Inktober VI: Attack

And he rose that single finger high into the air, and with it came a great mass of writhing blackness behind him. The sky was clear some time before, but now the Sun had gone away in fear of whatever unworldly energy the mage had summoned. As far as I know, if Battleside hadn't immediately surrendered, we'd have all faced something worse than death.

-Journal Entry of an Unknown Battleside Soldier

Cease is a fabled ninth-level spell that has never been fully cast and has only been performed once by Jeshtir Olin to turn back a Battleside army. Only the strongest-minded and strongest-willed can cast this spell, which will result in anything the caster desires being undone.

History

By the 2nd of Nofield, 746, Battleside had conquered half of Fao in their goal to rule one massive totalitarian government, and had started moving to capture the capital city of Drakarth. However, when their troops had reached the foot of the Yutran Hills, Olin stood alone before the army with nothing but his robes, staff, and an empty glass vial. When he threatened Battleside with "the wish for even the farthest reaches of your ancestors to have never been born," only for the men to laugh in his face, he started casting the spell.
By the time the men had pointed their weapons towards Olin, the Sun had turned into a black mass of energy turning and spinning about itself without deliberate shape or form, and it was reported to have been "within easy reach, if any had been mad enough to want to approach it." Reports vary of the sound that it made, with some claiming that it was whispers from loved ones, others believing it to sound like tossing a coin down an infinitely deep well, and others claiming to have heard nothing at all - the absolute absence of any sort of noise.
This effect it had on Battleside's men was enough to turn the whole army away from Drakarth for good, as they never advanced any further on Fao and collapsed due to internal power struggle only months later. Olin later went on to claim fame for a time based on his spell's ability to force Battleside to turn tail.

Casting

In the interviews after the incident that later became known as the Ceasing, Olin revealed a select few pieces of information about the spell in question. Cease, as he called it, was the most powerful evocation spell any mortal could hope to create. Anyone not powerful enough to control it would have destroyed themselves so badly that time would erase themselves from time, leaving no trace.
If a caster could handle Cease's power, the actual casting of it would take a full week without stop, meaning they would have to either have many aides there to aid them with food, water, and encouragement, or that they would have to have a strong enough will to withstand a week lacking all of those necessities. Once that was completed, they would simply require the right materials to start the spell, and a target to focus it onto. However, Olin never specified on any of these details, leading many scholars to believe there was something special about the glass vial, staff, or robes he used that day. However, none of these studies have yielded any firm results.
Olin was very simple about the effect the spell would have: "It will Cease. Whatever you want that is happening - poof. No more. It won't always be the Sun going black - at least, I don't think so. That just seemed to work for Battleside. Whatever the case, your problem will be taken care of if you do it correctly."