– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 218, Season of the Setting Sun, Day 93 –
A four-legged construct with double-jointed arms that ended in rotating spinning blades was cleaving through a large group of mana-corrupted tigers with fungus growing all over them.
A gigantic club crashed down from the sky and smashed the dungeon construct into smithereens.
A barrage of arcane bolts was unleashed from more than fifty purplemist lynx at once and the magic projectiles charged as one towards the fungus-infested giant.
Dull-eyed elves rapidly erected magic barriers to protect the giant from the ranged assault.
Below the giant, a pair of large axolotls dove up from liquid earth and bit frenziedly into the giant’s ankles and calves. They were not powerful enough to drag the giant down, but they viciously ripped into the creature’s arteries and nerves.
Elven mages ignited their spells and sharp roots rose from the earth to skewer the mana-corrupted axolotls. From another corner of the battlefield more elves began casting healing spells to save the giant from bleeding out.
Black clouds swiftly assembled and the heavens roared with furious thunder. Snakes of sky-splitting lightning descended and followed a green-blue spearhead that darted into the group of elven healers. The realm trembled as the lightning snakes fuelled the king spear’s magic and unleashed a wide net of electric destruction.
“Fuck me.” Terry cursed and fled from the overwhelming assault from elven attack spells that were immediately chasing him.
He had gotten closer to the center of the battle than he had planned to, but unfortunately, the whole battlefield kept shifting since all the participants were constantly moving around. He had identified a cluster of healers and judged it a good opportunity to take them out with a single attack, but his heaven’s roar combination came with a tight countdown that did not allow for much flexibility.
Faced with either abandoning his target and wasting the invested mana on non-healer enemies, or with moving further to the center so that his king spear extension could reach his initial targets, Terry had chosen the latter.
He dodged when he could.
He blocked with immovable metal or with the divine hammer inscription when he couldn’t.
He unleashed a disruption pulse only if all other means failed, frenziedly reclaiming the mana as soon as the incoming spells were broken.
Terry darted through the air with nimble acrobatics that would leave his old companions and accepted parents stunned beyond belief. Even more so, because he never allowed himself to fully burst his mana. The side-effects of an all-out burst would risk some of these fungus-infested mana-cursed elves escaping with space magic. Unacceptable.
Terry’s expression darkened whenever he sensed some of the elves set up spatial barriers or spatial blades. Even though these spells appeared weaker than what Terry had seen Anand wield in Tiv, this was still proof that the elves were indeed capable of utilizing the space aspect.
Terry was still wondering if he should prioritize the dimensional mages even higher than their healers and earth mages. If he managed to take out all their dimensional mages, then he wouldn’t have to worry about unbalanced bursts anymore. Unfortunately, he had no way to know in advance who among the unaspected elven mages was capable of spatial magic. Not before they decided to employ such spells.
For all Terry knew, every single one of the unaspected elves could be a dimensional mage. It was unlikely, extremely so, but he couldn’t take the risk. Not with an unknown mana curse at play.
To make it worse, he still had to consider all the enemies that had not crossed over into the dungeon territory yet. Even if Terry had a way of taking out all the dimensional mages, new ones might pour onto the battlefield the next second.
Not workable.
Terry dismissed the thought from his mind and focused on his mana perception. He was stretching his senses to their limits in order to make up for his impaired physical performance due to the lack of proper bursts. If he was slower, then he had to be more aware and decisive. There was no time for stumbling or hesitation.
Not far away from him, he sensed the mana resonance of a golden crow soar into the sky and rain fire with the beating of flaming wings. Even more valuable than the destruction itself was the large area of distraction it caused. Many little spider-like constructs with sharp spikes at the bottom were crawling over the ground and used the chance to climb up the distracted elves. The spike creepers rushed up their victims to screw into their heads.
Further behind, a giant white wolf smashed through a set of unfinished fortifications that the elven earth mages had been in the process of erecting. Countless armored goblin constructs were led by the dungeon to jump into the breach. The fake goblins moved mana into their magic blades and hacked frenziedly at the fungus-infested elves and beasts.
Annabelle and Rafael are doing fine, but…
Terry let himself fall further down until the warring magic beasts were in his casting range. He strained to compress his spell structures at a distance of nearly thirty meters and then ignited the spells on the elongated canines of the fungus-infested sabretooths tigers.
The frost jackals led by the dungeon did not miss the chance to latch onto the tigers’ throats and tear out their jugulars.
