"I won't ever accept you as my teacher!" Beal squealed as Loy covered his ears.
"I'm not offering any more, but I will teach you how to shut your mouth if you don't stop shrieking." Loy threatened back as a vein strained against his neck. "You annoying bratty teenager."
"I'm not a brat!"
Selice sighed as neither one's childishness could outdo the other. Loy and Beal had been having the same argument for days now. It reminded her of a cub testing the limits of a grown lion, but as annoyed as Loy grew, he never forced the young try-hard assassin away.
A shrill screech broke through the air and Loy's anger skyrocketed far past his boiling point.
"What did I just say!" Loy screamed at Beal but turned around to see the boy searching for the source of the howl himself.
The hairs on the back of Selice's neck started to tingle and she suddenly felt like they were being watched by unseen eyes.
"Shit." Loy cursed as he sent Beal flying backward with a hard shove of his shoulders.
"What was that for!" Beal yelled, clutching his side that had taken the blunt force of the landing. "I didn't scream!"
"Obviously not you moron," Loy said but faced straight ahead. "They did."
Beal peered past Loy's broad frame to see humanoid figures forming from the spot he just stood. His eyes gaped open and he could barely get air into his lungs. "Those are..." Beal trailed off, not even able to comprehend the horrors of what he was seeing
"Devoids," Loy finished, as he called his ball and chain to hand.
The hoard of mangled humans approached them. The front runner was what was once a man but now more than anything resembled a walking corpse with dark magic seeping from burned-out eye sockets. Two dark lines ran down his body where the dripping magic landed and formed deep bruises that turned his pale skin black.
Past him were the other variations of living nightmares. Men and women, or what had been men or women, were now incomplete bodies as parts of them had burned away or had barely attached limbs rotting off their bones. Those that still had eyes all shared the same vacant mindless expression.
Beal stayed on the floor, too paralyzed by fear to move.
Selice was the furthest back from the creatures and moved further back still as the group expanded to its full size and at least thirty of these once upon humans faced them. But more than anything, Selice was horrified to see their ages, with some not even tall enough to have reached puberty.
"How-" Beal stuttered, "How does this happen?"
Beal's voice alerted the eyeless man to their location as he ran at them in a blind frenzy. Some of the others behind him started to charge as the first wave of the hoard attacked.
Loy faced the first devoid with a swift blow of his weapon breaking its neck. It flailed around as dark magic blitzed from its eyes and sparked off everywhere like a firework.
"This is what happens when people are rushed to learn magic," Loy explained as he killed the next two devoids to reach him. "When it isn't introduced carefully over time the body can't adapt and it ends up destroying you from the inside out," He carefully moved around a blast of light magic to kill one of the devoids by slicing his chain through its neck. "Like a sealed faucet that was being pumped full of water, they summoned energy but weren't trained well enough on how to let it pass through their bodies, so it bursts out in ways like this." Loy spotted one girl who looked no more than eleven and had no jaw from where the light magic had burned it away. "It eats away at their insides," Loy said and knew that she had probably been very close to mastering magic, but had ultimately lost her mind while trying too. "Slowly burning away their brains until they're devoid of control, devoid of their body, devoid of their mind," He gave her a swift death and the only mercy she had probably seen in her short life.
A man with burning arms of light magic moving up towards his head lurched forward next and Loy could see in another few minutes his body would burn away, but in that time might take them out with him.
"And it makes them some of the most dangerous things you can come across," Loy added, ducking under his flaming arms and wrapping the chain of his weapon around his upper torso. His arms instantly melted away in the ashes they had become but he had to yank it through the ribs and organs of his chest to kill him. "They have no regard for their safety and can't even feel pain, which means they'll use extreme amounts of energy to attack with," Loy turned to the next devoid who looked to be choking on something. "Or they can detonate."
It regurgitated a huge blast of light magic from its mouth, a shot as strong as any attack Loy had faced with his magic barely able to protect the three of them. The discharge only lasted a few seconds before its magic punctured its lungs and stomach and it burst from the inside out as his guts exploded everywhere with the small bomb of his parting.
Loy shook his arm free of the guts. Devoids weren't a very common sight in his travels but he had seen them. Never in this quantity, however. What was most unsettling were the older ages of some. It was almost impossible to teach magic to anyone out of their formative years and training older men and women would almost guarantee their deaths as their bodies weren't able to maladapt in the necessary ways to channel the energies. And that meant the surveyors were getting desperate and a lot of demand.
