The chamber was wrought with destruction and mayhem, the air quaked viciously, leaving no room for any sort of mistake. If one took a misstep here, they would die instantly.
Not even his own barriers could keep everyone safe, proving just how powerful this commander boss was. The only one seemingly capable of lasting against such a creature was Val, but while she can keep up with it in power alone, the creature was tougher, stronger, and more ferocious. There was only so much the captain could do on her own.
Which is where the Experts come in. Zacharia was currently defending them using his earth attunement, summoning pillars of incredibly tough stone to block any sort of powerful strikes from the rampage of the two clashing forces. Zeke was ashamed that his barriers couldn’t keep up, but the power difference between a Journeyman and an Expert was too vast. He also had plenty of complaints that Zacharia himself was built defensively, and he could’ve also summoned his attunement for protection, but surprisingly Piker explained otherwise.
Zacharia wasn’t built for magic, focusing entirely on defense. Most of his mana actually charged his self buffs that improved his standing in battle, dramatically increasing his defense and regeneration. The stones that surrounded them all were basically a waste of his mana, not particularly enhanced like himself. Even if it was powerful, they were brittle, and cannot be summoned as easily as how Zeke could with his barriers.
In other words, there was a lag in his stone-making, making it difficult for him to use even at his stage. For now, he put that aside as he focused on his own task.
He summoned a barrier in the shape of a small ball that floated on top of his palm. Only a few inches in diameter, the sphere spun softly as Zeke drew runes on the ball with his floating pens.
Despite the rampaging battle occuring, he put that aside as he turned to Mikella who gladly became the first to try out his new method of attack.
He planned on creating a bomb with Mikella’s attunement-powered lightning magic surging within the barrier. While that seemed simple in question, it was easier said than done. In the end, his barrier wasn’t meant for attacking. Even now, after maxing and advancing its rarity to Epic, it cannot do anything that can resemble an attack.
Sure, there were instances when he managed to use it to do some sort of damage, like killing the bird that flew right into his barrier. But that was the barrier’s purpose–to disrupt the monster’s attacks trying to harm him. If they ended up dying because they had rammed into the magic wall, that wasn’t his skill’s fault. The person who made the skill, however, received the reward for killing it.
So he wanted to use that sort of leverage to make his skill into an attack again. Not just adjusting his skills, he wanted to see what else he could do with his barrier that could be used as damage. He read that how one would use a skill on a daily basis could help develop the skill in their own way. That worked especially well on spells, as they are more malleable compared to other types of skills. His barrier has already advanced enough to the point where it became the perfect tool for survival–not just protection, but to also help him survive by using it as the most powerful utility tool.
Through that, he decided to make the magic equivalent of pipe bombs–he was totally fine with that.
How he planned to do it went like this. First, he would create a bomb (an empty shell of a Barrier Craft with no defensive property) that’s capable of accepting others’ magical energy. At first, having others’ magical energy, their mana, enter into his barrier would make it harder to control, but his runes could easily put that issue aside.
The next phase is to use another’s magic within the barrier. Not to control it, but to simply contain it. And just by containing it, one can pour in as much magical energy as possible to make it nearly burst regardless of control, which was perfect for a magic bomb. He turned to Mikella as she went over to his outstretched hand containing the newly created Bomb Shell Barrier.
She put her hand over it and closed her eyes. A palpable feeling of power exuded from her as lightning coursed through her hands and fingers, which then poured straight into the barrier. The inside became filled with sparks, creating heavy thuds against the crystalline sphere which honestly made everyone watching it flinch back. It was a little ferocious, Zeke had to admit.
When Mikella finished, she gasped and breathed before looking over at the barrier, surprised herself at the intensity of her lightning basically trying to kick itself out of the tiny sphere. Hell, the rapid increase in intensity made Zeke’s hand tremble, causing him to hold onto his wrist as the lightning was barely managing to break itself free.
“Damn, this is…” Zeke said, gritting his teeth. “It’s hard to control…!”
This was something Mikella forced to control within her own body? Now that he had it in hand, he had to recognize the struggle Mikella went through, and he respected her even more at managing to control this fierce thing to her will.
“Zeke, hand it over!”
He did exactly that, handing the sphere to Mikella. Giving the sphere to another was easy enough. While he made it non-affixed to the air, which was what he gained after paying the price of sacrificing the defensive properties, someone else can carry it like an actual bomb. The electricity was contained within the barrier, so it wasn’t going to suddenly shock her, but that was just the physical sense. Their other senses could tell that this thing could blow at any second, and one little slip up could easily cause the barrier to break apart and bring destruction everywhere.
