Jude and Ellie rush up the hill to meet up with Krinn and the rest of Heroic Retribution.  The company had already cleared out the demons who were trying to disrupt the that Jude set up.  And now that the setup was complete, the disappeared.

“Boss, that was one heck of a spell you threw out there!” Krinn said excitedly as a cheer went up from Heroic Retribution.  

Those who had joined Jude’s company had already idolized him as a Heroic Wizard, but now they were becoming fanatical in their veneration towards him.

“Casting a spell like that will take a lot out of anyone, so I will have to rely on all of you to help me finish the battle!”  Jude said it this way to not make anyone worry and to keep moral up.  But truthfully he was wracking his brain on how to continue fighting with no combat skills.  He had an idea, but it wasn't tested.

Jude’s core group gathered around him and talked to him in hushed tones. Krinn asked with concern, “Are you really alright?  You don’t look too good, and that spell you cast was something even legends don’t have.”

Jude looked at Krinn, Wen, Ellie, Cairfray and Nellie.  These were the people he trusted the most, so he wouldn’t hide the truth from them.

He said, “I’ve burnt out the majority of my skills, and even as we speak, residual energy from that spell is still destroying more skills.  However, Spell Analyst seems to be separated from the rest and has not been affected.”

Cairfray knew the pain that Jude must be going through as she experienced something similar when Jude imparted the Rank IV upgrade to her .  Ellie also understood what Jude must be going through as she was there when he had developed many of his skills, including the more painful ones.

However, it was Wen who responded first, “Don’t tell me you’re going to be a cosh’ing baby now.  We still have a to fight!”

This attitude is what Jude liked about Wen, abrasive, but straight to the point.  Her line of thinking was exactly what Jude was thinking.

“Don’t worry; I will come up with a way to fight.  Even if I have to beat him on the head with a stick,” Jude smiled wryly.  “But first let’s take stock of the situation.”

Many in Heroic Retribution were wounded and running low on mana.  Two Warriors and a Rogue died in the last exchange due to this.  But their plight was much better than the rest of the fighting survivors of Longdale.

Dead littered the ground everywhere.  Most of the demons dissipated after being killed because they were summoned creatures.  This meant that most of the corpses left behind were humans.

Out of the 3,000 people that Morgan controlled, less than 1,000 were left behind.  The southern Major Raid was gone, either from death or by people fleeing.  Their losses were only being made worse by the new recruits from the demons that were hidden.  Now they were surrounded.

The and three were left at the top of the hill, and for some reason, they were not advancing.

“Looks like it’s about time for our reinforcements to arrive,” Jude commented after they reviewed the situation.

“Reinforcements?” Krinn asked confused.  “When did we get more people?”

Jude chuckled, “I didn’t say they were people.”

Then Jude cast a spell, “.”

A bright white summoning circle appeared on the ground which then filled in an artistic design of a grand tree along with numerous vines and fairies in-between.  Then the design faded from white to green as Anthea’s existence begun to be visible.  Then the design faded from green to black, and by the time it turned black Anthea was fully formed.

Because Anthea was Jude’s , he was able to send messages to her easily.  When he found out about the situation in Longdale, he had her start preparing.  And now she was ready.

Anthea bowed to Jude and said, “Master, I await your command.”

At the same time, she tilted her head and glanced at the .  Lerhadar was no longer Lord Merek, but at the same time, he seemed to retain the same facial features.  The same was true of Anthea who still had the same face as when she was a Switch.

Their eyes met, and they instantly recognized each other.  They had been like oil and water in the past and now was no different.  Shock and hatred burned inside of Lerhadar and a cold loathing could be seen in Anthea’s eyes.

This quick glance only took a moment and went unnoticed by all present.

Many of those with Jude had seen the Switch before, but it was only Ellie that recognized her.  Upon seeing her transformation, she let out a slight gasp but knew that this wasn’t the time to ask.

Jude didn’t like her calling him master, but since she became a Feydrent and his , she wouldn’t do otherwise. 

“Have your forces charge into the city and attack the back line of the newly arrived demons.” He said.

“I was once the Switch, so they’ve already entered the town through special means.  They will begin attacking now.” Anthea replied in an icy tone.

By her words, the rest now guessed who she was. A collective shock spread out through the ranks.  The change in the Switch was extreme, but she clearly had the same face.  What was even more shocking was that Jude had a .  In the past, only Hero’s would have them and the only way to get the title of Hero was to be Summoned from another world.

But before their surprise could be formed into questions, another surprise hit them again.  The ‘forces’ that Anthea gathered were and from the Allur Forest.  A great multitude rushed through the streets of the town.  These spawned creatures weren’t weak like their counterparts; they were all at level 10.  That wasn’t all, an elite force of riding road behind the horde of lesser creators.  These were all level 15-20.  They had come from the area that Jude specially made for Heroic Retribution using Allur Forest’s node.

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This tidal wave of goblins and wolves slammed into the back lines of demons that were attacking the remnants of Longdale.  Jude chuckled at the humor of what happened.  First, the humans surround the demons, then demons surround the humans and now Jude’s forces surrounded the demons yet again.  If Lerhadar had yet another force, they would be in trouble.  But they couldn’t possibly have another force right?!

But now that Jude was by the massive sword, he remembered one more detail that he almost forgot. 

Guudnash.

Looking around he found the lower half of Guudnash, but the upper body was now gone.

***

Guudnash had used the situation to his advantage.  The confusion that ensued after the sword cut him in half gave him an opportunity.  Overexerting his teleport ability, he managed to escape to the hideout the Bandits setup outside of Longdale.  It was a barn on a large farm which they cleared out the day before, claiming it as their own.

