Novels2Search

Chapter 180 - Death?

Howling Cyclone: Using Air mana, create a miniature cyclone of air reminiscent of a small tornado at a designated starting point. The cyclone will pick up all objects within its path, battering all within and disrupting line of sight. The end location may be moved during the duration.

Duration: Variable.

You have been the target of a failed Identify.

You have been the target of a failed Identify.

As the Howling Cyclone tore itself across the dim cavernous room, picking up bits of metal and rubble, creating a whipping torrent of shrapnel surging forth into the darkness, Lee took stock of his mana in the short reprieve before the fight truly began in earnest.

MP: 523/800

Good enough. He thought, eyes scanning ahead and willing his miniature tornado to head towards the flickering of green darting through the mounds of gold and silver. The two dragons, Lupin and Emaz, barked out bizarre squeaks and chirps, reminding him of what Jurassic Park’s Velociraptors sounded like. It wasn’t a defined language, as Language Comprehension would have picked up on it and translated it, but it was obvious that it was some form of communication.

Lee kept his back to the wall he’d been thrown into, ensuring that he only had one direction to face and debated running away. The thought only lingered for a second, as he realized running away would lead these two whelps to the defenseless prisoners he’d escaped with. He wasn’t a hero, no matter what Nymie said, but he wasn’t callous enough to run from a fight he knew he could win and let people die for it. Especially when those same people deserved better—A second chance at living life, something he deeply understood.

The whipping winds of his cyclone petered out as the spell faded, dropping coins and rubble to the ground, creating loud tinks and clangs as coinage rolled and bounced.

The two dragons were nowhere to be seen, their barks now nonexistent as silence settled down onto the life and death arena he’d found himself in. Without a care in the world, Lee began launching Earthen Strikes into the distance at random, hoping to flush out his foes.

The first few amounted to nothing, the first dozen, even the first thirty, but he was bound to find success sooner or later, as he could do this literally all day. That moment eventually came, as one of the green dragons slithered its way low to the ground between two piles of now broken and smashed coins. In that brief second in which he laid eyes on his foe, Lee cast both Manual Breathing and Manual Blinking.

When out of sight once more, Lee only had to wait a few seconds before a harsh and awkward exhale and inhale could be heard. Not willing to rush into action just yet, Lee set the field with another spell. With a flick of the wrist, a dark and gray magical circle spun and coalesced from thin air, expanding into a large and flat plane roughly the size of half of the room before shooting down and sinking into the ground.

Reaping Field: Using Death mana, create a large area suffused with Death, sapping all energy and dealing a small amount of damage to all within its area of effect.

Area: 1000 sq feet - Variable.

Duration: 1 Minute - Variable.

Cost: 15 MP + Variable.

Variable spells were handy, as by pumping mana into the spell, he could change the parameters. By spending forty-five instead of fifteen, the normally thirty foot diameter doubling to sixty. Immediately, startled hisses erupted from the stealthed dragons, then out they came.

Slinking up from the exit, one of the dragons prowled forward, hissing with its maw and causing drops of acid or poison to pool from within, singing the floor and sizzling the ground where it landed. Wasting no time, Lee cast Depth Pressure and blasted it with as much force as the spell could muster.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

In a poof of green fog, the dragon vanished. Eyes wide in surprise at the unexpected ruse, Lee dreadfully turned his head to the sound of clattering coins to find the very same dragon pouncing towards him. With no time to react, Lee was slashed with a savage rake of draconic claws. His flesh, forty-five constitution or not, wasn’t capable of giving the feeblest of resistance. The bones of his arm and chest fared none the better, getting sliced through with such ease that it even gave the dragon some manner of surprise, judging by its overshot as it slid and smashed with its remaining strength into the corner of the entrance.

-348

With a mental thanks to the gods about Antestheliosurge still being in effect, he cast a quick Mend Wounds on himself. For some reason, even in this fight of life and death, the thought that this was maybe the first time he’d ever done so popped into his head. He chaulked that up to his skill Dauntless Will and immediately shot a quick succession of Death Bolts and the reeling dragon. When it tried to slink away through the piles of glittering gold, Lee cast Bulwark of Ice and Wall of Earth to stop its retreat.

Then, with a blaring alarm of his wisdom screaming at him to move. Lee dropped to the ground as a shimmering claw slammed into where his head had been. Slowly, crawling up the foreleg of the second dragon, a wave of glittering stars traveled through the air, revealing the formerly invisible foe.

Gale Burst did next to nothing. The blast of air was not enough to cause the reptile to flinch, but enough to send Lee back sliding across the ground from the blowback and into safety.

He could end the fight right now with Antithesis of Healing. He knew he could turn these two fledglings into nothing more than a soup, but doing so would leave him with nothing for Dendros if he made an appearance. Without Antithesis of Healing, he would be at his mercy once again, and nothing would bring him back to that cell.

A blast of poisonous fog launched his way as he finished his backslide, causing him to use another Gale Burst to disperse the deadly mist and launch him back into the same wall the other dragon had rammed into.

With no better chance to his a never before used skill, Lee focused on both dragons within his eyesight and used Spell Tether, linking them together for better or for worse.

Spell Tether: Link two targets within line of sight to one another with a thread of fate, causing spells or effects cast on one to be mirrored onto the other. Non-targeted spells that affect one target will also affect the other. Non-targeted damage will be split between the link.

Cooldown: 1 hour.

The blocked off dragon tried to ram straight through the Wall of Earth, not trying its luck with the jagged and spiked Bulwark of Ice, nearly shattering the stone wall with one ram. Instead of pushing forward, it turned and lunged back toward Lee’s downed form.

Lee rolled, narrowing avoiding the hasty lunge but leaving him open for the point blank puff of poisonous breath, before he could reel from the safe detrimental effects from before, a blistering heat from his left sailed forward. The green ball of flames collided to his side and ignited the cloud of poisonous vapor in an explosion that shook the cavern.

Smoke, rubble, and a deafening boom was all that could be seen or heard in the aftermath of the absolutely disastrous combination attack from the two dragons—Whether it was Intentional or not.

The duo didn’t come out of the attack unscathed, singed scales and blackened bits clung from their bodies as he snarled and reeled from the pain. Pain which was twofold as Spell Tether shared the wounds from one to the other and vice-versa. The green fireball, the same the red-robed mage healers used, was a spell, after all.

-502

As the smoke cleared, and the sound of the rapturous explosion echoed throughout whatever dragon conclave they were in, letting any and everyone who heard know that a battle was underway, the two dragons swiveled their heads, looking for their foe.

On the ground, fifteen feet away from the center of the explosion, Lee was sprawled, face down and still. His Robes of the Genesis half destroyed, his underclothes burnt away and his raw reddened and blackened flesh sent wipsy trails of black smoke off his body.

Emaz did as all beings with the ability Identify did.

Lee Barnes - Human (Dead) - Level: 57 Miracle Worker (Legendary)

With barking cries and roars, the two juvenile green dragons announced their victory, their snouts held high.