“You sure that’s a good idea to do?” Myra asked, noticing the discharges flashing out in short intervals.
“Not much else other than doing this,” Mikella said, adding a grin. “Besides, what better way to deal with a super powerful boss than to try out pretty dangerous ideas like this? By the way, Zeke–very nice.”
“Thank you,” Zeke grinned back. He also was proud of creating something that’s the literal definition of ‘lightning in a bottle’. “But I suggest chucking that thing ASAP.”
“Don’t need to tell me twice!”
Mikella spun and dashed towards the stone walls where Zacharia stood in wait. Looking back, he widened at the sight of the small spark bomb in her hand and gladly sidestepped out of her path.
She jumped, an incredible leap despite the short distance run, up the stone and looked up at the incredible fighting going on. Val was reaching her limit again, but she still fought with fervor against the commander. On the boss itself, it looked battered, but still raring to go. But that soon might change as Mikella raised her leg and swung her arm back.
Like a baseball pitcher, she chucked the spark bomb towards the boss with a straight, a small blast of air resulting from her throw. The stone held firm, proven by Zacharia’s power, but the rest of the chamber nearly shook from the throw.
The bomb flew in a flashy arc across the air, right when Val was flying away from dodging an incredibly wide sweep of the commander’s axe. The small sparks that flitted away as it flew looked so pretty, like the start of a flying firework.
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But contrary to the actual fireworks, what resulted was a tremendous blast of lightning that traveled through the chamber the moment it landed. The commander roared, the pressure exuding from it nearly causing everyone to stumble, including the stalwart man Zacharia. Mikella fell over from the stone and landed hard on the ground, but there was a small grin on her face as she made a fist bump in the air.
“Hell yeah!”
Her shout echoed across the chamber as the lightning dispersed and nearly destroyed the entire chamber, but despite the feeble making of it, it still held firm as the boss monster roared in pain, electricity surging through its limbs and causing it to get stunned. That’s when Val took the chance and roared.
She swung her sword forward and a blast of kinetic energy was shot out. A recreation of her sword was formed entirely through kinetic energy and blasted right at the creature at its core, where the belly was. Blood exuded from the blow, the first time it ever bled actual blood that seemed to gush out like a waterfall as the monster roared and regained its motor control, swinging its axe wide.
The others looked in shock and surprise at the impact of what they created. While it hadn’t really caused a lot of damage, it certainly distracted the monster and gave Val her chance to strike back for real. They all looked back at Zeke.
“Think you can make more?” Myra asked, completely ridding her doubt from earlier.
“Get in line!”
Afterwards, Zeke created more bomb-like creations through the use of his Barrier Craft, Runecraft, and the others’ attunements. Cloud included himself into this, using his magic to pour into Zeke’s barrier. However, despite Zeke trying his best, the power that came from the Journeyman was too much, and it broke the barrier instantly. It left a sour taste in Zeke after seeing how badly he controlled it.
Cloud reassured him that it was obvious, considering the gap in their strength. Still, Mikella, Piker, and Myra piled on to make their own versions of the bomb, creating his Bomb Shell Barriers.
He didn’t know why he made these names–it was just easier to recollect. First there was the Counter barrier, which he would’ve liked to do but the commander was way too damn strong to keep the dome barrier in check. Then the Superball barrier, the Hell Barrier, and now the Bomb Shell barrier.
He started to wonder if his Barrier Craft skill was starting to get confused, because he sure the hell was.
Putting those random thoughts aside, Zeke noticed that each Expert had their own bombs in hand. Mikella had her ‘Mikky Bomb’, filled with her lightning magic. Myra had her ‘Myra Bomb’, a bomb made with intense flames from both her attunement and her Incendiary Grasp as heat exuded instead of sparks. Finally, Piker with his ‘Piker Bomb’ literally had frost covering the barrier, and it was almost impossible to touch it without freezing your hands off unless you were Piker.
Each time, Zeke had trouble containing the magic. He figured it was solely due to the fact that in the end, it was their own energy, not his. He could only contain the energy, but he could never easily throw it. He also wondered if he could use his own attunement to charge his barriers… but that would most likely kill them all.
Mikella came up first, throwing her Mikky Bomb at the monster while Val kept it busy. This time, the commander made sure to avoid such things even at its massive height so it redirected itself to avoid the throw. However, no matter how much it tried to avoid, the sphere broke apart immediately when it landed at a nearby pillar–something that Mikella thought of beforehand.
