“Girly, you must be young. Did you think you foiled my plans by sending him away?” Democlus wasn’t a single bit concerned that the fire spearman was gone. His senses were sharp enough to tell that the transparent crystals Kong Jing showed to the man weren't the same as the one that sent him away.
“You must think I’m blind, I know you didn’t kill the extra 2. You might have hidden them inside a conjured earthen tent under the gravestone and a wind barrier but do you think that can really stop me?”
“You mean to say it can’t?” Democlus mocked, he must have seen her constant miserable attempts the past few months.
Kong Jing chuckled, “Let’s see!”
The Shield King’s reflexes were ridiculous as he already moved towards where she was about to appear. He could sense her space magic or the location where she stretches her mana to. She would put her mana ore on the second possibility as it was a common ability amongst warriors trained against mages.
Her body leaned back to dodge the grabbing motion and she compressed space upwards again. The Dwarf’s shield smashed down from above the air she appeared at.
‘He’s faster than I can manipulate space…not just your random King Classed old man then.’ Kong Jing wasn’t worried at all, she had no weaklings to protect this time. The distance she could move was very small due to the annoying spatial lockdown.
Democlus conjured another whirlpool of wind to suck her towards him but her clothes weren’t even ruffled. The buildings on the ground morphed and turned into giant whips. “Give it up, I checked that you don’t even possess a combat Profession. Your space magic is greatly weakened here and I know that you don’t have another one of that transparent gem that sent that spearman out.”
He must have had a tier 3 Identification type skill or an item that allows one to analyse a person. It must have helped the Dwarf that she never cared about hiding her Class or making any items that obscures her information.
“No combat classes? Spatial lockdown? Against you? Let’s see…I’ll add on to your advantages. I won’t move from this spot. You have ten seconds to beg for your life.” Kong Jing’s lower mask disappeared, she put a strain reliever between her lips and lit it with a snap of her finger. Taking a puff before she started counting down.
❅❅❅
“Ten.” The Xeng woman’s voice enters Democlus’s ears.
“Beg? I’ve always hated Xeng’s arrogance! You don’t know how happy Elva was when most of your people left. Don’t worry, you won’t die. After the ritual you will be a part of me, I got to thank you for serving yourself to me!” Democlus got a little worked up all of a sudden and the huge earthen whips came alive and crushed the figure together with her last smoke.
“Nine.” Kong Jing’s countdown continued to echo in the underground city.
Democlus wasn’t that dull, he already felt the oddity as his earthen whips didn’t have any contact feedback. He knew a Xeng would have some tricks up their sleeves whether or not they were a combatant. He was a few centuries old and recalled the time that slightly more Xengs travelled across the continent. Personally, he had only seen one or two from afar but he never liked stories of them. It was only ever filled with arrogance and contempt for the Imperials.
To see how she remained at her spot without dodging he sent a single whip and continued to suck her towards him with wind magic. He was momentarily stunned when the whip simply smashed into her figure without touching her, they slowed down a lot when it got close to her. When he pulled the whip back it took some time before it accelerated to its normal speed.
“Eight.” She puffed another breath of smoke.
‘What magic is that? Why isn’t she pulled by wind magic?’ Democlus rode one of the giant whips towards her relaxed figure. He got 2 girs away from her before he realised he wasn’t getting any closer and she looked just as far away from him as she previously was.
“Seven.”
“Just a flimsy space expansion.” He bent his knees and leapt off, accelerating like a falling meteor. His gut wrenched when the figure didn’t get any closer to him. ‘I can hear her normally…’
“Six.”
He didn’t have to look back or down, he knew that his earthen whips were still at the same place and they weren’t that far away from him even after his mountain range crossing jump. He conjured a compressed earthen shield with a sharp end mid-leap, grabbed the handle he fashioned, leaned back and tossed it with all his power.
“SHIELD JAVELIN!!” Trying to keep her alive was the least of his worries but he didn’t enhance himself too much. The brown shield created cones of shockwaves but he could only watch in utter shock as the shield looked as if they were stuck in space. He could still feel the wind and shockwaves and was completely sure that his attack was still flying.
