Imri watched as the shards of metal unerringly flew toward him from multiple angles. Fortunately, Imri didn’t need an avenue of retreat, simply using Blink to get far enough away. The swarm of the projectiles harmlessly converged on the now empty space, striking into the ground.
Unfortunately, the rest of Celestia’s warriors couldn’t significantly damage the construct despite Imri drawing its entire attention. While Imri was well suited to the decoy role, he was also the only one who had damaged it. However, he didn’t have anywhere near enough mana to destroy the entire construct with Dimensional Tear. This was only exacerbated as he was forced to Blink away from another swarm of the strange metal shards that flew with unerring precision.
Imri thought about what had happened when he had damaged it. It had seemingly lost control of its form for a moment. Something had to be keeping this metal together and directing it.
Following that thread, Imri shifted his vision to see mana. As he did so, he was almost blinded by the light radiating from the Sentinel. Fortunately, it wasn’t too debilitating, and he had regained his composure in time to see another swarm of shards directed towards him.
Imri used Blink to teleport away, noting that he was now suffering from the over-channel debuff. While it was hardly noticeable at its lowest level of effect, it would quickly escalate as he was forced to spend more and more mana to have the same amplitude in his spells.
He refocused his vision, reducing his sensitivity to mana. The Sentinel still shone brightly, but it was no longer blinding. He quickly noticed that the construct wasn’t uniform in its mana distribution; tendrils of mana connected to each of the individual shards, leading back to a central point within the main mass of the Sentinel. Imri suspected this central node was a core of some kind and was the power source for the construct. If he could destroy the core, the rest of the construct should become inert without mana.
Imri launched another Dimensional Tear as he was forced to Blink away from another salvo of shards, this time directing it towards the core. To Imri’s horror, the construct rearranged its body, moving its core away from the oncoming attack. The void in space consumed some of the metal, though still far from enough to make a significant difference. The portion of the body that was no longer connected to the core also collapsed towards the ground until new mana tendrils shot out and reconnected them to the central body.
Imri staggered as the effects of the over-channel intensified. He would likely only be able to cast a few spells before becoming too ineffective. Fortunately, he wasn’t the only one doing damage now. Sawyer had closed the distance as the Sentinel was solely focused on Imri. Having seen the effect of Imri’s Dimensional Tear, he activated the Dimensional Saber and began hacking at the portions that had started to reassemble.
While Sawyer’s assault didn’t do much damage, it temporarily disabled the Sentinal, forcing it to reestablish control of its body with each slash that cut through hundreds of invisible threads. This gave Imri the moment he needed to compose himself. He closed the distance between himself and the Sentinel with a Blink. Imri fired off a Dimensional Tear at almost point-blank range with the Sentinel distracted. The Sentinel couldn’t dodge this time as the thin tear in space tore through its main body. It sliced through without slowing, reaching its target and cleaving the core into almost symmetrical pieces.
The instant the incredibly dense mana was exposed to the relatively lower density of the area, there was an explosion of force as mana sought equilibrium. Imri was thrown backward from the blast as shards from the Sentinel flew everywhere, embedding themselves in any exposed skin. Imri did his best to shield his face with his arms. Shards of the metal bit into his flesh, damaging everything that wasn’t covered in armor, which was still most of his body.
Agony coursed through Imri’s body as his HP plummeted. Fortunately, the explosion hadn’t been as precise as the directed attacks, preventing him from being shredded to ribbons. It still hurt like hell, and his body had been sent several meters backward from the blast. Sawyer appeared to be in a similar state, injured but alive. They wouldn't have survived if they had taken a hit like this before the system.
Emelia rushed to his side, casting a healing spell as she reached him. Imri also used his Shaped By Mana trait, converting a portion of his MP regeneration into HP. He also consumed a high-quality mana regeneration potion to help the process along.
“I’ll be fine, save your mana for someone in a critical condition,” Imri told her. She gave him a worried look but then nodded.
With not enough energy to go anywhere, Imri reviewed his gains.
Imri Padar has reached level 36 (+3) in Relativity Mage (2F) Imri Padar has reached level 36 (+3) in Primordial (1E) Primary Stats Strength 135 (+1) Agility 106 (+1) Constitution 123 (+1) Intelligence 223 (+5) Willpower 179 (+2) Charisma 111 (+1) Secondary Stats HP 194 (+6) FP 144 (+3) MP 629 (+37) Mana Efficiency 586 (+33) Crafting Efficiency 653 (+37)
Spells Ranked Up Dimensional Tear E to D: Improves the spell's mana efficiency by 3% Blink E to D: Improves the spell's mana efficiency by 3%
Trait Rank Up Discerning Eyes E to D Discerning Eyes 1D has improved to Omniscient Eyes (2F) Discerning Eyes (1D): Improves visual acuity by 5.25%. Increases the effectiveness of the Identify skill by 26.25%. You can see mana in any state. Omniscient Eyes (2F): Improves visual acuity by 7.5%. Increases the effectiveness of the Identify skill by 30%. You can see mana in any state and distinguish how the mana is being used. You can see mana residue, discerning the previous effects caused by the mana.
