Everything around her was on fire. It felt hot and uncomfortable, and no matter how many times she wished for it to stop, the fires never ended.
She was hugged tightly by Vivian, her arms caked in flames and wounds, but still held onto both her and Ana by her side. Despite her usual crazy self, Ana was really scared, hugging onto Vivian tightly.
The town was on fire, as monsters that looked like the metal knights from that horrible tower were attacking them with flying rocks that were also on fire, causing the destruction around them.
Vivian and the girls were together with the rest of the townsfolk huddled together, where dozens of soldiers were out fighting outside of town and the other soldiers sticking with them.
If Bobo was here, he would have put up a barrier that would protect them, but he wasn’t. Now so many people were getting hurt, and Vivian refused to let them go no matter what.
Even when she saw that Vivian was afraid, she kept telling them that they would be alright. She also said that to the other children that were around, cradled with their parents as their loved ones were out there fighting.
But soon one of the flaming rocks was about to land on them. Vivian and the others ran away with the children, but the flying rock made everything explode, injuring some of them.
The children were fine, but when Clara looked back, she saw Vivian down on the ground, blood marking her face.
“Vivian!” Clara shouted, hugging the downed Vivian tightly, but she wouldn’t wake.
At this rate, the attacks will keep coming. That’s when Ana prodded her.
“Let’s go to our house!” Ana shouted, her eyes brimming with tears, but she had a resolute look on her face. “We’ll use the orb!”
“The… orb?” Clara said, repeating the word.
“Mommy and Daddy said that if something bad happens, use the orb! So we use the orb!”
Clara didn’t understand what was happening, but if her Mommy and Daddy said that, that means the orb can protect them. Without anyone else noticing them going, the two ran off towards their home. They wanted to help Vivian, but she was too heavy to lift for their tiny bodies. Clara can only hope that the orb can save Vivian just as much as everyone else here.
Thankfully, the house was far away from the mayhem as most of the damage was happening at the center of the town.
They got into the house, and Clara almost wished they could just stay here. The sound of the outside was dampened, and if she hid under a bed, she could be protected.
But she knew that wouldn’t be enough. Besides, it felt wrong being the only one here along with Ana when there were so many people out there getting hurt with them.
Ana ran towards the corner of the house, then asked Clara to help her. There was a small latch on the bottom, and when Ana tried to open it, she said it was too heavy. But thankfully with the two of them, they managed to open the latch from below, opening it upwards to reveal a small staircase.
The two girls followed the staircase, the scene becoming darker. Clara was afraid, but she could hear Ana’s fervent breath as she rushed down.
Soon the darkness slowly disappeared as there was a light showing up. She noticed that at the end of the staircase was a pillar of rock, and on top of that pillar was a round ball that was glowing a bright yellow color.
“Clara, let me get on your back!” Ana said. “If anyone else touches this other than me or Mommy and Daddy, they get hurt!”
Clara nodded, clearly not wanting to get hurt by touching it herself. She went down on her knees and let Ana get on top of her. Ana was super heavy, but she refused to budge as Ana stepped up to the top of the pillar and grabbed the orb.
Ana then quickly got off of Clara and even wiped off the dirt from her back for her help. Clara saw the orb up close herself, then looked back at Ana.
“Now what?”
“I… I don’t know. I thought it was going to ‘activite’ when I touched it. It’s not working!”
Ana was clearly panicking, but Clara somehow knew that it wasn’t the case. The orb just hasn’t started working yet.
Then, she heard something. It felt… familiar, almost friendly like. The words spoken to her felt warm and kind. It reminded her of Sissy.
Then the voice disappeared, and suddenly Clara shook her head. Ana noticed her and asked.
“What’s wrong?”
“I think you need to throw it down,” Clara said, and when Ana looked at her like she was crazy. “But think about what to do with it.”
“How do you know?” Ana asked, surprised but thankful for the info.
“I heard from another friend of mine!” Clara declared, and that got Ana tilting her head. “She said she knows a lot about magic.”
“Who’s this friend?”
