The spider warren posed regretably little challenge to Snow. Not even the addition of corrosive acid pools helped to slow him down. He simply waved his cane and despelled them, turning the bubbling liquid into magical spaghetti that he absorbed. This was the true power of the magic element at work.
Cornelius Snow could control mana and aether on a level similar to Zack. He could untangle the fibers holding spells together, twist and turn them to his will. Not even Zack's wisps were safe, as more than once he found them caught in an area spell and absorbed by Snow's infinite hunger for magic.
The old man waded through waist-high spiders with ease, and turned them back to their base magical components. Zack didn't even want to try and banter with the old man, anymore. He was just focusing his attention on killing him.
This was the first person Zack had truly wanted to kill, and he hated how excited it made him feel. Cornelius Snow outlevelled him by an order of magnitude, but he was all alone save for Enza. Zack might not be able to get a clear view of Snow's stats, but he was able to glean a few key pieces of information just by observing by the archmage's behaviour.
Firstly, Snow's defenses were almost exclusively magical in nature. He had very little resistance to any form of physical attack, and relied heavily on his heightened attributes in order to carry him through encounters. His physical stats couldn't be very high, at least in comparison to his mental ones—Zack wished he could see them, but Snow's mental defenses were still too powerful for his core senses to bypass. Snow had magical defenses in place to protect him from spells and psychic intrusion, and relied on a spell in order to protect from physical attacks. If caught off-guard, he couldn't protect himself from direct attacks.
Secondly, Snow had no physical training the way a true adventurer would. He wasn't like Salazar or even Alex, who were in the prime of their youth and regularly seeking to challenge themselves in combat. He was an elderly educator that relied on his ridiculously high level and magical prowess to carry him through encounters. As Zack observed, he had to assume that Snow garnered all his levels through experimentation rather than training. The nature of the Akashic System was that it rewarded people who went through the trouble to learn magic rather than people who exercised it, but the downside was that those two methods were not mutually exclusive.
This led Zack to his third and final revelation: by neglecting the physical aspects of magic, Snow had an incredibly glaring weakness that no true adventurer would ever have. He didn't have the physical training necessary to combat monsters on this level. He kept making mistakes that confused Zack, such as when he stepped under an obvious spider trap.
By the time Snow finished dealing with Chorus, he was panting and breathing deeply. Chorus's mixture of magical and physical attacks, coupled with the additional adds Zack left in her room, made her a far more challenging fight than Bloody Mary could hope to be. He even let her stay on the ceiling this time, keeping her firmly out of reach of Snow's magical drill spell.
"Need a break?" Zack asked in a teasing tone.
Snow sneered up at the wisp, then snatched it out of the air with a telepathic hand. Zack was already spinning up a fresh one by the time the first was destroyed.
"Face it, Snow. You're not an adventurer. You're an old man and you're out of your depth."
Snow breathed deeply through his nose and out through his mouth. As he did, Zack saw the beginnings of a blue thread trying to find purchase on the old man's head, struggling for space with countless others. The Akashic System was preparing to reward Snow with a level up. The sight of such a thing filled him with frustration. Why would Snow be approaching a breakthrough? All he was doing was blasting Zack's mobs apart!
"You're right. I'm not an adventurer," Snow agreed, as a section of the wall slid aside to reveal the path forward. "I am an archmage. I hold a mastery over magic that most will never see in their lifetime, and were I thirty years younger I suspect that alone would be more than enough to sweep you off the face of the earth."
Zack mentally cringed. "Why are you doing this? You have Enza, why won't you just leave?"
Snow smirked and rested the butt of his cane against the floor. He strode towards the exit, heading to the third and final wing of the dungeon. "I'll admit, I thought about it. I could just buy the land you're squatting on and legally own you. I could press charges for the theft of private property. There are any number of things I could do. But do you know what that would accomplish?"
Zack thought about it for a second before answering. "It wouldn't accomplish anything."
"Correct. Your friends would be out of a job, but I wouldn't be able to stop you from running your dungeon. I could keep people out, but that won't truly stop you from acting as you currently are, or eventually leaving. I can't charge you or your mobs with theft, because you're not legally people. I could charge your friends, but again that only removes them from the equation. It does nothing to actually punish you. So, instead I will punish you the way I've punished every disobedient core I've encountered." Snow lifted his cane off the ground and gripped the core tightly. "I will bring you to heel, dungeon, or I will break you."