Before Terry darted back up and into another direction, he infused mana into the divine hammer inscription to summon a sturdy barrier to block an incoming fireball. Despite their dull eyes, the elves were quick to react and whenever there was a location they considered lost, they did not hesitate to exploit the close proximity of remaining dungeon creatures for a large-scale attack.
The short amount of time that he had bought with blocking the first retaliatory assault was enough for the dungeon to guide the assimilated frost jackals to their next enemy.
Terry did not have any leeway to dawdle either. Through all the raging chaos, he could already sense another brewing disaster he had to prevent. The martialists were making good use of the artifacts that he had handed out. They were cleaving furiously into the fungus-infested army, but there were a few problems with their often reckless fighting styles.
The biggest problem was the ongoing drop in mana that Terry could sense in them. Unfortunately, he did not have any good ideas on how to fix that particular issue.
No, he had to focus on the problems he could see himself tackle. One of these problems was one he had liked to exploit in the past, but now he was working together with them. In this battle, their weakness was not his to exploit but to cover. Like their bodyguard, he dashed towards where he had to be.
The mana resonance of a jumping hare with black eyes and dark blue fur came as no surprise to Terry, who began doing two things at once: He hurled out a throwing needle and used his bidirectional attraction glove to pull at Jason, the source of the resonance that was moving through the sky on droplets of water.
A gigantic fist crashed into an immovable throwing needle. The giant’s punch was momentarily halted when the immovable object crashed into bone. Layers of sturdy translucent golden mana appeared at a specific angle. The fist was only slowed for an instant when bone broke itself on immovable metal. The momentum carried the fist further where it now crashed into the divine barrier whose angle together with the needle caused the force to be shifted so as to break the giant’s wrist.
The mangled flesh was pushing forward until the divine barrier buckled from the strain. Terry noted that the giant did not even show an expression of pain, even though this kind of injury should have been excruciating. Terry doubted the giant could have stopped his own attack even if it had been sensitive to the agony. The force and momentum were carrying the fist forward mercilessly and it continued towards the member of the Skyriver Sect, albeit more slowly.
Fortunately for Jason, who remained trapped in his own rigid martialist technique, Terry had sensed the bubbling mana resonance even before it fully activated and managed to pull the martialist away with the bidirectional attraction inscription.
The combined adjustment of the gigantic fist’s descent and Jason’s pulled trajectory, allowed the martialist to not only get away with his life, but to land a devastating cut on the giant’s calf.
Jason shrunk back under the Arcanian’s chiding gaze. “I did not mean to…” He wanted to explain that they were focusing on the healers and earth mages like Terry had advised, but that the giants were too quick to arrive with their extreme step-length. They did take precautions but spells with flexible casting centers had prevented Zhang and Chun to arrive in time for their planned attack combination.
Before Jason had any chance to waste his words, Terry already interrupted him. “I know. Keep going.” He darted up into the sky on layers of divine mana. He had places to be.
Jason did not have to explain to him, because he was paying attention to all of his allies. He had sensed what they were up to. It had been a good plan, which was why he had nearly been too late. The problem wasn’t the plan but…
A plan works until it doesn’t. Sooner or later there will always be a hiccup. The words of his accepted mother echoed in Terry’s mind.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
The plan of the trio had been fine, but they had fumbled when things had not gone according to plan. Chun had been too engaged in her own battle with an elven warrior that had suddenly appeared from the earthen ground. She had been too slow to detach herself.
Zhang had initially reacted well and moved swiftly to cover Jason, but then he had hesitated to distance himself from Chun and her ongoing battle. The slight moment of hesitation was fatal and Jason suddenly found himself with an unexpected giant and no support to cover him. This might have been manageable if the martialist had not just initiated a resonance technique that required a rigid charge and did not offer any opportunity to adjust appropriately.
Small mistakes on their own, but catastrophic when all appeared together.
Terry could not really blame them, because these martialists were not used to working with each other. Worse even, they appeared barely used to working with anyone.
He himself did not count on many of the martialists to watch his back either, but he felt compelled to watch theirs. He could not afford to waste allies just like he could not afford to waste mana. His mana perception was constantly alerting him to the fact that there was still no end of the invading army in sight.
He infused mana into the orange pole in his right hand and swiftly positioned his left bracer underneath for the elongating pole to rest on an immovable bracer while an attached piece of septimum stabilized it further. The pole rapidly extended and pierced into the nostril of the unsuspecting giant.