“Oh… she said not to tell her name. I think she’s shy,” Clara answered, tilting her head at that. Ana understood as she looked back at the orb.
“But… what do I think about?” Ana asked.
Clara hesitated slightly, but then her eyes glowed as she realized. “Bobo’s barrier!” Clara shouted, her eyes gleaming at the magic he displayed for the first time back at the tower. “Think about Bobo’s barrier, then throw it!”
Ana understood as she nodded. Then, she threw the orb of inheritance down with a loud yelp.
The orb crashed on the ground and cracked, making a sharp sound of glass breaking. But as soon as it did, a powerful feeling of a blanket covered them all. A large and wide circle showed up like the barrier, but it didn’t just go through them, but throughout the entire house.
Outside, the orb’s magic reached upwards and onwards, creating a large dome of magical energy that covered nearly half of the entire town. The other soldiers quickly noticed this and took advantage as they retreated back inside, believing this to be the work of their own mages, however misinformed they were. They left the enemy knights from the outside to charge in.
Only to get obstructed on the way in, kept out of the large barrier. They cursed as they kept slamming the newly made barrier, but it was so strong that not even their best attacks could damage it. They thought it was strange how the barrier seemingly ignored all the enemy knights and instead pushed them out–rather forcefully as some ended up with broken bones and limbs from the sudden barrier appearing.
It wasn’t all that surprising. After all, the orb was charged with the power of two Journeyman-staged parents who had to give up half their power for their child.
…..
Bouts of wind almost sliced her flesh as Mikella charged another electrified thrust at her opponent. Despite being a corpse, the damn zombieman was a terror to fight against.
First off, it feels no pain, so even if Mikella tried to do some feints here and there, it won’t matter at all if the damn thing doesn’t care whether it gets hit or not. Second, she had little choice but to avoid getting hit, so most of her attacks were just grazes on its pale rotting flesh as she tried to get away.
She was glad that Zeke wasn’t around to provide a barrier as the battle was too close for comfort. If she was too far away, the zombieman would strike her down with a ranged twister-like attack, and that can extend pretty damn far.
She wasn’t sure how, but the air just traveled around everywhere, having a will of its own as it tried to corner her and slice her. She had little choice but to keep it close-combat, but that didn’t help much either as the zombieman’s every strike with its punches were packed with enough quickened momentum that it could split her skull in half with just a jab.
She kept pouring her will into her strikes, using the Sword of Lightning as a source of external power rather than an actual weapon. She instead used her own enchanted steel sword to deal the strikes, using only the Sword of Lightning as a guard of sorts to deflect the attacks rather than outright shielding her.
She felt her Class Madness actually creeping up on her, no longer kept at bay due to Zeke finally being safe. But there was one bit of good news that kept her sane. First, the zombieman was such a hard monster to fight that she had little choice but to put all her mental energy to survive. There was also that psychopath kid Alex. His example of his class taking over his mind was a good deterrent to keep her from losing control, but the two have clearly different ideologies when using their classes.
The zombieman rushed forward, dealing an uppercut straight towards her, but she managed to duck and weave about. However, the burst of sharp wind managed to get her, slicing up her collarbone and upper torso.
She considered switching weapons, perhaps to gain an edge, but she quickly threw that idea away. It wasn’t as if using a spear or an axe could help anyway, but worse yet, if she lost the sword, she wouldn’t be able to use most of her Class skills.
So she fought on, her hands gripping tightly to the hilt of her sword while slicing at the monster at three times per second. Yet as though the very air supported the zombie, it managed to avoid every hit and deliver a corkscrew punch straight to her jaw.
Pain exploded across her face as not only her face felt like it was breaking apart, wind rushed through her as her skin was cut up. Meditation worked overtime as she fell over to the ground, blood pouring from her mouth and nose while her jaw felt off balance, almost broken.
> Meditation Level Up! It is now Level 6.
>
> You have gained +1 INT from your skill.
Reaching over half her resources spent, she was fighting a losing battle. But if she fought hard enough for the others to keep fighting and hopefully win, they would come back to her for backup.
