No second chances: The beginning of the end

Chapter 15: The immersion to magic.

“Massive instances of humanoid vegetation are moving within the forest range sir, how do we proceed?” –One of the pilots leading the recon operation asked the commander in the research facility.

“It is clearly one of the elves controlling them, so take measures to avoid and capture, we can’t afford to fight treants of this size without special units, we need to prioritize the objective which is to search for the cause of the violent frequency distortion, There has to be a huge being hiding in the forest” –The commander explained to the leader of the recon team.

As soon as one of the remote drones was in range, one of the treants swiftly swung its arm and knocked it down, forcing the destroyers to move in a different formation. One by one the drones were reached by the branches and arms of the treants. “Chronos, I will now explain to you what is magic and its basics.” –Archival said while looking at the treants fighting the destroyers. Chronos simply stood next to him, listening attentively. “Magic is the representation of existence itself, the capability of using the concept of matter in order to manipulate the nature of elements and develop the desired outcome. At first, I didn’t quite understand it myself, but with time I learned how it worked and how to make it shine.” –Archival explained while turning to Chronos, who despite seeing the destructive scenario in front of them, paid attention to him. “Magic is the derivation of some natural codes that were bestowed upon the world by deities beyond our comprehension, these natural codes are absolute and can’t be rewritten, humanity calls them absolute commands, and those who can wield these unnatural powers were once called the prophets.” –Archival stopped for a moment and sighed while remembering a scene he wanted to forget. “Once humanity knew about these powers, and that they could be transferred to others, the prophets began to be hunted down. Some gave up their powers through empty promises, some escaped and were never seen again, some others became mass-destruction weapons and finally, the ones left were mercilessly killed.” –He continued while the Treants took down almost all the destroyers as the last one left began to retreat.

“Commander, the treants can reach speeds higher than expected, Alpha, Bravo, and Lambda were taken down by sudden vines emerging from the vegetation within their tops, and the drones were also destroyed, I ask for permission to retreat and come back with heavier firepower” –The leader of the last destroyer unit communicated to the commander in charge.

Naturally fighting against this kind of monster would take at least one peacemaker, but we would even burn the entire forest and maybe any nearby city if we do. –The commander thought while assessing the situation and imputing a launch code for an AMHAR unit. “You have permission to retreat, Delta. Also, warn all surrounding cities to prepare for an AMHAR: Dragon” –The commander ordered while inserting the landing coordinates into the interface before launching the unit.

“Send a request to the guild, if the AMHAR lands, there won’t be anything left around, so we need to evacuate all the public areas” –The leader of the squad commanded to the rest of the team as they began to send distress signals to the guild servers for a quicker reaction.

Several guild teams were dispatched to evacuate the cities and surrounding towns to minimize innocent casualties; the AMHAR rocket was launched briefly after 75% of the population evacuated the vicinity and a whistling noise produced by the rocket pierced the air as it rose across the kingdom, from the capital to Pandora’s forest. Special teams were waiting in the outskirts of the cities and towns to confirm the impact as well as the firepower and durability of the new AMHAR unit.

“Magic is special, mostly since it expresses differently in everyone; elemental affinity, user’s imagination, versatility, and all these help to augment the outcome of the spell you want to construct. A simple sentence could exert pressure upon the rules of nature and create a spell. However, depending on the application of each individual’s magic, the spell could be even skipped or applied to simple objects. This, therefore, is enhanced by the authority of every individual upon their own mind and the understanding of the world- no, existence itself.” –Archival explained while sitting in front of the altar, right next to Chronos.

“What are the parameters to use magic?” –Chronos asked while in his mind there were many threads being pulled together with the knowledge he had acquired since the moment DD died up to this point. Every mirage of his memories and knowledge began to align together as if it was a reverse domino effect. A rigid shape was created within Chronos' thoughts as if the representation of his life was a mirror.

Archival simply pat Chronos on his back and laughed, remembering his past and how overwhelmed he felt after learning laws beyond the comprehension of some living beings. “You see Chronos, what you are experiencing right now is the first requirement to wield magic: the acceptance of uncertainty, the first law, “If”. However, as it is a simple principle, many choose to leave it behind when they begin practicing on their own. Leaving that aside, you can start using magic when you can see the flow of overlapping realities meshing together, it is something that hasn’t been written nor properly explained by science. None but the spectator can actually understand it as those are the witnesses of creation in their own minds.” –Archival explained while turning to see the whistling noise in the sky, exposing the rocket about to dispatch the AMHAR: Dragon.

