Red

What followed afterwards were a few days of continuous work as Rethys moved from one corner of the room to another disabling the numerous magic circles and runes that dotted the sealing room.

During this rigorous process, Rethys had a first-hand experience of true drudgery as he strove to follow Sevi's extreme instructions to the best of his ability. He would at times disarm a single rune in one circle, only to move to the other side of the room to disable another, seemingly unrelated rune that belonged to completely different system. Other times he would have to erase many circles in a limited time frame, or else, as Sevi put it, they would be in for a world of trouble.

Another strange exercise he had to endure was climbing up towards hard to reach circles, requiring him to plunder the closest workshops for chairs and tables and stack them on one another to reach upwards. Often times this coincided with other convoluted actions he had to perform, which had him falling off the stacks of furniture he erected as he rushed to move from one flimsily-placed chair to another.

This eventually required him to bring in more and more objects to use as scaffolding to get to the higher circles. And as the days passed, Sevi's room became almost completely full of them.

Which made everything even harder to move.

"I must say I like the change in scenery, you truly have a gift for interior decoration Rethys. Even if we do not succeed, this change alone was worth it I would say." Sevi chuckled.

"Well I'm glad one of us is enjoying this." Rethys grunted as he pushed back a stack of tables to access the circles underneath them.

"Left or right?" He asked as he crouched down and placed his hand on the strange conjoined magic circles.

"Disable the circle on your right." Sevi instructed.

Casting his new, low-capacity spell as instructed, he saw the circle on the right quickly break apart under the stress of the Origin spell. Its sibling circle to its left then simply began dissipating, regardless of the fact that it was still completely intact.

'None of this makes sense.' Rethys thought as he shook his head in exasperation.

The way that Sevi first explained magic circles to him was simple enough, consisting of runes to do things and circles to connect and contain those runes. But these past few days had shown him strange and extreme forms of magical creations that extended to more than just the little he did know.

Some structures stretched the limits, others completely ignored them and built seemingly impossible creations, while others still subverted all norms to create things that, quite simply, made no sense.

But he wouldn't dwell on these things if not for the extreme requirements needed to deal with them. As they necessitated Rethys to develop more than a dozen new spells exclusively to deal with the quirks of the magical installations, with each spell having a different energy capacity. And though he grumbled, his skills at dismantling magical circles only continued to improve, even if he was just following Sevi's instructions.

It felt as if he had a whole arsenal of spells aimed towards efficiently dealing with magic circles, it felt as if he was a professional, and that felt good in a way.

And then, after five whole days of ceaseless magical work, Rethys' work was almost done.

"This is the last circle now, right?" He asked as he began clearing the room from all the wooden furniture that he brought.

"Indeed." Sevi's voice resonated. "Once you clear the room of all the clutter that might disrupt the disarming sequence, you can disable that circle, which will unlock all of the chains at once."

Peering upwards, Rethys looked at the last remaining circle. It was instilled into the stone tile to which one of the alabaster chains was anchored. And though it was extremely intricate, as was every other enchantment that dotted this room, most of its intensity was lost.

"Finally..." Rethys sighed audibly, as all that remained was to undo one final circle.

"You seem to forget that the real struggle would start afterwards if you truly wish to obtain my help. Remember that it could take a much longer while to work through the much more complex enchantments of a weapon." Sevi commented.

"It's fine, let's get to it." He said as he dragged a large and heavy workbench out into the corridor of the room.

Eventually, with great effort and patience, he managed to clear the room of everything except for the bare minimum he would need to reach the final circle. And approaching it, began carefully climbing the stairway of wooden junk that promised freedom, or at least a chance at it.

"Simply disarm the circle in its entirety and remain where you are while the blade falls to the ground. Oh and the chains would unlatch from the walls after you disarm the circle, they are deceptively heavy, enough to cause harm, so watch out for that." Sevi explained.

Hearing her words, Rethys questioned what he was going to attempt in but a few moments. Some doubts tried to worm their way into his mind, and though he found it hard to resist them, he eventually concluded that what he was doing now wouldn't change much. For even as he was right now, he could tell that the chains simply physically bound the blade, and didn't hinder Sevi's magic whatsoever.

Even with her blade freed from its shackles, he figured that she wouldn't do anything she wasn't capable of before. The truly worrying part would be when he would work on her blade, trying to free the azure gem from it.

'It's fine.' He thought. 'Worse comes to worst, I can just tell her I can't free the gem, maybe I can then drag the sword around somehow. She can't use Mind magic on me to detect lies, after all.'

He concluded that this would help him find out more about the trapped mage and help him make a better decision later on. This was the best he could do, he figured, and he had to do something.

Reaching towards the stone tile, he pressed his hand against the magic circle.

"I'm ready." Rethys said.

"Very well then. Proceed." Sevi intonated.

And so Rethys released his spell towards the final magic circle before him, dismantling it.

Moments later, the chains that bound Sevi's blade began to shudder collectively in an unnerving cacophony, before then quieting all at once.