When Guudnash teleported in, it startled the group of Bandit leaders.  Not only did he appear out of nowhere, but he was also cut in half, and his appearance had changed.  Gore was spilling out of him, yet the bandits didn’t even care.

One asked, “Is it time for the attack then?”

“No, we withdraw back to the Valley Maze,” he said gasping.  He had formed this group of bandits, and he was their leader.  They were here with their gangs to handle any surprises from Longdale and to clean up the fleeing people.  But now Guudnash was going to use them to preserve his life.

“What about that monolith thing?  Isn’t it supposed to make us stronger?” Asked a Bandit leader.

“It has been destroyed,” he replied angrily, “All that we have left now is to flee and regroup.  But don’t worry, I set up the first Monolith, I can set up another one.”

***

Even in the disarray, Morgan had kept an eye on all that was happening.  And now that the and joined the fight, the pressure on him was becoming less.  It seemed that Jude had performed another miracle.  Once it was safe to do so, he would take several raids from his Major Raid to move up the hill and assist Jude.

But in the back of his mind, he was concerned about these spawned reinforcements and the arrival of the Feydrent.  He had never heard of a Feydrent before, but he knew that spawned creatures lead by a leader were a dangerous thing.

***

Lerhadar was slowly gathering his power.  Things weren’t looking good, especially after Feyrath restricted him.  This was only made worse by the monolith losing its power source.  But if he could kill Jude, he might be able to salvage the situation.  What really unnerved him was that the cosh’ing Switch was back and stronger than before.

Lucky for him, Jude was taking his sweet time to confront him.  This opportunity gave him enough time to gather power to offset the restriction placed upon him.  But he had to be careful how he powered up.  If it became known to the other party, then Jude would surely attack straight away.

***

Seeing that the wasn’t making a move, Jude too didn’t make a move.  He needed time.  Time for his group to heal up and recover their mana and time to work out a new form of attack.

Since reaching his second Rank III skill in Spell Analyst, he unlocked the skill category of .  The first skill under that category was .  Because he had been so focused on everything else, Jude hadn’t had a chance to explore it.

Disruption Magic

Rank I

This magic focuses on destroying the process of magic relays and the relays themselves.  The first stages can only effect fully formed spells and skills that have already been initiated.  It can only be fully used with a comprehensive insight into the mechanics of spells and skills.  The greater the disruption, the more mana it takes.

Disrupt Spell

Rank I

At rank I, you can disrupt any spell targeting you.  The success of the disruption depends on your perceptionstanding of the spell that is being used and how it was formulated.  The greater the disruption, the more mana it takes.

Jude completely disregarded the skill and focused on as a whole.  Like in the past, using the category would provide a wider range of application.  Albeit in those situations, the category alone wouldn’t do much.

Jude opened up , and the world changed to that of neon lights.  Jude was sitting down, so he picked a neon line in front of him that was minuscule and insignificant.  It was an earth line, and Jude wondered what would happen if he disrupted it.  Jude was pretty sure that these neon lines were what the skill description called relays.

Using he applied pressure on this small and insignificant relay, and it started vibrating.  He continued to put more mana into the skill, but all the got was vibration.  After a few minutes of trying he beginning to get depressed.

In the limited amount of time, he wasn’t sure what he could do.  He couldn’t think of another way to attack and wasn’t confident enough in to use it against a .  Not only was it at Rank I, but he had no idea what kind of spells that a would use, no less disrupting them.

His only hope was the category as a whole.  But even a small relay was giving him problems.  All it did was vibrate the more he pressed on it.  What he wanted was for it to cut open and explode.

Maybe that was what he was doing wrong.  He hadn’t used before, so he simply used it like a blunt weapon.  What he needed to do was to focus it and sharpen it. 

Then another idea formed inside of Jude’s mind.  To advance skills, one had to do so with ‘feel’ and ‘logic.'  Feel could be many things, but couldn’t logic be approached many different ways too?  In the past, he had only used the Modicuit to formulate his logic when applying skills.  But for Spell Analyst skills, he would need a new way.

He began to mold a mental blade with , this was his ‘feel.'  But then he began to sharpen his blade with ‘logic.'  He had a very high comprehension of how spells and skills worked after viewing them through his Modicuit.  Through watching the environment with , he had gained much understanding in how relays worked.   Finally, he had interfaced into Allur Forests nodes multiple times. 

All this ingrained logic of how all these systems worked started to fuse into his knowledge.  He sharpened the blade with logic.  But this sharpening was merely a metaphor for what he was really doing.

Without even activating the skill Jude got a notification. 

Disruption Magic Rank II

Mana costs for Disruption Magic skills have been reduced.

·         Disrupt Skill unlocked

But he ignored it.

He was headed down a path of insight.  Slowly it started changing; he now wasn’t only feeling out a blade and sharpening it with logic.  Now he was combining both the feel and the logic!  Once logic becomes a habit and deeply ingrained into an individual, it comes out naturally.  Hence, Logic becomes Feel.  But it also works the other way as well.  Through the five senses do we understand the world and this understand is equated to logic.

Feeling and logic had now combined in the blade.

Disruption Magic Rank III

Disruptions are now easier to create.

·         Disrupt Item unlocked

Jude gently touched the mental blade of on the tiny relay of earth magic.  It cut through it like scissors through hair.  The earth magic spewed out of the relay then quickly solidified but in the process an earthen spike six inches long shot out of the ground.

Another notification popped up, but Jude ignored it.  Jude was too surprised at how big the reaction was for how small of a relay he cut.  If he cut a bigger one, it could easily become a meter or more.

He wasn’t satisfied with just that; he had some other ideas that could utilize .  But he was interrupted.  

The was laughing.

Time was up.