Zack mentally tightened his wisp. "Then you should have brought more people."
"I will be more than enough for this, I assure you."
Snow stepped into the meadow prepared for anything that might await him. He had a shield erected around himself and a spell primed and ready. The moment he set foot on the grass, flower monstrosity leapt out to meet him. Furious rabbits charged him with horns primed to gore his shins. Snow looked on with a mixture of boredom and apathy, before unleashing the spell in his hand.
Zack swore as the breakthrough snapped into place in Snow's head, the old man gaining a level. It was a faint wave of blues, blacks, and whites that rolled through the meadow. Everything it touched lit up in a wireframe of magical light as the woven mana holding them together became visible. This new spell, rather than attack the physical bodies of his mobs, attacked the magical matrix holding them together.
Snow waved his cane and snagged the charging rabbits with shimmering tethers. Each one he snagged froze in place, like he hit their hidden pause button. Then, he tugged on the tethers and each rabbit unraveled. Zack watched in frustration as his mobs were simply unmade, like a sweater being knit in reverse. He wanted to scream his anger, as the very first mobs he created were extinguished without even putting up a fight.
The carnations were next, their venomous vines doing little more than glancing harmlessly off Snow's shield. The barrier flashed blue and black, before he repeated the process and snared the attacking flowers. Another tug, and the mobs vanished.
The stooltoads didn't even put up a challenge. Snow didn't bother using the tether on them, instead simply casting a handful of Unmakes in their general direction. As though to add insult to injury, Snow didn't stop once the mobs were clear. He connected his aether to large sections of the room, and pulled.
Zack watched with growing horror as the plants and fixtures he created to give the room the appearance of a meadow were destroyed. The grassy floor turned back into greasy tiles. The walls back into crumbling brick. Even the ceiling turned back into patchy panels and fluorescent lights.
"I'm screwed." Zack felt the dread creeping up inside him, clawing at his memory of a stomach. Snow had achieved a breakthrough that would allow him to not only combat the mobs, but unravel the very fabric of the dungeon itself.
There were holes in Zack's influence, pockets where his mana simply ceased to exist. He tried to fill it in as Snow leisurely strolled toward Thumper's boss room, but it felt like his influence never existed there in the first place. This wasn't like when Ember burned holes in Zack's mana, but rather like when he first claimed the mall for his dungeon. Absorbing sections and integrating them into his influence was a slow, arduous process that took substantial energy.
And Snow was able to just undo it. As the old man marched into Thumper's room and quickly dispatched him, Zack realized that he had made a grave mistake. He had foolishly thought to challenge and archmage, and now he was going to pay for his hubris.
Thumper's body hadn't even finished dissolving by the time Snow found the path down to the burrow. The old man scoffed in derision and took the stairs slowly, in case there might be anything waiting down there to jump out and surprise him.
The burrow was Zack's least populated level. There were the toads and the badgers, two mob types that would pose little more challenge than anything on the levels above. Then, there was Archie. If anything Zack had ever created could stop Snow, it would be Archie.
As Snow reached the burrow, he was greeted by a trio of ornery black and white badgers. They were similar to Archie in that they stood on two legs, but where they differed was in their proportions. Archie was lithe and swift, while the badgers were thick and heavy. Zack had originally designed them with the intention of creating contrast between the mobs and boss of this level, but watching Snow carve through them without even breaking a sweat made him reconsider his choices.
The toads offered even less resistance. They mostly served to maintain the floor rather than defend it. They were optional fights to the average delver, but to Snow they were nothing more than pests. They dissolved as easily as the badgers.
All that was left to do was fight Archie.
Like Alex suggested, Archie's lamps were extinguished as Snow entered the room. He looked around curiously and spotted the lanterns on the walls. With a frown, he waved his cane and unleahsed a torrent of aether. As the magic reached the walls, the lamps suddenly flared to life, burning with a flickering blue flame. Archie had been perched on the ceiling as Snow entered, his stealth power active. He immediately dove to extinguish one of the lamps as soon as it started glowing.