The electricity flowed and hit across everywhere like a true explosion of a bomb, connecting it straight to the commander as it roared in annoyance rather than in pain. At that moment, Piker threw his own bomb and rather than throwing it directly, it fell at its feet.
The sphere exploded into a massive cone blast of frost, leaving a trail of ice throughout the entire flooring and deeply connecting the commander’s feet to the floor. From getting distracted by the lightning, the commander tried to get away and break the ice, but with both feet covered it proved fruitless. It easily cracked from its immense power, but throughout the time it tried to move, Val was already destroying it left and right.
That’s when Myra threw her own bomb right at its face. It was easy thanks to it getting stuck and Val only focusing at its abdomen away from the head. Despite her crazed behavior, she still had enough senses to at least listen to Cloud’s orders to avoid getting hurt, leaving Myra with a full frontal view at its head before it blazed into a furious flame.
It roared in pain, all the elements working in tandem to keep it getting hurt. It was seriously injured now, only added thanks to Zacharia coming over to attack it himself while it was frozen by its legs. It was all coming together, Zeke thought, but he felt something was off.
Unfortunately, Cloud caught it too.
“It’s about to turn berserk,” Cloud said in alarm. “Quick, everyone, get back!”
When Zeke was about to ask what it planned on doing, the commander swung its axe in a spiral above its head, roaring as blood flowed from its body in pain. The axe kept whirling around, creating a sort of vacuum around itself, like a twister forming with it at the center. But from that came suddenly an outpour of bluish water.
It formed rapidly around the twister, transforming into a physical manifestation of a whirlpool before all of a sudden, the water exploded across the entire chamber.
Water surrounded everything. Zeke could barely keep things together as he formed barriers for each one, including the Journeymen before the torrent of water took over the entire chamber. His vision turned blurry as he didn’t have the time to affix everyone to the barrier’s center, so each one, including himself, were getting jostled and swished about in the water.
Each time he hit the nearby walls and floor, something that was clearly improved to handle the immense power of the boss because they should’ve broken apart a long time ago, he hit hard even against the barrier.
Zeke hit each hardened surface with the impact of falling on the floor, and he could feel his bones nearly breaking and his body bruised beyond measure. He knew it was thanks to his Pain Resistance being high level that he could handle this much torment, but he worried for the others. At least he could heal himself, but he could only hope that the others have enough regeneration to handle the impact.
Soon the water slowed its sloshing and swirling, easily disappearing into nothingness which proved it was a powerful area of effect magic spell. As soon as the water disappeared, Zeke made the barriers disappear, finally getting everyone’s state as he himself had to shake off his confusion.
“Everyone alive?!” Zeke shouted. He wasn’t quite sure what to do, but he had to ask for something. Thankfully, everyone responded in unison to recall, relieving his worries.
He stood up, but his legs felt like jelly after getting turned around like being inside of a washing machine, but he forced himself to keep moving. Everyone else can survive–he was sure of that. But the least he could do is check on Mikella.
Looking over to where she probably might be, she found her. However, what he saw made him pale.
She was still on the floor, looking bruised but still kicking as she was trying to move. But the commander, the boss that summoned the water, was aiming straight for her with its axe. It swung wide into the air and aimed to decimate her.
“No!”
He didn’t care that his mana was already reaching low after the constant casting of his barrier and runes–he provided a barrier around Mikella.
He created two barriers which connected to one another–one that surrounded Mikella like a normal barrier, and the other that layered on top of the first to transfer kinetic energy.
The axe managed to hit on time as soon as the barriers formed, and unluckily for Mikella, the blow forced her to get blown away before she could recover, and on an added bonus–he turned the barrier into the Superball version.
Needless to say, she was jumping around the entire chamber, the force of the commander’s blow forcing the barrier to jump across the chamber in rapid succession, and funnily enough–it hit the commander in places that actually managed to hurt it.
Zeke didn’t… particularly planned that out, but he was glad that Mikella was alive at the least. If he just made an ordinary barrier, it would've been crushed immediately. But before Zeke could do anything more, he fell to his knees, the coldness of his body finally reaching him.
His vision turned blurry as the collar around his neck sparked and came to life, forcing him to stop before expending more of his mana.
Thankfully his recent stat gains made that easy. Even so, he was in the sort of pain that he can’t really describe. Not even Pain Resistance helped as the pain, along with the agonizing cold, took over his entire being and made him scream in agony.
Darkness nearly took over his vision as everyone else gathered around him. He closed his eyes, forcing himself to stay conscious. The battle was still going, and Mikella was still in danger.