The Star Of Annihilation

The Star of Annihilation

Chapter 9 – Ferneth (1)

Written by : eleven

* * *

Long before the Empire had been established, there were 5 continents in the world. The Empire had been established later on in the Northern Continent after several wars with the kingdoms that had popped up within it.

During these days, magical science and mastery of weapons and combat were a necessity in the Northern continent. 

This was referred to as the golden age of magical development. Several Archmages had popped up in different kingdoms and there were a good number of 8-star Grand Wizards in the continent. It had begun a new era where magical might was an absolute necessity for a kingdom’s strength and research about 9-stars was widely talked about.

During this time, Ferneth was still a human 5-star Wizard. He had just gotten certified as a 5-star, graduating from the mage status entering the area of Wizards and Archmages.

He had been traveling across the continent in search of something very particular.

He had been chasing traces of a lost civilization that had left behind sites containing profound arcane runes and knowledge.

During these days, he had eventually started to draw several dots together as he felt that he was finally onto a trail to finding the descendants of this civilization.

His studies had brought him to travel away from the Northern Continent. 

There were 5 continents in the world, yet none of them knew of the other continent’s existences. However very few in number actually did know. 

Ferneth did not know there was another continent until he had found certain traces and records showing that there was.

He gone in search of the Central Continent via ship, and was incredibly excited at the leads he could follow. Ferneth was looking into the secrets of immortality, and had found that Necromancy, a looked-down upon branch of magic in the Northern Continent, was well accepted in this foreign continent and had extensive research done on it. 

… however things never went as planned. In fact, when he had thought he arrived on the central continent, there was nothing but ruin. The entire earth was scorched, in ruin, and craters were abundant. It was as if God had suddenly punished a land and deemed it to be doomed to hell.

Ferneth during this time still didn’t give up and desperately searched for answers. He eventually found some records and grimoires that were half intact as he scoured the land while surviving on barely edible food that could be found in some of the abandoned cities.

He had reached 6-stars during his travels, and would have qualified to become a certified Archmages back home, but his time was almost up and his end was coming near. In a desperate attempt after years and years of scouting this abandoned land, he found traces to a cave that was used by a 8-star Grand Wizard that claimed to have almost reached 9-stars.

Ferneth was shocked when he arrived in the cave as he had found several books and even something known as soul magic; the transfer of one’s own soul instead of manipulating the undead. It was something that would be groundbreaking in the Northern Continent as the few necromancers still alive back home would be able to only manipulate the souls of the dead and never a living soul.

But what else he found, left him… disturbed.

Amongst his two decades spent roaming the continent, he had found some clues as to what had happened to damn this continent completely, but never found concrete records.

The partial records up to that point that he had found referred the them as the ‘almighty’ or ‘true gods’. But they were almost fanatical types of textures and never anything unbiased.

However what Ferneth had found in that cave, was a memory orb. Something only Archmages of 7-stars or Grand Wizards that were 8-stars could produce. It was something they left when they died since they were close to transcending their human limits.

When he looked through the contents of the orb Ferneth found himself sweating profusely, trembling violently, as he recalled in first person, the accounts of the 8-star Grand Wizard’s death.

They were something out of fairytales but were real. Ferneth even wanted to doubt it, but the evidence suggested he would have to doubt magical science first and the very extinction of an entire continent. 

The Dragons.

For the first time in his life, Ferneth felt hopeless and complete worry. 

As he decided to abandon his travels as he had found a way to turn himself into an Arch-Lich, he decided to hopefully prepare. 

If what he feared would come true, he needed to prepare for their arrival. No. For humanity’s complete extinction.

***

Present day-

“Hey! Elizabeth what the heck?!”

Nate howled at Elizabeth who summoned a blood bat familiar and was creeping up on Nate.

It had been 2 months since the boys had met the Arch-Lich Ferneth, and his adopted disciple : Elizabeth Franz.

The blood bat exploded into a poof, and Elizabeth giggled at Nate’s reaction.

She was slowly starting to realize the boy Nate, who was normally stoic, had a shy but emotional side as well. They would only come during the weekends to hang out and Roy would always be talking with her Master, Ferneth.

“Hehe, sorry Nate!” 

