Shadows Over Arcadia Chapter 84: 82. The Immovable Object

Read chapter 84 of Shadows Over Arcadia by Zacheas on NovelPedia.

I am Gavin, Captain of Arcadia’s Royal Guard, and on the 1st of Flamearc, the sky is set ablaze by the blood of my people. Before me stands death herself. https://shadowsoverarcadia.com/api/storage/objects/uploads/0c350be4-57f7-44d5-b0f3-fb035934c42b What is this power? It is nothing like anything I have ever felt before. The air crackles with mana. Crimson rain whips across the scorched field, sweeping over charred corpses and carrying the copper tang of blood on the wind. Behind Jade’s wall of blue flames stand the last of our allies. Ahead towers a colossal beast of black tendrils, fearsome claws, and glowing yellow eyes. Yet, I am not afraid. I am exhilarated. My body feels nearly weightless, my armor and weapon light as feathers. An electric heat courses through me, every fiber of my being urging me to move. The monster sends another bolt of fire streaking toward me. Only it moves so much slower than before. Lightning in the distance creeps across the sky. The crimson droplets fall so slowly I feel I could count every one. My blade moves before conscious thought can form, arcing up to meet the spell. CRACK. Thunder and steel sound as one. The firebolt bursts apart against my blade, its flames collapsing inward instead of exploding. Streams of orange fire race along the mithril before vanishing into the metal. Dark red rain hisses into steam where it strikes the glowing edge. “That was me.” A smile creeps across my face. I sever the tendril stabbing toward me with a flick of my blade. It moves like a hot knife through butter. The shifting ground beneath my feet, meant to swallow me whole, is laughably easy to evade. Even the bolt of lightning crashing into my helmet does little more than feed my greedy armor. I barely feel the impact. I laugh. I cannot help it. I am invincible. “That is because I have cast far more potent versions of the enhancement spells you normally use, and a fair few you have never had before.” That thought strikes me as strange, oddly different from the others, and absurdly directed at myself. I don’t remember thinking that. Nor do I remember casting any additional enchantments. My laugh dies as I dodge a stone spike erupting beneath me. “I know my power is exciting, but I need you to focus on what you are doing, Gavin.” Now that was definitely not me thinking in my own head. “Willow, is that you?” I ask aloud, though even as the words leave my mouth, the absurdity of the question strikes me. Still, I can’t ignore it. Several times now, there has been another inexplicable me inside my skull. “Yes, it’s Willow. And you don’t need to speak. I can hear your thoughts.” The voice comes as I roll out of the way of a shattered remnant from the keep, repurposed by the fae queen as a projectile. The stone tears through the space where my head had been and buries itself in the mud with a wet, violent crash. “But your voice sounds like my own thoughts,” I growl, charging through mud and blood after Lilith, only for my path to be blocked by stone walls rising around me on all sides. The walls begin to close in, grinding toward me with enough force to crush me flat, but I have already cast the spell to release the stored mana in my armor. A bright blue shockwave pulses out from me in every direction like the violent strike of a brass drum, shattering the walls closing in around me into tumbling rubble. “How do I know which thoughts are yours and which are mine?” I ask, sprinting toward my quarry again. "I'm the one with the plan. You're the brave one who's going to follow it." The voice says it in a very Lady Willow sort of way. My blade swings through empty air as the tangle of black tendrils dissipates into smoke before it can reach them. The vapor slips away, reforming just as far from me as before. “Okay, one-with-the-plan , how do I hit something that changes shape or dissolves into smoke every time I try to strike it?” I say through gritted teeth. “You don’t. We win by making her hit you.” “Not a great p