Ferro tries to stand, but his body moves strangely. The weight that he had shrugged off just before presses down on him now with a new force. He twists, trying to shift to his hand, finding some strength left there. Knees buckle beneath his weight. Gasping, his hands run over his chest. He feels the touch of bone beneath his iron fingers. His breath hitches, pieces of his lungs torn away. Ferro looks about, where is a good bag of blood when you need one?

The sand begins to rise, coming back to its creator from throughout the block. It filters up in a sparkling display, black grains of massless matter falling up into the sky, leaving behind glinting blades of gold stabbed into the earth. The cloud buzzes as it rises over Danfalla, a pulse like a heartbeat touching the air. He gazes up, seeing her there, a winged woman eclipsing the blood moon, bathed in its ethereal glow.

Transfixed, Ferro pushes harder against the force focused upon him, making it to one knee as his body tries to piece itself back together. It is so much harder now for some reason. Whatever she hit him with preventing the creation of new flesh. All he can do is watch as streams of the dark material gather around her like a rippling river.

Light flashes through the cloud, a pure white radiance that pools into a budding orb. Light runs through the black dust, collecting as motes of mana are brought together to form a single point of radiance no larger than a robin's egg, one that burns with an intense mana. She reaches out, taking the orb of light between her two fingers, holding it up to illuminate her face. Then, Charlene, the woman hovering above the ruined schoolhouse, tilts her head back, opening her mouth and putting the ball of magic into her mouth. Ferro watches her throat bulge as she swallows it.

She closes her eyes, letting loose a long breath, the cloud of dust around her rippling like skin touched by a chilly breeze. Charlene gasps, and the dust begins to sink into her and adhering to her skin. A cloak of black grains covers her for a moment, the only thing left bare her head, before it begins to light with magic, magic of the same pallor as the ball of light she swallowed. Details in the grooves of the dark material covering her body stand out as the magic ripples to form a faux soul presence whipping in the air about her. If Ferro didn't know better, he would think she were covered in scales, scales lighting up with the same flavor of magic as his own.

"So, this is your dream?" Charlene asks, her strange eyes turned down toward him.

Slowly, he feels himself pulling back together, making himself whole once more. There must be a reason that she didn't use that strange tan fire on him before. It is deadly, incredibly so, but perhaps there is some limitation. Ferro feels the pressure of her soul pressing down on him, feels that instinct inside him telling him to resist, knows for certain that there must be a way to overcome this new trial, and that if he does, he will be stronger for it.

"I don't think I like it. I was better without one, because now that I have it, now that I want it, something, I know where I am going. It is time for you to wake up, Ferro. When you're dead, when I've killed every last one of your kind on this planet, maybe I will wake up too. It will all just be a bad dream then," she says. There is something in her tone, something in the lack of emotion on her face that entrances him. He can't look away.

Why even waste my breath? The power of my new affix floods over me, the throne's influence empowering my body and soul, my soul flooding mana into my veins. I knew it the moment it appeared on my soul, the blinding runic star, the sword affix. Of course it is.

I move forward, propelling myself by manipulating the black dust I have soaked into my body, by the thin layer adhered to my skin, and attuned to sword mana. My speed is greater this way, greater than even I predicted it might be.

The monster's one eye opens wide as I land before him, my empowered fist coming up to hit him in the uncovered side of his face. Not fast enough. His hand flashes up, my fist smashing into his palm as he catches my strike. I feel his strength as his hand crushes down onto mine, feeling the bones in my fingers begin to fracture under the pressure, but my hand doesn't buckle. Even so close, standing inside his soul presence, I don't lose control of the black dust running through me, fused to the energy pathways spreading through my body, soaking into the walls of the tiny channels that touch every part of me. Inside my body, I have total control, even when his will contests my own. As my body breaks, I ignore the pain, the fractures through my fingers healing as fast as they are formed.

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His magic floods into my hand, or at least it tries to. I have his measure now, understand how he creates swords from nothing. The power is so simple, really. This monster merely floods whatever he touches with an overpowering amount of sword mana, forcing the substance to be stripped of its native being, overwritten with his power. Ferro's magic washes over my hand, flooding into the scales of steel-colored dust I wear like a suit of armor, like the scales of a dragon. Like mana meets like, and the monster's power is diffused over my body.