As the rocket reached its peak height, the structure began to break down to allow the bipedal machine to activate the parachutes and slowly descend to the set destination. Archival didn’t think twice while launching a trunk towards the parachutes to let gravity destroy it. However, the trunk easily pierced through the parachutes and let the machine drop. The ground began to shake as the earth dragon emerged from within the depths as the impact of the AMHAR simply deformed the ground underneath and created a small quake without major damage to its components. The massive entities summoned by Archival approached it in order to crush it before the system initialized the heavily armored bipedal machine. Many flexible branches tied the machine in place as the Treants began to trash it violently. However, the machine was not fazed by them, quite the opposite, the treants were breaking their trunks as they kept striking the scaled plates on the AMHAR.

“Sir, the machinery is under heavy enemy strikes, at some point DD’s scales will detach upon extreme forced” –One of the engineers controlling the machine reported to the commander.

“Are all the systems ready to start? We are going to wipe this forest out of the map if that is what it takes to lure the anomaly out” –the commander said while the rest of the engineers were checking the integrity of the hull and mechanical articulations, before starting the engine inside the machine.

The AMHAR suddenly let pressured air out for a moment as the treants kept hitting it. Suddenly, one of the compartments detached from the back of the bipedal machine, launching several rockets towards the surroundings, and creating a wall of fire that submerge the forest in chaos in a matter of seconds. As one of the massive beings was engulfed in flames, Archival quickly dissipated them to about further damage to the forest, right as the earth dragon hurried towards the machine in order to tackle and bite it off. However, the AMHAR was properly protected, using scales taken from DD’s corpse, avoiding instant damage to the structure. A minute after the machinery fully initialized, the hull allowed turbines under the arms to accelerate, combining oxygen and propane under high pressure and constantly expulsing it, manifesting blue flames with the shape of cones.

Archival’s eyes widened while seeing the earth dragon awake and charging against the machine. Chronos was in a sort of trance between his thoughts and reality, seeing himself in the mirror of his mind, slowly moving around, checking his own movements. Blinking made him notice a sudden change of image in the mirror, showing both his image and the actual reality which was a forest slowly getting overwhelmed by flames. After the dragon getting closer to the machine with a single jump, the AMHAR began to shoot and launch several rockets while moving away from the dragon’s range, hitting most of the bullets and rockets but not damaging the hardened scales. Upon landing, the dragon began to roar as a sack under its neck illuminated before spitting a substantial amount of magma towards the AMHAR. The machine couldn’t move in time to completely avoid getting hit as one of the turbines under the arms got damaged by the magma. “Sir, the dragon that destroyed the first lost unit is also attacking now, one of the turbines was damaged by the magma coming from its mouth” –One of the engineers pointed out while checking on the audio-visual feed from the AMHAR.

Meanwhile, helicopters from the capital depart with the ruler of Delcyt himself in order to lead the new investigation team and seize the zone after the AMHAR finishes its job. However, the situation was prolonged and they made a stop in the nearest city to the forest. “Why is the sweeper not done yet? I supposed the scales used to reinforce the hull were enough to fend off the Treants that took down the destroyers.” –The ruler said with disdain while talking with one of the scientists in charge of the data gathering.

“The research center affirmed to have made contact with a dragon that destroyed one of the sweepers in the past; they are trying to suppress the dragon but seem difficult even with the scaled armor.” –The scientist stuttered while checking at the data from the research center.

As the dragon kept trying to take down the sweeper, Archival turned to see Chronos in trance and couldn’t help but worry that he would not be able to find the answer to his inner challenge in time, knowing that the dragon was struggling to destroy the machine in front of him. Chronos on the other hand could not understand what was happening in his mind, representation of his consciousness was simply caged in a mirror, looking at itself. “I supposed you were not aware of the blessings the world has brought upon you, and now here you are, looking within. Although you might not have ever seen me, you still recognize my voice, right?” –A sudden but familiar voice popped in the back of his mind, forcing Chronos to naturally give an image to it in the small subconscious room where his mind was.

“Perhaps you are the one who I saw in those dreams the forest forced me to see, right Pandora?” –Chronos turned around to see the mirage of a slender woman with long black hair and blood slowly dripping from her eyes, her torso was covered by a long white cloth also tainted with blood. “What is this? Why is my body not reacting?” –He asked while turning back to the mirror showing glimpses of the fight between the AMHAR and the Dragon.

“You’ve reached the state on where your mind is assimilating the principles of magic, I’m here as an unusual guest, maybe the forest wants your help and brought me as a representation of that will, so I will help you to get to the next stage on which you could actually manipulate magic.” –Pandora answered while approaching the mirror. “You need to break this mirror which is full of all the logic and information that you’ve gathered, with your own mind and with the first thought that makes you push forward.” –Pandora continued as the space where Chronos consciousness was, began to blur and turn darker which meant that Chronos mind was flowing with every single possibility, but all of them lead to the first source of his understanding, DD.