There was something he could use to turn the tides of battle but that was a huge gamble. He retrieved [Dark Essence] from his inventory. The dark cube was light and crystalline in its make, it begged him to unlock its secrets.

“I need this to work come on! Get absorbed!” He looked at the wisp but the ball of light just gave him an apologetic flash.

He just had a hunch that this thing could turn the tides of battle, it was weird premonition, or maybe even desperate superstition. “There has to be a way.” He held the cube ever so tighter and he could feel the energy tingling his palm. All of the sudden the hard crystalline surface began to feel squishy and there was this compulsion to do something with the Dark Essence. But what?

He had no idea, so he just squished the cube into his left palm trying to break it like an egg; it exploded. Maybe not the best idea…

[Perk Chaos Blessed activated]

His vision spun and the day turned to night, all objects around him shifted turning dark as if made out of tar-like shadow. The air grew heavy and he felt like he was deep underwater. He looked around but all he could see were the rough shapes and silhouettes. He wouldn't be able to tell his spiders from the trees if not for their hot burning souls, the fire was little but it burned in hot black-tinted light.

He felt something tingling in his left, the tingling grew to a sensation of burning; it felt like it ate his flesh. In this strange nightmarish realm, he had no armour or items. A web of black veins formed on his left palm at the spot where he squished the cube. The veins began to grow and spread like vines going up his arm. It hurt, it hurt so much he considered cutting his own arm. The black vines stopped right before they reached his shoulder and the pain was gone like it never was there to begin with.

He felt strange power, cursing through his left hand. He raised his hand trying to tame the weird sensation, at that moment the shadows shrunk and with a single blink of an eye he found himself back in your average forest.

“What happened?” Wisp asked curiously.

[Congratulations! You have reached Magic lvl. -1]

[Spell Elemental Arrow obtained.]

[Error], “Urgh!” There was this massive pain again. [Spell Elemental Arrow forgotten.]

“What’s going on?” The wisp buzzed around him in circles.

[Congratulations! You have unlocked Magic+.]

[Spell Shadow Walk obtained.]

[Spell Dark Shroud obtained.]

[Spell ??? obtained.]

The pain was gone. “I am a proper mage now!” He announced to the whole world.

“Congratulations?”

“Dark Shroud.” He chanted his first-ever spell.

The veins on his left-hand lit purple and the darkness seeped from under his orange armour. It took time at first but soon he was covered in a guise of shadows; his form obfuscated.

“Weird. What does this do.”

“A camouflage spell?” The wisp knew the answer but even so it came out as a question. “In the right environment, you should be hard to spot.”

He walked to a darker area right under the canopy of the tree. His body disappeared turning into a dark puddle of shadows.

“Is it working?” He asked curious; he didn’t feel any different.

“Yes. But it’s not the time…”

A fireball had hit the top of the tree he was hiding under setting it on fire and breaking his spell.

“You’re right, but… Shadow Walk!” His vision blurred and after he had blinked he was back in the nightmarish realm.

He took a step, and instead of one, he took a hundred. There was a thick tree in his path and he didn’t know how to stop, he worried but only for a second, because he just fazed through it. The spell broke and he found himself falling to the ground with some of the momentum still left; he tripped and slid through the mossy ground.

“Amazing!” He brushed the moss and twigs off himself.

Both Dark Shroud and Shadow Walk were amazing spells, but not what he had expected.

“Is this really the time?” The wisp questioned again.

“No, no. You’re right. But…”

The wisp buzzed around him curious. “You have something in mind?”

“I do.” He smiled.

…

The fire could do only so much to green trees so they did the necessary: the humans emboldened by their success flooded into the forest to deal with the infestation once and for all.

“Don’t let a single spider escape!” Aurelius commanded his men. “Chase them and cut them all!”

The whole ordeal turned out better than he had expected; this was fun and good practice for his men. He charged into the thick woods without a single worry in his head. Of course, there was smoke but the magus he brought with him blew it away from his forces. All he needed to do now was to catch up with the fleeing monsters and slay them one by one.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

He went quite far in but… “Where are they?” He was beginning to worry.

The spider prints on the ground were all over, but he couldn’t see a single spider.

“Something’s not right.” A heavily armed man, one of his royal bodyguards, spoke.

“You’re right. There might be an ambush, let’s not spread ourselves too much.”

However, it was too late. Strange grenades rained from treetops exploding into either blue or red clouds.

[De-buff active: Blue Dust>Torpor.]

He felt his movements sluggish but he could still speak. “Alchemical Attack! Magus!”

“[Cleanse].” The magus dispelled the debuff.

Yet, it was not over. The ground came alive, tree roots and wines coiling around his legs. He began cutting at the pesky plants with his enchanted longsword.

The magus kept shouting “Cleanse, Cleanse, Cleanse…” again and again. All of Aurelius’s men were afflicted with a debuff and there were only so many mages.

Some of his men fell to the ground asleep, others seemed confused and even delirious shouting some nonsense, and the annoying plants trying to bind everyone made it even more annoying. However, this was only a small setback, his army knew how to deal with such trivial matters.

And then, at the worst time possible, spiders sprung seemingly out of the shadows; the tops of trees and other dark corners were filled with monsters. They threw blue nets at his men, further impeding their movements and then the spiders launched a counterattack of their own.

