Back behind the final defensive line, no one could keep their eyes away from the quakes and freezing gales.
“BACK INTO THE BARRIER!” Needless to say, no one was spared from the effects even though the Empire wasn’t the target.
As for the retreating Trolls, few probably made it back. Ebony didn’t act tough, he stood beside Orren as they watched the battlefield transform into Winterland.
‘Snow, ice and wood. These are the three elements the Frost Elves are most proficient with. By the way, where are those floating bows? I didn’t see them at all.’
The soldiers clamoured and were terrified to see the entire field burst into towers of ice that stabbed and grew across the city’s barriers that just sprang back up moments ago. There was only a narrow stair carved into the cliff and running back behind the walls would take hours for such a large army. Most of the soldiers remained on the ground below the cliff and walls and held their hands up in defence but the barrier stood strong. ‘They should be able to climb up the cliff, no? Maybe they don’t have a good grip to scale the walls.’ He was already aware flight wasn’t a common ability but surely the physically inclined Classes could scale the cliff and walls.
The barrier could stop the towers of icebergs but the temperatures continued to drop.
Earth and stone mages conjured towering stairs and ladders to facilitate the soldiers’ retreat into the city. Ebony couldn’t even see where the spellcasters were but he remained to oversee the situation. He overdrafted his mana a little and his mana regeneration dropped drastically but he could still help with the evacuation.
‘Fourth Tide’s reinforcement hasn’t even fully entered the city, how inefficient. They have to make spatial storage more common, I’ll play around to see if I can make a gravity reduction rune for carriages and bags.’ Ebony chalked the inefficiency due to supplies. Spare weapons, armour and even food ration were heavy and bulky. Metals or materials of higher quality tend to be denser and heavier. Weight reduction of some form was already in use for many carriages, the military obviously had them too. It just didn’t appear to be sufficient.
Ebony was about to look for Ning Xin when a Knight stomped towards him, grabbing the collar of his robe. He already withdrew the scales to lighten the load on his throbbing legs. The chest and shoulder plates of Knights usually had ranks engraved on but the armour was already dirtied and he couldn’t see who the person was behind the helmet.
“How could you leave your post! I’ve lost good men out there!” The unidentifiable Knight flipped his visor up. Ebony still didn’t recognise the man but anyone who had an obfuscation jewel on was probably pretty high rank.
“What post?” Honestly, he didn’t want to deal with the man. Ebony already knew what the man was talking about. The Knight was probably the Commander or the General that sent his unit to slaughter the frozen Trolls. The lack of his mana signature on the armour hinted that it might be a General whose face he didn’t recall.
“Grr..this is why freelancers shouldn’t meddle with war!” He grumbled and ‘whispered’ to the side.
“I think so too. I can see why there are so few freelancers here to help if that’s the army’s attitude towards them.” After learning that Navin wasn’t around, he also learned that a lot of soldiers were missing from the war. He wasn’t exactly calling the Imperial Army weak.
“How dare you insult the Empire!?” He picked Ebony up from the ground. Ebony only weighed over 2 tons thanks to Icicle and his robe, he was pretty light now that his body was emptied of compressed mana.
“Did I?” If anything, he internally praised them for fighting while outnumbered and out-leveled. The Knight’s face and neck strained from lifting him up. ‘What’s this sense of…satisfaction?’ Ebony felt an odd sense of satisfaction from seeing how the Knight struggled to keep him up in the air. He was getting heavier by the second and it wasn’t long before his collar slipped through the Knights fingers. The knight had to be strong enough to lift 2 tons with ease but he must be exhausted and out of mana to enhance himself for no reason.
“They agreed to the supremacy duels.” An unfamiliar feathery voice tickled their ears. It came from the ledge of the wall behind him. The Knight was frightened and stepped back only to gain his bearings back after his initial shock. No surprise there, Ebony didn’t know how someone bypassed the city barrier and sat behind him before he could even notice.
Like Korta, the person behind him had the planet’s gravity mana naturally avoid them. The only difference was that the ice mana in his robes was actually escaping, moving towards the feathery-voiced figure behind him. Thankfully, it was conjured ice and not natural ice so he was able to stop his ice mana from escaping. He turned around and naturally saw a Frost Elf.
