ImmovableMage
patreon
133 Breaking the Mold
🕑 Added 2023-04-22 00:02:00 +0000 UTC– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 217, Season of the Rising Sun, Day 96 –
“You’ve done better,” said Damian with reluctant praise. “I’m looking forward to your performance today. I’ll be watching.”
Okay? Terry was not sure how to respond. This was the first time that Damian had visited him before the battles started.
“If you make it through the day with your winning streak intact, then I’ll have your first item waiting for you,” continued Damian. “I approve of the choice you’ve made for it.”
What happened to discussing this after I’ve earned the privilege? Terry furrowed his brow.
“But remember…” Damian’s tone became stern. “The most important thing is to stay alive. If you die, then you won’t be of use to anyone. So keep your wits about you.”
Duh? Terry shrugged. “I’ll try…”
“I wasn’t asking,” replied Damian almost automatically. “Oh, old habits die hard.” Damian chortled. “I almost took you for one of my soldiers. I suggest you do better than try. The last one that fed me a line about trying was called Fernanda and your friend, the Captain, sliced her apart at the Bulwark.”
Damian looked to the side and shook her head. “Fernanda ‘tried’ to remember her hardening spell combination.” He moved his gaze back to Terry. “Don’t take your cue from Fernanda. Don’t try. Do it.”
I’m not sure I would make for a good soldier. Terry chose to simply nod.
“Break a leg and try to make it someone else’s.” Damian departed and left Terry to his own devices.
What a strange way to wish someone luck… Terry went back to his breathing exercises and burst technique practice.
***
Terry had won his initial matches of the day without many problems. The opponents overall had a better mana foundation than on Terry’s previous battle days, but Terry hadn’t noticed much of a difference. One opponent had wielded an aspected halberd, but it had been little use to the opponent after Terry had transfixed it with the Immovable Object spell.
Late in the afternoon, Terry had only a single match left to reach the number of wins required to exchange for the privilege of wielding an item in combat.
In a room above most audience seats, Damian was looking pensively at an inscribed display that was visible to the audience but not to the contestants in the arena. “I wonder if…”
“Perhaps they are not interested enough yet,” surmised one of Damian’s confidantes. “Beatrice certainly isn’t the type to forget her blood debts.”
“Hmm— No, look!” Damian stood up from his seat and pointed. “The votes for the twins! No way that sudden rise is organic, quick!” Damian gave a signal to his allies among the audience.
“It appears to be too late, sir,” said an assistant. “The rest period for our man has just ended. The twins are going to be Terry’s next opponent. The margin is so thin, it almost seems natural. If that was manipulation, then it was superbly executed.”
“How come you didn’t have an eye on the twins from the beginning?” asked a friend of Damian's who was also in the lounge. “They’re known cleaners, aren’t they? They could have advanced further already but regularly throw in the towel to never leave the tier they feel comfortable in.”
Damian shook his head and looked at his friend. “The problem is that there are too many to watch all at once. We paid more attention to others because the twins are really too far out for the audience. They are strong individually. They are exceptional at coordinating together. They have the numbers and items advantage. It’s too far out. The audience shouldn’t be that eager to put them against Terry, which means them winning the vote represents a larger manipulation than we expected.”
“That’s more like the Beatrice I know,” remarked Damian’s confidant.
“Will your man be okay?” asked Damian’s friend.
“Hard to say,” admitted Damian with a frown. “If he can trap the cultivator with his pebbles, then he has a chance to take out the mage quickly. Otherwise, this will be…” Damian’s frown deepened. “We’ll see.” He grit his teeth. “I feel like I’m overlooking something.”
“Beatrice has that effect on people,” quipped Damian’s confidant dryly.
Damian’s friend squinted at the display. “Which arena is the fight supposed to be in again?”
In the audience seats below, an older boy was teasing his younger brother. “Ouch, tough luck for your new crush.”
“Shut your trap, I’m just interested in his mana cultivation,” said the younger boy in a defensive tone. “That’s why I want to watch this match.”
