Villain's Second Heart: Trapped in A Fantasy Novel (BL)-Chapter 123: The Mountain Calamity Part 2

The mountain underneath them screamed as it grumbled to life angry and vicious.

Oberyn found himself in complete shock. Just moments before, he sacrificed a part of himself to the mountain - and now he discovered the mountain itself was a monster.

"What..." was all he could muster, shaking his head in disbelief as the last twenty-four hours of his life replayed themselves over and over in his head.

’Where did I go wrong?’

’What did I do?’

’Is this...my fault?’

A roar unlike anything they’d ever heard heard thundered through the air, shaking the world around them as hairline cracks split open across the flattened summit. At first it was slow - lava bled through the cracks like blood beading from a paper cut - but then the ground shook with primal fury and lava burst through the fissures. It erupted in sudden, violent sprays that painted the sky with glowing orange arcs.

The ground beneath their feet quaked and groaned. Red light danced across the platform. The glyphs that once sealed Lavoshe burned with blinding heat, warping and splintering.

"Everyone, get in the air! NOW!" Rav commanded.

Oberyn snapped back to reality, realizing the gravity of the situation. No time to think. He had to act.

His wings snapped wide, already out from the events earlier, and he dashed to the sky.

Bree lifted into the air a half-second later, the wind from her feathers scattering the ashes at their feet. Ezra turned, eyes locked with Oberyn one last time.

Rav’s arm hooked around his waist, and a cloud burst into existence beneath them. They surged upward into the sky just as the stone beneath them cracked entirely, collapsing into a molten sinkhole.

The summit vanished underneath them.

They rose higher. Fast. Ezra’s breath caught in his throat. Below them, the mountain erupted - not just in fire, but in movement. The entire peak shifted, like the mountain itself was stretching, shrugging off a millennia-long slumber. Waking up to cause devastation unlike anything the world had ever seen.

Oberyn hovered near Ezra and Rav, his amber eyes flickering with despair.

"Aunt Jan...why would you do this...?"

"Get your head on straight, you idiot!" Rav shouted back. "That’s not your aunt, and this isn’t your fault! But it will be if you don’t start paying some fucking attention to what’s happening!"

The jagged ridges of the mountaintop lifted like a crown. Great slabs of stone bent and split. Deep beneath, something pulsed. A heart too large, too ancient, beating at the molten core.

Rav peered inside, shuddering at the thought - he’d been inside that mountain not long ago. Even as it bubbled with lava, he knew - there were a thousand other monsters inside, and he was sure their master wouldn’t have just let them burn up.

They were waiting for their moment. A horde big enough to end all life in the northern country - the Hungry included.

Ezra watched, stunned, as the massive ridges along the mountain’s sides began to tremble. Rocks peeled away like dead skin, revealing pulsing orange light beneath. Gouts of fire shot skyward. Smoke churned into the clouds. Ash billowed out in choking waves.

They came to a stop in the air - Rav, Oberyn, Bree, and Ezra, floating on currents of wind and cloud.

But of them all, Bree was the most shocked.

"My family is down there," she cried aloud, looking to the west of the Calamity Lavoshe.

"Rav, I can’t...I have to go to them!"

None of them had to ask. Her home - her family, her community - was nestled along the foothills of the very mountain now becoming a living inferno.

In one breathless moment, Bree’s wings twitched. Her eyes blazed with light, and she turned, darting away from the group in a streak of shimmering blue.

"Bree!" Oberyn shouted.

She was already gone.

"Let her go," Rav murmured. "She’ll make it."

Ezra turned his gaze to Rav. The Sage looked different now. Focused. His usual languid air was gone, replaced by something impossibly commanding.

Rav spread his arms wide.

"Pay attention, kiddos, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity, and you both just found yourselves front row seats. Oh, and Ezra - I may need to borrow a teensy bit of that extra mana you’ve been cultivating."

The air stilled and even as the boiling lava continued to sputter below them, it seemed as if sound itself came to a halt. Rav’s magic permeated every atom. Serenity. Bliss.

And overwhelming power.

Clouds converged from every direction. The sun disappeared. Day turned dim. A swirling vortex of fluffy clouds blotted out the entire sky, forming from the air itself in mere moments.

Rav placed his hand on Ezra’s shoulder.

[You know what to do.]

Ezra nodded. He didn’t need Alcor to know what came next. He let his mana seep out of him and into Rav, as he had done for Oberyn so many times. Right now, this was how Ezra could contribute.

The clouds continue to grow, blocking almost all light as they grew dimmer and darker. Every breath of wind and every droplet of moisture rose from the atmosphere and became part of Rav’s cloud, a swirling goliath of magical energy that dwarfed even the Calamity below.

Wind whipped around them in violent bursts, spiraling up from the ground and down from the heavens. The cloud Rav and Ezra rode surged higher still, and with one final, world-breaking breath, he lifted both hands.

The clouds obeyed. The scattered wisps above became massive walls of vapor, pulled into a single spiraling column that stretched across the sky.

In the epicenter of the clouds, a great funnel opened in the sky, directly above Lavoshe. Rain surged from it in great torrents, howling into the open cracks of the mountain. Wind screamed as the maelstrom tightened. A cyclone of clouds and rain, coiling around the peak like a serpent. Rav’s voice rang out in a language Ezra didn’t know - but it wasn’t meant for him.

The world listened.

Lightning cracked across the sky, dancing through the funnel. Thunder followed, a rolling wave of fury.

Ezra could feel the mana bleeding from Rav. Every second, it poured from him in crushing waves, enough to paralyze Ezra where he stood on the cloud. The man’s power was unfathomable. For a moment, Ezra wondered if he were watching the final act of a god.

"Now, Ezra, Oberyn - you’re about to learn why I earned the title ’Sage of the Clouds’."