Ends of Magic

Buried inside the giant body of the Grave Tangle, Nathan smiled. Then immediately regretted it as he tasted the faintest amount of rancid flesh. But the joy was real. He had his tool, now he just needed to figure out how to apply it.

He planned out the most effective way to use his aura to encourage the destructive turbulence he felt. So far he’d destroyed the smallest part of the Wizardry that was the source of the Grave Tangle’s magic. Now he needed to get the rest of it. He gave a the wizardy a few more exploratory pokes, refining his strategy as he went until he thought it would work.

Wizard’s Meditation 9 achieved!

Then he unleashed his antimagic, reserving only the smallest portion to defend himself as the rest of it lanced out in dozens of rapid-fire stabs that caused the wizardry to retract away, only to run into another ripple of wizardry. He built the interference until it turned destructive and the overlapping waves canceled each other out. It was a bit like manually controlling noise-canceling headphones and only possible because of the large size of the Grave Tangle and the slow propagation speed of the wizardry.

Congratulations, you have developed the [High-tier Aura Manipulation 10] Utility Skill into [Aura Control].

Utility skill: Aura Control

Your Aura moves according to your will.

The process immediately became easier. Nathan’s aura moved instinctively, as if it had been honed by years of training. He canceled the wizardry in a larger and larger area, feeling gleeful as the amount of dark magic flowing into the world dropped dramatically. There was a positive feedback loop between the corruptive mana and the wizardry, and now Nathan was attacking both sides of that loop.

The Grave Tangle didn’t seem to notice what Nathan was doing. It certainly didn’t try anything new to kill him. The magic drained away and the crushing pressure went with it. Nathan used the break to extend his assault outward, scouring the wizardry and dark magic from the internals of the giant undead monstrosity. He could feel it slowing down through his magical senses, the attacks more sluggish and its forward progress slowed.

There was a tipping point, a moment when Nathan’s influence overwhelmed that of the creature. He drained the last of the magic from the colossal undead and broke the wizardry that generated more. The monster stopped moving and lost cohesion. What had been a unified mass of flesh and bone became a loose heap, held together by nothing at all. It fell apart, slumping down as the mound's structure couldn't support its own weight anymore.

Arcane Nullfield 7 achieved!

Nathan burst out of the collapsing pile of rotting flesh into the air. He gained some height and wiped the worst of the gore from his face before taking a breath and looking around. The Grave Tangle had carried him into the center of the army, though there wasn’t all that much left of it. The ground around Nathan was blackened and scorched, with fires burning amongst piled corpses. Scattered undead wandered here and there, but this section of the army seemed to have been destroyed by excessive amounts of fire and lightning.

Stella was hard to miss. She hovered in the distance, haloed in crackling light. Three of the spherical lightning-capacitors hovered around her, each spitting out a continuous stream of lightning to wipe out any undead that caught her notice. Then she lifted a hand and flame sparked in her palm, quickly growing into a giant fireball that shot outwards as if fired from a cannon. It impacted amongst a sparse crowd of zombies in a spray of flame. Nathan could feel the heat on his face from here.

Damn. She really cut loose. Good thing there’s nothing here we need to not destroy.

The walls of Ardglass were awash with flames, the mages likely deciding that now was the time to burn all of their mana to drive away the undead who had gotten close. Likely they didn’t want Stella to aim any of her spells anywhere close to them.

Nathan turned to study the rest of the battlefield, seeing that every single one of the mobile statues had been destroyed. There was still a phalanx of the bronze-armored naga soldiers, but Aarl was cutting through them efficiently. Beyond that were the remaining two Grave Tangles. Khachi battled with the nearer one, his shield enhanced with divine light to block a ground-shattering blow from one of the tentacles. A snake-head reared back to spray acid and then fell off the neck as a bullet shattered one of the exposed vertebrae.

The Grave Tangle reared back to roar out dark magic, and Khachi roared back his own defiance. Golden light surged forward to meet the black shockwave, pushing the death mana back. The third Grave Tangle had been the most distant and it surged forward to join the fight, occasionally striking out from long distance to aid its compatriot.