The older sibling softened his tone. “Look, I know you wanted to become a fighter, but with your light-aspected mana, that’s…” He rubbed his brother’s head of hair. “You can always sign up as a healer and prove yourself that way.”
The younger boy slapped the arms of his older brother away and glared at him defiantly. “I don’t want to be no sissy healer.”
The older boy snorted and rolled his eyes. “Assassin or scout then. If you save up for enough items, then—”
“What’s the point of items if I’m not allowed to use them in the arena?” grumbled the younger boy with a pout.
The older brother shrugged. “Let’s just watch the match. I hope your new crush will survive longer than two minutes…”
Meanwhile, Terry was being led through a tunnel into another fighting arena. The moment Terry set foot outside, he felt that something was off.
“Crap.” Terry realized that there were no pebbles to pick up. The ground looked as if someone had freshly smoothened the earth with no pebble or rock in sight. Terry attempted to dig into the ground with his bare feet, but the earth had evidently been compressed as well.
Terry did not have time to dwell on it because, right at this moment, two human men were entering the arena. Their faces looked extremely similar to each other, but one was a lot sturdier, with broader muscles. Their mana signatures weren’t cloaked and plain for Terry to see.
The muscular one is dual-aspected with ice and fire. The other appears unaspected with a slightly more intense mana signature.
This just keeps getting worse. Terry frowned when he sensed a magic fingerless glove on each of them. Dense inscriptions, probably more than one inscription woven together in each of them. Terry could not help but recall his own thoughts on choosing an item. Crap.
The next thing that happened took Terry by surprise: The scrawny one of the two handed his magic glove to the muscular brother, who immediately put it on his free hand.
“Alright.” The muscular opponent grinned widely and punched into his palm. He sneered at Terry. “This is as far as you will go.”
Terry realized that the scrawny opponent was backing away while shaping the spell structure for Haste. Terry dashed forward. The way this match was set up, this wasn’t just a normal encounter. This whole situation seemed targeted at Terry and if that was the case, then it was better to not lose too much initiative.
Going by the scrawny man’s mana signature, Terry judged that even with the support of Haste, the scrawny man was likely slower than Terry in his bursting state. Nevertheless, it was still better to prevent the spell if possible because, once active, it was hard to disrupt.
“Where do you think you’re going?” sneered the muscular opponent and, with a burst of mana, he cut off Terry’s path while also moving mana into one of his gloves.
Terry felt a familiar pull at himself. The activating bidirectional attraction almost made Terry spit his tongue out. The inscription allowed the sturdy opponent to catch up with Terry.
Terry dodged the lunging fist and instinctively retreated from the fist in a low, evasive movement. A second later, an intense but short fire-aspected discharge was raging where Terry had just been.
Similar style to Pa Bjorln, thought Terry while switching direction to confront the cultivator once more. But not quite the mana pool to match the style.
The muscular cultivator continued his assault on Terry and alternated between fire and ice in his discharges. Terry, on his part, started countering with his own disruption discharges to push away the opponent’s discharged mana.
While Terry and the cultivator were exchanging blows, Terry sensed the successful ignition of the Haste spell – but not on the target Terry had been expecting. The mage among the two twins had not cast the spell on himself and instead supported the cultivator brother. Terry cursed himself for missing this possibility. If he had anticipated this, then he could have disrupted the spell before it was targeted.
Before, the cultivator had been forced into a continuous burst to keep up with Terry, but now the man only burst his mana whenever he wanted to accentuate his attacks.
Terry switched his burst technique and his battle rhythm became too unpredictable for the cultivator to react in time. Terry landed a good punch into the man’s kidney. However, just when Terry had intended to follow up, a bolt of lightning was aiming for him from the mage brother.
The cultivator brother used the chance to retreat and get closer to the mage again.
Terry’s eye twitched, and he realized the mage had prepared a dual-casting. Terry burst forth and unleashed a layered disruption discharge. Unfortunately for Terry, the cultivator brother countered with his own discharge, and at the current distance between them, the mage’s spell targeting was not disrupted. The skin of the cultivator took on a metallic shine.
