Chapter 13: The Ravenwall

The next day, we gathered our supplies, reluctantly bid Grubby farewell, and headed towards the Ravenwall. Stump was especially unhappy, as he had grown close to Grubby after caring for him following his injury. We all rode in deep thoughts as we recognised that this was either the beginning of our victory, or our defeat. The sharpened Excalibur seemed to be heavier than ever in my scabbard.

To lighten up the mood, Oliver attempted a cringeworthy joke. “Hey yo! What came first, the chicken or the egg?” Oliver asked.

Urf turned around and replied. “Evidently, the egg. The chicken was a result of a genetic mutation from the egg of its pre-evolved ancestor, the tyrannosaurus rex. The T-rex egg came first and then the first chicken came out from that egg.”

“Goodness, Urf, that sounded more like a science report than an answer to a joke!” I quipped.

Oliver and Stump chuckled. Winter rolled her eyes, as it seemed to be her only reaction to everything. Imbeseel scratched his head and wondered out loud, “What is rareesora tex?”

Suddenly Winter stopped her unicorn abruptly, with Urf’s horse almost bumping into them. Our amused disposition immediately died down as it had become apparent that we were now face-to-face with The Ravenwall.

I swallowed nervously. Stump looked slightly paler than usual. We dismounted and walked forward until we stood inches away from it.

The Ravenwall did not look like a wall. Instead, it looked like the edge of the world. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing beyond the Ravenwall. Not even the blackness of space. Just white, like a blank piece of paper. It appeared as if someone got a pair of scissors and cut a part of reality out.

I carefully poked my index finger towards the edge of the void. My finger was met with a hard surface that was like a glass wall. The surface felt cold and smooth but I could not see a barrier. It just seemed as if I was merely doing a mime with my finger.

Oliver and Winter silently took out a sigil engraved on a pebble out of their robes and gave each of us one. After everyone took a sigil, they walked in front of the Ravenwall, lifted their arms, and closed their eyes. Blue and red Aura flitted out of their fingers and joined together to create a swirling portal. That was no ordinary portal as it glowed purple as a result of Oliver and Winter’s Aura mixing together.

Oliver stepped in the portal and Winter gestured for us to do the same. We trudged slowly towards the portal like reluctant newbie bungee jumpers. Imbeseel walked in the portal first. You would think he must have been the brave one but it was actually because he was wandering into it mindlessly. Urf accidentally tripped over his beard and unwillingly fell through the portal. Stump stopped just in front of the portal and froze.

“C’mon! You can do this! C’mon! You have to do this and get back to save Grubby!” Stump muttered to himself, trying to make himself take the leap of faith. Seeing that he was rather hesitant, I gave him a slight nudge and he squealed as he tumbled into the portal.

I touched my mustache, groomed with the newly acquired tips from the dwarfs. It gave me some comfort that at least I would at worst die with impeccable looks. Then, I stepped into the portal.

Unlike regular portal journeys, instead of falling through a tunnel of Aura, I was immediately teleported to the other side. I yelped in surprise as the abnormally speedy trip caught me unaware and I nearly collapsed on a sand dune. Fortunately, Oliver caught me before I did.

“Don’t touch the sand, mate. They’ll hurt you.” Oliver warned.

I glanced at the surroundings. I froze.

“What is it?” Urf asked.

“I know this place,” I murmured, “I’ve been here in the dream.”

“What dream?” Stump asked.

“The black sand, the red sun, the winged demons. I’ve seen it in a dream with whatshisface.” I replied.

“Whatshisface? You mean Alyximeme?” Winter, who had gone through the portal right after me, questioned.

“Maybe. But I don’t really think so…” I said. I doubted Alyximeme was the person who appeared in my dream, otherwise I would definitely remember that it was him.

“Whatever. We’ll worry about that later. First, we’ve gotta get to the fortress.” Oliver said, pointing to a medieval-styled castle in the distance.

“Sorry but we will have to walk. Our equines could not pass The Ravenwall.” Winter explained. “Anyway, even if they could, their hooves would be injured by the black sand.”

We walked carefully for the fear of getting sand in our boots. We trekked the inhospitable terrain for several hours, but the castle only seemed to be getting further and further away.

“Strange…” muttered Winter. She closed her eyes and pointed her finger towards the direction of the castle. Red Aura immediately shot out of her finger like webs from Spiderman. The red Aura flew all the way to the castle and seemed to pull the whole structure towards us. Suddenly Alyximeme’s fortress was right in front of our eyes.

“You should have done that earlier!” Urf barked. This time, Winter was too exhausted to roll her eyes.

I could not believe we were finally at our destination. I was exhausted but adrenaline boosted my energy. My head was filled with excitement, fear, and anticipation.

