Chapter 82: The Flamelord

Ano

His head pounded. But a surge of power forced him to pay attention. 

The Flamelord had risen in the stands, and he stared at Alari falling from the sky above. 

“Weak.”

 He spoke simply, as if he were having a casual conversation, but his mana-infused voice resounded throughout the arena. Every man, woman, and child heard it. 

“So weak. You’re no child of mine.” 

He disappeared in a burst of flame. 

He reappeared, standing in the arena. Ano realized Alari was about to smash into the ground. He reached a hand out to catch her with mana, but the Flamelord snatched her out of the air with his bare hand. She was barely conscious. Even then, fear visibly gripped her heart. She struggled even more now. Her legs kicked, and shards of Flamesaber glittered beneath her feet. As if the magic artifact could help her in its shattered state. 

Ano blinked at that. “I destroyed her sword…”

The demon beside him nodded. “You did.”

The announcer looked unsure of what to do. “Um…”

The Flamelord glared at him, and wisely, he quieted. 

Ano’s head pounded again. The sensation left his whole body feeling weak. He should help her. He wanted to help her. But it felt like daggers were being pressed into his brain from every direction. 

A portal opened on the ground beneath Alari. A slit in the earth. Ano recognized it. She’d opened a similar one during their time in the dungeon. She had forced a demon through it, but had gone through herself in the process. When she emerged, her entire body looked like a charred corpse. Luckily, the resurrection runes had healed her back then. That wouldn’t be the case this time. “Is he…is he going to?”

“I told you what would happen if you disappointed me. I’ll erase you.”

Time seemed to slow around Ano. Or…time? It felt more like the world around Ano was paralyzed. Time itself moved forward, but the arena full of people was removed from it. What was…

“Ano. She’s going to die,” the demon said.

“No…I’ll…” What could he do against the Flamelord?

“If you want to help her, you need to let me out.”

“You killed Anna!” Ano screamed.

“You killed Anna.” The demon appeared in front of him. Its charred skin began to heal slowly. “You thought earlier that you’d seen Laurette fight a Lord-class mage. Who was it?” the demon asked.

Ano shook his head. “Does it even matter? Alaris’ in danger!” 

“It matters, Ano.”

“It was…I don’t know!” Ano insisted. He glared at the demon as it healed. “Let me help her! Release me!”

“I’m you, Ano. Release yourself,” the voice sounded staggeringly like his own. Was it repairing on the inside too? Had its vocal cords been healed? Why did it sound like him? “She’s going to die unless you accept the truth. You never needed to borrow my power. It’s your power. You just couldn’t accept what you failed to do. What you failed to protect. So you made me. Accept it right now, or she dies.”

The world righted itself. All around the stadium, the audience watched in silence. The Flamelord dropped Alari, and her eyes shot open as she realized her fate. The last thing she looked up at before she fell into the portal was Ano floating high above her. 

He’d never seen her look so scared.

Ano faced his past to save her. “Swap!” 

His perspective shifted as they switched places. It was the same technique the paralysis demon had used to swap places with him when he’d been kidnapped during the invasion of Bright Sail Academy. Alari floated high in the air. His pillow arrived just in time; it flew into sight and caught her. Her hand stretched over the edge towards Ano. 

He smiled at her as he fell into the portal the Flamelord had opened. 

The portal to hell.

As his body plummeted through the sky above a landscape of flames and lava, his memories came flooding back. His skin burned and crackled. 

But he remembered.

Ten years ago 

“Let’s spar!” Anna insisted. 

He laughed. “You’re sure? You know I’m really strong, right?”

“I’m strong too! I was trained by a noble-class mage after all!” Anastasia beamed with her hands on her hips. What she didn’t say was that the noble-class mage was her mother. 

He had lived in the mountains on his own for nearly as long as he could remember. His parents once lived in a kingdom far away, they told him. But they’d been forced to leave for reasons he’d never quite understood. He’d been born in the mountains, and his parents died when he was even younger. But they’d taught him enough to survive on his own at least. He hunted beasts for food and lived in the crude cabin he’d built all by himself. There was plenty of room, as he’d overestimated how much he needed, but he basically lived in a huge tent-shaped building made of wood. It was cozy and kept the snow out. The house his parents had built left him with too many bad memories, so he’d made his own. 

He smiled at Anna. She’d tied one of his saber beast-skin blankets around her shoulders to keep warm. “What if your mom senses our magic?” he asked her. 

