I ran toward the cultist castle that was currently suffering under an endless rain of mana-enhanced metal siege ammunition that fractured into pieces to destroy the defenders, avoiding the occasional mana blast or arrow rain as I moved without the assistance of Concealment.
I was dressed in a matte, black armor set, similar to the Shades, but even fancier. Avoiding Concealment was a deliberate choice. Since we were using the weakened cultist castle as an opportunity to intimidate our enemies, it needed to be done visibly.
One of the less obvious benefits of finally improving the youngsters was that I didn't need to undersell my abilities too much whenever I was operating under a disguise. Particularly since, thanks to a combination of the new divine panel and my Heroic party, we would have more and more capable fighters, always ready to raise more to meet emergencies.
Our growing army was a much scarier threat, but I had a feeling that the nobles would be focusing more on our high-end threat which, ultimately, worked better. The reason for their intimidation didn't matter as long as they were hesitant to send their armies to the mountains until we could establish a proper line of defense.
And, if a war started nonetheless, I would much prefer an enemy preparing for the wrong threat.
However, as I got closer to the walls, I stopped contemplating the strategic implications of our actions and focused on the present instead. As the distance dwindled, their volleys of arrows were getting harder to avoid unless I was willing to take larger detours.
So, I decided to parry them instead. I let my halberd — using different weapons was an excellent way to reinforce different identities since rarely did people use multiple skills for different melee weapons, to prevent them from interfering — dance with a blue glow, knocking away the arrows that continued to fly toward me without stopping.
Their accuracy suffered further as I got closer, the gray dust clouds that rose after the endless rain of rock and metal projectiles working even better than concealment to block the view of the enemy.
I wouldn't have dared to pull that trick without my ability to sense mana, as the thick cloud of dust was equally effective blocking my view, and my other senses like hearing weren't particularly effective in the chaos of a battlefield. With my mana sense, however, I could still pinpoint the magical arrows and spells, and the non magical ones just bounced off my magic armor.
Once I was merely five hundred feet away from the walls, I sent a message to Takis. Immediately, fifty trebuchet launched their projectiles at the same time, landing on the wall that blocked my path. It shattered, spreading
"Don't let me down, Agility," I muttered as I charged without slowing down, reaching for it to push it to the limit … then more. The shrapnel, spells, and endless arrows passed near me, none able to touch me, as harmless as the gray clouds of dust that wrapped around me. Harmless despite the red overcast.
When the alarms were being raised, I was already moving toward the secondary walls of the castle, representing an inner keep. Unlike the outer walls, the inner walls were mostly undamaged … but also, they were mostly empty with the forces focused on the outer walls, not expecting someone to burst in without warning, relying on the wards.
Wards that were geared almost exclusively for two purposes. Preventing large projectiles of the siege weapons, and detecting intruders. Trying to sneak as an assassin would have been challenging, but at this point, everyone could already see me as I cut a direct line toward the walls, ignoring the cultists unless they were on my direct path.
The walls were seeped with destruction mana, but I coated my limbs with a layer of mana to protect me, the thin blue glow enough to keep me safe for a few seconds, which was all I needed as I climbed the walls. There were some guards on the walls, but none of them were at their post.
Before they could react, I was already at the inner courtyard of the castle, looking at a huge summoning circle, where several high ranking priests were busy setting up a new ritual circle from blood and silvers. Nearby, there were the exhausted remains of a circle with the exact same symbols, though the silver that was used had long corroded, crackling with the leftover destruction mana, oppressive even after days later.
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I would have already suspected that they were trying to prepare for another summoning of that huge bear creature — or its equivalent — even without seeing them trying to lay down an exact copy of the ritual circle, but the confirmation was always welcome.
As I approached them, I paid attention to the speed at which they were setting the ritual circle, trying to get a general sense of how long it would have taken to create one. Even with my Perception and Intelligence, it was hard to estimate correctly from a few seconds of observation … but a rough guess was possible. It would probably take at least three days, a week was more likely.
Of course, that was only with the number of casters that they currently had assigned. It was possible that stronger priests lay down the same circle much faster.
Either way, that was only a momentary observation before I covered the distance. Most of the priests were too distracted by their task to pay attention to their surroundings, and they didn't have enough guards thanks to them slowly losing a significant portion of their forces during the siege.
There were only a group of fifteen armored warriors nearby, ready to protect them, but once again, their lack of discipline cost them dearly. If they were right next to the priests like they were supposed to be, they would have delayed me several seconds, enough for the priests to extract themselves from their task. And, had that happened, I would have had to either retreat, or face a very tough battle.
Even assigning all my stats, I wasn't sure I could take down more than twenty high level casters at the same time while fifteen armored and capable warriors defended them … especially since both parties were able to use destruction mana.
But, ultimately, such what if scenarios had no value for the dead. I was at the inner ritual circle before they could react. Just as I swung my halberd to take down the first one, I pointed at the circle under me, and let out my mana.
[-308 Mana]
The mana I let out didn't have a shape, but interfering with the delicate structure of a half-finished ritual circle was easy. And, once one of the priests had died, the structure destabilized even more, giving the priests another thing to worry about, making them hesitate about whether to focus on the intruder or the destabilizing circle.
They weren't in a position to afford such a fault. I moved forward without slowing down, my halberd dancing as I dealt with priests and warriors alike.
Fifteen seconds. All it took was fifteen seconds for the battle to end, ending with a whimper rather than a show … speaking of a show, the ritual circle continued to destabilize. I retreated back to the outer castle.
The inner keep disintegrated in a sudden explosion of destruction mana, removing their strongest defenses. I signaled for Takis to move in.
The explosion alone would have ensured an easy victory for Takis as he commanded the three wings of the army, approaching in a perfect pattern to deal with some of the forces that were trying to escape. But, since I was here, there was no harm pushing it a bit more.
The explosion had already ruined their discipline and defensive formations — though it would have been generous to refer to them as such considering what passed as discipline for cultists — but as I darted back and forth, using Charisma to taunt them to attack me instead of the approaching army, it fell apart even further.
"Kill him," one of the commanders finally shouted, his face already turning into a beastly shape as the corruption took a hold of him. His Charisma had a wild tinge as it spread around the army, forcing them to target me.
I could have used my own Charisma to break it, but as I dodged hundreds of arrows and melee attacks, something stirred in me, and my Agility started to feel more concrete. It was a sublime feeling. Instinctively, I pushed it out like a chaotic blast of Charisma, and a sphere flickered around me. Not for long, ephemeral and ethereal, but the moment it stayed, the warriors that were among them suddenly lost their ability to dodge, as if they had lost their Agility stat.
It reminded me of my confrontation with the assassin, back when we had been racing back to Town Maell… If I was not wrong, I just managed to create a Domain for the first time.
That gave me another reason to let the cultists attack me. I pushed my Agility to the limit, my halberd turning into a deadly orbit as I tried to catch that sensation … twice more, I managed to replicate it before our army scaled the walls and dealt with the cultists, each merely lasting a second, yet it was a great success.
"For the Sun God! For the Shadow Warden!" I shouted as I raised my glowing halberd, and the army chanted the same. Words were nonsense, but the elation behind was real.
We took a cultist castle with next to no losses, the army was coming along nicely, we had put on a display that would scare our enemies … and I finally had a real understanding of what a Domain was.
Why shouldn't I be happy…