Chapter 291

Bastardizing Bloodlines

There I was minding my own business, far far away from the front lines, when all the sudden I was called in for duty.

Okay, who was I kidding, I had already been scanning the area each and every trip into and out of the war zones as I picked up body after body to be Resurrected.

Each time I arrived, I saw more and more of the different formations and unit types that the enemy employed.

This war was annoying, well, war is annoying in general. You get a bunch of people that want things that they didn’t earn going to your neighborhood, trying to steal from you, under the guise of military might.

I think what annoyed me most about this situation was the fact that it was clear that the guild lines were being blurred. Yes, guild lines.

In this world there was the Adventurer’s Guild, the Apothecary Guild, the Mage’s Guild, the Engineering Guild, and of course the Thieves Guild.

The military could best be described as the Adventurer’s Guild, or a more active social group of the Adventurer’s Guild. Thus, the raiding, conquering, and slaughtering. That is fine, well not fine, but at least understandable.

My complaint comes when that same military then goes and performs Thieves Guild activities, like thieving and pillaging, that is where you got straight into my territory as the Thieves Guild Leader.

See it was annoying, and ultimately messy. Yes one could argue that Mages were involved, especially on the Legrand side, which made this even more annoying. Added to that was one could argue that the Engineering Guild was also involved due to the mechanoid suits that were being deployed in droves.

Apparently, I either didn’t get all of the Teleiotís factories, which isn’t saying much as I only got the one. Or the alternative is that the Legrand Military took their Teleiotís factory blueprints and made another elsewhere.

I don’t know which is which, but I do know this means that once I get a few hours to myself, I’m going to find the lost colony of the Teleiotís.

Hopefully that colony will be able to level up, or at least improve compared to the cheap Legrand made knock-off Teleiotís devices that are invading us currently. These devices are so poorly made that they are already corroding before they even step foot on our lands. Added to that is the fact that the mages running the machines are barely powerful enough to turn the devices on and you get targets that while looking threatening are effectively glorified lawn ornaments. Or maybe gorified lawn ornaments is a better term to describe them?

Poof.

I arrive right behind the dispatcher, or whatever her term is. Maybe I’m getting it wrong and dispatcher is what you call the person manning the communications board at the firehouse and police buildings? I didn’t know.

That said, there is a lot going on that I begin to instantly assimilate into my mind.

First, there are a lot of mages here. As in a LOT.

Something is odd about that, as the Legrand army just has so many magically inclined soldiers on their side that they can field thousands of force multiplying mechanoid beasts.

I also take a moment to look at Mallory, she is spent on ephemeral energy. Meanwhile her Qi is at about half and her mana is untouched. Odd, I will have to ask her why she didn’t use her death spell thingy.

Next, I see my students, they are all safe. Well I don’t know if they are all safe, but I feel the aura of clumps of three students pushed together. One Qi student with two varying mage students, and in each group all three are still up and moving together.

I don’t know why, but that fills me with a sense of pride. I don’t expect them all to live, statistically that never happens in war. Eventually someone you know somewhere will die, but I do like the fact that each of my students are up and healthy for the most part.

Next, I check out the overall layout of battle. Being able to scan over thirty kilometers at once is both helpful and distracting. I know, me distracted, never happens, but sometimes. Like right now, rather than checking in, I am taking a moment to surveil the war zone and try to understand why I am called out here.

As far as I can tell, Mallory’s only problem is that she won’t unsummon her Death Scythe and let it recharge.

Unlike my wings, which don’t touch things and thereby leave their residue behind. Her Death Scythe does touch things, making it so she continually drains a bit of her energy. Worse, I don’t think she knows how much energy she reproduces on her own, making it so she is constantly overdrawing her source. For a moment I wonder what her Willpower score is to allow such pitiful results, but then I remember asking about Attributes is a faux pas in this world, and decide to look elsewhere.

There is a giant magical worm thingy.

At least, it looks like a giant worm thingy, as all I see are lines of moving and undulating mana cords creating what has to be a semi-floating object. No wait, I feel old as I need to squint past the glowing blue lights to see that the worm is using platform shoes? This thing is odd, not going to lie.