Anna’s mom was a researcher, looking for some old ruins in the snowy mountains where he lived. While she was gone, Anna usually snuck off, and she’d found his odd cabin one day. They were both the same age, give or take; he was thirteen and she was a year older. So they’d become fast friends. Anastasia had something to do during the day, and he wasn’t alone anymore. 

“She’s underground! It’ll be fine! Come on!” Anna wasn’t the type to take no for an answer. She tore off the blanket and ran outside before he could protest. Her short black hair bounced as she ran. He shrugged and hurried after her. 

He had a spot where he often trained, and they decided to practice there. The training ground was the flattest piece of land around, aside from where he’d built his home. He lived on an isolated cliff-top of sorts. If she hadn’t noticed the smoke from the fire he’d burned that day, and been too stubborn to turn back, Anna would never have found this place. They spread out, and with a careless burst of his magic, thick piles of snow scattered to make room for them on the mountain. “Stay away from the slope. It’s a long way down,” he warned her. 

He’d learned that the hard way. 

Multiple times. 

It didn’t take long to learn Anna’s definition of ‘sparring’ was him showing her all his techniques. But he didn’t mind sharing. Not that he thought she could learn them. His status said he was a lord-class mage, and from what he knew of the rankings, that was higher than even her teacher’s rank. 

“If I keep practicing, will my hair turn blue too?” she asked.

He frowned. “Mom said my hair turned that color because I was born here. Natural magic can have weird effects on babies. So, I got blue hair!” He stuck his tongue out at her. 

She rolled her eyes. “Only until I rip it out—” She ran towards him with outstretched hands. 

The air whooshed past as a loud, rhythmic flap reached their ears. 

Anna’s attention shifted quickly. “What’s that?” she asked.

 He turned and froze when he saw it. A giant bird with massive blue wings and a beak the size of his house hovered over them high in the sky. It was staring right at them. He didn’t have the best control of his mana and fought most battles with raw power. Despite that, he scanned it as best he could, and the result left him wide-eyed. This creature was at his level or stronger. He’d never faced anything that powerful. 

Anna was in danger. 

He turned and grabbed Anna’s hand and pulled her after him. “We have to go!” he yelled. He looked over his shoulder and saw the bird swoop down after them. They couldn’t go up, so they’d go down. He ran to the sloped ledge of his training ground and jumped. The two of them slid down quickly, skidding over snow, but the bird was rapidly approaching. 

“Noah!” Anna screamed. 

The bird flapped its wings, and a powerful gust of vibrant green wind magic rocketed towards them. Noah let go of her hand and spun to face it. He held his hands out, still sliding at a rapidly increasing speed. “Icicle Barrage of the Mountain Lord!” A massive burst of icicles exploded toward the wind spell. The two forces exploded above them scattering magic everywhere. 

The mountain shook. 

In its seizure, an avalanche formed. 

Noah’s eyes widened, and he turned to reach toward Anna, doing his best to scramble toward her as they descended uncontrollably. Anna tried to reach out to him, too. Their fingertips touched just as snow plowed over them and washed them away in a flood of frost. 

When he woke, he could feel the natural magic of the mountain’s snow seeping mana from his body in place of warmth. Still, he shivered. His dampened mana left him exhausted. All he wanted to do was close his eyes and rest. But he couldn’t, not until he found Anna. He couldn’t sleep until he found her. 

He pushed against packed snow and attempted to rise to no avail. Noah grunted. He positioned a palm so it was aimed upward and hoped he wouldn’t make the situation worse. “Icicle of the Mountain Lord!” he shouted. The sharpened icicle exploded upward, and he saw the light of an opening somewhere over his shoulder for just a moment before loose snow filled it back in. 

So he did it again, and again, and again, until finally he pressed himself upward with the last dregs of his strength. He rose from the snow, still buried up to his waist, and looked around. Neither Anna nor the bird was anywhere to be found. 

He swept his senses outward, hoping to detect his friend, but the mana fizzled out quickly. He’d never had much mana, and his poor control over it meant the spells he used burnt through it rapidly. Between his casting and the snow’s draining effect, it felt impossible to cast even weak spells at the moment. Let alone any of his stronger techniques. 

He abandoned the idea and cupped his hands to his mouth. “Anna!” he shouted as loudly as he could. There was no telling how far the snow had taken her. If she’d gotten lucky, maybe she’d already freed herself. But that was likely too much to hope for. 

“Anna!” 

Noah waded through the snow, shouting and looking in every direction. Each footstep drained more of his stamina. The avalanche had created horrible conditions for walking, and the sea of snow all around him was blending together. Finally, he lost his temper and slammed a hand onto the ground. “Anna, where are you!” he screamed. 

