“This doesn’t look good,” Ebony commented.
The worst happened as 8 fishy-looking Trolls surfaced and roamed the lands. One of their overflowing Vitality was so outrageous he didn’t need to Appraise to know it was one of those Patriarchs. They weren’t chasing Ebony but their purpose was clear.
They remained near their pool and preyed on those that remained in their duels. Just like what Ning Xin did but there was no guarantee they were going to give the Imperials a chance to escape. Their superiority in the number of Kings really made things difficult.
‘My mana regen is still slow and my Will hasn’t fully recovered from overdrafting.’ The underwater Trolls didn’t have very good sight and they weren’t looking up at all.
He believed there was a good chance that the Trolls weren’t able to retaliate well but there was no reason to underestimate their skillset. He had been immensely lucky and had the help of the Frost Elves to pull off the previous bomb landing right.
None of the current fighters would survive getting ambushed by such a high-level squad. Although, what’s left was Lucas’s duel, some unknown Imperial and the group fight Mallory was in charge of.
It was pretty amazing for Lucas to fight with his opponent for so long. They probably didn’t have break time like he and Gao’larg did. Both fighters were in a bloody and exhausted state. Lucas’s opponent was also pretty good to have survived alone for so long when his buddy was killed for some time.
“Let’s inform Koawe and see what he has to say.” Ning Xin didn’t like these underwater Trolls. Despite her desire to fight it was still a little obvious that she was afraid of the water and her previous experience of getting dragged down.
“I’ll be more confident if we know they can’t fly for sure,” Ebony replied. The Trolls would just be moving targets if that was the case. With enough distance, they should be able to dodge what these Trolls could throw at them unless the strongest-looking one was beyond his imagination. He wasn’t even fully aware of a King’s strength much less anything or anyone stronger.
It was pretty foolish to assume that Trolls completely couldn’t use magic. Especially those that evolved so many times. They would have more Core Skills and if those work together as well as Ning Xin’s, it wasn’t simply a matter of addition.
They were in the middle of getting away when Ebony’s mana dropped drastically. All his enhancements kicked in and his domain went into overdrive. None of them were able to get to full power before his shoulder got smashed.
“Xin, go ahead of me.” He said with urgency.
His robe’s left sleeve was torn off but he wasn’t in the mind to pick it up, only speeding up and increasing the output of his augmentations.
‘He spit at me…that’s some crazy pressure.’ Ebony had been sent spinning uncontrollably in mid-air and he was able to see the leader puffing his lips with water in his mouth. His bone cracked with that but the main damage was his sleeves getting torn off along with plenty of his flesh getting washed away.
Thankfully, he had been the target. Hector and Ning Xin wouldn’t leave with such light injuries. The swordswoman didn’t even sense anything before he got hit. She chased after him to catch him but he pushed her out of her momentary lag before she burst away with her flaming wings, ascending as much as she could.
The rest of the squad started to take it as a sport and spit high-pressure water jets as well. He mostly ignored those since it was easy to dodge. The one who hit him only snickered before letting his squad have their fun.
Thankfully, they didn’t seem to care about him or Ning Xin. Hector was on land and already run off further. His burst of speed must have gotten far faster now.
‘Hmm? This water’s trying to freeze me?’ Ebony noticed that the ‘spit’ he was hit by wasn’t just spit or any old water. He guessed that it was some skill or Fortification that changed the water’s properties. The water was extremely cold and could numb him but that was all. It was about as cold as the area in the Icy region in Hoarfrost Glade that he had been to.
He could shrug the cold off pretty easily but he already noticed that his flesh wasn’t regrowing at all. ‘Must be my current overdrafted state. I should get out of here quickly.’
It wasn’t long before Fifth Tide was back in sight. He made a call to Koawe and managed to find him with the healers relatively quickly.
“Can you heal me too?” He asked a healer who was not that busy. Most of the healers weren’t that busy anymore.
Ning Xin practically threatened them to get ready for his visit before he got there. Hector wasn’t around but he must be somewhere in the city.
The healer was used to looking at injuries and wasn’t shocked but nothing he tried seemed to work. Ebony felt the mana trying to seep into him and work, it tickled but didn’t do much. At least, the foreign water mana was gone and he felt that he got warmed up a bit. The healer wasn’t capable of regrowing limbs but a bit of muscle tissue loss wasn’t an issue. His bones could be seen so it wasn’t just ‘a bit’ of muscle tissue.
“Koawe, the underwater Troll sent a squad over. Will the city be fine?” Ebony asked.
“They can’t launch any more attacks on the city as the supremacy duel continues to run. But the others won’t be able to escape even if they win. How’s your shoulder?” Koawe just noticed his injury
“I just need some time, it won’t affect my movements.” He was quite sure that if the Troll’s water wasn’t so special he would heal faster once his slowed regeneration recovers.
“I’ll try to contact Korta and inform him. Maybe that squad went to join their battle.” Instead of speaking into his callstone, a tiny ice sparrow conjured on his raised wrist. Koawe summarised the situation in a single sentence before the tiny sparrow flapped its wings and turned transparent.
