Chaos

"Brace yourselves!" Yelled the High Mage as he conjured a pillar of ice to block the monstrous hellmaw's swipe.

Only moments afterwards, the second hellmaw, the one previously imprisoned by High Mage Zeritel, revealed itself from above the jagged canyons, its massive form covered in seething flames.

Rethys knew what to expect from the fiery creature and covered his ears just in time before it let loose a loud roar and leapt down. He also noticed that this creature's demeanor did not match its peer's.

For while the first one engaged the High Mage with the wariness and intelligence expected from these highly evolved magical beasts, the second one seemed on the verge of losing its mind. The beast's tongue drooped limply while garbled growls escaped its mouth, it struggled to even stand properly after landing and its body continuously shuddered uncontrollably.

The mages of the expedition could not miss this detail and many of them turned to the sky to look for the presumed culprit. Turning with them, Rethys noticed the intruder's full form as it undid whatever was concealing it.

The Origin elemental appeared as an undulating mass of dark blue ether, with a small glowing white sphere within it that guided it forward while the rest of its form trailed behind it slowly. And though it remained high in the sky and out of reach, it was almost a guarantee at this point that it was responsible for this crisis and may join it at any moment.

"Be ready for it to descend at any moment!" Yelled the middle-aged Mind specialist mage that Rethys never got the name of.

It was then that the second hellmaw snapped out of its disoriented state and rushed towards the High Mage in a complete frenzy, making it so that he was now facing two hellmaws at once. While this gave the rest of the mages breathing room, as they had no means of facing even one of these monsters, the High Mage himself had to redouble his efforts.

As he struggled to sustain attacks from both immense beasts, Rethys could see him increasing the amount of water under his control, the rivers of the canyons seemingly flowing entirely towards him instead. In but a few moments, the water and ice under the High Mage's control seemed to double, then triple, flowing around him like a storm of magic constantly shifting between solid and liquid state to block the fiery beasts' attacks and retaliate in turn, robbing them of their heat to attempt to trap them in ice.

Rethys watched in awe as the High Mage more than lived up to his title, wielding magic worthy of legends and the tales of bards to repel beasts no ordinary man or mage could stand against. It was an astonishing sight that reaffirmed to the young man his desire to wield such power himself.

As the battle between High Mage Zeritel and the two hellmaws escalated, so did the other mages' struggle against the horde of blisterhounds attempting to overwhelm them with sheer numbers.

The mages, however, stood their ground and repelled the charging hounds with their organized effort. Rethys was surprised by the astonishing competence displayed by these noble mages that often bickered and quarreled for the smallest reasons but then remembered his mentor's words, of how no mage, regardless of rank, pedigree or class, forgets their duty to king and country, and it seemed doubly so during such a crisis.

Rethys could see mages swapping positions and yelling orders in the thick of battle with extreme efficiency. Some focused on the larger hounds, dispatching them with minimal effort where possible and immobilizing them when they couldn't, while others focused on reducing the numbers of lesser hounds that threatened to overrun them.

Other still focused on supporting their fellow mages with magical effects, Rethys noticed among them a mage controlling clouds of dark vapor that constantly shifted and moved between the hounds, obstructing their vision and confusing them, another mage directing wind to assist any who fell or couldn't move, pushing them back and out of harm's way.

Another mage simply held her hand towards the mass of blisterhounds ahead, and while Rethys could not visually see anything happening, he could feel and almost see an obscenely dense torrent of dark ether leaving her hands and flowing towards the frontlines. He even noticed Mage Elkieth who seemed to project a golden radiance across the frontlines that seemed to slow the hounds' every move and action.

As the battle raged on, both sides were continuously spent as more and more hounds fell and mages exhausted their energy felling them. The situation, however, seemed to become worse with each moment, as the number of hounds was simply too high and without the help of the High Mage, preoccupied as he was, the mages began to lose ground.

The High Mage himself never lost momentum. Though his face showed his increasing fatigue, his magic never waned in power and the movement of the swirls of water around him remained as vigorous if not even more so than at the beginning as they restricted the massive fiery monsters.

However, just as he seemed about to defeat his adversaries, with one of them completely trapped in ice and the other moving slowly and lethargically, the Origin elemental finally descended to join the battle it had orchestrated.

