by Dakota Krout
“Well…” Say nothing, say no, say anything but- “yes, I think we should do something.”
She was quiet, which was always nerve-mangling, and her eventual words didn’t fill me with the confidence that she understood my limitations. Apparently, I needed to be less awesome. “If you do think of something, just promise that you will join the fight.”
The unguarded portal that is not currently in use or protected. Nom nom nom. I slid a section of stone away, and the portal dropped into my depths. The stone slid back over its previous location, making it look like the portal was ripped away by something clawed. That should throw them off the trail when they were looking for the culprit if I was not fast enough. When the portal finally stopped moving downward, I studied it with my Mana and dissolved the artifact after removing its active connections. No need to tear a spatial rift through myself. I snorted at the horribly inefficient and shoddy workmanship, disgusted that this was the culmination of centuries of gathered human knowledge.
I replicated the portal with a thought, making the exterior appear the same but replacing the internals with Essence instead of Mana. I restored the connections it previously had, and as the portal came to life, it no longer had the infernal whooshing-buzzing sound that had been its trademark in the past. Actually... that might give away my changes. I made a screaming rock, adjusting the Rune on it over and over until it matched the buzzing sound nearly perfectly. I put that in the base of the new portal and pushed it upward, placing the portal back in its old location.
From now on, the portal Mages would think they had control and would still be able to change the location it connected to, but I could cut the power off whenever I wanted. I would also be able to change the location it linked to. When I made my escape, I wanted it to be a clean escape. I didn’t need adventurers anymore, but I’d continue building up my dungeon for the simple fact that I still needed to protect myself. Not a lot would change, at least not soon, but at least I was getting ready for it!
Chapter Forty-six
“Ah, if it isn’t my star pupil! Get it? Star pupil?” Dale flinched at the voice that sounded near his ear. He glanced back to see Artorian studying him. “Yes, good, good. How impressive that you were able to create a derivative of my sunlight aura from a simple conversation on the Essence ratios! Your comprehension must be off the charts! C-ranked as well, now? Astounding.”
“Headmaster, what brings a nice guy like you to a dead-end place like this?” Dale wryly questioned as a lance of light extended from his palm and began melting a Ghoul’s head. Artorian nodded approvingly at Dale’s formed Essence.
“Hmm, a decent application of light. Good for conserving energy if you can retrieve it, but not great application for this large of a crowd. Allow a demonstration.” Artorian nudged a very tired Dale out of the way, extending his hand. His palm faced the ground, and his fingers were pressed together to form a wedge. “Now, while energy conservation is good for a long fight like this, what we need right now is fewer enemies around us. So, as the average height of the undead is based on the average height of our fallen people, we position our attack thusly and allow the light to move in a line, actually a wave if you pay attention closely.”
His extended arm glowed strangely with much less light than Dale expected. He had only thought about increasing the brightness or concentrating the light, so watching Artorian do… something was a little confusing. Artorian stepped back and nodded. “That should do it, did you catch all that?”
Dale looked at the unchanged view, frowning skeptically. “I’m sorry to say that I don’t see any difference.”
“Hmm? Oh, give it a second. They are all propped up due to the high enemy density. Now, this isn’t something that works well for extended fights,” Dale’s jaw dropped as a long, long line of undead simply slumped to the ground with partially melted skulls as the others around them moved onward, “but it can grant a reprieve, as you can see, even if the Essence cost is astoundingly high.”
“H-how?” Dale sputtered even as he punched another zombie that tried to fill the gap.
“It’s a simple usage of light.” Artorian cocked his head to the side. “Ah, I see. You are only using the visible spectrum. Well, I guess experience will always win out. I used a combination of focused, high-spectrum light along with the inherent properties of celestial Essence; in other words, I consecrated the portion of the skull that necromancers connect to in order to direct movement. Light naturally travels through certain materials easily, but, as I said, high Essence cost. Also, this works to damage regular people as well, so you can’t just fire it off willy-nilly.”
“I… I don’t understand. Spectrum? What do you mean light goes through things? That’s just false!” Dale was so agitated that he missed an incoming attack and had a boney fist slam into his face. Luckily for him, it was a skeleton that did the attacking, and its hand broke as it contacted Dale’s cheek.
“We will have plenty to talk about, it seems.” Artorian smiled gently as he joined in the fight more directly. “There is always more to learn, Dale. Again, this is simply a matter of experience. You will be able to do something similar in the near future, I am certain. In the meantime, I notice that you are having some trouble taking down Ghouls before they land an attack on you. Extend your senses and attempt to learn.”
Artorian’s palm began to glow fiercely, though it also contained the same glowing not-light as the long-range attack he had used previously. “This is the basic form my attacks take, a simple palm strike. Now, I’ll walk through all of the instructions you will need to follow my ability. It should synergize well with your current hand-to-hand fighting abilities.”