‘Another fighter that wears a dress to battle.’ That was his first thought. Unlike Mallory though, his experience with clothes and armour told him that the dress this Frost Elf was wearing was just a normal dress without any magical effects or even made to be physically tough. She sat with her long skinny legs crossed and had her elbow resting on her thigh and chin resting on the back of her gloved hands. She might be seated but he had no doubt this was the tallest Frost Elf he had seen so far. At least 2.4 metres tall, she was also slender which made her height pretty intimidating.
"You have pretty high ice affinity for a hu..ahh ~ a fine physique you have. You’re the child those kids mentioned.” The lady stared at him the entire time. Matching her feathery voice with a slight accent was a pair of soft cyan-blue eyes and snow-white hair. Most eye-catching was that she didn’t have any footwear on but most people would be drawn to her beautiful facial features. Ebony was more focused on sensing the flow of gravity mana.
“I’m Ebony.”
The woman chuckled in response, “Christy. How’s that old turtle doing?”
Ebony didn’t reply. He didn’t know what was good to say and what wasn’t. The woman seemed to guess that he knew an ‘old turtle’ likely Gen just by seeing him. ‘Is she able to tell more about my physique other than the fact that I’m part mana?’ The Elves could tell he was made of mana but not about his Frost Flames. Although, they probably knew now that he didn’t hide it.
He conjured a whole frost plum flower out of frost flames to answer her. It took all her attention away.
Another unknown Frost Elf stood beside him and bent down to stare at the flames intently. The man sent tingles down his back at how he appeared, just like Christy. Ebony knew it was just dizzying speed. The new arrival would probably be a head shorter than Christy if she stood up.
‘What’s this aura…it’s coming from his robe. It’s the same aura as the robe that Roya’s senior made that was delivered to some other Tide.’ Ebony recalled the similarity between the robes’ aura, he didn’t want to touch the pitch-black robe.
“Back off, I can’t see it like that.”
“Shh, I’m trying to appreciate art. Although it's not as pure as the sap that burns in our village I didn’t think someone could manipulate or even conjure it.”
‘They have Ful’s sap?’ Although they seem like they were on friendly terms, Ebony didn’t say anything about Gen or Ful. He wanted to ask about the purity but he might be better off asking Ful.
“What does it mean to agree to the supremacy duels?” He grasped his fist and scattered the flames after they were satisfied.
“They were testing their luck with this skirmish. If we were pushovers, they would just overrun the city plain and simple. We’ve agreed to fight on their territory about seven gurs north.” Christy rubbed her shoulders with icy gloves to cool herself. The ledge she sat on was frozen solid for a while now.
The Trolls have already pushed till they were closing in on the barrier and steadily fought for control up within 5 to 10 km away from the city. 7 gurs equates 35000 km, it was far too drastic a change for Ebony to believe but when he thought about the compact siege and how normal duels usually were, it made a bit more sense. In any case, he doubted that the Trolls just nodded and retreated so far but he was greeted with a frozen wasteland beneath the city. That wasn’t even a distance he would find hard to cover before he had his movement skill evolve. Plainston to Arcta was only about 8 or 9 thousand km away and he was able to cover that within half a month in the past. At least, when he was escorted and travelled on carriages.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“If only we didn’t have a contract that deems us as the protectors of Fifth Tide we'd stay cool and comfy back home. How bothersome. Fortunately, it’s only for 5 centuries, we should really move Arcta deeper within the next few centuries.” The shorter Frost Elf didn’t introduce himself.
‘No wonder there weren't any real powerhouses sent here, the Frost Elves are contractually in charge of the defences here?’ Ebony imagined that the Empire could at least spare a single King-ranked combatant for Fifth Tide but none came to date.
“They should just integrate the villages into one.” Christy leaned back and laid down with her neck straightened so that she faced the covered sea.
“The newborn can’t withstand the environment in Tuctra, you know that.”
“I’m well aware, those damnable Grade 6 Kings or Grade 4 and higher Emperors will kill those kids with their presence.”
