Celeste led the charge toward the giant black complex, knowing only they were headed right for the very monster that had nearly killed them just days before.
Celeste sensed Typhos walking through the complex. He had an unyielding desire to destroy the planet for its powers, yet she also saw that he had not yet fully healed. It left her with some confidence they could stop him—if they caught him in time.
She saw the opening to the complex and sensed about seven Kastori on the other side. They were positioned as if ready to cast a series of spells, but their powers were weak. She would easily dispose of them without killing them.
“Cyrus.”
“Ready to fight.”
“Hold your sword at the defensive. Don’t go on the attack until we—”
“Please! Stop!”
Celeste, confused, slowly lowered her sword.
“Celeste,” Cyrus whispered. “Are. You. Insane?”
“We don’t want to fight!” a weak voice said. A Kastori wearing white robes approached with his hands raised. “Typhos told us we weren’t allowed to eat or sleep until we healed him entirely. Then he sensed the two of you and told us to… he told us to fight you with our lives. We’re healers. The extent of our black magic is to cook food.”
Celeste looked with pity. Was this what Typhos was reduced to doing? Sucking the spirits out of people before their bodies gave out?
“We only served him because we lived in fear of him. If we rebelled, we would be killed. I swear it, please.”
“All of you, come forward,” Celeste said firmly.
The six other Kastori came out, their hands raised. All of them looked like they hadn’t eaten or slept in days. They all moved in an uncoordinated fashion, and a couple looked on the verge of passing out.
This was not a threat in the slightest. The only threat was in wasting time.
“We had a man come to Monda and nearly kill one of our allies,” Cyrus said. “He said he was—”
“Phylus,” the man at the front said. “Yes. He never wavered in his support for Typhos. He was also the only one fed and given a chance to sleep. But you can look at the rest of us—”
“And are there any others like him here?” Cyrus said. “Any other—”
“Cyrus,” Celeste said firmly. A quick sense showed Typhos had now reached a giant room—presumably the operations room—and was walking toward an open hole. “We don’t have time to discuss things. I’m sending you all back to Monda. Surrender and provide information to anyone who requests it. Some will call you magicologists and want to hurt you, but they will not kill you. Understood?”
“Yes,” the Kastori said in unison. “Thank you.”
Celeste closed her eyes and quickly teleported them outside the temple on Monda. The entire process took only three seconds, and as soon as she opened her eyes, she motioned for Cyrus to follow her. She would follow up with them later.
“I have a feeling your sympathetic approach is going to get someone killed,” Cyrus said as the two carefully made their way through the darkened hallways littered with destroyed machinery.
“Did you look at them?” Celeste said in disbelief. “Cyrus, they need help. They are no more a threat than a human without a gun.”
Cyrus coughed and swore in response. Celeste ignored him while also trying to ignore the foul stench of death. It gave her no feeling of strength to so easily look past the surrounding massacre; she would have a time and place to mourn after.
Eventually, they made their way into the operations room. Many screens still functioned, and when Celeste approached one, she saw what looked like a formula for turning magic into an actual substance, which could then enhance different machinery.
“Cyrus,” she said, her eyes never leaving the computer screen. “Look at this. The humans here… they figured out how to combine magic with technology.”
For once, Cyrus was speechless. He was gazing in awe at the scientific processes evident on the paperwork and screens around him.
The two examined many screens. One showed how a human could enhance firepower with different magic spells, much as Pagus and Reya had for the two Orthrans during the great battle with Calypsius. Another showed how to control for extreme temperatures, allowing them to adjust the temperature in the compound in a flash.
Celeste realized this was the great equalizer. What the Orthranian Empire had had to learn through trial-and-error, they could now learn through a single research project. It could make the humans like Kastori.
Suddenly, if they did not stop Typhos here, this had to be saved.
“We need to take this data,” Celeste said.
“At the expense of stopping Typhos?” Cyrus said incredulously.
“One minute,” Celeste said. “Take everything you can in that time.”
She rummaged through all the computers, taking every device she could physically fit in her hand. As she grabbed the devices, she saw notes with file names that provoked great curiosity—magical weaponry, environmental magic, dragon blood, elemental magic, and more. She stuck it down the sides of her boots, having nowhere else to put it, and hoped that whatever she collected could help them later.
The possibilities surged through her mind—but then she felt something.
An extreme rise in heat.
“Celeste,” Cyrus said, his voice sounding like a warning.
“We have enough,” Celeste said.
She hoped.
She ran to the opening and saw an empty elevator shaft. There were no ropes, and the darkness prevented her from seeing how far down she had to go.
“You need to come down here, now.”