Metal Skin. Terry was scowling at the two. I see. As long as the cultivator blocks me from reaching the mage, the mage can focus on strengthening the cultivator, which makes it even less likely that I can reach the mage. Terry’s eyes darted over the pebble-less ground and then back to the cultivator’s magic gloves. Cloth. Chosen specifically so that I cannot transfix them?
Terry rapidly dashed around the arena and noted how the cultivator always stayed between Terry and the mage. This confirmed Terry’s hypothesis.
Terry's probing was interrupted when the cultivator charged at Terry with metallic fists. Terry understood that this was meant to pin him down. He circulated a burst technique for speed and dashed away. However, he soon felt himself pulled back again by the cultivator’s bidirectional attraction inscription. Together with the cultivator’s hastened state, it was near impossible for Terry to get away.
Terry tentatively burst his mana beyond his limits and, for a moment, he escaped past the range of the inscribed glove.
An empowered lightning bolt instantly snaked its way towards Terry.
Terry had faced enough lightning in his life to recognize an attack he did not want to tank if he had the choice. However, dodging meant abandoning his attempt to get away from the cultivator. Terry clenched his teeth, abruptly changed direction, and charged directly at the cultivator.
Terry dodged the cultivator’s first fist with minimal movement. He leaned slightly to the side to evade the fire rushing from the fist and switched his mana circulation to the mana resistance pattern.
Terry countered the opponent’s attacks at an angle to redirect the force instead of blocking, just like Bjorln and Sigille had instructed him for facing armored opponents. Even though Terry held his own, he was feeling unhappy with his own performance.
Perhaps I have become too reliant on the Immovable Object spell when dealing with armored enemies?
Not the time.
Focus.
Terry stepped closer to the cultivator’s body line, feigned a punch, and used the opportunity to grab a hold of the cultivator’s arm. Terry planned to hurl the cultivator away to get a distance advantage for going after the mage. To Terry’s chagrin, he sensed one of the inscribed gloves activate before he could get far.
Two effects activated simultaneously. Terry felt himself being pulled back by the bidirectional attraction inscription. At the same time, Terry’s left foot felt nothing but air as the earth was reshaped to make Terry trip up.
Terry caught himself and did not fall, but before he could react further, he found himself grabbed by the cultivator.
An empowered lightning bolt hit Terry in the back.
Terry felt his blood boil and circulated his mana in the resistance pattern. He ignored the screaming pain. He ignored the uncomfortable sensation of his skin crawling with growing fern-like scars. He suppressed the urge to headbutt the opponent’s face in front of his own. What would have been a good move at other times was very self-destructive if the opponent was wearing metal skin.
Instead, Terry jumped up with a burst and then violently swung his legs to put the cultivator off-balance. He earned enough wiggle room to pull his arms above the cultivator’s grasp and then pressed his thumbs into the cultivator’s eyes.
The cultivator was forced to undo his hold on Terry. He unleashed a quick succession of fists accompanied by fire- and ice-aspected discharges into Terry’s stomach.
Terry felt himself consumed by pain, but he refused to let go before injuring the cultivator’s eyes. Only after he had felt a squish, Terry let go of the cultivator’s head and retreated. He glanced down at his own stomach and it looked about as painful as it felt. His clothes were in tatters and his skin was decorated with alternating burns and frost marks.
Terry reacted to the sensation in his mana sense and narrowly evaded another lightning bolt. He rushed ahead to finally take care of the mage.
“YOU SWINE!” The cultivator roared with blood running from his crippled eyes. He could still pursue Terry thanks to his mana sense, but the loss of eyesight and therefore the loss of visual cues to balance himself slowed him down, regardless.
When Terry got closer to the mage, he thought that it had been worth it. Right until an empowered Kinetic Push from the mage put a stop to Terry’s rapid progress. Terry wanted to curse when the cultivator caught up with him, even more so when the cultivator overtook Terry.
The mage finished a quickened Cure Wounds spell on the cultivator and one of the man’s eyes recovered visibly. “Stay close while I finish the healing.”
“I’ll skin that swine,” growled the cultivator. “Give me my claws and then we’ll fry him.”
