[69] Accursed City

Joha did not want to waste any more time fighting here at the estate. He had done his part to protect the Isi, and this was getting out of hand. He didn’t have the desire nor maya to continue fighting, especially an opponent as competent as the Hands. He breathed out red maya, which surrounded him in a thin veil. His breathing was well controlled and the flow of his maya perfect.

This was the forth form; ShaktiVaidya, or the Divine Healer. This form allowed one to heal themselves. They must know their body, control the maya and have absolute focus in order to utilize it. Joha was a master of the form, as he was with all the forms, and could utilize it even while he stayed alert and carefully watched Thyra.

She jumped from the roof into the crater as Magnus screeched and flew off. The Hand didn’t rush in to attack, and in fact looked quite content simply watching. She even placed a hand on her hip and tapped her foot as if to tell Joha to hurry up. Seeing that she was not rushing to attack him, he decided to use more maya, breathing out even more to speed up his recovery. In moments all of the cuts and slashes he had obtained throughout his fight with Loki were gone; his eye and the hole in  his side were completely healed.

“You don’t know how excited I am that you have a healing skill,” Thyra said; her voice was oddly sensual. “I may enjoy this after all.” She took the veil over her face off, revealing a manic panting smile and wide, bloodshot eyes. “I think I can indulge a little bit. I hope you can satisfy me.”

The red maya then grew more and more substantial as Joha decreased in size. The crazed Hand rushed in, using Blink to almost instantly punch into the dense maya cloud where she should have connected with flesh. Instead all she felt was the heat from the infernal energy burning her arm. 

Maya was not like regular smoke or fire; it wasn’t subject to sway in the wind. It remained under the control of the arcanist, so Thyra barely noticed when a fast-moving horned tiger jumped out of the cloud. His speed was a mixture of pure animal agility and Maya Steps. She went to chase, her smile turning into a scowl as she realized Joha was fleeing instead of fighting.

As she turned she was yanked back. The cloud had formed into barbed red chains that dug deeply into her arm and secured themselves to the ground. She ripped her arm free without a second thought, shredding skin, muscle and tendons to the bone without so much as a wince of pain. Thyra then gave chase immediately as the grievous wounds rapidly healed. Not even a single drop of blood was lost as her limb regenerated.

“You coward!” Thyra screamed. “Get back here!”

Joha was in a tiger form, slick and fast as he ran through the estate, using maya to collapse hallways as he went. He heard Thyra scream her disappointment behind him before he finally exited the building by jumping through a broken window. As soon as he landed, fire, lightning and arrows flew through the air, striking the ground a split second after he used Maya Step to quickly avoid them.

The outside was far more dire now that Magnus had joined the battle. The Wyvern breathed fire down on the remaining Isi defenders. Hrolf single-handedly held back the forces as one by one the last of the defenders ran into the escape tunnel. Joha ran towards Hrolf, who held his sword into the sky, flowing chakra into it to create a blizzard of cold that clashed with the heat of Magnus’ fire breath. Joha didn’t have the maya to spare to help, and the severe drop in temperature was too dangerous for him to get any closer. 

He stopped just outside of Hrolf’s sphere of attack at the entrance to the tunnel underground. Hrolf was slowly being whittled down; the constant fighting, the pain, the burns, the loss hammered away at the once proud warrior. He could only glance over at the now fully tiger rakshasa before he snapped his attention back to his defense. 

“Joha?” Hrolf asked; he was holding his chakra and couldn’t move but his eyes turned dark. “Then she is gone… Joha, thanks, but go now. Destroy the tunnel and make sure Tyr gets out of this city. He is the Patriarch of the Isi now. Tell him I am proud of him, and make sure he finds the disciples that left to join the war with the druids. Make sure they do not return; there is nothing for them here in Lavi.”

“I will tell him, Hrolf,” Joha said. “Die well.” He ran into the tunnel, which collapsed behind him.

Hrolf screamed his defiance as the extreme cold around him began to contract as it was sucked into the blade of his sword. The elements froze, devoid of all energy anywhere the blade passed. However, without the dome of frigid air swirling around he was engulfed in flames. Only the sword was untouched by the fire, its cold absolute as he slashed up once at the wyvern, then a second time at the men closing in on him. All of his chakra expended, all of his skill and all of his strength used in two final attacks.

Shimmering arches of frigid power flew through the air. Anyone caught in its path was cut down and frozen solid before their body hit the ground. The wyvern saw the attack and moved its body as fast as it could, only for its wing to be cut off and half its body faced the frigid temperature as it plummeted uncontrollably from the sky. 

Hrolf fell to his knees, his body blackened and unrecognizable from the fire breath. His sword, still brimming with power, fell from his skeletal hands and shattered against the ground. He couldn’t lift his head, his muscles were destroyed, he couldn’t hear and only one of his eyes could see. A foot stepped in front of him and someone grabbed his head. They lifted his charred face, and he could see Thyra standing there, her face full of rage as she reared back for a punch. 

Joha joined the other members of Hrolf’s final guard, the men and women who had stuck with him until the end. They were his most loyal disciples and only fled when he gave them no choice. He’d wanted them to protect his son, the future of the Isi family and its new patriarch. Their faces were full of sadness and regret, but they had a mission and they would see it through to the end. Joha changed back into his humanoid form. It had been a long time since he’d been so low on maya, so long since he was this close to death.

“The fight isn’t over,” Joha’s deep voice echoed. “Not until we have left this accursed city.”

The group continued on the path. Joha remained on alert and kept his distance from the disciples, just in case any of them were actually darkness constructs. The tunnels were lit with dim glow stones, and in the low light he would not be able to tell if any of the disciples were fakes. Every ten or so yards they would collapse more of the tunnel, until they were sixty yards in. It then took another ten minutes before they heard talking ahead of them, and five more before someone called out.

“Identify yourselves!” a man yelled.

Several men called out their names, and they were told to come up slowly. In total there were fourteen people including Joha in the small party. They were made to approach one at a time and exit the tunnel into the sun so everyone could see if they had shadows. Joha was the ninth to exit. 

He saw the goblins and Tanisha huddled around a tarped figure on the ground. They were all crying except Tanisha; she was obviously suppressing her emotions with the maya. 

She didn’t look well, though. Her body was drained, her eyes hollow and sickly. Most disturbingly, maya was leaking from wounds all over her body. That shouldn’t be possible for someone on her level of power; it would only start to happen once maya meridians formed in fifteen years or so, unless she delved deeper into infernal power than her body could handle. No, that didn’t make sense either. If that were the case she would have died at worst, and been crippled for life at best.

Joha looked back at the tarp, an obviously goblin-sized body beneath. He walked over to the group; they didn’t notice him until he was only a few feet away. Owen was trying to hold it together for his children, but it was obvious his world had shattered. Joha had seen that look many times in his long life. Tanisha stood up and white maya unintentionally escaped her with every breath, a poor sign.

“J-Joha,” Tanisha called out, but her voice lost all color as she stood up and hugged the Tiger Demon

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