The music started softly, just competing with the din of battle and the cheering of the crowds. But the soothing voice soon turned harsh, as the sound of two guitars weaving through the stadium, demanded everyone's attention.
It didn’t take long to find the source. They had placed themselves in the middle of the arena.
Mark knew who it was before he even saw them, but he looked anyway.
There, Terry and Bonnie stood center-stage for all to see, playing their hearts out on guitars.
The song’s intro built, spreading out until it filled the whole space with the sounds of heavy metal, drowning out the battles beyond.
As if in response to the music, teams came rushing in from all directions, and the crowds responded with roars of anticipation.
Henry and his troupe were not idle either, they surrounded the duo like a wall, beating back the crowd.
The melody seemed to reach its peak, Terry took a sharp breath and belted out the first chorus.
Mana lased his voice like a coiling serpent, amplified by the bass of Bonnie's guitar.
The effect was like a shockwave pushing everyone near them back. The closest people to the duo dropped to the ground unconscious, and those a little further away seemed to lose their balance completely or barely remain standing. Henry and his team were entirely unaffected.
Mark’s Group had been moving towards the center, luckily they weren’t close enough to be affected just yet, but Mark could feel the range of their magic growing in strength.
Mark unfolded his construct to cover them as he tried to figure out what was going on.
He immediately clocked the air magic Bonnie was using to amplify their sound, but he couldn’t quite place what magic Terry was using.
The problem quickly escalated, as the first outer ring of the platform dropped back into the ground, shrinking the size of the ring by a third. A few people fell off, but this also forced teams into a tighter space. Bringing them into Terry’s range, which by now was filling up a good portion of the last ring. All the while Terry was singing, putting his all into his performance.
As difficult as the situation was, the only option open to them was to keep moving towards the center. Many teams figured this out too and they all started employing defensive skills and barriers with varying degrees of success.
As they got closer, the surrounding teams got less and less as the music acted as a filter.
Stopping those without the strength to advance. Mark had started to feel a pushing force trying to keep them at bay.
Glancing around Mark saw three teams nearby that were keeping pace with them.
The first group wore reflective gear, they seemed to be focused around a single caster, that used reflections in her magic. She created copies of her team and generally threw her surroundings into confusion. Right now she had wrapped her team in a seamless cube of reflections, and with each note coming off the duo, the mirror would reflect a resonance to counter the incoming sound.
The next team was less unique but no less potent, they looked to be made up entirely of football players, fully kitted out in padding and armor to match. They all seemed to be Aura users and their method of advancing was simple yet effective. Forming a line they endured the force of the music with their bodies directly. Raw Aura and skills were their only defense.
The last team was the most interesting to Mark.
They were a full team of what looked like faith casters, dressed in black robes. They huddled in a circle facing inward and ignored the ongoing battle. A screen of black light perfectly separated them from the music. In any other situation, Mark would have gone to investigate. It looked like they were using [Joint casting] and he had never seen that many people working together at once. However, the situation just did not allow for it.
They all quickly discovered that the nearer one got to the origin of the music, the stronger the effect became. But, this was not all.
Mark noticed that he was becoming dizzy, the music was affecting them, making it harder to think, to cast. Which meant somehow it was bleeding through his shield, even when he strengthened it further.
That's when it hit Mark
‘Sam, throw up an air barrier! I think they are using Sound or Vibration magic! ’
Mark knew the sound was one of the things his constructs struggled to block and just as his construct had naturally countered Lieutenant Nole’s darkness magic, it seemed that Vibration magic was a natural counter to Force.
Sam reacted right away by throwing a dome of air under Mark's barrier.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t as simple as he had hoped. Though it did help, it didn’t stop their music from getting through. Looking down Mark could feel the base notes of their music vibrating through the ground below him.
They must have already realized that air magic could weaken Terry’s magic so they’d come up with an alternative. The very ground was acting as their speaker, transferring the vibrations to the air, and them directly, they couldn’t escape. Mark attempted to still the earth below them but it was like using a sieve to stop sand. He could control the earth, but not the vibrations moving through it.