“Five.”
“2 girs…?” Democlus put aside the pride of having 3 completely combat-focused Classes and fully enhanced himself as he dashed on compressed wind and had wind magic to propel him further. He took ten steps only to see that she remained just as far away. He glanced down to see that the ground was still near, his whips still within the range of his control and the shield he threw was still breaking sound barriers and creating shockwaves.
“Four.”
Democlus controlled all the whips to attack, he felt them moving at breakneck speeds but none of them got closer to him or his target. He conjured and tossed a far stronger and faster Shield Javelin accelerated by wind magic.
‘It got ahead of the previous shield!’ He watched the shields skip ahead of the previous floating shield by a tiny bit.
“Three. Your time’s running out. Try harder, you can do it.” She puffed out grey smoke and taunted.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself! You won’t move huh? Let’s see you deal with this!” He dipped down to the ground and realised that he wasn’t any further away from the ground even after the earlier leaps.
The surrounding buildings of the underground city turned into a tower with numerous spikes on them. He ran to the gravestone within a second. To him, the city wasn’t that large.
“Two. Should I give you another handicap?”
“Come! Homunculi! Spread your mana throughout the city!” Democlus called for the deadly purple topaz Homunculus. As the ritual master, they were temporarily following his orders.
“I want to see how you’ll get me from that spot!” He was obviously making use of the fact that she couldn’t get close to the gravestone as he could. As a Shield King, he was more of a defender than an attacker or pursuer. That was how he convinced himself as he dipped.
“One. You can still beg.”
“Become my fuel to power! To become eternal!” Democlus lifted his arm, and an unconscious Dwarven woman shot out from the earthen tent he conjured and was sent into the gravestone behind him. The other man within the tent was killed immediately as he wasn’t able to send the body out of the city anymore. One of the two empty spots on the gravestone was filled as the Dwarven woman’s body crystallised onto its surface. The last spot right at the top was reserved for the only other conscious person in the city.
“Eternal? A fresh new King hopes to be eternal? Zero. Be honoured. You’ll spend your last moments with me.”
“Come get me if you can! You can’t even get close!” He was very confident of the 5 Homunculus surrounding her. They transformed the towering spikes into deadly weapons and they already overlapped their domains onto each other, everyone empowering each other.
“Oh, I’m a woman of my word. I won’t move from this spot.” She flicked her strain reliever away.
Democlus watched as her pure black mask covered up again and a tiny white circle formed on the centre of her mask. It quickly expanded to the edge of her mask, turning it completely white again. He didn’t have time to be confused as another black circle formed and expanded. The cycling sped up extremely quickly and his body lifted his shield in front of him by instinct.
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“Are you going to keep standing there?”
Democlus’s jaw dropped in shock when he found himself face to face with a black mask with a white circle and vertical line, not cutting the circle from the top to the bottom of her mask. His eyes shot around but there were no towering spikes, no floating shield, no homunculus, no city and definitely no gravestone to protect him. He pushed himself away by kicking off a hastily conjured mana platform. There was nothing around him, just pure white. There was neither a ground nor a sky. It would be disorientating for those that got placed here for the first time.
“This is the first time I invited someone in. Don’t worry I kept my word, I haven’t moved at all. You will do as a fun test run.”
‘There’s a ground.’ Democlus lowered his altitude and found that he could land and get a good footing. His highly trained body had moved his shield arm up to guard his left while his hips and lower body jerked into a proper position. An invisible force rammed into his shield but he stood strong other than skidding a short distance.
“Some kind of spatial domain? Doesn’t change that you aren’t a fighter.” He calmed himself down, the attack didn’t have much power behind it. For a Grandmaster, sure it was pretty darn amazing to be able to push him but if it was due to a domain it wasn’t all that surprising. The stronger a domain, the most costly it was to maintain. He hasn't formed his own domain spell as he evolved just a year ago and his mana efficiency had just hit his desired amount.