What is worse is that it is made up of literally hundreds, or maybe a hundred mages. Weak mages. Mages that can barely provide enough power to move a cluster of three legs, but mages all the same.

The entire thing looks like a monster created from a kid’s imagination using kid toys. Almost as if the kid went and created a monster out of old cardboard boxes, before insisting on playing beasts and heroes in an oncoming rainstorm.

Like a train wreck I can’t look away.

The glowing worm thingy pulses, as a giant cluster on the back momentarily drains an excess of energy from the moving creature, slowing down the forward momentum of the beast to an almost standstill as it cumulates the energy into single point nodes and then fires.

Doh! I think to myself, as the burst erupts out and heads straight for my students. Fortunately, my students are already prepared and using the knowledge that I taught them.

For a moment I think about popping over to protect them, but then realize I can’t always protect them. Or I can’t protect them all. No, if they die here, I will grab their corpses, Resurrect them, and then tell them to train twice as hard.

In fact, I make that a note for all my students.

Then as has become almost habit, I feel the makings of a quest form in my mind.

Mandatory SVC Student Quest: Don’t Die (Ongoing): Your teacher, Dr. Spiritlight, has assigned you all the task of not dying during this invasion. Current Deaths recorded (0 / 1). Rewards: Experience, variable. Punishments: Forced Resurrection, extra training time per day, per death.

I like the quest honestly, it rewards them for doing what they already should be doing, while also tying strands of golden fate from me to each of my students. This way, should any of them die, I will notice immediately and go right out to them.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

FWOOSH!

The giant ball of loosely packed mana landed, but was fortunately easily broken up by the three students who worked in tandem with each other to amplify their effectiveness.

Once they are clearly safe, I send the quest notification to everyone of my students. No point of distracting them while they were facing death.

Then wanting to make my presence known, I speak out my pride at their accomplishment.

“Good, they finally learned to Dispel before it hit them in the face,” I state.

Hearing her, Mallory turned and let out an audible sigh of relief.

“Kind of need you to help with something,” Mallory stated and then looked back over her shoulder with her eyes.

Seeing her movement, I knew exactly what she was talking about, but decided to ask just in case.

“The big giant worm thingy?”

“Yes,” was the slow drawn out one word reply that Mallory provided. Clearly she didn’t like my description of the glowing blue thingy.

Still, I had to look at the monster.

Again, something was off about this, how did the Legrand military get so many mages?

Unless you specifically signed up with them, it was almost a given that you would not be a mage upon joining.

I only got this because I invested seven points into the Magic Tier category at the start. Basically, every point I got for starting off as child, went directly into my future magic growth. Gods I was stupid, but it paid off, and now I’m here. No point doubting data points that prove I was correct all along, or just too stubborn to quit. Either way, I’m here.

But again, how are so many mages there?

Worse, they are all weak mages. Well mostly weak, there are a few Tier IV that seem to serve as the main pilot and gunners for the giant monstrosities. It’s almost as if they took an entire section of their population and made them mages, then said hey use this contraption, you have two days to get it to the enemy area.

That’s when I feel something click within my mind, as the truth of the situation finally makes sense to me.

Legrand doesn’t have anything truly special within their waters that produces so many low functioning mages.

Instead, they just have one bastard, who seems to awaken the latent magical potency in everyone he meets.

No, I refrain, he is not a bastard, he was completely born within wedlock. This is a fact, as I am still apparently married to his dead-beat father who left us.

Tingle.

I feel energy from the earth, deep down below bellowing up within me.

For a moment, I feel the world coming to life and all but begging me to use its energy. The world was begging me to be its conduit.

The world still tracked the Legrand Empire.

The world still wanted revenge.

No, not revenge, but for the Legrand Empire to stop. Stop bleeding it dry. To stop destroying its natural beauty. And to stop mining its magical components that are woven deep underground.

I felt these wants and more.

They weren’t thoughts, not really, more of deep emotional pain that could only be explained and characterized through an intensely shared bond.

