“I feel it deep within, it's just beneath the skin

I must confess that I feel like a monster

I've gotta lose control, here's something radical

I must confess that I feel like a monster”

Monster written and performed by Skillet

“Well, that was the plan already.” Her honeyed words transforming into more of a nails on a chalkboard voice. A sickly green luminous light began to surround her body, and Grey could hear her sub-vocalizing a chant in some language the translation magic was not capable of understanding.

Greyson quickly turned to Eloise and gently but firmly moved her a few paces away from the center of the summoning circle. He also dragged a toe in the ground as he moved gouging out a path through in intricate shapes and runes that allowed the summoning circle to work. No need to allow for additional variables that he didn’t fully understand if he could avoid it.

He looked down at Eli, had spoke to her quickly and firmly.

“So these are bad people Eli. They want to hurt you, so I am going to make it so they can’t hurt anyone again. I am going to put a shield around you and I want you to stay in the shield until I take it down. Just please don’t be scared of me once this is all done.” She nodded, both frightened and determined. Impulsively, she lunged forward quickly to hug his legs and then moved back to the spot that he had put her in.

Grey lifted his arm and held out his open palm to face Eloise. The purest blue-white light began to come from his hand, quickly picking up speed as is began to swirl around Eli, causing her hair and dress to dance with the wind of its passing. The swirling torrent quickly surrounded her in what looked to be a blown glass egg, the blues and whites separating and combining is a pattern that looked like a swirling gas giant. (This Jupiter or Neptune or look in the author comments at the end for an image). Once the shape was set, the light it emitted quickly began to fade, leaving just the semi-transparent egg shield surrounding her.

Grey nodded once to himself looking over the shield. He had poured a bit over half of his mana into the shield and left a small tether to himself to replenish any mana that was lost if the shield took any hits.

Those figures that were not preparing spells looked upon this in shock. While they all used mana and magic, magic needed structure. Words, phrases, runes and patterns were all accepted ways in which to give the mana direction to interact with the world, what had just been casually done and in a quick manner, was the direct control of mana itself and not only that but coalescing the mana into the physical form of a shield. One of the more sensitive cultists that had not yet begun to move felt sweat begin to bead across his forehead. He could feel the amount of mana that the man had just poured into the shield. It was more than the combined efforts of the entire circle had put together for the past month in preparation for this summoning. The man should never have been able to hold that much mana at a mere Level 1, not only that, but it was just impossible to comprehend if they would be able to ever break the shield.

With his mana already beginning to replenish itself, Greyson finally decided that he had let these cultists have enough preparation time. He had heard the chanting from the leader cease a moment ago. Her arms were up spaced apart with the palms of here hands pointing to each other about ten or fifteen cm apart. Between her hands, the lime green light that had been coming from her whole body and formed itself into a softball sized ball.

Her head twisted up and back in a grotesque manner, a maniacal smile spread across her face with madness dancing in her eyes.

“Too late hero. Time for you to melt and feel Algea’s heartfelt embrace!” She screeched, thrusting her hands forward and launching the sickly green ball directly at Grey’s chest. Cackling laughter raced across the room with the ball, gaining volume with each foot the ball traveled.

When the ball was only a meter away, tendrils of blue-shit light pulsed off of Greyson, wrapping themselves around the ball and stopping all of its progress, holding it in place just a half a meter away from him at eye level. The action caused a gasp from the collected robed figure and broke off the laughter better than a slap to the face.

Observe

Acid Ball

Deals Acidic Damage at 500 dmg/sec

Damage continues until all of the acid is consumed or is neutralized.

Huh, that might have stung a bit. With that idle thought, the tendrils whipped the acid ball and one of the other cultists that had just begun their own spell against him. The ball caught the figure right in the hood and consequently in the figures face. There wasn’t even time for the figure to scream as his face, neck, and thankfully voice box began to melt under the touch of the acid. (Think Raiders of the Lost Arc when the Nazi’s opened the Ark and didn’t close their eyes).

“Oh wow. That was a bit worse than I imagined it would be.” Even Grey was momentarily stunned as everyone in the room paused to watch the person’s (Grey couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman at this point) demise with morbid fascination and in some cases glee.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“KILL HIM ALREADY!” the leader shrieked pointing a finger at him again. This caused everyone to break away from their momentary pause and begin to advance on Grey. Two of the individuals from behind him sprinted at his back kris style daggers appearing in their hands as they rushed to stab the intruder.

Grey turned around in a clam and casual manner to face the two attackers, predominantly ignoring the murmurings of the other who were undoubtedly calling forth their own spells to attach him. Reaching out a hand again, tendrils of mana light braided themselves together forming into the shape of a one-handed Viking sword about 75 cm. The double sided fullered blade solidified with a brief flash of light as he closed his hand.

