Chains of Change

[The Blade]

...Smother your signal...

The Chain knew what Sirius was up to, it knew that he needed an army if he was to help at all in succeeding in calming the Mortal Realm. The Chain also knew exactly where Blade was going and what his plan was to get his cursed and once damned army. It was a daring move but it might just work if done correctly and Exodus would've shivered in anticipation if it had been able to.

Blade however already knew to keep his Magical Signature low so that he wouldn't be able to get spotted. He hovered at the moment in the Upper Atmosphere of a strange planet of blood that seemed to house a large amount of negative energy spirits. Now Blade needed an army for his conquest of the Mortal Realm and he had a radical idea to get this army. It would take a lot of power and an amplifier for it but thankfully he had both. The Blood on the planet would act as an amplifier and he had enough power through the Chain to manage the binding that would be needed.

The Dragon Sage started this by picking the largest blood ocean upon the surface of Cruor and hovering over it in Orbit. A small burst of magic into Exodus and it started to elongate and he threw it downwards into the blood. The Chain held a spell however that, when it hit the blood, caused the force from its Orbital drop to expand outwards in a shockwave without touching the blood at all. This would cause anyone near the ocean to be thrown back and give Blade some time.

The Chain sank down however into the blood and hit the bottom, carving out a platform before grabbing it and dragging it up to the surface, just under the blood level so that it would act as an amplification platform.

Blade then came shooting down and landed on the platform, taking his Chain back before standing there and looking around. "Time to begin" He murmured, not wasting any time before he started to focus his magic into the blood around him, using it to power up his spell as it would take much longer without the blood's properties to manage it.

((1/4  Spell completion))

[K2]

All would have gone just as Blade had planned, had there not been something at the bottom of the ocean, waiting on him. The moment the chain started to carve into the ocean floor, a dark energy shot forth into the boiling blood ocean, grabbing a hold of the chain, pulling it down. How... Interesting. This was a new kind of magic -- or maybe an old kind. It was something that the Anrufe had never experienced. Naturally, they wanted it.

As the darkness started to pull the chain into the underground, into the blood-red sand that coated the ocean floor, nearby someone was waiting on Blade. When he said, 'Time to begin,' there was already someone there -- Reli -- waiting. Reli, being a negi himself, found this planet to be very comforting. He wouldn't have known Blade was there at all had the planet not told him. He was connected to it, as if it were alive, and it told him things. So, now, here he was behind Blade, answering his statement with, "Begin what?"

[The Blade]

Now, because the Chain had been taken a hold of, Blade was hovering over the sea of blood with the chain wrapped around his wrist and forearm. A low growl emanated from his throat and he looked down into the blood. His strength at the moment was holding it steady without it being pulled away but he had to find out a different tactic to finally get rid of the foul energy attacking his Chain. The Dragon Sage opened his mouth, turned down to the chain and breathed a jet of fire onto it. This fire however had a strange bronze appearance to it, with strands of black, silver and gold running through it. It latched onto the Chain of Exodus and ran down its length and to the black energy. There, this fire, Bind Fire, took a hold of the energy and bound the energy to it, preventing it from touching the chain. Blade then proceeded to pull up his platform once more and sit it under the surface.

Once sitting nicely on his surface he turned to face the person behind him. He brought the Chain back from the platform and wrapped it around his arm, the blood being quickly absorbed into the metal. "Time to begin my spell, time to begin a new era, time to begin that which I must do." He answered, his voice holding a slight lilt and growl to it. He then crouched down and put his hand into the blood. He poured his magic into the sanguine fluid, causing the entire sea to resonate with the magic being poured into it. It wouldn't do anything for now as it was just building energy but soon it would have a large effect. The spell itself would be almost unreadable though, so far it just seemed that Blade was generating energy needed for a spell, not actually any spell at all.

((Spell Completion, part 1 2/4))

[K2]

But it wouldn't be that easy to just bind the magic away and pull out a platform from beneath the sea. Before Blade could pull his platform back, out of the black energy which faded away shot another kind of energy, magic all the same, this being a red lightning which rose up to meet the Bond Fire head on. About half-way the length of the chain, the Bind Fire and the red lightning -- known as Dom Magic -- met, somewhere a bit above the surface of the ocean -- and it caused a huge explosion as the magic of the Bind Fire exploded on the chain.

"Sounds fun," Reli let out a laugh, "I'm going to fight you now."

Likewise, the magic being poured into the sea was magic, even if it was an unknown type, and it, too, met with the lightning of Dom magic as some of it split off from the chain and ran across the water, causing massive explosions all across the surface of the ocean as this magic Blade was pouring into it exploded time and time again.

[The Blade]

Realising that lifting the platform was going to be a helluva lot more difficult than it should've been, Blade drew back the Chain, letting it wrap around his forearm once more. He then let go of the magic that was sliding into the blood and sighed quietly. Reading signatures around him, he decided that Reli was the most probable source of this new magic. "Well then, let's begin, shall we?" He responded to the Negi with a grin.

