The Runic Alchemist

Damian stood still in mid-air, his two hands outstretched, guiding the direction of the hundreds of purple lightning bolts. The red Demon suddenly shook his head, breaking out of his stupor and dodged the multiple lightning strikes around him.

Making the lightning spell more powerful was not as simple, so Damian had just added quantity instead of power. A chase began as the red Demon zoomed around the lightning bolts under the dark sky, on his tail a massive water dragon — moving a bit slower than the Demon himself.

All the while, he was continuously chanting. Damian saw another three-layered runic circle starting to form. He was equally curious to see what this one would do — which, given the stakes of the battle, probably he shouldn't be. But it was not every day one received the gift of new spells.

A portal opened, and hundreds of ugly-looking gargoyles flew out of it, their faces marked by ash and soot while the edges of their wings were on fire. However, their size was not of the common monsters that spat fire balls — the kind Damian knew from the dungeons — but an evolved version, each the size of a mini-truck. Cool spell, but it was useless for him; it looked like only higher-ranked individuals could command the things.

Damian changed the runic circle of the water dragon to switch targets — to the many slow-moving gargoyles instead of the slippery Demon. The red Demon seemed to be aiming for that too. Damian just smiled, though, and increased the lightning strikes to make the guy's life more difficult.

Seeing the lightning intensify around him, The Demon let out an enraged roar in the open sky, a place where no monster dared to come, fearing the two powerful beings clashing. But this one scream seemed to hold some sort of power or command that forced the many swarms of flying monsters to race toward Damian from the distance to tear him apart.

Now that was not good at all.. must be some kind of weird skill of his.

All right, this was enough. Damian added his third sacrium mana cube to the already floating two around him, working at full power. He joined all three's mana liquid with a thread to a single powerful spell.

Before the thousands of monsters could reach him, Damian activated the 100-meter-wide mass gravity reversal spell. Instantly, all creatures flying straight were hurled upward at uncontrollable speed, flailing around, flapping their wings — but to no effect. Keeping the spell active was no small feat. Damian could only attempt it after gathering enough liquid mana around him to reach some 200,000–300,000 points worth of mana, and it cost 50,000 more for each second it was active. Basically, he could do no new spells while this was going on. He still had a few ready-to-launch spells, so for now, it was fine.

The red Demon was caught right in the middle of this gravity circle. Boulders, dirt, lava, and all types of monsters from the air and land below were shot upwards continuously. Damian could not keep this up for long. The Demon, along with the more powerful monsters, was trying his best to resist the force and fly in the opposite direction, but it was not very effective — still, their ascent was slower compared to others. Damian also noticed a red-and-black runic circle forming near the red Demon — time was running out.

Hurriedly, Damian pushed his seven runic circles up into the gravity circle zone. Damian had his sacrium armor inscribed with weight-increasing spells and gravity reversal spells so he could create equal opposing force and stay stable. He positioned the seven runic circles on six sides of the red Demon, keeping one in the middle, pulling all of them up, matching the Demon's speed in ascent. Once it was perfectly matched, Damian activated the seven runic spells, instantly creating seven 30-meter-wide invisible box squares all around the red Demon.

The Demon was in the middle box while his runic circle spell was in another one. Damian, too, could use some prediction and accurate judgment. A wormhole-like black-and-red portal did open, but the red Demon could only look at it — his face spattered atop the invisible box's upper side. The gravity reversal was still in effect, but Damian could hold the invisible box in mod air.

He canceled the massive mana expenditure that was the area-wide gravity reversal spell and waited until he had some liquid mana in excess. The freed monsters had scattered in all directions, but it was a matter of seconds before they came attacking again. That was all Damian needed. Before the monsters could reach him, Damian opened a massive waygate, pulling the seven invisible boxes along with himself inside it — back to their stone mountain.

His mind stretched painfully much more than normal, making him bleed through the mouth and nose as he pulled so many spells along with him through the waygate. The waygate spell was not something that was supposed to be used while using multiple spells. It was a miracle — a feat of absolute focus — that he didn't lose control over his spells, and the invisible boxes were not undone. He couldn't do it again — he wouldn't even have succeeded if he had tried to go far, distance-wise.

He opened another waygate, connecting Asher, beside him. Still holding the seven boxes — holding them was not that hard. Just seven to eight continuous mana threads supplying mana was not that big a deal to him. But he could not lose focus or stop producing mana. Fortunately, one sacrium mana cube was enough — and he had three.

The Highswords and Asher stepped out of the waygate, their figures bloody and breathing heavily. The horde of monsters was not something to take lightly. His spells were much faster compared to them, and he still felt like the numbers were too damn much. To Highswords, who have to chant each spell.. without their powerful physical bodies, they wouldn't be able to do this at all.

"What in the hell is that?" Lifewarden asked. The mana signature the red Demon was emitting was terrifying, to say the least.

Monsters, unlike humans, never let their guards down and would only rarely conceal their full mana. Those who did were either really crafty ones trying to ambush others — or the ones with incredibly high intelligence.