Rapidly hovering towards the hellmaws, it let loose a massive wave of blue ether that enveloped the two massive beasts before rapidly continuing forward to cover the whole of the canyons around them.

Seeing this wave move towards them, many mages scrambled to take cover or envelop themselves in their own ether. It was pointless however as the wave moved at an extreme speed and was upon them almost instantly.

'Damn it!' Rethys, not being able to do either, simply crossed his arms in front of himself and prepared to weather the wave.

He forgot however that it was not water or any kind of tangible matter, rather ether that washed around, over and through him, though it seemed to do nothing to him.

Looking around him, he noticed what the true purpose of this massive spell was.

As this wave swept over the battlefield and all who were in it, it seemed to wash away any and all other ether and dispel all spells cast by the mages. Many constructs and barriers made of ice or stone that were jutting from the ground crumbled and fell without the ether maintaining their form, while the protective golden radiance cast by Mage Elkieth that was apparent throughout the mages' ranks seemed to have been wiped away. The mages themselves seemed unharmed, only a bit disoriented from the sheer ether that went through them.

Looking at the now greatly reduced but still numerous blisterhounds, Rethys noticed them also staggering a bit due to the ether imbalance. And looking further ahead he could clearly see the ice crumbling away from the frenzied hellmaw that the High Mage managed to put to sleep. It also did not help that the other hellmaw also broke free of everything trapping it and was breathing fire on its companion to reawaken it, undoing the High Mage's hard work.

It only took a few breaths before both hellmaws were back on their feet and, with their absurd vitality, ready to fight again. Coupled with the fact that the Origin elemental now properly joined the fight, the High Mage was almost outmatched. The rivers of water and ice around him slowed down in their movements as he began to seemingly lose control over them, and any spell he tried to launch fizzled out almost immediately.

"Aid the High Mage! Grab the elemental's attention!" Yelled Mage Turavar across the battlefield with a booming voice. "It is immune to magic! Target it with explosions!"

By now the number of blisterhounds decreased enough for the mages to have some breathing room and maybe divert some attention towards the High Mage's battle. Explosive spells of all kinds and elements flew at the Origin elemental. It almost dissipated instantly due to the flurry of effects flung at it, its gaseous body somewhat coming apart. It didn't evaporate completely however and gathered itself together again before releasing another wave of magic-dispelling Origin ether.

The High Mage seemed unaffected this time around by the Origin elemental's attack or at least prepared for it as he quickly replenished the water under his control. The elemental however seemed intent on finishing the fight before the mages' assault harmed it any further. Charging up a spell, it shot a stream of blue ether at the frenzied hellmaw, causing it to further enrage and abandon all notions of self-preservation, its flames growing so intense as to take on a blue color. The two hellmaws roared before engaging the High Mage again with increased aggression and the mages reacted to the change by doubling their efforts to disable the elemental.

The High Mage stood unshaken amidst the intensifying chaos around him, and rushed to amplify his magic, taking control of so much water that his masterful manipulation of it began to wane in favor of brute might.

The battle raged on, explosions resounding, and visibility being completely gone in the growing mayhem of battle. This intensity lasted until a loud roar was heard and the limp body of the frenzied hellmaw flew back towards the canyon walls, its blue flames extinguished. Even with the distance separating the two, Rethys could tell that it was dead.

The mages rejoiced at the sight of one of the massive beasts being taken down, before the other hellmaw rose with the limp body of the High Mage in its maw.

The first casualty against the hounds, apart from the initial surprise, turned out to be the mightiest among them. And though they felt their hearts collectively sink at the sight, crisis was no time for panic, not for the trained mages of the Kingdom.

"Form up! Prepare for the hellmaw's charge! Ready explosive and cold spells!" Yelled Turavar, now in command of this battle as the most senior of the mages of the same rank.

As the remaining hellmaw spat out the High Mage's mangled corpse and the Origin elemental finished fully reconstituting itself from the damage it sustained, they turned towards the rest of the mages, seemingly intent on wiping them out.

Or so Rethys thought, until his blood ran cold as he felt both creatures staring right at him.