‘Sister Jing mentioned grades back underground. Is that not a measure that she created for herself and an actual method widely used?’ Ebony had manners and greeted them with a tet.
“I cannot tell you my name.” The shorter, handsome Frost Elf pat the back of his head. He appeared slightly embarrassed, Ebony was quite sure of it. That got him confused, was the man’s name something embarrassing?
“Don’t make him misunderstand.” Christy chided.
“Oh, my apologies. My family's spirit guardian is a Supreme Mind Frost Spirit, if someone speaks our name while matching it with my face they might get attacked through the spirit realm wherever they are.”
“Matching it with your face?” Ebony actually wanted to pick at other points such as spirit guardian, supreme mind frost spirit and spirit realm to ask about. When it came to spirits, elementals or sometimes golems Ebony was aware of the ‘lesser’, ‘normal’, ‘greater’ and ‘superior’ variants that Ning Xin mentioned. He had to assume supreme was just something higher.
“When our family member’s names are spoken out loud our spirit guardian can sense when our names are spoken and poke into the speaker’s mind to gauge if we are the one you are thinking or talking about. Our names are made and bound by spirit magic so that our guardian can protect us wherever we go.”
“In human terms, this guy comes from a noble lineage. They tend to tell their names to enemies they can’t beat.” Christy walked up to Ebony and pointed to the shorter Frost Elf with her thumb. Now that she stood up, she really dwarfed all of them present and her skinny figure made her look like a frozen tree in the Glades due to her blue dress.
“She’s just trying to make it sound like she isn’t from one either but she is.”
“...” Ebony didn’t know what to say as they stared at each other fiercely. The clash of their mana senses meeting each other got a bit violent. It was interesting to see such a lively use of mana. Imperial mages didn’t do anything of the sort. Few of them even pushed the mana around them to sense things, their mana sense simply depended on sensing ambient mana.
Ebony had learned mana manipulation from Roya, it was pretty much the basics to prod your mana out and fight for spatial dominance with mana. For human mages, they usually started by guiding their mana to move elemental mana then they would just start learning offensive spells. They usually didn’t have a strong elemental affinity as an advantage and it was common for them to use offensive spells to level quickly. By the time they were Masters, they would have a decent amount of mana and could start with more mana intensive training. They would begin learning tactics of real mages but it wasn’t easy. The more people he met, the more aware that he was just beginning his path as a mage. Even warriors had methods to dispel his magic much less these elders when it came to magic. His domain was but a flimsy attempt at grasping spatial dominance but it was a good start.
‘I have to visit their village.’ Ebony also hoped to visit the Elves' villages if possible. Although Elcra seemed smaller and smaller as he got stronger it was undeniable that there were plenty of places he hadn't been to. He didn’t feel suffocated before he started to question Everlasting Tranquillity but his desire to travel and explore got stronger. Whatever the case, he felt a bit too weak to safely explore certain areas.
Throughout the short greetings, the Knight had been silent and Ebony only realised it was because the man had been lagging up due to the overflowing Wisdom from these Frost Elves. Their naturally regenerated mana was a few times denser than his own if he didn’t compress it. A common effect of the Frost Elves’ mana was that it chilled the mind as well as the body. Both of these ice mages clashed with their mana and made it worse. The only ones moving around on the walls seem to be Ebony and Orren’s party members who hid behind the village chief nervously.
Christy floated towards Orren’s party like a ghost and patted their heads. “You kids did well. Go back to Arcta and relax.”
‘How nice… why did I think that?’
“It was nice to meet you but I have to find someone now.” Ebony wanted to find the opportunity to duck out of social interaction for a while now. Not once did his callstone link up with Ning Xin when he was out fighting but both of them should be in the city right now. Before he could leave, Cap Dwarf found him and subtly pressured him to introduce him to the Frost Elves.
It somehow escalated to Cap Dwarf duelling Korben after nightfall when both of them recovered. These old folks decided for Korben who was a younger generation from the same village. Cap Dwarf simply thanked them for saving his folks in the war 3 centuries ago and said that he was fighting for Fifth Tide to repay the favour. It was quite a surprise to Ebony, it was a small world and people were sincere in ways he didn’t expect. Sadly, neither Frost Elf recognised nor remembered the event. It may have been them or even Korta since the time gap seems to match but Cap Dwarf clarified that his folks didn’t personally know the Frost Elf so that was that.