Terry reminded himself to not overextend the spear because he was worried about damaging the spearhead against the giant’s thick skull. The blade was of very high quality and appeared to strengthen from lightning, but in contrast to the pole, no one had claimed it to be unbreakable yet. Therefore, he chose his targets carefully. He did not aim for the forehead but for the nostril to pierce the brain.
Terry pressed his mana into the spearhead and simultaneously activated the lightning layer in the staff. A blast of intense lightning blew up the giant’s skull. Blood and burned flesh splattered everywhere.
Terry felt a slight hint of self-satisfaction when he saw the elven healers abruptly change direction and move away from the fallen giant. They had initially rushed over to save their fungus-infested comrade, but evidently called their losses. This giant was beyond healing.
Terry reminded himself to not get complacent and he swiftly absorbed his mana to shrink the spear into portable size. Even while doing so, he was constantly activating quickened Immovable Object spells within his range. A spell for every spotted chance to make a difference in the battles of his allies – both martialists and dungeon beings alike.
From one corner to his left, Terry was sensing a group of martialists around Guillermo and Chalita that were being assaulted by a wide area spell that caused thorny roots to grow. Those roots transmitted a debilitating poison.
The elven man from the Ironbark Fist Sect and the human woman from the Shadowed Forest Sect were the only reason why the martialists were still able to stand their ground.
Guillermo skillfully maneuvered his large mana resonance technique and the wooden arms ripped the roots out in batches before they could grow out of control. His own skin had taken on a similar metallic sheen to his mana resonance and it was blocking the thorns from injecting the poison into his bloodstream.
Chalita stomped her foot violently on the ground and propelled herself up. The movement technique left the earth underneath her hardened into rock. The poisonous roots were halted, but only temporarily. Even while Chalita was still in the air, the strong roots were already rebelling against the stone obstruction and thorns began piercing out.
Chalita pulled her feet shortly up and their bottoms were touching each other. Mana rushed through her acupoints to begin the second step of her technique when she landed with a double-stomp. The previously created rock was not only smashed apart but it flew up unnaturally.
Chalita pressed her palms together and with a third circulation of mana, a loud roar could be heard and all the pieces of floating rock shrapnel were sent rushing forward to slice the roots apart.
This was among the most intense resonances that Terry had ever sensed, but surprisingly, it was not accompanied by a visible phenomenon. Whatever magic creature was resonating with Chalita’s technique, there was only an audible component and nothing visible to normal eyes.
Impressive, but misguided.
Terry was frowning. The mana-hungry resonance technique had failed where it mattered. The roots were sliced apart but they were continuously created by a spell and that spell was unaffected.
He thought Chalita was smarter than that, which meant that he himself had misjudged something. It only took this prompt of reflection for Terry to realize that he had failed to account for another weakness of his allies that he needed to cover.
Martialist techniques are more inward focused. Even resonances are created from within them. Their external mana senses are less developed. They cannot sense the spell structure that the elves have hidden underneath the earth. Chalita made the right call based on the information available to her. The reason it seemed misguided is that she is missing information.
Terry darted towards the battle and was already moving his hand over his sheath belt to retrieve Chalita’s communication talisman. After Rafael had seen the projection of the legendary senior and returned to their group, he had also volunteered to create new papers for whoever desired a means of communication. Many martialists had chosen to share their transmission talismans with Terry.
Annoyingly, he had to wait with informing them until an opportune moment in the flow of their battle. Otherwise, he would risk doing by accident what he had done intentionally to Rafael during the battle over the trial altar. He could not afford to see his allies distracted at a critical juncture.
While rushing over and reflexively interfering in his immediate vicinity with well-placed spells and divine barriers, he was weighing his options.
Unfortunately, the active spell structure was hidden more than twenty meters underground. If Terry wanted to disrupt such a spell, he would have to find a way to move the earth away or he would have to intensely layer his disruption discharge to make sure the spell slicers would remain intense enough before reaching the structure.
He could not help but think back to the sparring match against the death mages Yancey and Olivienne in Syn City. Yancey in particular had hidden underneath the earth while firing spells from flexible casting centers placed at the surface. This had been an incredible headache for Terry back then and it still remained so now.
No wonder mages are feared above all other mana users. How the Wastes is a cultivator supposed to get close in such a situation?