"Cheap tricks?" Snow asked, raising his cane at the suddenly darkened corner of the room. "You intend to fight me in the dark?"
Archie said nothing, as he took out another pair of lights with dirt clumps. A large sliver of the room was plunged into darkness that he used to further mask his movements.
Snow scoffed and tapped the butt of his cane against the ground, sending out a ripple of aether that rolled through the floor and up the walls. Archie leapt off just in time to avoid getting hit by the revealing wave, but his landing kicked up the dirt. His position exposed, Snow wheeled in place and unloaded a cluster of spells.
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Still invisible, Archie managed to dodge all three bolts of arcane destruction. He leapt into the air, grabbing one of the hanging light fixtures and flipping back up to the ceiling, extinguishing the magically lit candle as he went.
"You cannot hide forever, rabbit," Snow barked. Again, he sent a ripple of magic through the earth, and again Archie had to leap to avoid being exposed.
This time, instead of heading for the ground, he dropped out of the air and landed on Snow's back, taking them both to the floor. The old man grunted in surprise as Archie rammed a dagger into his side, then leapt away to avoid a surely lethal counterattack. Snow hissed in pain as he yanked the dagger free. Only the first half inch of the blade was wet with blood, and Zack mentally swore. Not even a successful attack from Archie was able to harm him much.
Snow didn't even bother grabbing a healing potion. Using his cane to balance his weight, he shakily pushed himself back up. Archie, sensing an opportunity to strike, unleashed one of his spells.
[Wicked Strike: Level 3]
[Spell]
[The caster lunges toward a target, striking with weapons or claws. The power of this spell scales with the weapon's]
[Level 3 Upgrade: The five meter cast restriction on this spell no longer applies.]
With glowing daggers, Archie lunged for Snow's throat. The flash of magic and steel was enough to draw the archmage's attention, and he barely managed to get a barrier erected in time to stop the attack. The force of the strike was enough to drive Snow back to one knee, barely keeping upright thanks to his cane.
The use of his spell drove Archie out of stealth, and he finally became visible to Snow. The pair met eyes with one another, and Archie scoffed in disgust.
"You're the one that stole Enza from me," Snow sneered. "You really thought you could just get away with it, didn't you?"
"In my defense, I was under the assumption you had enslaved her," Archie said. "Wife or not, I'm not convinced that isn't the case."
Snow's lips pulled back as he clenched his jaw. "You wouldn't understand. You're just a monster." With a shove, Snow managed to force the rabbit back a step.
Archie used Snow's force to disengage, leaping out of harm's way and reactivating his stealth power. In the blink of an eye, he vanished into the shadows, extinguishing a few more candles as he went.
"I told you before, these tricks will only work on me once," Snow warned, rising back to his feet and raising his cane again.
Archie didn't bother activating his spell this time, instead silently dropping down off the ceiling behind Snow. Just as he was about to plunge his blade into the old man's throat, Snow abruptly wheeled in place and swatted the dagger away. His cane once more turned metallic, and the ringing of steel on steel echoed through the room.
Before Archie had a chance to steady himself, he was blasted by a wave of magical energy. His body became etched in a wireframe of blues and blacks, and he froze in place.
Zack watched with horror as, like every mob in his dungeon before him, Archie was unceremoniously destroyed. It took a lot more to undo him than it did the other bosses. A simple tug on his threads wasn't enough to unravel him, and instead it took multiple casts of Unmake to finish him off. But like every mob that came before him, Archie was no match for Cornelius Snow.
"That's that," Snow breathed, kicking the daggers that Archie had dropped upon his demise.
Zack wanted to scream. This was worse than the way he felt when Archie was just outside his influence. He felt like he'd just been stabbed in the heart over and over again. He still had Archie's pattern, and could remake him at a thought, but that didn't change the fact that he just had to sit there and watch as one of his closest friends perished.
This was wrong, this was all wrong!
"Now, dungeon, I believe you're all out of tricks," Snow said. He tapped his cane on the ground and sent a ripple of aether surging through it. Zack felt that magic hit his core, the heart of his very being illuminating like a beacon.