Mana rushed forward from his body and blasted snow in every direction. He blinked in surprise and stared at his hands. “What?” It wasn’t new to him. He’d noticed bursts of strength when he was angry in the past, but to see it when his mana and energy levels were so low already was shocking. 

He noticed something in his peripheral vision and turned to look. 

Raven-black hair in an ocean of blinding white. Anna’s hair. He’d never told her this, but honestly, he admired her hair. It was something about the way it contrasted with the never-ending white landscape of the mountain that made her hard to forget. He wondered why that thought occurred to him now, when he should be focused on the other color he saw. A color he desperately wanted to avoid acknowledging. 

Red. 

He trudged forward in her direction. He was moving pretty well, considering the poor state of his body, but each step felt heavier than the last. When he reached her, he fell to his knees and leaned over to inspect her. “Anna?” he said. “I’m here. It’s okay.” He froze when he saw the source of her injury. An icicle. A part of his own magic had pierced her side, and she’d been bleeding profusely ever since. He scooped his arms under her carefully, in case it pained her. He needed to find her mother. Maybe they could get medical help back at the camp where she stayed. They were researchers, surely someone had medical knowledge or could cast healing magic, right? 

But in his heart, he already knew it was too late. Her skin was far too cold. It reminded him of his parents. Of finding them lifeless on the mountain. First his mother, and then his father. Now Anna. His heart fell. It wasn’t the frost of the mountain that sapped his soul of warmth. It was the price of the mountain. He’d learned its cost when he’d lost his parents. He’d learned it every time he faced down a beast, each of them hoping to consume the other. 

Noah had learned a long time ago that the price of living on the mountain’s peak was one of loneliness. 

Not even Anna’s warmth could burn through that cold truth. 

Now the mountain had claimed another, and Noah was alone again. 

Snow shifted behind him and tumbled past on either side of him. He didn’t need to look back to know what caused it. The enormous bird-beast had been swept up in the mountain’s destruction as well. Now it had freed himself just as he had. He turned to glare at the creature responsible for this mess, and his world turned black.

…when he came to, he was kneeling in the center of a mutilated corpse. Blood and feathers littered the ground around them in a circle. Anna was lying peacefully in the snow.

“Did I…” he started to ask. 

Anna looked so peaceful there. But she couldn’t sleep now. They were supposed to spar. He shook her by the shoulder. “Hey, wake up.” 

No response. 

“We have to spar, remember? I was going to show you my techniques?” 

She didn’t stir. His magic had killed her. He had killed her. 

He’d killed her.

He’d killed her. 

He’d killed her. 

He’d killed her. 

He’d…

He grabbed the sides of his head and screamed, forcing his eyes shut. 

When he opened them, he stared at a perfect copy of himself kneeling on the other side of her. It was covered in blood. 

He stared at the copy for a moment. He looked at the blood, and then back down at Anastasia. “You…killed her?”

The other version of him looked down. “Yeah, it was me. This wasn’t your fault.” 

He nodded. It wasn’t his fault. It was the…demon. This wasn’t his fault. 

He held a hand towards the demon, and mana surged through him. “Frost Bite Burn of the Mountain Lord!” Below them, a chunk of the mountain disappeared in the blast. He nodded, then looked down at Anna. “It’s okay, I killed it. It’s okay, Anna.” 

The demon appeared beside him again; now its skin was withered and charred from the attack. It held a pillowcase from his cabin in its hands. The same one that Anna always used when she took naps at his place. The demon unzipped it and dumped the old feathers from it. Then it started collecting the mountain bird’s feathers and hastily stuffing them inside. 

Something cut through the demon, and it disappeared again. 

Before he saw what, a blade pressed against his throat. He looked up and saw a woman standing over him. “What did you do?” the woman demanded. 

Her features were familiar, as was the color of her hair. “Are you Miss Laurette? Anastasia told me about you. She’s…” he trailed off. 

The woman flinched. She pressed the blade to his neck. “Who are you?” she asked. “What did you do to my daughter?” 

He frowned at the question. “I don’t know. I can’t remember. I don’t…” 

The Present 

“So, my name was Noah.” Ano sighed. 

He fell freely through the air, high above the land called Hell. Rivers of magma dominated an ashen wasteland. Gigantic fires reached forty or fifty feet into the air like a forest of flames. Massive creatures trudged the earth below; giant beasts that made some things he’d fought look like everyday pests. Some of them bathed below waterfalls of lava, some fought, tearing each other to pieces, and others stared up as he fell, waiting to devour him. 

