Nick jogged forward, moving with the team to join the rest of the elites. He kept one eye on the kobalds, hoping they stayed preoccupied with the portal. The entire field full of immobile enemies reminded him of some of the open-air lectures he’d attended, hundreds of students just waiting for the guest speaker to arrive.

Specialist Howard caught his attention with a mental push against his essence field, and he turned to see the man waving him over. The thought didn’t even occur to him to tell Wesker that he was leaving before he made his way toward the front of the quickly assembling formation.

The moment he approached the specialist, Nick asked, “Are we retreating up the mountain? How can I help?”

Howard shook his head, his face grim as he replied, “No. We’re going in. Do you know how to interrupt, or better yet, close a ritual summoning?”

Nick didn’t think about what the question implied, as he was a little preoccupied with the fact that they were not going to be retreating, so he replied completely by instinct, “Of course I do! There are countless methods to disrupt a planar event, regardless of the causal event preceding it. The mos-”

Midway through his sentence, Specialist Howard grabbed his arm and started dragging him toward the are right behind the front of the formation. He frowned at the back of the man’s head, unhappy with the fact that Howard’s rude behavior almost made him bite his tongue. Suddenly the understanding of why the specialist had asked that question occurred to him, and his mouth dropped open in shock.

As they took their places behind the first line of elites being led by Captain Angelton, Nick turned to Howard and hissed, “Wait just a damn minute! Just because I know the theory doesn’t mean I’m practiced in the application. I’ve never interrupted an active ritual! And I’ve certainly never disrupted a planar rift while it was forming! Are you out of your mind!?! We have to get out of here! Do you understand what might be coming through that thing!”

While he was complaining, the rest of the elites were ignoring him and doing their last second equipment checks. By the time he finished his rant, everyone was ready to move.

Specialist Howard looked him in the eye and said, “We’re going down there, and you’re going to do what you have to do to disrupt that ritual. We cannot let them open that rift, and if we happen to fail, then we’re the ones who are going to close it. All of Dorchester is counting on us, and I’ll be damned to the hells if we let them down. We’re soldiers of Oglivarch, and you had better remember that!”

Nick didn’t know what to say in response to the specialist’s tirade. He was having trouble remembering why he was out here. Everything over the past two months had just been one thing after another that caused him to constantly be reevaluating his life choices. How did he, a researcher, end up on the front lines of a war against an inter-planar invasion?

Before Nick was able to come to terms with his internal musings, they were moving. He gripped his spear tightly and watched as the elites around him made their way down the mountainside at a jog. The melee fighters in the front were ripping the kobalds to shreds, while the support core was maintaining poorly constructed shields over their head.

Looking up, he cast a critical eye over the blue panels of spell-wrought essence construction. It was lucky the kobalds were so primitive in their application of magic, or he and the rest of the elites would really be in trouble.

He made sure to keep his feet under him, as kobald bodies were beginning to appear on the ground and he was forced to hop over them at a jog. He could see that most of the dead kobalds were a result of the captain’s ingenious use of what was obviously some type of defensive-pillar shield ability. ‘That man is incredibly talented. To be able to apply a defensive ability with the intent to cause damage is a rare achievement. The fact that his ability maintains cohesion under these conditions is a testament to his willpower and personal beliefs. He must ‘believe’ that his actions are truly in defense of something for the shields to work like they do. Seeing a divergent ability application is indeed fascinating,’ he thought.

Not wanting to waste his spear by throwing it into the horde, he occasionally cast a ‘plasma-bloom’ whenever he saw the kobalds grouping up. It was surprisingly easy to get through their essence fields, and he could only conclude that these kobalds were all incredibly young, and as a result, incredibly weak.

As they got closer to the ritual site, he could see the rift growing quickly in the material plane. Depending on how large a rift the kobalds intended to grow, they most likely weren’t going to make it in time to stop it.

