For a long moment, as Sam beheld the multitude of enemies scaling the wall in different ways, jumping, climbing or, in one case, gliding over it, he got scared.
Not of the enemies. He had already managed to beat it into his head that it was a game and not real, but instead, he got scared of himself. Because, the moment he saw the enemies, all he felt was elation. Elation about finally fighting beings smarter than rocks. Beings that could challenge him. Beat him even (not that he wanted that)…
It scared him a little how much the game changed him. How much this opportunity that fell into his lap changed him.
Then he had to stop the introspection as he was beset by several mooks for the lack of a better word. They were indistinguishable from each other, wearing black, all-body concealing clothing, only a few of them having a few spikes on their shoulders that set them aside from the others. Sam instantly pegged them as team leaders, because his Mana Sight told him they had a marginally bigger amount of mana than the regular mooks.
Then there were the players. Of course, they were smart enough to dress up the same as the mooks currently menacing the guards while the maids crowded next to the wall of the manor, clutching their hands and trying to keep quiet and out of the way, but to Sam, it was obvious who they were.
Their mana was unique for every one of them, showing that it was made from several distinct parts, telling Sam that they probably didn’t bother to harmonize their skills and spells. ‘Probably went for what is cool…’ He scoffed a little, then for a second watched as all the players, without saying a word, began circling the lord of the manor, who was already beset by several mooks.
“Haha! You think you can defeat ME?” came the boisterous laugh as the man somehow conjured giant metal gauntlets on his equally gigantic fist and punched them together. “COME AND SEE!” He roared, but before he could launch himself at the enemy, Sam decided to call out to him.
“Go for the spikes! They’re the leaders!”
He saw the mooks visibly flinch at that, and the lord just laughed, ignored the nearest minion that he was originally targeting and jumped towards one of the attackers wearing spikes on his shoulder.
Unfortunately, Sam didn’t have much time to observe Lord Silvercrest’s fight because several enemy attackers and one of the players (standing in the back) began to menace him.
He gave them a smile, his sword ready for the fight, and made a ‘come here’ motion with his free hand.
The nameless mooks remained silent, but he heard the players scoff.
Sam smiled and deflected a clean strike, aiming for his jugular, then sidestepped another aiming for his heart, then simply took another back, pivoting and striking at one of the black-clad minions that were surrounding him.
Sadly, they didn’t do the usual evil minion thing of attacking one at a time, so he had to pay a lot of attention to where they were aiming.
Ignoring the crashes in the background as the loud lord of the manor rampaged around and as the guards yelled and grunted while fighting the fodder, he danced between the blades of his enemy, keeping one eye on them and another on the player that seemed to be positioning himself for a one strike kill.
Parry, step, parry, pivot, jump a little, step forward, slash and turn, and so on, and on and on…
Sam could have broken out his spells, but for some reason, the minions were only using weapons and he wanted to know why. Oddly, he couldn’t sense anything with his Mana Sense. ‘Maybe they didn’t want to attract the attention of the rest of the city?’ he wondered as idly sidestepped a strike, continuing the motion of his sword, and lopped the head off of the minion that overextended himself.
“One down,” he spoke, hoping to get some reaction from the mooks. But while he could see slight tensing of their bodies, they didn’t react.
There was some kind of explosion behind his back, some boisterous laughter, and with a small smile, Sam continued.
“My apologies. Seven down.”
One of the black-clad mooks raised their dagger, an ugly and dangerous-looking thing with hooks and teeth everywhere, and suddenly it was bathed in a black light that felt very familiar to Sam. ‘So, they were responsible for this…’
He didn’t wait for his enemy to do anything with that black light, knowing how insidious it was, and with a quick movement, slashed with his sword several times, combining Mana Slash and Wind Flurry several times, aimed at the probable man with the freaky dagger.
Before the rest of them could react, the extremely fast attack crashed into a barrier made of the same light that enveloped the dagger previously. The two forces fought against each other, but in the end, Sam was Sam and his enemy was a mook. The barrier shattered and the upper body of the assailant fell apart, cut into apple-sized chunks.
He had time to grimace and chastise himself for being needlessly gruesome before the rest of the mooks, visibly angry at the death of their comrade, fell on him, their weapons in the process of being enveloped by the cloying miasma that Sam was beginning to hate. ‘I’m totally getting a purifying skill after this…’
He increased the mana flowing into his Mana Shield, then began to deflect the attacks coming.
Then he felt a sudden pulse of mana. The mooks around him froze, and the player in the back exclaimed.
“Dark Bullet: Extreme Strength!”
In front of their outstretched hand was a globe of dark energy, partly made of miasma, and partly from what seemed liquid darkness. It hung there for a millisecond, and then it was launched directly at Sam and the mooks surrounding him.
Sam barely had a second to react.
“Wind Jump!”
