ImmovableMage
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114 Magic Obliges
🕑 Added 2022-12-10 01:02:01 +0000 UTC– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 216, Season of the Setting Moon, Day 33 –
A man in prison guard uniform was pushing hard against Terry’s barrier. Terry’s own arsenal of mana bursts and burst techniques was insufficient to hold his own against the advanced strengthening spellwork of this opponent.
“Hmph.” Terry swiftly flicked a throwing needle from his sheath inscription leg strap to his left. He gripped his spear tightly, increased the amount of mana to support the barrier, and gritted his teeth.
Terry transfixed the mid-wrist pearl on his bracer and used all his strength to redirect the pushing opponent with his own spear barrier as a lever and his transfixed pearl as the lever’s fulcrum. The guard’s own momentum worked against him and he was redirected right onto the immovable throwing needle.
As soon as the man’s movement was temporarily restrained, Terry transfixed the spear, ducked low and then air-stepped high. He first slashed with his keen daggers at the man’s femoral artery and then feigned a thrust towards the man’s temple to hide an acid spray container aimed at the guard’s eyes.
“ARGH!” Terry’s opponent was taken off guard by the quick succession of attacks. Most of the others had grown very wary of Terry’s immovable needles and avoided charging at Terry. This man, however, had still been confident earlier. Now, the man’s confidence had been shattered. After the man's confidence, the man’s skull was shattered next. Terry had landed a horizontal stomp, assisted by his immovable chest plate.
The narrow quarters suited Terry’s combat style more than he had expected.
After the face-stomp, Terry kicked out again, but this time he shifted the Immovable Object spell to different armor pieces and propelled himself backwards. From the corner of his eyes, Terry could already detect the spell projectiles he had sensed before with his mana sense. Terry exhaled sharply and kicked out a third time while still flying backwards. This time, he unleashed a dual-disruption discharge from his feet and eviscerated the incoming spell projectiles.
Again, Terry noted the benefit of narrow quarters. Long-range attacks had been the bane of his past battles, both in the Libra Outpost and in Syn City. In the middle of a dungeon tunnel, however, Terry found them much more manageable.
Terry placed a tertium slab in front of him to get some cover and take a moment to judge the situation. Somehow, Terry ended up as the person blocking the path towards the chamber in which the Valkyrie continued her battle. Terry was the last obstacle for the prison guards to overcome in order to enact their plan and collapse the chamber.
Yujin and her soldiers were engaging Claude and his followers deeper in the tunnel, pressing them towards Terry’s direction. While Terry had no idea about who was who among all the soldiers, he could make out that there were two different groups and that the people with a special insignia made up the bulk of his enemies.
Initially, Terry had mostly baited his opponents towards the ledge and then relied on his aerial movement to fling them into the acidic body of water below. Later, he had switched to baiting them into a charge and then using his skewer box or transfixed needles to take them out. Another advantage of the battlefield was the sparse luminescence in the area that made it easy for Terry’s transfixed needles to go undetected, especially when the opponent was running or distracted.
By now, the prison guard faction was wary of Terry and hesitant to approach him. They could not accurately determine Terry’s real threat level. Terry had appeared out of nowhere. His mana signature did not match his appearance. He was wearing the crest of a mage academy, but his combat style did not match that background.
Terry had already killed a dozen soldiers, and they were still not sure if Terry was holding back in some way. Terry’s style heavily featured baiting them to their own deaths and turning their own attacks against them.
Most worrying of all, Terry wore a symbol of Arcana, but he appeared to act alone. Was this another trap? Were there others ready to appear out of nowhere, just like Terry had done? Was Terry powerful enough to act alone with full confidence?
All of it added to the incongruous expression Terry gave off. All of it piled on the wariness and uncertainty of Terry’s opponents. All of it helped Terry to block the path on his own.
Even so, Terry did not feel comfortable to just wait for the outcome of the infighting among the Tiv soldiers either. As soon as the faction dispute was settled, he might be forced to face all the survivors at once, which made Terry search for other approaches to whittle down their numbers.
Terry took some pages out of his ant extermination and bounty hunting experience. He began transfixing tertium slabs. He moved forward while placing immovable walls as cover in order to further control and seize the advantage the narrow quarters offered him.
If the prison guards were not willing to approach Terry, then Terry would close the distance himself. If the prison guards outnumbered Terry, then Terry had to control the space, so they were forced to face him one by one.
“Wait!” A woman approached while holding up her hands. “We’re with the Valkyrie. I have a message and a question from Commander Yujin.”
