CHAPTER 4

“Daniel.” Alex yelled, but he was already moving having identified the same issue as their group commander the moment they had entered the building. There were too many flies, and he needed to thin the numbers. If they all struck at once and his experience suggested most of them would. If they all came at the party at once, each tank would have to deal with four or five simultaneously. Given that they occasionally struggled to block a single fly one on one, Tom knew exactly what carnage four at once would create.

His mana was just over half full and his mind quickly processed the details and, by engaging the right part of his core that electricity sight snapped into being. His club glowed like a supernova.

Happiness rolled through Daniel. That lucky artefact was a huge boon to his lightning spells and probably in response to Blood Drinker’s manipulation power it already had a significant positive charge had built up. Having it ready to go at full strength would materially boost his power.

Internally, his core was hard at work crunching the numbers, but he knew he needed to help it in order to reduce the complexity and the sooner the better. Instantly Daniel visualised what he required. There was not no time for finesse, as the flies were already rotating to target them, and he had learned how fast they could move when they reacted. His eyes captured pertinent details to allow him to frame the spell. At one point, large glass windows had separated the atrium they were in from the restaurant, but they were all gone. Destroyed by the flies or the event, however it worked didn’t matter what did was that the wall they had resting on was at waist height and so Daniel had to direct his lightning above that.

The flies reacted at what Daniel thought was an incredibly slow pace, but then he realised Priscilla was with him and actively helping him by slowing the perception of time. He grabbed the extra seconds greedily. It would let him control the attacks at a finer detail. Twenty-five percent of his power through each of the gaps were windows used to be. He would send the strike out just above head height where the bulk insects were and that would also put it the maximum distance from points where without his intervention the lightning would naturally ground itself on. The lightning Daniel’s sight told him was almost as happy to terminate into the ceiling as through the floor. In fact, the metal frames of the windows were by far the most destabilising influence he had to deal with. The rules were pretty clear: the closer the lightning took to a natural path the more power he could direct per point mana.

Therefore, he needed to avoid the lightning travelling too close to areas where it would ordinarily dissipate into. The power had to go through the windows, while keeping the arc as far from the frame that he could manage even if it meant some flies wouldn’t get touched by his lightning because of their proximity to the wrong spots.

Then, as before, he would arc the electricity through as many flies as he could before the spell would ground itself on the metal fixtures on the bar on the far side of the room.

It took him what felt like half a minute to put together the various paths the electricity had to arc on… but there was time… the insects had only responded by moving about a metre closer.

Slow.

More of the curious situation registered. The humans had been reduced to statues, so the flies were not that slow he realised given they had actually moved. His perception was being altered. On his shoulder, he could feel Priscilla vibrating and the huge amount of energy she was expending in to buy him this time. Thankfully, she had seen the need and acted to procure him time to do this properly. Unleashing a branching electricity attack in doors was far more complicated than what he had done outside.

Daniel decided he was going to empty his mana pool. There was no point holding anything in reserve. He needed to reduce the enemy to manageable numbers for everyone else to stop them from being overwhelmed. He had one shot at this.

A spark of electricity arced from his upraised club to hit the light fixture above. He pulled the weapon down and estimations of mana cost fluctuated wildly. A different set of pathways flicked into position that went near the window frames. The conversion of his mana to effective lightning delivered plummeted. In a couple of instants, multiple routes occurred, testing the relationship he was observing. The loss of power as the electricity approached the windows was immense.

He bit his lip and tweaked the pathways even further to create a larger gap between what would be a raging torrent of energy and objects that could steal that power. The act of shifting the pattern meant a dozen flies would be spared. It was a worthwhile sacrifice to guarantee the death of those he was going to hit.

With everything in slow motion, his arm came up to cover his eyes even as he put the finishing touch on the branching arcs of destruction. There was no time to warn everyone. The difference between casting indoors and outdoors was like throwing darts sober versus after six pints. There was no comparison. After a few drinks, he was at least twice as good, and it was the same here. Outside, where there were very few items to forcefully ground the spell, he had more degrees of freedom. Right here everything had to be perfect, so despite the flies not being close and his allies not being ready the moment his arm covered his eyes he released the spell.

