Immovable Mage

– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 216, Season of the Setting Moon, Day 7 –

“Clear,” said Terry. He exited the tunnel and stood underneath the night sky.

“Is it really a good idea to proceed before resting?” asked Calam. “The walls inside seemed more protective than my tent. Our signatures should be masked by the ore in the rock as well, right?”

“While that’s true, that goes both ways,” said Terry. “If something is crawling in there, we won’t know what'll hit us before it’s there.”

“Did you really see a vortex hamster?” Miguel asked Lori.

“Yes,” replied Lori.

Miguel puffed his cheeks and turned to Calam. “I vote to find another place.” He glanced at Siling and Terry. “We have great sensors with us and I’d rather trust their senses than protective walls that keep us blind.”

Lori nodded. “I can also whip up a few walls for your tent if you want.”

“Above all, I don’t fancy the idea of being digested by a tiny space rodent.” Miguel grimaced.

Lori snorted amusedly. “What? Would it be preferable being digested by a large grizzly?”

“I know it sounds weird but yes,” insisted Miguel. His face stiffened. “Wait, is this what tall people feel when they get defeated by a dwarf?”

“Over there.” Terry pointed at a large wind-faceted rock pedestal that stood tall among the deserted area. “If that place is clear, we can rest up there.”

“Easily defensible,” said Lori.

“Elevated area with a good view of the surroundings,” added Miguel.

“Not everything can reach the place.” Calam nodded.

“Sounds good to me,” said Siling and yawned.

Terry glanced at Siling and noted her exhaustion. His eyes moved over the others. Miguel and Calam were still weakened from having been poisoned by the grizzly’s venom. They’re pushing themselves, thought Terry and bit his lip. He glanced at Lori and while she was better at hiding it, she was definitely exhausted.

Terry swallowed his frustration. Their progress towards the blood-aspected area had been slow. They frequently had to avoid or engage enemies. This trip had already proved to be much more difficult than reaching the Libra Outpost.

“Let’s go,” said Terry. He clenched his fists while walking ahead.

***

Late in the night, on top of the rock pedestal, Terry was circling the camp on sheets of mana, which he had created with the divine hammer inscription.

Terry had volunteered to take watch for the whole night. The others had objected at first, but Terry had insisted. In Terry’s opinion, they needed the rest more than he did. His argument that he had been the least affected by the venom was hard to refute.

Each of Terry’s hands firmly grabbed a device. In regular intervals, the devices assaulted Terry with aspected mana while Terry circulated his mana for his resistance training.

Terry frowned and concentrated on his mana sense. He had noticed a group of death-aspected signatures roaming around at the edge of his perception. From what he could tell, it was a smaller horde of undead that was killing off mana-corrupted creatures in the area.

The thing that caused Terry to frown was that the undead horde was inadvertently coming closer and closer.

***

Later in the night, Terry clenched his teeth and shook his head. He had stopped his training with the divine hammer inscription out of fear that the intersection with the light aspect would attract the undead horde.

Unfortunately, the horde was approaching regardless.

Terry glanced back to their camp. While Terry himself was cloaking his mana, the camp had countless mana signatures visible in mana sight. Even if it wasn’t for the mana signatures of his companions and their items, Terry knew that everyone’s life signatures could attract trouble, too. None of them had a means to cloak their life energy.

The horde is too close already. There are no other sources of shade nearby. As soon as the sun goes up, the ghouls will be drawn here even if it was just to avoid the sunlight.

“No helping it,” muttered Terry. He decided to wake up his companions. While they had not been able to get a full night’s worth of sleep, it was not a good idea to face the horde without preparation.

Not with the signatures flying in the sky…

The thing that worried Terry the most was that he believed he had sensed a phantom. In itself, this was something they could handle, but the implications were troubling. From Terry’s understanding, a phantom should not appear in a horde of that size, not unless it had split off from a larger horde.

Terry took a deep breath and regretfully woke the others.

***

“Ugh, the stench is unbearable,” complained Miguel. Next to him, the others were also making disgusted faces.

“Wait until our first objective has been achieved,” said Terry wryly. “The stench will get much worse.”

“Did you really live next to these things in the dungeon?” Lori asked with a horrified expression.