He was just fast enough that the rapidly approaching (and expanding) ball of eldritch energy barely brushed the bottom of his feet, smashing apart the top layer of his mana shield before slamming into the ground and exploding with extreme speed.
The mooks didn’t even have time to scream before they were consumed.
‘Thank god for Flow…’
Sending a prayer to RNGods for giving him the skill, he watched as the player was enveloped with the miasma, and his hand lit up again, though thankfully this time the ball was much smaller.
“Dark Bullet! Dark Bullet! Dark Bullet!”
Three bullets were launched at him, and seeing as he was still in the air he simply raised his sword and once again slashed many times, sending a wind-enhanced storm of flurry against the approaching projectiles at the same moment he reached the apex of his jump.
The moment the storm of wind reached the bullet, the two attacks clashed, and the storm chewed up the dark magic like a certain worm eating the sand of a certain planet. And because he barely put any power into it, the spell dissipated before it could reach the player.
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Visibly angry, the man began to fire more and more bullets of dark magic as the miasma began to grow around. As he began to fall, he glanced around, taking in the situation.
Lord Silvercrest (he really needed to learn his first name) was currently fighting against three players also bathed in the dark miasma, while several mooks with spikes on their clothing were taking potshots at the man.
The ritual was still ongoing, though the wizard was visibly straining based on the beads of sweat running down his face. The lady of the house was alive but seemed to writhe as black smoke seemed to be rising from her body.
He landed on his feet, not far from the small crater left behind by the overpowered attack, and sent another flurry of wind blades, canceling the continuously increasing amount of Dark Bullets.
Eyeing the other man, he waited until he began to chant again.
“Dark Bullet! Dark Bullet! DARK BULLET!”
And launched his own Wind Bullet with a soft whisper. While he didn’t know how to cast the spell without the verbal trigger, there was no need to yell like the idiot in front of him.
“Wind Bullet.”
“DARK BULLET! DARK BULLET! DARK BULL-“
The bullet of wind struck the other man’s barrier, disrupting his casting and causing the dozen small balls of corrupting darkness in front of him to dissipate with an oddly disappointed hiss.
Though he wasn’t hurt, the man became very angry.
“What the hell?! Why won’t you die? I did all of…” he visibly swallowed his last words but it was enough for Sam.
His enemy obviously completed some kind of quest to gain this kind of power. Dark magic wasn’t exactly uncommon, but it was considered one of the ‘evil magics’ in the world of Magic Unbound that required rather specific sacrifices to upgrade. In exchange, it granted rather potent powers even at the beginning.
Which he didn’t see in the opponent before him.
However, as he observed the man, it seemed that he also came to a decision.
“It seems I have to use my full power!”
Physically cringing at the man, he primed his own spell, then launched several Wind Flurries mixed with Mana Slashes at the man. This time, at maximum power. It was high time to finish it.
To his disappointment, the moment his spell reached the man, it crashed into the dark barrier and gave his opponent enough time for a yell.
“Dark Shroud!”
The miasma enveloping the man intensified enough that Sam could feel and see the waves of black mana radiating from the man.
“Now take THIS!”
“Dark Beam!”
The moment he heard the man speak, he crouched down and slammed his hand down on the ground, creating an Earth Wall.
The beam crashed into it and Sam had to fight continuously against the corrosive black mana that seemed intent on eating away his mana.
But thanks to his Mana Disruption, the freaky mana that seemed to destroy anything it came in contact with couldn’t get a hold of his wall of reinforced earth. After several seconds of intense bombardment, the beam let up, and despite the fight going on around them, Sam could hear the aggravated breathing of his opponent.
“WHY! WON’T! YOU! DIE!” came the almost incoherent yelling, but Sam ignored it.
Carefully encasing his blade with Mana, and after a soft whisper with Wind Edge, he spoke two words.
“Shadow Burst!”
With the increased speed, he had time to jump away from his cover as another beam, twice the size of the previous one, slammed into the location he was at, obliterating everything in its path, while he winced at the feeling as the dark mana pulsing from the enemy player increased once again.
‘Apparently, he made a deal with somebody very important…’
The moment the mana increased in the man in front of him, so did in the others.
‘Or maybe with somebody, very very important…’
“OH, COME ON!” came the frustrated yell of the lord who was about to break through their barriers while the rest of the mooks were resting in pieces around them.
Giving another quick glance at the ritual, he saw that smoke rising from the noble lady was increasing, as was the white flame in the chalice.
Reaching the man in a second, he thrust his sword forward, pushing a Mana Strike to the very tip of the blade, trying to weave the spells he had on the sword. For a moment that felt like an eternity Sam feared that he had failed and his sword was stopped by the churning barrier, but then ever so slowly, the sword began to slide forward, picking up speed and ending up in the assailant’s skull through the bottom of his mouth.
