Edgar cracked his knuckles and strode out around the bend, wind swirling around his fingers. Although the guards might have been undisciplined, they were still skilled, and as soon as he came into their line of sight, a dozen arrows hissed his way. He waved his fingers, and the air came alive, sonic speed gusts knocking the arrows away.
With the precision of a conductor, Edgar slashed blades of wind through the air, heading for the guards. They backed up, letting a mage summon a shield before them. However, it did little. Edgar pressed forwards with his immense mana pool, enhancing his attacks to the point where they looked like horizontal tornadoes. They slammed into the shield with a shuddering boom, sending cracks racing across its surface. The mage was swiftly joined by another, but it was too late at that point. Edgar clenched his fist, and the energy condensed down into a dot, breaking through the weakened shield, before exploding into a riot of devastation. The remnants of the shield served to condense the attack, making it even deadlier than it would have been normally.
Armor was cleaved in two and bodies were blasted apart into sprays of gore and viscera. Edgar continued to move his fingers, pretending that he needed to do so as an elemental focus. In reality, he was skilled enough to simply do so with his mind. However, it was always useful to have an ace up the sleeve that your enemies would go after. If he was ever in a compromising situation, perhaps his arms would be targeted before his head, or some other more fatal part of his anatomy.
The shield faded away into a sprinkling of dust, and Edgar cleared the blood off the side of the mountain with a wave of his hand. Then he strode forward, not waiting for the others to catch up. His Legendary class had enabled him to develop strength in the realm of elemental mastery far beyond his wildest dreams. It was an expression of that power that he used now, spotting a metal banded gate set firmly into the side of the keep. It was made out of Tier 3 materials, but Edgar did not care. He pulled back his fist, and slammed it forwards, taking a page out of Jonathan’s book.
There was a boom as a shell of ultra condensed air shot forwards, and loosed all of its power upon the door. Although air was hardly what most would consider the most dangerous of substances, when you took thousands of cubic meters of it and condensed it down into the space of a small cannonball, it developed force that was quite extraordinary.
The door was blasted apart, shards of metal and splinters of wood raining down. Edgar then sent another pulse of power through the door, feeling more guards died beneath the power of his element.
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By this point, the defenders of the keep had realized that something was amiss, and Edgar heard a bellow of rage erupt from the center of the castle. He turned to look at Kendal and the others.
“Any idea what that was?”
“The lady of the keep employs many vicious servants, some of which are in the upper ranks of Tier 3. That is one of them.”
“You better help with this one,” Edgar said, a dark look on his face. “I am happy working as your slave against the weaker fighters, but I might require aid sometimes. I am not omnipotent.”
“I have a feeling that you will see little trouble in the taking of this keep,” Kendal replied. “After all, I am one of the strongest among my own people, and you defeated me with ease.”
Before Edgar could reply, a figure burst out of the ruined gate, showering the ground with more splinters. Easily ten feet tall, a massive bull-man hybrid, complete with gargantuan curling horns and shaggy fur, stepped out. In other words, a Minotaur.
In one hand, the monster carried a titanic ax, as long as a man was tall. In the other, it held a shield covered in barbed spikes. It reared its head back and roared at Edgar, spraying spittle everywhere. Without blinking, Edgar raised one hand, and pointed at the clouds above. The air began to swirl, and a tornado formed in a matter of seconds, filled with razor sharp blades of wind and the crushing pressure of a hurricane.
The tornado touched down a moment later, scattering the debris. The Minotaur huffed, and set its shield against the ground, summoning elemental energy to its body. Black rock began to spread across its form, until its body looked like obsidian. When the tornado struck it, the monster simply hunkered next to its shield, and bore the impact. Blood sprayed everywhere as the wind blades tore at its flesh, but the beast was far from dead. Instead, Edgar was forced to banish the attack, and watch as the beast rose to its feet. He shot a pointed look at Kendal, who began to gather up his own elemental energy.
Edgar raised both arms, and a rotating cylinder of air formed above his head, taking on the faint shape of a cannon. With a roar, the Minotaur blitzed forwards, far faster than Edgar could move. However, it was not faster than the air itself. The cannon fired, and a lance of wind slammed into the monster, knocking it backwards, and tearing through its flesh. It landed on its feet, using the ax as a counterweight. A bloody hole stretched through its torso, but it was already closing over.
Kendal loosed his own power, blades of fire erupting across the gap. However, the Minotaur simply blasted them away with its shield, ignoring the weaker mage’s attacks. Edgar blended his own potency with the fire mage’s powers, causing the attacks to erupt in might. Fire needed oxygen to blaze, and when you had another mage that could funnel pure oxygen into that fire, such blazes could become devastating.