“You know the setup for that,” said the mage. “No need to rush and expose ourselves. Refreshing your active effects comes first and then I’ll add Enhance Strength.”
Terry was scowling with a dark expression. He felt trapped in this battle and he had a bad premonition that it would only get worse.
If only I had my equipment. Terry could not help but lament.
Focus.
No time for pointless whining. Terry took a deep breath and then dashed forward with a burst technique.
Again and again, Terry clashed with the cultivator, with neither side coming out with a clear advantage. With the support of the mage in the back-line, the cultivator was gaining the upper hand over time, but Terry still held his own thanks to his mana foundation and burst techniques.
Terry took some comfort in the fact that the mana pool of the mage was noticeably decreasing, which meant that the mage would soon reach the limits for the number of active spells he could support over the long run.
Time seemed to crawl to a halt when Terry sensed the activation of the cultivator’s second glove. He felt a tug on his mana, and that was not all. The ambient mana that had been lingering around from their discharges gathered on the cultivator’s glove as well. Another inscription flared up, and the mana darted from the cultivator to the mage.
Of course, they would have a counter to my advantage in mana foundation. Terry frowned deeply.
Time returned to its normal speed, and Terry’s expression became grim. His mind raged to wrestle as much mana as possible back from his opponents.
The cultivator’s grin twisted into a confused expression when he sensed his own mana conversion slow down, but he did not pay it much mind. It was still enough for the twins’ plan.
Before Terry knew it, he was now facing a cultivator equipped with Metal Claws. The condensed metal-aspected mana threatened to shred Terry into pieces. Unfortunately for Terry, the condensed mana was not corporeal enough to target with the Immovable Object spell even if Terry had been able to overpower the mana concentration, which he wasn’t.
Terry was pressured increasingly. He could not block his opponent’s metal-like limbs. He could not inflict damage on the body that was as hard as metal. He could not escape the cultivator’s grasp.
Terry’s injuries piled up while the cultivator was healed. His own exhaustion was growing perpetually while the cultivator was supported by Banish Fatigue spells.
Just when Terry thought that this battle could not possibly go any worse, the mage in the rear began unleashing a vast barrage of ranged spells. A barrage of spells fed by Terry’s own mana. Whenever Terry unleashed a disruption discharge to counter a spell or an aspected discharge from the cultivator, some of the mana would be permanently lost to Terry and absorbed by his opponents.
Terry evaded to the side to avoid a fire spear from the mage, and next was faced by a fire-aspected discharge from a different direction.
The cultivator had stepped slightly aside so that he and his twin could both attack Terry from different directions. All the while, the cultivator still made sure to never let Terry pass him.
Eventually, Terry was pushed to his limits and beyond. Another fist of ice arrived and Terry could not avoid it by leaning back because he could already sense the lightning-aspected mana from another ranged spell. Terry’s left arm was still blocked by his opponent’s hand. Terry’s right arm was obstructed by the cultivator's bidirectional attraction glove.
Terry’s sight turned first dark and then lit up with starry light as the fist made contact with his temple and then the ice-aspected discharge entered his brain. Lightning sizzled shortly behind Terry, and half a second later, he was rolling backwards on the ground with the worst headache of his life. He felt as if his brain was freezing over.
Terry’s vision was still blurry and his mind was consumed by pain when he saw the dark outline approach. The next thing Terry felt was a slash across his face and a kick into his side. The disorienting sensation of another tumble over the ground followed.
Terry burst his mana in a desperate attempt to regain control, but before he got far, a lightning bolt hit him in the side.
Terry did not even have time to breathe until the cultivator was already on him again. After suffering several kicks, Terry felt himself pulled up by the head.
“Greetings from Beatrice,” whispered the cultivator. “She said to make it painful.” The cultivator twisted Terry’s arm and dislocated Terry’s shoulder. Next, the cultivator let go of Terry’s head and violently kicked into Terry’s chest.
Terry felt the agonizing sensation of rolling on the ground with broken ribs.
This is it… Terry’s mind turned numb. I can’t get away…
“Oof…” Up in the audience seats, a young boy was frowning with disappointment.
