Lightning flashed as a deluge of rain fell upon the battlefield, yet Zeke was unconcerned with the weather. Nor did he pay attention to the muddy conditions that would make for treacherous footing. Instead, he stared at the solid sheet of mana that constituted Adontis’ vaunted Barrier.

“It looks solid,” he said. “Like a pane of blue glass.”

Indeed, the entire city of Ivern – often called the Heart of Adontis – was encased in what looked like a dome that reminded Zeke of a snow globe. Yet, instead of a cozy winter scene, there was a massive fortress with thousands of zealous Knights inside.

But he was even more worried about the man at the top of Adontis’ social ladder. From the prisoners in his dungeon as well as the Knights who’d already turned coat, Zeke had heard plenty of stories about the vaunted Lord Adontis. From everything he’d been told, the man was a living legend who was only a handful of levels from the peak.

Zeke had fought powerful opponents before, though.

“Not like this,” Eveline pointed out. “He’s supposed to be level eighty-seven.”

“I know,” Zeke stated in his mind. “I’ve heard the same reports as you.”

From everything Zeke had been told, Lord Adontis was hundreds of years old. Perhaps even thousands. He’d come from a different time, and though he rarely took the field of battle -never in recent memory – stories of his prowess persisted in his kingdom’s mythology. To them, he was akin to a god.

Apparently, he didn’t need to fight to gain levels, either. He simply had to accumulate power through long bouts of meditation as well as siphoning it from his people. It was slow. Very, very slow. But it had the added benefit of not requiring the man to lay waste to entire swaths of the world just to move the needle a couple of inches.

Because he’d long since exhausted the benefits of the local dungeons. With their diminishing returns, he’d taken everything he could from them. Probably quite a few more as well. So, his only options were to wander the Eternal Realm and challenge any dungeons he found, or to remain in his fortress and parasitically drain the people he was meant to lead.

Zeke hated the choice the man had made because it spoke to a selfishness he couldn’t countenance. Leaders were meant to raise their people, not the other way around. Still, he couldn’t argue with the results. Reaching level eighty-six was an impressive feat, regardless of how it was accomplished.

“You’re underselling it,” said Eveline. “You remember how difficult fighting that great brute of a Knight was, right? This will be infinitely more difficult.”

“I’m stronger now.”

“You are. But it may not be enough,” Eveline pointed out. “You should leave this war behind – at least for now. Come back after a decade or so. You can reach his level by then if you do nothing but fight dungeons.”

“I’m not doing that, and you know it. If I leave now, everything we’ve worked for will be for nothing.”

At some point, Zeke’s goal had shifted. In the beginning, he’d only wanted to pass through Adontis to reach El’kireth and reunite with Talia. The way was open, now. The border was only a day or so away, and it was entirely unguarded – at least on the Adontis side. And yet, Zeke refused to rush toward that opening because, over time, he’d begun to see the liberation of Adontis as his primary goal.

While he’d been fighting in The Arena and building his skill, his army had swept across the kingdom, sacking cities and defeating small armies along the way. However, the bulk of Adontis’ forces had long since retreated behind the Barrier. If Zeke and his army passed them by and left Adontis behind, those Knights would assuredly charge forth and reestablish the oppressive systems of the past.

No – the only way to ensure those people’s freedom was to finish the Knights off. And that meant bringing the Barrier down, then killing the man behind it all. Zeke just wasn’t sure if he was up to it.

Fortunately, he was not alone.

Glancing back, he saw Sasha animatedly talking to three other people. The first was Kianma, the second was one of the enchanters they’d liberated from a nearby city, and the third was, predictably, Silik.

Kianma was there for two reasons, with the first being that she was the undisputed head of the tower’s government as well as the Ritualists who led the charge in healing and support. As such, she needed to be aware of the battle plan. However, the second reason was far more important, because the Ritualists were not just healers. They were powerful in their own right, so long as they were given time to work their curious magic.

The enchanter, whose name was Romus, was only there for one reason – to give Sasha everything she needed to funnel power into the most devastating spell she could cast.