But when she looked around for a moment, she couldn’t believe her eyes. Not only are Myra and Piker still trying to keep that damn earth-based zombieman down, but even Zeke was fighting.
Against Alex of all people.
Alex looked just as baffled as Zeke summoned a square-shaped barrier the size of his hand. With incredible speed, he drew runes on that barrier facing Alex. A powerful gust of wind exploded out towards Alex, causing him to squeal.
Despite the situation, Mikella couldn’t help but smirk at the sight.
“Heeeh!” Alex whined. “Hey! What the hell man!? You can’t attack me!”
“Why not?” Zeke asked, but clearly he had no intention of going into another conversation as he summoned another barrier to redo his runes. It looked like the first barrier broke apart when he did that spell, so he had to continuously create his medium barriers to create his runic spells.
“B-Because it’s unfair!” Alex gave off a weak argument before turning to Mikella’s opponent. “You! Kill him, now!”
As it was ordered, her opponent turned around, literally ignoring Mikella as it headed straight for Zeke. She growled as she took the chance to pounce on the air-based zombieman and stabbed it right on the leg.
It managed to divert itself as though it knew she was coming, so it leapt away and faced her once again. Mikella gripped her sword while she noticed that Zeke wasn’t pulling back.
She hated that Zeke was facing their world’s equivalent of a serial killer, but she knew that if he managed to take him down, all of this mess would be over with. But no matter how often Zeke tried, it looked like Alex had his own tricks up his sleeve.
He could also cast spells, and each time he aimed his hand, a blast of dark energy exploded out of his palm and headed straight for Zeke. He managed to summon a barrier to protect him, grimacing at the impact before summoning another rune spell to do another wind attack.
It was a full on mage battle against the two as the runist and necromancer fought each other, with Zeke looking rather depleted while Alex grinned, realizing that Zeke was already low on mana at this point. All the while Alex barely used up his own while his underlings did everything for him.
Of course, this all happened while Mikella forced herself to fight against the zombieman trying to aid his master. They were at a bind, and unless they don't do something, one or the other will fall.
The zombieman rushed forward to swing a fist at her, causing her to sidestep. Once again, the small swing caused small gusts to fly out and blow her off, distoring her stance and almost falling to a sucker punch which could have tore her head off.
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Even after stabbing the damn thing, it refused to kneel. And after everything Mikella tried to fight back, it just reacted with a supernatural speed thanks to its air-flavored mana coursing through its deceased veins.
If she doesn’t do something, she’ll end up getting tired out, and the zombieman will go after Zeke and eventually kill him. Myra and Piker were currently taking out the earth zombieman, and by keeping its attention, it won’t go over and protect Alex, who if he gets away–it’ll only end with everyone reaching a never-ending battle with the zombies.
She didn’t know whether she had too many gusts of wind at her head, but she had an idea. It was an incredibly stupid idea. Almost at the same level as Zeke’s recklessness. Then again, he always had a knack for getting away with it.
So why can’t she pull it off? They were linked, after all.
She looked back at her notification after she leveled up to 30. It didn’t mention any source of mana she could take, not even a simple mana boost like all the others.
However, she observed that there were actually plenty of outside sources of mana to take from.
Of course, there was the air based zombieman in front of her, the fire attuned Myra and the frost-covered Piker fighting against the earth-based zombieman. Zeke and Alex were totally out, unable to do anything.
But her mind quickly reached the conclusion. No matter what element was available, there were only two that she could think of. And while the air mana was certainly useful in a lot of ways, deep within herself, she knew what element fit her best.
As her mind was unraveling what was probably the most dangerous plan yet, the zombieman reacted to her splendidly by trying to summon as much wind as possible. It looked like it had enough of always missing her and decided to finish her off once and for all. It gathered up around its body, almost filling itself out and turning into a twister surrounding its body. Burst of air surrounded it, leaving behind a force of wind that could blow a brick house away.
