by Ivan Kal
“Ready,” Vall and Ves said at the same time and stepped forward. Ves summoned her demon-bear-thingy and readied her shield and mace, while Vall raised his hammer, which ignited with red flame.
“Let’s go!” Morgan said. As they started moving slowly forward, he scanned the ground beneath their feet, searching for any plants beneath the stone paving of the courtyard. Finding plenty, he immediately used Phytokinesis to encourage them to grow, taking the food from the soil around them. He put his hand in his satchel and pulled out a woven pouch with the seedling of a special plant. As they came within fifty meters of the terracotta soldiers, they came to life, stone grinding as they leveled their spears and charged them together. Morgan threw his plant, which flew over Ves and Vall’s heads before fallings in the terracottas’ path, then used Power Infusion to put his energy inside of it. As the terracottas reached the plant, it exploded with growth, for a moment appearing like a mass of thin tentacles flaying around before the two dozen or so vines shot toward the terracottas guided by Morgan’s Phytokinesis, even as a part of it stabbed into the cracks in the stone floor to find purchase and ground the plant. They attacked the first four enemies, the vines of his Steel Wire Plant grabbing their spears, their limbs, and their legs, tripping them and pulling them to the ground. The vines tightened around the terracottas, not allowing them to move.
Clara threw up an armor spell over Ves and Vall. They glowed slightly white and then a sheen that looked like it was made out of thin layer of light enveloped them. Then Ves and Vall were jumping over the felled terracotta and heading straight for the second line. Ves’s bear hit her side first, smashing into one terracotta and sending it flying into another, the crash of cracking stone echoing into the mountains as pieces of the terracotta went flying. Ves snapped her scaled shield forward, sending a blast of air forward that stuck the second terracotta and staggered it enough that she could evade its spear and smash its head with her mace.
Vall was a glowing monster of fire as he pushed into the other side, swinging his hammer and smashing two terracottas at once, sending pieces of stone flying. His fire attacks weren’t all that effective against the terracottas, but his metal alignment was. He used his momentum ability and Morgan saw his hammer blur for a moment before it smashed into a third terracotta from above, pulverizing the upper half of its body in an instant. The remaining part, a bit of its waist and legs, fell down without moving.
The other two terracottas were still active—extremely damaged, but still moving. They could take a lot of damage, as demonstrated by their appearance. One was missing its head, while the other had only one arm. Morgan raised his hand and fired his crossbow as the two terracottas moved toward Vall’s back. His bolt hit the one closest to Vall with a resounding thud, cracking its torso and making it stagger. Vall turned around and swiped with his hammer, hitting the headless terracotta in the chest and breaking it apart. The terracotta’s remains fell to the ground, inactive, as its core had been destroyed.
Every terracotta had a core where their heart was supposed to be, and if it was destroyed they would stop working—which was why Lucius and Clara had moved forward to the terracottas that Morgan was holding trapped against the ground and taking them out. Clara would smash her staff on their backs, cracking their stone skin, and then Lucius would stab his sword through the cracks to destroy the cores.
While they were doing that, Ves was dealing with three terracottas: one attacked her with a spear, which she deflected with her shield before smashing her mace on its shoulder, cracking it. Another terracotta tried to take advantage of her attacking move and stab her through the chest, but Morgan pushed the plants beneath the ground that he had been growing. They grew between the cracks in the stone and upward, tangling the terracotta’s legs. The plants were mostly grass, with some weeds; so while they weren’t all that tough, they did their job and slowed down the terracotta.
And then Ves’s bear was there, smashing into the terracotta and taking it to the ground, where the huge bear proceeded to pounce on it until its chest was pulverized. The last terracotta on her side charged, but Ves put her shield in front of herself, and then a purple scaly eldritch tentacle appeared out of it and snapped forward, wrapping itself around the terracotta and trapping it. She pulled the tentacle back closer to her and then smashed the terracotta’s chest while it was trapped.
Vall was fighting another two of them and needed backup. Morgan pulled out one of his brown orbs from his belt and then knelt next to one of the destroyed terracotta’s, putting his hand against its biggest piece. He activated Mass Transfer to shift mass from the piece of terracotta to the orb. His brown orbs were just made out of wood, completely filled up—they were basically just throwing balls. As the orb started to get heavy he stood up. He had high enough strength to be able to keep it in one hand, but he would have trouble throwing it far.
So then he prepared for his next experiment. He waited a moment for the opportunity, and when Vall jumped back out of range of one terracotta and engaged the other, Morgan saw his chance. He pulled back, aimed and began his throw just as he activated his Phase Shift ability. He had been experimenting with the ability a lot since Azil gave him advice, and he’d figured out a few things. He had already known that he could phase other objects, which was why his clothes didn’t just slip off of him every time he used the ability. He had learned that he could phase other objects outside of himself entirely. That had been interesting; he could for example phase a chair next to him. He didn’t have a large enough range to phase something that was far away from him, nor could he phase something that was in close proximity of another living thing for whatever reason. He could phase something and then someone else could come and put their hand through it, no problem, but if they were close to it when he tried to use it, it wouldn’t work. It made his dreams of just dropping clothes from people’s bodies remain just a dream.
