The runes that made up his blink skill were complex, but he’d spent around six months studying them and plenty of examples from his rune carving books. He knew how the skill worked and had a decent idea of which dealt with the transporting, and which dealt with targeting him, and the location.
He’d planned something like this for a while, and now was the time to test it. It was risky as hell, but something made him confident.
All around them, Mark used his ability to mold space, to form runes in the air around them, focusing heavily on the ground beneath them. A circle of purple mana formed, and runes appeared around them. Sweat poured down Mark’s face as he put everything he had into it.
It took a few minutes, but Mark finished without interruption. The guards on the other side were none the wiser, as they didn’t seem to have any ability to sense mana fluctuations.
“Get ready,” Marks whispered and activated the spell.
The group disappeared from the corridor and reappeared in the middle of the room, displacing the air around the area and sending tables and chairs flying.
The guards scrambled in surprise and drew their weapons, but Tina took one out immediately. An arrow struck a guard in the eye, and he immediately dropped.
Pete dipped low and used the commotion to skirt around a few guards while Mark sent his chakram soaring.
There were seven guards in the room; one died from the arrow, three had grouped up but died when the chakram teleported to them, and their heads hit the floor, while Pete dealt with another two.
The last one tried to flee, but Tina fired another arrow, and the guard dropped. It had taken less than ten seconds from their appearance until silence reclaimed the room, but they didn’t dare linger.
The tables and chairs had flown through the room, causing a commotion, and the guards had shouted quite loudly. More guards were surely on their way, so the team gathered, and Mark reactivated his barrier.
They moved quickly from the guard room, wanting to avoid any larger groupings of enemies. They were forced to hide in empty rooms and take detours, but they slowly whittled their opposition down until the Deep Horizon had the entire area locked down.
They eventually ended up in a room near the inner wall but were stuck. Deep Horizon goons were moving closer, and they were at a dead end.
Mark knew there was an open space on the other side of the wall, the inside of the wall, so he started preparing his teleport again.
They reappeared in an alley behind a few houses, hearing the commotion from the enemy rushing around, but they had some time now.
Mark stumbled and almost dropped to the ground as a throbbing headache made his vision swim.
“Mark,” Jess, the healer, asked. “Are you ok?”
“Gah! Yeah, I just overdid it. Too much mana use,” he responded, sitting with his back against a wall. “Just need a couple of minutes.”
He took out a mana potion, chugged it down, and closed his eyes.
“We’ll keep watch.”
***
Esme looked around with bleary eyes as she noticed the commotion. Shouts sounded through the compound and roused the captive healer. She wasn’t alone, but she was the only conscious one.
She tried to rouse her mana, but the shackles restricted her, and a flash of pain was her only reward. She crawled over to the cage bars and tried to look around but saw nothing. Her guards stood by the house corner, looking around and whispering, but nothing else drew her attention until the screams started.
The sounds came from the front gate, and soon enough, she heard the alarm calling for reinforcements. The guards looked at each other before one ran off, leaving only one guard behind. Esme tried to rouse her fellow captives, but none of them stirred. For a moment, she feared they’d died, but they still breathed, though very shallowly.
Their pulses were erratic and weak, and Esme knew they had little time. She looked at the solitary guard, hoping to find some way to free herself, but she didn’t get the chance.
From the shadows behind the guard, a figure rose. A blade flashed, and the guard fell with a gurgle.
The stranger turned to the cage, ran up, and pulled out a set of keys he’d apparently taken from the guard. Two more figures arrived from an alley as he tried to find the right key.
Esme recognized one as a fellow healer from Brightest Dawn and the woman as one of their scouts, but she didn’t know the man who finally opened the cage.
Tina, the scout, put a finger to her mouth and took a position near the now dead guard, obviously keeping watch. The healer, Jess, rushed into the cage and started healing the captives as the man undid their shackles.
The captives regained consciousness one by one, but healing could only go so far. They were still starving and dehydrated, but they’d have to deal with that later.
The sounds of combat were fading, and they feared they had little time before the guards returned.
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Tina led the way while Jess took the rear. The unknown man headed off into the shadows.
They walked for a few minutes, keeping a slow pace until they reached an alley looking into the main square by the gates, and Esme’s eyes widened. It had turned into a field of death.
Corpses littered the ground, and blood flowed through the gutters. In the center stood a pale man with a ring flying around him. Just as she looked at him, a final Deep Horizon Lieutenant dropped dead, and the ring flew to rest behind the man’s back.
***
Mark stood still, his eyes closed, as he processed the last few minutes. He’d volunteered to draw the attention of the Deep Horizon while the others rescued the captives. It worked, but Mark hadn’t expected the number of people charging at him. They didn’t seem to possess a shred of self-preservation as they rushed at him, and when he was done, he was surrounded by corpses and covered in blood. He was running low on mana again, and this time, he didn’t think a simple potion would help. He needed to rest, but that would have to wait until they returned.
