Chapter 220
The Harmony of Chaos
Fully commit.
That is the one lesson that I truly took to heart for everything in life.
Fully commit.
If you want to be great at a particular segment of life, or just accomplish great things, then you need to fully commit in order to be great at a particular skill. But if you are going to go into battle, then you also need to fully commit as well.
Sadly, my propensity towards conducting war is becoming truly easy on my soul, as this is the second time that I have openly decided to go to war against an oppressive regime.
The first time I went to war, it was against a fanatical cult that was simultaneously starving the spirit world’s world tree Yggdraspirit, while also starving the people of the floor, in order to get them to fight in a sanctioned bloodbath for food.
Now it seems that I am once again being tested.
This time just like last time, I have seen the evidence available, and I find that not only my conscience but the consciousness of the world are in unison of what actions I need to take.
Like a dying man offering up his last bit of everything to a passing stranger, all for the idea that revenge will be enacted, the world cried out to me. The world saw me, and all but begged me to save it. To keep it from being destroyed by tiny parasites who were tearing away and rotting the corpse of the world from the inside out.
Sadly, since this is my second time going through this process, the steps to take are easy.
The first thing I do is make sure the enemy cannot communicate. I’ve already taken care of making it so that communications from this mining facility outwards are not able to be received. Now I need to take care of the communications from people inside the camp to one another.
That is when I pull out my spells that are clearly meant for war. Or at least the only way I know how to conduct war, namely strike hard, strike fast, and most importantly strike first.
Focusing my will, I use the raging storm around me to both hide my actions and to help me ensure that enough energy is spread out over the camp to cover everyone.
I’d close my eyes to focus, but that doesn’t do anything for me in this case. Instead, it is all up to me and up to my ability to focus on every single living being here. Every forced laborer, to the forty-eight mages who hold dominion over the laborers. Despite being outnumbered ten to one, the laborers are kept in check by magic suppression stones. At least they were kept in check by the stones, if they tried now, the laborers would find that their magic which had been blocked to them was now available.
Fortunately, no one seemed to notice this change.
Once I have everyone covered in my radius of effect, I begin casting what are quickly becoming my war spells. Spells that I roll out when I need to strike hard and fast against enemy forces.
The first spell I cast is Forced Selective Hearing, this spell covers everyone. All the forty-eight guards, and the 508 forced laborers.
Forced Selective Hearing [Tier VIII] (C): A spell created by Cassiopeia Spiritlight that mentally stops a targeted person or area from hearing any voice other than the caster’s while the caster is speaking. Now there is no way for your significant other to say they didn’t hear you.
Drain.
The area that is covered in this current casting is by far my largest casting of one single continuous spell as I cover the nearly mile and a half radius of this entire camp with one casting. Quite impressive of a feat, but I know I am being aided by the land. That this feat is not my accomplishment alone, but one that I was able to manifest thanks to the powers provided by the land below.
Again, a dying person will give almost everything they have for the chance of life or revenge. It seems that the world itself is no different.
With the spell cast, I of course pause to see if it has taken hold. For the most part no one seems to notice as not many were talking. In fact, in a community like this, everyone is encouraged to be quiet, even the guards. Which meant that only a few of the laborers and leaders noticed the change.
Seeing the confusion in their gestures I nod to myself.
Cough.
I clear my throat and suddenly everyone looks around to try to find where that sound they heard just came from. At this, everyone begins looking around and talking to each other, only for fear to cover most of their faces as they realize they cannot talk. Or worse, they cannot hear themselves talk. Nor can anyone that they are talking to hear them talk.
“Hot mic, apparently,” I quip.
Silence.
“Yeah, tough crowd,” I continue realizing that it is just going to be straight Cassie one liners here, unless I do something. Fortunately, by now many people, especially the jailors and the laborers, are now coming out to try to see what is going on. Either they hear the wind whipping behind me in the background, or they just want to look up and see what is causing the brightly swirling lights of the storm to appear.
In either case, this is too perfect of a chance for me to strike out, using my second spell designed for war.
Focusing on all of the people who have magic, I just focus on finding the individuals who have magical items attached to their bodies. These magical items of course are the resisters that would help the magic wielder bypass the security controls of the magic suppression stones that are all around the camp. Suppression stones that are still dormant.
Still, their need to keep a magical dominance over those they were enslaving now is my one key point I use to find people and then promptly shatter their cores by my focused beams of light that burn past the external skin and focus solely on destroying the cores of the targeted individual. While the spell is agnostic in its targeting of either cultivators or mages, here there are only mages who can be targeted by this beam.
