My walk didn’t take long as the river wasn’t far at all. I didn’t even stop at the bank of the river, nope, I just kept walking while using Water Sorcery to pull a Jesus. This formerly tiny excuse for a river at one point now raging silently underneath my feet was a simple sidewalk to me. Looking down I could see the fish playing as larger fish swam past twisting their mouths to snap up a quick meal. The river spoke to me, called to me, the soft chill of the ever-winding current playfully moved as I looked across its width. What used to be a shallow river that a ten year old could cross without assistance now required a boat, or Water Sorcery.
Pulling with my power, the greenish blue liquid climbed up my body until I was fully encased, minus my face, and had four extra limbs of water hanging off my back like Dr. Octopus. It felt cold, but in the way that a nice fall does, where the cold doesn’t bother you because it feels great and your body still remembers the ever present cloying heat of summer. Flexing my will a bit more, I pulled globes of water out of the river, some had fish still swimming along not even realizing that their environment had changed.
Chuckling at their blank expressions, I released my hold on the water, the fish diving back down to safety. “Take me to the river!” I sang as I skipped across the surface of the river. “Drop me in the water!” I crafted a small kayak shape out of water and then froze it solid. Dissolving it a second later, I made more shapes and then froze them as I kept on singing. A small ice castle, an epic surfboard, a dolphin, each new thing I made floated along the surface as I played, I mean experimented, with my abilities. I made weapons of ice and water, shields, suits of armor, and then when I got bored of that I made cars and motorcycles, biplanes and lawn mowers. Each creation melted with a flick of power and returned to its source.
Yes I was having fun, but there was a purpose in me being here. I needed to get comfortable with this. Heck, humans are not meant to live in the water but near the water. Here I am, the magical anomaly, and I needed to be, to feel as much at home here as I do with my feet on solid ground. This environment favors me, it actually empowers me. The rushing current of the Rappahanock is a renewing source of life and power and I could feel it fill my mana effortlessly as if it were a ley line.
“Come on, come on,” I said, looking around as I continued to goof off. There was more here as well that I wanted to accomplish. One of the discussions I had with Kraken on my short walk here to the river was about water elementals and how flexible they are, in both literal form and metaphorical ability. Water is change, water is movement, water can sit still but it also exists in multiple states easily. A water elemental can surge up from a river, take on an almost human or beast form, and then shoot ice and then evaporate into fog to run away. It’s the whole symbolism of how Aphrodite emerged from the sea. The very spirit of water is tempermental and constantly changing, which is why we men sort of equate the two. The number one trait of the water elemental is adaptability, which is really what I’m after.
Hefting a sunstone in my hand about the size of an acorn, I conjured an aquamarine stone of equal size and pushed them together with Earth Sorcery. Writing tiny runes of power and mind on its surface, I examined my experiment in the sun. The sunstone half filled with light and I could feel it gaining power, but the blue aquamarine half was starting to shake. Squatting down, I held it under water and watched as the river flowed around and past my creation, constantly adding mana and balancing out the almost opposing energies.
“Any water elementals want a home?” I asked out loud, still holding the two-sided gem under the water as I used Earth Sorcery to continually meld the two sides. “I’ll be honest, I need some help taking out some zombies and would really appreciate it. I can make more of these too.”
[You’re doing it wrong,] Kraken interjected, [You have to command them! You don’t ask them!].
A happy bouncing bubble zig-zagged underneath the water before resting its outer edge on my hand. The sensation of joy and light like children happily popping bubbles resounded in my head. “I’ll take that as a yes!” I laughed as I watched the bubble dissolve into a million tiny bubbles and ram into the sunstone/aquamarine sphere.
Kraken’s disbelief echoing in my head made me laugh even harder, his sputtering sounding the opposite of the happy water elementals. [Earth elementals don’t mind being bound but water elementals hate it! How did you, what did you, whaaa??]. Taking my sweet ole time, I made about nineteen more sunstone/aquamarine fused cores, singing the entire time. “This is what dreams, are made of!”
