Noah walked down the mountain trail. He half-lies to his students. When he scanned the city with his mask's eye, he saw more than he let them know.
He recognized the group insignia they wore but this group shouldn't be anywhere near this place. This particular criminal group was dangerous and their leader was a renegade three-star Arch with the Unholy affinity. Compared to that, the Void affinity was a scalpel that always cut cleanly. The Unholy toolbox contained life drain, undeath, direct harm spells, disease, and so on.
Noah needed to take them all by surprise and eliminate them in one fell swoop. Without harming the city. He took a position at the edge of the city and prepared his rune.
His finger moved to draw but nothing remained behind. Despite what many claimed, Noah had a single affinity. Rune. He didn't create the effects, he created the rune and then let the rune convert his Rune essence into an adequate effect.
Before he activated the invisible rune made out of nothing, he wondered whether he should teach this to Robert or not. But he had a time limit before the Void rune he drew lost its potency. He pressed the palm of his hand and chanted as he ignited all three of his stars.
"Unnatural Disaster: Outer Space Decompression."
The air around and within the city was sucked out in a matter of seconds, leaving only a vacuum equal to that of the outer space behind. New air didn't rush in to fill the space. The whole city was separated from the rest of the Puffbloom Islands realm.
The smugglers had seconds to react. All the fluids exposed to the vacuum boiled cold. Eyes and mouth dried out. Then the mucus in their lungs also started to boil at room temperature as the oxygen in their blood escaped into the vacuum, making most of them lose consciousness in less than fifteen seconds.
Those who were conscious when the spell hit and had something to counter the vacuum either used a create air spell to breathe or some item that helped them keep their oxygen. But these had to contend with the absolute vacuum of outer space.
Mere seconds after the decompression, the spell also started to actively drain heat. The vacuum of outer space was close to absolute zero and with no heat coming from the surrounding matter, the whole city chilled dozens of degrees each second and quickly reached negative one hundred degrees and kept dropping.
Noah had no idea if these effects were exactly like exposure to space outside the planet. Few people went up there after the rift cataclysm and the laws of physics changed anyway. But the spell had a devastating effect and that was what mattered. In fact, this spell was so powerful and dangerous only two people knew it existed. He and the Empress.
Thirty seconds in, the smugglers' lives were in serious jeopardy. Normal humans would be well on their way to becoming a popsicle, already unconscious and with their core temperatures dangerously low. But these were Archhumans, two-star elites. Their essence and powers gave them unnatural resilience.
The ones still conscious ran outside with weapons drawn, searching for enemies or a way out of the vacuum bubble. Noah was hidden in an alley and he wished them good luck. Out of the four that got out on the streets, three succumbed from exhaustion. The third tried to run away.
Noah was impressed as his mask's eye granted him the power to see through the obstacles. The guy found the shortest path to safety. That must've been his talent. Too bad he couldn't survive.
He drew an Earth rune and whispered.
"Natural disaster: quicksand pit."
The "best path" man fell through the liquefied ground to his waist. Once inside, Noah canceled the spell to save some essence, letting the ground solidify and trap the smuggler inside the vacuum.
One minute. The smugglers were still alive but now were suffering progressive and permanent brain damage.
Two minutes. No fatalities yet but any living survivors would exist with the same intellect as a mundane fern.
Three minutes. Twenty-six deaths were confirmed. Not a single soul was left alive in the city. Exhausted, Noah dismissed the bubble. Air rushed with a loud pop, cracking a few windows.
With almost no essence left, Noah did a last calculation with his talent and rushed back to the tower and his pupils. He reached them almost out of breath.
"Professor, what happened?_ Amanda asked, worried. "We heard an explosion…"
"I'm fine, just a bit exhausted," Noah replied. "You two can go down and fight their leader if you want. My spell damaged him but he's still out and about."
"Okay," Amanda seemed eager to engage.
Robert held her back by grasping her arm. "Wait. Professor, why did you leave the boss alive? Is this some sort of test? Do you have any hints?"