“They’ll probably leave a few around,” Ebony added.
“If they do, I believe we can handle it.” Koawe made sense. If it was just those King ranked, they shouldn’t be a huge issue when they were out of water. It might be different if they were underwater but they just had to make sure they weren’t.
“Alright, we should have some time. The other battles don’t look like they will end any time soon.” Ebony wanted to introduce and also talk to Hector but the man wasn’t around.
Cap Dwarf was in a really bad state. Bad enough that he may never be able to walk even if he woke up. However, they weren’t really nervous as long as they could find Yvette and Koawe was familiar with the Royals. At least, he needs quick treatment for temporary measures. A Grandmaster’s Vitality wasn’t for show, he should be able to recover fully since it was just physical injuries and relatively easy for the Life Queen to treat.
Korben didn’t really look like he was in bad shape. At least, there was nothing crushed or missing.
‘My entire sleeves got ripped off. It was starting to wear down but I guess I need higher quality equipment.’ If Icicle hadn’t grown tougher and had the ability to repair itself it wouldn’t have been his weapon for so long. His enhanced strength was too high for most Rare quality materials. Sister Jing’s workmanship was impressive but Icicle was made from a new dungeon’s material with no alloys or metal. It was just plain old wood, barely considered a Rare quality material.
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In terms of quality of materials, his robe was probably made of far better stuff.
Rare materials were already some of the best stuff on the market and even then, they were not available in abundance. There were Epic materials from those higher-level dungeons but most don’t make it onto the market. Those dungeon clearers all had their contracted smiths or companies that took most of the good materials. For items and materials that do make it onto the market, it was pure luck to see if it matched what one wanted. More so for a magic user who needed element-specific materials. It took even more luck to encounter it at the time it was sold.
Ebony didn’t really worry about the price but there was a good chance those things were traded with higher quality mana ores. He didn't exactly have Purples to trade with. No matter how much mana he could produce, the ‘containers’ for them were not easy to obtain. His Myriad Bracelet should actually be able to charge Purples, at a lower efficiency but it didn’t really matter because it was nearly about to break. He would have to custom order one that is resistant to extreme temperatures. The bracelet was probably one of the toughest items around. It wasn’t even that expensive…to him.
Ebony would like to explore Tidal to find some rare materials. He might have to get good materials himself if he didn’t have the luck to encounter interesting materials. Mature Epic ranked dungeons were a tad too dangerous for him and there were no immature Epic dungeons.
‘There he is.’ Ebony saw the shadow in the air. Hector leapt off the cliff and landed some distance away from the camp down on the ground. Well, there wasn’t much of a camp remaining. Most people were still making their way back up the cliff. If only they weren’t so lazy and scaled the cliff like a rock climber they wouldn’t take so long.
The ground beneath them was going to disappear at any time so the army was already rushing but there were too many people for a carved-in tiny little cliffside stairway for millions to utilise.
“That human boy…Navin’s descendent? I remember him, so he managed to grow up…” Koawe muttered.
“Hector, over here.” Ebony used sound magic to call out.
“Yo! I’ve had my fill. Let’s go back, Mal’s in danger!”
“Relax, the ring of light would supposedly stop anyone outside from interfering,” Ebony replied. “Where did you run off to?”
“Raid some food stocks? Couldn’t even fill myself up on Tova. All I ate was dungeon meat for the past few years, I can actually sense some odd energy inside me now. Thankfully, it doesn’t seem so troublesome to remove.” Hector had never fully believed that dungeon flesh wasn’t fit for consumption. People have been depending on dungeon spawns for food to stay within dungeons for an extended period of time.
“Not troublesome?” Ning Xin seemed surprised. She took some time to ‘cleanse’ herself of all the blood spiders’ instincts but those probably weren’t dungeon creatures.
‘He’s probably more sensitive to ambient essence compared to most and he’s more efficient at expelling foreign mana?’ Ebony speculated.
“Yeah, just gotta take a poop for the next few days.” Hector gulped and corrected his wording.
Now that Hector got so close and Ebony wasn’t as groggy from over-taxing his mana, he was able to sense the Prince’s aura. It made his mana senses and mental state churn a little. He looked at Koawe who seemed to be in deep thought and Ning Xin but they didn’t seem affected. ‘My regeneration is almost back to normal but they aren’t reacting, is it just me?’
He probed Hector’s strength by tetting him. It wasn’t to see how much power he had but to see how he moved, from his stance to how he raised his arm. It gave him the same nauseating feeling.
“You’re a mess. Go take a nap.” He spoke out loud.
“Hah…was it so obvious? I thought I did well to hide it. Nah, I can’t sleep now. I won't be able to wake up for a long time. How could you tell?” Hector didn’t deny his exhaustion.
A tiny ice cube conjured a metre above Hector and dropped to land on his shoulder. Ebony was more than a little surprised, he couldn’t conjure ice a whole metre from Hector’s body. He could conjure a spike of ice right in front of Ning Xin’s face without much of an issue. In his domain, he could directly conjure ice or flames on her skin or clothes with some additional mental effort.
