Orlan spun his spear around so fast it was nearly invisible to the naked eye, with every rotation the bladed tip sliced through one or more spectral fish the great beast had summoned. Almost dancing through the storm of flying fish not a single one escaped his blade and, after only a handful of seconds, the entire school had been destroyed, the remains dispersing into the air. Individually the summoned fish and other aquatic creatures weren’t much of a threat, but more were constantly pouring from the casting limbs of the beast.
The fifth tier spell he’d been preparing while fighting off the summoned creatures finished and Orlan stabbed his spear out, using it as a conduit for the spell. Another bolt of black lightning, limed in white, shot through the air towards one of the casting limbs. The bolt tore any summoned creature that got too close to it to shreds, expending a small amount of energy as it ripped through the swirling cloud of magical fish. By the time it reached the main creature’s limb nearly half of its power had been expended, barely managing to fracture the dense carapace. His knights attempted to follow up on the opening, firing a series of spells at the damaged limb, but the crab monster had learned from the past, spinning its body faster than a beast of that size should have been able to move. Most of the spells either missed or wasted their energy on undamaged limbs, causing minimal damage.
Protector Lords, and their bonded knights, had greater mana pools and regeneration rates than most mages of their level, but this beast seemed to have a limitless supply. It must have cast nearly a hundred spells at third tier already and was still going strong. Giant beasts like this often broke the normal rules of magic, despite being third sphere Orlan wouldn’t have bat an eye if he was told it was fifth sphere equivalent.
“Where’s that damned missile,” Orlan cursed, looking to the north where he knew the submarine was.
\-\-\-\-\-
“What are you doing to it?” one of the men in charge of the magazine asked as the lady knight used a spell to etch markings onto the outside of the missile.
“Placing a simple enchantment anchor on this weapon and hoping it allows the spell to stick to it,” she replied, finishing half of the etching and reaching for the missile to turn it over. The man moved to help her turn the six-foot missile over, only to watch in shock as she easily managed it with one arm and began etching again.
“You said this… projectile explodes, right?” she asked without looking up.
“Ya, there’s a sizeable explosive warhead right under where you’re… painting?”
“How is it launched?”
“A charge of compressed air pushes it from the launch tube, then the rocket motor takes over from there.”
“It’s a rocket?” she looked up, surprised, “I’ve never seen a rocket this large.”
“Technically it’s a missile,” the man replied, “meaning it’s guided.”
“A rocket guided to the target without magic, impressive,” she nodded, finishing up the etching and taking a deep breath before casting another spell, this one with three rings, “I only know one spell that might work, it’s supposed to be used on cannon shells to enhance and focus explosive force, but it should work here.”
“Ok,” the man said awkwardly, simply watching as she finished her spell, the etchings on the missile’s housing glowing slightly.
“There,” she said, standing aside while wiping sweat from her forehead, “the enchantment should hold for at least fifteen minutes.”
The man nodded and, followed by a handful of others, they quickly pushed the missile into the loading arm, turning it upright and finally loading it into the tube. After checking the connections were secure and the hatches were shut he nodded to another man across the tight deck who picked up a phone to inform the bridge the weapon was loaded.
“So, are you going to stick around after this?” the man asked.
“No, I’m heading back to the Protectorate,” she sighed, “I’m not much of a spy, to be honest, I much prefer scouting.”
“Oh,” the man replied, sounding almost disappointed, the room shuttering as the missile was launched, the roar of its engine momentarily drowning out all other sounds. By the time the man turned back to where the lady knight had been standing she was gone, all he saw was a strand of mist flowing out of the room.
\-\-\-\-\-
“Uhh, is leveling up always like that?” Amy asked as she recovered from discovering her mana, lifting an arm to cover her face.
“Yours seemed worst that most,” Topaz replied, “typically its only breaking through the bottlenecks where it’s hard.”
“How long was I out?”
“What do you mean?
“The sun is up, have I really been laying here all night?” Amy asked, still covering her eyes.
“It’s still night, you’ve only been out for a few minutes,” Ruby said.
“Impossible,” Amy grumbled, pushing herself up and blinking her eyes open, “it’s not this bright at night.”
The two sisters instead of reply exchanged a glance and a grin before Topaz pointed up at the sky. Amy followed the gesture and froze as she saw a sky full of stars, after a long moment of surprise she looked down at her hands and around at the others sitting on the hillside watching the distant battle then back up at the star filled night sky.
“How?” she asked.
“Seems we already know your first inherent ability,” Topaz said with a smile, Ruby jumping in and giving Amy a hug.
“Those… abilities you get from forming a sphere?” Amy asked in surprise, idly returning the hug while looking at Topaz, “mine is… what, dark vision?”