His eyes burned from the heat, and he looked up to see the portal he’d fallen through had already closed. That sucked. He hadn’t been in this plane long, but already his body was at its limit. 

“You’re stronger than this,” the demon said aloud. It fell beside him. Though calling it a demon felt inappropriate now. It had healed fully. It was a perfect copy of him. Or, it was a perfect copy of the boy he had been back then. 

“I don’t know how I feel about getting a pep talk from myself.” 

But he was stronger, wasn’t he? He’d put almost half of his power inside the ‘demon’ he’d apparently created as a trauma response. Ano wasn’t a Noble class mage. He was a Lord, and had been for a long time. He’d just been splitting that power with a…well, whatever the demon…or not demon, actually was. “Well, come on then. It’s time.” Ano held out a hand. 

“Finally!” The younger version of Ano smiled and grasped his hand. 

Ano felt the familiar chill of the mountain encompass him, and feathers started poking from his back until eventually they formed into wings that spread to stop his descent. Smaller versions of the wings of the mountain bird-beast. A power fitting the title of the Mountain Lord. His body healed slowly, the pervasive cold of the mountain seeping into his bones to repel the flames of hell. 

Still, even with his power restored, he was trapped here. He heard a vicious roar and turned to see a furious red-skinned creature flying towards him. Most of its face was just a giant jaw, and it swam through the air like a serpent through water. He could tell it was strong, but not nearly as much as some of the other creatures lurking on the ground below. He cracked his knuckles and rolled his neck. “Fine. Let’s do this.” 

His magic senses screamed, and he looked up when he felt the connection form.

 The portal was open again, high above him in the same spot where he’d fallen through. A familiar face waved at him from the other side. 

“Ano! Hurry!” Sen called out. 

Ano chuckled. “What a bro, he always comes through, doesn’t he?” he said to the creature flying towards him. “I’ll take a rain check on the fight, but don’t worry. I’ll kill you some other time.” He flew upwards, beating the wings on his back as fast as he could. It was an odd feeling, but who was he to complain when they were literally getting him out of hell? 

That bird’s feathers had been in his pillow this whole time. Now some of them were on his back. He had a lot of things to figure out once everything was over.

The horrifying creature was gaining on him, but he was almost there. When he was close to the portal, he turned to look below one last time. He waved goodbye to a place he hoped he never had to visit again. If that were the case, though, he really shouldn’t leave unfinished business. 

“On second thought, just die now. Earthen Destruction of the Mountain Lord.” 

The creature crumpled in an instant, as if a giant hand had wrapped around it. Its corpse fell to the ground below, toward the waiting jaws of even more horrifying creatures. 

Ano smirked and flew up once more. He folded his wings as he shot through the portal. As he emerged, they disappeared from his back, and he landed on the ground as the portal closed beneath him. 

Sen frowned at him. “Ano…you’re uh…well…”

Ano looked down and realized he was naked. It seemed his simple clothing hadn’t been enough to endure the fiery heat of a place like that. Feathers floated in front and behind him, and he looked up to see the corner of his pillow give a tiny wave. Alari still floated atop it, a relieved expression crossing her barely conscious face. 

The announcer stared at each of them. Sen, the Flamelord, Ano, and then up at the pillow and Alari. He looked around as if for help. A man with shining blonde hair that fell down to the back of his ankles walked through the air on a descending platform made by golden creation magic. The makeshift staircase was coming from the private viewing area of the Tower family. The man stopped just in front of the Flamelord, who looked ready to burn the entire audience to ash. “Her Majesty, the Queen of Golden Creation, is glad you realized your overstep and did not take further action, but now she insists on a return to decorum. Please return to your seat,” he said with a bow.

Sen eyed the Flamelord to check his response. Ano wondered if that would really work. He also wished he’d kept some spare clothes in his pillow. The Flamelord glared at the man and then looked up at the matriarch of the Tower family. His nostrils flared, but he didn’t press the issue. He turned and made his way toward the exit competitors used. He used Ano’s tunnel instead of Alari’s. Ano made a mental note to use any other exit when it was time to go. 

He scanned the crowd and found his professor standing there. The woman who had taken care of him all these years, the woman who’d stayed by his side and waited for him to overcome his demon. Literally. He nodded toward her.

She sighed and nodded back. 

Right, he was still naked in front of all these people. 

With the Flamelord gone, the crowd finally felt safe enough to erupt into cheers. 

The announcer seized the momentum. 

“The winner is…Anonymous Student of Green Book!”