I only allow the monster a moment to register his impotence before my knee comes up to meet the broken and exposed chest of the horror. At the moment of impact, mana floods into my appendage, emerald dragonfire exploding from the point of contact. My leg shatters as I swing it with far more force than my body can bear, as I manipulate myself with the dust. As it shatters, more fractures running through my thigh and hip, muscles tearing apart, it stitches itself back together.

The collision is awesome. The monster folds forward as it is launched through the building behind it, a trail of emerald dragonfire searing a path through the air behind it. I don't stop, throwing my body forward with all my strength, catching up to the monster before it can make its third bounce across the dirt. My foot shatters as I plant a scaled foot into its face, my ankle and something in its neck snapping as another emerald explosion of dragonfire spins it across the ground.

Doing this, controlling my body through the sand, pushing my recovery so far, is burning my remaining mana at an incredible rate. I doubt I even have a minute.

Trying to follow through, I stumble in my first step forward, my vision starting to swim. My dislocated foot twists in the socket as I put weight on it, my body screaming at me to stop, but I don't listen. My soul presence snaps back to me, drawing close as I put all of my focus into controlling my body, into finishing this.

There is just enough time to turn aside as a flying dagger comes at me faster than any before. Despite the dust covering me like armor, despite the strength my body has attained, the simple dagger of iron cuts a line across my face, barely a drop of blood falling to roll down my cheek before the laceration seals itself.

When I turn my eyes on the monster, blinking away the blur in my sight, I see it there, lying on the ground, its head at a strange angle and its arms raised in the final motions of its throw. The metal plate covering its face is gone now, revealing the blonde monster beneath, its face and hair covered in its blood. It doesn't smile at me anymore. No, not anymore, not ever again.

Dizziness prevents me from pushing myself to the speed I showed earlier. I walk, feeling the torn ground beneath my feet, approaching Ferro as he lies on the broken street. Understanding washes over him, and he begins to push away from me, his hands reaching out, touching the stones as he backs away. He starts babbling something, trying to play on my emotions, but I can't bring myself to even decipher the words. What would they matter anyway? No, I'm too busy watching as it pours a bit of its magic into a few of the cobbles as it drags its body away. It must think I'm an idiot.

"You don't have to do this!" Ferro says, scooting away. His legs won't work right; maybe I broke something in his neck. "You don't have to do this! My name is Di–"

"Burn." My hand before his face, a jet of emerald fire pours from my fingers. A curtain of green pours over the monster, seeping into his shattered chest, invading and infecting the exposed pieces of him beneath his skin. As the inferno pours forth, the ground and even the building behind the monster charring and coming apart beneath the corrosive onslaught, it begins to scream inside the blaze.

I listen, my magical gaze piercing through the inferno, watching as its body twists, spikes of iron growing along its skin and being melted just as fast. Its body continues to writhe, growing, changing, but the fire does not cease. The sound stops as the air within the flames is ripped apart, the writing grows shallower, slowing to mere twitches. Yet, I don't stop, not until my knees start to buckle, until I hit the cobbles and I have to catch myself on my hands to keep from falling over.

Black dust falls out of me like I were made of it, forming a shallow pool in my shadow, naturally starting to fuse with the ground around me. I heave for breath, straining, my vision narrowed to the curtain of crimson hair falling in front of my face. Strength returns quickly, my grasp on the power of the throne not relenting. I know as soon as I let go of this empowered state, nothing will be able to keep me conscious. I have to stay awake, damn the consequences.

Pushing back, forcing myself to at least sit straight as I kneel on the street, I turn my eyes on the monster. There he is, the creature that called itself Ferro, a charred black corpse curled in on itself in the middle of the road. Everything around it for a wide arc stands bare, the street itself scorched smooth and covered in dust. For thirty feet past where Ferro's body lies, there is nothing, just a path of destruction.

It is dead. Galea does not come, doesn't notify me about my success, but I know it to be dead. I haven't had long to wonder, but the question did come to me. Why the throne of war, why would it pick me? Why wouldn't it? We are at war, aren't we, always have been with these evil creatures that we call monsters? They just show up and kill people; they enjoy it. No one has done anything about it, put a lasting end to it. Maybe I can somehow.

That point exists, a final spot where people don't have to fear the night anymore. I can dream about that. No, I have to dream about that. Why can't I do it?

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