My happiness came through in my magic, my Water Sorcery pulsing gentle waves of joy to which bunches of water elementals came bubbling over to me. Each one was more than happy to get their own core and seemingly did not care that I was going to fight zombies, even though I made sure to tell each one what my goal was and that the sunstone part was supposed to help them do it too.
[That’s not even possible? Elemental fusion?! What are you going to do, have water elementals that are fully capable of absorbing and redirecting stored sunlight as a weapon? Who the fuck thinks of that?]
Rubbing my face on the first fusion stone, I cooed as if it were the cutest kitten ever. “Who’s a good zombie killin’ sunlight blastin’ baby? You are, that’s right, you are! And who do I get to shove in the cranky squid’s face just to show him how awesome I am? That’s right, you! All of you!”
I was in a damn good mood. I went with a ‘fuck-it’ moment and let inspiration guide my magic and it paid off. Twenty fused elementals that love me, probably due to my Water Sorcery and the fact that I gave them a home, and they were also more than happy to be stored in the mana dense storage space in Gungnir. Visions of me launching them out into a crowd of zombies made me chuckle as I imagined them washing them away with sunlight infused water. With solar panels and sunstone batteries combined with the frosty terrain of the north, I actually had a viable offense against my personal weakness.
I took the rest of the day for myself. Having a bit of fun using the vast amount of mana at my beck and call, I let my magic flow as I held an image in my mind. My power shifted the landscape around me. A massive stone pier grew out of the mud and extended out fifty feet into the river. I sunk granite columns down past the mud and anchored it into the bedrock and then put up a modified guardrail along the edges. The guardrail was expanded along the sides so that at certain places it looked like I had tables set up along the edges.
On these flat portions, I made smaller than normal sunstone solar panels and then set them up with crystal batteries that were hidden inside of the stabilizing pillars of the pier with a thin line of copper wire to act as the transfer for the gathering energy. Two hours of creative magic work later, my pier looked like a longhouse without a roof. I had a nice wooden frame for a bed with two nice desks that I grew out of a small tree and even little diving platforms off the side. Sticking Gungnir in a slot I made just for it, I placed one of the smaller solar panels there for it to charge.
“Come on out you bubbly things!” I called, pushing my will into Gungnir. The small water elementals popped right out and started snooping around. Each one took its own land-based form, some were frogs hopping around while others were snakes and lizards. Three of them stayed as blobs and just rolled around aimlessly. Projecting my intent with Mind and Water sorcery, I communicated as best I could. “River over here or constant fresh water,” I said as I pointed out over the greenish blue expanse. “This is my home and also yours too,” I kept on, pointing at the new deluxe pier. “And over here, and here, and there, are fresh sources of concentrated mana and sunlight.”
[What are you doing? You’re giving them a home? I thought they were for killing zombies, aren’t you ready to go?]
[Dude, don’t be a dick.] I sent back. [Trust me, they feel like the weakest of all water elementals, so, I’m going to get them to the point where they’ll be unstoppable. I just don’t know how long it’ll take exactly but with almost unlimited power and sunlight and access to water . . . ].
[Right! Why contact and bind a big powerful elemental that won’t want to listen to you when you can just bind twenty little guys who you can feed till they’re big and will love you forever!].
[Yes Pinky, it’s how we’re going to take over the world!].
[What?].
“Nevermind,” I said out loud, turning towards the newly minted paradise. “You wouldn’t get it.” Grabbing a couple living branches of different trees along the river bank, I planted them near the pier and spent the rest of the day growing them so they covered the closest half to the shore like a roof. “Haha! Improv mangrove trees! Damn I love magic!”
*********
The chill of fall did not hit the way I expected it would. As far as I could tell, it was supposed to be early October or late September, but the leaves weren’t changing colors on the trees and the nice autumn breeze with a breath of frost hadn’t made itself known. According to my Mind Sorcery, which keeps track of pretty much everything, it should be the first week of October which is solidly in the ‘fall’ zone, but summer clearly has not let go of its iron grip yet. Sweltering humidity combined with three minute downpours of almost solid rain in the afternoon were the best indicators that even the seasons were no longer dependable. Who knows when fall or winter will make their debut, but I anticipate it will be with the arrival of the Abominable Snowman himself.