“Flithy monsters!” He shouted in rage cleaving the net thrown at him in half. “[Smite]!” He invoked his strongest spell.

A column of concentrated light descended upon the spider, the flash lasted only a second but it was enough to bring the inhuman monster to its knees and make it crispy.

“Finally, some good exp. But that was an overkill, I need to pace myself better.”

The battle continued. And for some reason, even if he outnumbered the spiders the two forces seemed to be evenly matched.

“Stand your ground. They will not last! We will grind them to dust!”

He stated the obvious because he could see the spiders were hurt from the previous attacks, some had arrows in their bodies others were singed by fire. He knew what was happening, the spiders were buying time for the sorcerer to escape. It was unfortunate to let such an evil criminal go, but he will just have to deal with the sorcerer later.

“What’s this?” He couldn’t believe his eyes.

A flock of deer crashed into the ranks of his men, and then there were wolves jumping on his knights; these were just normal forest animals but they seemed maddened for an unknown reason.

“Nonsense! Cleave.” He cleaved two wolves in one strike.

A wolf stood no chance against an armoured knight, the animals were blindly suiciding themselves. Then a horde of squirrels hit his men like a tsunami. The critters were small, but there were so many of them; thousands. His knights were fine, but the peasant levy… He never had thought he would ever such a sight, the squirrels devoured one of the unlucky man completely; death by the squirrel.

“They are desperate, sending pests and other vermin! Magi, stop conserving your mana, let's deal with this quickly. Empower.” Mana coursed through his body.

His steps were strong and able to rip out the roots trying to cling on his boots; He was cleaving right and left. He was unstoppable!

“Aurelius! Aurelius?” The old magus was shouting from the rear.

He didn’t care, there was a monster right in front of him. “Shield Render.” He swung sparing no power to shatter the flimsy shield. “What?” For some reason it held, but that didn’t matter. “Cleave.” The spider turned into a shadow and disappeared from his sight. “Cursed monster and your damned Illusions.”

He regretted not bringing more magi, but those were expensive. Actually, weren’t the magi the only ones who managed to do any real damage? He looked around, and there was a worrying sight of the lack of spider corpses. The only ones he saw were singed by magic fire. But there was plenty of something else: his men were tied to the ground by vines and roots or trapped by the nets and hooked on the branches; that was if they weren't already dead.

“No!” He realised that he was… losing. “Retreat!” He finally commanded.

But then, once he turned around, he could see a long and tall wall of thorns blocking their path. The old magus was trying to burn it down but it just kept regrowing.

There was a raspy voice coming from behind him. “Noble Knight.”

Aurelius turned back to face the depths of the forest and found the accursed sorcerer standing there. The shape was human, but he doubted there was anything like that behind that rounded helmet. The humanoid even had a demonic glyph on the tunic. He remembered seeing the glyph somewhere, but he couldn’t remember what it symbolised, nor did it matter now.

“Sorcerer! You’ve made a mistake showing yourself.” Aurelius grinned.

“No. I want to negotiate.”

“I don’t negotiate with Monsters! Empower, Cleave.” He swung to end the fool.

“[Bastion].”

“What?!” His empower cleave did no damage, it simply bounced off.

“Can’t you see both of our people are dying?”

“I don’t care. Overwhelm!” He launched a flurry of quick strikes.

The sorcerer didn’t even attempt to dodge. “Just hear me out. I have things to offer.”

“Bartolomeus arse!” Aurelius cursed, there was no other choise but. “Sacrifice, Ultimate Cleave!”

As expected his enchanted silver sword shattered upon landing the ultimate hit. The damage multiplier was x10, there was no way the sorcerer had a counter for that.

“…” He stood there with only a hilt in his hands, shards of the silver sword littered the ground; he had nothing to show for it.

The sorcerer was spouting more nonsense he didn’t care about. Then he realised that maybe he was just using the wrong approach here.

“You’re dead sorcerer! Empower, Smite. Huh!” He breathed sharply; losing all of the mana at once was never easy.

A thick collum of holy light descended onto the sorcerer and then…

…

For a moment there was nothing to see but white.

[Temporary perk Spell Deflection activated.]

Then it just disappeared and the overwhelming white was replaced by the purple glow of his armour. He breathed a sigh of relief, the spell sounded dangerous. He was lucky it activated this time, but the next time it most likely won’t since it would make sense if it had a 1% or so chance of activation.

He stepped back away from the stubborn knight, the one who was obviously calling the shots. Plan A had failed so now it was time for Plan B. So what he needed to do now was to cast Dark Shroud, distance himself while avoiding any other magical attacks and then cast Shadow Walk. No, he was not escaping, he will use that to ambush the knight and hopefully activate Assassin Strike.

However, the deflect enchant on his armour was more than resist and while it wasn’t reflect it could achieve something similar. The pillar of light shifted right towards the knight basking him in holy light. The light was blinding and lasted for the whole three seconds. The end result of it was a pile of shattered equipment and a very crispy noble. Yeah…

This was quite bad, he didn’t even get exp for that. But hey plan B was a success. However, the battle was not over yet. He could see the mages finally managing to burn the thorn vine barricade and the humans began to flee out of the forest.

“Pursue them, capture as many as you can.”

"Understood."

The tables have turned.