Chapter 62 Out Of Spite.

The Ori-Masa mushroomancer, leader of what was once a thousand corrupted kin, focused his two beady, onyx black, bulging eyes on the approaching paladin. Lenna stopped and switched grip on the flaming sword held together with reality magic. Her thumb rested just beyond the crossguard against the spine of the blade. She felt the intense heat of the weapon start to burn her thumbprint off but that was a problem for later. She took another step forwards and launched the blade at the Ori-Masa with aura and mana enhanced strength. She barely had enough mana left to keep from getting too light headed to fight. Her four fingers that were wrapped around the back and bottom of the crossguard put every ounce of strength she had into that one fateful throw.

The Ori-Masa didn’t even have time to properly react. If he had known what she was doing then he would have started moving earlier but he assumed that he was the stronger combatant. If Lenna had been almost anyone else then he could have just waited for them to make their move and then he could have countered it, leaving them on the back foot. Unfortunately for the mushroomancer, Lenna’s sword throwing technique was unique. It wasn’t something someone like the Ori-Masa would have ever seen before. The sword came at him so quickly that he barely had enough time to interpose his staff between the sword and his face. Not that it helped.

Esk’s flaming sword punched through the mushroomancer’s staff like a hot knife through butter. The sword was knocked a mere inch and a half off course. That did nothing to help the Ori-Masa who just received a flaming longsword that had just covered the forty feet between them in half a second. The flaming blade went right through the Ori-Masa with little resistance the entire way up until the crossguard. The crossguard wasn’t overly large but it was a relatively flat surface that absolutely did not want to cut through the creature it had just impacted. The fishman was thrown a few feet back while the sword continued its path. It stopped with the crossguard embedded in the fishman’s head.

Lenna hadn’t waited to see if her attack would land properly, not that she would’ve had to wait long, and simply bolted towards her target. Her heavy steel steps thundered across the distance. She was only halfway there before the sword was ejected from the mushroomancer’s head. The flaming sword hadn’t had the chance to reach the ground however because Isaac was there to catch it. Isaac made a few quick stabs and cleaves through the mushroomancer’s head before he tossed the blade a few feet into the air and vanished.

Lenna caught the falling flaming sword and continued where Isaac had left off. The main difference was that her aura was adding more flames to the blade and imparting more heat than Isaac could have. She was also stronger as Isaac wasn’t properly boosted, but even if he was, her aura’s flames made sure she still would have done more damage.

A blazing curtain of flames poured out from above and below Lenna in a circle around herself and the target. The flames burned away the hyphae that were collecting around the mushroomancer’s feet. The Ori-Masa tried to scream but it was cut off by Lenna’s relentless assault. She continued cleaving and dicing the fishman into the world’s most disgusting sushi. Lenna could hear yelling from her teammates but she couldn’t make out what they were saying over the roaring flames. Her own heartbeat pounding in her ears and her deep breaths inside a confined space while her armor clanged and screeched didn’t help. Her armor wasn’t usually very loud but it had too much blood, stone dust, and ash caked into it for the pieces to move quietly.

Lenna heard an explosion and then felt Isaac’s power spike. She realized something was definitely going wrong outside of the curtain of flames. The flames surrounding her went out just as she felt something grab onto her from behind and yank her backwards with inhuman strength.

—

Isaac reappeared with the rest of the team as the curtain of flames wrapped around Lenna and the mushroomancer. He was keeping an eye on the mushroom kingdom soldier that was still watching them almost lifelessly. His focus was arrested by the other problem that had just arisen. The entirety of the mycelium was flailing and snapping in random directions as it lost its connection to the main body. The infected Ori-Masa surrounding the party all started spazzing and twitching before their bodies burst apart into a shower of blood and gore. The blood was instantly absorbed by the mycelium. The network of hyphae drank up the crimson essence of life like a starving man in a desert. The vine-like appendages swelled slightly before they started to roll up towards Lenna and the mushroomancer.

Isaac whirled around to see Shy airborne with Fable and Fina already extending their arms towards the wall of hyphae that was trying to take them with it towards the mushroomancer. While Fina and Fable burned through the last of their mana in Cones of Flames, Shy’s cloak opened wide facing the incoming disaster. Half a dozen daggers shot out from behind the wall of cloak that seemed to be suspended in mid air. Each dagger trailed burning embers behind it before they impacted the hyphae. The daggers all exploded simultaneously. The small wall of explosions blasted apart the imminent danger.

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Isaac started powering up his boost as fast as he could. He knew that it might cause him to become a target but he also knew that he needed more time to think and that was the only way. Isaac watched as one of Shy’s boots hit the ground before she turned and jumped again. The toe of only one of her boots was enough to launch her another ten feet up into the air. Isaac didn’t get a chance to see her face while she twirled as her hood was in the way but he did catch a feminine figure under the cloak.