And since it was still summer as far as I could travel easily in a day, I decided to treat it like summer. My pier now had an epic stone grill for the obvious summer fun and above it were racks for pans that don’t exist anymore and hooks to hang drying or smoked meat on. I probably could use Earth Sorcery to conjure metal and shape it into frying pans and pots but I certainly don’t know enough to give it that ‘no-stick’ quality that modern science gifted us with. Besides, perfectly flat plates of slate basically did the same thing anyway.
My little elementals were more than happy to find me fish and bring it to me, then throw back the ones I didn’t want. They were like dogs, sort of, mainly in the way that they just wanted to play and touch everything and be everywhere but absolutely hated it if I left. My solution was to put them in Gungnir when I traveled around but their absolute favorite place to be was near my pier on the river. I was laying by the river enjoying a nice lazy day and monitoring the playful water elementals growth when Kraken, who was almost done with my upgraded armor schematics, popped out of Gungnir freaking out.
[The Veil, it’s torn! Run! Scatter! Move! NOW HUMAN!]. Kraken’s mental tone shocked me out of the lovely drowsy haze of the afternoon.
[The fuck is a Veil?] I sent back, summoning a wave of water to clean me off as I started yanking on my armor that I ejected from Gungnir. [What’s coming and from where?]. I didn’t see or feel anything, and my magical senses unfurled to double check the nearby area.
[No time for lessons, MOVE!].
The urgency in his voice is what made me move. Calling Gungnir to my hand, I took two large steps down the pier and dove into the river. Using Water Sorcery to maintain a bubble of air around my head, I sent out feelings of danger to my water elementals who wriggled their way to me. As they clustered around me, we all sank deeper until I was knee deep in mud in the bottom.
[Okay, we’re pretty fucking safe down here Kraken, now spit it out, what the fuck is a Veil?], I questioned, making sure that I had as much mana as I could hold ready to go. Down here at the meeting of my most two powerful elements, not much could match me in terms of raw power.
[It’s just a term, really, but it’s never a good thing. Usually those are followed by something very very big and not nice. Traveling by magic is fraught with danger. You can travel by an established portal which has been stabilized by the influence of ley lines and enchantments which tends to be the most common and safest. Or people like you can travel via the World Tree if you’re strong enough to brave that kind of immense energy that usually dissolves anything. Or you can use magitech and travel through the stars by going up or down a layer of reality to sort of time-skip your way through. That way is less common as space is full of its own perils,] Kraken explained, his big eyeball looking around anxiously as we conversed at the speed of thought. [Now, the most desperate way is to just hop through a natural rift WHICH IS INCREDIBLY STUPID as you don’t know what the hell is on the other side unless you’ve already traveled through it. You could end up in a volcano or at the other end of the universe in some planetary dungeon. ‘Tearing the Veil’ is when you just grab the fabric of space and rip your way through it to go somewhere, anywhere else.].
[And anything big or strong enough to do that . . . ] I started.
[Is not something you want to mess with.] Kraken finished. [Just to cover the other option, tearing the veil is also done by the desperate. If you have to, you weave an ‘anywhere else but here’ spell and use some wild magic to escape but you’ll have no control where you end up, and the multiverse is a lot bigger than anyone can dream. Some realms have magic, other dimensions do not, and in certain circumstances, there are even parallel planes of existence, but that’s less common than you think.].
[Okay, we’re not going down that rabbit hole right now. Is it safe to go up yet or should we wait? Better yet, can you sense what’s out there? My Water Sorcery is too loud in my head right now for me to feel anything.].
Kraken shook his eye no, his shivering getting a little worse. He jumped back into Gungnir and hid, proving once and for all that he is at least a bit smarter than me. I gathered all of the elementals around me and traveled back up to the surface, the water churning as I was ready to unleash hell at a moment's notice.
Peace and calm greeted me. No monsters turned their ugly heads, no burning forest sending up smoke, all was as it should be. Or so I thought until Kraken, who could read the general tone of my thoughts, did the equivalent of a mental smack on the head.