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Core Shattering Death Ray [Tier XIII] (C): A spell created by Cassiopeia Spiritlight that finds, targets and destroys the magical and Qi related cores of a targeted individual. Conditions: must have both Light and Spirit Magic to utilize.
Ray of light.
Ray of light.
Ray of light.
That is what the spell looks like to me. The spell resembles as focused beam of light, similar to what you might see coming from a hanging rear view mirror charm. Light would come in, bounce around and refract outwards in a concentrated beam of light.
The spell is non-lethal, but its effects against magic users are devastating.
Silent cries of agony.
Since everyone is still just looking up into the darkness of a giant storm they can’t see me.
Teleport.
I also make sure to use my number one advantage in such a situation, my mobility.
Move to a new location, find a cluster of targets, release a barrage, then move.
Even now, all these years later, tactics that were ingrained in me as a kid are coming back to the surface and showing themselves.
Retaliatory fire.
Sloppy and lazy spells are fired up into the air at my last known location. A location that was all but given away by my bright photonic bursts of energy that I emitted.
Seeing the spells I cannot help but shake my head. First, these people just cast spells, wildly, no targeting, no finesse, just pure power behind a spell. While they all will make their intended spot, the spell work is abysmal at best.
Worse yet, the casters who cast at my last spot have now given away their positions. Not that I didn’t know where they were, but knowing that there are a few who would want to fight back, helps me find out who to target next.
Ray of light.
Ray of light.
Ray of light.
And Poof.
“Mad chuckles.”
There is the sound of malicious laughter.
Only after a second do I realize that the laughter is coming from me. I can’t really help this, as I am reminded of how fun it was to run Mickey’s training grounds, along with my other instructors at the Thieves Guild. Honestly practicing on the different courses was fun, and a bit more challenging than this course now.
Of course, I have the advantage of extreme mobility, while flying and being able to reign down death and destruction on everyone, before disappearing, only to come back for a strafe run from a different location and attack angle.
A few of the mages who had been diligently scanning the skies for me, suddenly tremble slightly in fear. Bad news for them.
Ray of light.
Ray of light.
Ray of light.
Poof.
Taking a moment, I pause to check and see if this is enough to eliminate the threat to the local area. Pausing for a second to check up my quest screen, I pause and watch.
New Quest Identified: Purging the Desecrators (Ongoing): You have come across a scene of absolute destruction. Magical Parasites have set up a dig site stripping the land of magical resources, which have in turn begun to poison the ecosystem. Eliminate the threat to the local area, and become a protector of the world. Current status Grand Mages purged (1 / 9), Mage foreman (5 / 12), Mage Leaders (15 / 27), excavators (0 / 508). Rewards: Experience, Bloodline Evolution Markers, Badges, variables.
Twenty-one. I’ve been running around finding these different mages and taking them down as quickly as possible.
Honestly, I was surprised to see that I got a Grand Mage in the group so far. I knew that most of the Grand Mages were bound to Lady Legrand.
Still, this showed that the quest identified eliminating the mages to be complete when the targets were no longer considered mages. Instead, they went from being Mage foremen and Mage Leaders to just foremen and leaders. That distinction while minor in comparison to the initial message of killing them outright, was enough to let me realize that I could do this quest my way.
With that, I am reminded of a classic song that I cannot help but sing out loud, knowing that everyone present will hear it and hopefully it will be distracting enough to help me continue my hit and run tactics. Tactics that I can see everyone is slowly adjusting to, as the time it takes for people to find me is a lot faster than it was originally.
“This one comes out from old blue eyes himself,” I state, as I rain down just one ray of light on an exposed mage before retreating.
Ray of light.
Poof.
“And now the end is here…”
I begin singing, or trying to. Mainly I just rely on my Acting skill to call forth the voice of old blue eyes himself and continue to move around, trying to find targets and casting quickly and efficiently.
Ray of light.
Poof.
By now, a strange sentiment began to happen across the camp. The forced laborers, or the Excavators as my quest referred to them as, all began to slowly stand up. As if they were all gaining confidence in either my ability to only target the now cowering enemies that often tried to hide behind multiple obstacles to reduce a clear line of sight to them.
For those that are outside and hiding behind obstacles, the mission was simple. Teleport above them, rain down a Core Shattering Death Ray, then Teleport away again before anyone had a chance to react.
“Regrets, I've had a few...”
Ray of light.
Poof.