Terry narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know you.” He did not lower his spear. “I don’t trust any of you.” He was surprised by how hoarse his own voice sounded.
“Please, we—” The woman stopped mid-sentence.
Both the messenger and Terry stared at a location on the dungeon wall between them on the side. In Terry’s mana sight, it looked as if the mana was changing hue and as if the space was cracking apart.
“Unknown aspect,” mumbled Terry absentmindedly, and his voice dropped several notes to finish as a deep and hostile whisper.
A pale grey crack appeared half an inch in front of the dungeon wall, seemingly hanging in mid-air.
“Roar!” “Scree!” Rumble
Terry’s feet reacted before he was fully aware of what was going on.
“Another veil tear!” shouted one of the soldiers.
What am I even doing here? An intrusive thought flashed through Terry’s mind during his sprint towards the veil tear.
Terry jumped and turned in the air until he flew feet first with his head bent down to look towards the tear. He clenched his teeth and used his boot mechanism to stop where he wanted – a rotated picture of someone falling and cushioning the fall with both legs. Terry transfixed his protective chest and back plates. He aimed his mana sublimator towards the tear and transfixed the handle attachment.
“Boom!” An intense blast of dense fire-aspected mana washed over the approaching hellspawn. “SCREE!”
Without a moment of pause, Terry shifted his spell so that it was only active on two pearls to form a rotational axis which returned him to an upright position. Simultaneously, Terry let the mana sublimator hang in the air and summoned a foldable tertium cube. He kept the cube unfolded and used it to cover the tear and then transfixed the slab in place.
Afterwards, Terry blinked dazedly and became more aware of his own breathing again. He gulped with dawning awareness of the perilous situation developing around him. He collected and reloaded the mana sublimator while closely monitoring the state of his Immovable Object spell on the unfolded cube.
From the corner of his eye, Terry noticed movement and realized that the messenger was still standing there. She was staring at Terry with mouth agape.
“I don’t trust you,” barked Terry. “Keep your distance.” He himself was taken aback by the rough tone in his voice, and this caused Terry to pause. He cleared his throat and spoke more amicably. “I’ve got my hands full here, but I’m not letting anyone through to the Valkyrie’s chamber. Not after what I’ve heard before. If you want to work together, you need to work with that. I don’t know any of you. I won’t cooperate beyond these terms.”
Terry added in a mutter to himself: “The only person here I trust is fighting in that chamber. I wouldn’t know how to face Aunt Sigille if I were to let someone stab her hero in the back.”
“Another veil tear!” A shout arrived from deeper in the tunnel, from the direction where the soldiers and guards were currently fighting with each other.
“What the Wastes is going on?” exclaimed Terry quietly, and his stomach was plummeting.
Is the rest of the dungeon also like this? Or is this place collapsing more quickly than the rest? Is this amount of veil tears normal? I mean normal-abnormal? No veil tear is really normal— Focus.
Movement from the messenger caught Terry’s attention and helped him concentrate once more. The woman was running back towards the place where Yujin was fighting.
“Scree!” “Nooo!” “ROAR!” “Argh!” The utterances of hellspawn mingled together with the screams from folk to create a chilling cacophony.
“We can’t hold here!” “A spellweaver!” “Two champions!” “We’re done for!” “HELP!” “Stop the infighting, we need to work together!” “AHHHHHHH!” “Stop this internecine battle, please!”
Terry glowered at what was going on in front of him. He saw some of the soldiers trying to use a variety of magic to block the invading hellspawn – barriers, ice structures, earth structures, even a summoned wall of wood – but none of the spells held for long against the devouring behemoths or herculean juggernauts.
Hellspawn were pelting the transfixed tertium cube with attacks.
Terry sensed mana movement at the edges of the transfixed unfolded cube – one of the hellspawn evidently had an ichor-aspected ability to manipulate some pale tendrils of goo. Terry drew his keen dagger and infused it with mana to slash the pale tendril into two.
The tendril instantly regenerated. In Terry’s mana sight, a weird layered mana movement appeared close to the tendril’s tip. The structure was not shaped out of mana like the spellwork that Terry was familiar with. Instead, it appeared like fine threads first created and then combined into a woven cloth of mana.
“Crap,” cursed Terry, and he unleashed a disruption discharge aimed at the spellweaver’s casting center. Fortunately, spell slicers were effective no matter if you had to deal with a mage’s spell structure or a spellweaver’s spell fabric. Unfortunately, the mana consumption of discharges lost out in the mana efficiency department in both cases, too.