[FOCUS! And for the love of all that is magic, HIDE!].
An oily smear of pain tore in the middle of a small clearing about twenty feet away from the river. Light that was more than light, a visible beam of fractured blackness cut space itself, widening until it was twenty feet wide and ten feet tall. Large horned furry creatures that walked on two legs stampeded out wielding giant axes and mauls. As if they were afraid, the invaders began instantly cutting into the trees around them, widening the clearing as more of them poured out. They were pushing and shoving each other out of the way as they tore out of the wobbly portal as if something vicious was on their tails.
Try as I might, I couldn’t understand them. Their guttural noises and thick grunts were clearly not any English that I’ve ever heard, and as soon as a hundred of them spilled out of the tear in the fabric of space, more of them came out riding oversized black lizards that put Clydesdale horses to shame. Liquid fire dripped from their jaws as they snarled and snapped at each other, their riders lashing them back into compliance with crackling whips, sparks jumping randomly from their weapons. In less than a minute, more invaders than I could count had stormed the area and were instantly fortifying the rapidly growing clearing.
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[Minotaurs! Curse the Hidden Layers of Hell! They’re probably here for the dryads!]. Kraken said, his message quavering in my head. As this was going on, I had already sunk back down into the river until only my head was above it. My water elementals swirled around me under the surface as well, playfully waiting for my commands.
Several smaller and elderly looking minotaurs stepped out of the portal, collapsing into the arms of what looked to be their guards. While the fourth one coming through was still halfway in, the portal began to close but not before a monstrous sweaty hand that looked to be made of coiled fat gripped his leg. The massive arm began pulling as the elderly minotaur started bleating and waving the staff clutched in its gloved hands. The tip of the staff glowed scarlet and one of the bigger minotaurs yanked it from the older one and hurled it through the shrinking portal like a spear. The nearby minotaurs weren’t watching helplessly, two were holding the elderly one by his horns, one had him by the arms and the one closest to the portal held his own axe up and swung down.
The meaty arm retracted with the brutally severed leg just before the rip in the fabric of reality closed. The other old minotaurs came and hunched over and began chanting, or mooing? Green light spilled from their hands and staffs and the new wound began to close up. [What the fuck did I just see?], I shot to Kraken, [What eats Minotaurs? And why the fuck do Minotaurs want dryads?].
More trees fell as Kraken sat in silence, his terror coming through loud and clear even as his voice was gravely soft. [You know how you thought the Hungry Ones were your weakness and you’ve been spending all of your time figuring how to fight them? Well, Minotaurs are the weakness of every magic user. They’re mainly herbivores but they eat dryads because they’re just sentient plants that are chock full of power. They’ve evolved to shrug off magical power like yours like a duck shakes off water. You’re screwed if you fight them. I say run, and run far.].
My shock was taken as disbelief, which it kind of was too. I mean, I’ve given the damn squid a decent rundown of my past couple months and he thinks I’m about to let some overgrown cows fuck me up? Fine, maybe pure magic doesn’t work, but I won’t be throwing fireballs at them. The terrain favors me, hardcore.
[Do you understand them? Can you translate or something? And do they think humans are tasty?] I mentally sent to Kraken who was quaking in fear inside of Gungnir, glad that we could talk at the speed of thought through our mental link. [And do they actually eat magic or are just really thick-skinned?]. His lack of response was not comforting. [DAMN IT SQUID ANSWER ME!].
My mental shout shocked him back to some semblance of active thought as another tear in space opened at a different edge of the same clearing. Shiny black suits of armor covering squat figures about four to five feet tall hustled through carrying large futuristic rifles in their arms and tower shields on their backs. [Dwarves?! They hate young planets?], Kraken said, finally coming out of his funk.
As they poured through, I noticed some kind of facial fur or beard poking through the sides of their helmets. Their grunts and shouts were just as guttural as the Minotaurs but theirs was in sync, a clear sign of an organized military. They ran in ordered columns, shouting cadences and lining up targets, firing silver shafts of light from their rifles as the Minotaurs began flinging rocks and tree trunks they hadn’t used yet.