“There’s probably more to it than that, you said your mana was Night, correct? Maybe it lets you see as clearly under the night sky as you can during the day,” explained Topaz, “so in a dark room you couldn’t see, but outside at night you can. Or maybe the moon is what lets you see, so on a moonless night you’d still be blind. Or it could be that you can simply see in the dark.”
“That seems… kind of lame,” Amy admitted, “all this magic only giving me same ability as a pair of night vision goggles.”
“Don’t worry!” Ruby said, pulling back from the hug and meeting Amy’s gaze, “maybe you’re just stronger at night! That would, of course, include your vision.”
“Or more likely it’ll end up being simple but grow more powerful as you form more spheres,” Topaz added, “It’s not uncommon for your core innate to grow and change as you get stronger.”
“Ok,” Amy said, not sounding quite convinced, before looking down at her body, “I don’t feel any different either, wasn’t this supposed to make me stronger?”
“It does, but it doesn’t happen right away. The sphere will enhance your physical abilities, which Orlan calls ‘stats’ for some reason. What aspects are enhanced and by how much vary, but they don’t happen immediately. It takes time for the mana to augment your body.”
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“But now you can do magic!” Ruby nearly shouted, earning glares from some of the other spectators, with a sheepish smile she continued in a quieter voice, “it’ll be hard at first but we can start teaching you some basic spells later!”
“With Night mana, I’ll probably have an easier time teaching her than you, dear sister,” Topaz said, smiling at the pout Ruby gave her, “I use Moon mana, so there should be some overlap in what we’re capable of.”
“I use Sun mana!” Ruby added cheerfully.
“For now let’s… wait,” Topaz started only to pause and turn as something flew past the floating island on a tail of fire, rocketing towards the beast, “what is that?”
\-\-\-\-\-
“Looks like there’s a rocket incoming,” Nallia reported in her usual monotone voice through the telepathic link.
“That’s our support,” Orlan replied, “light the beast up, clear away those summons!”
Moments after he gave the order a swirling column of wind enveloped the beast, it didn’t do any damage but the summoned flying fish shot into the air. They dove down but struggled against Alia’s powerful wind magic. Bursts of fire, exploding like fireworks, among the cloud of glowing fish sowed even more chaos among the artificial beings. While slightly smarter than the normal fish, due to being made of magic, they still didn’t understand fire, scattering from the bright lights.
The large missile screamed into the chaos, moving erratically as whoever was guiding it struggled to keep it on target, before slamming into the side of the beast. The explosion was sudden, ripping into the carapace of the giant creature, strands of mist being driven deep into the armor by the force. The beast staggered, groaning in pain, and fell over. The limb Lailra had covered in vines cracked loudly as the beast fell, tendons tearing and cartilage snapping under its own weight, the entire limb ending up at an odd angle.
As the smoke and mist cleared one side of the beast was clearly damaged, a ten-foot-wide crater blasted into the carapace while yellow ichor leaked from cracks that covered almost the entire side of the beast. All of the spells it had been casting were disrupted, the caster limbs flailing in confusion for a few moments.
“Keep it down!” Orlan shouted, running across the ground and then into the air towards the fallen monster.
He could sense his knights agreeing, spells raining down on the beast. Shackles made of light, more entangling vines and hardened air all prevented it from rising as Orlan landed next to the crater left by the missile. Taking a deep breath he lifted his spear over his head with one hand.
“Kayla-Dorn, spear of two worlds, I call upon you and request your aid in my endeavor,” he intoned while channeling mana into his void strike inherent ability. For a moment nothing happened, and Orlan was briefly afraid the spirit of his weapon had refused to help, only for the blade of the weapon to erupt in purple fire. With a wide grin he felt as more and more of his mana was siphoned away, with each passing moment the purple flames of his weapon growing denser and more chaotic.
The beast shifted under his feet, and he struggled to keep his balance. He couldn’t move until the attack was completed, and even with his immense mana pool it took time to channel it all.
Rings of dark mana appeared around the tip of his weapon, each sparking with barely controlled power as his inherent ability was combined with a spell, something which should have been impossible. Void strike worked only with weapons, he couldn’t use the void mana to cast a spell as he didn’t truly wield the corrosive mana, only creating it and pushing it into his target. But the spirit of his spear could make use of the dangerous mana, and though he had little control of what spell the spirit decided to cast, he trusted the weapon.
The fourth circle filled with runes only for a fifth to appear. It seemed the spirit was going all out, normally she was more reserved, perhaps she was upset with how her wielder had been treated recently, or she simply wanted to show off, Orlan couldn’t tell but he didn’t care.
Sensing something was going on the crab beast lashed out with its upper caster limbs, slamming into its own carapace and cracking it more in an attempt to crush Orlan. Despite the danger the Protector Lord remained still, while willing to injure itself, the beast still instinctively avoided hitting itself right on the wound where Orlan stood. The limbs were awkward and had a hard time sweeping side to side. It’s first attempt to do so passed a dozen feet over Orlan’s head. Becoming desperate the beast groaned loud enough that the entire island seemed to shake, small stones dancing on the ground while concrete fractured and trees shivered.