Terry chuckled involuntarily. “I learned from the experience.” He retrieved several scent masks and handed them out.

“I love you, Terry.” Miguel hurriedly put on the scent mask. Lori snorted amusedly at Miguel’s outburst.

“Oh, thank mana,” exclaimed Siling and also put on hers. She had been trying to swallow her complaints previously, but the difficulty of that endeavor had been plainly visible on her face.

“Alright, I’ll set up the first objective,” said Terry with a glance at Miguel. “Runners first. Flyers next. Focus on defense and leave the big finisher to Lori. Afterwards, we only need to clean up.”

“Powder ready?” Terry asked with a look to Calam, who was carrying most of the special powder that worked particularly well against ethereal creatures of the death aspect.

“Yes,” replied Calam firmly.

“Shields up at your discretion,” said Terry and jumped off the rock pedestal. Terry allowed himself to fall until he was a few meters above the ground. Then, he dashed forward and retrieved a light-aspected metal rod.

As soon as Terry passed above the incoming zombies, the undead creatures clawed upwards and began to pursue Terry’s scent and life energy. The ghouls that had been running not far behind the zombies were immediately drawn to the light-aspected mana and in a matter of seconds, all the runners had gathered underneath Terry.

Terry retrieved and then poured down a barrel of concentrated alcohol which he had originally prepared to refill his spray projectiles. He spread the liquid while running circles around the group of undead. Afterwards, Terry returned the empty barrel to his storage bracelet and dashed further up into the air.

A fire-aspected arrow hit one of the zombies and then the whole group of runners lit up in flames.

“Workable,” muttered Terry while looking down without losing track of the death aura signatures in his mana sense. When the stench of burned rotten flesh reached Terry’s nose, he pulled his own scent mask up. Terry was glad to see that their alternative solution to make up for their lack of good area-of-effect spells was working.

Terry sidestepped the rising heat from below and waited for the expected movement from the approaching death aura creatures. When the translucent green death specter began rushing forth, Terry narrowed his eyes. He was still waiting for the remaining mana signature, that was invisible to the eye, to move as well.

“Hmph.” Terry scowled when he could not wait anymore.

Let’s see if this works…

Terry unleashed a layered disruption discharge that was focused to cover the specter’s haunts while most of the spell slicers hit the death specter itself.

“Huh?” Terry blinked and opened his eyes wide with surprise. Not only did the haunts all evaporate, even the death specter dissipated into thin air. Terry only dared to believe his eyes when his mana sense confirmed that the death specter had really died.

Focus.

Terry took a deep breath and reabsorbed as much of his naturalized mana as he could before— The invisible phantom rushed forth while two death mages also flew up to follow it. Terry immediately interrupted his mana reabsorption and darted back towards the rock pedestal. As soon as Terry judged the proximity to his companions sufficient, he slowed down and focused on his mana sight.

The phantom’s claws lashed out towards Terry and Terry unleashed another layered disruption discharge and allowed himself to drop down to dodge. Terry’s disruption discharge hit the phantom and while it did not evaporate, it flickered and became visible.

From the rock pedestal, Calam rapidly accelerated through the air and unleashed an empowered Kinetic Push. A forceful wave of powder enveloped the phantom and many holes appeared in the phantom’s translucent figure.

Several death spears charged towards Calam from the flying death mages, but Calam successfully dodged in the air and blocked one with the barrier from his short spear.

Terry was still considering finishing the phantom with another disruption discharge when he already sensed the fire arrow spells and arcane bolt abilities from Siling and her purplemist lynx soul spirit.

If that’s not enough, then there is still Miguel.

Terry nodded slightly to himself and charged at one of the flying death mages. He dodged the incoming death spells while retrieving a barrier spear and a brightfire spear.

After Terry had managed to arrive in front of the death mage without having to summon a barrier, Terry transfixed the barrier spear in mid air while simultaneously striking out with the brightfire spear in his right. Terry burst his mana to give his thrust more oomph and the brightfire spear pierced right through the death mage’s skull.

Terry had already used his free hand to summon the one-handed, Thanatos-styled war hammer and he smashed the death mage’s rib cage apart. Before a breath’s time, Terry had already exchanged the war hammer with his barrier spear again and he was dashing to the second flying death mage.

