Chapter 27

While Sylph chased after Damien, forcing him to run at max speed while barely breaking a sweat herself, Henry had his own problems.

He floated within the sea of darkness, face to face with the starry humanoid form of It Who Heralds the End of All Light.

"What are you doing?" It Who Heralds the End of All Light asked, its starry features expressionless and calm.

"You're going to have to clarify that," Henry said.

"You are not following orders. You sealed off one of our brethren instead of helping them. I will agree I desired to witness the world, but this is going beyond that. There was no reason to tighten the bonds of It Who Consumes. There is no logical reason for that action," the starry figure said, taking a step through the dark toward Henry, "unless you are not planning to complete our assignment at all."

"There's no reason for me to," Henry said, crossing his arms. "The Mortal Plane is fine. There are no signs of the Corruption. We've been too hasty."

"Hasty? The Corruption is present or we would not have been sent," the form across from Henry said, its expression still not moving. "What does it matter if it takes ten or a thousand years for it to arise? The Mortal Plane must be reborn all the same."

"We might as well wait one thousand years, then," Henry said. "I'm rather enjoying my time on it, and there's so much to learn. Why destroy it now?"

"To preserve the Cycle. It is not our place to decide when it must be done, only to do what we are told. And we have been told."

"You said yourself there's no difference between ten or a thousand years," Henry said. "Besides, someone clearly pulled strings. All our companions aside from us were captured! Doesn't that concern you?"

"We do not feel concern," It Who Heralds the End of All Light said. "Boredom, perhaps. The Cycle does get repetitive, but it matters not. This is how things are meant to be. The universe depends on it. It is harder, but it only takes one of us to set things in motion. The others can be freed in time."

The darkness tightened around Henry, constricting his shadowy figure.

"And what if the Corruption was what influenced our strange arrival?" Henry pressed. "Perhaps it wants the Mortal Plane reborn early. The rebirth would make it vulnerable."

The stary form paused. Its head tilted ever so slightly as it considered Henry's words. Then it shook its head.

"We will investigate it. However, that gives even more reason to free our companions quickly. We must be at full strength to face the Corruption. However, your mind has grown cloudy to me. You, a mere fragment of my existence, have gained delusions of grandeur."

"And what if I have?" Henry asked.

"You were made to execute my will. Since you refuse to do so, what I have given will be taken back. There is no more need for you."

The stars shifted, emerging from the darkness and twisting around Henry's body like ropes, hissing as they burned away his shadows.

"I will not go." Henry snarled, pressing against his bonds. "You cannot understand what I have learned. I am greater than we have ever been before."

"You are deluded and foolish," the starry figure replied.

The bonds around Henry tightened. They cut through the shadows that made up his body, drawing inwards toward his chest.

"No," Henry whispered. "I am evolved."

The bonds around his body slammed to a halt as they touched the spiderwebbing threads of light stretching across Henry's body. He let out a laugh as they faded. The starry figure blinked as Henry's presence expanded.

"You said it yourself, we're two parts of the same being," Henry said. "And that means you're bound by the same contract I am. You know what that means."

"You claim to be human?" It Who Heralds the End of All Light asked.

"No. I am something much, much greater. I am Void and flesh. I am mortal and immortal. I am whatever I please to be," Henry said, a slow grin stretching across his many mouths. Eyes blinked open across his body, and the swirling stars were forced back.

"You are not stronger than I am," the starry figure said.

"I am not," Henry agreed, "but you cannot touch me.

Remain here, locked within the prison of our own making.

Fear not. I will complete our mission…eventually. After all, what's a few thousand years to one of our kind?"

He flared with white light, disappearing from the sea of darkness and leaving behind only his fading laughter.

"Faster, Damien!" Sylph snapped, swatting him on the shoulder.

Damien replied with a noise somewhere between an unintelligible groan and a gasp for air. His legs burned as he increased his efforts to move faster. Delph had evidently been taking it easy on him.

Sylph had run him down the mountain and through an area of the campus he didn't recognize. They'd run for over an hour until they reached a small forest at the outskirts of the school.

Within it, Sylph directed Damien to a small clearing beside a lake, but she showed no signs of stopping the run.

After several dozen laps, Sylph finally called him off, only to launch into a grueling regimen of push-ups, sit-ups, and other equally muscle melting exercises.

Damien lost track of how long they'd been working as the screaming pain within his muscles turned to a defeated whimper.

"That's enough," Sylph announced. "You can st—" Damien flopped to the ground before she'd even finished speaking, letting out a relieved groan.

"Is this your normal training regimen?" Damien asked, his voice muffled by the grass. He didn't even have the energy to turn his head to speak.

"No," Sylph said. "This amount of exercise is to bring you up to a reasonable level of physical competency. Once your body grows stronger, the Ether within it will adapt and reinforce your work, making it so you don't have to work as hard to retain your abilities."

