Elder Arch Druid’s POV
“Do we really want to use these instruments?”
“We can’t afford not to,” I say once again correcting my lesser kin, though I know that he isn’t trying to question my authority. He is probably the one that best understands our dire situation. After months of fighting the strange forces and tactics of this planet, I had actually started to respect my kin. He knew his limitations. If he didn’t give brilliant advice as the young Satomi might have been able to, his advice and ability to pick apart my plans was solid and steadfast which made him a very good sounding board. A reliable commander with steady performance. Fighting against someone like Nash and his planet, isn’t the time to be arrogant and conceited. Now is the time to listen and I do my best to put my thoughts in perspective and try to explain them:
“It is far from ideal, but the relics that we took from new integrants are our only weapon. With proper communication, we might have been able to ask for more specific types meant to counter their advantages in the following months, but the system is always watchful, and if the judges suspect foul play they might take a closer look. What we have is just the damaged void striker and the few dark nature control rods I brought. If we let him live, we will witness the rise of a force that can’t be contained. You told me to not underestimate him and you were right. He is not going to be content with just retaining decent control of his planet, he is going to be so much more, he will DO so much more. Even if costs us every invasion system point for the next decade and we lose every single troop we gathered along with these relics, it’s all going to be worth it as long as he perishes and his legacy crumbles.”
He stares intently at me. With a simple nod, we both stare at the horizon before sounding the marching call.
My eyes bore forward with one of my most beloved skills and I can see their fortress even through the forests about 4 kilometers away. The whole camp starts to run in earnest as a dozen strategically chosen Archdruids get dark nature control rods.
The destroyed planet that housed the creators of these artifacts is gone. That had been a particularly bloody conflict, as talented dark nature mages burned their very life force with powers that worked outside the system and created implements such as the ones we stole from them. They were very powerful, but the nature of their power is short lived and their Achilles heel revolved around the unidimensionality of their strengths. We learned to work around them in mere months attacking on a dozen other fronts. But this planet is nearly the opposite. These humans have a few good advantages while holding their ground in every avenue we try to explore. Though that tended to be the human path.
I turn over the little instrument in my hand. While we are allowed to use it given it was made by a native, if it gets damaged, the repair would put it fully back under system restriction.
Nash, you are going to pay, even if it’s the last thing that I do. You are forcing me to cut off the path from a dozen of the most talented archdruid magic users in our army. So I will have your life. And for this planet: if I have to I will see that its fate follows the rare exception in which we don’t seek profits, where we simply burn everything to the ground. You are a scourge and we will hollow out the crust leaving a dead husk incapable of sustaining life behind. The council won’t care, as long as they get their cut.
I watch past all the obstacles, as another levy of troops arrives in one of their flying vehicles and as the new roots are shaped into stronger and strange runic defensive patterns, though without time to study I can’t give an accurate measure of their effectiveness.
Given their past results I might expect this is the tuned version meant to stop our dark fire and even if this iteration isn’t very effective they will get it fully working eventually.
At our army’s incredible pace, powered by thousands of wind runners overlapping their powers, we get in place. The forward line is just 100 meters away from their walls and waves of attacks wash over our shields. But teams of druids push forward trying to make another dark fireball. Something that wasn’t even rare at higher levels, but they won’t know how to defend against it.
Even with all their tricks they will steadily, but surely lose a stream of people. And Nash’s portal shenanigans will be just the desperate pleas of a child.
“Nash, what kind of stupid name is that?”
The prospect of payback for the millions of dead Elves excites me. They must not have a spy in our midst, but he or another human can scout us out through all our protective layers. They have an inkling of what I’m gonna do, but they lack the specifics. Hundreds of thousands of years developing our empire, dozes of highly refined anti scrying methods and someone barely out of his diapers defeats it all.
Moving forward and stepping over roots I feel the strain as the dark nature control rods come into their full use. Not just a slight edge, but the base of our defense and offense in the central portion. However, that has a cost and it skyrockets. Even without any proper soul skill, I can feel the darkness the tendrils corrupting our Archdruids.