His war axe got to work but neither his wind slashes nor his earthen projectiles were reaching her. He tried to get close to her again and was pleasantly surprised to find that his axe could reach her. ‘I can reach her? I was right in front of her earlier too.’
His dominant arm didn’t need his mind to command, it attacked as he originally intended when he charged in. His body lurched forward and he was forced off balance. His axe was sitting a fingertip’s length away from her shoulder, just shy of touching it. He took his chances and forced it deeper and unleashed his wind magic together.
“My little brother’s trick is pretty nifty. He keeps a layer of repulsion over him and it also annoys me so I copied him. There’s no spatial lockdown here, I don’t have to play with spatial expansion.”
Democlus ignored her and kept going, he could feel his axe travelling at top speed but it was barely getting a hair’s thickness closer.
“He’s a little genius but I’m the bigger genius. Well, It’s a little unfair since I just had to read my clan’s spell book for ideas. Whipping a tier 4 spell is pretty easy but refining it would take me some more time, so I was too ashamed to show this outside.”
‘Whipping up a tier 4 spell is easy? Just read some books for ideas?’ Democlus was slightly disgruntled by the flex. He only had 2 tier 4 Skills, they were both his Core Skills and neither were magic spells.
“Thanks to where we are, your axe is gyrs away from me.”
Democlus felt something touching the rims of his chest plate near his neck, it slipped under his helmet as if his full plate wasn’t seamless. The same invisible force molested his entire armour from his helmet to chest plate, to gauntlet to his leggings.
“Pathetic strength, you can’t break my armour with that.” He shook off the invisible grasps by using mana disruption. A standard technique any respectable warrior picks up when they can manipulate their mana. It was simply diluting any magic spell with their own mana and works as a general dispel Skill for most magics. At his level, this ‘general’ dispel can wash off anything weaker than his own spells with considerable ease. Even so, the invisible forces came back immediately. ‘Damn domain mages! Forget it, she can’t keep this up for long.’
Democlus started to use the enchantments on his equipment and remained right in front of the Xeng. His axe didn’t stop moving, if she was simply further away than she seems he just had to keep going! Her arrogance of standing still was going to cost her. He freed one of his hands and tried to punch her but his gauntlet’s space wield was pretty weak, he went back to using it to empower his axe.
Her spatial attacks were all predicted by him even when he was in her domain, his trusty shield defended him without him holding it. Thanks to his armour’s spatial rebound enchantment her domain’s reach cannot physically form near him. She could only manually control her magic to attack him and not strangulate him directly. Her spatial pull wasn’t even strong enough to rip his shield away from him when he was using life force and mana to wield it.
“What happened to your big talk?”
“How much closer do you think your attack has gotten?”
“Keep acting tough, there’s nothing you could do that can harm me. Your domain will collapse once you’re out of mana.”
The space mage laughed.
“In terms of mana, not even a mana meister with 2 tier 4 mana capacity increasing skills at level 500 has more mana than me. I’m feeling good and we have plenty of time for you to get to know me. You’re a valuable source of experience for my new skills after all. I’m too lazy to go hunt like my little siblings, I’m gaining a few skill levels every few minutes with the hostility gushing from you.”
“You! That’s-that’s how you people increase your strength so fast!?”
“Nah, I’m pretty sure the others just do it the normal way but I don’t have the time or patience for that. I used to find monsters two to three hundred levels above me and keep them here with me while provoking them to kill me. A few weeks is enough to bring all my necessary space magic skill levels up to standard. This way I don’t have to waste so much time on my Sub-Class and have more time to tinker with my craft. I can continue crafting here as well, despite all you say you haven’t even reached me.”
‘That’s right! She’s a craftswoman and she hasn’t used any weapons, she must have many fortifications that increase their power. Is she really trying to milk my hostility as experience?!’ Democlus had almost forgotten that he was up against a crafter and not just a space mage but not a single weapon had been summoned.
