Mob Sorcery 5 - Ch20

Note: Ch19-21 are being posted together.

“If you help us, you get paid,” the five-tail said to the newcomers.

Silver Teeth nodded. “Hope you have a bonus prepped for when we take his head.”

Another half-dozen ice lances appeared above him, and he sent them hurtling at Vince. A snort of flame disintegrated them before they even reached him.

Silver’s friends weren’t slacking, however. A harpy wearing a metal helmet stretched her wings and summoned a gust of wind around the entire team. Smaller torrents of wind surrounded each team member, save a mysterious robed mage standing a hundred feet behind them.

The front-liners of the hit squad charged forward with surprising alacrity. The harpy’s wind spell boosted their speed, allowing them to bound like deer with each step. A short horsegirl wore a pair of greaves as thick as her head and practically teleported in front of Vince thanks to her muscled legs and the wind spell.

“Nothing personal. I’m actually a fan,” the horsegirl said, her eyes glowing solid amber.

Lines etched into her greaves lit up the same color, and Vince saw her thighs tense. His dragon roared and flung the undead fox away.

A column of flame exploded beneath the horsegirl. She shot out of the flames, a white barrier cracking even as she flew at him. Fear scarred her expression, yet she soared directly at him.

His dragon was out of position to blast her with a flame laser. Vince didn’t bother. He aimed its maw at the other front-liner still charging him.

The horsegirl slammed into him, foot-first. An immense force rippled against his barrier, and the asphalt beneath Vince shattered, dropping him into a small crater. He nearly stumbled.

Ironically, that had been the worst of it. Her momentum abruptly lost, the horsegirl fell awkwardly to the ground.

“Nina told me once why she avoids aerial attacks,” Vince said as he pointed his cane at the wide-eyed horsegirl. “I guess I get it now. I’m way out of your paygrade.”

His flame laser blasted a hole in her stomach and she collapsed with a scream. He grimaced.

Maybe he should have killed her, but he hadn’t spared her out of pity.

His eyes fixed on the undead fox charging him. He heard Pola shouting in terror as she fought another. Maybe two, although Vince hadn’t confirmed if the damage he’d done with his flame laser to one of the foxes prevented Hamelin from raising it as a zombie.

Ice lances exploded on Vince’s barrier along with a series of wind blades. He winced.

His barrier didn’t entirely shrug off the spells, but they better have something more to threaten him with. Short of immobilizing Vince, they’d never have a chance of taking him out.

Fireballs rained down on the enforcer hit squad. The remaining front-liner physically blocked them with his bulk. He was a towering demon that reminded Vince of Big Bob, complete with curly goat horns and furry biceps as thick as Vince’s torso. The fireballs bounced off the demon, despite his lack of barrier.

Fire immunity, probably. Vince tested his theory by unleashing a flame laser. The demon roared and slammed his axe into the ground. Red runes lit up across the demon’s skin, and the flame laser fizzled out on impact.

“Gaby, let’s switch,” Vince said.

“Scared?” the demon snorted, picking up his axe.

“Bitch, you think you can talk shit in front of a cartel captain,” Gaby shouted.

The unicorn backhanded a fox out of the way and shot across the street in a streak of light. Ice appeared on the ground, as if to trip her up. Gaby ignored it and slammed into the demon fist-first.

“This isn’t a cartoon, pendejo.” She sneered.

The demon reeled from the punch. One of his goat horns fell to the ground, snapped clean off his head by Gaby’s strike.

Spotting it, the towering beast bellowed with fury and rose to his full height. Despite Gaby’s inhuman height, the demon loomed a good four feet over her, covering her in shadow.

Green light glowed around the demon’s limbs and he pumped his arms in a blur.

Grinning toothily, the demon said, “Bet your king will pay more for you than the mutts are paying for that human. My lucky day.”

“Like I said,” Gaby said, her expression devoid of emotion, “talk shit once you can prove it.”

The demon’s hands shot forward like the wind.

Unfortunately, the wind was a touch slower than the speed of light. Gaby shot inside his guard before his oafish arms finished their arc. She grabbed his hands, leaped onto his chest, and pulled. Her horn shined with golden brilliance even as the demon screamed in pain. Ice lances exploded uselessly on her barrier.

“You want the big bucks, you take the risks,” Gaby said. “Hope you have good insurance!”

She relaxed for an instant, somehow kneeling on the demon’s chest while parallel to the ground.

Then she kicked off him. Her leap collapsed his chest, causing ribs to burst through his skin and armor in a bloody explosion. His arms followed her arc as she tore them free with ease. The demon collapsed to the ground in a screaming heap.

“I didn’t fucking sign up for this,” the harpy screeched as she rose into the air. “I’m not getting my wings ripped off. We haven’t even scratched them!”

“Give us a minute,” Silver Teeth snapped, even as fear wracked his expression. “What the fuck is that mage up to? I paid good money for him.”

Mage?

Vince glanced over to see the robed mage in the distance preparing something. A huge metal something hovered in front of him. A purple barrier surrounded it. The mage appeared to be deeply focused on a spell, and a glowing octagram lay beneath him. Unlike the barrier, it shimmered with prismatic light.

Something about a spell that used the same color as raw, unfiltered magic rang warning bells in Vince’s mind. He felt Daji about to say something.

Then the five-tail fox attempted to drop the sun on him and he focused on the fight in front of him.

Vince’s dragon spun around him and pointed its mouth toward the white-hot orb of death descending toward them. A dozen flame lasers coalesced inside its maw, before blasting the orb out of existence over a period of several seconds.

A pair of undead foxes rushed the dragon from either side along with a small army of phantoms. Vince split his attention and knocked the undead foxes back with masses of fire nets while unleashing fireballs en masse.