On his left, he saw Specialist Howard launching some personalized version of ‘liquid-fire-lances’ from several hovering spell-forms he’d anchored to his essence field. To Nick, it was an impressive bit of war magic. Not many mages were capable of maintaining multiple spell-forms like that, and even fewer were able to anchor them to their essence fields. ‘The strain on his reserves must be immense,’ he thought to himself, as he watched the man mow down tens of kobalds at a time.

Seeing as they were almost at the rift, he could see several shamans holding up their staffs and chanting in a half-circle in front of it. However, between them stood several rows of the larger kobalds, and several robed spell-casters. ‘I believe the large ones are called ‘commanders’ and the spell-casters are referred to as ‘arcanists’ if I remember correctly,’ he remarked to himself with some interest.

Like a hammer slamming into an anvil, the front wedge of the elite formation collided with the kobald’s defensive line. The fighting was very different than what they’d gotten used to. Nick could see that the elite’s forward progress had been completely halted. While part of his attention was on helping the melee fighters in front of him by using basic support spells like ‘healing’, ‘flash-shield’, and ‘confusion’, most of his attention was on the rift currently growing behind the kobald lines.

As they were only 20 or 30 units away, he was just close enough to get a relatively good read on what was happening. He could see the shamans funneling the potential from the dead kobalds into the spell-array on the ground in front of them. Even though he couldn’t see the runic script on the array, he was surprised to see that it was laid out on what looked like large paving stones. ‘They must have etched the spell-array by hand into the stone tiles and then spent months imbuing them with essence in order to prepare for this ritual. How long have they been preparing?’ he wondered.

Using his perception field to feel around the growing rift, he tried to get a sense of how it was connected to the material plane. Ignored the sensations from the foreign essence, he completely focused on finding the approximate location of tether point. If he was lucky, it would still be weak enough to be disrupted by an ‘isolative ether-shock’.

His efforts were hindered by his essence-shield being hit by an arrow, and the resulting mental poke was enough to cause his attention to drift. Mentally growling in annoyance, he reinforced the shield’s identity matrix then returned to his examination of the rift. He was forced by circumstance to trust the elites around him to protect him while he was working.

‘There it is!’ he thought in excitement. ‘Now all I have to do is divert the incoming stream of essence from the shamans, then I can begin inverting the weave projected from the spell-array. As long as I’m able to isolate the section where the tether originates, then I shouldn’t have any problems,’ he said to himself, mentally planning his next few steps.

Alas, his efforts were in vain, because just as he touched the shamans’ ritual stream, he felt the spell-array emit a feedback pulse signaling the completion of the spell.

‘Oh, no,’ he said.

He could feel the essence around the tether grow wilder, as it was now pulling essence from the other side of the rift as well as the ethereal plane on this side of the portal. It had become self sustaining, and he could no longer disrupt it on his own. Without a group of mages working together to supress it, the tether would continue to grow until it solidified.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Looking up at the now giant portal, he saw the siege-wym that had been itching to come through finally make its appearance. At least 70 units high, it ducked its head in order to fit through the growing portal. Lucky for them, it didn’t seem to care that they were there, its only interest being crossing over so it could head off somewhere to cause havoc.

He watched the massive beast lumber forward, the side of the beast large enough to fill his entire eye-line.

Nick heard Specialist Howard shout, “Dammit Verena! Close the damn portal!”

Turning to look at the man, Nick replied, “I’m sorry Howard, I’m not sure that I can. The spell-array completed the spell-form. Everything happening now is fueled by the planar connection. It’s too big for me to disrupt at this point. It’s going to take at least 5 mages to isolate the area around the tether and I don’t think there are any mages here skilled in combination casting, are there?”

Specialist Howard’s face fell, and his floating spell-forms went silent. “No, there aren’t any combination teams here. I might be able to follow the pattern if you are in charge of weaving the flows, but it’s not really my area of expertise. Is there really nothing we can do?”