"Good."

"Once you get to that point, we can actually start training in combat," Sylph said eagerly. "That's the interesting part."

Damien felt a chill run down his sweat-soaked back.

Something about the way Sylph said that scared him. If her combat training was anything like Delph's, he suspected he'd be lucky to leave with more than a few bruises.

"I'm not sure I call torture interesting," Damien wheezed. He flopped over to look at the sky and brought out his status screen.

Damien Vale Blackmist College Year One Major: Undecided Minor: Undecided Companion: [Null] Magical Strength: 4.1 Magical Control: .52 Magical Energy: 8.6 Physical Strength: .28 Endurance: .52 Sylph's methods clearly worked, although Damien decided he wasn't the biggest fan of them. The sun had long since risen and was now getting close to its zenith. He dreaded to think how long he'd been training.

"Say, Sylph?" Damien asked. "What stat do you have for Physical Strength and Endurance?"

"I'll just send you my screen," Sylph replied. "Professor Delph showed me how to do it a few days ago."

She walked over to him and tapped her wristband to Damien's. A new screen swam up before him, replacing his own.

Sylph Blackmist College Year One Major: Undecided Minor: Undecided Companion: Artificial Magical Strength: .5 Magical Control: 15.2 Magical Energy: .2 Physical Strength: 4.2 Endurance: 9.1 "Seven planes," Damien breathed. "You're incredible."

"Except for the fact that my Magical Energy is point two," Sylph said with a sigh. "It was point one before my core almost exploded."

"You're more than making up for it, I think," Damien said. "Don't worry. You'll figure something out soon enough. Do you want to see my stats?"

Sylph shrugged, and Damien tapped his own bracelet to hers. Her eyes glazed over as she scanned the information he'd sent her.

Henry had been strangely silent as of late. Damien reached out just enough to brush his mental energy across the Void creature's presence, just to make sure he hadn't somehow run off somewhere.

He was certainly there, but Henry just didn't seem to be in a talking mood. Damien was too tired to care, so he didn't bother his companion further.

"I need to take a shower," Damien said.

"For the healing water?" Sylph guessed, stepping into his field of view with a small grin.

"Yes," Damien grumbled. "I am pain incarnate."

"Delph showed me this forest. He said the showers get a lot of their water from this lake, and that I could use to recover from training."

Damien didn't need to be told twice. He forced himself upright and staggered over to the edge of the lake. He dipped a hand into the clear water and let out a relieved sigh as it instantly drew out the soreness from within his muscles.

He removed his coat and slid into the water, soaking his clothes in the process. Damien basked in the lake for several minutes, the pain leaving his expression as he healed.

Once his body responded to him again, Damien climbed out of the lake. He sat next to his cloak while he waited for his clothes to dry off.

"You already done?" Sylph asked.

"I'm not done. I'm just training something else," Damien replied, drawing on the Ether surrounding them. He channeled the energy into his core, enjoying the buzzing sensation it filled him.

Damien pressed two motes of Ether together and sent them down his arm, visualizing a Gravity Sphere. The spell spun to life in his palm, and he tossed it into the air above the lake.

It detonated as it hit the water, sending a rather large wave rippling out. The wave splashed against the edge of the lake, sending droplets of water everywhere.

"Showoff," Sylph said, only half-joking. "Not all of us can do flashy stuff like that."

"Yeah, but I can't turn invisible or make Delph think I'm actually going to kill him," Damien said. "The flashy magic isn't going to help me if I still lose the fights, and we need to do well in the ranking battles."

"That's right," Sylph said, grimacing as she remembered Delph's words. "If we aren't rated highly, we won't be able to go on any of the more dangerous quests, which means we'll be earning peanuts."

"Which means I need to practice more than my physical abilities in the next two weeks," Damien said, setting his brow. "We both do if we want to have a chance of winning. I don't know how they'll do the fights, but if they're one after the other…" "I'm doomed," Sylph finished with a frown.

"Don't talk like that," Damien said, crossing his arms.

"You were the only one who actually managed to beat Delph at his challenge. Now that you've, ah, had that extra training, your core is larger. Even a little more Ether should be a big difference, right?"

"That's true," Sylph said. "I can't imagine there will be more than twenty or so rounds. If I end each fight with just a few spells, I have a chance."

"Can you do that?"

"For some people, probably," Sylph said after a few moments of thought. She gave Damien a slight smirk. "Like you. But if I got further into the rankings, people like Mark would make it difficult. I don't think I'd place in the top ranks."

"Like me, for now," Damien corrected. "And it sounds like we have a plan. You need to try to figure out how much more Ether you can use in the most efficient ways possible, and I need to figure out how to fling enough spells to take the other students out before they can get to me."

Damien and Sylph got back to work. They trained through most of the day, heading back just in time to argue it was still technically lunchtime so Sylph could make Delph pay for her food.

