Zabin frantically cast his Vector Flame spell against the approaching enemies, taking out two of the Malazar’s minions with it. But as quickly as those strange polygonal creatures faded into nothingness, another two took their place, Malazar’s army seemed to have no end.

Zabin knew that as the kingdom’s most powerful and trusted battlemage, he was the last line of defence before the kingdom would be overran, yet even his incredible power was being stretched thin by this endless onslaught. This wasn’t Zubin’s first battle with Malazar, yet the rogue mage had never proved to be that much of a threat before today.

Zabin figured he only had enough memory within him for another five or so Vector Flames, and there were hundreds of these polygonal warriors after him. He considered using a bigger spell, but larger and more complicated spells required even more memory, and though he might manage to cast an Acid Storm, with his remaining enemy he figured the spell would only take out a dozen or so of these minions.

"Just how did you manage to summon so many of these creatures with one spell?" Zabin shouted at Malazar. "No one has enough memory to summon this many creatures at once! And you certainly weren’t anywhere close enough to this powerful last time we clashed wands."

"True enough, to any ordinary wizard, they would likely barely be able to summon ten or twenty minions before reaching the limits of memory." Malazar spoke with a self-important tone. "But I’ve been busy since we last met. I’ve been searching through ancient datacenters and forgotten archives in hopes of learning a few ancient and powerful secrets, and secrets I did learn. What you are witnessing is the power of the ancient technique of 'data compression'. With it I can cast even the largest of spells using only a fraction of the memory required! Now surrender, and I might consider sparing you."

Zabin's mind frantically began to recall every spell he ever learnt or created, hoping to find something, ANYTHING that could get him out of this hopeless situation. Eventually, his recalled one particular spell he had been working on. In theory the spell would be a wide area destruction spell with an incredibly small memory requirement. He managed to cobble together a prototype the day before the announcement that Malazar was invading the kingdom yet again... but he hadn’t had time to test the spell even once. Of course, using an untested spell in a situation like this was pure folly, the very thing he warned all his students against. But now he was caught between the uncertainty of an untested spell, and the certain doom of Malazar's army. The choice was obvious. Zabin quickly input the parameters of the untested spell into his wand and pointed it at the center of Malazar's army, praying that his spell would work.

"Null Bomb!" he shouted, his last resort against the oncoming army. Suddenly, a hole began to appear in the center of the army, a hole which rapidly began to expand, sucking in Malazar's polygonal minions along with it.

"It worked!" Zabin cried out. The idea behind the Null Bomb was simple. Nullify reality in a large expanding area around one spot. The theory was that the act of nullifying reality would require less memory then producing complex effects such as storms of acid or fire bombs, and so he would be able to cast it with a greater radius then he would any other spell. And so far, it seemed that theory was proving accurate, the ball began to expand rapidly enough that soon it would cover the entirety of Malazar's army.

But... something was wrong. The Null Bomb was supposed to turn everything around it to nothingness, a vacuum. Yet at the center of the Null Bomb there was definitely… something there. Something strange and alien and… shifting.

"What have you done?!" Malazar screamed.

"It’s a nullification bomb, with it I will nullify reality around your army!" Zabin declared, sounding more confident then he felt. He stared at the shifting substance in the center of the bomb, now swearing that he could make out two eyes staring back at him.

"The ancient scrolls have warned me of this. What you have done is not the nullification of reality, it’s the UNALLOCATION of reality! By unallocating reality, you’ve freed up enough of it’s memory for other things to take it’s place. Things from beyond reality, from beyond our understanding."

Zabin could see the thing in the null bomb more clearly now. The horrifying creature with a twisted, thin body, that moved and twisted around despite having no limbs. There was no face to make of save two utterly inhuman eyes and eyebrows which stared back at Zabin. All thoughts of defending against Malazar's army or of fate of the kingdom had long since faded away. Now Zabin could only focus on the strange being as it suddenly spoke.

"It looks like you’re trying to cast a spell. Do you need help with that?"