How would Aunt Sigille have dealt with this? How— No. Terry subconsciously clenched a fist. I’m not her. How can I deal with this? What can I do?
His mind was immediately drawn to something that was available only to him. His spell. His only spell. The spell he was constantly activating around himself in order to tip the scales of battle in their side’s favor.
There had to be more that he could do, even with his limitations. He had grown confident in his duel abilities, but when it came to chaotic battlefields with hordes of enemies, his experience still mostly consisted of running. Lots of running.
Images from Tiv flashed in front of Terry’s mind. Demons were leading an army of aspect beings in an assault on the Libra Outpost. A giant druid oak stood steadfast at the center of the defense. Dhruv, the dwarven druid, had masterfully controlled the oak’s branches and vines as additional casting devices while the roots served as powerful whips and piercing spears.
Terry had been envious of the druid’s crowd control abilities. Even now, with his strongly increased mana control reach, he felt lacking when it came to facing large numbers of enemies. Even though he was able to put up a good defense for himself with the Immovable Object spell, the divine barriers, and the disruption discharge variants, he had to do better than that in the face of this fungus-infested army. Much better.
Terry subconsciously stretched the reach of his casting and an increasing number of Immovable Object spells activated in the vicinity. They were compressed until they could target even the elves’ magic armor and overpowered the inherent mana in the beasts’ large claws or teeth.
Almost in a daze, Terry placed several mana refractors all around. His naturalized mana that was surrounding him contracted and rotated into the placed focus refractors. Disruption discharges were soon aiming to rip apart the mana-crafted spell structures in the elves’ imprinted magic items.
I have to do better!
Divine barriers fleetingly transfixed to block or redirect ranged attacks while Terry was darting towards Chalita and Guillermo.
“Turn the ground into rock!” commanded Terry. He infused mana into the king spear and fiercely tore into the raging roots.
“We tried that already!” huffed Chalita.
“Not when I’m here!” stressed Terry. “Do it! The larger the scale, the better! Wider not deeper!”
“I know someone with an artifact that can harden a circle of a hundred meters,” said Guillermo without ever averting his gaze from the fight in front of him. “I don’t have a suitable ability myself.”
“I do,” said Chalita, who was now fully submitting to the command. Terry had given her another chance. He had been right before. He had earned this much trust. “I’ll need a minute.”
“We got you,” said one of the other martialists from their group.
Two minutes later, an area of nearly fifty meters had been transformed into solid rock. Without missing a beat, Terry activated the Immovable Object spell on the hardened stone.
The elven spell continued sprouting the roots with debilitating thorns, but against an immovable object, their raging only served to damage themselves.
Terry nodded with a sigh of relief. His spell had many disadvantages compared to barriers, but it also had several advantages. One major advantage was that the associated mana cost was independent of the targeted object’s size. Creating the layer of rock had required Chalita to invest mana proportional to the covered area, but now that it was invested, Terry could take over with a constant activation cost.
“Get the artifact here!” commanded Terry. His senses were washing over the battlefield to scan for other continuously active spells. The closest casting center was not that far. They could cover the distance with the artifact that Guillermo had mentioned.
If they could extend the rock layer further and further, then they would gain secure footing and all for the price of a single maintained Immovable Object spell. All while the elves would continue wasting their mana to maintain the master-level attack spells underneath.
“Everyone, stick more closely to me!” commanded Terry. “Everyone!”
At first, he had let the martialists run wild, but from everything he had seen, this would not be enough. They had to do better. Faced with impossible odds, he could only resort to familiar strategies that played to their advantages.
He would exploit the major advantage of his only spell. He would act as the defensive bulwark for the more offensive-oriented martialists. He would utilize his stretched senses to direct the martialists towards where the dungeon needed them the most.
To Terry’s surprise, nearly all of the martialists had answered his call. They had begun following his commands without even arguing back. They were doing better for it. They fought relentlessly and steadily.
Unfortunately, for every enemy slain, another one marched through the accursed gate to take their place. After more than a day of neverending battle, they had to adjust their formations to allow some of the exhausted mana martialists to recover while being protected by immovable walls.
Terry himself could not afford to rest. He had spells to maintain and allies to protect. His mind was screaming with every drop of mana that was permanently leaving his grasp. No matter what clever approaches or efficient exploits he could come up with, even his sizable mana pool was not bottomless. More days like this, and his growing fortress of immovable objects would be collapsing unless he found an immense supplement of mana.
***