"I didn't leave him alive," Noah answered. "I just didn't have a spell that would, at the same time, preserve the city, deal with the smugglers scattered around it, and kill the boss. No, it is not a test. And for a hint, hold nothing back. Use your most vicious attacks, and act fast and decisively. Robert, abuse your talent and use your strongest spells straight away."
The two students nodded and rushed down the mountain.
*
*
"Fucking hell!" Damien shouted in the dead, deserted city.
All of his crew were dead. Some weird Air spell struck them and sucked the air out of their lungs. Worse, the spell also damaged their brains to the point he couldn't reanimate them, not even as zombies.
Whoever did this would pay. Damien would kill them and reanimate them, and then fuck their corpses. After that, he would toss them off the island just to have fun watching them fall forever.
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He sensed life approaching. Two Archs, by the feeling he had. One at two stars, maybe early three, and the other peak one star.
Damien walked with confidence. The two life forces he sensed walked into the main street. He recognized the uniform.
"You are very far away from your fancy Academy, Imperial students."
He knew that if two students were here, the others in their class and a teacher were also nearby. He needed to finish these two fools who probably escaped from their group to fuck like rabbits.
The guy vanished. Next thing, Damien felt a sharp blade cut through his neck. The world spun and he saw his body standing on the street sideways.
*
*
Robert pulsed sense life and confirmed that Amanda and him were the only ones alive in the city. But something was wrong. Noah said he left nobody alive, so what about this guy? Did Noah miss this one? No. He explicitly said the boss was here. But now he was dead and missing a head. Hard to.
Robert felt like a cold ghostly claw had grasped his heart. His lifeforce was being drained! Amanda screamed and fell to her knees. The beheaded corpse walked and picked up the head with all the calm in the world, reattaching it.
Robert used his talent. The spell draining his lifeforce ended. He cursed and punched the corpse. How could he be this dumb?
This guy was an undead Arch. Someone with the Death affinity or something related. It all made sense but why Noah didn't want them? Obviously to make this a learning experience.
Pissed, Robert swore his teacher was a sadistic bastard who enjoyed putting his students through the wringer.
Hours passed. Jade mind let him recover his wits and think. Noah said to use his strongest spells from the get-go. He didn't do that, instead going for a beheading. The puzzle pieces were all there but he ignored them as banter.
Okay. Maybe it was all his fault but Noah shouldn't act like a bald midget in red robes giving cryptic messages and then vanishing.
Strongest spells, right? Robert prepared himself and ran scenarios. He waited behind the undead man.
When the colors returned, he ignited his two stars and chanted.
"Mind blackout!"
He felt a breeze blow through his mental palace, picking up momentum and empowering his spell.
He dominated the undead. His first order was to release Amanda. Next, he had the undead unlock his spatial storage items and drop them. Half of his essence went into casting the spell, and more was drained every second as upkeep.
Amanda rushed to get close. "Bloody motherfucker!" She cursed. Touching him, she cast a spell silently and pulled back. Mold started to grow on the undead.
Two spatial rings dropped on the ground. Robert pulled his fist back and punched it on the head with a void punch. Hair, scalp, skull, and a portion of the undead's brains sprayed away from him.
Then he felt his mind control break. A dark aura spread around the undead, killing the mold that was shriveling his arm and forcing Robert to jump away.
The look on the undead's face was feral. Sharp claws grew from his fingernails. Snarling, the undead pounced on Robert. As the unholy aura brushed against Robert's skin, he used his talent and reappeared next to Amanda after healing himself with reconstruction. The cost in biomass was staggering.
"Amanda, run. This is not a fight you can win!" Robert commanded, scared.
"I can fight!" Amanda protested.
Robert shouted. "Not against a three-star undead, you can't. If you don't go now, I will grab you and run away."
Tears rolled down Amanda's cheeks. She looked disgusted but not angry at Robert. Her loathing was directed inward.
The undead dashed toward them. Robert grabbed Amanda and used his talent, depositing her at the foot of the mountain trail once their time in the liminal void ended.