“Huh?” Terry narrowed his eyes at the unexpected sight. Not only had his disruption discharge eviscerated the spell fabric, it had also caused the pale tendril to retreat. Most surprising, however, was the change in the mana distortion resembling a crack in space: It looked as if the edge of the veil tear had slightly receded inwards upon contact with Terry’s mana.
“The Veil has not been well-studied,” muttered Terry dazedly. Another aspect? Interaction with oscillating mana? Come to think of it, why is it disproportionately hellspawn that are appearing from veil tears in dungeons?
“Focus.” Terry reminded himself. He cautiously moved closer to the transfixed tertium and added additional mana to the active Immovable Object spell.
Terry concentrated on his mana sight and guided some of his mana towards the edge of the veil tear. He sensed the tear receding upon contact with the oscillating mana, and he inhaled sharply.
Hellspawn are suspected to make use of the void aspect. Intersection between space and death. Our working theory for oscillating mana was the intersection between space and life. This reaction with the Veil…
Terry’s mind was racing. Finally, he recalled the ritual that the ancient deathcult had performed on Devon.
Blood as the bridge between life and death. Blood. The Veil. Intersection between space and blood? The void aspect is pulling it in one direction and my aspect is…
Terry clenched his fists. His mana sense informed him about the carnage that was going on around him. While the Valkyrie was decimating the invading hellspawn on one side, the soldiers were decimated by the hellspawn on the other side. If things continued like this, then sooner or later, the hellspawn would break through the soldiers and Terry would have to face them alone if he wanted to keep the Valkyrie’s back free.
Terry very much doubted that he could put up a comparable battle performance to this legendary character from a bygone era. He frowned and began emitting mana. He guided his oscillating mana and carefully paid attention to the amount of mana he needed to invest to make the veil tear shrink.
“Hmph.” Terry’s eyes moved from the newly closed veil tear to the other veil tears that were further in the tunnel with the fighting soldiers.
What am I even doing here? Terry wondered once more and returned his attention to the veil tear in front of him. Terry noted that the veil tear remained closed even after several breaths of time. He was not sure if he should feel relief or dismay because this new discovery pushed another question to the forefront of his mind.
‘Shouldn’t we do our part?’ Sigille’s voice echoed in Terry’s mind again. Terry took a deep breath while staring at the raging three-faction battle further ahead in the tunnel. “Why watch from the outside…”
He repositioned the unfolded tertium cube so that it would block the path between him and the Valkyrie and transfixed it with a spell structure compressed as much as he could manage. Terry turned towards the fighting soldiers and heard the blood rushing through his ears. Pulsing. Thudding. Pressing. “When you could be right in the thick of it.”
Terry sensed for the location of the next veil tear and judged the path towards it. A breath later, Terry charged forward with his barriers raised.
***
“No!” screamed Elenec and flew swiftly through the sky to catch the injured death hunter. She hurriedly used her own blood-aspected spellwork to stabilize his condition. “Damn it.”
The man had lost his encounter with one of the lichs, and Elenec had arrived too late to support him. His life was rushing out of him and Elenec could follow the energy in her mana sight all the way up to the lich that had caused the injury.
Elenec grit her teeth when she saw a root appear next to her. She handed her companion, who was on the verge of death, to the druid’s care and hoped that Dhruv or one of the channelers of the Bright Lady would be able to prevent the worst.
Elenec’s scalp tingled and a moment later, a barrage of holy-infused fire spears passed by her and aimed for the lich. Cadence had taken up the battle against the lich now that the death hunter had been put out of commission. She was standing on a sheet of gold and floated up from below while firing off spells with grim determination.
Elenec nodded towards Cadence and supported Cadence’s flank to eradicate the freshly arrived death mages. Elenec's figure transformed, and a tiny vampire bat rushed forth.
Elenec arrived in front of the first death mage and returned to her human shape. Her magic rapier penetrated the skull of the first death mage and a small red vortex appeared. Shortly after, nothing was left of the death aura creature.
After Elenec had taken care of four death mages one after the other, she abruptly turned around. “Damn it.”
“This isn’t looking good,” exclaimed Cadence not far from her.
Both of them threw glances towards the dimensional gate. A tall, floating skeleton in a dark robe and with a large scythe had arrived through the gate. The reaper turned ethereal while moving forwards and only turned corporeal when it stopped to swing its scythe at one of the skullfeast hippos.