"Who taught them?" Beal asked, still too stunned from what he was seeing to react in anything but unmovable fear.
"I already told you," Loy said, slightly annoyed that the boy took so long to grapes anything, "Surveyors." He drowned the word in the scathing hatred of which Loy felt for them. "They scout remote villages, or the slums of cities, anywhere where they can recruit people with the promise of teaching them magic." Loy elucidated as he killed two more of their victims "But they don't do it the proper way, and the outcome is more often than not this."
"I didn't know that kids were forced to learn magic," Beal uttered, as he recalled how it was the exact opposite for him and every child at his village.
"There are," Loy affirmed as the next devoid approached. This one wasn't very old either. Perhaps the same age as Beal. It didn't even try to attack him, it wanted death. One which Loy was merciful enough to give. "And they are the scum of the world, but scum breeds so easily in times like these," Loy said as he ended his life.
"Only those who learned to use magic quick enough without becoming devoids get sold into the control of paying hands," Loy disclosed, remaining entirely stoic as Beal and Selice's hearts lurched for the dead child at his feet. "While the others suffer to death like this." Selice couldn't tell if resounding strength was the source of Loy's composure or if his true sociopathic nature kept him from feeling the empathy he should upon seeing some of the worst human atrocity imaginable, but she was thankful for it.
"Where are they selling them too?" Beal asked, almost throwing up at the sight and smell of the corpses, some of which still had magic seeping from their bodies. "Emora?" He wondered, knowing it had a reputation for a very powerful army filled with practitioners.
"It could be any king or nation desperate to fill their armies," Loy stated as a half-dead young girl shot light magic at him. "And I need to find which ones they are," Loy said, fixating on the remaining fifteen or so devoids who started to gain speed. "And why they are preparing for war."
A devoid rushed over the splattered bodies, wailing dark magic out of his mouth and ripping its cheeks apart as it charged Loy. The sound was like some kind of dying high-pitched animal as it tore out of the man along with magic. Selice had never heard such a terrifying thing in her life and moved farther away from the blood bath. The suffering creature barreled closer and Loy used one hand to defend with light as his other swung his ball and chain at its feet. The devoid fell to its back as magic spilled from his mouth and into the sky. Loy bashed its stomach with his weapon, finishing him off, but its final shriek sent the more docile part of the hoard into a hysteric rampage.
"Beal!" Loy called out as the hoard started to swarm and circle the trio. "Get up." He ordered, his grip on his weapon tightening. "And fight you sniveling teenage brat."
Beal got to his shaky knees and came face to face with an armless man. Dark magic poured from his shoulder sockets where the exposed bones were charing black like coals in a fire. The devoid turned to the side and Beal had to use destruction magic to block the gush of magic it unloaded.
Loy finished the man attacking Beal by smashing in his head with the ball of his weapon. He crumpled to the floor, magic still escaping from the sockets of his shoulders as he died.
Beal only had a second to process the obscene horror of a bashed-in human skull when two more walked over its corpse. But these two had one side of each of them fused together to form one leg in the middle, with two spares and two arms. Beal flinched back upon seeing it.
"Keep it together." Loy scolded Beal, as he worked on his side of the small army. "Let your guard down and they'll kill you."
Beal snapped to his senses and got his shields up just as the conjoined pair shot light magic from the left hand and dark magic from the right. Their magic almost pushed him back but he held on and watched through his shields as the force from their attack slowly ripped them apart from each other. The skin that had grown together tore away leaving bones and innards exposed on the half of the body they shared. The two people fully split and fell to the ground with their guts spilling onto one another as they died.
Beal looked at their mangled form on the ground and almost lost his lunch.
Loy was still fighting off his own part of the hoard when he felt a sudden shift in the breeze.
"Beal behind you!" He yelled, seeing another devoid approach him from the side as Beal was too overwhelmed to move.
Loy shouldered Beal out of the way and because of it was hit full on in the stomach with a huge blast of dark magic. His heart constricted and the blood vessels surrounding it tightened but the prince couldn't take even a second to let his body heal as he had to kill the devoid for the useless child.
After he did, he grabbed Beal by the scruff of his neck and forced him to his feet. "If you really want to destroy all the bad in this world!" Loy yelled at Beal, trying to make it stick in his juvenile mind. "Be strong enough to at least face it!" He threw Beal aside to safety as he turned to face off against the rest of the devoids.