Putting her enchanted sword to the side, she pulled out her Sword of Lightning and looked at it closely. Her eyes could see small traces of mana without it being active, proof that she was starting to get used to seeing mana without the skill Mana Perception.
She remembered the talks she had with Zeke about controlling mana. Almost like kinetic energy, it would course through her channels, however it was dependent on her intent and will unlike her stamina which was inherent and internal, like blood.
She was trying to learn Mana Perception as much as she could throughout the past months, considering that Val told her that while warriors don’t necessarily need magic to fight, it was important to see mana around her more accurately to fight better. But she never really had a good grasp of it unlike Zeke which, even without magic spells, had a keen eye for this sort of stuff.
But if she doesn’t focus on it properly, it would most likely end with her dying. Having done her mental rundown of Zeke’s lesson to heart, she rushed ahead.
Her hand over the yellow-tinged blade, she closed her eyes and willed her intent into the blade. She wanted to take the power, to control the ever powerful lightning that had destroyed her enemies for so long.
She can’t get stronger if she doesn’t take risks. If she can’t get stronger, she can’t protect Clara and Zeke. So no matter the cost, she will get stronger.
She ignored the zombieman entirely as it rushed at her faster than anything else she had fought. But by the time the zombieman was ready to tear her apart with its twister, Mikella took hold of the sword’s power, it’s essence.
The lightning from within was forcibly dragged out of the sword from her powerful will and swallowed her whole.
The pain followed after that, turning everything around her completely white.
As pain followed after, not knowing whether the zombieman might kill her at that moment, she saw the notification suddenly propping up before her. The earlier attunement notification changed, now showing two options.
> Attunement available:
> Air
> Lightning
The first option was clear that the attack was way closer than she would’ve preferred. She didn’t even know if taking that particular element might actually kill her. But she knew her choice right from the start. She chose Lightning, and soon everything exploded in her mind.
> You have chosen Lightning as your attunement.
>
> Your channels will now be infused with the essence of Lightning.
Everything was blown away. Her senses, her awareness, her very being just vanished in a blink of an eye. She knew something was changing, and as time moved onwards, that change was slowly becoming more and more painful.
Something invaded through her being. It was the foreign mana she was accepting into her soul. She could feel the electricity coursing through her channels, dominating her essence. She could feel the energy coiling around, almost like a living thing.
It was turning sentient. The more time passed, the more that foreign energy realized that it was in a new environment. And it wanted control over it.
Fortunately, she gathered her awareness to find the outside source trying to take over. Before, she put aside the feeling of madness away from her class, away from her being.
But now was the perfect time to use it. She poured all of her consciousness into her madness, and let it take control.
That very madness swarmed all over her essence, meeting the foreign energy face to face. Her class madness was making its stride as it considered her essence as its territory, and the foreign energy an invader to its home. Of course, this all occurred while Mikella was going through the worst pain in all of her life, much higher than accepting a new skill, something that shook her to the soul itself.
But somehow, that was all moot compared to the conflict between her madness, charged by her will, and the incoming influx of electrifying energy trying to vaporize her. The two wrestled for control, trying to overtake one another. Mikella poured in all of her will and intent to stop the energy from destroying her.
But then she shifted her viewpoint. She didn’t want to stop the energy and use it half-heartedly.
No. She wanted to own it. To claim it for herself. It belonged to her and her alone.
With everything on the line, she poured all of her remaining resources, her stamina, mana, and even her own life energy to combat the incoming energy. With all that into account, plus with her class’ madness fighting on the sidelines, the cornered energy had nowhere to go.
And soon she devoured it whole.
…..
Her eyes opened to find herself in the same large stone hall as before. Looking ahead, she saw the same zombieman shaking, as though recovering from some attack it didn’t realize it took.
Then it looked at her. It stood there, tilting its head at her. At what she had become.
Looking back at herself, she was charred like crispy barbeque. Her skin was soot black and burnt all over, wounds appearing and bleeding in certain parts. The mix of her Endurance, Vitality, Meditation, and Pain Resistance had saved her,
But despite the awful look of being burnt into a crisp, she didn’t feel that bad. There was pain, for sure, but that was just her body reacting to it as intended. To her, the pain was nothing.