He spotted his team approaching, and they soon left, this time through the main gate. Nobody stopped them, and they made their way back to the Brightest Dawn compound.
The team had checked, and most captives had been killed a while back, and they only found one group of survivors, but they remained in high spirits as they returned. Eleven people had been saved, and while they looked haunted and lost, they were alive and could recover.
When they got back to the compound, they saw a battlefield by the gates, but their fear proved unfounded.
The Deep Horizon had launched an attack, but since they left most of their fighters behind, they were quickly rebuffed, and a strike team had hunted down the survivors.
The moment they entered through the gates, they were swarmed by people. Those hoping to see their friends or loved ones returned and the support staff that would take care of the survivors. Most were disappointed, and sobs soon filled the area, and Mark didn’t know what to do as they looked at him with sadness and even reproach. He extricated himself and returned to his family, where he spent the rest of the day relaxing, unwinding from the stressful day.
***
Days passed, and Mark had tried to find a good place to cultivate in the city, but every highrise or skyscraper had either fallen or was far too unstable to use, so he resigned himself to waiting until Layla recovered and he could leave.
He did make some progress, though, and five days after the rescue mission, he was sitting on a bench outside and looking at his status screen.
Name: Mark Johnson
Race: Karphan Human(F)
Class: Child of Cosmos
Level: 17
Stats:
Strength: 36
Dexterity: 38
Endurance: 39
Intelligence: 2561
Wisdom: 62
Free Points: 0
Truths:
* Cosmos
* Space
* Void: +120 Intelligence. +15% Intelligence.
* Movement
* Distance
* Fabric: +120 Intelligence. +15% Intelligence.
* Tear
* Sharpness
* Phase: +120 Intelligence, +15% Intelligence
* Isolation
* Shift
* Star
* Radiation: +120 Intelligence, +15% Intelligence
* Heat
* Light
* Fusion: +120 Intelligence, +15% Intelligence
* Burst
* Collision
* Matter
* Gravity: +120 Intelligence, +15% Intelligence
* Mass
* Density
* Orbit: +120 Intelligence, +15% Intelligence
* Motion
* Spin
Skills:
Cosmic Manipulation
Blink
Cosmic Eye
Chakram Mastery
Spatial Sense
He hadn’t gained a skill for his teleportation, but he had some ideas on how to do so, and while most would get a skill at level ten, fifteen, or twenty, he didn’t think he would. Something about his class meant he got fewer skills handed to him, and he might have to create them himself, which is what he intended.
He was still a long way from that, but he was making some progress.
Looking at his stats, he found his Intelligence to be utterly disgusting. His percentile boosts increased it immensely, but every spell he cast was far more expensive than most other mage classes, so he thought it balanced out.
Things had settled down after the rescue mission, as most of the Deep Horizon had been taken out, and any survivor wouldn’t fight the Brightest Dawn on their own. Some had even wanted to join, but they were rejected. There was a lot of bad blood between them.
Cecilia kept teaching Tracy through some skill that provided information through the System while Derek and Bruce traveled around to fight monsters. Mark didn’t, as fighting itself didn’t provide anything for him except practical experience with his skills. He spent his time being seen by the people and thus provided a sense of security for them.
News had spread from the survivors of how he had beaten most of the Deep Horizon on his own, and people seemed to have accepted him entirely. Many even relied on him and approached him to join them on their hunts.
He usually refused, saying they needed to act independently and not be completely reliant on him, but he did go along with a few to show them some things he’d learned.
He also started teaching some people in magic, and his understanding of it, to help them improve.
He’d been called in to talk to Layla a few more times as well, but it mostly devolved into a recruitment attempt as she tried to get him to join permanently. He refused each time but still learned a few things about her as they talked.
She’d been through a similar Tutorial as him, an abnormal one, but in her Tutorial, only she’d survived.
He also learned that most of her family had been present in the same Tutorial, and she’d suffer loss after loss. Her pushing through the trauma was what drew the attention of Luminé, the goddess of Light. Her positive nature and desire to protect people earned her a strong class related to leadership and protection.
She was healing rapidly now that they’d gotten more healers back, and the previously captured healers were more than happy to remain in the camp and work in the clinic. Most of the bandages had been removed, and the hostile mana had been purged, leaving only some injuries to be healed.
However, her body had been strained from all the healing and appeared to reject further rejuvenating magic, leaving her to heal the rest on her own.
The time for him to head off on his own was fast approaching, though, and soon enough, he stood outside the gates with his family, preparing for his journey.