Mob Sorcery 5 - Ch48

Note: Chapters 47-51 are being posted together. Be sure to read them in order. Commentary after Ch51.

“That spell should have killed all of you,” Mei said, her voice ringing in Vince’s ear. “This tornado of yours is truly a nuisance.”

Pain coursed through every nerve of his body. The ground appeared much closer, and he realized he’d fallen to his knees without realizing. He’d caught his fall with one hand reflexively. Blood pounded in his ears, heat seared his throat as he gasped for breath, and magic rattled his senses like static cutting through his brain.

But he was alive.

Vince pulled his head up. His dragon remained intact, still arched above him in that strange pose to block a telekinetic strike from above.

The damage Mei’s virtuoso-tier spell had wrought greeted his eyes, and terror flooded him.

Every inch of dirt had been turned over across the entire stadium. The bottom layer of stands lay in mangled ruins. Hamelin’s undead were little more than masses of necromantic energy congealed around those strange black objects formerly implanted in their torsos.

Almost the entire team lay immobile on the ground, their barriers nowhere to be seen. Gaby and Nina sprawled atop each other’s unmoving forms. Blood poured from their mouths and limbs twisted in unnatural directions. Ashley had been crushed into the ground head-first, and her lower body looked hardly any better.

Kiyoko had been brought to earth, and many of her feathers covered the ground around her as she shook on her knees. Even Momo bore wounds from the spell. The arm she’d used to shield her head dangled uselessly, and bone jutted out from her forearm. Blood seeped out from a bulge in her leg but she somehow remained standing as green light ran along the entire suit.

“Cora!” Goro screamed.

The Miura heir had come out the best of almost anyone, but kneeled with his bodyguard in his arms. Blood stained Cora’s shirt and vest, and poured out of her mouth. She didn’t move and her tails hung limply.

Mei stood in the center of all of it, a cruel smile playing across her lips. Her tails already began to move with another telekinetic blast. She prepared the coup de grâce.

Something primal rose up within Vince at the sight of his friends and loved ones in such pain, or potentially dead. He recognized the emotion. Began to embrace it.

“Focus, you idiot,” Daji snapped at him, and he felt the sensation of a slap rock his mind. “You planned for this. Your spells are still active. If you can still fight, get up and kill her. Rely on the others, or else why did you trust them to fight alongside you at all?”

The harshness of her words stung, but he recognized them.

He grabbed one of Ally’s healing infusions, and tried to drink it.

“No,” Mei uttered, her eyes narrowing at him.

She swung her tails at him, and Vince braced for a bone-shattering telekinetic blast. His contingency barrier might save him.

Mei’s necklace shimmered and she froze. She blinked twenty feet away and blasted craters in empty dirt, showering the field with plumes of dust. Her tails split between white and soft blue light.

Vince took the opportunity to down the infusion before standing. He reactivated his barrier, making sure to use Daji’s magic to empower it. His dragon bounced forward. Black fireballs arched through the air.

As if predicting this turn of events, arcs of foxfire lanced the fireballs. Mei barely even paid attention to his barrage. But it kept half her tails busy.

She hurled a talisman at her feet, and it erupted into a golden box of light. Something purple crashed through it a moment later. Anzu’s form emerged, her face a picture of focus and rage glittering in her eyes.

Mei’s arm fell like a blade toward Anzu, who met the telekinetic blast with a palm strike. The shockwave slowed Anzu enough for Mei’s eight tails to launch into a flurry of telekinetic blasts. Beneath the purple empowerment magic, Anzu’s barrier rippled from the onslaught.

A black mass appeared beneath Mei and she scowled. Before the black column of fire consumed her, she teleported away again. Vince suspected she possessed at least two bracelets with short-range teleportation. No way her magic tools had that short of a cooldown, and she’d been in the middle of bombarding Anzu.

He drew his sword, snapping off a black flame laser at Mei. She thrust a hand out in response, and a translucent torii gate appeared in its path. The portal of foxfire within it absorbed the flame laser.

A pair of golden paper talismans summoned the ogre pair again, but they rushed the wounded fighters. Vince’s dragon crashed down in front of them and an inferno of black rage inundated the paper summons. Daji’s magic consuming flames made short work of them, but took his focus off Mei.

Anzu kept it up. She rocketed across the field, staying low to the ground as her tails glowed bright white.

Mei cleaved through the air with glowing blue tails, and Anzu abruptly slowed down as prismatic light shimmered off her. Then Anzu vanished.

“You rat,” Mei cursed. She clapped her hands together and an immense force plowed the ground around her from above. “I’ve torn apart rebellious ronin numerous times. Don’t think I’m vulnerable up close.”

Something shimmered above Mei, and she looked up to see a distorted shape falling toward her. Too late, she raised her arms and formed a series of overlapping cross-shaped barriers similar to what Cora used earlier.

Anzu emerged from the night with a falling axe-kick direct to Mei’s arms. Mei’s barrier shattered, and blood spewed across the dirt and her black robe as Anzu snapped her arms like twigs.

Roaring with pain, Mei’s tails shined solid white. Anzu kicked off Mei, pushing her back a step, and blinked away.

Telekinetic blades cut through the air where Anzu had been, creating shockwaves across the entire stadium. Flames rippled where Mei struck Vince’s tornado, and the stands collapsed upon impact.

Green magic already ran through her arms, healing the broken bones. As Vince’s dragon unleashed a massive mass of flame lasers at her, Mei surrounded herself in her bubble and vanished amid the fire.

Something appeared above Vince, and he froze, nearly blasting it apart with his cane.

“We can’t wear her down like you did Kigenai,” Momo said.

She hung above him, upside-down and dangling from the air. Her ears twitched and tickled the top of his head.