Greyson took a step towards the first attacker, continuing to bring his blade up in a crescent motion bisecting the first attacker from hip to opposite shoulder. His arm not slowing even as the blade glided through the man, the tip of the blade ended up over his opposing (left) shoulder. The motion left him perfectly positioned for a follow up backhanded swing that took the head of the second attacker with his next step forward. While the bodies crumpled to the group, the first man screamed in pain and anguish as he began to quickly blead out. The second, well, its hard to scream without lungs attached to your throat.

Turning to face another of the cultists that appeared to be about to finish a chant, Grey threw the sword at the cultist. The blade spun end over end until it pierced directly into the individual’s forehead, directly between the eyes hidden beneath the cowl of the hood.

Well, I think that is enough testing. Seems my Mana Coalescence skill works the same here as it did on the tutorial world.

With this, Grey took in a deep breadth and slowly exhaled. From over his entire body the tendrils of light began to wrap themselves around him, intertwining until they began to take shape. Gauntlets formed over his hands, pauldrons over the shoulders, greaves sheathed his legs, the light continuing on until his entire body was covered with the pale pseudo plate armor. The final piece, a dragon faced helm wove itself together around his head, the eyes continuing to emit the pale light even after the highly detailed helm manifested. The whole process took place over the span of a few heartbeats ending as Grey straightened to his full height.

Giving himself a slight nod, Grey moved. This wasn’t the casual or strolling manor that seemed to define him so far, but a blur of motion that only left a trail of pale luminesce to slowly dissipate. Before any of the remaining cultists even had time to react to the materialized armor, Grey was behind another individual. In a swift motion, his arm lashed out, smashing into and through the chest of the cultist. A gust of air from the force of the punch smashed into the wall five meters behind the person, immediately smashing its own crater into wall.

Still too much force, I’ll have to dial it down a bit more it seems.

Those without exceptional eyes would have thought that he disappeared in a faint blue glow with this as he appeared in front of the next cultist, driving an armored elbow directly into their sternum. The sharp crack of bones breaking as his chest collapsed inward on itself and he was thrown back over a dozen meters in a smashed ball of body parts.

There we go. No more unintentional dismemberment. Eli doesn’t need to see a bunch of stump people all the time.

Reaching out both hands to his sides, more tendrils shot from the hands of the armor forming themselves into massive Beidhänder swords (both hand sword in German, Wikipedia or the great god Google is your friend to see what it looks like). Sword in each hand Grey bounced around to the remaining cultists in the room. Two lost their heads in consecutive moments, while a third found themselves impaled through the chest to the hilt on the sword. With seeming ease, the impaled man was lifted up and thrown off of the sword directly into a fourth cultist, smashing both of their heads together hard enough that one couldn’t tell were one head started and the other ended.

Grey abruptly stopped his rampage around the room and the swords and armor began bleeding away into the air. Sensing this as a weakness or that he was out of mana, the remaining eight cultists grouped up around their leader.

For her part, the leader was looking upon Greyson with unrestrained fear and loathing. This had supposed to be their crowning achievement! After decades of study and trying to find a way to summon their god, they had finally concluded that an person from their plane of reality would not be able to house the essence of their god. They had spent a further three years working to build the summoning circle and finding enough victims to consecrate this chamber to allow for a child to be summoned and groomed to become Algea’s embodiment. All that time and effort, and it was being torn to shreds by a single man. Realizing she had no further choice, she began to reach deep into her robes to pull out a fist sized black and red gemstone.

“I need a minute for to call forth Uvhash.” She stated to those now surrounding her. (Cthulhu Blood-Mad God of the Void) With grim determination, they all turned to face Grey. Hidden weapons were grabbed and a few towards the back began moving their arms in a complicated pattern blood flowing from their fingers and hovering in the air forming magic circles. All in all, it was a fairly impressive group that should be more than enough buy time for the elder god to be called.

“Fuck it” Greyson was now bored. These cultists weren’t even remotely a challenge and he had already tested out almost all of his favorite spells.

“Might as well finish this now then. I just hope I’ve gotten enough of a handle on this world for this.” He muttered to himself. He pointed his palm directly at the group. A tendril thicker than any previous one flowed from his hand and began to swirl itself into a ball the size of a golfball. While the tendril staid in place, the ball began to glow brighter and brighter without growing any larger. With a final pulse of light from the tendril of pure mana, the tendril pulled back from the ball while Grey simultaneously flicked his arm slightly shooting the glowing ball at the group.

One of the quicker cultists jumped forward at Grey’s motion, catching the glowing ball directly in his chest. For the briefest of moments nothing happened, then light filled the room along with a deafening explosion that consumed everything around it for twenty meters in all directions. The shockwave of the explosions continued in all directions shattering and throwing everything that wasn’t secured enough in place. Secured enough being only Grey and the shielded ball he had left Eli in.

Ding!

Congratulations!

You have completed the Hidden Quest: Free Algea

The god Algea thanks you for getting rid of the fanatics that twisted his name and purpose. Please head to a temple to accept your reward.