Zela

“Fuck!”

Captain Vandal cursed, seeing the huge water bear materializing in front of us. It is big, about five meters tall, with icy claws, that could shred anyone to pieces.

Thud Thud Thud!

The bear moved with heavy steps; it was a really scary spell.

“Wish me luck!” said Captain Vandal, and moved toward the bear.

Till now, he had been standing. He never got a chance to fight with spells flying around, but now he is moving toward the bear.

Even for a man of his power, this elemental bear is hard to defeat, but he is the only one who can. I have to keep an eye on the enemy; I couldn’t deal with the spell while doing that. It will give him the opening to finish me off.

Radiant Cover. Cloak of Syl. Aqua Bless.

I cast three spells on Captain Vandal for the defense and enhancements. It was the only thing I could do to help him.

I had just finished when my eyes widened, and I moved, activating the Drip Steps immediately, while he grinned.

Boom Boom Boom!

A booming sound rang out as the jets of powerful water began to burst out of the ground and go as high as hundreds of meters.

These jets are small and concentrated. If even a single one, is it; it will tear through me.

While I was dodging the attack. He cast another spell. The Frost Lances came at me, tearing through the air.

Sup Sup Sup

I wanted to curse loudly, but I controlled myself and cast the shields and was grateful that Shaman Dul had augmented them with his magic.

It is hard to cast spells when dodging the attacks; one couldn’t do it properly, without sufficient experience.

I still remember the first time; I was forced to do that. It was my first battle. Three days later, I escaped the tower and reached the nearest army, resisting the undead.

It would be a stretch to call them the army. Considering over 70% of people there had never held a weapon, much less had a combat class.

Everyone was drafted, including me, who never fought a battle in the life. I only knew four Grade 1 spells at that time, with one defensive and one offensive spell.

The battle was a massacre.

I saw thousands of people getting massacred by the undead. I was frozen by the sheer horror that I wasn’t able to cast a spell at all, till the undead leaped at me and threw me on the ground.

I still remember the seven ice daggers I needed to cast to kill the zombie on top of me.

We won that battle but lost nearly 80% of the people. It was also in that battle; that I had got the first light-water element spell. It was a healing spell, and I had not got from the great hand, but from the body of the necromancer controlling the horde.

The militia leader had copied the spell and handed it to every mage. I was the only one, who was able to learn it and did it in a month.

Bang Bang Bang

The lances crashed against the shields before tearing through them. I employed a second shields, which had stopped them.

It didn’t stop him, and he kept launching the ice lances and I kept defending while moving around the battlefield to dodge the attack.

Every spell I cast is draining my mana.

My spells are mana-efficient, but no matter how efficient they are, they cost mana. Half an hour later, I was nearly out and needed to drink the mana potion.

I could see the smile appearing on his face, seeing that, and cursed at the bastard. I know, what he is trying to do; I have used that strategy myself, against the many enemies.

If you can’t beat the enemies directly; then beat them indirectly.

He is constantly throwing spells at me, and I am being forced to defend using the shields. Which is costing me a lot of manas and to replenish it; I am drinking a mana potion.

I have a lot of mana potions, but I couldn’t drink them all to replenish my mana.

Once the limit is reached, I will begin to suffer mana poisoning, and my mana recovery will also slow down.

Rip!

Suddenly, one of the frost disks cuts through me. I had avoided many of them and defended against them, but not all could be avoided.

Thousands of small frost disks are floating around, moving in unpredictable directions.

To deal with them, I had supposed tens of moving shields, but they were not enough to save me or Shaman Dul, who had been cut more times than I, despite my best attempts to protect him.

He is at least alive; those frost discs have killed two people. Despite mages summoning the shields.

The bastard is too powerful and if he killed me, then he will not have any problem in dealing with others. He will kill them all, and it won’t take more than a minute to do that.

The difference in level is too big.

I drank another bottle of mana potion and cast Minor Heal on my injuries before looking at the discs around me.

The only one, who hadn't cut by the disc is Captain Vandal. He is still fighting against the bear. Bears. There are two of them now and they have already made him quite bloody, but he is still fighting.

Stopping them from coming at me and Shaman Dul.

I have to say, I am quite surprised at the man. Usually, for a warrior like him, handling one such spell is a huge burden; very few could handle two.

Rip Rip Rip!

Another disk ripped through my shoulder and a minute later, through my back, and another at my leg, a few minutes after that.

“You have handle-big spells, but it is the measly Grade 1 spell that is giving you a hard time,” he said with a grin as more Frost Dicks.

“If I had known it before, I would have cast them from the beginning,” he added and sent more with it.

“You are a High-Mage, talk like one. It is a Grade 4 spell, Carlym’s Discs, not Grade 1 Frost Disc,” I replied as I dodged and defended the barrage he sent at me.

These discs are much stronger than the normal Frost Disc. Normal Frost Disks couldn’t pass through my defenses, these could; they are already doing that.

My words seemed to sting him, which is what I wanted. A barrage is easier to defend than individual discs coming from a different direction.

It didn’t take him long for him to understand his mistake and I could see anger appearing in his eyes, but this time, he controlled it and began to attack me like before.

Every minute, more and more injuries appeared on my body as some discs would strike me. I am trying with the shields, but the man is High-Mage, with more mana than me.