“We need to finish this quickly,” said Cadence while continuing to engage the lich.
Elenec, who had more experience with death aura creatures, shook her head. “That lich is strong. There will be nothing quick about dealing with it.”
Cadence’s expression turned grave. “In that case, we can only hope that Dhruv has a trick to distract the reaper.”
“Perhaps, I—” Elenec whirled around once more. “Oh thank mana, they’ve finally arrived!”
“Who?” Cadence raised her eyebrows, only to detect the familiar mana signatures that had appeared out of thin air. “By the Lady, am I glad to see them.” Her eyes moved from the new arrivals to the looming reaper.
In front of the reaper, a mountain of a man was cleaving death aura creatures apart as if they were made of brittle sticks. Dargones punched out a disruption discharge towards the reaper above. His nullification mana spell slicers ripped a hole into the ethereal reaper and forced it to materialize.
Snakes of fire instantly ensnared the reaper as Amelia swung her mage staff while casting anti-magic to prevent the creature from turning ethereal again.
Dargones silently moved his lips.
“Yeah, I know,” said Amelia. “They’re at their limits. The creatures around here are already too much to deal with… and there are more reapers on the other side of that gate.”
Amelia cast a spell to reshape the earth and raise Dargones to allow him a better path of attack, so that they could finish the reaper more quickly. The moment Amelia sensed a second reaper approaching the dimensional gate from the space on the side of Arcana, her eyes showed resolve and she unleashed a prepared anti-magic spell to destroy the gate’s anchors.
Weran, who had been silently observing the battle from atop the dimensional gate, immediately reacted with his own spells to fortify the spatial structure. He glared at Amelia. “I warned you before to not touch my gates.” Weran flicked his palm and lightning rained from above towards Amelia.
Amelia countered with an anti-magic bubble to cover herself and a lightning guidance spell to direct a part of Weran’s attack to finish off the reaper.
“It seems you are intent on dying,” said Weran coldly. “And for what? For Tiv?” He sneered. “Do you really believe that you could tear down my gates faster than I can create them? You’re overestimating yourselves, children.”
Weran moved his fingers and in less than a breath’s worth of time, Amelia and Dargones found it hard to breathe because the breathable air around them had vanished – an attack made much worse by the fact that the surrounding death aura creatures were not impaired by the lack of oxygen. The creatures’ relentless assault continued unabated.
Amelia could counter Weran's air-aspected spell, but she missed another magic ploy that had been cloaked by Weran, and a shadowy tendril stabbed through Amelia's stomach. She clenched her teeth and channeled mana into a small purple mana crystal to instantly cast a healing spell.
Dargones performed a localized burst of mana and broke the shadow tendril apart. Despite her injury, Amelia suddenly grinned, which caused Weran to raise an eyebrow.
“I’ve never been one to overestimate myself,” said Amelia with bloody teeth.
Cling Weran’s dimensional gate collapsed.
Weran narrowed his eyes, and he discovered the short stature of a dwarven man whose eyes looked like mirrors. The eerie aura spreading from Weran’s green cloak rose with his anger.
Weran moved his hands and recreated a dimensional gate while also adding a second. Since he still remembered the anchors and coordinate adjustments from his initial gate, these were created much faster than the first one.
Cling Cling Cling
Whenever Weran had created a dimensional gate, Jee immediately moved his own hands and destroyed it. They appeared evenly matched.
“Hmph.” Weran flung out several spatial blades, which were countered by Jee as well.
Unexpectedly, the eerie aura around Weran decreased as he tilted his head and examined Jee. “I’ve heard about you. I don’t know if I should envy or pity you. Those eyes are a miracle, but that’s a painful ritual you subjected yourself to.
“While I can admire sacrificing so much for the pursuit of a single aspect, you should remember that specialization is always a limitation.” Weran cast an empowered spell and an immense wall of fire rose all around Libra City. “One I do not share.” Another spell created a vortex of poison that now loomed threateningly above the tall druid oak.
“I admit that your painfully earned peculiar affinities may allow you to compete with me in one aspect,” said Weran flatly. “You may be able to destroy my dimensional gates, but are you really sure that this is what you want?” His voice hailed a haughty threat. “So far, I have let Tiv face the creatures it has sent to Arcana. Do you really believe that Tiv will fare better facing me?!”
Weran pulled his hood back and stared coldly at Jee. He moved his gaze to Amelia and Dargones. “You have piqued my curiosity. Why are you all even here?”