Finally becoming desperate enough, it brought a limb down directly atop Orlan, intent to crush him even if it made its own wound worse. Yet Orlan stood still, trusting in his knights, and not without reason as, moments before the giant limb smashed into him, the air above his head solidified, taking the blow like the skin of a great drum.
The fifth circle of the spell locked into place, the spirit could only cast spells up to his own tier, so this was it. Taking his spear in both hands he inverted it, the point aimed directly at the wound. Lifting the weapon up he took a breath and drove it down with a roar.
A massive spear of purple fire flashed into existence as he began the attack, mimicking the motion and driving down into the wound. Five feet thick and over a hundred feet tall the magical weapon plunged into the creature, what remained of its carapace dissolving under the powerful void mana in seconds. The flesh of the beast provided even less resistance, turning to dust as the column of purple light stabbed downwards.
The magical weapon continued to plunge into the beast’s depths even as Orlan reached the limit of how far he could thrust the weapon, ripping through organs and muscle tissue alike. The beast’s groans became deep panicked whines, its limbs tearing at the ground, unable to escape its death. The final bit of the great purple spear vanished into the beast and for a moment all was still, but Orlan held his breath, sensing the void mana gathering in the center of the creature, even with all the damage done the beast was still alive. But the spell wasn’t done yet.
In a flash of dark purple light the void mana exploded, ripping chaotically through the interior of the beast. Its entire body seemed to glow with a dark light and expand, pushed outward by the force of the magic. The damaged carapace on which Orlan stood gave way, the dust that had once been the creature’s internals combined with the remaining void mana ripping out of the beast in a slow-moving explosion of light and magic.
Orlan stood in the middle of the torrent of energy, unharmed, watching as the last of the spell spent itself before finally dispersing. Now standing on a platform of mana, since the carapace he’d been standing on had dissolved in the explosion, he stepped through space to reach his knights. Seeing the tired looks in their eyes he grinned.
“Call the cutters in for pick up,” he said, the girls letting out sighs of relief as he confirmed the beast was dead.
\-\-\-\-\-
“What… the hell… did we just watch?” Theo asked the other congressmen. He sat in a meeting room of an office building near the capitol building with a dozen of his colleagues, watching footage from a surveillance drone the military somehow had in the air over the site of the battle.
“A sub launched missile barely cracked that thing’s armor,” someone else said slowly, “yet he tore it open like…. Like… I don’t know.”
“I think that missile was enhanced with magic too,” another added, “see that mist in the explosion? That wasn’t normal.”
“Does our military have magical weapons now?”
“Maybe one of the wizards cast something on it?”
Theo groaned, leaning back in his chair as the other speculated. There were two ways this could go, as he saw it.
The government could come out saying that it assisted the Protector Lord in protecting the people of Bermuda, hinting that it had magical weapons in the process without outright admitting it. It would show that the US government was still ‘the good guy’ while extending an olive branch to Orlan. After that kind of display of power that should be in their best interests as well.
But more likely the government would say the missile was their attempt to clean up the mess Orlan made, they’d edit the footage so it was their munition that took down the beast and not the powerful strike by the Protector Lord. They’d use this to argue he wasn’t as strong as he seemed, attempting to bring internation pressure down on him. What exactly they hoped to gain from this was hard to say, maybe they hoped he’d somehow end up in their custody again, where they could force the secrets of his magic out of him. Perhaps they were hoping to simply reclaim an appearance of strength, an appearance that the rifts and Orlan had damaged.
Walking out of the meeting room Theodor pulled his cellphone out and, after struggling to unlock it for a moment, began looking through his contacts. Maybe if he moved fast enough he could get ahead of the story, he knew several ‘fact checking’ websites that he could warn of ‘misinformation’ that the government was likely to release. Even better, maybe he could get his hands on the footage of the battle and leak it.
“Theo?” a voice interrupted him before he could even dial the first number, looking up he found a thin, rather nondescript man in a modest suit standing in front of him.
“Do I know you?” Theo asked, searching his memory for the man.
“We’ve never met,” the man smiled, “I work with a-.”
“Look, I’m busy,” Theo interrupted rudely, stepping around the man and starting to walk away, he didn’t have time to deal with another political action committee attempting to bribe him.
“I see,” the man said, walking alongside Theo and pulling out a card, “when you feel like talking, give us a call.”
Theo took the card without looking up, selecting a number from his phone and, about to press the call button, looked at the card.
“Sons of Kayan?” Theo muttered, the card was simple, dark with soft white lettering and a symbol that looked like the moon. He’d never heard of that group, it almost sounded like a cult more than a PAC. Looking up to ask the man about the group he found he was alone in the hallway.
“The fuck,” he cursed.