There was a flash of light… through his arm!

He staggered backwards as the sound crashed into him. Then he activated speed and got ready to meet the coming attacks with a more physical approach.

Despite blocking his eyes, there were still blotches of colour floating in his vision, but it functioned sufficiently to spot the shiny flies. Most of them were falling out of the air, but a smaller group, those that had been close to the cursed window frames were unaffected and orientating on him.

They knew he was responsible and was coming for him.

Daniel stepped back to buy himself time. Three of the flies were only meters away from him and even while engaging his speed, they were fast enough that he had no time to think. Relatively speaking they were only moving as swiftly as a slow underarm throw. If they were tennis balls, they would bounce off him harmlessly, but he had seen these monsters strike shields and dent them. They would hit with the force of a sledgehammer and with over ten of the insects coming for him and all of them adjusting their flight to target him it was too much.

He battered away one, then swung Blood Drinker sharply to knock back a second. Something hit his shoulder harder than anything he had experienced, excluding the last week. Priscilla’s vision shared the details. The fly had not even hit him cleanly instead it had merely clipped the shoulder, and it was like he had run into a truck. It annihilated his balance, and half spun him around.

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Everyone else was almost stationary, but more of the creatures were coming for him after all he had dealt with five, two killed, one partially dodged and two evaded. Something struck the middle of his back. He attempted to roll and use the momentum imparted by the hit to speed the manoeuvre up. He transitioned into a slow somersault so he could at least face the incoming enemies.

Distantly, he felt the club demanding that he swing.

He listened, and it felt like he had whacked a brick wall just centimetres from his head.

Thank god that didn’t hit him.

A fly hit his right shoulder at the same time as a force struck his thigh. Both are on the same side. The twin impacts threw him sideway.

He instinctively followed the club’s instruction to swing and the impact would have jarred the weapon out of his hands if Blood Drinker hadn’t extended vines to secure them together.

He curled into the ball and tried to protect his head. He had never been bashed with a baseball bat, but in slowed time it felt like three or four big men were whaling on his prone form.

He released speed and thumped onto the ground.

Daniel gasped.

It felt like he had been smashed by giants and there were certainly broken bones.

Every part of him was aching, and he huddled on the cracked marble, expecting at any moment for more blows to land.

Nothing did.

After a moment he realised there were the familiar sounds of the flies smacking against shield. “Ranged hold fire.” Alex yelled.

He groaned.

Healing washed over him. It numbed the pain and then there was a shifting sensation inside him as bones clicked back into place. Daniel tried not to move, as the magic did its work. He was not an expert yet even if he was getting close to one. Each of those movements represented a broken or shattered bone. Ten? Twenty? It was a lot, but thankfully nothing in his skull.

The sharp agonising pain every time he gasped for air easing.

“He okay?”

Daniel shifted his hand slightly and gave a thumb up to Alex and regretted the attempt. While some of his bones had been fixed, the bruising hadn’t.

“He’ll be fine.” Carly reported quietly next to him. “Broken bones, pierced lung, bruising and the scar tissue on his heart tore.”

“The heart?” asked almost sounding anxious.

Carly murmured something.

“No problem then.” Alex concluded. “We’re holding in here.” Alex declared more loudly so everyone could hear.

More healing flowed into him.

The thumps became frequent.

“Ranged fighters work together to thin the numbers.”

The sound of magic spells going off matched the persistent thumps and Daniel opened his eyes. The world of pain he was in was gone.

No bones had clicked for at least five seconds. Tentatively, he stood to see what was happening.

They were now positioned in the corner with an intact wall on one side and the elevators on the other providing protection. At some point, a table had been moved from the restaurant into the corner and the ranged fighters were standing upon it, which was allowing them to see over the circle of tanks with melee between them.

Insects were coming into the space through holes in the roof in the kitchen area of the restaurant and via the open door they had come through. Around forty had gathered and a small group was continuously probing. Usually, a fly would dart in get repelled, and fly out. Every now one would be hit awkwardly get disoriented and drop to the ground. At this point, one of the melee fighters behind the tank line would step forward and crush it. The position Alex had pushed them into looked defendable. To his left a fly successfully got through the tank wall and, moving at high speed, shot toward Ingrid.