“A friend is taking care of my sister, and I have promised to do the same for him,” replied Jee matter-of-factly.
“So?” Weran looked amused. “Take her and leave, then. Why linger around?” His calmness presented a sharp contrast to the three that were engaged in battling the death aura creatures even while talking to him.
“As if you would pause and allow us to evacuate everyone!” shouted Amelia in a tone that conveyed she felt her intelligence was insulted by Weran.
“Naturally not,” admitted Weran indifferently. “It would only delay the inevitable. If you evacuate them to the next city, then we will all eventually meet again in that location. When Tiv destroyed Arcana’s barrier, it invited these creatures from all around the north. Someone will have to take care of these creatures now, and it’s not going to be Arcana.” The eerie aura around Weran rose again. “After Tiv’s plot, I will have to insist on that point.
“But if you just want to protect your friend’s sister, then I will allow you to take her away,” said Weran while looking inquisitively at Jee and the others.
“And what about all the other innocent people here?” spat Amelia. “Are we just supposed to let them die?”
“Heh.” Weran actually smiled at that question. “In the past days, me and mine have created more than a hundred gates. Do you want to guess how often the strong chose to stay and protect your so-called ‘innocent’? To risk their own lives for others without being forced to?”
Amelia’s expression darkened as soon as she heard about the scope of the dimensional mages’ movements.
“Let me put it this way, if you curled a finger each time, you still wouldn’t have a proper fist.” Weran spoke in an odd tone that seemed both mocking and cynical. “A few imperial censors practically offered me the key to their city to let them go.”
Amelia cursed quietly.
“Magic obliges.” Weran sneered. “If that was supposed to inspire a sense of duty in the powerful, then Tiv’s approach appears to have failed, pathetically so. In fact, the stronger the mage, the quicker they appear to flee.”
Weran snorted. “Why wouldn’t they? They had to jump through hoops and submit to indignity just to learn magic. Why would they have any goodwill towards those that forced them to?” Weran shook his head. “None of these people are truly innocent.”
Dargones punched out a massive wave of nullification mana to stop a blood abomination from absorbing more zombies.
“This so-called empire is a farce.” Weran spat the words with contempt. “In order to grow strong, people have to abandon their community, because that is demanded of them in exchange. Want to learn advanced magic? Join the army. Grow strong while not being around to protect those you truly care about.
“What a deal.” Weran’s sarcastic voice gave way to derisive laughter.
Jee was teleporting through the area and setting up a few temporary dimensional gates, which he immediately moved to reposition some of the most problematic death aura creatures.
“Utter idiocy,” sneered Weran. “Those that truly care about others remain weak. Those that only care about strength learn to resent the weak. What a magnificent setup!”
Amelia finished a complex spell casting and a bird of fire rushed through the death aura creatures.
“Instead of instilling a sense of duty in their mana users, Tiv has turned advanced magic into an almost exclusive privilege of nobles and selfish opportunists.” Weran chuckled cynically.
Amelia unleashed a whip of fire to lash out at a blood abomination.
“You three are outliers.” Weran began laughing more loudly. “But then again, two of you have already been branded criminals in this glorious empire.”
Jee reappeared closer to Weran and unleashed countless spatial blades to tear apart higher rank death aura creatures.
“But I digress…” Weran moved his hands to his hood and was about to push it over his head when he halted. For several breaths, Weran watched the three Guildheads battle the death aura creatures. A battle, which they did not have to take part in. A battle, which they could have avoided if they had chosen to do so.
For a moment, Weran closed his eyes. He let the hood fall on his back again. “Alright, your silver eyes have caught my interest.” He released the threatening wall of flames and vortex of poison. This came as a tremendous surprise to Jee, Amelia, and Dargones. They were not sure if they could believe what they were seeing.
“I’ll play with you for a bit,” declared Weran, and stood up. “Might as well get some entertainment and perhaps a few insights on the nature of space out of this.” He moved his hands and six smaller dimensional gates appeared at once.
Varied creatures were lurking on the other side: undead, spirits and elementals, mana-corrupted beasts.
In the blink of an eye, all these horrors were flooding the area.
“Show me what those costly eyes can see,” said Weran and began teleporting around the area while creating more and more gates.
Jee immediately followed to erase the gates as fast as he could.
***
Comments
Aurora1325
thanks for the chapter
Sesharan
Ooooh, fascinating! Do these veil tears have something to do with why the Valkyrie has been kept here?