With his mana sense, Terry noticed the death of the phantom as well as several incoming ranged attacks from the death knights and skeletal warriors. Terry smiled when he sensed the raised barriers and defenses from his companions, but he frowned when he noticed that Calam was still flying through the air.

Calam unleashed another Kinetic Push that forced the remaining death mage towards Terry and he returned to his position behind Siling’s barrier and arcane shield.

Terry smiled approvingly and finished off the death mage. Before he returned to the others, he tentatively tested the effect of a disruption discharge on the ranged mana abilities of the death aura creatures. To his relief, the spell slicers were effective at weakening or outright destroying the mana projectiles. Terry had known that it should work, but he still felt better when experiencing it for himself.

Terry landed on the rock pedestal. “Ready?”

“Ready,” replied Lori.

“““Ready,””” echoed Calam and Siling.

Miguel continued firing coldfire-aspected arrows at some of the stronger death knights while everyone else waited for Terry’s signal. As soon as the vast majority of death aura creatures was in front of the rock pedestal and beginning to climb, Terry’s gaze grew sharp.

“Now!” shouted Terry.

From a gap in the rock pedestal, Lori cast her empowered Propel Rock spell. Simultaneously, Calam and Siling cast their empowered Kinetic Push spells. A large part of the rock pedestal began to slide forward on a layer of liquified earth until gravity got a hold of it. The giant rock crushed nearly all the death aura creatures into bonedust.

“Time for cleanup,” said Terry. He threw the two-handed war hammer he had originally bought for the cloud badger hunts to Calam. Next to them, Lori retrieved her own two-handed war hammer that had been aspected with coldfire. Afterwards, Terry retrieved the large, lightning-aspected war hammer which Tiana had lent him.

Terry allowed himself to fall from the rock pedestal. He used his bidirectional attraction gloves to decelerate and land softly on the earth. Down on the ground, Terry considered pulling the remaining few climbers down with his gloves, but before he could do so, they were already falling. Lori, who was being carried down by Siling’s jumpscare cuttlefish soul spirit, had liquified the area where the creatures had been climbing.

Terry grabbed the lightning-aspected war hammer tightly and picked out the strongest death knight around. He charged forward while fire arrows and arcane bolts rained down from above.

***

Once the battle was over, Terry examined the state of his companions again. He could not help but worry. They still appeared exhausted and weakened. Even worse, both Calam and Lori had been injured.

Calam had only engaged the skeletal warriors, but when one of them unexpectedly continued fighting even though it had lost the lower half of its body, Calam had been too slow to react and was cut with a mana sword.

Lori was overall capable of engaging the death knights, but the barrier spears and her daggers were not very effective against the creatures and she wasn’t very used to other weapons. Lori did not have burst techniques to rely on in emergencies either and one death knight managed to graze her with a mana axe.

Even though Siling had patched everyone right up, the injuries, the lost mana, and the lost life energy added to the overall exhaustion.

Terry bit his lip.

“Do we make camp again or…?” Calam let his voice trail off.

Siling puffed her cheeks and looked from the group of burned zombies to the place where the death aura creatures had been crushed.

“The air is tolerable with the masks,” said Lori. “Location is still good.”

Siling shrugged. “If I remember correctly, the stench of mana-cursed creatures also keeps some mana corrupted away.” She glanced at Terry. “What’s on your mind? Your face is insisting that something is on your mind.”

“The repellant effect on mana corrupted is true,” said Terry while furrowing his brow. He glanced at Lori. “Everything else you said is true, too. It’s just…”

Terry bit his lip. He recalled the words that Varnika from the Deathguard had once said during the battle near the Bulwark. “We have also made a lot of noise and mana disturbances. Any battle in the Wastes has a chance to escalate. If we don’t move, then…” He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Miguel?” prompted Lori. “Your face looks off, too.” Afterwards, she paused and flushed. “Wait, that came out wrong.”

“You weren’t up there anymore when the sun rose further,” said Miguel with a pensive expression. “The view was completely clear for a time and I could see a long way. I’m not sure, but I believe there was movement in the distance. Hard to say, because out here, everything seems to have the same color.”