As far as Zeke – or Eveline – knew, what they had planned had never been done before. Certainly, plenty of sorcerers had worked with enchanters, but because of the rarity of the former, it was not common practice. However, the addition of the Ritualists was unprecedented, largely because the kobolds’ powers were unique. That they already had experience working with Sasha was the only reason there was any chance of success.

But it was just a chance.

For all any of them really knew, it would just blow up in their faces.

“Love that optimism,” Eveline remarked.

“It’s risky,” Zeke stated. “There’s so much that could go wrong. Three different disciplines, all working in tandem? You know as well as I do how easily it could turn catastrophic.”

Indeed, Zeke may have lost much of his ability in enchanting when his Path of Runecrafting had been absorbed into the Path of Arcane Destruction, but he retained enough knowledge and experience to know just how volatile the combination of sorcery, ritualism, and enchanting could be. Even if everything worked exactly as they planned, there was a good chance that it could go out of control.

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“Have faith. That little pig girl –”

“Don’t call her that.”

Eveline sighed. “Boarkin, then. She’s more talented than you could know,” she explained. “Not even level fifty yet, and the things she can do…”

“I know, but –”

“And those spiritweavers are just as unique. Especially Kianma. She’s capable of far more than she’s shown,” Eveline stated.

“I’m aware,” Zeke said. “That’s why it worries me.”

Ever since he’d every nearly killed Eveline with his latest skill, he had been a little more cautious. When he didn’t have the power to level mountains, it was a little more acceptable not to think about consequences. But now that he had the power of an atom bomb at the tips of his fingers, things were a lot more complicated.

Eveline didn’t have much to say to that, so it wasn’t long before Zeke turned to the others who’d gathered nearby. There were nine kobold rangers, all standing in a line. Each one wore all black leather armor, but they were completely unarmed. Instead, they had incredibly long, sharp, and thick claws that were meant for tearing their foes to pieces.

“They don’t look like much, really,” Eveline remarked.

And she wasn’t mistaken. The rangers were only about five feet tall and slightly built, and they stood in stark contrast to the hulking centurions nearby. Yet, Zeke had seen them in battle, so he knew just how effective they could be.

He aimed to enhance that effectiveness.

“Silik,” he called out.

The kobold general stepped away from where he’d been hovering protectively near Kianma and stopped beside the rangers.

Zeke said, “Silik, do you accept my [Benevolence]?”

“I do.”

Zeke pushed mana into the skill, then laid his hand on the kobold’s bare shoulder. A second later, a rune bloomed upon his scales. More importantly, Zeke could feel the skill’s effect take hold, granting Silik permanent access to Zeke’s demonic attunement. Corruption raced through the kobold, and he let out a grunt of pain. Yet, he did not flinch away, and his body soon acclimated.

“Thank you, Ak-Toh,” Silik said.

“Use it well,” Zeke said.

Then, he progressed to the rangers. Each one had proven themselves in battle, and they were the highest-leveled rangers among the kobolds. As such, they were already deadly. Zeke hoped that with his [Benevolence], they would be even more so.

With that in mind, he asked the first, “Do you accept my [Benevolence]?”

“I do, Ak-Toh,” he said.

And Zeke repeated the bestowment on the first ranger. Or assassin, as he would be known. He took to it a little more easily than Silik, which was curious because he wasn’t as high of a level. Yet, Zeke wasn’t in any position to question the skill’s mechanics. Instead, he went down the line, repeating the process until all nine had gained access to Zeke’s demonic attunement.

But it was more than that. He could sense it. Each assassin was stronger than a simple attunement would suggest.

“Does that make sense to you?” he asked.

“Nothing about your power level makes sense,” Eveline said with no small degree of sarcasm.

“Be serious.”

“Fine,” she said with a mental roll of her eyes. “Yes. It makes sense. Using [Benevolence] isn’t just giving these kobolds access to your attunements. You’re fundamentally changing who and what they are, binding them to you in a way that is far more than simple mana type. From now on, they will develop in ways you can’t really predict. They’ll gain access to different skills. They may have even experienced increased tiers to their attributes.”

“From one skill?”