“We’re overwhelming her, despite…” He glanced around at the devastation Mei had wrought, and his expression darkened.

“Eight-tail foxes have absurd reserves. I know because mine are also impressive, and Mei is used to operating alone for long lengths of time,” Momo said. “Battles of endurance are her forte. We have to go big. Take her out at once and end this.”

“She has more barriers than she has tails.”

“Then we crack them all.” Her eyes narrowed and she stared down at him. “Your flames are the killing blow, Vince. Her healing magic won’t work if you engulf Mei in them. I’m doubtful our foxfire will be enough, even if Goro gets in close. You will have to end it. Until we’re ready to hit her with everything, keep buying time with your relentless dragon.”

Despite the intensity, Vince knew Anzu would appreciate Momo’s wording.

The seven-tail fox vanished, and he refocused on the battle.

Just in time to see a tornado explode up from the center of the stadium.

Kiyoko emerged from it, her entire body engulfed in green light. She shot toward Mei after the fox teleported. The tengu transformed into a streak.

A surge of foxfire forced her to deviate, and Kiyoko soared into the air. Blades of wind tore open the earth around Mei, rupturing her bubble. The tengu pointed her blade downward and plummeted.

Eight soft blue tails spiraled around Mei as she spun in an odd dance. A torii gate appeared beneath her feet and a pillar of foxfire erupted from it.

A purple blur caught Kiyoko mid-descent, and the two figures rolled across the dirt toward Vince. Cora separated from Kiyoko, still covered in blood but fighting fit again.

“You…” Kiyoko glared at Cora, her eyes shining solid green.

Cora bit her lip, unsure what to do. Vince placed a hand over her shoulder while bombarding Mei and keeping the pressure on. Momo took over for Anzu, and their combined force made Mei summon more shikigami.

“Kiyoko, this isn’t the end,” Vince told the tengu. “Please don’t burn yourself out over Mei.”

Kiyoko bit her lip and looked down. The green light faded from her eyes. “I understand. But there is one thing I must do. Not as an agent of Knightsgate, but as a warrior who stands for honor and who has fought against evil as long as I have lived.”

A lump formed in Vince’s throat. He recalled the sight of Kigenai flailing about in pain after the heist, when she’d overdrawn on her magic. Kiyoko always avoided actively empowering her body with magic like that.

Would he have to say goodbye to the Kiyoko he saw in front of him?

“I’ll never stand in the way of your principles,” he said. “But remember that we’re here for you. There’s more to life than being a mere agent.”

Kiyoko stared up at him, and her blue eyes shimmered. She gave him the tiniest of nods.

A moment later, she rocketed into the air. Vince hoped this wasn’t the last time he saw this Kiyoko.

Mei roared, drawing his attention back to her.

Her tails spun around her, and a series of shimmering telekinetic walls surrounded her in concentric rings. Black flames burned through them rapidly, but Momo chose this moment to swap out with Anzu. When Vince tried to bring forth a pillar of black fire beneath Mei, she revealed the same torii gate of foxfire from earlier still defended the ground beneath her feet.

He expected to see her rise into the air again and prepare her virtuoso-tier telekinesis spell. Instead, as sweat ran down Mei’s face, she drank a magic-restoring infusion and formed a strange pattern with her fingers. Her tails shifted behind her and froze in a different pattern. Her eyes, tails, and entire body glowed with a translucent light.

“An onmyouji spell. Likely also virtuoso-tier,” Daji warned. “It must be aimed at the foxes. Don’t let her cast it!”

Easier said than done, with Mei’s insane defenses. He now understood what it was like to fight himself.

Anzu and Cora slammed against the outer barriers, and their blows tore through the outermost layer. But Vince watched as the walls reformed. The inner walls dimmed, regenerating the outer walls, only for all walls to regrow in strength after a second.

He’d never seen a meister-tier barrier spell before. It was a true work of art.

Foxfire joined Vince’s black flames, but from a different direction. Their combined strength began tearing down the rings. Too slowly, Vince realized.

Anzu blinked forward as she realized the same thing. A high-pitched giggle escaped Mei at the sight of Anzu appearing in front of her.

“I already told you, I know your tricks,” Mei said.

Foxfire sprang forth from the portal at her feet and tried to entangle Anzu. Grimacing, Anzu teleported away. She didn’t reappear.

Cora paused and looked back at Goro. Vince understood the logic running through her head.

He hatched his own plan. Maybe someone else had something up their sleeve, but he knew one thing that would work.

Vince charged forward, closing the gap between himself and Mei. His enchanted shoes let him move far faster than normal and he even leaped in order to get within thirty feet. He needed his ring to be in range.

Mei’s gaze focused on him as her tails shifted once again, and Japanese script appeared behind her body in the shape of a translucent talisman. Her grin stretched from ear-to-ear and mad glee filled her eyes.

She knew what he had planned. Her expression told him she had a counter.

The instant he got within what he thought was thirty feet, with Daji’s help to gauge the distance, he stopped running and focused his magic. Heat seared his veins as he drew on the power of the egg.

His teleportation ring gleamed with light. Mei’s mouth opened in an uproarious laugh.

Vince teleported in front of Mei, just like Anzu had. Mei froze, her laughter caught in her throat.

“Wha—” she gasped. “Are you mad?”

Foxfire tore at his feet and legs. His shoes burned and the enchantments in them disintegrated. Tendrils of blue fire wormed through the fabric of his slacks, tearing at the basic reinforcement enchantment.

But the foxfire did little else. Vince was human, despite all the taunting and Daji’s assistance. He didn’t fear flames that ate magic and slew demons.

His fingers gripped Daji’s egg tightly and he glared at Mei. “Excandesco.”

Black and crimson flames consumed his vision.