Snow raised his cane and started to unravel the influence holding the room together. Entire chunks of wall between him and Zack's core room started to dissolve. Piece by piece, chunk by chunk. The earth turned into fibers, which were then devoured by the eagerly awaiting archmage.
Worse, it looked like another breakthrough was imminent. A fresh new strand of blue mana was connecting to his head, struggling to find purchase among the tangle of other spells. This new spell Snow had learned over the course of his dungeon run, he was learning how to use it more efficiently. It was about to upgrade again, and once it did, that would be it.
Zack's tenure as a dungeon core was over.
A sudden defiant scream broke Zack out of his pity party. The hole in the wall was just large enough for a person to step through, and Alex chose that moment to intervene. He charged forward with both hands outstretched, unleashing a blazing torrent of fire in Snow's direction. The sudden heat and light was enough to take the archmage by surprise, and Snow had to break his concentration in order to erect a barrier.
The shield barely went up in time, and a lick of flame managed to singe the hem of his coat. Snow banished the magical fire with a wave of his cane, his face turning twisted with rage in the dancing light.
"I won't let you hurt Zack," Alex declared. He pulled back the raging fire and started collecting it into a ball instead. As Zack watched, a thread started connecting to Alex's head, too. He was nearing a breakthrough all his own!
"Idiot," Snow growled. He waved his cane and dropped his shield, firing a barrage of spells in Alex's direction.
It was like time slowed to a crawl as Zack watched. Alex saw the spells flying his way and dodged to the side, unleashing his monstrous fireball as he went. He managed to dodge the first bolt, but the second and third shots were well led. One on either side of where he was previously standing.
Alex's eyes widened as a bolt hit him in the chest, and shredding through his skin. Zack screamed as his friend was thrown against the crumbling wall, a hole yawning where his flesh used to be. Snow screamed in pain as Alex's spell hit him, only to banish it seconds later.
"Alex?" Zack conjured a wisp directly above his friend, hovering as close as he dared. "Alex, buddy?"
Alex coughed, his eyes dim as he stared up at the wisp. "Hey, man," he wheezed. His voice was weak, like there wasn't any air behind it. "That shit hurt."
"Hey, hey, it's going to be okay. You're going to be fine," Zack said frantically. He conjured the strongest healing potion he could right into Alex's hand. "Just drink this, it'll be okay."
"Nah. I don't think so this time," Alex chuckled.
"Alex? Come on, this isn't funny. Come on, man!" Zack pleaded. "Just drink the potion and everything will be alright!"
"Hey, uh, Zack? I'm feeling kinda cold…" Alex coughed again. "Could you light a fire for me?"
Before Zack could even answer, Alex slumped forward.
[Name: Alexander Hale]
[Species: Human]
[Level: 13]
[Health: -23/120]
[Mana: 12/22]
[Stamina: 41/110]
[Status: Deceased]
Zack screamed as the Akashic System showed him his friend's status without a prompt. This couldn't be happening. Alex wasn't supposed to die! They were supposed to make it through this alive and fine!
"Shame about that one," Snow grumbled. "He showed potential. If only he hadn't squandered it on you."
The old man strode over to Alex's body and nudged it with his cane. The body fell over, sprawling out on the floor. Zack looked up and stared into Snow's contemptuous eyes, and felt a whole new level of anger.
Rage that this man had murdered Alex. Fury that Zack was powerless to stop him. And worst of all? He felt an unbridled hatred as a new tether snapped into place among Snow's many others. Murdering Alex had given him a breakthrough.
"You were never going to win this fight," Snow assured Zack, turning to march into the core room. "The odds were never in your favour."
Zack felt it the moment Snow put a hand on his core. The cold touch of an uncaring man. This was it. He lost. Snow was going to take him away, and that would be that.
Except… there was something else in that touch. Curiously, Zack poked at it, and felt the familiar presence of the Akashic System. It was still lingering within Snow, the old man still on the cusp of another breakthrough. More than that, he could feel mana. It was like that first day Zack had woken up, hanging from Alex's neck. The memory sent a ripple of grief through him again, as Alex's body hadn't even cooled on the floor. And yet…
[Cornelius Snow]
[Human]
[Level: 53]
[Health: 127/220]
[Mana: 91/110]
[Stamina: 49/120]
[Would you like to see a more detailed statistic breakdown? Yes or no?]