Short of flight, they had no way to deal with it.
At the end of the day, Terry and Bonnie had created a potent technique, with attacks that could get around most obstructions, and worst of all, they weren't half bad as a band either.
At this point, they were close enough to see Terry giving the performance of his life. He glanced up for a second and smiled expectantly. Then all at once the sound focused into a cone directly at them and the three nearby teams.
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It smashed into Sam and Mark’s barriers.
Mark’s construct vibrated and rippled like thousands of tiny raindrops disturbing a pool of water.
Stumbling for a moment, he thought they were using Earth magic to make the floor rise towards him, but he realized it was just him losing his balance as the vertigo set in.
Mark felt blood running from his ears, his reflex was to just heal it, but then he felt a gentle hand on his back as Ming Wei repaired his eardrums and acted as a stabilizing force within the dome.
Looking around Mark could see they had reached the third ring and dozens of teams were clamoring for space as they clawed their way forward.
The pressure around them had increased exponentially and Mark saw the three nearby teams struggling under the assault.
The mirror caster dropped, as shards of reflections broke off her cube. The magic probably had a pretty high cost to be able to reflect sound like that, and it seemed she was out of Mana. Her shield collapsed in on itself and their team was down in moments.
The faith-casters held on, but half of them had already collapsed from exhaustion.
The football players were probably the worst off, yet the most unwilling to yield. They had stopped progressing but refused to retreat. Instead, they were using their remaining Aura to defend their strongest member. The rules stated that only one person had to last till the timer ran out and the entire team would proceed to the next round. The problem with that strategy was as one's number dwindled, it got harder and harder to survive till the end.
Sam and Mark were struggling when all of a sudden the pressure lifted. Mark looked around surprised, and spotted Daphne with Ning Wei standing next to her. At some point, her Aura had spread to fill the dome. She was drawing off the vibrations or transferring them to herself, either way, they got some breathing room.
Almost as a consequence their group broke into the lead and approached the performers.
Up until now, Henry’s team had not left their side. However, it seemed they had gotten too close for comfort, because Henry, Felix, and two more of their Aura users broke off from the defensive line, moving straight toward them. Leaving the other four to protect from ranged attacks.
Jonathan moved to intercept them. Raw Aura covered him and he took a step beyond the construct, taking the brunt of it. The moment he did it seemed like a weight was pressing down on him, but he adjusted.
Henry arrived at terrifying speeds his maul already swinging at Jonathan's head, which he ducked under and retaliated.
The other two Aura users arrived, one went to assist Henry, and the other charged straight past them. Daphne clenched her jaw and moved to block his path.
Then Felix arrived, the little floating ball smashing into Mark's construct. Of the four of them, Felix was the weakest in terms of raw strength, but he was the one Mark had been most worried about. Mark had fought side by side with these people, and Felix seemed to have a skill bordering on magic, that let him find the most vulnerable areas in anything. Be it a person or object. So when that annoying little ball began to smash into Mark's barrier, at all of the weakest points, Mark grit his teeth and gave him his full attention.
Sam sent a hail of ice at the Aura user engaged with Daphne, knocking him to the ground. Jonathan was at a disadvantage while out there and with two of them working together, he was struggling. He had managed to disarm Henry by knocking his maul across the arena. But now the three were locked in an all-out brawl.
But even with all of this, they were still advancing.
It was at this point that Terry had arrived at the peak of his song and bringing his pick down, he moved into an intense guitar riff. The cone narrowed down, further focussing the sound waves to the extreme.
The air between their groups shook with distortions so powerful, it was visible to the naked eye.
Cracks splintered through both Mark's and Sam’s barriers at the same time and Daphne grunted in pain.
That’s also when the music changed, no longer relying on pure sound, the music began to take on another quality.