A crazed battle broke out. The cow people with their hastily built fortifications gained a slight advantage as their magical elements joined. The elderly small Minotaurians began swaying and chanting and stomping, flows of mana becoming bright as I saw it pulse through their veins. The torrents of power geysered up through feet from the ground and brightened their auras. Reddish green blood trickled from their noses and the corners of their eyes as they sang.
Thick roots sprouted from their shoddy fortifications, spiraling up and out and down to form a living wall of writhing briars. The dancing flung droplets of blood across the wall and around the forest causing different rocks to begin to mold together. Little earthen soldiers picked themselves up from where the blood fell, the blood itself forming into glistening runes at random spots as the earthen soldiers began to slowly grow larger. Not to be outdone, the dwarves began tossing out silver marbles that made the earth ripple when they hit the ground causing the growing earthen soldiers to vibrate to pieces and knock the minotaurs over.
I watched in awe as the flow of battle went back and forth, neither side giving an inch. The magic users of the minotaurs, which look like their version of an old Indian shaman, were fascinating to watch from a magical perspective. Flows of solid green and red connected them to their much bulkier foot soldiers and I saw injuries fade as the red and green flowed from one healthy fighter to the wounded one. The shamans also acted as the ‘eye in the sky’, coordinating through the ropy mana connecting them all. They fought using a magical network that coordinated their movements as well as pushing health and vigor to the wounded minotaurs. I saw one minotaur who was about to get stabbed in the back suddenly turn after a shaman saw the dwarf and pulsed power down their connection.
The dwarves were honestly not that fun to watch other than their magically concealed warriors trying to sneak around. To be fair, they had to be the ones to give the Centauri their runetech, because their shield wall did the same thing as what my brother’s comrades but better. The raw power of the minotaurs’ axes slamming into the shield wall generated tons of mana when the overly sigiled shields converted the awesome blows kinetic energy into magical power for their rifles. It almost seemed pointless as the rifles were pouring bolts of mana at the minotaurs; it didn’t really do anything except piss them off. All of the minotaur wounds came from one of the melee weapons that the dwarves had. The chaos was incredible when the minotaur’s mounts, the lizard things, joined the fray.
All I could do was watch and learn.
Cybernetic cannon walkers climbed out of the dwarves’ still open rift. At least twice the size of colonial cannons, the metallic death machines walked on four legs and had a spike that they drove into the ground, drinking up the available mana to charge and the lobbying black bombs full of power to disrupt the minotaur's lines and knock them over. The cannon rounds cycled between pure kinetic force explosives or mines that exuded unending waves of pure heat that cooked anyone close. As soon as one of them would fall, the dwarves would break ranks to try and keep the downed warrior down for good.
[See mortal? You aren’t ready for this kind of conflict. They’ll squish you softer than me.] Kraken said softly.
[Yeah, fuck that,] I chuckled, [This is way too close to home for me to ignore. Besides, think about it for a second. All I have to do is make the terrain favor me and not them.].
[They both have magic users whose specialty is earth based magic! You don’t stand a chance!].
[Think squid think! Where the fuck am I right now?] I asked, smugness rolling off of me. [Hahahaha, come on, you can do it, work that tiny ass brain.].
[I hate you sometimes. You know that right?].
[Yup.].
Ordering the elementals to get ready, I pulled myself up so that I was standing on top of the river wreathed in ropes of flowing water grasped tightly in my magical grip. I wish I had a mirror because I must have looked freaking awesome. The fighting stopped as I stood there, surveying the area as if I owned it, which I kinda did.
[Make it so they can understand me, I don’t wanna yell nonsense at them.], I growled down our link. A fearful mental nod was all I needed.