Power and raw control flow out from them, a taste that I never felt, but even if I’m not a tree singer, I can still imagine and almost feel the screaming nature all around me on a deeper level than I ever have. Not even that cursed tree’s roots escape our control for long.
Even with this advantage, however, their defenses are absurdly solid and multilayered. Some of the roots, with tiny runic patterns, take longer to overrun and they accumulate advantages as kid hoards their first leave bracelets.
As we come closer to their walls exposing our mana shield to direct manipulation dozens of our numbers start to die every second across the line seemingly from nowhere. The nature that backs their steel defenses tries to open up a hole for us to pass through, but then it is the enemy’s turn.
A form of engraving of a different nature builds over the roots in the walls and I’m shocked at how quickly it forms. The small patterns flow like writing replicating themselves at a record pace. It almost seems like a hundred highly skilled elven enchantment singers took up the effort simultaneously, but the coordination and effect make me freeze. Those strange runic paters multiply faster and faster blunting the edge of our attack and in places stealing back from the Archdruids with Dark Nature Mana coursing through their veins.
This process isn’t instantaneous, but our timeline just got one hell of a lot shorter. A tugging game ensues, in which we will probably eventually lose, but I just concentrate on a smaller spot, and we have the opening we need.
I throw my full power forward to keep the dark fireball stable long enough to do its job as the enemy almost makes it explode early, and we manage to burn a hole through their deep steel walls.
We finally crack their defenses. They fight to regain control of the nature around the breach, but it’s too late.
We stream inside fighting in the large ‘patio’ finally getting in melee range without large scale shields between us. But this is their place, prepared with all the advantages they could hope for except proper shields. Every soldier we kill costs us dozens, hundreds of our own, but our goal today is not their rank and file troops. Our goal is a more fundamental change in the game that will pay dividends going forward.
Our goal is their Aether Warrior. A warrior that should be dead a dozen times over. The unending stream and all our strategies, give way to accomplishing this single goal. Then I see him getting up from a typical human meditation pose in a fluid motion like he is a dancer.
A DANCER!!!
“This is a fight for your life and you are moving like a DANCER???”
We both take simultaneous steps forward and then I feel as if he lets me sense his full power.
He is no longer limited to only level 99 skills and he doesn’t try to play coy to surprise me. No, he comes at full power relying on the solid ground to support his weight and acceleration.
He wields external magic that is not Mana and that lets him close significantly with the most meaningful advantage that we had before.
“You are talented, but I will bury you before you can grow. All that talent will be wasted, for today is a good day for you to die.”
“You are talented, but I will bury you before you can grow into your power. All that potential will be wasted, just like you did for Satomi. Today is a good day for you to die.”
“Nohh. I refusia.” The words come garbled like he barely practiced. Even a 2 year old without the system would speak more clearly, but he knows our language. I understand him even in the cacophony of battle. The sheer arrogance of using his concentration to manipulate the air with magic when he should be focusing on our fight.
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“DIE. DIE the most painful death I can give you.” I scream while charging forward.
My entire being comes into tune.
Nothing can stop me.
I won’t hesitate.
I will KILL, KILL, KILL.
I push forward the placement wood hand I got after losing the last one in our first bout. Any doubt about my power level being insufficient is gone. Now I know with certainty it isn’t enough, so I create a small diversion and trade my own Dark Nature control rod for another.
On someone else’s hands, it would barely be stronger. The one others couldn’t even hope to pull a percent of its real power, but that is because this power came at a cost. Even if I don’t have the soul stat to feel the specifics, I simply let it invade my soul.
My lifespan slips through my fingers like dried sand as those tendrils decay anything about me they touch. My control of nature, my skills and even my potential for higher levels but I have a lot of ground to give. More than enough to finish this fight. What would have ordinarily made me cry only drives me harder.
It can’t have all been for nothing.
“You need to die.”
All the nature within a few meters becomes mine and I attack.
Then he stops me.
Fully controlled under my powerful soul, probably the strongest Dark nature control rod left in existence, formerly yielded by a planetary leader, now backed by a rate of mana pulled from the pools of hundreds of Elves that I can’t sustain. And he stops the expansion of my domain cold.