“Don’t take it too hard,” comforted the older brother. “The fight was over from the beginning. If a cultivator can’t get close to a mage, then it’s game over for them.” He patted the shoulder of his younger sibling. “If you can learn the Blink spell, you can do better.” He switched to a more stern tone. “But it’s still not a good idea to challenge a mage skilled in ranged combat. That’s just how it is. A proper mage fighter will always gain the upper hand in the end.”
“Maybe…” The younger boy was dispirited.
Down in the arena, Terry was rolling on the ground again after another painful kick from the cultivator.
I can’t get away… Terry’s mind was consumed by despair. Pictures flickered in his mind.
His friends… weeping.
His family… weeping.
Until his thoughts reached the image of Sigille… Sigille wasn’t weeping. She was shaking her head with stern disappointment.
Terry’s face contorted in a painful grimace. “I tried…”
‘FIGHT!’ shouted the image of Sigille in Terry’s mind. His thoughts reordered to realize that Sigille would be disappointed in him, not for losing, but for stopping to fight.
‘Fight!’ ordered Sigille once more.
‘Fight!’ ordered Matteo next to Sigille.
‘Fight!’ ordered the figures of Bjorln and Isille with pleading eyes. Terry’s mind was soon echoing with a chorus of: Fight! Fight! Fight!
I can’t get away… Terry tried to push himself up while the chorus still rang in his mind. It was then that something clicked into place when he looked at the approaching cultivator and the mage in the back. Terry became very aware of the arena’s boundaries. “You…” He took a deep breath and his face contorted into a ferocious expression.
Terry suddenly dumped nearly all his remaining mana into the arena at once. His eyes turned fierce as he pushed himself up. The mana extended to the edge of the arena and began rotating. Many mana shapes sprang into existence, and in a matter of seconds, spell slicers were rotating all across the arena.
Terry fixed his gaze on his two opponents. “You can’t get away either.”
Terry forcefully pushed his dislocated shoulder back into place and slowly walked forward. When Terry had first tried the idea in Tiv, he had been unable to make it work because moving the field together with him had been too hard. Instead of attempting to let the disruption field follow him around like he had done in the past, Terry was now maintaining it at a fixed location.
With every step, with every rotation of the mana under Terry’s control, the number of spell slicers increased, and so did their intensity. Meanwhile, Terry continued placing mana refractors in the area to accelerate the progress.
For a moment, the only audible sounds among the audience were quiet gasps of shock.
A young boy was the first to get up to his feet with mouth agape.
Many more followed.
The sight inside the arena was too abnormal.
Terry reabsorbed some mana and used it to dash forth in a burst technique.
The cultivator could barely regain his composure in time and moved to block Terry. He wanted to sneer at Terry, but the descending effect of mana suppression suffocated his sneer in an instant.
Terry performed another mana exchange with the field for a burst. He quickly ducked, grabbed onto the cultivator’s legs, and hurled the man above his head.
The mage tried to attack Terry with a Lightning Bolt spell, but the lightning did not make it far before clashing with some of Terry’s rotating army of spell slicers.
The cultivator first tried to pin Terry down again, but Terry only dodged the man’s attacks with minimal movements while zig zagging to get closer to the mage.
The twins were scowling at this point. There was all the mana for them to drain and share, but the mage was in no position to use it because Terry’s rotating field of disrupting spell slicers had crippled the mage’s ranged casting.
After several minutes, the cultivator’s metal claws disappeared. The spell had deactivated because the mage could not recast it.
Terry continued slowly approaching his opponents. The blood was still trickling slowly down his face from the slash wound Terry had received earlier from the metal-aspected claws.
“You’re just postponing your inevitable demise,” growled the cultivator in a posture of dominating strength.
Terry did not pay the man's words any mind. His mind was still echoing with the chorus to fight. He faced the cultivator with grim resolve. He knew that he only managed to equalize the battlefield somewhat.
As if they had planned to prove the point, Terry saw the twins dart towards each other so that the mage could recast the Haste and Metal Skin spells. Right afterwards, the cultivator charged again at Terry while the mage retreated.