Nick looked around, seeing the elites fighting for their lives, and he felt like screaming in frustration. He knew how to fix the problem, he just didn’t have what he needed to do it. It was infuriating. He refused to believe there wasn’t a solution to be found.

His eyes were hard when he stared at Specialist Howard, saying, “You just keep killing kobalds, and give me some time to think.”

Specialist Howard pointed up at the portal and said, “Every minute we delay, that portal grows bigger and more enemy troops come through. So, think fast researcher!”

Nick grimaced at the sight of another large siege-wyrm making its way through the portal, likely heading off to join its brethren in preparing their assault on Dorchester’s walls.

All he could do was take a deep breathe, close his eyes, and focus on the problem. He reached out with his perception field, and tried to find the best path forward.

-----

Nero’s perception field stretched out, showing him the ethereal plane in all its glory. He could see the essence flows from the ethereal plane on this side of the portal mingling with the flows coming through the portal. If he mentally backed up and looked at the bigger picture, he could almost see the surrounding identity of the mountainside changing in response to the new identities being injected into the local environment.

Not letting himself be distracted, he focused on trying to locate the ‘tether’ Nick wanted him to find. He didn’t exactly know what to look for, but it seemed rather self-explanatory. So, he started by following the flows.

He discarded any flow that wasn’t being pulled, or manipulated by exterior forces. Then he eliminated anything that was calling out for attention. He figured that if the flows were actively being used, they wouldn’t be radiating an identity for him to look at. After all, it wasn’t like he could analyze a spell after it was cast, so he figured the theory was sound. Next, was the hard part.

He felt like he was trying to follow tracks on cement, looking for what wasn’t there.

In the middle of the battle, surrounded by elites, he stood there with his eyes closed and concentrated. He ignored everything going on around him, and put all his focus into his mind probe until it almost took physical shape. If he were a hippy, he’d say that he was ‘actively ignoring the concerns of the flesh to focus on the metaphysical’, but he wasn’t. Besides, he was too busy concentrating to be philisophical.

‘There you are,’ he thought, his mental voice almost absent of emotion.

Nero saw the large web of invisible essence radiating out in spokes toward the edges, while large trunks of hidden flows led off into the distance all around him. The abnormal essence flows looked like hollow tubes disrupting the standard flows throughout the ether. Following them back to the center, he saw the hole in reality for what it was, an incredibly dense knot of essence imbued with a singular purpose. Its identity was so strong that it was like a ‘law’ written into the ether, forcing the material plane underneath it to bow to its will.

His mental probe approached the knot carefully, trying to get a sense of the essence that was knotted so tightly it almost looked like empty space. Yet, the closer he got, the better he could see it. Until finally, he touched it and his entire world fell away.

He once again found himself in that space between realities. Yet this time, he was protected from the void by the tunnel around him. Even wierder, he could still feel the connection to his body. ‘Ah, I get it. Both ends of the tunnel are open. I’m looking at the connection between the ethereal planes. I bet I only lost the connection with my body at the spawner because there wasn’t a portal component there. I wonder what would happen if I broke the tunnel from the inside?’ he wondered, and then promptly chided himself for considering something so stupid.

The sight of the blackness all around him was off-putting. It wasn’t dark, there was just nothing to see, even though he could also tell that the entire place was filled with nothing but essence and potential. It was like being inside a clear straw, surrounded by invisible jello. He was sure that if Nick were here, the man would get a kick out of it.

Dismissing the thought as irrelevant, he turned around and returned to reality.

While not fully returning to his body, he let himself feel enough to connect back to his physical senses. As he suspected, his body was still standing there like a post, completely static and with a slack-jawed look on its face.

After taking a moment to clear his throat, he kept his eyes closed but asked loudly, “Hey Nick, I found the connection point, now what?”

Nick’s voice sounded excited, and a little in awe, “What’s it look like? NO! Don’t answer that right now. But, that’s amazing, you can actually ‘see’ the connection point?”

Not wanting to get into it, Nero replied, “More or less. What do I do with it?”