Purple light flickered above him, and he looked up to see a four-tail descending with a katana drawn. Vince drew the sword from his cane and fired a flame laser from it.

The fox flickered to the side with carefully applied use of wind magic, and scurried away from the dragon before an onslaught of fireballs destroyed him.

A miniature ice dragon appeared nearby, and for a second, Vince worried Silver Teeth had pulled off his own meister-tier spell. Then he realized the five-tail had summoned it.

Without a doubt, this five-tail was as dangerous as the assassin that had nearly killed Vince downtown. Not as good as Goro, but damn strong. Most of those he’d fought during the heist had lacked experience, but this five-tail flung out spell after spell even under the pressure of Vince’s dragon.

It didn’t help that Vince was under constant pressure. Phantoms, undead foxes, errant spells from Silver Teeth, and the other Yakuza.

Hell, how long had it been since Vince needed to cast a spell with his cane while his dragon was out? He might have done it during the fight with Mei, but she had been a fucking eight-tail. Did that count?

On the other side of the street, he’d lost track of Kiho and Juliet. Explosions of darkness within the park suggested they’d moved inside it. If the city tried to pin this on him, he’d be fucking pissed.

Worse still, Kiho wasn’t a registered enforcer. Could they stick her with the bill?

He shook himself free of the distraction and focused on Pola. Another Yakuza fox had shown up alongside the undead fox she fought. While she’d grown in strength, fighting multiple opponents during a prolonged battle drained her. Especially without support. The endless phantoms prevented her bodyguards from aiding her and Vince was tied down.

Gritting his teeth, Vince vaporized everything around him with magic. He guzzled down one of Ally’s infusions and let the burn of the magic drive him.

“Gaby, hold them off here,” he said. “I’ll—”

“Focus!” Daji snapped. “The mage is ready.”

Vince’s eyes widened, and he looked over at the mysterious robed figure he’d completely forgotten about.

The mage was clothed from head-to-toe, including a blank white mask decorated only with eye holes. His suit matched the same fashion as Brad. Even the tailcoat, but that said little. Almost every sorcerer in Aulfair wore old-fashioned suits like that. His staff shimmered a pale silver-like color, and an orb of solid bismuth sat atop it.

Everything about the sorcerer scared the shit out of Vince. But he also wondered if the sorcerer was a real enforcer or someone dragged along to cast a fancy spell. He had to have been casting that spell for a couple of minutes by now.

“Worry about his providence later. Incinerate him now,” Daji suggested.

Vince’s dragon spun, firing off fireballs to scare off the nearby foxes. A powerful tornado tore toward Vince, but he risked ignoring it for a few seconds longer. Maybe Gaby would handle it for him now she’d turned back to face the Yakuza.

He focused all of his attention and magic on the mysterious sorcerer.

The moment he did, Vince felt the mage’s attention turn to him. It was a feeling more than something real, as Vince couldn’t see the sorcerer’s face. Yet something shifted in the air. Or perhaps in the magic around the two men.

A flame laser as thick as a car shot across the street, aimed directly at the sorcerer. The hovering metal thing shuddered and blinked into the laser’s path.

The laser struck the metal object and did absolutely nothing. Was the lightning barrier around the floating object so powerful it could shrug off Vince’s attack?

Instead, he conjured fire magic beneath the sorcerer. Embers rose from the asphalt as fire columns began to appear.

The air exploded, and multiple infernos ripped into the air.

Only for the columns to split apart and be funneled toward the floating metal object. The fire appeared to be sucked into it, as Vince watched closely.

With each passing second, the almost paper-thin metal defense gained an increasingly rainbow sheen. Its edges began to warp and bend.

After a few more seconds, it collapsed in on itself. The purple barrier remained around it even as the metal thing transformed into a tiny ball.

Then it exploded. The mage flinched, flinging an arm up to cover himself and his staff. Several purple barriers appeared between him and the explosion, and all but one shattered instantly. Shrapnel turned cars into pincushions and tested the active building barriers. Several trees in the nearby park collapsed.

“Now would be a good time to kill him,” Daji said.

Another flame laser formed between the dragon’s jaws, but the tornado ripped through the magical conjuration before Vince could fire it. Cursing, he refocused his attention to the wind spell about to tear him to pieces.

His dragon spun in a circle, unleashing magic wildly in an attempt to deflect the fox’s attack. The tornado broke apart under the onslaught.

Nearby, Gaby sent an undead fox tumbling in a pile of limbs. For some reason, the dead demon hadn’t risen from the ground. The horsegirl had scrambled to cover inside the restaurant at some point, narrowly avoiding death.

A sudden, sharp pain struck Vince. Gaby reeled.

But none of their enemies took advantage of the opening. Because they also struggled with the cause.

An immense magical eruption rippled through Vince’s magical senses, so powerful he couldn’t ignore it. Especially with his dragon active and forcing him to monitor the world through its presence. He nearly lost control of his spell in that instant, except that Daji took the reins.

The sorcerer stood in the midst of a prismatic light show bright enough to be seen from space. He’d flipped his staff and pressed the bismuth against the octagram.

Nothing appeared to be happening. Yet the raw power suggested a virtuoso-tier spell was at work. Something so immensely powerful and complicated that could end this fight in an instant.

Vince struggled to aim his dragon at the sorcerer. With the last of his effort, he unleashed a tiny flame laser. Big enough to match one Vince would unleash from his own sword-cane, but pitiful next to the dragon’s immense ones.

It struck the prismatic lights and vanished into nothingness.

An immense magical presence appeared around Vince. The prismatic octagram vanished from beneath the sorcerer, only to nearly blind Vince as it blinked into existence below him.

The octagram began to rise from the ground like a cage. Vince and his dragon lay within it, overwhelmed by its raw power and captured like rats.