I think that’s my target. Let Khachi have his duel.

Nathan set his sights on the third tangle and sped up, rushing across the battlefield. It looked like his allies had the rest of this stuff handled. All he had to do was kill another of the most terrifying enemies on the field. He passed somewhat close to Khachi’s fight with his own Grave Tangle and felt immense quantities of mana warring back and forth. Khachi had clearly invoked even more power and golden mana surged out of nowhere to battle against the corruptive influence of the Grave Tangle.

He’s not winning easily, but I think he’ll take it. Davrar rewards risk, and if I intervene it’ll prevent him from earning levels and Developing his skills and Talents.

Nathan flew overhead at highway speeds, rapidly closing on the third and last Grave Tangle. He dodged the attacks it sent his way without trouble. It seemed distracted, rapidly covering ground to close with its peer. Nathan wasn’t going to let it.

Now let’s see if I can take it down without diving inside. That was… unpleasant.

He came to a stop just above the Tangle. A few enormous pincer-like arms of chitin unfolded from the beast and swung up towards him. He severed their connection to the main body with precise lashes of Antimagic, noting that the mana-generating wizardry only extended to the main body.

Then he set to work repeating his feat from before. His aura lanced out in a coordinated pattern, setting up destructive ripples in the wizardry while draining away the dark magic suffusing the flesh. His new skill let him extend his aura further and keep it more coherent, and he didn’t have to approach within thirty feet of the hill-sized abomination to reach all the way through it with a spear of concentrated antimagic.

Aura Control 2 achieved!

The monster continued to try and attack him, but he dodged and disabled every method it attempted. It didn’t seem to have the snake heads of the others, instead relying on the whip-like tentacles and giant insectoid limbs. But Nathan was too close for the whips and disabled everything else the moment it left the central body of the Grave Tangle.

The monstrous undead kept moving forward towards where Khachi fought its fellow. It was slowing down, struggling to keep its body together with limited mana, and Nathan had a thought. He looked down at the enormous sluggish undead, below him, then over towards where Stella hovered. She continued to bathe sections of the battlefield in destructive magic, even though all that was left was scattered individual undead. Some of those undead were definitely dangerous, but they no longer faced a cohesive army.

Nathan cupped his hands in front of his mouth and waited for a gap in between the Grave Tangle’s roars. Then he yelled as loud as he could, sending Stamina directly to his lungs and vocal cords. “Stella! Kill this one!” His words sounded over the crackle of lightning, over the booms of Khachi's battle against his own foe.

Congratulations, you have developed the [Mid-tier Battle Cry] utility skill into [High-tier Battle Cry].

Utility skill: [High-tier Battle Cry]

Your cries will be more intimidating and be significantly more audible across the din of battle.

The sustained bolts of lightning cut out a moment later, though the crackling orbs that produced them stayed. They grew brighter in intensity as Stella crafted a broad cylinder of reflective mana, aiming one end at the Grave Tangle underneath Nathan.

He took in the size of the cylinder, then the three capacitor spheres that continued to ramp up in intensity. Then he looked down at the slowly moving monstrosity barely thirty feet below him.

Uh oh.

He started climbing into the sky, gaining distance against his enemy. It became harder to counter the Grave Tangle’s attacks, but it was moving sluggishly. But he didn’t want to be right next to the thing when Stella finally finished her spell.

Khachi won his own battle first. He raised his hammer towards the sky above as his words shook the battlefield. “By my own sacred light I denounce you! Your very existence is the truest blasphemy! I declare you anathema!” With the last word he brought down his hammer on empty air. His power surged forward to mirror the action, a furious mass of divine magic crashing down upon the Grave Tangle like the fist of an angry god.

Under some interpretations that’s exactly what it is.