I failed, but I will find another path. As I get within a couple of meters of him, I raise the limb I was staring at a few moments ago. Pointing my left arm at him, the broken void striker is aimed at his face and I push mana through it.
The highest instrument of Death I ever touched can no longer freeze his body, but it is just as deadly as before.
A stream of death heads for his torso fast enough that he won’t be able to dodge. Not even his sky high reflexes from someone 3 times his level would be enough, but a shimmering shield popping up surprises me. It exudes a nature I don’t understand but can guess at. At the same time, a tiny portal opens from his inner world for some bizarre reason and a constant stream of a dark pink resource flows out.
I don’t manage to sense even a hint of this other resource. But I can still tell that it’s either related to either stamina or health given I already saw his external resource.
He reveals ANOTHER resource. But if he has two… and he is still alive, that means he has three resources… My luck.
‘Still, you die.’
The void goop with its acrid power, is somehow diminished in that intricate pattern of runes. It only loses the barest hint of power from crossing a formation twice as complex as I assume he could ever reach and ten times as many runes as a new mage should be able to handle. Worse yet, as I look into his eyes, I’m certain he has never practiced this particular variety.
It simply came to him, like he is blessed by runes and they are in his blood. He simply speaks the language while the rest of us has to catch up. Not the careful study of a scholar, pouring over each word with caution, but wild magic just shy of what those crazy free form magic wielders dabble in.
Still, only a tiny portion of the attack disappears in his inner world and the shield is gone, with the other 90 percent of the goo ready to end his life. It hits his skin almost in slow motion, my eyes see through the acid like void substance to gauge the damage to his flesh and I freeze in my step.
My beautiful flowing patterns, dodging from side to side, wielding magic and the void like they are mine face the impossible and are simply gone.
All around me, the world halts.
No one else can see it, but everyone around me feels it. Both the humans concerned for their prime warrior and ours taking their cues from me. I stand there with horror they can’t understand plastered over my face.
His skin is injured, bright red, like he was boiled alive for a few seconds, but that is it. He didn’t lose a single cell. But he doesn’t have thousands of constitution points this feat would require. His armor automatically regrows the wood parts hiding the Mithril flakes and insanely tough leather that also survived direct contact with the caustic void. What kind of beast has hide that tough? To shrug off a void striker attack this early on.
He is barely injured. At the most, he lost 5 percent of his heath. And with such superficial injuries, not even forcing him down to zero health would be a guarantee of death.
A second later, I’m still there, protected by my shields, with a tight grip on nature around me.
Then he surprises me again as I realize he didn’t capitalize on my mistake, his attention is elsewhere, I can partially sense the thousands of points of his own resources exploding in a surprising pattern through portals to reach elsewhere. He is somehow seizing the perfect moment to accomplish something that is not our fight like he had been waiting for the break.
For a moment I fail to understand how he had the attention to spare but then I learn what he did and I scream. The absence of the background sense that I didn’t know was there until a moment ago is like feeling my ears pop and ring in the sudden silence.
He STEALS them.
Four dark nature control rods: gone.
I don’t need to look at the other archdruids. I know that he got the instruments and probably captured a few of their wielders. Given the size of his smile, he must have captured something even more valuable, maybe even the pair of healers we brought to this death trap.
OUR HeALeRS.
“Death.”
He has to die, for the good of our race.
He has to die so that we can prosper.
He has to die so that MY SACRIFICES won’t be in vain.
I overdraft my soul and the caustic nature of the void as I take the instrument that replaced my hand past all its limitations. It is already broken and even if it consumed itself, killing him was a worthwhile goal. I shoot out a continuous stream of the caustic void, linking the material plane to that ever present other dimension. Like so many other attacks, it explodes against him and though he manages to dodge part of it, enough gets through that I start to see the damage, real damage to his skin. Damage that anyone, absolutely ANYONE should suffer when they get struck by what some call the antithesis of the system.
It is a stupid theory spouted by those who don’t understand what they are talking about, but it holds a hint of truth.