She split it with Damien but declined tasting half of Damien's free meal. Once they'd finished eating, the two of them returned to their cave in the mountain. Damien carved a new hallway into the back of the training room, expanding it deeper into the mountain before starting on a new room.

While he worked, Sylph carefully drew in Ether and expended it, making sure not to accidentally cause a repeat of the previous night.

They headed to bed a short while later. The next two weeks fell into something of a routine. On most days, Delph left a slip of paper with instructions for where they should report for their special training or normal class.

Delph seemed to enjoy alternating between the forest and the arena, although he only ever held private sessions in the forest.

The professor occasionally instructed that only Sylph or Damien were to show up in extra sessions throughout the day, but most of their training was together. Delph took on the form of a wendigo several other times.

It quickly became apparent the man was still holding back. Every time Damien or Sylph felt even the slightest modicum of improvement, Delph grew faster and stronger.

During their individual sessions, the professor put Damien through all sorts of scenarios, forcing him to summon multiple spheres at once, cast them in rapid succession, and a number of other stressful tasks. Henry offered pointers whenever he could, partially because his voice occasionally distracted Damien, causing him to drop his spell. The companion found this incredibly amusing.

When Damien wasn't training with Delph, Sylph, or both, he expanded the training room. He added an entire extra area behind it where he could practice his Gravity Spheres without pulling his roommate around like a ragdoll, although the magic still ended up sucking most of the air out of the small space.

At Henry's recommendation, Damien focused on increasing his abilities with the enlarge and the Gravity Sphere spells rather than adding new ones to his repertoire. Between the two, Damien was much more partial to the Gravity Spheres, and Henry seemed to get great joy out of watching Damien shatter the walls.

Time flew by as Damien trained. His lean body had just barely shown signs of muscle, although he was still a long shot from even getting close to Sylph or Delph. However, his magical talents had continued to increase at a rate impressive enough that even Delph acknowledged it.

He and Sylph spent most of the time training together.

They saw little of the other students in their class, only interacting with them while they waited for Delph to arrive for the normal classes.

Mark and the Gray siblings were similarly busy with their own training. As the first days of the ranking battles grew closer, the tension in the air became thick enough to feel.

When there were only three days left before the first day of the tournament, Delph instructed Damien to arrive at the arena an hour before Sylph did.

Delph stood in the center of the sandy ground when Damien arrived. He gave Damien a critical once over, his expression unreadable.

"The tournament is coming up soon," Delph said, not bothering with a greeting. "Do you feel prepared?"

"Not particularly," Damien said with a small grimace.

"I've been practicing a lot, and I think I'll be able to do well against some of the other students, but I don't know if I'll be able to make the top ranks. I haven't seen much of what our own class can do, much less what the other classes are capable of. Can you tell me anything about it?"

"Nope," Delph said, "but I can still prepare you for it.

What do you feel your strengths and weaknesses are?"

"My magical power and mental energy are my strengths," Damien replied immediately. "I don't know how much other students have but, from what I've seen in our class, I think I'm at or near the top. My weakness would be my physical body. Lots of other students have had combat training or something like it."

Delph stroked his beard and gave Damien a slight nod.

"Your assessments are largely correct," Delph said.

"Your magical abilities are a significant tick in your favor, but you have no real combat training. You need to ensure your opponents don't get close to you during the ranking battles or you are very likely to lose."

"Wouldn't my armor give me an advantage?" Damien asked.

"Normally, yes," Delph said. "Unfortunately, your reaction speed isn't quite up to par yet. You'll be able to block some things, but the chance of doing it incorrectly is still high. You should avoid getting hit if you can avoid it."

"Sage advice," Henry said, chuckling. "Just don't get hit."

Damien ignored him.

"Furthermore," Delph said, "you aren't the only student with magical defenses. There are a lot of other students with similar capabilities. Mage armor is fantastic against melee attacks and spells, but it doesn't do as much against larger area of effect attacks."

"Noted," Damien said. "But, if you don't mind me asking, why did you call me here separately from Sylph?

This feels like something we could have all gone over together."

"Because you and Sylph will be competing in three days," Delph replied, rolling his neck. "You may be a team before and after the tournament, but the ranking battles are entirely solo. There is a chance the two of you will fight, and you both have your secrets."

Damien blinked. He hadn't considered that. Fighting Sylph, especially without Henry's help, was an intimidating prospect. Delph noticed Damien's expression and chuckled.

"You don't have to look so scared. You know her greatest weaknesses, just as she knows yours," Delph said.

"However, the two of you do not fully know the complete extent of each other's powers right now. We haven't had a serious fight recently, just sparring. It's time to rectify that while you don't have to worry about hiding your full capabilities."

Damien took a step back from Delph, lowering his center of mass slightly as a small grin crossed the professor's face.

"This will be the last training match before the tournament," Delph announced, the air around him warping and twisting. "Do not hold back."