A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing-Chapter 806 - Flying high
Erik snarled. Lightning fizzled on his fur, then he disappeared in a flash. He appeared again, not next to Gabriel, but next to the walking stick nearby. In one movement, he snatched up the black and white walking aid and stuck it in between the gaps of the sandstone, much like Gabriel himself had done before.
He stayed in that position for a moment longer, hand on the handle, as his omnisense flooded the magical item. It took him less than a second to figure out how it worked and immediately activated it.
In the same movement, he jumped up, barely leaving the barrier that appeared to cover both Gabriel and the stick.
"What’s going on?!" three surprised and worried voices echoed separately in his mind, as Elora, Emma, and Astrid watched his actions from afar, hesitating about whether or not to go to him and help somehow.
Erik had no time to answer, though. After the barrier formed below him, he twisted in mid-air until facing down. Two magic circles flashed on his transformed, armoured hands, one icy-white, the other icy-blue. Elora immediately felt a drain on their already-strained aetherium storage.
By now, she was getting an idea of what was happening and quickly sat back down on Emma’s shoulder, legs crossed in meditation. "Emma, remember what you offered before? It’s time now," she also said in a hurried tone.
Emma had less of an idea of what was going on than Elora did, but didn’t hesitate to help. She’d previously offered to share her aetherium with Elora so that she could share it with Erik, but Elora had refused then. Energy sharing between Arcanists like that was very inefficient, so it was a last-resort method.
They’d reached that point now, however.
Over by Erik, he’d started conjuring layer upon layer of different barriers to complement the one created by the walking stick. First, he’d use the ice-maker spell to create a dome of ice, then a dome of his thundersnow barrier, then another ice dome, and so on.
Elorium conversion into aetherium was working overtime, but even that source of power was drying up now. Even he could not create power from nothing, after all.
Still, he didn’t stop, intending to use every single ounce of power to create as many barriers as he could. When he felt an influx coming from Elora, he immediately ramped up the barrier creation even more, freely wasting power if it meant he could create more barriers, more quickly.
Layer after layer expanded the dome around Gabriel in rapid succession, until finally, just thirty seconds after Erik started this...
Boooooooom
The world went white.
An explosion roared outward with such force that even the layered barriers Erik had woven shattered like fragile glass.
The ice domes cracked, splintering into a billion shards that never touched the ground, disintegrated instantly by the sheer heat and pressure. The thundersnow barriers, screaming and shrieking as their lightning laced the air, were torn apart in bursts of blinding light. One by one, each wall of protection fell, and each collapse sent shockwaves through the city like drumbeats from deep in the earth.
The ground itself trembled beneath the force. Dust, fractured echoes, and shocked screaming thundered through the sandstone streets, yet those streets remained whole, untouched—as if mocking the devastation. No matter how the earth shook, this place was not so easily scarred. But Erik, his wives, and every living soul in the city, felt every ounce of that power.
The final barrier—a dome of sturdy, deep blue ice—held for a heartbeat longer than the rest. It strained, groaned, and bent, light bending unnaturally around its edges, before it too cracked and shattered into nothing.
The explosion burst through.
Erik snarled as the force hit him, lifting his transformed frame like a leaf caught in a hurricane. His armoured body spun as he was hurled skyward, lightning trailing in a wild arc from his fur. The blast ripped the air from his lungs and filled his ears with an endless roar, but it did not burn him, nor tear into his flesh.
The barriers had done their work—weakening the blast until his armour could absorb what remained, and people further away from the blast were only buffeted with dust and powerful wind.
He was not harmed, but he was thrown. Higher and higher, his figure rising against the backdrop of seething destruction below as he almost disappeared into the desert sky.
Silence settled on the city as Erik streaked into the sky, seemingly thrown nearly straight up, rather than into the distance.
Below him, the air wisted with residual fire and shattered aetherium. A wry smirk passed over his face as he saw the ground had only blackened, but remained entirely unharmed. He knew that explosions should have vaporised himself, his wives, and likely most of the people in this city if it hadn’t been for those barriers, and yet... the city would have stood unharmed.
"They really don’t make them like they used to," he chuckled to himself, seemingly unbothered by the howling wind in his ears, and the fact that he was starting to reach his highest point.
He looked around as his tumbling through the sky slowly came to a halt. He’d never seen the world from this high before. He saw mostly sand, but it was still beautiful. In the distance, he could also see the sea.
Sighing, he turned back into human form and retracted his armour back into the armguard on his lower arm. A serene smile graced his now-human lips. Taking a deep breath, he enjoyed the brief moment of floating in the air before the ground would come up to say hi.
Unfortunately, it only lasted a brief second.
"The ability to fly would sure come in handy right now," he muttered, smirking wryly as his body began falling.
Yet, as his body started picking up speed on his return to the city, he didn’t seem bothered. There was no way even his body would remain unharmed from a fall like that, yet Erik didn’t seem to care.
Suddenly, he saw two brightly coloured forms flying up to meet him.
"Then again, being flown around by my wives isn’t so bad either," he grinned knowingly.
