The pillar of fire fell from the sky, and I scrambled to reach for the field of skulls. It was there at the edge of my perception, but I could not truly touch it.
The skull fields were mine, even though they had been given to me by Death as a gift, but it should have been mine in the future. It was as if she had taken the strength that I would have naturally attained in the future, and pulled it down to me, and she had held this power for me, helping me to stretch the storm towards further distances, and when I needed it the most, she let go, and the power rebounded back to the future.
Still, what was even more maddening was that if I had slowly spread the storm with my own intent, the souls within my storm would have begun creating these fields the moment I crossed the one million threshold.
What this all meant was that Death had already planned for this moment from the moment I briefly fell into insanity, and while I could reach for the field of skulls, I would not be able to do so in time for it to make any meaningful difference.
I did not curse out at Death; you do not scream at the storm or the tide; they would do what their nature commanded, and Death was the same. My greatest mistake was not fully comprehending this truth well enough and applying myself to it... even in madness, there should be lines I do not cross.
There was no longer the impossible vitality I could gain from the fields of skulls, and one of the passives of Death Consort had been pushed to the fore, and that passive was Death’s Favor, which made me incredibly easy to kill, since it attracted injuries, making the less dangerous wounds lethal.
This passive was always present, but its effects had been cancelled out by the field of skulls; now I had no choice before me. I could not switch my Titles easily, as Death would fight me, and I could not afford to switch my Title at this time because I needed Death Consort to be able to free the souls linked to the chains of blood.
All these thoughts passed through my mind in the fraction of a moment, and there were few things I could do but to fight, and I was almost ashamed to reach for the Moon Fox, but there was no time for shame as I pushed away Storm Bearer and switched to Heavenly Beast Tamer.
Death Consort fought this choice, but it did not have as much power to resist my will, especially when I was not touching it at this time. My storm aided this Title, and it would be foolish to keep empowering it.
The connection I felt to the Moon Fox snapped into place, no longer the hazy connection that I had with her. Aurora’s cries of relief resounded in my mind, but I did not hear her as I was focused on bringing everything I had to fight for my life.
I drew everything I controlled towards me to create multiple layers of defenses. My hundred arms that were made from dense death flesh were the first layer; my domain, the Stillness of the Storm, was the second layer.
Pulling on the chains of blood behind me, I dragged down the hundred million souls and pressed them around me into a shell a mile thick. Titan’s Marrow screaming, every scrap of borrowed death-vitality I had, all of my spells, abilities, and Resonance were all focused on defense.
I had time to hear Mel say my name. Just the once. "El..." She was not afraid; what had happened went by so quickly that she did not even understand what was happening.
She had been about to tell me to hurry up and stop the storm, and was calling my attention, as the wrath of the Sovereigns slammed into the barrier I had created.
∞
The pillar of flame hit the shell of souls, and they burned. Millions of souls were erased in an instant, and I could not even celebrate the lessening of the burden that I was carrying when the fires went through the souls and impacted against the spell barrier I created, which shattered like the shells of an egg against a tornado.
Two defenses were torn through without slowing down the fires, and it reached for my body, and I folded myself tighter over my sister while drawing as many souls as I could over me, but it was not enough.
My body was melting like wax thrown into a forge, and I knew I was screaming, but not once did I let go of my sister. I constantly poured every single bit of Lightning Edict that I could harness with my Anima into one wish, and that was to keep her safe.
My mind seized the Clean Spell that should have evolved into something else, and covered her with it, wishing that nothing would hurt her.
Of course I fought to live; for someone like me who had died hundreds of times, I knew the call of death, and how to flee from it as long as possible, and by all the light in heaven, I held through the heavenly fire.
"Elric!" Mel’s voice was faint, muffled against my chest. "Elric, it hurts!"
"I know," I said, and my voice was a ruin, even as my heart was breaking, "I know, just hold on. I’ve got you."
The pillar continued to fall, and I continued to burn. I felt my body breaking apart, piece by piece, layer by layer. My arms, my legs, my torso, all of it was being unmade. The hundred arms that had grown from my body were gone, burned away like they had never existed.
I don’t know how long I held, or how I kept my life despite the fact that I should have died many times over; something told me that it had to do with the fox. I had been pulling vitality from her through our link, and this was what kept me through this tribulation.
I felt the pillar of fire beginning to weaken, and a flash of hope touched my core; even my dead heart seemed to beat, and then I saw a crack around the shell that I built for Mel.
It was tiny, barely a millimeter thick, but she was a mortal, and I had carried her with me while I flew so close to the sun.
I don’t know why she did not call out for help, but in the moments that I spent in order to endure, my sister did the same. I tried to reach for her, and I could not feel her.
"No," I said, and my voice was broken. "No. No. No!"
The pillar shattered, and the light faded. What remained of my body could not even be called human. I was like a mound of ash and bones inside a crater hundreds of miles wide. Half the continent had been destroyed by that pillar of fire, and somehow, I still remained; I endured the wrath of every Sovereign on this world.
I slowly opened the one hand that I had used to cover my sister, and she was lying on it; her face was peaceful, but that motion I made, although small, was catastrophic, and her body collapsed into ash.
It was as if she had held on long enough for me to see her one last time before she went away.