as sounds echo from outside the now-shut door, someone having closed it on their way in. And out of the corner of her eye, Cyria notices Sophia sitting at the window looking out at the battle.

Cyria lets out one last sigh before rolling over and lying on her front again.

I wish Nathan was still here…

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PS: It's been about 8 or so months since Nathan went to the Kingdom of the Fallen.

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