Avatar: Mage of All Elements

POV Private Ryan

If someone asked me what hell looked like, I wouldn't hesitate to describe the chaos around me. I've been in the military for two years now, a year and a half of it on the front lines. I've been all over the place. I've seen a lot of battles, but what's going on right now is something no one could have imagined in their wildest dreams.

The fighting has been going on for a week. The constant clash of earth and fire has created lava in some places. It's so hot that even strong fire mages are drenched in sweat, given their innate resistance to high temperatures. How earth mages survive for a week in such conditions is beyond me.

Troops from the nearest outposts have been drawn to us. All of our closest forces have been thrown into this operation. All to take this goddamn strategic point. Yes, this height is very favorable, but to organize a week-long massacre here and to kill so many people, that's too much for my understanding.

But as if that wasn't enough, there were screams in our rear. And my worst nightmares come true. For what could be more horrible than the senselessness of such a week-long massacre? Personally, I can't imagine. And judging by the growing outcry, the situation is dire. We've already lost 80% of our people. But I wasn't allowed to think.

Soon, in addition to the screaming, I saw fountains of blood. The sight of swirling blood and flesh was eerie in itself, and as if that weren't enough, the blood itself was behaving strangely. And all this glory was rushing toward me.

Fear took my voice and the only thing I could do was run in terror. So I ran. I tried to get as far away as I could. My intuition, which had helped me more than once, just screaming in fear, begging me to get away from here. But as if fate had decided to mock me, I stumbled over someone's corpse and went flying.

As it happened, I landed a little sideways, on my side, and could see everything that was going on behind me. And the more I saw, the more I realized how wrong I was. I thought I knew what hell was? What appeared before me was hell. A two-meter tall human figure, completely covered in blood, was all red and had no body like I was used to.

It was just streams of blood in constant motion, and it hardly looked like a human being. No other color, just red. The figure had two huge bloody swords in its hands, which it swung at unimaginable speeds, leaving bloody trails in the air behind it and tearing flesh into shreds, creating a ten-meter wide swath of corpses. It was a blood demon.

As it raced away from me toward the Earthbender, oblivious to me, my consciousness failed and shut down.

***

I had five years to figure out how to fight more effectively and safely. I've had a lot of help from the movie industry. Because what a thousand people can think of, one person can't. It's the same with me. I took some ideas and tried to realize them through magic. With enough control, some of them worked.

I surrounded myself, not thickly, with a layer of water and lowered its temperature in time, I was not so afraid of fire. It probably wouldn't help against cobblestones, but to make one out of ice, I need blood, for easier control. As for defense. To attack, I formed the water tentacle into a sword shape and then froze it. It's a big juggernaut that can't cut anything, and even though it weighs a lot, I don't care.

I solved the sharpness problem in an interesting way. After drawing some blood from the animal, I divided it into two parts and let it run in a thin stream along the blade. To increase the effect, I had to run the same stream in the opposite direction. The blade still didn't cut, but began to tear everything apart, imitating a saw. It all took a lot of control, but what you can't do for the safety of your own body.

And that's how I ended up in the back of the Fire Army. The swords immediately proved themselves in two ways. First, they did their job well. On the other hand, they tore people apart like they were in a blender. Blood, guts, flesh. The sight of it, despite the heat of the battle, made me vomit several times. It took away some of the suddenness, but I could keep my mind on the needs of my body. I couldn't be distracted by the hats being thrown at me.

I had to immediately saturate the water around me with blood and control it to speed up my movements. All of this required a tremendous amount of concentration. My attention was barely enough to move in the right direction and react to threats in time.

Behind me was a clearing fifteen meters wide. The sword alone was six meters long. And when I dodged, I sometimes jumped up to ten meters. But it was all flowers. No matter how much fire was thrown at me, I cooled water and blood and gained some invulnerability to heat. Basically, I ran like a tank and took all the damage from everyone.

And that was as far as the collision line between the two armies went. I flew out of the pandemonium of fire warriors and landed right between the two sides. Behind me was a clearing and a bloody trail with no one on it. And it wasn't that I had killed everyone quickly. No. It was just that the people who saw it were afraid to approach.

So for the warriors of the land, it was a surreal image of me. I'm tired enough in this short time, but the enemy is behind me and in front of me. I have nowhere to go. The only thing left is to follow the plan, to defeat both of them, maybe this way it will be possible to save a possible future.

But the stone is no harmless flame for me. It can hurt you pretty bad. So instead of water and blood, I've got blood ice. It is harder to make, but it is even easier to control, because it is not necessary to keep it from evaporating, the main thing is not to break its structure.

This transformation took me about five seconds, because you have to do everything right. That's how long the general stupor lasted. And as if counting those seconds, a small stone in the shape of a disk flew into me, but my armor was now made of blood ice, so it crashed harmlessly into it. Since the armor passed the crash test, as I was clearly convinced it would, I could keep running.

When I went through the Fire Army, I played the role of a fast tank, but here it was much harder, even though there were fewer mages. Earth magic is very good when you need to create an obstacle or cover. I do not have that magic, so I had to either jump or cut through all the obstacles that were created in front of me. With all that going on, I was physically unable to react to everything, let alone react quickly. So most of the time I had to dodge and hit back at whoever I could get my hands on.