Christy didn’t want a ‘youngin’ who one of their people saved to fight in the supremacy duel if he wasn’t strong enough so she wanted to see Cap Dwarf fight. Korben was the first person she thought of as an opponent. If Ning Xin were here she would know that these people simply wanted entertainment. Ebony hadn’t gotten so good at reading cues or expressions.
Ebony finally got another chance to find Ning Xin and slipped away with Phantom’s Flicker, Waning Presence and Frigid Refraction at full output.
“Where are you going in such a rush?” Christy's feathery voice entered his ears. Both Frost Elves were flying by his sides and pincered him.
‘Are they here just to humble me…’ Ebony wanted to feel good about his newfound speed but these guys weren’t giving him the chance. Clearly, they were just flying normally with pure mana manipulation to show off to him and raise his awareness that neither Waning Presence nor Frigid Refraction was good enough to mask their senses. He imagined Frigid Refraction was giving him away and took another Flicker without it but the result was the same.
“I’m worried about my…” Ebony was stunned as he didn’t know how to continue the sentence. ‘Who is she to me? Girlfriend? More than that? Fiancee?’ He was hit with a sudden urge to clarify his relationship with Ning Xin. More than ever, he didn’t like that he was bothered with such questions. It only served to destabilise his mind.
“Your?” Christy floated along with wispy air and would scare adults and children alike with the ghost-like appearance.
“Woman,” Ebony replied absent-mindedly. He was still thinking of how to categorise her and just said the broadest term that came to mind.
“Oh, you! Acting all mature. You’re still a newborn, aren’t you? Let’s see who this playmate of yours is.” These old folks truly treated anyone like children.
“I found someone with his mana signature stuck on her, let’s go.” The unnamed Frost Elf burst off and Christy followed without a moment's delay.
Ebony did his best to follow their shadow. The city was pretty massive despite how easier it was to fly by the entire stretch. Tidal the Capital was practically continent-sized and these border cities couldn’t match up but that didn’t mean they were small. Fifth Tide has a population in the millions but he wasn’t sure of the exact number.
He curved and zipped around to follow the Christy who descended and scoured the streets. By the time he made it to Ning Xin’s side, he heard them chat her up. The first thing that entered his ears was “An immature masked one! Tell me when you’re going to clobber those pesky Elves, I’ll be right there with you!”
‘Again? That’s the first thing that comes to mind, what in the world? That grudge runs deep.’ There were so many other things that they could’ve first said but the moment they saw her they talked about a common foe.
Ebony waved to Ning Xin to show that there was nothing to worry about as her body tightened in the same way she got ready for a fight. ‘Actually maybe not…’ Christy started to stare at Ning Xin and scrutinise her from head to toe.
“You’re not compatible, keep her as a playmate.” Christy ran her gaze between the two of them.
“She’s the only one for me.” Ebony didn’t like what he was hearing, his Will acted out but it didn’t do anything other than act rude.
“Christy, don’t butt in.” The unnamed Frost Elf protected by some kind of higher power said surprisingly sternly.
Mallory had already made her way to the injured but Ning Xin had been shopping around the market. “How’s your leg?”
“It hurts a little but there won’t be lasting effects. I’ll be fine by tomorrow.”
“Once we’re done here, we’ll be adding an underwater regime.”
“I can’t swim…”
“I’ll teach you. Besides, you can still use your blood wings underwater. Might as well train your flight ability underwater, the water resistance can let you understand fluid flow better if you can see currents.”
“You’re right! So I don’t have to learn how to swim.”
“You have to. What if you run out of mana?”
Ning Xin whispered about how the water Trolls reminded him of underwater training. “I’ll make sure they regret it in future.” Ebony obviously heard her, he wasn’t about to let them go free for injuring her.
'Right...they're not the only ones who succeeded.' He was reminded of another person that he shouldn't have been so passive with.