As we walked through the gate of the fortress, I was shocked to discover that Chateau du Alyximeme was an exact replica of the ADMI Academy. From the medieval walls bristling with ballistae and catapults to the donut shaped building, every last detail had been captured. I eyed Stump and Urf. They must have also recognised the similarities as they gazed at the fortress with wide eyes. Imbeseel did not seem to notice anything strange.

The only visible difference between Chateau du Alyximeme and the ADMI Academy was that the fortress was surrounded by a moat filled with lava, illuminating the castle in a fiery red glow. I could smell the sickly sweet scent of blooming nightshade and other poisonous flowers. The castle had a bridge connecting the castle to the other side of the flaming moat. The bridge was lined with corpses and random mangled limbs hung onto razor sharp spears. Although the surrounding area was just sand and dust, the fortress stood tall, grand and proud, like a tyrant's castle over a city of peasants.

I confidently straightened my back and stroked my mustache for good luck as I strolled over the bridge, followed by everyone else. The bridge creaked and groaned under our feet, threatening to drop us into the molten lava moat, causing Stump face to go white in fear.

Once we reached the other side of the moat, I drew the Excalibur out of its scabbard and heaved the heavy bronze doors with all my strength.

We peered into the Chateau through the newly opened entrance. The place was poorly lit but we could make out the thousands of skulls of all types of creatures that were scattered all over the main reception. Some were piled up high against the mahogany wall. There were chandeliers entirely made out of what looked like human bones, casting a ghostly glow across the hall. Armor lined the passageway at the end of the reception hall, inanimate, or so I thought.

Without warning, the suits of armor drew their swords and ran towards us! A suit of armor raised its sword, ready to strike me down. I stabbed it in its chest with Excalibur. The recently sharpened blade neatly severed the chest plate like butter before it could hit me.

“Attack!” I yelled, as everyone charged forwards.

I swung my sword in a wide arc, yelling for our attackers to back off. They ignored me and continued on. I saw that the mages were mainly using elemental magic in fear that they might waste their energy before the final decisive battle with Alyximeme.

I smashed the hilt of Excalibur in the face of a nearby knight, causing it to stagger back as its visor fell off its hinges revealing the grotesque corpse’s face. Stump shrieked in astonishment and disgust. I too was shocked. Reanimating the dead was not difficult, but the living dead could not move fast and they would normally fall apart in a matter of days. Yet Alyximeme somehow managed to magically grant them speed and long-term preservation.

I was too busy thinking when suddenly, a zombie sent an uppercut to my right arm, disarming me. Excalibur spiraled through the air, crashing into a chandelier, causing it to fall on the undead. The zombies continued to attack until they fell apart due to the flames.

When the undead all fell, I commanded Stump to stomp out the fire, for the fear of ruining my mustache.

I picked up Excalibur and our group continued our way towards the place where we knew Alyximeme would be. We knew our directions because, just like the outside, the interior was also exactly the same as the ADMI Academy.

After killing an entire army of undead knights on the way effortlessly with mostly Excalibur and Imbeseel’s axe, we reached a room where the director’s office should have resided if this was the actual ADMI Academy. The gold plate which should have said ‘Jonathan Watari: ADMI Director’ instead displayed ‘Alyximeme: Dark Mage’.

The door of the office squeaked open with barely a touch, which was surprising with all the security that we met previously. I executed a defensive stance as soon as I stepped in the room.

In the room, there was a giant dragon ribcage studded with diamonds and sapphires with the throne in the middle of it. The sharp tips of the ribs pointed upwards and they were rooted to the ground instead of a spine. A blood red carpet followed from the doorway to the throne through the centre of the ribcage. The throne was made out of obsidian. Its headrest had a silver skull with a ruby on its forehead. The throne suspended midair as if floating on water, anchored by a silver chain, decorated with jewels and skulls. I wondered why Alyximeme was so obsessed with using bones as decor. Behind the throne was the exact same stained glass window that I had seen in the Director’s Office of the ADMI, with rays from the red sun seeping through.

Atop the floating throne sat a hooded figure dressed in black robes and completely black eyeballs like the eyes of the guy I saw in the dream. It was Alyximeme.

I immediately got into my battle mode. “Stand down! We’ll deal with him!” I yelled, thinking that Stump may obstruct my line of attack. Stump happily did as commanded as I readied Excalibur and prepared to slash the hooded head off.

“Yaaaaa!” I charged forwards and slashed at Alyximeme. Alyximeme sidestepped and Excalibur swiped at empty air.

Urf acted expeditiously and sent an arrow for Alyximeme’s head. Alyximeme summoned a portal faster than I had seen anybody done before. The arrow shot out by Urf at the speed of light, originally supposed to nail Alyximeme in the temple, zipped into the portal and flew out the other side. The arrow sprouted out of his chest and Urf fell to his knees.