“Separate from each other and point your weapons at the ground,” I said calmly, gathering more and more water behind and around me. A frothing but mostly still tidal wave silently grew behind me as I spoke. “Further violence of any kind will result in your death. If you wish to fight, you may do so ten miles down the river. Any questions?” I fear that my translator messed something up because while they did separate from each other, as soon as they did they started firing at me. The wall of water behind me moved to the front catching all of the thrown weapons and bolts of mana and bombs. With a thought, I sank back down to the bottom and shot a quick vision of what I wanted down to my elementals who were more than happy to oblige.
The river’s current surged up and over the bank, sweeping over everyone and everything, and then pulled everything and everyone out to the middle of the Rappahannock. The mechanical legged-cannons sank to the bottom like a stone as the water elementals worked to separate everyone from their weapons and armor. I made sure to have one elemental gather all of it and encase the gear in ice at the river bottom for me to look at later.
[You so cheated!] Kraken huffed as he watched my army of elementals disoriented my foes. [Not actually using magic on them but using magic around them.].
[You’re just upset because you didn’t think of it,] I replied, laughing at his pissyness. [Who cares about throwing raw magic at them trying to overpower their natural resistance when I can just throw a river at them? Now what the fuck did you say to piss them off?].
[They really don’t like to be unarmed. Besides, dwarves and minotaurs are almost as bad as demons. And you really don’t wanna mess with demons. They just attack and attack and eat and then fuck and then do it all over again. It’s really why nobody survives going to the Infernal Realms, because everything there is literally trying to eat you.].
My shit-eating grin was so big my face hurt. Boo-fuckin-yah bitches! I had two elementals taking stuff and guarding gear and the other eighteen were taking care of the floating minotaurs and dwarves who were sputtering for air. The elementals thought it was great fun to drown the intruders and then push them to the surface for a breath and then tug them back under again. It’s like they were playing bob for dwarves, or is it dunk the cow?
My point is, I won.
[Uhm, you might wanna look over there. We missed one.].
Spinning around, I saw one really angry dwarf who had somehow managed to scoot up a tree and in one arm held a big grenade and in the other was some silver box with a big red button. With a roar that I’m sure translated to a ‘fuck you’, the dwarf smashed the red button with his face. The dwarven rift was almost closed at that point, but at the exact moment that the button was pushed, sharp white light cut through it again, reopening it to even greater heights. Several other rifts also cut their way open, white light shining through them as well.
The dwarf up the tree started laughing so hard he almost fell out. Beautiful people stepped out of the white rifts, three in total. Their long white wings were shaken open as if they had been asleep for ages.
Each held a different weapon that oddly corresponded to the color of their eyes. The slender one on the left held a large sapphire samurai sword while the one in the middle licked the two crimson hatchets. The one on my right coolly took everything in while leaning on a thick staff that had many smooth bumps up and down its length. All three of them wore a circlet of silver and a collar of gold, but I could see some red lines woven into the jewelry.
[Well mortal, it was nice knowing you.]. Kraken’s fear had abated only a tiny bit and now, I only felt a heavy sort of acceptance.
[What now, coward?], I growled. [Three skinny white dudes with wings show up and you’re done? They’re not angels, I can see old wounds and fresh blood on them from here!].
[You’re right, they’re not angels. They’re even worse. Those, shit, those are Nephilim.].
The alien culture lesson that I knew was incoming attacked me before I could get any goddamn information from Kraken. The mean looking fuck with the hatchets didn’t hesitate. The instant he saw me he blasted off, his wings giving him the lift needed to get to me. I’ll never forget the look of sheer insanity in his eyes, just the raw unreasonable hate sent in my direction from his bony face. For once I acted with instinct, pulling the river water around me and blasting it at him as I yanked myself back and down into the river trying to put some distance between us. All I could hear in the back of my head was some drill sergeant from years ago joking about using the terrain to your advantage.
The angry bastard would yell ‘Location, location, location’, like some greasy real estate agent looking to score on a first time home buyer. But to be fair, the drill sergeant with issues was right. It always comes down to location, and the river was definitely my location.
