James eyed Zack still, lifeless form and realized that his surge of righteous fervor had come too late. His thoughts turned to remorse and then anger. His remorse was for the many comrades he had seen slain before him in the many cruel years of war that he had been a part of. His anger was directed towards both the archer, for slaying Zack, as well as at the street fighter himself for disobeying James’ orders and leaping headlong into death because of it. But even though the youth had chosen his own fate, James could at least avenge him and see to it that the fatal favor was paid back to the Ixian Knights in full.
Before his blade could strike out and end the young archer however, a second blast akin to the one that had struck him in the church went off several feet away in the midst of the second combat going on in the council chamber. James barely had time to look over in surprise before the blast wave and ensuing shrapnel hit him, lifting him several feet off the floor and peppering his unprotected face with sharp bits of debris. As before, his heavy armor took most of the brunt of the attack, which was itself muted by its distance from him, but James had already been beaten almost to his breaking point by the day’s events and this was the final straw.
The Amran felt his righteous fury abate as he crashed into the opposite wall, leaving him weak and barely able to lift himself up. The pain in his head increased until the knight could barely see through it, and what little he could see down the dark tunnel that his vision had become gave him little hope. The entirety of the council chambers had become naught but glass shards, spattered blood, and surging magical energy.
Wait a minute, he blinked slowly. The recognition had little time to dawn on James’ shattered mind as the second bomb in the council chamber went off. Fortunately for him he had already been thrown well clear of the explosion’s main area of effect, but the council chamber itself hadn’t been quite so lucky. The timbers above the council chamber, devastated by a series of exploding magical shields and bombs, groaned painfully. James did the best he could, clawing his way towards some local elder’s personal chambers as the roof of the council building collapsed behind him.
Awash in a sea of dust and grit from the cloudy mess that the falling roof created, James lay limp in the personal chambers, wracked with coughing until his consciousness, mercifully, gave out.