This wasn’t the first time the world reached out to me like this, and I was pretty sure this would not be the last.

Even if I didn’t use the world’s energy here, we had an understanding. It would come to me when I needed it, and most importantly when it would need me.

In my mind, I felt hundreds of different ways to break down the machine, to destroy it outright. Everything from exploding earthen spikes in the ground, to earthen spikes covered by electricity, to far worse designs. These were the wants of the earth, of the ground. The earth demanded blood, as a sacrifice.

Just as the Legrand army had made the earth bleed and slowly die in places to meet their component needs, so too did the earth demand its pound of flesh.

I hate myself.

For a second, I thought about using such power. I thought and tried to justify the use of such power. I wanted it, and tried to justify the price to myself.

“Everything okay?” Mallory posed.

Hearing the words, they felt distant, as if rolling through water. Still, she did deserve an answer, and so I gave her one.

“No,” was all I could say.

Then realizing that I needed to stop the giant undulating blue monstrosity of steel and mana. Knowing that I needed to stop this juggernaut of a weapon, I moved.

Fortunately, a different thought came to mind.

A thought that was simple.

One born of my recent exploits and experiences with Mallory.

For a moment I felt the power of the earth all but compelling me to use it, to crush the enemy, but I fought back against that surge of energy and instead used my own form of punishment.

Raising my left hand, I called forth as much Arcane Geomancy Teleportation energy as I could and I summoned a wall. A giant wall that seemed to appear out of nowhere.

The giant glowing-worm -thing was incapable of stopping its mad dash forward, meaning that it barreled head first into the open Teleport.

From the side, we had the best view, as the beast seemed to both appear and disappear all at once.

I waited and watched, as hundreds of legs all moving in perfect unison tried to stop all at once. Well some stopped, other mages were too focused on moving forward that they failed to recognize the gigantic spatial barrier that appeared before them. This caused the legs to trip over each other. Or at least caused the beast to come to a sudden halt as the legs began stopping and pushing simultaneously.

For a moment, I was sad that the charging monster didn’t just keep storming forward. But I realized early on that it was a pipe dream. Those mages that manned the power clusters, they were able to recognize the danger right away and began making adjustments.

I really would have to break apart this machine one day and figure out how the Legrand army built such a monstrosity. A monstrosity that pitted hundreds of micro mages within a cluster that were then led by an actual mage. It seemed wasteful, but then again, who was I to argue with relative effectiveness of an army.

For a moment I paused, then just as the giant beast almost seemed to begin to get realigned, to reset itself and begin to back upwards, that is when I closed my fist and ended my spell.

Slice.

Just like that, I ended the Arcane Geomancy Teleportation tunnel that had connected our lands to a spot within the Legrand Empire.

All mages were saved in this, I made sure of that. While the special continuum might have bisected pillars, the main body of the mechanical construct, and powerful mana serving circuits, the mages providing that power were in fact saved.

Magical Arterial Spray.

Yes, the beast with its mana wires now cut, began spraying forth streams of wild mana into the air. Wild mana that looked to strike out and crackle like lightning, before falling to the desert sand below.

There was a hush and lull that fell over the battlefield, as everyone in the immediate area just stopped to stare at the giant bisected monstrosity.

A monstrosity that seemed to hover in the air for a moment, before suddenly collapsing to the ground. At least the front half of the creature collapsed, there was still a segment at the end that still floated and seemed to be trying to untangle itself from the rest.

Telekinetic Grip.

Seeing the part where the two portions seemed as if they could break apart, I focused and using every ounce of my Telekinesis, I pinched the two ends together.

Long low metallic groan.

I didn’t know how the two segments were coupled together, but I was fairly certain that smooshing the components together would be enough to keep the two parts together. At least until our forces could rally and destroy the remaining beast.

Shuffle.

Now the back third of the beast moved, but it’s movements were stilted. First, the drivers didn’t seem to practice moving backwards, making the entire motion awkward on their end. Second, now as it moved, not only did it have to move itself, but it had to move the seemingly inoperable center segment. Added to this was the fact that the center segment was still bleeding out magical energy at a frenetic rate.

