The air above ruined Porgus trembled with energy. Before her loomed the incredible frame of Gorath, a great, jagged beast, half asleep, dormant power coursing through it. All around her, the sound of crashing water and quaking land propelled by the beast's gnashing jaws and roaring voice.
The Grand Mage—Seraphine Windrow—stood alone in the face of chaos. Her emerald robes, hugged by the wind, rippled and wrinkled like grass in a storm. Years of relaxed study shone in her calm eyes. She breathed in wind, passing through memories of the past shifting through the debris of the ruined port.
With one hand she shaped a shield of swirling air around the scattered survivors—knights, mages, and even some wounded civilians—to hold back falling timber and swirling shards of mana. With her other hand she summoned bolts of wind-whipped lightning, twisting and bright blurs of power leaping out in sharp arcs into the colossal foe.
Every bolt struck at Gorath's thick hide—with boisterous roars and resentful recoil. The beast merely slumped its head and regarded Seraphine as if she were a bug to dust off. The lightning fizzled harmlessly across Gorath's waterproof scales, lost like sparks on stone.
Even with her breathtaking talent as a seven-star wind mage, Seraphine felt she faced a stalemate. Each gust of wind, or spiraling vortex died against the mass of the monster.
And with every instant that she played the role of protector, the winged beast's minions fell, showering death as they snatched up fleeing knights. She summoned blasts of wind and shields, their impact barely murmuring beneath the oncoming tsunami of violence.
From her backside the ropes of panic pulled tighter as beasts descended. The sky blackened and the battlefield transformed into a swirling maelstrom of claws and roars.
Tears of rage were filling her eyes. She knew this being would annihilate every last glint of hope unless she, too, unleashed a storm.
She began to draw power from mana, voice rising in an spell of ages. She traced bright glowing green runes with her arms and frozen breath.
Suddenly, the sky responded.
A circle of glowing runes appeared in the clouds above her, burning like emerald fire. The circle spread, darkening the port and sea into a deep luminous twilight—a magical and windy eclipse, otherworldly in nature.
A huge tornado began to bloom from the center—a column of green wind that pulled in debris, water, and mana. The roar of the vortex was louder than any other sound, and in the face of tremendous power, Seraphine focused her own spirit to align with her body.
Her nose began to bleed—a sign of how much she had wished to draw from herself.
Gorath roared from behind the gate as well, recognizing the maelstrom that was now in motion. It hurled mana in a geyser of power—a wave of unquenchable distress energy that could go nowhere but to destroy.
But the maelstrom ripped it forward, mocking its fury—sucking it into the center of itself, spinning it in an inward position. The blast would fly around the interior of the tornado in rings, crackling, but at the core could not be contained by the wind which devoured mana itself.
Seraphine held her arms up above her head into the warm winds of tornacity, hair whipping upward like ribbons of prayer, tears streaming down her face as fingers of chaos drew her toward filled in depression. The vortex began to spin faster, yet it was no longer chaotic; it was now calm and controlled and with every thrum all of the green runes burned with more vigor in their depth.
Gorath charged forward, each step dripping with so much water that it swung hammers across the docks. Seraphine stood as still as stone.
The tornado engulfed and wrapped around the beast, desperately peeling and pulling plate upon plate of mana heavy flesh and lightning hot afterburn off of Gorath's body. The beast howled in anguish as pieces of flesh and its scales began to be pulled up from the ground, starting from its feet up to its chest.
The noise was like mountains breaking. Striations of green lightning flickered through the vortex, converging at a singularity.
And then— for the first time—a singular crackle of silence.
Gorath's roar break to a jagged scream, and then silence. The tornado held it, formin sealed in magic. The spiral writhed down until it drew its remains up into the clouds, leaving only a charred core of crackling mana drifting translucent foam and silence.
The tornado collapsed in upon itself like the dying leaf and faded green runes dispeared one by one.
Seraphine stumbled foreword, trembling in all of her muscles, reached out and put a trembling hand on the smoldering core—warm and pulsing like a dying star.
Her knees buckled, her legs fell as if there were bones in the smelted steel and the cooled stones.
Beyond, far away, rumbling thunder roared as the gate's rift began to constrict. Winged beasts fell or retreated; some survivors gasped, jaws agape; others looked merely bewildered.
She shut her eyes, gasping for air and mercy—for herself and the world that had endured the fury of a godlike torment.
Then came the soft ripple of presence—quieter than the wind, calmer than the sea.
She opened her eyes and saw him hovering inches from the wreckage: tall, in an ice-blue cloak, eyes like lightning flaring in quiet skies. His white hair caught stray embers of magic in the dying light.
The air surrounding him was crackling with little arcs of electricity. As purple stormclouds formed in his aura, he lifted his hand. A thousand bolts of lightning arced outward, each one striking a winged beast fleeing in terror. They shattered midair like glass.
Within moments, the remaining creatures had fled.
The great sky was cleared. Lightning stopped and the sun shone a little brighter. He glided down next to her, scanning the ruined port with silent eyes.
He knelt, his cloak spilled out beneath him. In a softened voice he asked, "Is this... the core?"
She opened her mouth, but her voice would not come. She simply nodded, tears of relief and exhaustion tracing paths down her face.
As she fell unconscious, he caught her, running a hand through her hair. Then he hefted—effortlessly—the monstrous core. It shrank in his palm, the mana folding tight until it was the size of a stone.
He stood there, carrying it with grave solemnity. He looked at the broken port—the knights and mages grouped, huddled together in shock—before looking at the sprawling chaos of ruined ships and shattered piers.
His face seemed to express nothing, a storm-eyed calm. Lightning danced in his cloak and hair as he set his eyes upon the devastation.
Somewhere, deep in the wreckage of magic and metal, the storm had passed. All was silent.
Above them, the rift of the gate had disappeared.