Nick didn’t waste any more time with his questions, and said, “Alright, first you have to squeeze the essence flows that are powering it. If you’re doing it right, you’ll see the tether begin to shrink and loose cohesion. Once that happens, there are a lot of ways to go about it, but you’re ultimate goal is to burst the tether. You need to break the connection point, how you do it is up to you. I don’t think the method of ‘essence flooding’, or even ‘localized disruption’ are worth explaining to you. Both of them rely on ancillary effects that cause the tether to destabilize as a result of the technique. I’m hoping you can act on the tether in a more direct fashion, thereby bypassing the need for multiple mages working in concert. Do you understand?” he asked.

Nero had started working the moment Nick had told him to ‘squeeze the essence flows’. As a result, Nero was barely listening to the man by the time he stopped talking.

It wasn’t difficult to find the connection points around the tether’s knot. The problem for Nero was that he didn’t understand which points were going in, and which ones were going out. To him, the flows were nearly invisible and he didn’t feel like it was all that necessary to waste time investigating them one at a time. So, instead, he just gripped all of the essence around the tether, and tried squeezing.

At first, it felt like he was stepping on a fire hose, the pressure was so strong his efforts proved futile. Refusing to be deterred, he shrunk the area he was mentally gripping, and confined his efforts to a thin shell around the tether. Curious as to what would happen, he compressed some of the ambient essence into a smaller sphere, and he was surprised to feel like he had somehow ‘firmed’ up his grip.

Hearing Nick ask, “Nero? Can you hear me? Are you having any problems?”

Nero replied with a smile, “Yeah, I heard you. I got it.”

All at once, he collapsed his grip as hard as he could, and he felt the flows connecting the tether snap like they’d been clipped by a pair of scissors.

It was like a flailing-spaghetti-explosion in the ether. The flows that were leading to the tether whipped around like the ends of a taught bow-string after it snapped. Hundreds of essence flows became visible in the ether, and he watched as the entire rift lost cohesion. He didn’t ‘close’ the rift, he shredded it.

The edges of the rift blew apart like paper, and the hole in reality seemed to forget what it was doing there, and decided to go home.

Viewing what was happening through the material plane, the sight was almost unbelievable. The 100ft tall portal seemed to explode into dust, as if it were nothing but a delicate piece of glass hit with a massive sound wave powerful enough to atomize it. On the physical plane, the area around the tether seemed to shrink like suction bomb went off. The kobalds in the area screeched like they were being pulled apart and the resulting area returned to the pristine forest it was before the ritual. There were even a few trees and bushes which reappeared as if they had always been there.

The entire battle field paused. The whole event had taken only a second, and no one seemed to understand what had just happened. Gone was the red tinted sunlight, the ash in the air was already dissipating, and even the scent of the forest seemed to be returning.

Nero, having seen the event from the perspective of the ethereal plane, realized what he’d done. By severing all the connections on this side of the tether, the connection snapped back to the other side. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he was sure the other side of the portal would be receiving all of the portal’s energy in an explosive wave blasting into their plane of existence. He could almost imagine the gigantic explosion reminiscent of a nuclear bomb going off.

Opening his eyes, he turned to see Nick standing there in complete shock, staring at the empty space which used to have a giant portal in it.

With a grin, he said, “Nick, you’re not going to believe what I did to the kobalds back in the ‘I don’t wanna live here anymore’ plane of existence.”

As if Nero speaking out loud reminded everyone around him that they were still in a war, several elites that were standing around him began murdering the stunned kobalds. Before long, the battle was back on, and the elites found themselves surrounded by thousands of kobalds, all of whom were incredibly pissed about their portal being closed.

Without being on the front-line, Nero couldn’t see much of what was happening with his eyes, and he wasn’t really sure what he should be doing. However seeing Nick casting spells, he figured he could finally start contributing to the fight in the manner he always wanted to.

‘Time to be a mage,’ he thought with a smile.