“Holy shit!” Vickard shouted, looking from the now struggling monstrosity, then back to me.

As if awakened by that vulgar exclamation, Mallory too smiled brightly as she stood up animatedly and stared at first the wreckage and then back to me.

“You did it!”

“Well, yeah, what did you expect?” I replied half-jokingly.

“I,” was all Mallory could get out at first, before she paused and continued, “I honestly don’t know. In fact, I never know when it comes to you. But thank you”

Hearing that, I feel somewhat confused, as we literally just saw the troubles with Teleportation not a few hours ago. But never mind.

“RAHHH!”

Off in the distance, the soldiers that I had just protected from being smooshed by giant worm were now screaming out in triumph.

At that, the battle seemed to restart, as the Legrand soldiers who had been momentarily stunned by the sudden loss of their superweapon began moving forward, though at clearly less capacity than before.

“This is perfect, thank you!” Melkin exclaimed, as he too cut in then moved next to Mallory as they prepared to fend off the next wave of invaders.

Whether it was the reprieve, or the second wind factor, I didn’t know but Mallory who had looked nearly haggard with her work so far suddenly seemed to charge to battle.

I knew part of this was likely an effect of my Healer’s Aura, and other Auras that naturally increase the mana and Qi generation rates of those around me. But seeing them all go into their stances and begin striking down soldiers. I felt out of place.

Ratta-tatta-tat.

The sound of small arms fire could be heard and with a slight application of Telekinesis near the base of the attacks, I made sure the kinetic rounds heading towards us were way off course. Only a pound of pressure at the right distance and angle could make a perfect sniper’s shot fall flat in the dirt, which they all did.

Pff. Pff. Pff.

Round after kinetic round fired directly into the dirt in front of the shooters and their intended targets.

For a moment they looked just as confused as Mallory and co. Only after a second did Mallory put two and two together, as she turned back to face me.

“That you?” Mallory asked.

I just nodded.

“Can we keep her?” Melkin asked, his personality finally getting a chance to shine now that he wasn’t in his serious bodyguard role.

“We can, but you have to clean up after her,” Mallory noted and like that she was off in a blur.

One second she was there, and the next, she was ahead a hundred yards slicing enemies with automatic weapons in half with her Death Scythe.

Again, I didn’t know why she was being so wasteful with her energy and not circulating her energy to replenish her other pools, but she seemed to be doing just fine. As such, I decided to leave her alone.

Hearing her words, and seeing that she had already charged recklessly forward, Melkin just looked at her, then back to me.

“Thanks,” Melkin said.

“Yeah, you helped out big time, as always,” Vickard exclaimed as he and Melkin both got up and began charging forward right in the thick of things to help keep Mallory safe.

By this time, it was clear that Mallory was making a beeline towards the downed worm monster. Though she did seem to wander into the largest cluster of enemy forces she could find on her way to the downed worm.

Seeing that she would be busy I began looking around, only to find that it was now just me and two mages that were on standby. I understood the one was the dispatcher that called me here.

“Am I good to go?” I asked the dispatcher. As she was the one that called me here, it made sense that with everyone else gone, she would be the one that would allow me to leave.

Pausing for a moment, the dispatcher first looked confused, and then flustered.

“I think so?” She said hesitantly. Then pausing for a moment, she clarified, “can I ask where you will be going?”

Hearing that, I felt that was an adequate question to ask, given the circumstances.

“I’m going to check out what happened to the front half of that worm thingy,” I responded, while pointing to the very object that Mallory and the others were heading to.

“The what?” The dispatcher asked, before following my gaze and seeing what I was referring to. The same spot where Mallory, Vickard, and Melkin were all heading towards.

Then as soon as she realized what I meant, she just responded with a “ahh, okay.”

Seeing that as all the confirmation I needed, I quickly used Arcane Geomancy Teleportation to open my own opening in space. Then bracing myself with my hand out in front of my face, I moved forward, Teleporting well beyond enemy lines.

Gasp.

I let out a gasp of surprise when I arrived, as I was shocked to see the carnage that now awaited me.