“From the spark of divinity within you,” she countered. “Though, by this point, it’s more of a flickering flame. One day, it will be a wildfire that sweeps through everything, laying waste to your –”

“I get the picture.”

That wasn’t the entire truth. Zeke was just beginning to come to terms with the reality that the spark of divinity Eveline had once mentioned was a real thing. But to think that he could change a kobolds fate with the simple use of a skill? That was daunting.

“It will be even more impressive when you can bestow your [Benevolence] on an entire army,” she said.

“I just got the skill, and you already want me to start trying to upgrade it?”

“Not yet. You don’t have the expertise or the power to do that,” she stated.

That was true enough. Zeke had explored upgrading some of his more powerful skills, and he’d hit a wall. It seemed that, even if he had the tools to continuously evolve his skills, he lacked the ability to use those tools properly. More, he sensed that if he took things too far, the cost would exceed his capacity for mana. So, Zeke couldn’t just sit back and upgrade his skills, over and over again, until he had reached some ultimate threshold.

Not that he would’ve had the patience for that.

“Not enough fighting,” snarked Eveline.

In any case, after Zeke had bestowed [Benevolence] onto his chosen ten – the skill’s limit – he watched as Sasha, Kianma, and Romus got to work. The spell she intended to cast required a pair of enchanted circles – one sized to fit a single person, and the other encircling the entire city of Ivern. So, for the past two weeks, the kobolds had been busy laying the groundwork for the larger of the two.

Now, they only had to enchant it.

So, for the next week, Romus and his team of three other enchanters did just that. Foot by foot until they’d drawn runes on miles of silver wire laid by the kobolds. As they did, the spiritweavers enacted a series of rituals meant to connect the two circles. However, in connecting them, they established a conduit that would enhance any spells channeled through them.

After that, Sasha continuously checked everything for any errors. Zeke couldn’t see what she saw, but even he knew that even the slightest mistake could be catastrophic. With the amount of mana she could bring to bear, combined with the augmentation the from the rituals and the further enhancement of the enchantment circles, the spell would be exponentially more powerful than if she’d cast it alone.

And given what Zeke had already seen from her, that was bound to create a large and formidable effect.

But would it be enough?

“Maybe,” Eveline said.

“Very insightful,” Zeke responded. The reality was that she was even less capable of estimating the powers at play than he was. She couldn’t see the runes, after all.

“Technically, I can see everything you can see. I just can’t make sense of them.”

Regardless, even if the spell failed to do what it was intended to do – which was to bring down the barrier – it would assuredly weaken it. Then, it would be Zeke’s turn, and he’d never met an enchantment he couldn’t break.

As they worked, the Knights of Adontis remained within their fortress. Things would have been much more difficult if they’d tried to interrupt the process. Yet, they refused to sally forth, perhaps because they couldn’t.

“That Barrier is probably difficult to raise and lower,” Eveline suggested. “There’s a lot of mana involved.”

“I guess,” Zeke said as he watched Sasha and the others putting the finishing touches on the entire system of spells, rituals, and enchantments. “I hope I don’t have to use [Wrath of Annihilation].”

“It should be fine,” Eveline said. “We know how far away we need to be, right?”

After nearly killing Eveline the last time he’d used the skill, Zeke had sent some kobolds to measure the size of the crater. So, he knew that the effect would only extend for two miles from the epicenter of the skill’s explosion. So, theoretically, so long as he aimed properly, he could position himself at his maximum range, use the skill, then run away while the skill built.

It wasn’t a perfect plan.

But it was also the only viable way he could use his most powerful ability. And besides, Eveline should be safe, so long as he wasn’t standing as close as he had been before.

“Should be is a little too vague for my taste,” Eveline said, trying to joke.

“Yeah. For me too.”

At that moment, Sasha waved at him. Seeing that, he strode toward her, and when he reached the sorceress’s position, he asked, “Is it ready?”

“It is.”

So, Zeke turned to Silik and said, “Get the army ready. You know the plan.”

“Yes, Ak-Toh.”

Then, the kobold general jogged toward the gate, which was more than a mile away, to ready the rest of the army for the invasion of Ivern.