Paramount Magus

The trip to Liberta would take around a week of travel with the caravan, the first day went by very peacefully.

Nothing attacked the caravan and night came quickly, we stopped and made multiple fire's to have a meal and some well needed rest.

The caravan has four carriages, two for goods obviously and the last two are for the merchants group and our mage group, each carriage is led by a rank one twilight mana beast, they're called Terrain Lizard's.

They aren't hostile creatures by nature so they're quite easily tamed, they are an expensive luxury but, the amount of saved time merchants make is well worth the coin.

"So why'd you take this job Sylas?"

Asked the cute girl with blonde hair, Gloria Randoff I believe she said her name was, the fire gave her skin a glowing orange , she looked breath taking if I was being honest.

I shrugged my shoulders.

"I want to attend an academy at Liberta."

Gloria's mouth made an "o" shape and she asked excitingly.

"Do you want to attend one of the tyrants?"

I had an idea what she meant but I checked just to be sure.

"You mean Castor or Pollux?"

She shot back instantly without missing a breath.

"Yes dummy, what other academies would be known as tyrants?"

I guess it was a stupid question, I should really listen to my gut sometimes, still hurts to be scolded for it though.

"Yes I intend to join Castor academy."

She smiled and patted my shoulder.

"Wow, I wish I had that opportunity, most of the graduates from those two become somebody special."

I knew I shouldn't ask a lady for their age, but I was curious.

"How old are you?"

She put her hand on her mouth and back away.

"How foward young man."

I instantly tried to apologize, but was stopped when she put her hand up to shush me.

"I'm joking, it's not an outrageous question from what we were talking about, but I might surprise you with my age."

She had a mischievous smile.

"How old do you think I am? Guess."

I gave my honest guess.

"Twenty two."

She laughed out loud, a genuine laugh.

" No no, not even close. I will be thirty five this year."

I couldn't help but let my jaw drop a little bit, thirty five?

This woman looked to be in her late twenties at the oldest, mana is a strange thing.

"You look my age, maybe a tad older."

Is what I managed to sputter out.

"Oh? How old would that be young magus."

"I'm 16 years old."

This time her jaw dropped a little bit, but I'm not sure why? I look like most sixteen year olds.

Exept maybe for the scars and my muscular build, but they aren't completely visible through my clothes. Well expect the scar on my neck and my forearms, oh and my hands.

Well now that I think about it, I guess quite a few are showing.

"Suprised?"

She nodded.

"I intially thought you'd be around twenty five, I mean with all of those scars you'd fool anyone, but I assumed eighteen or twenty after you told me your plans for attending an Academy, I never would've guessed sixteen."

We continued to have a conversation for a little while before she headed off to get some rest.

Tonight was my turn to have night shift, since I was the lowest rank mage I went first, we were still in docile land the first day, so today is the safest day for me to hold down the fort.

Everyone slowly went to sleep and then it was just me and the darkness, in a weird way I kind of enjoyed it.

It was just me and the stars out at night, with the fire still burning it was a peaceful night, to satiate my boredom I practiced some basic elemental manipulation but nothing too large, I needed to have enough mana if we suddenly got attacked after all.

And then morning came, and the second and third morning came just as peacefully. I got a little closer to the healer named Randy Mackentov in the past couple days, we exchanged some knowledge on our ideals of healing and got along pretty well.

He was a strong man who was very prideful of his advances in the light element, although he didn't compare too Alaric, he was still well above me.

The fourth and fifth day went just as peacefully, then the fifth night came, I was looking foward to it quite a bit, because it was Randy and I who were given the night shift, I was hoping to exchange some more pointers tonight.

The magus group decided to go in groups of two for the last couple days, due to the dangerous environment, but other then a couple wolves and other rank 1 twilight beasts like boars, nothing of particular interest happend.

"Are you excited to join an Academy?"

Randy asked when the night seemed dull.

I thought about his question for a second.

"I guess so? I'm excited about gaining power, and since the academy is where I'll gain that power I'd say I'm pretty excited."

Randy just nodded his head then shot another question out.

"How powerful do you want to be?"

I smirked a little bit and just said.

"Paramount."

He seemed satisfied by that anwser, because he didn't speak for the next hour, after already talking for the majority of the night we came to a silent agreement to just sit there in our own thoughts, that was untill we heard a noise.

At first it was a low grumble, then it got a little louder turning into a hum, and then it started to sound a little fierce, it was getting louder, and whatever it was, it was close.

And soon it was so loud it sounded like an earthquake was upon us.

Randy got up the second he heard the low grumble and instantly screamed at the top of his lungs.

"WAKE UP! WAKE UP! BEAST WAVE!!!"

