It was an odd thing, standing alone in a field of green waist-high grass and staring down an entire city, the tension before battle ever present, suffocating. Tension, but no fear. He would not die. Could not.
Three hundred yards away he could tell that the city’s walls were far shorter than expected. Shorter than himself, for one, and that meant far shorter than the walls of Addens. What Grensfield boasted that Addens could not, however, was numbers. Numbers that stood ready for him atop the walls with archers and mages in numbers he could almost not fathom, while beneath them stood an army of men-at-arms and cavalry and knights, all of them confused by the lone giant that slowly approached their city.
“Allow me to fight with you,” Amice said that very morning, just after dawn broke. He only shook his head. “Why? See there, along the walls? They await your arrival with steel and courage. They knew we were coming.”
What game does this Oracle play? Whatever it was, it did not concern him.
“I have my reasons,” he said. She did not enquire further, nor did he have an answer had she done so, his reasons being clouded in mystery as they were. An unknown reward, for a deed that should have been impossible.
Yet as his veins burned with the flow of mana and a bolt of white hot lightning shot out from his hand it did not feel impossible.
The bolt struck the invisible barrier erected in front of the city, and the barrier shattered. Arcs of lightning tore into walls, leaving a scattering of deep marks in its surface, with one section collapsing entirely, and a man with it.
Alden sucked in his breath and waited. When the blue screen rewarding XP for a kill did not come, he relaxed, then continued forward.
Atop the walls voices yelled. In response, the archers readied their bows, nocked their arrows.
“Loose!” came the cry.
Hundreds of arrows soared, darkening the bright blue sky above as they descended. He had only to lift his hand and let the magic flow, creating a wave of wind that shot upwards into the sky. The arrows broke apart, splinters of wood and steel falling around him like rain.
He did not have barrier magic of his own, having neglected the magic in favor of another. The skin of his hands itched to unleash it, but he ignored the feeling and stomped onwards.
Now it was the turn of the men-at-arms and cavalry. The cavalry came at him first, two hundred riders wielding spears that thundered towards him in neat, clean divisions of four or five. The first few narrowly missed him, sharp steel sweeping past him harmlessly in a gust of wind.
The next division was more accurate.
Deadly spears stabbed at the air where he once was. The riders slowed immediately, turning every which way as uproarious confusion took them. Confusion turned to terror as the men looked up and saw Alden floating in the sky, held aloft by wind magic. Releasing the magic, he descended upon them.
Three horses reared up in fright as he landed, unhorsing the men riding them. The other horses kept their cool, allowing their riders to thrust their spears, but they were too slow. Alden’s own hands shot forth even faster than the spears, taking three shafts in one hand and two in another, then squeezed until the shafts splintered apart.
With blinding speed, Alden ran at the next grouping of riders, the air whipping against his face as he moved. Despite his bulk, he felt light on his feet, almost weightless as he carried himself across the field with such speed that the men he faced seemed slow by comparison. Even the horses were slow to him now, allowing him to weave through them with disquieting ease, and before he knew it he was past the cavalry and staring down the bewildered men-at-arms two hundred feet away.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
He stopped, heard the hoofbeats of the cavalry quiet, then become louder again as they changed direction. Turning to them, he waited for the next onslaught, his fists tightening painfully with a desire for violence. He dared not strike them, however. Even with armor, a single blow from his fist would crush a normal man’s rib cage into pulp. He did not want to kill.
Instead he waved a hand and watched as a wall of fire sprouted up between him and the cavalry.
Blazing hot, the wall of fire singed his skin and he retreated from it, a hand pinching his nostrils in the wake of the smell of burning grass. Beyond the fire the sounds of panicked horses could be heard, their frantic wails growing faint as he moved on to the men-at-arms.
“Charge!” came the call from atop the walls. Alden searched for the source, finding a man in purple robes. A mage. Bald, the man’s face was covered in a long, white beard, beneath which was a necklace of gold.
Not a man moved as they watched the giant man approach, despite the mage’s order, not until he stood before the first of them. A balding man of approximately forty, the man gazed up at Alden with mouth agape, then, having found his courage, thrust his spear.
Alden took it by the shaft and broke it, watched as the bald man pulled his sword from his scabbard, then grasped the man by his tunic just before he could swing his blade. He hoisted the man up with a single arm, then tossed him aside.
More men fell upon him, with spears and swords and daggers, a motley band of would-be heroes with more courage than sense. The first did not even reach Alden before a gust of wind pushed them to the dirt, creating an opening towards the city’s gate. Alden walked to it; with wind magic he sent every man-at-arms that came his way sprawling to the ground.
The gate was nothing like the one in Coalben; no more than a thick plank of wood, the gate was protected only by a portcullis of inch-thick iron bars. As pitiful as it was, the portcullis was well entrenched, supported by brick and mortar twice as thick and twice as tall as the walls that surrounded Grensfield. He could not budge it. Not with physical strength alone.
He stepped back, thrust out both hands, felt his veins burn with mana, then felt his feet leave the ground and his body push against the air. He landed hard on his back, but his feet kept going, and soon he was rolling end over end. Eventually he stopped and righted himself.
Where he’d once stood had become a crater, the men-at-arms nearest to him having been knocked down by the blast, and as he calmed a dull pain began to spread across his chest and into his limbs.
He moved, heard the shuffling of feet, stopped. Hot pain flared up in his right shoulder, from which an arrow had sprouted from nothingness. Alden pulled the arrow out and inspected it, confused. Around him he heard footsteps and the clinking of metal, the sounds loud in his ears, but his eyes saw only empty field around him.
He moved again and stopped once more as he felt the familiar agony of steel through flesh. Looking down he saw a gaping red wound upon his leg, near which blood trickled down some unseen object in the shape of a speartip.
Invisibility.
Conjuring the wind, he pushed it outward and formed a continuous shell to protect himself. With the deafening howl of his magic assuring him, he broke off the head of the spear and pulled the wooden shaft out, closing the wound with magic.
Brave and powerful as he felt, invisibility posed a serious risk, and one he did not intend to compete with directly.
Damnit all, he thought. The solution was in his grasp, but it posed problems of its own, prime among them its mana cost. Even with his greatly enhanced pool of mana, a single use would drain his magic.
But as the shell of wind unformed and the air stilled he spotted numerous imprints in the grass. Hundreds of them, maybe more, all of them invisible.
There was no other way.
Clasping his hands together, Alden focused on the principles of the magic he was about to cast. Blood, veins, pressure, arteries, brain, targets. Hundreds, thousands, more? No matter, just distance, wide, vast.
His veins burned and burst and unleashed spurts of blood all across his arms, chest, legs, body, the mana within almost uncontrollable. When he could control it no longer, Alden unleashed his magic and fell to his knees, breathing deep, haggard breaths.
Slowly, the soldiers he fought came into view once more, their invisibility peeling away. Then, one by one, they fell.
Skill Up
Syncope Magic has advanced to Rank C.
Reward: 50xp.