The power, however, caused her to stand still in awe. It radiated off of her, like an aura. Force exuded from her as electricity now coiled around her own body, that very same electricity filling her channels and charging her body to the brim, and perhaps beyond.
Her mind grew sharper, as though she just drank copious amounts of concentrated caffeine. The colors were vibrant, and even her other senses sharpened to the point of acting as though she had a third-person point of view.
She looked back at her blinking notifications and saw a slew of boxes lining up for her to see.
> Attunement process completed.
>
> You have gained Unbridled Fulmination.
>
> You have gained +5 STR from your attunement.
> You have gained +5 DEX from your attunement.
> You have gained +5 INT from your attunement.
> You have gained +2 SPI from your attunement.
> You have gained +2 VIT from your attunement.
> You have gained +2 END from your attunement.
…..
> You have chosen your attunement.
>
> You are able to advance.
>
> You are now an Expert.
>
> As your reward for advancing to Expert, you are eligible to evolve your Class. Choose your evolution on the list and further strive for ascension.
>
> Due to choosing your attunement, your mana has now permanently changed to that of Unbridled Fulmination.
…..
> Unbridled Fulmination
>
> You are now able to use the lightning element as part of your mana. You gain passive abilities.
>
> Control Lightning: You are capable of commanding lightning to a certain extent.
>
> Conjure Lightning: You are capable of summoning lightning as long as you have the mana.
…..
> Pain Resistance Level Up! It is now Level 7.
>
> You have gained +1 VIT from your skill.
> You have gained +1 END from your skill.
She looked back at her fingers, realizing that the electricity doesn’t even hurt her despite literal sparks coursing through her charred skin. She played around with it, the sparks traveling across her hand. She barely felt a thing despite the pain going through to her.
She did notice, however, that the zombieman in front of her was charging in for another strike. Air gathered around its fist, trying to take her out with it.
Looking back at it, she was afraid of ever getting hit by such a thing. Now… she honestly felt that it was so weak.
And slow. So very slow. It was hard to imagine she had a tough time keeping up with it. The moment the fist was swung and approached her face in mere inches, she ducked away and delivered a round house kick straight across its temple.
Her legs were charged with her kinetic and magical energy, and that Mana has become the definition of lightning itself. Rather than just kicking its head, she caused the zombieman’s head to explode as it flew all the way across the hall and landed on the wall, the stone breaking apart from the impact alone.
It was as though a clap of thunder ensued from the force, but she didn’t care about that. All she cared about was that she barely moved, wanting nothing more than to just push the bastard away. She didn’t mean to actually deal damage to it.
But she smirked all the while. She noticed that her Sword of Lightning was no more, now just bits and pieces of broken metal laying by her side. She winced at the sight, as though she willingly killed her partner for this power.
However, she looked at it in a different way. While the body was gone, the soul was now within her, her partner now infused within her soul.
She charged after the zombie, practically teleporting straight there. On the way, everything became a blur.
Before the zombieman could even do anything, she grabbed her enchanted sword and aimed the blade at it.
She didn’t realize that her sword, despite having increased durability, looked just as charred as her, but was still able to keep steady. She channeled her kinetic and electrified Mana into it, straight to the blade, before flaring Heavenly strike.
The culmination of her kinetic energy, her newly aspected Mana, and her Heavenly Strike made it all the more destructive.
The moment she delivered a strike straight through the chest of the zombieman, it was over. A powerful explosion forced the wall behind the zombieman to break apart, its body along with it. There wasn’t even a shred of guts and blood as everything was just burned away by the lightning. Energy of the system coursed through her which felt paltry compared to the power she had now.
As her opponent finally died a true death, she turned back to the others, relieved and disturbingly pleased. But she frowned after seeing the situation around her.
Zeke looked bloody and ragged. His robes were torn and some parts of his body were wounded. On the other hand, Alex looked like he was having the time of his life, sneering at the man before him while showing no wounds on his own end, his hands being the only change that were nearly pitch black.