The Dragon Sage then took a deep breath in and breathed out into his cupped hand, pulling up a large orb of bind fire which he tossed straight at Reli's chest. This fire would be easy enough to block or even stop but it was only a distraction as Blade launched a bolt of magic into the blood under Reli, the dom magic in the blood would then cause this spell to detonate under the Negi in a large explosion, hopefully weakening him.

Blade then used a second amount of Bind Fire and launched it into the blood, causing this new, untainted Fire to bind to the Dom Magic before he brought it back and wrapped it around him in an orbit, ready to use should his foe attempt anything else with this strange, newer magic.

[K2]

"Is that all you got?" Reli asked, laughing as some of the Dom Magic met the fire head-on, causing a small explosion. But the lightning did take him off guard, and when the water underneath him exploded, he had to teleport quickly, off to another part of the ocean -- he didn't get away clean, and his leg was scraped up pretty bad from the explosion. Close one he muttered, grunting from the slight pain as he drew back the Dom Magic from the ocean. This guy caught on quick -- but so did Reli. It was one of his specialities. He could retain information quickly.

Reli laughed when the Bind Fire hit the blood -- the Dom Magic had already been withdrawn. Not quite sure what Blade's game was, Reli decided to make the next move. Drawing from his long list of techniques he'd learned from battles over the years, deciding to use Nebula Magic -- a combination of Dom Magic and a magic used to defend a palace the Anrufe had once taken -- for his next attack. All across the blood ocean, a purple energy shot forth, beginning to coat it as Reli submerged himself in the blood, using magic to help him breathe.

[The Blade]

Now, because of the fact that his Bind Fire didn't actually react to any magic in the blood, Blade instantly knew it had been withdrawn and instead of pulling it back he expanded it. The Fire now wrapped itself in a circle around the area that Reli was in, making a circle of fire that the Nebula Magic hit and then stopped at. The reason it would stop would be that the Bind Fire took on the exact properties and magical signature of the Nebula Magic but was under Blade's control, tricking the magic as a whole that it could move no further than what Blade was controlling, therefore hemming all of the magic in.

All the while however Blade had been following Reli's magical signature into the blood and once it had become stable and no longer moving he acted. The Dragon Sage lifted his arm, the one with the Chain, and flicked it forwards, the Chain of Exodus lengthening and sliding straight into the blood before launching itself at where Reli was. Now, considering that it came from nowhere from the surface, held no magical signature and seemed to be just normal, nothing much would happen unless it hit Reli, in which case it would wrap around him, therefore it would be rather difficult to dodge.

[K2]

The Nebula Magic fell for the trick -- but Reli did not. He could see the Bind Fire above and quickly caught on, and so he grabbed onto the Nebula Magic he'd cast from before and started to manually force it forward into the Bind Fire. The Nebula Magic was different than Dom Magic, and instead of simply causing the magic to explode, it was incinerating the Bind Fire. One might ask how you could incinerate fire, but it was incinerating the magic that powered the fire itself, causing the fire to start to wither as the air literally began to burn and the blood began to boil as the Nebula Magic expanded out throughout the Blood Ocean.

So when the chain hit the Nebula-layered surface of the ocean, it, too, like the boiling ocean, would face incinerating effects as the Nebula Magic started to rise up the chain, incinerating the base magic throughout it.

[K2]

Suddenly, something terrifying happened. The skies above grew black as a massive portal formed in orbit of the planet, wrapping around its atmosphere. Pitch blackness was embracing Cruor. From the portal, dark vines started to come forth, descending miles and miles towards the surface. The planet was being taken. To where? By who? What was going on? Not even Reli knew, and he began to panic.

Until he heard a voice -- the planet -- telling him to be still.

A new era was going to begin soon.

[The Blade]

Blade detached the small portion of chain from the whole and allowed it to burn to cinders from the Nebula Magic. Just as he was about to let out his counter attack he felt the massive shift and looked upwards at the sky. It was then that Exodus decided to pipe up.

Run... You cannot fight that...

For once the Dragon Sage did not back talk to the Chain and instead decided that leaving would in fact be a great course of action. He looked over Reli, sighed, and then looked upwards once more. "I'll hunt you down and then I'll bind you myself." He whispered and then vanished in a bronzen flash, disappearing off to elsewhere for now.

[K2]

So, it's finally time? Reli mused.

The planet was engulfed by the darkness, taken away somewhere. Somewhere far away -- out of the dimension. Gone, long gone. And in its place, in the space where it had been, there was now nothing, just space. Vacuum. But this was not a permanent leave. Something dark had been inside that portal, and it had called out to Blade, making itself known. It had practically screamed to Blade -- and to the Exodus magic.

"THE DARKNESS WILL REACH YOUR HEART AND CONSUME IT."

The darkness was alive.