“Augh!” Urf grunted and fell over, dead.

“Noooooooo!” I witness the unbelievable sight in horror and cried out in anguish.

I attacked again with renewed vigor, fuelled by rage but Alyximeme simply flicked his fingers and black energy smashed into my chest, sending me flying. I had involuntarily let go of Excalibur mid-flight. It landed roughly several meters away. I groaned in pain. The blast had hit me so hard it shattered my chest plate and broke several of my ribs. I gasped for air, each feeble breath hurt like someone was twisting a knife in my chest.

Imbeseel launched himself at Alyximeme. Alyximeme simply took out a stone with a sigil carved atop it. He threw the pebble at Imbeseel’s feet like a grenade and it flashed brightly for a moment. When I regained my vision, I saw that Imbeseel had been completely encased in ice.

Until that moment, Oliver and Winter had been charging up a massive pillar of energy. They released the Aura towards Alyximeme. Alyximeme dodged the beam like a bullfighter but it twisted around and launched itself forward pointing at Alyximeme. Seeing that dodging the attack was ineffective, Alyximeme conjured a shield to block the beam. The beam of destruction forced itself at the shield with enough power to level a building. When the smoke cleared, I gaped in horror and bewilderment as Alyximeme stood, unharmed. He lunged forwards and blasted the mages with dual spheres of Dark Aura. They summoned a shield in front of them but that did no more than weaken the spheres. They were blasted off their feet and they fell to the ground, unconscious.

“I tend to dislike people who try to kill me.” Alyximeme boomed. “Although I am not grateful for your pathetic attempt at my life I have to thank you for retrieving Excalibur for me! Excalibur does no physical damage to mortals but instead destroys their souls. Even the simplest nick would result in death within minutes as your soul leaks out of your body.”

“Alyximeme’s body has served me well but his soul is restricting my power. Now that I have Excalibur, I can eliminate his soul from the equation and I will be at my full potential! The world can run! The world can hide! But they are only delaying their death!”

Alyximeme let out a bloodcurdling laugh.

Alyximeme wrapped his fingers around my neck, squeezing hard. I knew he was going to kill me. There was nobody here to save me. I am going to die. My eyesight began to dim. My dead parents are waving at me…

Suddenly, I was able to open my eyes again. I saw Alyximeme’s face filled with pain and confusion, as the point of Excalibur appeared to be poking through the front of his chest.

“Intresting…” Alyximeme muttered before collapsing onto the ground.

Somehow with no effort on my part, the enemy we worked so hard to kill fell to his knees and died. The weight on my chest had lessoned and I inhaled a gulp of air. I realised that my mustache had disintegrated, but for once in my life, I did not care. Or maybe I did.

Unbelievably, Stump saved the day! He helped me to my feet and handed Excalibur back to me. Then he supported me while we walked towards Imbessel, Winter and Oliver to check out how they were.

Suddenly, Alyximemes body began to glow. As I watched, Alyximeme stood up and out of the light came Alyximeme, back from the dead. But this revived Alyximeme wore a white robe instead of his former dark one. His eyes glowed with a combination of power and benevolence.

“Thank you,” said the new Alyximeme, “you have saved me, and possibly the entirety of Raventopia. We must now immediately return to the ADMI together.”

“Sadly, the war is not over. The termination of Zabulas’s control of my body and soul will send ripples of catastrophe and hate in the realm of dark magic. Army evil creatures, lead by the doom-bringer himself, Castrum, will rage to destroy ADMI once and for all. Once the ADMI is destroyed, they will push The Ravenwall to the extent that the Dark Realm will colonize all dimensions. All creatures, plants and structures of the Light Realm will not survive. Their attack will happen anytime now.” explained Alyximeme.

“I will create a doorway for you and your companions to return to ADMI headquarters to prepare for battle.” Alyximeme ordered while creating a portal, “I expect to see you on the battlefield.”

Alyximeme held out his hand. A wisp of pure white magic shot out of it and entered my wounded chest. Suddenly, my chest exploded with pain, making me double over, but the pain slowly turned into astonishment as I could feel the pain subsiding and the wound healing. Separate wisps of magic flew elsewhere in the room healed my teammates, other than Urf who unfortunately could no longer be saved. Winter, Oliver and Imbeseel groaned and rubbed their heads as they regained consciousness.

When I looked back up Alyximeme had already disappeared.

I took a backward glance at Urf’s body and saluted. “Goodbye soldier, you have served Raventopia well.”

I slowly walked up towards the glowing white portal. White magic was incredible. Unlike other colourful Auras I have seen, this by far was the most amazing. I sensed that it was more pure, more powerful. I stepped into the portal, preparing myself for yet another final battle.