Terry took some satisfaction in the fact that the spell structures shaping up in the mage’s hands were the same spells again. Evidently, Terry had unsettled their plan and confidence.
Terry confronted the cultivator with clenched teeth. He felt betrayed by the limitations of his own body. His mana-soaked body was much sturdier and more resilient than a manaless equivalent, but beating down metal-like skin with his bare hands and bare feet still left Terry injured severely. Even though Terry’s mana foundation growing up dwarfed most others, he was still only twenty and the transformation of a body was a time-consuming process.
Terry was exchanging painful blows with the cultivator when he could feel a familiar itch in his mind. Terry had not paused until now to note how his training inside the cell had evidently improved his ranged mana control, but now he felt something incongruous with his mana sight.
Terry’s eyes darted all over the arena and back to the cultivator in front of him. Terry subconsciously smiled like a predator looking at prey and he jumped back to the edge of his own ranged casting reach.
“How dare you look at me like that,” growled the cultivator, whose eyes overflowed with hatred.
“You should have fixed your diet before coming here,” said Terry flatly. “Drink more water and the like.”
“Did I hit your head too much?” The cultivator jeered.
“Maybe,” replied Terry in the same flat tone. His eyes followed a spell slicer that collided with the cultivator’s body.
The slicer that consisted of Terry’s naturalized mana was obstructed by the cultivator’s own mana, but it still passed through.
That was when the prickling sensation in Terry’s mind appeared. The sensation of his naturalized mana that was beyond his normal mana sight – blocked by the cultivator’s body.
“But I don’t think so.” Terry cast the Immovable Object spell on the small object he could perceive through the prickling sensation in his mind.
The cultivator, who was walking forwards, suddenly stopped with a confused expression that melted into pain and panic. “Wh-what did you do?”
“Fight,” replied Terry. He took a run-up, jumped and kicked the cultivator away with both feet.
The cultivator uttered a spine-chilling scream while his lower body was ripped apart. A bloody something was hovering in the air where he had just been, with lots of blood trickling down onto the ground.
Terry merely glanced at the transfixed kidney stone and instantly arrived on top of the cultivator, whose organs were partly hanging out of his body. Contrary to how the cultivator had played with Terry before to make it painful, Terry had no such distracting ambitions. Terry violently stomped onto the cultivator’s windpipe and organs before the mage could rush over with a healing spell.
The mage stopped his run half-way and stared with horror at the bloody pile that had been his brother. His face contorted and alternated between disbelief, rage, and sheer terror.
The suffocating feeling of mana suppression had been enough to unsettle the mage…
The sphere of disruption that obstructed his spells had inspired a primal fear in him…
Then his only brother and ally had been killed in front of his eyes…
The mage’s expression settled on terror when he saw Terry walk slowly towards himself. “N-no…” He ran away. He tried casting a ranged attack spell, but once again, the lightning dispersed before it could reach Terry. He hurriedly cast Haste on himself to escape from Terry.
“Mistake,” muttered Terry flatly. He circulated some of the rotating mana outside through his body and used it to speed up with a burst technique. Even in the mage’s hastened state, the man was no match for Terry’s burst speed. Terry rammed his elbow into the man’s face with the full force of his bursting charge.
The sudden impact and violent collision, together with the angle at which Terry placed it, twisted the mage’s neck. Terry glanced down at the second dead opponent. “Should have gone with Metal Skin.”
Terry slowly walked back to the match overseer while the rotating lake of mana around him decelerated and then drained off into Terry’s body.
Terry did not see the praise in the overseer’s eyes.
He did not hear the thunderous applause and cheering from the audience.
Terry’s mind was preoccupied with the lingering prickling sensation in his mind and the repeating chorus of: Fight! Fight! Fight!
In the audience seats, a young boy was still cheering his lungs out with pumped fists.
“I’ve never heard of mana cultivation like this…” muttered the older brother, while thinking about the rotating mass of mana filled densely with spell slicers.
***
Comments
roxurio10003
Discharge Domain🤩
Sesharan
Item GET! Now to see which item it is…
Aurora1325
Thanks for the chapter