Still, phasing objects left him unable to interact with them just as anybody else unless he was phased as well. In that experimentation he had gained the ability to phase just parts of his body, which had been one of the greatest discoveries he had made about the ability. It was difficult to accomplish and so far he could only do certain parts of his body without much precision—but it made for an interesting possibility.
As his ability activated, both his hand and the orb in his palm became phased. Now no longer bound by any forces, the orb had no weight in his hand, but as his arm was still attached he could move it. His hand shot forward far faster than it would’ve been able to move with all of that weight. As he opened his hand and let the orb go, he canceled his ability. The orb shot forward so fast that it was just a blur to the eye creating a whining sound as it flew through the air. The orb, which had a mass of fifty kilograms, smashed into the terracotta, blowing it apart. The upper part of the terracotta was literally nearly pulverized. Pieces of it flew in all directions, showering the others with debris.
It was so shocking and so powerful that Vall was taken off guard, and the terracotta shot forward to attack him. Before Morgan could warn him, the spear hit him in the shoulder and slid off him, going flying to the side as the sheen of light that had enveloped Vall shattered. Vall snapped back to it and swiped with his hammer, taking off the terracotta’s leg and sending it to the ground. Then he raised his hammer up and smashed it down on its back, cracking it to pieces.
Suddenly there was silence, and everyone turned to look at him.
“What?” Morgan asked sheepishly. He hadn’t expected that. He had practiced throwing things while they were phased, but never at full strength, and not with added mass. The others looked at the pulverized terracotta and then further beyond at the stairs that led into the courtyard proper that now had a small crater in them, and then back at him.
“You are insane,” Vall whispered. “You…you could’ve killed me!”
“Don’t be a baby, that was nowhere near you,” Morgan said, even though he felt just a bit guilty. Vall could’ve bee
n hurt if it hadn’t been for Clara’s armor spell, which protected the target from a single strike and then shattered.
“What! I could feel it as it flew by! What the hell was that?” Vall asked angrily.
Before Morgan could respond, Lucius reached Vall and whispered something. Vall looked at the orb flying above their heads, then back at Morgan with narrowed eyes. “Warn me next time you want to try something crazy like that, please,” he ground out through his teeth.
“Yeah, right, yeah, of course, will do, from now on, for sure, no problem,” Morgan rattled off. He had forgotten that they were being watched and their performance evaluated. He was just a bit shocked with the result, although he knew that he shouldn’t be. I went to school for how many years? And the fuck did I learn there? Moron! He had seen some really impressive stuff on this world: people who had abilities that could level buildings in a few minutes. He should’ve known that as he grew stronger and understood how to use his abilities together, he would gain a similar strength. He had seen Vall smash through a wall with his momentum ability and a hammer while they trained, yet somehow his own skills seemed far less destructive. He shook his head and walked over to the others.
“Sorry about that, I didn’t expect it to be…well, that,” Morgan whispered. He didn’t know if the orb could transmit sound, but better safe than sorry. He didn’t want the evaluators to know that his team hadn’t communicated as best as they could. They knew one another’s skills and abilities very well, knew what each of them could do, but with all the hurry and commotion in the last two months, Morgan hadn’t had the time to show them what he had practiced with. He had usually practiced late at night when he took a break from his plant experiments, while the others practiced in the mornings.
“It’s fine, Morgan,” Vall said as he released a deep breath. “I just wasn’t expecting it, that’s all.”
“Right,” Morgan said, clearing his throat. “I guess it is time for us to go forward.”
The others nodded in agreement and they started walking forward, heading toward the stairs leading into the courtyard.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Once they climbed the now nearly demolished steps, they stepped in the courtyard proper. The courtyard was circular and large, maybe the size of a football field. There was a fountain in the middle of the cobbled yard, a massive thing that had probably once been a thing of beauty, but was now just a broken down piece of rubble. There were three sets of stairs, and now that Morgan was closer he could see just how large they were. All three sets of stairs were identical—wide and made out of white stone. They made a path over the sides of the mountain to the small plateaus on each side.
In front of each stairway was a pack of terracotta mobs, and each pack was of a different kind depending in front of which stairway they were placed. The ones on the left were like the group that they had already defeated, having a gray, almost white, color to them, with simple armor and were made out of stone. They all carried spears, just like the previous ones. The ones on the right were made out of mist stone, dark gray in color with an almost imperceptible misting around them. They had swords and mist-stone guard dogs. The last grouping was made out of dark iron, nearly black in color and with parts of them rusting. They carried pole-arms that resembled Chinese guandao, a tall staff with a blade mounted on top. They looked the most menacing with their ornamental lamellar armor.
Each set of stairs led to a different part of the dungeon and a different boss. They had already decided the route that they were going to take, so they turned toward the left side and the stone terracottas. There was a lot of distance between the three packs and according to the report the others wouldn’t react to combat unless one entered into their range. Their plan was to clear them quickly and keep them contained to their side of the stairs.