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Imri smiled; at least there were some benefits to surviving impossible odds. The Omniscient Eyes would hopefully help him analyze how the mana affected the Sentinel and give him a better idea of what they were facing. He also certainly wouldn’t turn down better vision and identify improvements. The upgrades to two of his most utilized spells were also welcome buffs.
“Are you well enough for a debrief?” the major asked, interrupting Imri from his analysis. Imri just nodded. “So, I take it those were the Sentinels Russ mentioned?”
“That seems likely. I wasn’t actually able to Identify it.”
“Does that mean they have some sort of resistance to being identified?” the major asked.
“I don’t think so. They are just very high leveled,” Imri hypothesized.
“But aren’t you in the low thirties in level? Would that mean they are over level 40?” the major asked in disbelief.
“I have a trait that improves my Identify skill, so they are probably over 50. They’re also almost assuredly in tier 2, which I’m guessing is a huge jump in power level,” Imri said with a shrug. He idly wondered if he could improve his Solo Hunter achievement if he slew a Sentinel without any help.
The major’s eyes drifted towards where the healers worked to save as many people as possible. His gaze then shifted toward the bodies of the fallen, which had been laid out in as dignified a manner as could be managed with the limited supplies available. Nine people had died in this one battle, which was as many as the entire conflict with the Chixel. Imri didn’t need Emelia’s empathy to know the major felt the weight of responsibility.
The major spoke in a hushed tone so they wouldn’t be overheard. “I’m out of my depth here. To be honest, I’m struggling to adjust to everything about this new world. I was a logistics officer, not someone who ordered people into life-or-death situations,” he admitted.
“I’ll do everything I can to help,” Imri vowed. He explained how he had defeated the construct, the major nodding and hanging on his every word. “I’m sorry I don’t know more,” he said apologetically when he finished.
“You have nothing to feel sorry for. If you hadn’t figured that much out, the rest of us would be in even worse shape,” Major Harper said.
Imri excused himself and headed towards Emelia to try to convince her to take it easy. He knew exactly how hard she had been pushing herself despite being pregnant. She was nearly collapsing, but she continued healing her patients. Imri reached her just in time as she swayed unsteadily on her feet.
“No one is in critical condition; I think you can take a break,” Imri pointed out as she leaned against him. “Especially since you are pregnant,” he added in a hushed tone
“I’m fine. I can keep going,” she said, even though she could barely stand.
“You’ll be able to help them faster if you don’t cast while you have over-channel,” Imri pointed out.
She looked like she was about to keep arguing, but exhaustion combined with Imri’s argument won over. Imri helped her move to a grassy area away from the hustle of the mundane healers and the workers who efficiently harvested the fallen enemies.
Caroline approached as they were recovering, holding a few pieces of the Sentinel. The first piece was one of the shards, indistinguishable from any of the others. However, the other two pieces were larger hemispheres, combining to form a spherical shell about the size of a basketball. Imri guessed this had been a protective layer around the core, his last Dimensional Tear having cleaved it in half. If his theory was correct, he wasn’t sure how it was still intact after being at the epicenter of the mana-induced explosion.
“I’ve been studying the composition of this metal. So far, no luck, besides figuring out that this is some sci-fantasy bullshit that makes our modern alloys look crude,” she said as she held out the core housing.
“If you couldn’t figure out anything, I doubt I could,” Imri said with a shrug, though he took the offered items and started studying them.
“Look at it closely. There are some tiny markings engraved on it. I think they’re runes, but you would know them better than anyone else,” Caroline explained.
Imri nodded and shifted his vision, using the new feature of his Omniscient Eyes to see the mana residue from the previously active enchantments. He could suddenly see scores of tiny runes, all intricately etched over every millimeter of the core housing. While he had strongly suspected the Sentinals were powered on mana using enchantments, he hadn’t expected this level of mastery. There were likely hundreds of thousands of runes contained within the relatively small surface area. Imri had been proud of getting comparatively few runes on a ring, but the Sentinel made that look like an infant playing with crayons for the first time. This was closer to modern computing levels of detail when he considered all that he could accomplish with a relatively small number of runes.
“Those are definitely runes,” Imri said.
“Do you know what they do?” Caroline asked.
“It would take me months to figure out even a fraction of this,” Imri said.
Imri added studying the Sentinel core housing to his ever-growing to-do list. While he doubted the world would be kind enough to afford him several quiet months to study it, he could at least make intermittent progress. Hopefully, he could make some headway on it before more Sentinels arrived.