“You got nothing on me, heal bot!” Alex shouted, a manic gleam in his eyes. “You can’t kill me with your crap damage! You got nothing on me!”
Alex shouted once more as he tried to cast that weird black magic again from his hand. Mikella realized by that point that Zeke’s Mana must have run out while she was busy with her own business.
She tried to rush ahead, but her energy suddenly turned traitor on her. She knelt to the ground, her chest heaving as she felt the power within her becoming too much to bear. Her eyes burned as she felt her aspected mana causing a ruckus in her body.
It was a miracle she managed to control herself so far, but now that the dopamine and the adrenaline was gone from finishing that battle, the energy turned crazy. It wasn’t trying to kill her, she knows that much. She just needed time. Despite finally taming the energy, it was still foreign to the body, nearly breaking down by the atom and recovering itself just as quickly thanks to her Meditation skill.
But she feared that Zeke might not have enough while she was busy with her own end. All the while, Myra and Piker were still dealing with their own problematic zombieman, though it did look like they were making progress. The earth zombieman was being frozen and burned all this time, the effects of opposing elements starting to corrode the earth around it, like the seasons creating chaos on the parched earth.
But it wasn’t enough.
She looked ahead to see the black magic coursing through Alex’s hand to reach over to Zeke. Before her eyes could adjust to what was happening, Zeke took the hit.
Zeke actually took the hit.
“Zeke!”
Mikella shouted, her cries of fury raging from her throat, but her energy, her aspected mana, took control and made her cough blood. Pain ensued all over.
But she would gladly bleed over and over if it meant saving Zeke. She forced herself to push the energy down, but it was like trying to combat a waterfall with her bare hands. It refused to bend to her will no matter how hard she pushed.
She looked ahead, tears of pain brimming her eyes. She could barely see, but she knew that a dust of cloud was getting in the way of her vision.
Zeke wasn’t there in the cloud of dust, but she paused. She still felt her link.
“I finally took the damn barrier mage down. Damn it, that bastard was totally not worth the–”
Suddenly a white cloud engulfed the scene. Her eyes turned blurry at the sudden crystaline white colors that overwhelmed the dullard gray color of the stone hall. There, she realized it.
Butterbirds. Butterbirds flying everywhere.
It was such a mess that it crowded the entire room. Even Myra and Piker seemed off put by the birds, but quickly realized that they were harmless. If anything, it was distracting mostly the earth zombieman that suddenly started wailing its arms around, giving them a chance.
As for Alex, he just squealed.
“Aaah! What the fuck are these things?!” Alex screamed, expecting that the birds were dozens of familiars ready to peck its eyes. “Disgusting freaks, what even are these bugs!?”
“They’re butterbirds!”
A scream full of primal fury ensued as a sword plunged through the teen’s chest. His breath was caught in his throat as blood was expelled from his lungs out of his mouth. He wheezed and whined as he slowly lifted his now bloody hands up towards his chest, unable to even comprehend the blade still stuck to his torso.
Mikella widened her eyes to find none other than the dirty and tired, but still very much alive Zeke.
“Y-You… dirty ch–”
Before Alex could finish, Zeke pushed the necromancer down to the ground, his sword still in his chest. Alex landed with a pained grunt as he tried to summon more Mana to take Zeke away, but Zeke wasn’t done.
Summoning the last vestiges of his Mana, he summoned a barrier on top Alex, but only above his arms. Then, putting his hand on top of the hilt of the sword still stuck to the teen, he forced the sword down.
Zeke’s sword plunged deeper into the teen, getting more screams and shouts from him as the sword dug deeper into the body, possibly deeper into the ground itself.
The barrier kept Alex pinned, forcing Alex to stay still and have the sword further plunging into him. Zeke gritted his teeth, pain and misery written all across his face.
After many cries and whines, Alex finally stopped. He turned limp as he finally breathed his last.
Alex died right there, underneath Zeke’s sword and his barrier.