Terry closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Do you mean in the direction that…?”

“Yeah,” replied Miguel regretfully. “I can’t judge if it’s in front of our target or behind, mind you.”

Terry opened his eyes and gazed into the distance.

Blood-aspected anomaly. It’s not far-fetched that such an area might attract… Terry clenched his fists. Hope for the best…

“We still have some distance to put behind us,” said Terry. “We can judge the situation once we get closer.”

***

“This one looks to be on the bigger side,” muttered the elven man with a feather hat and a blue cape. He was sitting inside a spatial barrier in the sky and looked at the horde of undead pouring through the dimensional gate underneath him.

“You can only blame your fellow countrymen for inviting trouble to you all…” The elven man coldly glanced towards the settlement in the distance. A group of guards were already shouting and preparing a defense.

“What the—” The elven man stared with wide eyes when he noticed a freakish mana signature rushing towards him.

A whirlwind carried a figure right up to the spatial barrier and then the sky lit up with a giant blast of crimson flames that smashed the elf’s spatial barrier apart.

“Argh!” The elven man coughed blood and hurriedly cast healing spells to treat the hellfire burns.

Devon dropped from the sky and landed right in front of the dimensional gate. Instantly, a large sheet of black ice appeared in front of the gate. Not only did the netherfrost slow down the horde’s movements, it even killed many of the weaker creatures outright.

Afterwards, Devon hurled palms of hellfire at seemingly random locations around the dimensional gate. He had no idea where the anchors for the dimensional gate were located and could only guess blindly.

The eyes of the elven man in the blue cape narrowed when he saw Devon shrug off the attacks from death aura creatures as if they were cotton balls. Even though Devon was already covered from head to toe in his own blood, he did not flinch at all.

“What the Wastes are you?” snarled the elven man.

“Close this gate,” growled Devon.

“What if I don’t want to?” scoffed the man. “You dare to attack me? Now I feel even less inclined to—”

A gigantic blast of hellfire erupted from Devon’s palms and enveloped nearly half of the dimensional gate, which caused it to flicker and tremble.

The elven man immediately reinforced the dimensional gates with new spatial anchors. Unfortunately for him, Devon was determined to erase them as quickly as he could create them.

“You pestering nuisance,” snapped the elven man. He interrupted his space magic to unleash several attack spells towards Devon.

When these offensive spells did not show any favorable results, the elven man attempted to use restraining spells. To his chagrin, he quickly discovered that it was very challenging to restrain a person that was able to wield hellfire and had no qualms about losing body parts.

“To hell with this!” yelled the elven man. He was shaking from indignant anger, which caused the feather on his head to dance in the air. “I’m not here to play with you. If you want to fight, go fight there.” He flicked his wrist with a new spell and Devon disappeared.

Devon landed in the middle of the Chara Settlement. He stood up and grimaced from the overwhelming sensations that assaulted his life sense. He subconsciously matched the life signatures to the people he knew.

Devon emitted an aggrieved howl and then sprinted towards the orphanage. When Devon arrived, he smashed a palm of hellfire into the death specter that had risen from the ground.

Afterwards, Devon crouched down with an ashen face and looked at the child that was on the verge of death.

“D-Dev…” The little boy had tears streaming from his eyes. “I d-don’t feel so good…”

Devon took the boy in his arms. “It’ll be alright…” Determination flashed through his eyes as he looked over all the injured children. “It’ll be alright.” He took a deep breath. “I promise.” A circle of crimson light appeared underneath Devon. It expanded further and further until it was covering all of the Chara Settlement.

“I promise,” whispered Devon. Blood was trickling down from his eyes.

“Devon, you…?” A woman from the city guard was staring at her own regrowing arm. She walked to Devon and asked him what was going on, but Devon did not show any sign of noticing her presence.

“I promise.” Devon was rocking back and forth while holding the boy in his arms. Color had returned to the boy’s cheeks but he was still unconscious. “I promise.”

“Damn it, where did that specter go?” a black skeleton with a cyan glow in its eye sockets arrived. “This physical body sure can be annoying. What…” She stared at Devon and the boy in his arms.

“Auntie Ethel.” One of the children clung to the black skeleton.

