Sir Jared grunted. "It's a bit early, and it's a bit far, but it looks like we have no choice."

Hearing that, George relaxed a bit, but Darian, on the other hand, tensed up. "What are you planning?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Sir Jared shrugged. Turning to his knights, he said, "Attack!"

With a roar, sixty knights in various states of injury immediately charged at the surrounding Wilds.

"What the-?!" George blinked.

"They're trying to break out!" Darian leapt aside to avoid a brandished broadsword, kicking it clear out of the attacking knight's hand and seizing it for himself. Before he could counter, a nearby tiger chomped down on the knight, biting off one whole arm entirely, and then a python lunged atop the fellow and had him for dinner, armor and all.

Darian got clear and took one glance at the berserker knights. "It's a diversion!"

While the knights charged mindlessly in every direction, the leaders of their expedition were focused on a single course; directly south. Sir Jared, Sir Fate, Sira Fel, and Sira d.a.m.naith fought their way through the southern perimeter of the encirclement and broke free of the siege in moments.

"Don't tell me… they're still going for the Source?!" George gasped.

"Duh." Darian drew up his dragon Silhouette and roared. [All dragons, those four are making a run for it!]

[Stop them!] twenty dragons charged for the leaders running for the south.

But Sir Jared and his disciples were incredibly fast. They were so fast, even Darian couldn't catch up to them. Of the twenty dragons, only a half-dozen had the speed to match, and even they would take some time to close the gap.

[Not good!] Watching from afar, Doom himself joined the chase, but he wasn't that much faster either. [Flame Emperor! They're headed right for you!]

There was an earth-shaking cry, and then from a great mountain far, far ahead, beyond the Nine Kings Range, there was an eruption that lit up the evening. Huge columns of smoke immediately followed along with a fiery outpouring of lava.

And then, from the top of the mountain, a colossal bird's head was raised and glared at the four Grand Knights with narrowed eyes.

The Flame Emperor was finally making a move with her real form, and the world was covered in fire.

"Scatter!" Sir Jared ordered, as he charged straight for the Flame Emperor.

But n.o.body left his side.

"What are you guys doing? I said, SCATTER! I'll hold off the big bird, you guys get to the Source of Magic!" Sir Jared barked.

"But…" Sir Fate protested.

"He's right, you're not going to survive it." Fel gave it to him straight.

"Then don't let my sacrifice be in vain! Scatter! That is an order!!" Sir Jared charged. "For mankind!"

Sir Fate grimaced and cut across toward the left. Sira Fel sighed, and headed to the right.

"Uh…" d.a.m.naith looked left to Fate, right to Fel, straight ahead to Jared and scratched her head. "Then which way am I supposed to go?!"

Predictably, n.o.body answered her.

Gloomily, she turned around and raised her sword. "Oh well. We all knew we were going to die out here in the first place. We knew it the moment we left home. We were all expecting this a one-way trip from the start."

With that, she leapt straight into Doom's path and swung her greatsword at his head. Doom batted it aside, intending to dodge her, but she dropped her sword and grabbed both his feet, yelling, "I know I'm going down, but you're going down with me!!!"

[Blast it! Someone get her off me!] Doom fought to free himself, but it would take time, and time was one thing they did not have in abundance.

[I'm coming!] Darian closed in. [Dragons, split up and stop Fate and Fel! Leave Sir Jared to the Flame Emperor! Doom and I will handle d.a.m.naith!]

Eventually, they would win, of course. Right in the depths of the Wildlands, Tier 6 and stronger Wilds were without number, and hundreds of them were converging on the battle site from all sides. It was only a matter of time before this expedition and all other expeditions were halted, crushed or otherwise wiped out.

But time was suddenly against them. Abandoning all hopes of survival, abandoning all their friends and their teacher, Fate and Fel charged straight for the promised Source of Magic in the far south at speeds that Mindy's previous expedition couldn't even dream about.

Only a scarce few could catch up to them. Other Wilds were trying, throwing themselves in the way of the two Grand Knights, but Fate and Fel dodged, slipped past, cut their way through, or otherwise just plain bulldozed everything in their way. They were fast, they were powerful, and they didn't care one whit about injuries or pain. With the Flame Emperor and Doom delayed at the ultimate cost, they were unstoppable.

"No…" George gasped, but it was a weak voice much, much too far away for either of the Grand Knights to hear, and it presented a concept that was already completely thrown out of their vocabulary. No matter what anyone did or said, they were absolutely determined to find the Source of Magic!

In minutes, they were within sight of the black zone. In a quarter of an hour, they were at its edge, and were able to sense the inflowing mana easily enough to make a beeline straight for the Source.

At that point, the six fastest dragons had already caught up to them. One managed to clench both jaws around Fel's left foot, and refused to let go, dragging her back and slowing her immediately.

"GO!" Fel shouted, reaching out to grab the next two nearest dragons and slamming them against another two, then desperately closed her own teeth around the last of the six pursuing dragons. All by herself, she fought to hold them off with everything she had. [GO, Fate, GO!]

Fate, meanwhile, had a baffled look on his face as he neared the Source of Magic at about twice the speed of sound. [What… what am I supposed to do with THAT? It's a crack in s.p.a.ce! We can't take that away!]

For a moment, n.o.body answered. n.o.body knew what to say or do.

But desperation being what it was, Sir Jared wasn't about to quit. He threw everything he had into this expedition, and he would end it as such. With a roar that could be heard all the way across to where Sir Fate was closing in on the Source, he detonated his own life force. "FOR MANKIND!!"

A brilliant light lit up the evening accompanied by the sound of thunder. The explosion made even the Flame Emperor flinch.

"Mankind… mankind…" Sir Fate muttered as the distance closed to zero. At last, he put his hand on the crack in s.p.a.ce, a tiny, wavy-lined crack in reality itself, and shuddered. "For mankind… what I should do… is… is…"

Magical power surged as Sir Fate had reached his final conclusion.

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There was a great flash of brilliant light accompanied by the sound of thunder.

And then there was silence.

***

In moments, George began to feel the difference.

"Mana… the mana in the air is thickening." George whispered. "Fate… what have you done? What have you DONE?!"

Grimacing, Darian finally managed to tug d.a.m.naith off Doom. She'd stopped fighting since the second explosion and the change in the air. She was laughing, laughing hysterically, and it likely wasn't because she had just been, for all practical purposes, extremely friendly with Darian's teacher a moment ago.

"He did it!" d.a.m.naith cackled into the grim silence. "He's given mana to everybody!

"Fate has opened the spatial crack!"