Thump.

A mace that Daniel had created slapped into it and it went flying back the way it came. Bounced off a table and then disappeared from view, but from the brief look of his misshapen body it was clearly dead. A similar thing happened right in front of him, and this time a skill was used in conjunction with a spear to cut it in half. They were definitely thinning the numbers and mostly their defences were holding up.

A fly went wide almost flying along the wall, before changing direction once it was past the fighters. There was a scramble of action, but it second smacked hard into Tamara, causing her to be knocked off the table. In that brief moment when the fly was stationary, an axe landed upon it.

Ivey healed Tamara immediately.

Tamara blinked away tears and rubbed her side, but scrambled back onto her lookout post, anyway.

The ranged fighters were chatting amongst themselves and pointing out when to attack. Once more, that immaculate coordination caught his attention, and the teams were improving. Three areas of effect spells, two fire based and one dark struck a clump of flies that was buzzing just outside the doorway. Three of the four died and the other one retreated hurt. The humans had clumped up the spells that the flies were resistant to guarantee the kills. There was no point hitting the flies with a single fire spell because then they would retreat till they had healed.

Tamara threw a lightning bolt that fried a clump of five. Her magic seemed to do as much damage as his, but lacked the blinding flash of light and the thunder.

Having seen the complexity in the stasis spell Daniel understood why. When he directed his lightning, he only mapped the path it took. His method moved the electric charge along in exactly the same way natural lightning did. While achieving those outcomes was horrendously complex, it still meant what he created was natural lightning, complete with light, heat, and thunder. Tamara’s spell had to do more. Just like the stasis spell, Daniel guessed it had a multitude of exotic checks to allow it to work. Her spell probably affected the air around the deem in two ways both suppressing sound by quelling vibrations and reducing the flash at the same time.

Daniel wanted what she could do. If he could seize the ability to use his most powerful offensive magic without affecting his allies, that would be great. And it would need to be him stealing the ability because he doubted it was something he could ever create personally, no matter how many hours he threw into it. As unfortunate as it was, he lacked the mathematical, coding ability and, to be honest it was probably beyond a coding genius, anyway. However, there was the possibility that he could steal the code. After all, that was what he had done with the lightning initially. With a few lessons from Tamara, he was hopeful he could isolate the extra bits he needed. After all, he already possessed the base ability and his experience with the stasis spell told him he could do this.

More and more flies streamed in and the comfortable rhythm that had been developing got interrupted. A fly got past the spear man in front of them, but Daniel engaged his speed and the blur of the attack was reduced to a slow-moving ball. He whacked it and winced.

It was like he was bashing concrete. Luckily, there was no need for follow up. A squished fly flew lifelessly backward and then bounced when it hit the floor.

“Daniel,” Alex said. “Are you able to buy us a breather?”

He checked his mana and was relieved to see it had risen to about twenty percent. The artefact on his club however was fully recovered and he could feel the static electricity crackling over it.

“Yes, only half strength, but.”

“That’s all we need.” Alex gestured to the main part of the restaurant where over a thirty-metre square space about forty of the flies were buzzing.

“Yep.” Daniel walked over till he was positioned right behind the closest tank. There must have been a hole in the roof there or something special on the ground because the flies were certainly clumping in that area. “Ready when you are.”

“On three.” Alex ordered and began counting.

Daniel stepped forward and started focusing on his magic. Just like he had learnt when fighting the huntsman he linked together all three components of his power. He was not shooting energy from his hand or club instead he created a circuit. The area that Alex wanted him to attack was a good one for him. There was only a single chandler to cause problems, and he could send the lightning from his club right through the middle of a broken window without getting close to any conductive material that might ruin his attack. Then, once he reached the area, it was a matter of guiding it to skip from one to another till it went all the way through the swarm.

“Go.”

There was a flash of light and an almost simultaneous boom. Then, unlike last time, Daniel immediately retreated behind the tank line. He was ready to use his speed, but there was no need. The six flies that seemed to target him in response were easily intercepted by the tanks.

“Great,” Alex said enthusiastically. “Everyone, we’re going to hold here till all the magic users are recharged and then push upwards.”