Elizabeth shouted playfully and ran away from Nate, sticking her tongue out at him.

Inside the once dark ruins, was now a plethora of lanterns fueled by mana.

Roy had been tracking his steps and was exploring the ruins for the undiscovered Fairy’s Tears. He was growing more and more anxious as the time was ticking till the village would be massacred.

Ferneth was not aware that these ruins had the Fairy’s Tears allocated somewhere, and was rather just following Roy around, observing his odd intelligence and satisfying his own curiosity by asking Roy subjective questions about magical science.

“You already know the answer to that. Why are you asking me? I’m only 8 years-old.”

“Use a fire lance spell and use the gust spell in a vortex to create a suction force and fire the lance through it.”

“Obviously. Now, can I get back to the task at hand please?”

“You said you had explored nearly all of these ruins, yet this path is clearly unmarked.”

Ferneth and Roy were traveling down the paths that had not been marked by Ferneth quite yet. The resin was simply because it was incredibly deep within the ruins and there was an incredibly large source of mana below.

This either meant it was a mana crystal mine, or… there was something else down there that neither of them knew of.

Traveling down the windy path, Roy’s footsteps left imprints on the damp ground as Ferneth followed close by.

Taking his saber out, Roy remained vigilant for whatever they might encounter.

Tatata-

Suddenly Roy jerked his head and Ferneth immediately started to rouse his mana.

There was the sound of something scurrying and it was something neither of them were able to quite catch despite their enhanced senses.

Especially for Ferneth, a 7-star Arch-Lich, there was indeed a reason he had not traveled too far.

He had prepared numerous alarm and trap spells to guard the areas he had not explored in order to prepare himself and escape if anything came up the surface, but for the last 3 years he and Elizabeth had been living there, nothing had done so.

However despite the dangers, he was intrigued by Roy, since this boy had a very odd flow of mana around him. It felt similar, yet distinctly different. Not only that, but Roy seemed to be searching for something here and Ferneth wanted to see just what it was that Roy was looking for.

Roy was ready to ignite his saber in a heartbeat as he gradually took his steps forwards into the darkness of the path.

Tuk- tuk- tuk-

Ferneth and Roy heard a sound of something like machinery and gears grinding as they inched forwards.

Ferneth’s will o’wisps flared brightly in the dark as he had a wider grasp of the area than Roy.

Ferneth stepped forwards taking the lead as he felt something odd ahead of them.

Moving closer and closer, the sounds got louder and louder.

Their nerves were tense and were ready for anything to pop out… 

However, as the two came close to where the sound was originating from, they were met with a wall.

“Hm…”

Ferneth and Roy kept their mana cores active, but looked at each other while looking at the wall.

Tens of meters tall, the wall towered over the two of them as if imposing its grandness in front of all that came to see.

Roy and Ferneth keenly observed the patterns on the wall. Like many of the walls in the Ruins, there were runic designs and paintings from the lost era, plastered on it.

“What do you think of it?”

Roy posed the question to Ferneth.

In terms of deciphering these tunes, Ferneth was more knowledgeable than Roy and he was not ignorant enough to dismiss that fact.

“What do you mean?”

tuk- tuk- tuk-

The odd sounds were still at work behind the wall as Ferneth was deciphering the runes.

Roy started to look at the intricate paintings that seemed to describe an entire story within them.

Eventually something caught Roy’s eye. In on of the murals, there was seemingly a woman that was surrounded by 4 children as she looked back at them endearingly.

The four children each had different colored hair and Roy seemed to think he was onto something regarding the Fairy Tears.

The 4 children looked like they represented different elements, and Roy knew there were only 4 types of elemental spirits.

But as he looked closer, Roy noticed something very weird in the mural.

A good distance away from the woman caring for her 4 children, was another child. This child was completely black and stared at the family from a distance. It was something Roy couldn’t possibly explain.

Click-

Suddenly Ferneth had roused his mana and activated one of the arcane runes that worked as a missing puzzle piece and a ‘clicking’ noise was heard.

Whirrrrrrrr-

Then, the wall started to slowly crumble down revealing something beyond it. 

Ferneth and Roy looked at what was beyond with wide eyes.

Chapter 9 – Fin