Almost immediately, a giant pillar of flame burst out from the orange glyph and lit up the entire mountain below them. Persei and Hyacinth began to get to work once they saw the flames. Hyacinth grabbed Dizonia’s tesseract and summoned a blue glyph. Persei closed his eyes and snaked his hand up to his tesseract.

“I really hope this works.” He pressed his tesseract and summoned a glyph on top of Dizonia’s. Both glyphs began to glow blue and dozens of Persei’s glyphs appeared in a single direction from the top of the mountain to the southern entrance of Bjorn Village.

“Damn, we can go to Bjorn Village, but we’ll need to adjust the entire path to get the kroma sorcerers as well…” Persei mumbled. “I don’t think I can redirect each and everyone of the glyphs…”

“I know!” Hyacinth yelled. “I can use my red glass to reflect the entire path. Whatever you do, just stay here!” Hyacinth gave Persei Dizonia’s tesseract before she jumped on the path of glyphs. Persei adjusted the arrows of the main glyph under Dizonia’s glyph and all the arrows of the path got adjusted. Hyacinth was quickly shot down the path.

She zoomed down the path and summoned red glass halfway down and the path’s direction bended in accordance with the glass, she kept repeating this and the path made a zig-zag pattern down the mountain. She adjusted the red glass down to the torch-lit path and passed the kroma sorcerers. Poxima and the three kromagoths stared in awe as Hyacinth zipped straight for them. Proxima looked behind her and screamed at the kroma sorcerers. “GET ON THE PATH!”

Once Hyacinth passed them, the kroma sorcerers hopped on the path and began to zip down the path with Hyacinth. She kept creating red glass and eventually made it land to the entrance of Bjorn Village. Myun saw the path of glyphs and gasped in wonder. “They did it! They did it!” He cheered. Hyacinth quickly dropped down from the path as well as the countless kroma sorcerers that got their tesseracts stolen.

Myun ran to Hyacinth and hugged her tightly. The rest of the kroma sorcerers bolted back to Bjorn Village. The guards came out and brought them inside to the village.

Proxima saw the last of the kroma sorcerers being held hostage zip down the path Persei made and she looked back at the three kromagoths with a smile. She stepped forward and slowly walked side to side to them and cracked her neck sideways. Now that the hostages are gone, there will be less casualties when she uses ‘it’.

“Ah finally- I haven’t gotten around to use this modified glyph in a while.”

The three kromagoths stepped back and Riche placed a hand on the shoulder of the Lich King. “My lord, we must retreat immediately.” She was ignored and she said louder. “My lord!” She noticed the Lich King gazing to the top of the mountain where the path of glyphs originated. She could feel his shoulder convulse and she saw him clasp his hand into a fist.

“That’s my tesseract.”

Proxima rushed over to the side of them and summoned a giant red glyph in front of her. She screamed as the red glyph began to glow. Gyron widened his eyes and yelled out. “RICHE!”. 

In an instant, she let out a giant red blast in the direction of the three kromagoths, eradicating the forest and animals that managed to get caught in it. Persei and Yoven saw the blast and were pushed back by the force. Persei summoned two glyphs behind him and Yoven, which caught them and prevented them from flying off the mountain. Air gushed across their faces and they could feel the skin of their face barely holding on to their skull.

Myun and Hyacinth saw the red blast from the mountain going up to the sky and watched in awe and horror. The entire village was tinted with red. A powerful gust of wind pushed Myun and Hyacinth back inside the village.

Proxima continued screaming as she let out the powerful blast of red. This is it. No one could’ve survived a blast and especially not one of these blasts of energy. But from all of Proxima’s screaming and the sound of the blast, she heard a faint voice a woman say,

“Reverse Kroma.”

Proxima’s eyes widened as she saw the three kromagoths appear in the middle of her blast, behind a glyph with X’s. They approached Proxima's glyph and until both the red and black glyphs collided. The blast stopped and the red glyph crumbled to black dust. The Lich King grabbed Proxima by the mouth and threw her down the mountain after he took her tesseract. Proxima began to fall down the mountain but managed to grab onto the floating path created by Persei.