Snow was lifting Zack off the pedestal where his core was resting, but Zack didn't care. He was too busy trying to see deeper into Snow's soul. There had to be something here, something he could use! Something he could do!
[Unmake: Level 5]
[Spell, Magic]
[Fire a bolt of elemental magic at a target. This spell is stronger against crafted entities or illusions.]
[Level 3 Upgrade: Aether from an unmade target is refunded to the caster as mana.]
[Level 5 Upgrade: The caster gains one stack of Manaflow.]
[Cost: 15 mana]
[Would you like to see upgrades for this spell? Yes or no?]
"Yes," Zack thought, directing all his attention to the Akashic System. He managed to hold back a scream as information flowed into him, the system's near boundless knowledge threatening to rupture his core. But he held on.
He could see it now. He could see the only way out.
"Levels are gained when a person learns a new spell, elemental affinity, or upgrades one they already have," Zack murmured, remembering what both he and Snow knew to be true. "Or, in short, deepening their connection to the Akashic System."
Snow paused, his grip tight on Zack's core. "What are you blathering on about, dungeon?"
"I can't beat you. I was never going to be able to beat you. You're just too high above me in levels. It was always going to end this way, with your hands on my core. But there's one thing you haven't seemed to realize."
"And what's that?"
"You're an archmage. Your connection to the Akashic System is deeper than anyone else's. However, it's not deeper than mine. You want knowledge? You want power? Take it." Zack grabbed as much mana as he could, thick threads of power leaping at his command."Take it all."
Zack could see them, the way Snow's spells could evolve and grow. Billions of potential upgrade paths, unfathomable possibilities for spells to evolve. And Zack was dumping mana into as many of them as he could.
[Unmake: Level 5—7—9—30]
[Spell, Magic]
[Fire a bolt of elemental magic at a target. This spell is stronger against crafted entities or illusions.]
[Level 3 Upgrade: Aether from an unmade target is refunded to the caster as mana.]
[Level 5 Upgrade: The caster gains one stack of Manaflow.]
[Level ERROR Upgrade: Cannot upgrade]
[Level ERROR ERROR ERROR Upgrade: Fatal upgrade]
[Cost: 15—30—1000 mana]
"What are you—ARGGGH!" Snow roared and flailed, desperately trying to drop Zack's core. His hand was open, but thick glowing threads were connecting them together. They twisted and twined around Zack's core, keeping him bound to Snow's hand. Keeping their magic connected to one another. "What are you doing to me!?"
"I'm giving you everything you ever wanted," Zack assured him. A crack formed in his surface, but he didn't care. "There are billions of potential upgrades for your spells. I'm giving you all of them."
"Stop! STOP!"
"You hurt me. You threatened my friends. You killed Alex," Zack's voice was rising now, as he continued to pour mana into Snow. He could tell his mana was dangerously low, but that was a problem for the future. For now, he simply reabsorbed entire chunks of his dungeon and fed the component mana into Snow.
Threads of mana clicked into place along the old man's head or merged with the old ones, turning them thicker and heavier by the second. Breakthrough after breakthrough, the work of countless lifetimes. All of that was being forced into the old man's head in a matter of seconds.
[Cornelius Snow]
[Human]
[Level: 5132]
[Health: 32/4150]
[Mana: 87/1000]
[Stamina: 0/150]
Snow screamed as he dropped to his knees. Zack knew from experience that viewing this many upgrades alone was more than his core could reasonably handle. He couldn't imagine what it must be like for Snow, who was still limited by an organic brain.
"Stop, please," Snow begged, looking up at Zack's core. His one eye was bright and bloodshot, blood streaming down his nose in a constant gush. Even his ears were bleeding. "Please…"
Zack looked straight into the man's eyes as more threads fused with his already overburdened brain. "No."
One final shove of mana, one last pulse of power. Zack found the spell Snow used to kill Alex and upgraded it beyond anything else.
[Arcane Bolt—Torrent—Blast—Explosion—Detonation: Level 51]
[Spell, Magic, Self-Destruct]
[Destroy your corporeal body in a magical explosion.]
Zack didn't have a chance to read farther than that before the spell activated. Sensing a way out, Snow used it.