I sense purpose as my life drains second by second, MY skills that had been locked after coming to this place, something I hadn’t experienced to such an extent in thousands of years. But even with a level 189 and the limits on my skills, the system still recognizes real accomplishment, even if it hates rule breakers.
So I reach beyond what would ordinarily be my limits during integration.
My entire being pulls on the energy of the world, in one of the rare moments that I feel Aether in the air. My control is rudimentary, I’m not blessed with this particular talent, but even the deafest of people in the moment of their deaths, if they are perfectly aligned, can wield powers beyond them and Aether had seemingly been just shy of my grasp.
I don’t have the dexterity or experience to be fancy, so I just infuse myself with Aether and explode it. Control and certainty of action I wouldn’t have believed under the system’s restrictions fill me. The certainty that my path is righteous. That he deserves to die and that I know the path forward to victory.
I SEE whatever energy he yields enemy growing his skin back to perfect condition. Hidden behind his armor, but my eyes pierce his merely physical defenses.
This isn’t happening.
This is impossible.
“This is IMPOSSIBLE!!!!”
I think of running, but the Aether drives me forward, and I let another mantra become my goal.
You have to die.
You have to die.
“You have to die.”
“You HaVe to DIE.”
I pull all the void in the vicinity into something like a bomb.
The most dangerous I can be for a single instant. Any lingering hope of living to ripe old age having given limb and power for the success of the Alven race is gone.
I would trade my life for his and he won’t be able to escape the ultimate trap. I pull so much power I threaten to collapse my soul in the fraction of a second I need to close the distance, but I manage to hold it together ready to burst it all out and pull everything to our dimension around me.
Something that even if I miraculously survived I could do again. I pull back the arm void striker for a punch and I charge the last little distance. But he doesn’t step back as he had done every step of the way, instead, he leans forward sprinting at me.
I widen my eyes realizing my fatal mistake. The mistake that will allow him all the safety he wants. A portal forms millimeters from my left hand propelled by him then even as I try to slow and change directions but both our speeds add up together.
I ‘voluntarily’ punch into his inner world. Then it’s over as his marshaled will easily overcome mine. I try to change my mind, to rescind my voluntary statement made by my actions to enter his inner world, but it’s too late. He doesn’t even have to fight hard against my natural protections to sever my arm by closing his portal forcefully. My arm is just a piece of wood.
The little void in this dimension may hurt him slightly, but in the space he controls it will be a footnote.
The instrument of death I wielded is gone. My only chance to eliminate this thermite corroding the foundations of our empire’s expansion is left alive. And if left alone, he will run rampant. He might even grow into a true threat as we had so long ago against our own invaders.
Complete and utter failure. The knowledge that nothing I do has a chance of working. That what we did so long ago now might happen to us, my spent Aether.
I stand there, wide open for an attack, in full view without anything more than cursory protections in place.
A simple but well crafted staff teleports into his hand. Then all his stats make themselves manifest. Stats that a caster like me couldn’t compare to in my diminished state.
Over the following few seconds, I accumulate cracker ribs, punctured lungs, contusions everywhere and even a broken arm. A few hundredths of a second between each of his moves, most of which I barely manage to block, but have the momentum. He slows and accelerates way faster than should be possible, but this is his territory and he glues his feet to the deep steel plates that make the ground.
The very runes on the steel floor are tuned to his techniques and enhanced them with minimal effort on his part.
With such a strong base, reinforced by solid roots underneath, he can leverage his body with several times greater strength than any mere soil or stone. Then his monstrous stats, acquired through unknown means becomes something for us to worry about. For me to worry about even without skill levels to match it, h can leverage them to an unbelievable level.
I fell squarely into his trap.
Then his last strike arrives at the base of my skull after I fail to tuck in or block it with my own staff.
The final strike.
Everything fades and in a strange sense, comes peace.
I let myself fall to the ground feeling the embrace of death blanket me.
I did everything I could. Absolutely everything. I gave my all. Now it will be my successor’s job. I just hope he will take my warnings seriously because Nash is no simple enemy.