For a moment, the black skeleton stood motionless. Ethel clenched her bony fists. “Damn it.” She shook her skull. “Some Deathguard I am.” She spoke with self-derision. “Can’t even protect an orphanage properly.” She looked at the girl that clung to her shins. “I have to go, little one.”

On the frontline of the Chara Settlement, the guards were looking at each other in confusion.

“What’s going on?” A dwarven woman wondered out loud. She was glancing nervously at her own recovering wounds. “I’ll take any support that I can get, but what the Wastes is going on?”

“Sacrificial Light.” The Captain landed next to them with a frown. She glanced at Lizzy.

“I’ll make sure he doesn’t overdo it,” said Lizzy and darted off.

“Fight,” ordered the Captain. “Devon can’t hold this empowered spell for long without risking everything.” Megumi’s eyes showed cold resolve as she retrieved her magic short swords and soared into the air.

From the sky, the Captain moved her eyes over everyone’s positions. Megumi was relieved to discover a freshly cast Sanctuary around the orphanage. She could only hope that Ethel did not quarrel about having to leave the area. None of them could afford the time.

Megumi’s eyes moved towards the tall canan figure of Mal, who was glowing brightly while wielding a giant flaming hammer as if it did not weigh anything.

Not far behind the line supported by Mal, Megumi saw another Sanctuary appear to reinforce the frontline. Varnika’s blinking figure disappeared to another location as soon as she was done. The Captain nodded approvingly and rushed towards the horde.

Near the dimensional gate, the elven man in the blue cape furrowed his brow while watching the crimson light. “What kind of freak show did I get myself into here?” A moment later, his eyes widened again.

*KAZAP* A giant ball lightning rushed towards the elven man from the Chara Settlement.

*BOOM* The ball lightning impacted not far from the dimensional gate and where the elven man was sitting inside a spatial barrier.

On a rooftop in the Chara Settlement, a group of people was rushing back and forth.

“Two meters to the left. Five to the back.” One of the settlement guards was staring through a pair of binoculars.

“Got it,” acknowledged another guard and adjusted an inscribed contraption accordingly.

“We’ll show you to mess with our favorite geezer,” growled Elvis while fine-tuning another contraption. Next to him, Poppy was nodding furiously while doing her own checks.

“The walls and traps you helped us prepare are doing wonders for the defense,” said a dwarven man from the guards. “We owe you siblings for this.”

“Continue defending the orphanage and we are even,” said Elvis without moving his attention from the contraption.

“Brynn is nice,” muttered Poppy in a barely audible voice.

“Right,” said Elvis. “If you want to thank anyone, you can thank that new pen pal of my sister. It certainly wasn’t us that came up with all the materials.”

“Alright, let’s see how the big one performs,” exclaimed Elvis and took a step back from the contraption. He glanced at Poppy, who was clenching her fists.

“Wait!” shouted the guard with the binoculars. “I see cyan and yellow glows appearing from behind the gate.”

The dwarven woman turned towards him. “Friends of Ethel? Reinforcements from Syn?”

“Probably,” muttered the other guard. “If they brought a dimensional mage, then that would be great, but they’re arriving from an unfortunate location. We don’t want to hit them as well.”

“I can’t believe that worked.” An armored woman arrived from the stairs leading to the roof.

“It did?” the other guard raised an eyebrow.

“Yup, the looneys could barely contain themselves when they felt the crimson light of their Lord,” said the woman. “After I told them that Devon wants them to fight against the horde, they were practically falling over their own feet to be the first to get there.”

“““Woah.””” The guards all looked wearily at a figure that had dropped from the sky onto the roof. It was a man who was wearing dark goggles and whose body was entirely wrapped in bandages.

“At ease,” said one of the guards. “I know him. Vell, right?”

“The Captain told me to help coordinate the forces from Syn City with your construct use,” said Vell.

“Good,” exclaimed the male guard. “Does this mean that there is no dimensional mage with you? Pity.”

“Actually, there is,” said Vell. “Ying brought everyone here. Unfortunately, it’s complicated. From what we know, going after the gate will invite more trouble than we can handle, especially if we are to seriously injure that elf. He’s not alone and they appear to pay back grudges with interest.”

***