He took a breath and screamed even louder.

"BEAST WAVE!! EVERYBODY STAY INSIDE AND BRACE!!"

I was confused… Beast wave?!? As in a stampede of beasts?? What the flying fuck is going on?!?

Almost instantly the rest of the magus jumped out and surrounded the caravan in an arrow shaped formation.

Randy turned to me and gave me a short explanation.

"A beast wave is coming to fuck us over, I can't give you all the details, just know we are terribly unlucky. A seemingly endless number of beasts will charge in this direction, but they're not trying to kill us, rather they're trying to escape. They will attempt to get by you, but don't let any no matter what, they'll overrun the caravan and smash it into bits.

It's our responsibility to hold the formation because our lives depends on it, because if you break formation I don't think anyone here could save you in time. And keep in mind you don't have to kill every beast, just redirect them past you."

It was a lot of information for what seemed like an impossible task, but I got the gist of it.

Don't let anything by me unless it's away from the caravan and fight like my life depends on it. Well it does, but that's not the point. I'm good at close quarters combat , I can do this.

"Ok, I'll do what I can."

Is all I could say really, I'm an inexperienced twilight mage, I am not fooling anyone, I'm no hero or saviour, I'm a weak link. Snapping me out of my thoughts the treeline exposed a disgusting amount of beasts tearing their way towards us at breakneck speed.

And in that moment all I could think of was one thing.

Run.

Leave.

Get out of here this instant if I want to live.

But where could I run? If I leave my position I'm as good as dead and so is everybody else.

I realized in that split second that I was weak.

Not just physically, I was mentally weak too. I'm about to fight the hardest fight of my entire life and all I can think about is running for my life, I'm a coward.

This isnt who you are Sylas, focus.

Prove to them through actions who you really are, prove to yourself your who you think you are.

Randy, Gloria and Wick unleashed spells at the incoming wave, Randy cast a wave of earthen spikes that shot at the front line, Gloria followed up with a wind spell that pushed back and stalled the animals that survived long enough for Wick to shoot a fireball that exploded right inbetween the leftover beasts killing them all. They were amazing.

I snapped out of it just in time, the first wave finally reached us and I did what I did best, I stabbed and I sliced, I focused on redirecting the animals to the best of my ability, I circulated my mana to the limit augmenting my body to never seen before heights.

I continued to weave between claws and teeth barley missing my body.

I pushed my mana circulation more, past the limit I set for myself, I knew I could go faster. I just had to will it.

I dodged a claw that was slicing towards my eye, with a side step and pivot on my right foot I cleanly cut off the wolf's head in one strike.

I didn't realize how strong I truly was until this moment, everything seemed to move in slow motion, I could see where the claws and teeth would strike, and I responded with crisp and precise movements.

Everything was going perfectly untill out of the corner of my eye I saw Gloria about to be clawed in the back, she wasn't going to be able to dodge in time.

So I made a calculated sacrifice, I shot wind blades out of my hands. They were weak, pitiful even, they barley made the beast wobble, but it was enough.

Gloria turned around and shot the animal with a blast of wind finishing it in one strike.

It would've been a perfect result if not for the wild boar that stabbed me with its tusk directly through my forearm.

"AHHH FUCK."

Rippling pain shot through my forearm, it felt like I couldn't breathe, I lost the grip of my sword it fell to the ground and instantly got smashed past me.

I pulled the tusk from my forearm and kicked the giant beast away, it continued running past me into the endless swarm.

Shit shit shit.

It hurts so fucking bad.

But I could still keep my mind somewhat focused, the adrenaline was keeping me in the fight.

My forearm was bleeding nonstop, rivers of blood flowed from my arm everytime I punched and kicked and even when I took a breath, although the pain was excruciating it wasn't the worst part, I lost my weapon.

And in this brawl where everything coming at me was sharp and held enough strength to blow me away, losing my weapon was like losing my vision.

Speaking of vision,it went next. Not in its entirety, but it certainly felt like it in this life or death battle.

With one final bite near my neck, the sky went hazy and my vision started to blur, but I continued to fight.

My body moved on instinct, punching kicking and even biting. Whatever I could do to survive.

But without my weapon I couldn't go on for long, I kept getting cuts and brunt hits that almost blew me away.

By this point my body was covered in red, if it was my blood or the blood of the mountain of beasts I've killed only god knows.

And then a miracle happend, the hoard dimmed and after an un traceable amount of time from my internal clock, finally the last beast ran by.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and voices in my ear but I couldn't tell what they were saying, all I heard was muffled voices before my vision went black and my eyes rolled to the back of my head.

End of chapter 8