The three kromagoths divert their attention from Proxima to the two boys at the top of the mountain. The Lich King uses two fingers to beckon three husk wolves to his side. They hop on the skeletal wolves and ride on them to the top of the mountain.

Persei fell on his knees but held the two tesseracts in his right hand. Yoven looked at Persei who’s all wet from the sweat.

“Persei, do you think everyone got down already?”

“I-I don’t know, Yoven- ngh-” The path of glyphs faded slightly but Persei regained his strength and lit it up once more.

“Persei! Look!” Yoven exclaimed. He looked at the direction Yoven was pointing and his eyes landed on the hand of Proxima Nexus hanging on for life at his bridge of glyphs. “Miss Proxima!” Yoven yelled. Before he could get on the bridge himself, he heard a snarl below him. He looked down and saw the three kromagoths riding on skeleton wolves, headed for them. Yoven quickly grabbed the collar of Persei’s shirt and quickly jumped onto the glowing bridge of glyph. 

“Yoven, what are you doing?!?” Persei shouted. He looked back down the path as they descended and once more saw the Lich King and the kromagoths. 

“Collapse the bridge already, Persei!”

“Right!”

Persei made the glyphs at the top of the mountain disappear. Yoven and Persei zipped down the bridge as it disappeared behind them. They saw Proxima get her chest up the bridge and Yoven let out his hand. He grabbed her and let her on the disappearing bridge as they continued to snake down the mountain. 

“Yoven…” Persei mumbled exhaustingly. The blonde boy looked in Persei’s direction and saw that he was sweating profusely and his eyes glowed blue.

“I don't...feel so...good-” In an instant, Persei collapsed and the whole bridge shattered before they could reach the southern entrance of Bjorn Village. They began to fall, heading straight for the canopy below them. Proxima grabbed onto her tesseract and summoned a red glyph underneath her, which she used to propel herself and catch Yoven and Persei as they flew back to Bjorn Village.

Proxima saw Persei was out cold. He must’ve pushed himself too much. Handling that many glyphs must’ve taken a toll on his body, plus he was a beginner. She looked back up the top of the mountain and saw the three kromagoths and the husks. She furrowed her eyebrows, expecting them to try and get to Persei and Yoven. Her vision was redirected to a group of red and orange kroma sorcerers flying through the sky. The kromagoths noticed them as well and retreated back into the shadows of the forest.

Proxima let out a sigh as she placed Yoven and Persei down at the entrance. Myun and Hyacinth quickly ran over to the unconscious Persei. “Will he be alright?!?” Myun questioned. 

Proxima looked at the boy and back at Persei.“Yeah...he stretched himself too thin back then. But if he hadn’t done that, we’d all probably be...dead.” Hyacinth placed a hand on Proxima’s shoulder and said, “Miss Proxima, your sister has been poisoned by the kromagoths, she’s being treated right now by the village medics.” Proxima nodded and thanked her.

 Yoven looked back up the mountain. “Do you think they’ll come back?” Proxima replied, “Most likely, yes…” Yoven, Myun, and Hyacinth got shocked and were on edge. Proxima continued.

“ But for now, they’ll be away since they’ve arrived.” Yoven raised his eyebrow. “Wait who’s they?” Proxima pointed in the air ahead and they all looked in her direction. They saw a group of kroma sorcerers land in front of them with long staffs and spears. Their orange and red garments flowed down their bodies as they descended from the sky. “Who are they, Miss Proxima?” Myun asked. “They’re professional kroma sorcerers from The Workshop.”

The leader of the group landed on the ground in front of them. He wore a long red robe with a red staff. His long black hair landed to his sides as he stared at Proxima. Proxima gave him a smirk.

“Greetings, Captain-”

“Proxima Nexus. We’re here to arrest Persei Horiz for possession of the icosahedron tesseract of the Lich King.”

To Be Continued