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The Grave Tangle was crushed by the blow, parts of the monster spraying outwards in all directions. Nathan could feel its magic flickering from here. It tried to restore its shape, more magic blooming forth to restore the monster. But Khachi didn’t give it the chance, bringing down his power again and again to bludgeon the monster into submission. The divine power burned away the dark magic and left it as a misshapen and somewhat pancaked mass of flesh.

Nathan’s only warning that Stella was about to fire was a spark of light as she connected her lightning capacitors to her giant lasing tube. A beam of light stretched across the battlefield to connect her to the Grave Tangle with a crack of ionization, and the laser bored into the massive monster with the angry roar of escaping steam. Then she unshackled her lightning.

She didn’t use the same lightning bolts that had scoured the battlefield clean. She emptied all three lightning capacitors into the Grave Tangle over the span of a second, unleashing a truly stupendous amount of power in a single moment. There was no pause, no moment where the huge undead tried to contest her power. It simply exploded into a mist of vaporized flesh.

Nathan was blasted into the sky and pelted by high-velocity shrapnel that had once been the body of the enormous monster. A piece of bone stabbed into his leg, strong and tough enough to penetrate his skin and lodge in his leg where the heat of it started to cook his calf. He reached down and grabbed the offending projectile, yanking it out and scorching his fingers on the red-hot surface.

Then he looked down to see the merrily burning crater where the third Grave Tangle had once been. “Damn.”

The Heirs convened on Khachi, who’d taken a knee atop the hill he'd been fighting from. The clouds overhead had broken and a sunbeam shone straight down to illuminate the wolfman’s pristine armor. He seemed exhausted, fur slicked with sweat and panting hard. But his mouth was stretched in a pleased grin as he looked over the carnage of the battlefield. He glanced around as the Heirs approached, checking over each one for injuries and merely rolling his eyes when he saw that Nathan was nude and covered with gore.

Is his fur a shade lighter? I think it might be.

Nathan was going to ask Aarl for a new set of clothes as the fighter approached. But then Aarl collapsed onto the ground. Nathan opened his mouth to tell Khachi, but the wolfman had already seen it. He blazed down the hill, carried upon divine magic.

The other Heirs followed, Sarah pulled up last and watched with a tight expression as Khachi turned Aarl over gently to reveal a stab wound in his side. It didn’t look particularly large, but at Khachi’s prodding touch the armor pulled away to reveal necrosis spreading across Aarl’s bronzed body. It covered half of his chest already. His breathing stuttered, and out of the corner of Nathan’s eye he saw Stella lay a gentle hand on Sarah’s shoulder.

Khachi’s got this. It’s his whole shtick.

The [Shield of Hope] raised both hands high over Aarl’s prone form and spoke. His voice didn’t crack the heavens, but it did reverberate as if there were multiple speakers. “Together we have slain a foul army in righteous battle to protect the innocent! Through my divine power, that deed shall be repaid. Rise, restored by the sacred light and ready to give battle once more!”

The sunbeam concentrated down on Aarl for a moment as power flowed into him from Khachi. The rotting flesh was wiped away like a stain cleaned with a cloth and the puncture wound in the center healed over in a moment. Aarl’s eyes snapped open and he breathed out an exaggerated breath, sitting up as his armor flowed down to cover his torso and expose his head.

He looked over at Khachi where the wolfman was on hands and knees, panting with his head down. “That hard of a target? I didn’t think it was so bad.” When Khachi didn’t raise his head Aarl merely reached out and punched him in the shoulder lightly, then stood and offered him a hand. “By the dawn’s light, thank you. Now, don’t we have a city to deal with?”

Khachi allowed Aarl to pull him upright. He remained haggard, and gestured in the direction of Aardglass. “The rest of you should go deal with that. I need... a moment.”

Sarah rushed in to hug her brother, bandolier clanking against his armor. “Don’t bait the castlebear! You should have stayed distant.”

He smirked at her. “And yield to the leaders of the army? Never. Besides, I picked up this.” He dumped a wicked trident out of his bag, the tips smoking with dark magic. “It’s what got me. Nathan?” He looked around, seemingly noticing Nathan’s state of undress. He sighed and pulled out some rags and a fresh set of clothes. “Here. Priorities. Can’t have you freeing a city looking like… that.”

