Paragon of Destruction

Arran's Sense recovered quickly once he left the city. While the pressure of Essence inside the city had temporarily desensitized him, the effect began to subside within a day after he left the formation, and within a week, his Sense was completely restored.

Worried as he was about Snowcloud, the fast recovery brought him little comfort. It had already been nearly a month since she was supposed to return, and still, there was no sign of her.

Several times, he was on the verge of setting off in search of her. If nothing else, it might relieve the feeling of helplessness that weighed on him as he waited outside the city walls.

That had also been his original plan — to go off in search of Snowcloud the moment his Sense had recovered, doing whatever was needed to track her down and find her.

Yet after he gave it more thought, he reluctantly decided against it.

He hardly knew anything about the region, and he had foolishly neglected to ask Snowcloud where she planned to search for the spirit crystals. Without so much as a direction to guide him, searching for her might take months or years, if he found her at all.

As much as he hated it, his best choice was to remain outside the city and wait, hoping that she would return on her own. Even if it made him feel useless, it was far more likely to see them reunited than leaving on a blind chase.

With nothing to do but wait, Arran spent his days studying the seal on his Destruction Realm. Training in the city had given him a small taste of how he could strengthen his resistance to magic, and if Elder Naran was right, once he unsealed his Destruction Realm he could strengthen himself further.

Eventually, the Elder had told him, even powerful mages would find it difficult to injure him, and even Grandmasters would fear his potential. While he was still far removed from that point, his experience in the city made him think the Elder's words might actually be true.

But to benefit from his Destruction Realm, he would first need to unseal it. And although he had made some small progress in understanding the seal, he was still far away from being able to break it.

Several weeks passed as Arran remained outside the city, divided his time between working on the seal and anxiously looking to see if there was any sign of Snowcloud.

His work on the seal got some small results. It was clear that breaking it would take him months of dedicated work, but he knew that he was steadily getting closer to understanding it. All he needed was a place to quietly work on it for several months, and he thought he should be able to unravel it.

Yet Arran's main concern was Snowcloud, and of her, there was still no sign.

With each day that passed, his hope that she would return grew weaker, and his urge to leave in search of her grew stronger. The only thing that still held him back was the knowledge that if he left, she might return to find him gone, and it could be many months before they found each other.

Still, as time went by, Arran grew increasingly certain that something had gone terribly wrong. Finally, he could bear no more, and he resolved to leave the city and scour the region for Snowcloud. No matter how long it took, he would find her. And if someone had harmed her…

He quickly abandoned the thought, afraid that just thinking it might make it true. For now, he would not abandon his hopes of finding her unharmed.

But then, the day before Arran was planning to leave, he saw a robed figure emerge from the tree line.

For a moment, he stood unmoving, half expecting the figure to be some stranger. He had already come close to giving up hope that Snowcloud would return, and now, he had trouble believing it was really her.

Yet he recognized both the robe and the figure, and when the shock wore off, he realized that it was really her. She had returned.

He rushed over immediately, his heart thumping in his chest as he crossed the distance between them with bounding strides. As she saw him approach, her pace quickened as well, and just moments later they were in each other's arms, their bodies entwined in a tight hug.

For several moments they stood silently, relief flooding Arran to the point that it left him speechless. Briefly, the control he had so carefully built up was gone, and it was all he could do to hold her in his arms as tightly as he could.

Snowcloud was the first to break their embrace, and when she did, Arran took a closer look at her. The sight instantly filled him with worry. She looked tired to the point of exhaustion, and he could see a trace of panic in her expression.

Moreover, he now saw that her face bore several new scars. There was a fully healed scar across her eyebrow, and a newer one across her cheek, fresh enough to still be red. It seemed she had faced serious danger while he had been training in the city.

Before Arran could say anything, Snowcloud spoke.

"You have to leave," she said, a tremble in her voice. "They will be here soon, and you have to go before they arrive."

"They? Who are you talking about?" Arran asked, concern now replacing the relief he had felt moments earlier. "And what happened to you? Are you all right?"

She shook her head. "There's no time to explain. I'm being chased by a group of mages, several dozens at least, and they'll be here soon." A pained expression came over her face. "I shouldn't have come here, but I wanted to see you one last—"

"Those mages, how strong are they?" Arran interrupted her. He understood there was trouble, and the first thing they would have to do was solve it. After that, there would be time to talk.

"Their strength isn't the problem," she replied, resignation in her voice. "Although they're only barely as strong as the weaker Shadowflame novices, there are far too many for us to fight." She cast a fearful look at the tree line, as if she expected her pursuers to appear at any moment. "You should leave right now. There's still time for you to escape."

Despite Snowcloud's fearful state, Arran breathed a sigh of relief at her words. He had feared Snowcloud's enemies might be adepts, or even more powerful. Had that been the case, he would have struggled to find a way out of the situation.

But if their enemies were only barely on par with novices, there was nothing to worry about.

"We don't need to escape," he said, a confident smile forming on his face as he spoke.

Snowcloud gave him a questioning look. "You have a plan?"

Arran nodded. "I do. And a good one, at that."

A glimmer of hope appeared in Snowcloud's tired eyes. "What is it?"

"We'll wait until they get here, and then I'll kill them all."