After another round of shocked gasps at Cypher’s words and some looks of curiosity, he moved through the room and stood right in front of Elain. His eyes locked with hers, and she looked away with a sad glint in her eyes. However, she soon met his gaze again, this time with a more determined look on her face.
“That’s right, your father was my team captain before I came to the Academy. I’m surprised you didn’t already know that though,” Cypher wasn’t sure how to feel about that, but once this whole thing was over he would have more than a few questions for Elaine.
“What is this Ark Fusion you speak of Elaine? Spit it out,” grumbled Rel, and Cypher stepped back, he too waiting for an explanation.
Elaine took a deep breath and sighed before speaking, “Obviously it’s in the name. Essentially it’s the fusion of the energies within two Arks. Once fused correctly they function as a wholly new element and can do some wild things.
“Fenix was quite adept at using that technique and I’ve seen the results firsthand, they’re quite impressive. If Cypher here managed to use such a technique then all of this damage, Cypher’s story, and the defeat of Fergus over there all make sense. Oh, and by the way both of you will need new Arks, those are basically useless now. They’ll never recover the energy that was used up.”
Elaine finished, pointing first to Alvin and then to Cypher, and shrugged her shoulders. Rel looked more at ease now that it had been explained and nodded slowly. “How come such a technique isn’t more widespread?” Rashe asked, and Elaine looked at him like he was stupid.
“Because Fenix invented it himself, I think. At least, I’ve never seen anyone else ever use such an ability before, and obviously, none of you has ever heard of it. If he was here he could do a much better job of explaining it.”
Rashe looked at Cypher then and moved closer to stand in front of him, “You will teach us this spell, our kingdom could benefit greatly from such a powerful ability,”
Cypher stepped back and shook his head, “I couldn’t teach you even if I wanted to, I don’t know how I did it in the first place remember? I blacked out. I only came to when the spell was ending, I have no idea how I even ended up back inside this room.”
“I will force the information out of you if I have to boy, do not test my patience,” Rashe said through clenched teeth, and Sequinnen stepped forward and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“You will do well to remember that in this castle my word is the law. You will not lay a hand on him. This young man has been nothing but cooperative in this investigation and it is unfair of you to ask him for knowledge he doesn’t even have. I won’t allow a forced entry into Cypher’s mind. Besides, if not for him the seal would have been broken, and you would have a lot more on your plate than the discovery of a new spell you can abuse on the field of battle.”
Sequinnen was being quite serious and Cypher could tell that he was putting a lot of pressure on Rashe’s shoulder. Rashe considered things for a moment and then backed off, Cypher on the other hand was riled up and felt confident with Sequinnen seemingly on his side.
“If you really need to you can examine my memories of the event last night. However, you can only view those specific memories. There are things I need to keep secret and I won’t allow you to delve much deeper than that. If you try to, I’ll do everything in my power to expel you from my mind even if it brings harm to myself,” Cypher looked at Rashe with a stern and serious look.
Rashe stared back and narrowed his eyes, and the two stared at each other for a moment as silence filled the room. Rashe flashed Cypher an unexpected smile a moment later and then laughed, “You certainly have some fire in you. You are Fenix’s son after all. I’d expect nothing less. You’d make an excellent soldier in the army. If you ever consider joining the Royal Knights you have my blessing.”
“What?” Cypher was wholly confused now and looked to Sequinnen who could only give him a look of confusion.
“What has happened here is a serious thing, but we cannot forget that it was you who stopped the seal from being broken. I can’t just assume you’re on our side right out of the gate, but testing you openly wouldn’t do much good either, there are ways around such things.
“That said, you don’t seem to be lying and you have enough courage to face down someone like me knowing full well I could crush you and take what information I wanted from your mind. I admire that kind of gusto and so, for now, I’m willing to trust that you had nothing to do with this.”
Rashe walked over to the unconscious body of Fergus and picked him up by the nape of his neck, “I think it’s time we got some answers straight from the source. Wouldn’t you agree headmaster?”
Sequinnen shrugged and nodded, “Indeed, let us find out what this traitor knows before we destroy him. Prepare to open a one-way portal, will you?”
The remaining elders gathered around the seal and began to chant softly. Soon the diagram on the floor began to glow with purple light, and despite being engraved into the floor, began to rotate at high speeds.
“What are you doing?” Cypher asked.
Sequinnen smiled and replied in a calm tone, “Since you already know about it I can speak on the matter a little bit. In this room lies a powerful sealing diagram. It is essentially a gateway between our world and Dark Void. If the need arises, as it has several times over the last thousand years, we can open a small one-way portal and send the more problematic Conductors into Dark Void. It’s a punishment we don’t issue lightly but today warrants an opening of this portal,”
Cypher paused for a moment and thought about that before asking, “What makes today so special?” Sequinnen stroked his long beard and crossed his arms.
“Somehow, whatever you did sealed Elder Fergus’s mind. We tried several times before you arrived to awaken him through normal means but it’s clear now that somehow his mind must have ricocheted into Dark Void. If what you said is true, he had the portal partially open when your attack hit him.
“It was a forced entry without following the proper course of things, so naturally there would be some side effects. Of course, if this doesn’t work, your story will once again be in question and I don’t know what will happen at that time,” Cypher cleared his throat as he watched on and soon the portal stabilized. It was a shimmering fog of obsidian black with yellow around the edges where the two realities met.
Rashe held Fergus’s body upright with a spell and stepped aside, “Do it,” he said and Sequinnen stepped up and chanted a few words. A wave of silvery light shot into the head of the Elder and his body shook violently.
A moment later, a ghostly figure appeared at the portal and sprinted into the body of the former Elder. Immediately he began to shake and convulse until slowly, he returned to full consciousness and stumbled to his feet with some difficulty.
He took one look at Cypher and began to chant a spell, but as he did the Ark around his neck shattered into pieces and clattered to the ground. A loud popping noise also filled the room, and Cypher could visibly see the area where his Orrium was bulging outward before collapsing back in on itself.
Fergus spat up a glob of blackened blood mixed with shimmering Zight, which quickly evaporated and vanished. Enraged, Fergus charged at Cypher not yet realizing the presence of the other people in the room, nor did he see Rashe hold out his foot. Fergus quickly tripped over it and slammed face-first into the floor with a sickening crunch that knocked two teeth from his mouth, and left him rolling in pain.
The whole experience had only taken the span of about a minute and Cypher turned to Sequinnen and asked, “What the hell just happened?”
Sequinnen glared at Fergus and then said, “Dark Void is a curious realm. One cannot simply go there and come back unscathed. Body or mind, if you travel there, it saps you and everything on you of all Zight.”
“Not only that, but it works on a temporal level as well and this absorption of Zight expands to every moment in the future that you continue to exist. Put simply, it drains away all the Zight you currently have as well as any you might have in the future.”
“When he tried to attack you with a spell, his Orrium and Ark both exploded and left him essentially powerless. The effects of that realm even removed the empowerment of the body that his century of training rewarded him, and returned his body to its original state. Naturally, it’s a good thing that Rashe was here, but given Fergus’s state, you could have easily killed him yourself. As he is now, he is essentially a mortal man. He’ll never be a Conductor again.”
