The palace trembled with a thunderous roar echoing through the building. The ground shook beneath our feet as we exchanged fierce looks of determination before moving out of that spirits-forsaken room.
We slammed the loud door shut behind us, running down the stone tunnels until we reached the stairwell that led up to where the distant sounds of monsters permeated the air.
"This isn't just afewmonsters." Sweat beaded on Fawn's forehead as her eyes glowed blue, showing that she was using her spirit vision. She shook her head, and her eyes dimmed back to normal. "There's an entire horde of different types of monsters, not even from this empire, attacking the guards and everyone else in the vicinity. I don't know what Matthieu was doing out here, but it's clear that he's bringing the Revivium Empire down." She shook her head, her face contorted in confusion and anger.
"The Revivium Empire didn't want world power," Silas realized. "Matthieu did."
Silence hung in the air around us as we swallowed that news, and then we rushed up the staircase with the intention of getting out of this monster-infested palace.
As we raced through the labyrinth of corridors, we encountered gruesome monsters roaming the palace.
It was a thousand times worse than I thought it would be. Chaos unfolded in every room. Monsters attacked the guards, and the guards were barely able to fight back. There weren't very many of them left. The monsters were winning this battle by a landslide.
Silas screamed at a dementid that was facedown in a guard's guts still eating, and he conjured a swirling vortex that swallowed up the monster, drowning it and pushing water through its mouth until it stopped thrashing.
Fawn threw out a hand, flames dancing at her fingertips as she channeled her fire power and ignited a nearby group of ice wraiths that were set on killing a small group of surviving guards.
Casper and Jasper studied each other before their dark and light wisps started slicing and whacking away at different monsters with fierce and brutal accuracy.
Bastian tossed potions left and right, nullifying, if not killing, the monsters.
I raised my hands, causing the ground to tremble as massive stone pillars erupted from the floor and smashed into a glidaton that was screaming and spewing acid near another surviving guard that was huddled in a corner next to a few of his dead friends.
My heart pounded with adrenaline and anticipation as we went on like that, moving through the extravagant bloody halls and rooms until we finally made it to the foyer.
But things took a turn for the worst.
A glidaton sprung out of an open door and bit off Casper's arm, and took a chunk out of Jasper's leg right afterward.
"Fuck!" Jasper shouted.
"Bastian!" Casper looked for our potion mage.
Bastian went to pull healing potions out of his rune, but a spewing stream of acid splashed over his back, eating his robes and burning his skin as he cried out and landed on his knees.
Silas rushed to his side, but he got knocked out of the way by the tail of a grockett, and all of the bigger monsters started to close in on us.
Pain bloomed at the back of my head with a loud crack, and I fell to the ground, my cheek connecting with the slippery, bloody marble.
I glanced up to see the most heart-wrenching view of my life."Fawn!"
Collective shock stunned down the bond.
Matthieu held Fawn with his arm around her throat and his other arm around her waist, clutching her body to his. "I told you I wasn't that easy to get rid of, sweet mage."
20
FAWN
Matthieu's fingersbit into my chin as he forced my face toward him, and the vial in his hand pumped adrenaline through my veins. My head reeled back and slammed into his.
His grip on me loosened, and I used wind magic to shove him away from me and me away from him at the same time to gain more distance from him.
Each one of my bonded mages rushed in front of me to take the brunt of whatever Matthieu was going to throw next as I shifted into my spirit vision.
Matthieu was dead. There wasn't any way he could bemoredead. So how the spirits was he back in one piecealive?
I examined his spirit, that still had not budged an inch from his vessel. It was unheard of for a spirit to be so attached to the vessel, but I've never heard of a mage able to come back to a completely demolished vessel before.