As much as Isaac wanted to see her face he realized that there was someone who needed him. Well, Lenna needed him in other ways than the way he was thinking but that train of thought was just getting him sidetracked. Isaac teleported into the Wall of Flames as it finished breaking down from Fina’s lack of mana. He grabbed onto Lenna’s backplate and heaved.

—

Lenna was yanked back just in time to avoid getting crushed under hundreds of pounds of hyphae and Ori-Masa guts. The mushroomancer was crushed under the weight. A second set of explosions went off and bits of hyphae flew past her in all directions. “Damn you’re heavier than Kahtesh.” She heard Isaac grumble from behind her.

“Wha-” Lenna’s voice was cut off as a nearly fully boosted Isaac took a step and swung. Lenna was picked up off the ground and tossed. Lenna instinctively tucked into a ball until she could figure out how to land properly. She was yanked and thrown again immediately. It felt almost like two people had done it in tandem but she knew that it was just Isaac. Isaac had tossed her, teleported while repositioning, and then tossed her again while he too was in mid air. As she rotated in mid air she watched as another section of hyphae plowed through where she had just been. Isaac was nowhere to be seen. It was then that Lenna realized that she was going to fall a whole twelve feet to the stone ground and with her current orientation she would land on her shoulder.

“I got you.” Isaac said at almost double speed. It was so fast that Lenna almost didn’t catch what he had said. He pushed up on her shoulder to both orient her properly and help slow her descent. By the time Lenna hit the ground Isaac was already there. Her knees almost gave out completely from the impact but she managed to keep from falling over. Her knees protested quite loudly but she was fine.

“Thanks.” Lenna said while finally breathing. She hadn’t been expecting to fly that day.

“Hurry and regroup.” Isaac told her and half drug her in the direction of the rest of the party. There was an area twenty feet across in every direction that was covered in rotting mushrooms and an acrid smell permeated the air. There were another half dozen daggers scattered around the area. The rest of the group was standing in a circle with their backs to each other. Unfortunately Shy was on the far side from Isaac and Lenna. The mystery was killing him but they had more important things to deal with.

“Holy Halya…” Esk said with a hard swallow while looking past Isaac and Lenna who were sprinting at them. “Master, I think we fucked up.”

Fable was staring at it as well. “I wouldn’t have put it like that, but yeah, we fucked up.”

Isaac and Lenna didn’t dare turn around but a lightning bolt streaked overhead so they didn’t have to. The lightning bolt was a full ten feet over their heads as they ran. The sound it made on impact was not the sound of lightning on stone but more like it hit a tree. The Flame Ravens and Fable held their ground against the building threat behind Isaac and Lenna until the duo arrived. Isaac and Lenna whirled around to face the enemy and finally got a good look at it.

The old mushroomancer was nowhere to be found. In his place was an Ori-Masa that stood seventeen feet tall and was made out of mushrooms. To be more specific it was made by the hyphae binding and braiding themselves together to make a giant fishman made of large wood-like muscles. Its body rippled as the hyphae continued to settle into their new form. “Something is wrong.” Isaac said as he truly took in their opponent. He felt the tiny blips of dark creatures vanishing en masse. “It’s devouring itself.” Isaac told the team before correcting himself: “No, it’s consolidating its strength.”

“What does that mean?!” Esk demanded with a bit of hysteria in his voice.

“That it just got a whole lot stronger.” Fable explained.

“But also easier to kill.” Lenna added. If it was becoming only one creature then it only needed to be killed. There was no need to burn away every scrap in a vain extinction attempt.

Kahtesh’s lightning hit the monster again but it only left a sizzling black mark on its tough exposed musculature. “Lady V’Nova, can I have my sword back?” Esk asked before swallowing hard.

Lenna tossed him his sword and drew her own. “If you are going to run, give it back.” She told him.

Esk shook his head and steeled his nerves. “No. We started this as a team, we will finish it as a team.”

“Verywell.” Fable agreed and readied himself to engage the enemy.

“It’s just another monster.” Mark commented and dropped his spear to pull out a broadsword. The thick shortsword would be better than most at hacking into the monster and he knew that stabbing it wasn’t likely to have much effect so it was worth the lack of reach.

“If I die here I am killing your reincarnations out of spite.” Fina swore and hopped back to leave the frontline to those properly suited for it.

“But, humans don’t reincarnate.” A soft and quiet feminine voice came from the cloaked figure immediately behind the frontlines. Isaac shook his head as he held back the desire to correct her. Humans did reincarnate, sometimes.