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He could summon them, them in thousands.

Soon, I drank the third mana potion bottle. I could see him looking at me with joy on his face. It is the mana potion; I could drink safely. If I drank any more, I would suffer the mana burn, aside from the low absorption of the potion.

I rather not drink the potion, but I am expanding it, rather fast with all the shields I am summoning to defend against the attack.

Water Ropes.

He intensified his attacks further and watery robes appeared on the ground, trying to catch Shaman Dul. The orc shaman is quite agile; I am really glad he is because I am at the limit of the spells, I could not cast more than I am casting.

Time passed, and every second was a challenge.

I have fought many battles, where I have against many mages, but this is worse than any one of them. A High-Mage's power is much greater than a Mage like me. Their classes are powerful, which makes their power of their higher than those of lower grades.

Not to mention specialization, which makes every spell they cast powerful.

It is already quite a feat that I am standing in front of him, even after two hours of fighting. It is quite an amazing thing, and I would have felt it if not for being a step away from death.

I cast most spells and before I knew it, my mana had reached the critical level again. I took out the fourth potion and drank it; seeing that he grinned.

“You are good as the dead, now,” he said.

Hun!

I didn’t reply and continued with defending and dodging when suddenly I received a message, which nearly made me stop in my tracks.

They killed a Lv. 30.

It is Lt. Colonel Julian and his team who killed the fencer. I had heard about the fencer, and he was not an easy enemy to kill, but they somehow did it.

He seemed to receive the news too, and his expressions changed drastically.

A second later, the number of discs increased further, and more ropes appeared. It became harder to avoid them while dodging the disks.

On top of that, I am expanding the mana fast.

I have never used so much shields as I am right now as I am using right now and also the enhancements and defensive spells. They have kept me alive but also drained the mana fast.

It is why, it is so damn difficult to deal against the High-Mage for the mages like me. They are better at every aspect and have experience to deal with any tricks that, I might throw at them.

If I didn’t have the support of Shaman Dul; it would have been difficult.

“Fuck!”

A few minutes passed, and I took another potion bottle drink and had just taken it to my lips, when suddenly, one of the watery robes caught my leg and flowed over me.

Instant Freeze.

I cast the spell and freeze moved toward them, but the bastard seemed to expect that as the black water ropes became boiling and tore through every defensive spell covering me.

After more than two hours, he had finally caught me, and he would not let me go.

“Ahhhh…”

I screamed at the bubbling hot ropes filled with death energy that moved around my body. It is as painful as it is harmful; I tried to cast the spell, but they overwhelmed me.

Thud!

My staff fell to the ground, while the water robes bound me tightly. He had even removed the concentration ring and bracelet; I kept as the backup.

I could still cast the spell without the tools and doing that, but it is effortlessly pushing it all away.

“I have to say, you are the most difficult mage I have ever fought,” he said as he came toward me. The thousands of disks parted for him like a curtain, while the black icy dagger appeared in his hand.

Seeing it, I shuddered visibly as it brought out the dark memories of the past.

“You remember this, right?” he asked, showing me the black ice dagger as he stopped in front of me.

They gathered hundreds of people in front of the tower after they conquered it. Many of my friends were there, including the love of my life, before executing them with these daggers.

It is their way.

“I am going to kill you, the same way. We had killed those people of Ursula’s tower,” he said with a grin and looked at me.

I didn’t say anything and just looked at him. It seemed to make him angry for a moment before that sick pleasure returned to his eyes and he raised the dagger toward my heart.

The dagger came closer, till there was barely an inch that had remained between its sharp cold blade and my beating heart, when suddenly he stopped, with his eyes widening.

A man appeared beside him like he teleported, and a white blur moved toward his neck.

The High-Mage reacted fast, with his staff lightning up for the spell, while at the same time, thousands of Frost Disks moved toward us.

Jon is faster, with his enchanted dagger already reaching the neck of the enemy, cutting through a half-formed spell, before reaching his neck.

Pachack!

A wet sound rang out and neck severed neck flew up in the air.

I looked into his eyes, which were filled with shock; even in his death, he didn’t understand how it all happened.

Immediately, the spells disappeared, turning to mist.

If we had been a second late; those Frost Discs would have cut us into the hundreds of pieces.

“It worked,” said Captain Vandal as he appeared beside us, with Shaman Dul, a few seconds later.

Both of them were heavily injured.

Jon had been part of the battle since we started fighting. He had been hiding behind me, under the layers of a refractive shield, while I covered his body with.

That alone isn’t enough and wouldn’t have worked. If it wasn’t rogue with skill, Jon has.

The High-Mage was a practitioner of water and death, both at pretty good detecting life.

He had cast those spells, but Jon had the skill to hide his life signature, which worked well with Refractive Shield, which was a light element spell and thus resistant to dark.

Still, it was great luck, and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the potion that Mr. Silver had provided.

The one with emotion essence; I had mixed it with a regular mana potion. Which helped me recover my mana fast and also saved me from mana burn.

“It did,” said Jon, turning to me with a smile.

I smiled back before my expressions turned serious. We had killed two Lv. 30s, but it is far from enough to win the battle.

However, I have hope, that we will.