Blades of fire cut into the surface of the river over and over, the winged nephilim flying over in a screaming maniacal rage. Sitting deep in my Consciousness Sorcery, I had time flowing in my head appear twice as slow as normal allowing me to keep pace with what was going on. My Flesh Sorcery was actively fortifying my brain making sure that I didn’t get an aneurysm from the stress of processing twice as fast. My body moved ten feet to the left just as the entire river parted. All I saw before it crashed back together was the silent glare from the blue-bladed freak, his samurai looking sword steaming thick blue smoke.
[Forget the dwarves and minotaurs!].
Kraken was right. I shot off a quick mental call for help and then quickly gave the order to drown all the prisoners and freeze them together. I didn’t have time for mercy. My elementals happily swirled around, forcing water into the lungs of the minotaurs and dwarves and then dragging their bodies to the bottom of the river where the elementals froze them to the big rocks down there.
Pulling out Gungnir, which had been in knife form the entire time in my boot, I willed it into staff form and planted it in the giant ice coffin full of hundreds of quickly dying bodies. I didn’t even allow myself a moment of remorse as I ignored my conscience and yanked on the weakened life force of all of the minotaurs and dwarves. Relying on my instincts from Flesh Sorcery, I knew that the best time to yank out someone’s life force is the moment before death when their defenses are down. Trying to do so before when they’re conscious and active is just too much work when you have someone’s entire being fighting you.
Gungnir soaked up the power, channeling all of the life force into the Chaos shard that made up the heart of my most powerful weapon. Slapping the storage slot in Svalinn, I yanked out the planttrops that I had made so long ago, the thorny vines capable of explosive growth, shoved them all in a ball and froze them together in a ball of ice. Using Water Sorcery, I planted all of my planttrops deep in the mud and channeled all of that fresh life force from Gungnir straight into the makeshift seed. Looking up, the ax-wielding fuckface was still blowing his load all over the surface of the river, the flames coming nowhere close to me.
“Come on you useless bitch, you owe me this,” I growled in my air bubble, constantly making sure to use Water Sorcery to keep it fresh while checking on my mental links. Thank the heavens this stupid idea worked because it was the only reason I’m still kickin in this fight. A shockwave shook the river, emanating from where I planted my planttrop seed cluster in the muddy bottom, stirring up the muddy silt turning the visibility to zero. Shutting my eyes and relying on my magical senses to feel the world around me, I added to the churning of the river to make sure nobody could see my silhouette.
Activating my security monitoring protocol on a preset background mental process with my Consciousness Sorcery, I focused the rest of my attention on the vibrating cluster of overcharged seeds. Wrapping will and mana together, I formed a rune of control out of ice and as the thorny vines exploded into existence I forced it onto the vine. Twisting the original purpose of the vine, I used Nature Sorcery to control its growth until it stood out of the water.
Grabbing onto a protruding thorn, I rode the veritable giant upwards as it erupted into a many armed monstrosity oozing river mud. My thorny green giant grabbed a boulder out of the river with two vine tentacles and flung it at the two nephilim on the river bank as three other arms smashed the flying ax wielder out of the sky. I didn’t even watch him skip across the river even though I really wanted to.
My magic as a whole tends not to be flashy. I primarily work with mana, which is invisible to the naked eye, and water and earth, which every human is familiar with. I don’t shoot out fire or lightning which of course is what everyone pictures when they think of sorcerer or magician. Big explosions aren’t really in my repertoire unless I have a lot of time to plan and I make the perfect runes, but one simple fact has escaped me for too long, I can go BIG. And dear lawd’ it was worth it just to watch that little shit’s face when my oversized vine monster smacked him into next week. My face though, I did have my own look of pure and utter shock when I saw that the several ton boulder that my monster threw simply bounced off of a magical shield where the two nephilim were standing.
The one holding a staff just smirked, or kept smirking? I don’t recall paying too much attention to his face, or its face. The nephilim had a sort of homogenous beauty about them that made it hard to tell if they were male or female. But what I could see was arrogance, that’s what it was. Obviously this dick was the cause of the glowing shield as the sword wielder just wasn’t there anymore. As I frantically looked around for him from atop my thorny giant, pounding thumps reverberated the edge of the forest.
“Finally! Spot, here boy! Sick Em!”