Celeste did not recognize the voice. At first, she imagined it as a trick of Typhos. She resolved to figure out how best to descend.
“This is no trick, child. I am Nubia. Come down before Typhos destroys us all.”
Suddenly, a flash of images appeared, showing the history of the planet. In real time, the entire thing might have taken two seconds, but Celeste felt she could see everything from the natural creation of it to the embedded magic some thousands of years ago to the recent colonization by the Orthranian Empire. The level of detail the images showed, including a view of scientists studying the machines extracting magic, was astonishing.
It was far too detailed for Typhos to create, especially if he was distracted.
“We are coming,” she said.
She grabbed Cyrus’ hand and forced them to jump without thinking. Sure enough, her magical instincts kicked in, compelling her to descend at a much safer rate. Seconds later, they landed as if having jumped only two feet off the ground.
“Next time, tell me that is going to happen,” Cyrus said.
But Celeste ignored him. Ahead, she felt an energy vastly greater than anything she had ever experienced. She didn’t wait for Cyrus to rise as she sprinted down the hall and down the slope in pursuit of Typhos.
She came to it immediately. A thick core, with the magical symbol from Anatolus on it. It was… throbbing, like a heartbeat. It was the literal heart of the planet.
Then the core split open, and she saw Typhos’ back to her, his sword raised.
“Typhos!”
But her scream went unheeded.
He plunged his sword into the planet.
“No!”
The entire planet began shaking violently, an earthquake far stronger than she had ever felt on Monda.
“I am absorbing the power of this world!” Typhos yelled with cackling laughter, loud enough to be heard even over the tremors of Nubia. “I command the power to destroy entire planets!”
“Typhos!” Cyrus yelled as he charged, his sword aloft. “You die first!”
Celeste, fearful that he was running into a death trap, screamed for him.
But to her surprise, Typhos had gotten so wrapped up in the spell that he ignored Cyrus until the last possible second. He ducked under Cyrus’ sword, but Cyrus’ momentum tackled Typhos to the ground. Celeste ran over and yanked Typhos’ sword out of the ground. The tremors stopped, but she heard a great groan from the planet.
“The triumvirate of magical planets is the greatest force in the universe,” Nubia said in a clearly weakened voice. “The spirit of Typhos seeks annihilation. Conquest. Control. Celeste, you must stop him. If not, you must claim the other two worlds to offset his strength.”
“Typhos! Stop this madness!”
Typhos shoved Cyrus off him with a powerful red magic spell, sending him sprawling across the room. To Celeste’s shock, when he extended his arm, he yanked the black sword out of her hand, and it flew into his hand. And that was not even Nubia’s particular magic—he had just developed the magic on his own.
“You two have caused me so much aggravation!” he yelled. “Did you think I would be stopped by you two children? Do you think your presence will prevent me from absorbing all that this planet offers?”
Six giant fireballs appeared from different spots in the room, hurtling toward Typhos, the planet fighting back. But with disturbing ease, Typhos cast a sudden ice spell that not only froze the fireballs, it also turned the entire room into a sheet of ice.
“He has already absorbed much of my power. Celeste… Take your brother and go.”
“It is over!” Typhos said with laughter. “I control the elements of this planet! Die!”
He cast a powerful fire spell at Celeste, which she barely evaded. He cast another one, and it caught the backside of Celeste. Though it did not damage her, she definitely knew a more accurately placed spell would incinerate her.
“Waste of time,” Typhos said. “I will destroy this planet and you with it.”
He lifted his sword once more and swung it into the planet. The shaking resumed. The planet…
It was collapsing on itself.
“Unlimited… power!” Typhos yelled.
Cracks formed in the ground. Dust fell from the ceiling, which turned into pebbles falling. Typhos laughed as he withdrew his sword.
“I have gotten what I need. This planet is beyond saving, and you will die with it. Farewell, pests.”
Seconds later, he disappeared.
“Cyrus!” Celeste yelled. “We have to get out of here!”
“Monda… go… there,” the planet said, in its last gasps. “He… Anatolus… go.”
Celeste grabbed her brother’s arm and hugged him tight. She concentrated on teleporting them back to Monda. A giant crack formed between their legs, and the ground split where they stood.
And then it did not move.
Celeste opened her eyes. She was back on Monda. But then she felt a sickening pain.
She collapsed to her knees, closing her eyes and turning a telepathic gaze onto Nubia. The planet crumbled on itself, turning into molten rock about a third the size of what it had been. For a few precious seconds, it looked like a darkened fireball, perhaps yet saved.
Then, without warning, it exploded, billions of pieces scattering into outer space.
“No!”
But she knew she could do nothing. Typhos now had the greatest black magic in the universe.