Beal gawked at Loy's back as he fought the monsters like a hero in the stories. He imagined the impossible feat it would ever be to stand so tall and mighty against such atrocity and cursed his cowardness. Beal forced his way onto his knees, but still far from the full size of Loy, bit down on his tongue trying to make his locked legs move. Tears welled in his eyes as he fought against terror for control of his body but his blood went ice cold as he spotted a devoid make its way out of the forest behind Selice, who was too distracted with their fight to notice the monster stalking towards her.
Loy sensed the feeling of danger and turned to see a young woman right behind Selice. Destruction magic coiled on the numbs of her missing fingers stretched out to Selice's exposed back.
"Selice!" Loy yelled seeing he was too far away to help as the woman's hand reached out to her skin.
Selice turned around and was eye-level with a woman who stared blankly back even as half her arms fell to the ground. Selice looked to her side where Beal had sliced her hands clean through. She slumped to the ground, her veins emptying blood. Beal looked at his hands like he couldn't believe what he had done and back at the woman who was still alive as her entire body randomly convulsed. In his life so far. he had only used destruction magic on wood, or rocks, never flesh. And flesh had such a different consistency, one he was utterly appalled to have felt as he easily cut through her arms. The dying woman locked eyes with Beal, her irises shaking as she mouthed something along the lines of help.
Loy finished off the rest of the slow-moving devoids easily enough and then walked amongst the corpses, a stroll he had taken a few times before in his life, to make sure all of them were dead.
The convulsing woman was the last left alive and Loy approached her but didn't make the move to kill her.
"When you kill someone with destruction magic, make sure to go for the organs," Loy instructed Beal. "It's quicker that way."
Selice opened her mouth to ask Loy if he really expected Beal to do it, but the searing sound of destruction magic answered for her.
Beal placed his hand over her heart and felt the woman's fat, cartilage and bone eviscerate. Like he felt it on his palms for a split second before he destroyed a cold rock, he could feel every layer of her body as he destroyed it. But unlike a rock, a human body was warm and alive. Her eyes were still locked with Beal's as they drained of life but her face looked thankful as she died.
Loy stepped away from Beal, letting him come to terms with what he had just done.
Selice made to comfort Beal, but Loy pulled her away.
He knew what Beal was feeling, and for the boy's own sake he needed to make sure he never forgot it.
Beal stared at the corpse of the woman and back to his perfectly clean hands. He had attempted to kill Loy but never got close to hurting him. And for the first time in his life, Beal felt what it truly was like to use destruction magic on a person. It felt so inherently wrong to breach into a person's body. To turn it into dust and leave a huge gap in their chest. And it was a feeling he would never forget as the one thing destruction magic couldn't destroy was the knowledge he had killed someone and the sensation of eviscerating a human body.
"Now do you see why you need to learn all forms of magic?" Loy asked, more patient with the boy than usual. "It's not always about being strong and fast enough to kill the enemy right in front of you," He paused, looking over the corpses and the innocence that had died in Beal. "Sometimes you need to save yourself from the pain of watching someone die before your eyes."
Loy turned away expecting Beal to need a few hours to digest all of what just happened but stopped when he heard his name.
"Loy," Beal said, getting up to his shaky legs. He could barely stand but at least he was strong enough to kept the tears walled up in his eyes. "Teach me the other magics."
Loy stared back at him, with no traces of sympathy.
Beal remained steadfast. "Teach me." He repeated with an iron will in his voice. "So I can save people too."
Loy looked at the pure resolve in Beal's eyes and sighed. "Teenagers really are annoying."
Beal frowned, taking the insult as a refusal, but Loy looked at the dead boy of Beal's age only a couple of yards away. "Make sure you grow up, so I don't have to keep dealing with one."
Beal stared up at Loy hopeful as the prince mentally adjusted the trip's agenda to fit in a training routine and a few other things this attack prompted. "And don't complain when it gets hard or push yourself so much you become one of those devoids either. It's a pain to kill one that knows how to use destruction magic well."
"I will." Beal promised, but seeing by the look on Loy's face that it might be the wrong answer said, "I mean I won't!"
Loy analyzed the boy not yet ready to say he had made any strides towards improvement though at least he turned in the right direction.