“The user’s celestial Essence is condensed, massively, into the legs, spine, arm, and hand. This will prevent you from hurting yourself. Usually. The speed at which you move when completed perfectly should cause a ‘boom’ to occur shortly after the first few steps have been taken. When I arrive at the destination and target, my foot is planted in front of them, forcing all of the velocity and momentum to push forwards and spiral up along my body and into my arm. I then deliver all of that force and energy into the target with a palm strike in a single go. This makes me appear to have arrived at an abrupt standstill while the target proceeds to cease existing as it takes on all of the force and energy I generated.” Artorian then followed his words up with action.
*Boom*. The ground indented where Artorian had been standing, and he appeared a few feet away.
*Boom*. Shattered shards of bone went flying in all directions.
*Boom*. Artorian began panting as three Ghouls corkscrewed through the air before dropping to the ground, the remains of their heads following soon after. “As you can *pant* see, the perfected form is a bit hard on your body and would normally be used only on enemies much stronger than these. The *gasp* Ghouls will be good training targets until you are able to have perfect understanding of this technique.”
He then performed a less-potent version, still destroying anything he touched with a simple slap but no longer using the maximum force possible. “Get back in there, Dale; we’r
e wasting daylight. For me, that’s a terrible thing to waste.”
Dale was having trouble reconciling the hookah-smoking, grape-eating, hedonistic headmaster with this undead-obliterating starlight warrior. He got back into the fight, punching vigorously - if somewhat mechanically - as the potent aura coming off Artorian refreshed the muscles and reduced the fatigue of everyone near him. Dale grumbled good-naturedly; he had really thought he had the starlight aura perfected, yet Artorian was able to produce better results without blinding the people around him. Trying out a palm strike, Dale winced as the blow did hardly any damage. There was so much he had yet to learn! This fact made him smile and attack with renewed vigor. He had things to do, and this war was getting in the way!
Hans jumped in the way as a demon reached out of the pressing dead and grasped at Rose. The demon laughed as Hans seized him, switching targets and slowly dragging the Assassin forward. Not knowing what to do, Rose froze in place. Hans shouted loud enough to be heard over the other sounds of combat, “You’re gonna have to make it up to me later, Rose, if you know what I mean!”
On instinct, she whipped out an arrow and shot it at Hans’ head. Gasping as she realized what she had done, Rose took a half step forward as Hans effortlessly predicted the incoming arrow and shifted his head to the side. The projectile slid through Hans’ ear and the demon’s cheek. Cackling laughter cut off as black fire washed up and started traveling over the wooden shaft between them. The demon’s eyes were hungry as he was pulled through the rift of banishment, doing his best to take the rogue with him. Hans twisted, tearing a chunk of flesh out of his ear as the arrow and demon vanished entirely.
“I knew you’d scratch me with one of those eventually.” Hans grinned at Rose, and a watery smile formed on her lips.
Screams rang out behind the team, and Dale glanced back just in time to see an entire section of their defensive ring collapse. Adam whipped his head around and glared at the demons that were gleefully pummeling fallen warriors, blood spurting as their punches went through chests and struck the earth below. Striding toward them, Adam swung his topaz-tipped staff and struck the lead demon in the chest. Contrary to expectations, the previously gleeful demon was blasted away with a smoking crater in his chest. Anyone watching felt sick to their stomach; the collision of the opposing Essences had created a small dodecahedron of chaos.
“Seeds!” Madame Chandra’s voice rang out, and a nearly undetectable ripple of Mana followed along with the Incantation. The churned earth of the battlefield suddenly sprouted greenery, drinking spilled blood and feasting upon rotten flesh to grow into bizarre corruption-mutated plants. “There is a wave of Abominations approaching led by a Tomb Lord! This should slow their growth as they near your group, but don’t touch the plants! They will eat living flesh as happily as undead tissue!”
Dale watched the spot where she had been floating, as she had vanished abruptly as soon as her speech had finished. This entire battle was confusing to him. There was a literal tier system in place here, where B-rank and below stayed on or near the ground, A-rankers fought in the air above them, and the S-rankers and above were keeping their combat even higher in the sky. He was uncertain why they were even fighting, as soon as one side’s S-rankers won, they would crush everyone else. Were they literally there as a distraction for the top-ranked fighters?
“Someone get rid of that blasted demon!” The hole in their lines had closed, but the final demon from the last wave was now among their forces causing havoc. It was darting back and forth, stabbing, burning, and cackling. Dale turned to help, but Tom was there first.
With a smile on his face, Tom swung the massive hammer in an uppercut at full strength, right as the infernal being turned toward him. Now, lesser demons were considered to be equivalent to B-ranked Mages, but even they were subject to the whims of physics if they were unprepared. When the Warhammer cut into the being’s chest, the force enhancement Runes activated and attempted to send the creature into orbit.
“Four!” Tom shouted gleefully as he watched the creature shoot upward, only to be caught in the crossfire of A-rankers battling above them. There was a flash of black fire, and the demon was banished. Painfully. “That’s the fourth demon I’ve landed a hit on today!”