They moved as far left as they could, getting near the rocks of the mountainside. They were still out of the range of where the terracottas would activate, but now they were as far away as they could get from the other two packs. Vall and Ves readied themselves and Clara put her armor spell over them—then Morgan pulled out another of his wooden orbs and knelt, touching the ground with his other hand. He triggered Mass Transfer again and the orb grew heavier in his hand. Lucius had his two swords at the ready, waiting.
Morgan repeated his attack. He phased his hand and swung. The wooden orb flew at the group of terracottas, the air filled with the same whining sound as it crossed the distance. It hit a terracotta straight in the chest and then continued on to the one behind him, shattering both of them. Once it hit the third one, it cracked its body but didn’t destroy it. The terracottas immediately sprang into action, heading their way. Lucius swung his swords, sending blades of air flying at the coming mobs. His blades struck their stone bodies and cut into them, but didn’t do much damage. Morgan raised his crossbow instead of grabbing another wooden orb. That attack might be powerful, but it also required both concentration and a lot of his energy. He used his ability Piercing Shot, one that he had used with his bow but which worked with a crossbow. The bolt flew out and struck one of the advancing terracottas in the chest—the bolt found a crack and punched in, widening it and sending a cobweb of another crack around it, but the terracotta didn’t go down.
By then the mobs had crossed half the distance, and Ves and Vall sprang into action, charging at them. There were around fifteen terracottas in the group; a few were damaged by Morgan’s and Lucius’s ranged attacks, but the others were fresh. Ves’s bear reached the terracottas first—it jumped forward and wreaked havoc on the line. Three of them fell and were struggling against the bear, but the others continued on. Once Ves got close enough, she conjured two tentacles on her shield that shot forward and grabbed two of the terracottas, throwing them to the sides into the other ones.
Vall swung his hammer from above. Using one of his abilities, he struck the ground and sent a wave of fire and force at the terracottas. The fire didn’t do much damage to them, but the force of the attack staggered them. Lucius swiped his swords at the targets he had clear shots at, sending his wind blades flying at them. Morgan did the same with his crossbow, waiting for opportunities and then firing. He used his piercing ability for all shots, but only managed to destroy one already damaged terracotta.
Then as Vall and Ves were busy dealing with the bulk of the enemies, several slipped past them and headed toward Morgan and the others. Clara raised her staff and cast a spell, and the ground in front of the terracottas turned and shone with yellow light, and as they entered their movement was slowed. Then she raised her staff and slammed it against the ground. A rolling wave of earth spread out from her staff, hitting the four terracottas and sending them tumbling to the ground. Lucius took advantage and jumped forward among them as Clara disabled her slowing field.
He attacked the downed terracottas with his gladiuses, piercing through their stone bodies and destroying their cores. Morgan stepped in front of Clara and grabbed one of his black orbs before sprinting forward. He gained as much speed as he could, passing Lucius, and then he jumped forward. He waited until he was at the peak of his jump and moving parallel with the ground, and then he activated his Phase Shift. He lost all sensation as he phased his entire body. He knew to the others it would look like he was floating forward like a ghost, passing through everything in his way at the speed of his jump. He waited in the nothingness for a few seconds, mentally counting as he estimated how much time it would take him to pass the point where Ves and Vall were fighting. Then, when he thought he was far enough, he disabled his ability, feeling a big chunk of his energy missing. His sensations returned and his continued momentum carried him a bit more forward. He landed on his feet a bit shakily and turned around.
He had passed the battle and was now at least ten meters behind them. He saw Vall and Ves fighting and two terracotta guards attempting to go around and flank them. He raised the orb and pulled on the fuse that was glued to the side of the wood with a sticky resin. Morgan estimated
how much he was going to need and then he cut two-thirds of the fuse. He used his fire-starting ring to lit it and then immediately threw it at the two terracotta guards. His estimation proved correct when the grenade came between the two terracottas and exploded before it touched the ground. The explosion sent both tumbling down, one of them losing an arm and the other a leg. The grenade was made out of a substance that Morgan believed to be similar to nitroglycerin on Earth, and he made it out of the substance that one of the plants on this world used as a defensive mechanism. He didn’t even need to experiment with mutations to make it effective—he only had to grow a large amount of the plant in order to harvest enough for his grenade, which wasn’t much of a problem for him.
The others cleaned up the rest of the enemies and then walked over to him.
“You know how weird you look when you fly through the air all eerie like that?” Clara asked him.
“Weird how?” Morgan asked.
“Your eyes do this thing where you are looking forward, but you clearly can’t see anything. It’s spooky,” Clara said.
Morgan opened his mouth to respond, but he caught sight of the floating orb above them. Deciding to table that for later, he turned to Lucius.
“You remember the next part of the plan?” Morgan asked.
“Of course,” Lucius said.
Morgan nodded and then moved over to the stairs. There looked to be at least fifty steps leading upward. They stopped and sat on the stairs at the base and caught their breath. They had all expended some energy doing all that. Morgan took the time to reload his crossbow and pull out and replace the orbs he used on his belt. After about fifteen minutes, Morgan stood up and walked a few steps away. He looked down at the ground for a bit and then turned to Vall, motioning for him to come over.