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    Arcane Advent: The Mage, The Girl, and The Ruined City
    Arcane Advent: The Mage, The Girl, and The Ruined City
    Arcane Advent: The Mage, The Girl, and The Ruined City
    Ebook97 pages1 hour

    Arcane Advent: The Mage, The Girl, and The Ruined City

    By R Kain

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    The curtain of tragedy descended upon the unsuspecting people under the light of the crimson moon. The elements raged, vicious beasts painting the asphalt and concrete scarlet with the blood of the innocent and the guilty, the young and the old alike. Their lives were sacrificed, offered up to stir the sleeping demon into awakening. In the end only two remained to tell the tale of the ruined city, a story of survival against all odds where magick and mages did battle for the sake of power.

    Awakening at the center of the cataclysm, the runic mage wielding mystic arts took it upon himself to carry the wishes of the fallen on his back. He became their Avenger, seeking to end the nightmare. The girl who remained at his side, the sole remaining innocent left in the city, could only watch as he shed blood for her while flames burned the world around her.

    This novella-length story is the first in the Arcane Advent series—a chronicle of contemporary urban fantasy tales between those with the power to shape the world.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherR Kain
    Release dateMar 28, 2012
    ISBN9781476334769
    Arcane Advent: The Mage, The Girl, and The Ruined City
    Author

    R Kain

    Author:R.Kain is an author of various short stories and novellas centered on Urban Fantasy in contemporary settings. These tales tend to be dark, where good may or may not triumph over evil, but the price will be high, and sometimes the line between them is non-existent. Heroes may be just as dirty as the villains, but in the end, the only one they must answer to is themselves.Hobbies:* Reading* Writing* Playing Videos GamesFavorite Genre Book: FictionFavorite Genre Game: RPG

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      Book preview

      Arcane Advent - R Kain

      The Mage, The Girl, & The Ruined City

      (Arcane Advent #1)

      By: R. Kain

      Published by R. Kain at Smashwords

      Copyright © 2013 R. Kain Fantasy

      Third Edition

      ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. The characters and events portrayed in the book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons—living or dead—is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

      Warning: This ebook contains content that is considered unsuitable for those under the age of 16, due to graphic violence and adult language that may offend some readers.

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy.

      Ebooks are an economical pleasure that can be enjoyed time and time again at a low cost, so please support the author by legitimately purchasing a copy.

      THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE HARD WORK OF THIS AUTHOR.

      Epigraph

      In even the darkest of times, light exists eternally.

      Even though it may flicker and waver, it will never burn out.

      Entrust to me your grudge and sorrow.

      And I swear, under the crimson moon, for a better tomorrow.

      Beneath the Crimson Moon

      Amongst the remains of the asphalt jungle, the stagnant air whistled beneath the crimson moon. The wind began to howl a bleak tune as it flowed around and through the outcropping rubble, a cry from the city to mourn the loss of its citizens and its fall from grace. What was once a proud and lively city had been reduced to a ghost town, haunted by the coppery scent of blood so thick it was acrid, in only a day. A great number of people would fall ill if the smell could reach beyond the translucent barrier that surrounded the ruins,

      It truly looked as though Mother Nature had unleashed its wrath upon the dwelling of man. If that were the case it probably would have been more acceptable. But, sadly, a catastrophe such as this was beyond nature.

      This was the work of a human. A human who possessed ambition, casted aside their humanity, and embraced all of this as a necessary step in gaining power at great sacrifice. Yes, only a mage would unleash Hell onto the unsuspecting populace for such gains.

      In the end, the number of people still alive underneath the crimson moon could be counted on one hand:

      There was the child. A young girl turned into a victim, who was nestled safely within reinforced walls of a small home. She awaited her savior with baited breath.

      There was the architect of the destruction, the mage responsible for this nightmare. For the sake of his own goal he commanded the slaughter of tens of thousands. Now he awaited a challenge while sitting at the top of the sole remaining skyscraper, looking down at the destruction with a smile on his face.

      Last was the avenger, the runic mage for survived against all odds from the moment the clock struck twelve. His bones ached. His flesh was torn. His mind was weary. Yet, draped in tattered black cloth he dragged his half-dying body across the land to avenge the fallen, a sigh escaping his lips as he moved along the deserted roads lined with debris and blood splatters.

      His lamentation of the fact that his city had been violated and destroyed was heavy, only broken as a howl resounded throughout the air. It was a hunting cry, one that he had become intimately familiar with as of late. There was no more time for regrets as the enemy had come, death assured unless he fought.

      An obsidian blur tore across the landscape and rushed forward at an inhuman speed. Low snarls crept from its throat at the scent of meat and the pulsing of fresh blood in its acute ears. The directive it had been given commanded the source of the temptation be devoured and, navigating through the rough and debris-laden terrain, it prepared to lunge itself at the runic mage.

      Inhaling deeply he tapped into the reservoir of power that lay within him, a wellspring of magical energy. Surging through channels like blood through the circulatory system, the magical energy flooded his body and the change was near immediate. Pain was numbed, his senses sharpened, and his strength and reflexes magnified by multiple times to preternatural levels.

      He shifted his body into a fighting stance and drew black steel into his right hand. His left forearm was held defensively at a right angle as the blurred silhouette closed the gap and bared fangs at the runic mage’s throat, intent to tear it out. Magical energy gathered into the fingerless gloves he wore and shrouded it in a faint layer of wispy vapor as the spell left his lips. "Algis!"

      Light gathered onto his left forearm, shimmering as it took the form of a transparent shield of glass. At roughly a meter in diameter the defensive spell stood strong with an Algiz rune engraved on the center like an emblem. The hostile creature slammed into the shield and was rebuked by solidified magical energy, followed up with steel flashing in a horizontal crescent and cleaving through flesh for the umpteenth time.

      The creature was left in two chunks that eroded near instantly and scattered into dust. Nothing larger than a grain remained when the wind blew. Yet the runic mage’s grip on his sword tightened and his legs slid back ever so slightly, the glass-like shield remaining fixed in place.

      Enhanced senses told him five similar presences were prowling around him. He could hear the menacing rumblings echoing in chorus, their light footfalls on the broken asphalt as loud as galloping horses. His fight had only begun as the wolves had come.

      With a shoulder height and length of over a meter, they possessed jet black fur that was spattered in scarlet. Crimson eyes matched blood-dyed fangs, leftovers from their unfortunate prey still present within the maws that reeked of the coppery scent. While they were hunters, they were not natural creatures or even modified ones, merely artificial imitations.

      These creatures were a false breed of familiars, servants of the one that created them through magick. The act of change was done through the use of ambient energy given off by the planet called mana and refined within the body to produce magical energy. In other words, the architect of destruction was their master and thus he was the avenger’s enemy as well.

      The runic mage did not know the enemy’s face. Who he was, where he came from, and what he wanted—all of it was a mystery to him. But none of it mattered in the end. The only thing that mattered was that he was responsible for everything, so he was the enemy to kill.

      And these creatures were in his way, so he beckoned them forth. Bring it!

      The wolf pack began their attack at the declaration. They split up, with the first two attempting to pincer him. The first would tear at the mage’s flesh from the front while the second tried to claw at his back.

      The mage spun using his front foot as the pivot point. His cloak

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