For another long moment, the mana surrounding the man churned and spewed, obviously agitated, and Sam would have sworn it was angry at him, before the enemy player’s health vanished and with it, the connection to their patron.
Sam let out a relieved sigh and yanked the sword out of the man, but he had to shake his head in disgust as the miasma began to eat away at it as soon as he stopped channeling mana through it.
He threw it away and took out another sword from his inventory and turned his attention towards the other fight.
Sadly, the intensity of the mana surrounding them didn’t go down with the death of their comrade. Hell, it seemed to have grown.
Taking a stance, he waited for a lull in the fight.
It came soon as the fighting parties separated after another clash that left the dark-clad side with ashen skin (where it could be seen through the rips of their clothing) showing that the incredible amount of uncontrolled mana seemed to have an actual price on their bodies.
While the Lord seemed to be in better shape, his gauntlets were starting to get corroded at certain points.
Sam didn’t waste another second, already chastising himself for playing around at the beginning, and launched several Wind Flurries at the players trying to make him fail his quest. It was mana intensive, but it was so worth it watching them smugly tanking with their barriers, and then seeing said barriers shredded by his Mana Disruption.
They might have had enormous amounts of mana, but they didn’t even have an iota of control over it.
Of the three players still alive, one of them was diced instantly and the second one got their barriers destroyed, which the lord immediately made use of, pouncing on the man, and turning him from 3D into 2D.
The last man yelled something incoherently, but their barrier held.
Then, as Sam was looking around for the suspiciously missing ‘boss encounter’ the mana spiked once again and the man’s body seized up, freezing in place for a moment. When the episode was over, their body was relaxed, their eyes were pure black, and the previously fully chaotic mana around them began to swirl in a streamlined fashion that spoke of unbelievable control.
The eyes roamed around, taking in everything, and Sam felt the breath freeze inside him as the eyes landed on him.
“Befouler!” The voice that came out of the man resembled nothing like how a human would sound. It was deep, echo-y but at the same time grating and high pitched.
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Sam couldn’t help but roll his eyes.
“Oh, it’s you…”
Lord Silvercrest stepped up next to Sam cautiously, eyes never leaving the being that possessed the last enemy alive.
“You know this… creature, my friend?”
“Guess who had the chalice?”
“I see…”
The monster opened the mouth of the human’s body, pointed at Sam, and once again roared.
“BEFOULER!”
And at the same moment, turned around and launched himself at the barrier protecting the lady of the house and the wizard performing.
Sam launched several attacks, and the man next to him roared and jumped after the monster, but they were too slow.
The body reached the barrier with extreme speed and Sam felt a brief pulse of extremely disgusting mana, and then it exploded.
The lord of the manor let out an anguished roar, but thanks to his senses Sam saw enough and knew that while everybody was hurt thanks to the explosion (while he remained stable, Mana Shield was eroded on several spots on his body causing several small wounds to appear) the shield protecting the ritual was still intact.
Then, as the guards groaned on the ground, and the crying of the maids intensified, there was a small crack. Then another and another, until everybody could hear the tinkling of something like glass falling and hitting the ground.
Through his magical senses, Sam watched as the ritual shield broke down, leaving the participants exposed to the elements.
Sending a brief burst of unshaped wind at the garden, he sent the dust cloud away that was kicked up after the explosion.
The moment the dust was cleared away, the Lord took a hesitant step forward and cried out with relief.
“My darling Sylvia!”
The lady of the house couldn’t answer as she was currently writhing deliriously upon her divan, while the black smoke rising from her body seemed to be being sucked into the Chalice of Restraint while the white flames burned with an intensity that made it hard to look at it.
All his senses were focused on the lady and the transfer of the parasite from her weakened body into the purifying flames of the Chalice, so it was rather understandable that neither Sam nor anybody else from the household noticed as one of the maids hesitantly began to walk towards the lady of the house.
His head, however, snapped up from witnessing some rather impressive magic when the very familiar and oh-so-hated magic of the dark being returned with a rather small pulse.
It took only a second for him to find the maid within striking distance of Lady Sylvia, with eyes darker than the darkest night.
The dark being in the guise of the woman sent him a brief smirk, then raised a sword retrieved from who knows where wreathed in eldritch darkness that seemed to drip misery and struck with reckless abandon.
Then a lot of things happened in a short amount of time.
The guards all yelled out, the maids were crying even louder and the man standing next to Sam let out another anguished roar.
“SYLVIA! NOO!”
But everybody knew that they would be too late to save the lady’s life.
The only one who didn’t move was Sam, who answered the being’s smirk with a smirk of his own.
At the exact moment the maid’s hand holding the sword got near the woman, the shadows next to her bubbled, and Lucky, like a shark made of shadows, launched upwards and bit her on the hand, stopping the attack entirely.