Looking at the dark blade suspended in the air by those chains, Rethys awaited seeing the fruit of his work for the past couple of days.

And then it happened, all of it happened.

It all happened quickly, but he nonetheless could see it in its full detail as he was transfixed by its sight.

The blade began falling as the chains that held it in place were released from the walls and began falling with it. This happened as expected, but what followed didn't. For the blade didn't crash violently into the stone floor or get caught in the air by Sevi's magic.

The giant dark blade... broke apart.

The dark metal that looked so heavy and imposing before and that constituted the bulk of the blade simply liquefied into a tar-like substance, freeing the sword's components to simply tumble downwards.

The stone-like heart that adorned the blade also shattered, and from its broken form gushed forth an ocean of crimson, of blood, that threatened to fill the entire room.

The most important part however, Sevi's gem, simply floated upwards in the air while slowly descending down, its usual azure glow slowly being replaced with the eerie red hue of blood.

"Sevi?!" Rethys cried out in a panic as he beheld the terrible spectacle unfolding before him and realized that he had made a grave mistake.

Seeing the now crimson gem locking its sights on him however snapped him out of his panic, as cold washed over his mind like a deluge and his entire being snapped into battle mode. His senses flared, his muscles tensed and the very ether flowing within him roared into motion, surrounding him in a dense shell of protection.

"Sevi!!" He yelled.

"I am sorry, Rethys." A familiar soft and melodic voice resounded. "But I too wish to escape from here, and I cannot do it as I am now. I need a vessel, one that is not a dumb and heavy sword."

Rethys' ears however, were deaf to anything the trapped mage said, his mind already focused to finding a way out. His eyes darted frantically around the blood-flooded room, trying to locate the hallway that led out of it, before then focusing on the blood itself.

'Too much ether.' He concluded, seeing that the contact with the glowing red substance permeating the room was nothing less than lethal.

"You can curse fate for what has befell you, curse the entity that deigned to bring you here, or curse me for my treachery, for I know you deserve none of this. Know that this pains me greatly as well, and know that I shall always remember you, my first student." Sevi continued with a pained voice.

But Rethys was not even there to listen to her heartfelt apologies, as his mind has since moved to guarantee his survival. His mind worked faster than ever, thoughts running in and out as it tried its hardest to find a way out.

But what could he do... Stranded as he was atop a few wooden tables amidst a veritable sea of blood. And as he realized the futility of it all once again, the coldness that overtook him subsided as his magic deactivated, but his face betrayed neither fear nor hesitation.

For he knew it would come to this, he knew deep down that what awaited him in these halls was death, in one form or another, either here or there. He could always feel it in his ether with those unhelpfully powerful senses, constantly reminding him just how in over his head he was, here in Yvtar, even with the never before seen powers he seemingly had.

'And what powers they are...' He thought despondently.

That was why he never once stopped to think of the full extent of what relying on Sevi meant, what with her strange magic and stranger nature.

But what was he supposed to do. Rely solely on himself to find a way out of this cursed place? Return to the Origin entity's control?

'What was I supposed to do?' He repeated in his mind.

He couldn't even find in himself to blame Sevi, even as she was moments away from killing him. After all, he too would do the same in her shoes. There was no cruelty in her action, his senses told him, only determination and pity.

Looking at the ocean of blood raging below him with a vacant stare, he thought of many things. He thought of his home in Aldeno, of his master Fulgrith, of his despised element, the only three things he ever truly had.

"It's fine..." He sighed, thinking that he had a pretty good run, disgustingly weak as he was.

He then remembered Kithil, the Yvtari that somehow regained her mind, trapped in a prison of power and pain. He had promised the poor soul that he would try to free her, yet it seemed that he would never get the chance.

'This would be a good time for that thing she gave me to do something.' He thought, yet nothing answered.

He then stared at the floating crimson gem, feeling its stare on him in turn.

"Didn't we already agree to work together to get out of here? Why do this?" He asked.

"We can never escape as we are. Or have you forgotten where you are..." The gem's voice resounded. "This is necessary. I am sorry..."

Silence reigned again after their small exchange, yet the tides of red underneath continued to swirl and churn.

"So what are you waiting for?" Rethys eventually asked.

"Farewell, Rethys." The voice declared in response.

As she finished speaking however, Rethys released the entirety of his energy capacity in one great motion, letting loose a nova of Origin ether around him. And fighting against the sudden sickness from overexerting his magic, his muscles tensed as he awaited an opportunity to dash through the entrance.

The massive burst of magic rebounded around the domed, circular walls and turned into a large wave that washed over the whole room opposite to Rethys, moving with all of his fury and frustration. And as the Origin magic collided with the blood moving below, it rumbled and thundered loudly as the ether reacted violently.

Before Rethys could do anything else however, a large tendril of blood extended from below and caught him in its grip before dragging him back down with it into the mass of blood.

"Damn it all!!" Rethys screamed as he fell into the pool of crimson.