"Go! Climb and stay with Professor Actus."
Robert used life sense with a negative setting. Now he got the information he needed. The undead was approaching fast, unholy senses locked on their lifeforce.
"What about you?"
"The void beckons," Robert said with what he assumed was a reassuring grin. He used his talent for dramatic flair. And to reach the undead faster.
Robert reappeared after only fifteen minutes in the liminal void. He immediately dipped into his essence reserves, casting an empowered drain essence on the undead. He noticed that the wound he caused with the void punch was already closing.
"Come and get me!" He taunted as he flared pure Life essence as a lure.
It worked. The undead leaped and started to run with a hunched gait, elongated claws scraping the pavement.
Robert hit it with a slow spell while using haste on himself. He kited the undead deeper into the city and away from Amanda.
Along the way, he scooped the spatial rings. They were covered in gore.
Using his reverse life sense, he kept track of the undead's position. He considered their speeds and decided he could keep the distance using only haste on himself. He canceled the slow spell and ran. Time was on Robert's side. Drain essence was slowly replenishing what he spent. Lavi flows and reconstruction kept him from getting tired and jade mind staved off mental exhaustion.
Robert kited the undead for hours, wondering just how much essence it had. He was sure he had already drained three times his own essence pool.
What was it using? He was sure the undead's main affinity was Unholy. Was it an evolved unholy vigor tempering that somehow allowed him to store essence?
He had to change gears. Robert stopped and aimed.
A horizontal dash of black appeared and curled into a tight spiral. Robert grabbed it and felt the familiar touch of the void. Then he heaved it at the undead. His void lance crossed the space between the two of them in a split-second, piercing the undead through the hips and leaving a hole six inches in diameter. He launched the second void lance the moment it was ready, striking the leg joint and causing the undead to falter and tumble ass over teakettle on the street.
A third and fourth void lance flew, cutting reality and obliterating chunks of the undead's flesh.
The black, unholy aura pulsed and reached out to him. Scared, Robert used his talent.
He sighed and went to sit on a nearby bench. Checking his timepiece, he confirmed he had almost half a month before the fight resumed.
He sat and called his tempering techniques, then went to his mental palace.
*
*
He knew something changed when he used that empowered mind blackout. As he stared at the sky of his mental palace, he saw twin four-color stars with a planet made of sandy beige bands of runes orbiting the stars at a crawling speed. If he wasn't paying attention, he'd say it was still.
Was this something his mind created? Something he had imagined? The sight felt so familiar and yet novel.
Then he noticed. The brain spirit Cerebelon granted him wasn't inside the spell frame. Why? He checked his Ethercosm and it was there.
Fearing he'd reveal too much information, Robert refrained from asking the spirit.
Instead, he returned to the mental palace and worked to stretch the imaginary dimension so it would fit both bastions.
*
*
Robert returned far away from the undead. A bubble of crackling black energy covered a city block in each direction, swallowing buildings whole.
It stopped growing and Robert watched. It remained up for five minutes then vanished. The buildings it covered were aged and cracked. Robert ran to see if his enemy had healed.
When he saw the undead, its features looked more civilized.
"You bastard!" The undead shouted as he tried to reattach his legs.
Robert hit him with a two-star drain essence. The undead reeled back and screeched in pain.
Undead Archs were nigh immortal. Physical damage meant nothing to them, only a minor discomfort and loss of motor functions. They would recover from anything but total brain destruction. The only other way to kill them was to exhaust their essence. Most of the Unholy affinity spells used lifeforce more than essence. Top that with an evolved tempering that allowed him to store more essence than his stars could and you had an unbeatable undead.
Robert shot several void lances at the grounded, crippled undead, targeting his head. The undead sacrificed his arms to defend his brain. When it tried to use that unholy nova, Robert evaded via the liminal void.
The affected buildings were crumbling now. Robert looked at the undead and ignited his two stars as he conjured a ballista bolt made out of Void energy. Then he shot it with a shout.
"Zoltraak!"