The ice cube landed on Hector’s shoulder. “Sluggish reaction speed.” He answered while pondering on the nauseating feeling.
“...I’ll just throw one punch to vent, then I’ll go to sleep for a week or something.” Hector actually hid it really well as he didn’t look or even sound tired at all.
‘He’s tensed up and his mind probably can’t think straight right now.’ Ebony wasn’t in any rush to catch up with Hector.
“We pulled the Patriarch away. Deal with the rest.” An ice sparrow showed itself on Koawe’s shoulder and spoke with Korta’s voice before dispersing.
They didn’t manage to get an introduction in, a nod in each other’s direction and they burst off towards the battle. Koawe leapt onto Arti despite his worries for the bird. Arti was pretty fast but only slightly faster than Ning Xin in flight. If they were on land, they could keep up with Arti’s speed with relative ease. The bird wasn’t built around speed despite her Grandmaster rank.
Hector hopped on too. “Hey! Let me! Please take care of me afterwards!”
Ebony and Ning Xin had been running on the ground but they quickly skidded to a stop and took flight.
“He’s going to mega punch isn’t he?” Ning Xin vocalised.
“That or something stronger.”
“Hey, it's Mega Panch!” Hector punched his hands into the air and complained, annoying Arti and causing her to shift around.
“.....” Neither of them had a reply. He saw Koawe talk to Hector but they accelerated and he wasn’t able to hear them as the strong winds disrupted mana vibrations. They closed in on them when they were about to reach their previous spot.
“Give me a foothold!” Hector stepped off Arti without warning. Ebony made him a foothold and got onto Arti with Ning Xin who dispersed the heat in her blood wings before getting close.
Koawe defended them from the water spits that came their way. They were no longer just spits, but the Trolls had water in their palms. It was clear they could control water mana to some extent as they threw those water balls as if they were cannon shots.
They froze full metres away from Arti before accelerating back. Koawe was very likely to be Grandmaster rank but these water tribe King ranked Trolls weren’t much of a danger out of water.
“One moment, I’ll put a simple curse on them. Keep their attention and try to make them stay together for me.” Koawe float towards Hector and put his hands on the Prince’s shoulder.
Ebony watched as the Frost Elf’s casting glove darkened. He put out his hands to stop Ning Xin, afraid that her fire magic would scare the Trolls away and cause them to scatter.
There was a deep hole that remained, presumably their escape route and where they got water from. It helped that they gathered there. He cast a ring of flaming petals near the edge of his control to fence them in. The Trolls clearly didn’t like what they saw and attacked all the petals that rained down.
He had to thank them for it. The water balls froze added bulk to the fence and started to grow. It wouldn’t keep them trapped but it was a nice distraction. They stopped tossing water as they weren’t full-fledged water mages and could only watch their attacks freeze. Some of them went around punching the frozen walls that grew but their attempts didn’t last long as his petals continued to fall. None of these Trolls wielded weapons and could only swipe their hands to blow the petals away but he imbued his Will to force them to fall with the help of a wide area Firm Path.
Koawe only needed a minute and he bought it.
‘That’s not runic…’ Black symbols streamed out of Koawe’s hands or gloves and the black stream of symbols flowed towards all 7 Trolls. The string of black symbols moved so fast that there was little chance that he could dodge it if he was anywhere close to Koawe. The Troll’s reaction was to slap the black string aside but it did nothing. The symbols crawled over the Trolls' skin.
“Alright, their physical defences should have dropped by about 40% and they shouldn’t be able to regenerate any health for some time. Your turn.”
‘Reduce physical defences and stop health regeneration? That's a powerful curse. Curses can directly reduce defence, so it’s not some elemental magic that mages use?’ Ebony wondered if he could dodge it and found that it would be impossible but the casting time left a lot to be desired so he wasn’t that worried about the curse. However, he was intrigued by what would be considered a not-so-simple curse.
“Stay back!” Hector smashed his fists together causing a dull but loud ring to reverberate. He didn’t have any gloves or gauntlet on so it was just his bare fist.
‘Fire, water, wind, earth, lightning and?’ Ebony remembered the elements that Hector had shown before but he wasn’t able to see or sense the sixth. He doubted that Hector used any less than 6 currently. The nauseating feeling from Hector’s mana dialled down, he finally understood that the Prince’s mana was just jumbled up because they were so erratic in their properties. The elemental enhancement mage’s natural mana could be conjured into so many different elements with just a thought and that was unthinkable. The moment they segregated and settled down into a single element, Hector’s mana’s erraticness disappeared and Ebony couldn’t feel anything out of place. Luckily, Hector’s mana regeneration wasn’t that high in comparison to him. He shouldn’t have this nauseous feeling once his mind fully recovered from the overtaxation.
It was just as wondrous to watch how he had essentially no casting time required.
“TWIN MEGA PAAANCH!”