After a point there were only mages who were holed up in their bunkers or stations. Of course, they were desperately clicking communications tabs and yelling loudly, only to find that their voices were cut off, even from themselves.
It would almost be somewhat comical had it not been a life-or-death event. I still didn’t want to kill them, not completely, though I was more than ready to take away all these oppressors’ ability to wield and use magic.
The best part about this was that they had no clue if they were able to talk, or if their words were being heard at the other end. Yet, they still clung desperately to the idea that if they yelled loudly enough their words would be heard by others.
I could attest to this, as I clearly heard them yelling when I landed behind the few mages who were at the emergency relay tower.
“HELP, we are under attic. Repeat, under, attic,” the desperate mage cried out, his words sounding half garbled, and his lack of ability to hear himself talk was clearly messing with his ability to talk clearly and confidently.
For a moment I wonder if his words will be transmitted over my spell, but fortunately he doesn’t seem to hear himself. Which is good, as I line up behind him and take aim while continuing to sing.
“I did what I had to do…”
There is a moment when the mage first shows a sign of shock, as he realizes that my voice is either close or echoing around. Regardless, of what he heard, he slowly began to turn around. The same way the damsel does in all the horror movies. Then he gives the same exact look of shock, the one that seems to convey everything and nothing all at once. The one that looks both of fear at finding the wolf that has been stalking you, while also showing relief at the fact that he now has a face an image to relate to the monster that has been killing everyone around him slowly.
Unfortunately for him, his moment of clarity ends quickly.
Ray of light.
The beam of condensed energy fires out an crosses the distance between us in less than a second. I have just enough time to see the spell land perfectly, and the moment when the mage begins to slump to the floor in obvious pain.
Then his image is gone, as I too am gone from that scene, already having found my next target to take out individually.
Poof.
In true classic horror movie fashion, I hunt down everyone. I hunt down all of the mages, where I end up breaking their binding contracts to Lady Legrand. For a moment, I almost feel sorry for the mages, figuring that some of them might have been unwilling pawns to this whole thing. Then I realize they were deftly rewarded, being given the blessing of my bloodline from my son. They sold their souls, and what they got was life without magic.
It could be worse, I could have killed them. No, who am I kidding, I couldn’t have killed them, I don’t have it in me to kill. Call it my weakness, but I am okay with that as a weakness.
Still, I did save Lady Legrand for last. Not because she was the strongest, or most capable. But because secretly deep down inside I wanted her to squirm.
“Lady Legrand,” I begin speaking in my normal voice, before I switch octaves to that of Tobias Spiritlight’s. “Or should I say Lady Legrand.”
Panic.
“What who?” Lady Legrand says desperately from her hidden saferoom deep down within the mines. This is a special place where only she can enter. It is filled with enough food and water to last several months. The only problem is that the room itself is dark, as there is currently no power to this entire base.
Fortunately, I don’t need light to see or move. Meaning I can pop into the warded room and just stare at her.
“What? Who’s there?” Lady Legrand asks, turning her eyes directly towards me.
Apparently, I glow, maybe it is my green eyes that are holding so much power? Or maybe it is the mark of these lands that still coat me and beckon me to be its protector, even now.
“Lady Legrand, this is but our second time meeting.” I state, still using the voice of Tobias, but while in my normal form.
“What, that can’t be, I’ve never seen you before.” She presses.
With that, I smile brightly, a gesture that she seems to both notice and be instantly frightened by. At the same time, I use this moment to slowly shift into the form of Tobias Spiritlight, or at least a flying and weightless Tobias Spiritlight that is supported by four wings.
“Oh come now, you have already forgotten me?” I ask.
“What, you!” Lady Legrand screams out while casting a highly destructive spell, one that if it went off would likely kill Lady Legrand, if not burn up all the air within this tiny little bunker.
Dispel
Fortunately I see the wavy and awkward spell and disrupt it before it can even get close to me.
“Oh, that’s so cute. You think you know and can cast magic against me?” I ask. This is the height of hubris on my part, but from what I’ve seen, I am not impressed with the magical capabilities of the Legrand Empire’s mages.
“What how did you?” She asks as more and more spells get fired out.
Just like Vader himself, I calmly hold out my hand and draw in all of the mana being cast at me with my Golden Mana Devouring Palm.
In a second, all the loose and residual mana that had been in the air is instantly sucked into my hand and then I look and see the true look of terror that has finally come over Lady Legrand’s face.
Seeing her look of absolute fear, I go in for the kill.
“This is your …”