“Or smelling like it either,” Stella said, wrinkling her nose.

Nathan rolled his eyes. “I think that’s the battlefield in general, actually. Can I get some water too?”

He cleaned up with the rags and some help from a dimensional waterskin as the rest of the Heirs looked around the battlefield. “Do we need to kill the rest of the undead?”

Sarah shrugged. “There’s nothing too powerful left. We should probably deal with what we can, but they don’t pose a threat to Aardglass anymore.”

“But they might prevent anybody from going to Giantsrest for a while.” Stella pointed out, looking around at the shambling undead stretching into the distance.

“All right,” Sarah said with a sigh. “Let’s see who can get more. Then meet back here and figure out what to do about Ardglass?”

“Do you think they’ll attack us?” Aarl asked, looking towards the city. It was surrounded by burning piles of undead that sent pillars of smoke into the sky.

Nathan focused on the distant city walls as he idly checked over the trident Aarl had looted from the undead champion. He could see people atop those walls looking right back, many in the red robes of Giantsrest war mages. They looked exhausted. He smirked. “No. They’re more tired than we are, and we’re the ones who just beat three Grave Tangles. And blew one of them to smithereens.” He raised an eyebrow at Stella as he said it.

She looked proud, raising her chin and wordlessly daring him to criticize.

“Let’s end this blasphemous fight,” Sarah said, already rising into the air. “Before they scatter.”

The Heirs split up, hunting the undead in their own way. Khachi rested atop the hill where the sun continued to shine down upon him. Nathan ran through the sky, spearing undead with his aura and draining the magic that animated them. Stella threw fireballs, lightning bolts and lasers, switching off without any real pattern. Aarl moved slower than usual, casually hacking any undead he found into pieces, and Sarah's rifle boomed, shattering the skulls of the far-distant undead.

They were greeted with a level-up notification as they reconvened.

Void of Magic has leveled to 694! You and your party have destroyed the ancient legion of Andames, the Shadowed Coil! They will never again trouble the sands of Sklias!

“Who got the big guy?” Nathan asked.

Aarl raised his hand. "The one with the staff."

Text comparison:

Utility skill: [High-tier Aura Manipulation]

You will find it easier to manipulate your aura, including precisely controlling the shape and density across many targets. Will not increase the size of your aura at all.

Utility skill: [Aura Control]

Your Aura moves according to your will.

Pending utility skill: [Mid-tier Battle Cry]

You have intimidated foes with a loud yell mid-fight. Your cries will be more intimidating and more audible across the din of battle.

Utility skill: [High-tier Battle Cry]

Your cries will be more intimidating and be significantly more audible across the din of battle.

Status of Nathan Lark:

Permanent Talent 1: Arcane Nullfield 7

Permanent Talent 2: Immortal Body 5

Permanent Talent 3: Airwalking 7

Class: Void of Magic level 694

Deepened Stamina: 21120/21120

Void of Feeling

Antimagic Momentum

Raging Thrill

Implacable Inertia

Unarmored Resilience

Magic Anathema

Airborne Agility

Hand-to-hand Expertise

Voluminous Aura

Denial of Wizardry

Mana Severance

Class: Spellslayer level 479

Regenerative Focus: 2192/4890

Catastrophic Blows

Battle Stealth

Mage Infiltration

Forgettable

Sneaky Blow

Antimagic Stealth

Magical Manipulation

Lethal Index

Wizard Resistance

Magic Jammer

Controlled Failure

Utility skills:

Wizard’s Meditation 9

Inspiration 8

Acceleration 10

Wizard’s Detection 7

Alertness 10

Wizard’s Understanding 10

Effortless Dodge 10

Mental Vault 5

Tutoring 5

Parkour 8

Visibility Control 4

High-tier Disguise 3

High-tier Battle Cry 1

Aura Control 2