The Rifts of Psyche by Kyle West (i love reading .txt) 📕

thankfully it didn’t sink in deep. It was those long fangs he had to be worried about. They carried venom. One bite, and it would all be over.

Lucian twirled the spear, feeling severely out of practice. He held his Focus, until it was only him and Serah, their spears, and the approaching monsters.

“Go,” he told Serah. “I’ll hold them off.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “Neither of us are making it. Let’s just make it a fight to remember.”

They stood back-to-back, Serah with her spear of bronze, and Lucian his spear of graphene. He branded a light sphere above them, hoping he was doing it right. If he could give them light while blinding these beasts, it might make a difference. He kept the Dynamistic stream open, channeling the excess electricity into his spear. If he could brand Dynamistic Magic at the point of the spear, he need not stab every bat that neared him – he merely had to shock them dead. But Dynamism was his weakest Aspect, and he knew holding a Dynamistic brand along with a Radiance brand might be well beyond his abilities.

Lucian had no choice but to overdraw. He opened his Focus, pulling fresh ether from the Manifold. His body sizzled with fire, the pain only offset by the euphoria of raw power. Lucian rebranded the light sphere above them, while pooling the rest of his ether into a Dynamistic brand at the point of his sphere. Lightning streamed from his hand, its jagged fingers collecting at the spear point.

From next to him, Serah’s spear glowed red with heat. It seemed she had set a Thermal brand that would burn any bat that touched it to a crisp.

They had done everything they could do. As Serah had said, all that was left was to make it a fight to remember.

He began by shocking an incoming bat, an ugly thing with wide, leathern wings and buggy red eyes. Lightning sizzled along its furry body, making it go rigid as it crashed past Lucian’s feet. The things were slow and clumsy, but there were just so many of them, with hundreds of pairs of eyes glowing in the darkness beyond. Two more gloombats materialized from the inky black. Lucian dealt with one by swinging his spear and unleashing a small fork of lightning, and the other by thrusting his spear outward, impaling it.

A bat pelted him from overhead, the silvery aura surrounding it signifying that it had been brought down by Serah’s Gravitonic Magic. Another gloombat flapped madly from the darkness, its fangs trained on Serah’s neck. Lucian thrust his spear forward, spearing it right through its furry abdomen. He flicked the beast off his spear, turning to face a new threat – three more bats converging on him from the darkness.

“Stand back!” Serah shouted.

Serah raised her left hand, which became wreathed in fire. Magic collected there for a moment before being released in a vortex of spinning, fiery heat, igniting all three bats in flame. They flapped madly as they spiraled to the ground.

But for all the bats they killed, more appeared. And the rising din of screeches would only draw more to their position.

“I’m running low on ether,” Serah said. “And I’ve already overdrawn.”

Lucian reached for the Orb again, in vain. It was as if it weren’t there at all.

As dozens of gloombats regrouped in the darkness, Lucian knew it was over.

The gloombats dove with reckless abandon. Lucian attempted to stream, but only a paltry amount of ether could be focused, as most of it was tied up in his brands. And with the Orb useless, it would be nowhere near enough to push back the tide.

It seemed unreal that he was about to die in this forsaken darkness. It couldn’t be real. But as his eyes met Serah’s one last time, he realized that she knew the truth, too. It was over.

Just as Lucian was about to say his final goodbye, Fergus was at his side – bloodied and bruised, but his face fierce and the bronze tip of his spear flecked with blood. It seemed a vision out of some dream.

Lucian gave a crazed laugh. “Where in the rotting hell were you?”

At that moment, Cleon stepped up with his own spear, red-hot at its tip. He pointed it at two diving gloombats, instantly incinerating them both.

“Play with fire, and you get burned,” he said.

“Took you two long enough,” Serah said.

At that moment, Lucian realized it was not just them. At least a dozen other people stood behind them, all ghostly pale and wearing tattered clothing. Most bore old spears, but others held axes and hammers. But almost all of them, if not all of them, were using magic. Thermal Magic, Dynamistic Magic, Radiant Magic. It was a storm of magic unleashed at the bat invasion. A particularly crazed-looking man with a halo of white hair and mottled, frayed skin leaped onto a nearby rock. He had no weapon but the magic in his hands, which were wreathed in reddish light.

No, not red. Orange. Lucian’s skin went cold.

“Die, you rotting, batty bastards!” he yowled.

He laughed manically as his hands became molten and balled into fists.

“Run!” someone shouted.

There was no time to think. After exchanging a look with Serah, Lucian bounded after the rest of the frays. They leapt over rocks, across crevices, climbed cliffs. Lucian chanced a look back to see the old man wreathed in an aura of orange. And that aura was expanding outward. The screams of dying gloombats sent chills down his spine. They were falling in droves.

The very air seemed to change, warming and . . . tightening. There wasn’t a better way to conceive of it. It was as if all energy were being drawn toward that man, being focused into that orange aura, which was glowing brighter and brighter. And then, there was a sudden, blinding flash, followed by a couple of seconds of silence.

And then a rumble and an explosion so loud and fierce that it