Mark could feel it in his blood, his heart. Pure exhilaration swept through him, as the battle lust sang through his veins. The music wove through the air, sending out a call to war.
Mark shook himself out of the bloodlust, as did everyone else. But, this was not the same for Henry and his team, instead, they leaned into it. Their actions became faster and more powerful by the second.
Jonathan was suddenly on the defense as Henry tackled him to the ground. The guy Daphne had been fighting was up and crashing against the already fraying construct wildly.
Mark registered what was happening almost as soon as it began. Terry must have used conceptualization in his magic, he was imbuing his song with a modifier to stir their emotions. At a very base level that was the whole point of music. Only this effect was on a whole nother level, whipping Henry's team into a frenzy.
Ning Wei attempted to banish the nausea they were all feeling, but it was becoming too much.
Mark glanced at the screen, the next drop was on its way. He realized they had to stop this now, or none of them would make it, they had to close the rest of the distance.
Sending his plan down their connection, Mark began casting [Bestowal] three times, increasing the defenses of Sam, Ming Wei, and himself.
Then he focused on [Sculpt Mana], if one barrier wasn't enough then he’d have to add more for this to work. Creating a second construct, he pushed it up to sit flush with the first. The two barriers meshed together, covering some of the weaknesses of the other. Then Mark created a third layer, and a fourth, applying it the same way. Layering them, and with each one, the sounds lessened further.
Make covered his weakness to Terry’s magic with raw power, but he wouldn’t last. Felix had doubled his effort, to break through and Mark didn’t have the energy to spare anymore.
Pushing the two outer layers forward to Jonathan, he blocked enough of the sound to give him a fighting chance, which he used to launch Henry a good dozen feet away from himself and batter the other guy aside. Henry recovered and scrambled to his feet charging at Jonathan.
Mark saw his opening.
Sam focus on our defense!’
He didn't even need to pause to know she would handle it, Mark popped his mental limits and shouted aloud towards the front.
“Go! I’ll make you an opening, stop the music!”
Jonathan, free from obstruction ran wide, darting to their left.
Huge chunks of rock and torrent-like winds surrounded them as Sam took over their defense.
Mark diverged his remaining energy to [Bestowal], combining it with the [Sculpt Mana] he already had running. No time to include a modifier he pushed the magics together.
The spell was similar to the one he had used on Jonathan during their encounter with the guardian, the difference now was that he understood the spells much better and they combined with little problem.
Terry saw that Mark was trying to do something and so with the last of his song, he strummed the closing chords. Gathering all vibrations into one huge wave and launching it at Jonathan. The attack was the strongest one yet but Mark didn’t stop casting, he completed the spell and sent it through his construct. Just as the wave of sound was about to hit Jonathan, he dove off the side of the arena to dodge the worst of it. The resulting blast splintered the rock, the field was made from.
Terry looked surprised until Bonnie shouted. Daphne arrived to their right, slamming into their backline. She was wrapped in Mark's construct, waves of sound rippling off it as she moved.
They had been so focused on Jonathan that they had not noticed Daphne approaching.
Henry's men tried to block her but she completely ignored them, letting their attacks hit the shield. Flashing next to Terry she swung. The intense melody was cut short abruptly and Terry’s scream of sorrow replaced it.
The silence that followed was deafening, even the fighting slowed, and the cheers of the crowd fell still.
Henry seemed to wake up, tearing his eyes away from Jonathan to look back at Terry and Bonnie. Terry stood there looking distraught as he held the neck of his guitar which was cracked almost to splinters. Bonnie's instrument was no different, other than that, neither was harmed.
Suddenly the cheers of the crowd exploded once more tearing through the stadium, as if someone pressed the unpause button, the surrounding fights continued once more.
Minutes passed but no one approached Mark’s team, giving them a wide berth.
Henry begrudgingly retreated to Bonnie and Terry, they managed to resume fighting until the end but eventually, a siren went up, bringing the battle to a close.