“Ah, I was wondering what that meant.” Hans slapped the Barbarian on the back and smiled. “Good job, my star pupil!”
Tom - still holding a smile on his face - fell to the ground. Hans could have caught him, but he was so shocked that he didn’t even attempt to do so. Hans swooped down and checked the large man’s vitals, sighing in relief when he found that he was only unconscious. “Lack of Essence collapse! I told him that using that Warhammer in extended combat was a bad idea.” Hans called to a cleric, who nodded and helped him drag the redhead into the protected center area. Dale’s group sighed with relief and got back into position.
“I’m so sorry about this. It’s really the only way the rest of us make it,” Adam said to no one in particular, gaining looks of concern when he spoke his next words. “Dale, remember… when you have only one option remaining, you have no options at all.”
Just as they refocused on the battle, a flicker appeared in the air in front of Adam and coalesced into a demon with a still-smoking crater in his chest.
“That hurt,” he hissed into Adam’s ear just before backhanding the cleric with all his might. A sickening *crack* rang in Dale’s ears as Adam’s twisted body was propelled into the lines behind them.
Chapter Forty-seven
The demon vanished with a furious roar as a knife with a Rune of banishment embedded itself into his side. Hans’ face was full of cold fury, obviously wishing he could cause more pain to the vanishing being. Rose ran to check on Adam’s condition, but when she pulled back his hood, it was obvious that his neck was broken in multiple areas and his face had been caved in.
“Celestial feces,” Dale whispered as Rose attempted to straighten their cleric’s neck.
“C-c’mon, Adam,” Rose whispered softly as she re-aligned his vertebrae. “You’re stuffed with celestial corruption, a little damage like this shouldn’t be an issue for you to fix!”
“Rose,” Hans stated quietly. “You need to-”
“Adam!” Rose shouted down at the prone man. “Adam, come on! You… you can’t…”
Once more, Hans’ voice reached her ears, “Rose.”
She whirled on him furiously. “Don’t! Whatever you are thinking of saying, just don’t!”
Hans took another step forward, wrapping her in a tight hug that she struggled to break free from. “Rose, he’s g-”
“No! Shut your abyssal mouth!” Rose stared at Adam, her eyes widening as his skin began to glow with a bright golden light. “Look! Look, he’s fixing himself!”
Dale, Hans, and Rose stared at their friend’s unmoving body as it began to glow brighter and brighter. Rose’s joyous expression faded as his skin started to flake away as a golden energy that flew like sparks, vanishing into the air above them. “No!”
Stepping closer to Adam’s disintegrating body, Dale put one hand on the cleric’s vanishing head and whispered a goodbye. Dale blinked, and in the moment his eyes closed… Adam’s body vanished with a blaze of golden light that shot upward. An almighty thundering *boom* echoed across the entire battlefield as the Legion Dreadnought Bone Lord - wrapped in an unholy aurora of hellfire - appeared in the air above them and bounced off the layer of hardened celestial Essence released by Adam’s body. Instead of landing on the two hundred or so cultivators remaining around Dale, it tumbled through the air and fell amongst the dead. A flood of black flame washed over the area of impact, cleansing the dead for nearly fifty feet and leaving behind a disk of molten glass as the Dreadnaught sprang back into the air to engage the S-ranked beings chasing after it.
Dale watched all of this happen with abject fear holding him in place. The thought that there was a battle happening above them on a scale he couldn’t imagine made him sick to his stomach
. He looked over the empty robe and clothes left behind by Adam, genuinely feeling the loss of a close friend. He stored the Mithril laced robe, leathers, and finally, the topaz-tipped staff in his bag. They would honor his sacrifice… eventually.
Suddenly feeling a strange lurch in the air, all of the cultivators in the area went a little green. The overabundant spent Essence and Mana in the area were no longer wafting upward and around wildly; now the energy was moving slowly but surely to the ground. At first, this seemed to be an incomprehensible technique that someone was using as an attack, but as time went on and nothing seemed to happen, the oddity was ignored.
Twenty minutes later, Rose collapsed, fully spent. Dale didn’t blame her; he was getting close as well. Though he was constantly refreshing his Essence, the mental and emotional toll was starting to impact his performance. He had needed to be healed twice so far when a Ghoul or small swarm of undead had been able to bring him down and break a few bones. Just as Dale was considering giving in and trying to switch out, he saw a flash of purple and black. There was a necromancer hiding in a group of the dead! The man was at least twenty paces away, but at that moment, Dale had something approaching a mental break.
Ignoring the shouts of concern, he jumped over the chest-high barricade and sprinted forward. Sprinted was a bit of a misnomer, as the only path forward was by using the heads of the undead below him as stepping stones. A throwing dagger caught him in the back of the knee, causing him to stumble. He knew that dagger; it was Hans’. Dale was furious for a bare second, but then a demon that had jumped for him passed through the space he would have been in if not for the thrown knife.