“Do you have any other friends who are at your level or higher? Monsters provide more levels but sapient opponents provide more experience to skills.”
“Shut up!”
“Where did your respect go?”
“I politely asked you to leave when you people arrived before but you didn’t give a damn.”
“Nonsense, you could have ‘politely’ asked me to leave before you begin your silly ritual. You’ve let people come and go, there was no way you wouldn’t be able to invite us out. You just got greedy for me, understandable. I’m a high-value wom-”
Democlus unclipped part of his helmet to spit at her, the spit simply floated in place.
“How rude. Fine, no more playing around.”
“Go ahead, bring out your weapons! I’ll see what a Xeng Craftswoman can make!”
“I don’t use weapons, I only craft them.”
Democlus’s attacking arm slowed down, his armour creaked all over. He reflexively sent out another blast of dispelling mana but the invisible force wasn’t pushed away. His head whipped left and right as if he was getting punched, the same punches rained down on him. He put power to drag his axe out but it was stuck in place along with part of his arm.
‘No, it's not stuck, I'm still moving as fast as I can! Crap.’ He finally noticed the poor position he was in. It was extremely disorientating to only have a part of his body move forward while the rest of his body remained still.
“You tried so hard to get closer, now you have to cross the same distance to get further from me. Your speed is pretty cute. Do you not have anything else up your sleeves? The small variety of skills you have is very disappointing.”
Democlus imbued his mana and life force into his shield and had it circulate around him without letting it get ‘close’ to the masked lady. He kicked off mana platforms and had all his movement skills operating but while his feet and lower body continued to accelerate, he looked as if he was stuck on the spot with his arm and axe holding him in place.
He conjured small earthen shields over his armour, he had to buy time to get out. She wasn’t capable of stopping him from moving thanks to his equipment so he just had to buy time to get away. Despite her bragging, he didn’t think she could keep her domain up forever. Every second he bought was a second closer to her doom.
“You should’ve tried to get closer, not further.”
Democlus ignored the comment and stepped up his extrication. He didn’t forget to conjure hundreds of wind-coated earthen spikes to surround the cocky space mage. Since she didn’t want to move from her spot he was going to make sure she couldn’t move out.
“I’m free!” His arm shot out from the target and he quickly regained his bearings while skidding to a stop from his high speed.
“Eat this! Shield Javelin!” He tossed shield after shield, hoping that at least one would reach her. He had enough accuracy and precision to cover her entire body without each projectile hitting each other. After a couple of seconds and he couldn’t fit any more shields from any direction.
‘Ell! There’s no earth or wind mana around, I'm just wasting my stock.’ Democlus was dependent on elemental mana ores and was by no means a conjurer and he was more of a defender than an attacker. He got seated to recover as much stamina and mana as possible.
She let him rest in peace but in time, his conjured shield tosses fell to the ground. If what she said was true, the distance between them wasn’t something his thrown projectile could reach. Two spiked earthen walls quickly took the shields place and flattened her but they couldn’t meet each other.
“I’m bored.”
Democlus evaded the spatial mana from above him but he got flooded from every direction. Dispelling it to free himself took more mana than he would like and he got into a shell of earth. There was absolutely nothing he could do now.
He wasn’t sure how many days he hid but his mental prowess waned and his shell was taken apart at an accelerated rate. He was exposed to the bright white space again, with barely any energy to defend himself. His gauntlets shattered first, then his helmet and the rest of his armour slowly fell apart from the constant beatings. Eeking out droplets of mana over his earthen skin didn’t have any effect.
"I'm really terrible with manipulating space safely, but ooo am I good with it dangerously."
The invisible force pushed his head back and twisted his arm in both directions while ripping it out. One of his legs was struggling under immense pressure but it was ultimately pushed inward, the invisible force made a cast to prevent his flesh or bones from slipping anywhere and his leg bone was accurately directed ‘upwards’, stabbing his internal organs.
“Ugh….I really should put some effort into training, that was so inefficient and unsightly of me.”