Heretic Spellblade 6 - Ch3 v2

Chapter 3

“That idiot gets one shot at her nuke and she blows it on the fucking wall?” Maura drawled, flipping her long hair over one shoulder.

“She did target Nathan,” Laura said.

“And look what good that did. No wonder chumps like her never end a world. They’re morons.”

As Nathan’s senses returned and he took in the devastation that followed the explosive blast that had levelled the wall and barrier, he tried to follow the conversation. Sen and Fei made no such attempts. Rather, Sen filled the space where the wall had stood with a searing barrier of flames, while Fei tried to reach the charging horde with her own bursts of fire.

“One shot? You mean she could have used that ability in my world?” Nathan asked, leaning against the remaining battlements.

The tiny piece of platform he stood upon wavered, and he knew they needed to get off it before it collapsed. He ordered everyone down. Fei picked up Sen and leaped down, ignoring her yelps. Nathan jumped down himself. The Twins floated after them.

As he fell he looked over the retreating soldiers. Almost all of them had made it to the second layer of walls, save a few stragglers. A single knight dressed in what he guessed to be the uniform of the ducal guard scrabbled away from the edge of the crater. She must have barely survived the explosion.

The landing shook Nathan’s bones a touch more than he expected. Placing a hand over his chest, he recalled that he lacked Ciana’s protective ability. For over a year now, his unicorn knight had shared her enhanced durability with him using her monogem ability. The distance between them meant he needed to be extra careful in this fight.

“Duh,” Maura said once she descended. “The boss can’t make this dunce stronger. If he could, then why would we need to use binding stones to get all buff and shit? She gets one nuclear boom every time she invades. It’s a teeny weensy one in here, and a city-ending cataclysm once she escapes. Figures she’d blow it in here.”

“I’m surprised the boss didn’t give her two, for extra irony,” Laura said.

Nathan didn’t understand what was ironic, but felt he was better off not knowing.

For that matter, he felt immensely glad that this Messenger hadn’t let off that “nuke” in Waier. The weak version could level a palace. Given Messengers increased in strength exponentially outside the portal, “city-ending” was an apt estimate.

The roars of the approaching demons rose in his ears. Sen’s wall of flames barely held them up. What did give them pause was a hailstorm of ice shards, each the size of his fist. Holes appeared in the many demons, shortly before their bodies vanished along with their lives. Janice stood atop her remaining section of her wall, two of her three sapphires glowing as she channeled a fifth-rank spell.

Fei joined in the chaos with her flames. Her nudity hardly bothered her as she dashed off and vaporized the other half of the horde that rushed through Sen’s wall. Although once she stopped, Nathan conjured up a uniform on her head for her to put on. Her red face when she looked back at him suggested she hadn’t noticed her current state.

Nathan’s eyes watched for something other than the demons or his favorite kitty’s breasts, however.

After a few seconds, that something made itself known. The armored Messenger waded through Sen’s flame, utterly unharmed. Her long spear reminded Nathan of Kurai, as did her appearance. She looked like Narime, except without the tails and fox ears. That likely meant she was from Earth’s parallel to where Narime came from.

Ironically, that wasn’t the Kurai Peninsula. The mystic foxes hailed from a long lost continent to the far south. Sunstorm and Seraph were the true natives to Kurai, and possessed somewhat different features to Narime and this mysterious Messenger.

Nathan’s eyes met the Messenger’s. She scowled at him.

Somehow, he knew she remembered him.

“You. I suppose it is only right that I am given the chance to rectify the stain on my honor,” the Messenger said.

Abruptly, her name came back to him. Or at least the one she’d given him last time.

“Tomoe, right?” Nathan said, gathering magic in preparation for a spell.

A flash of triumph crossed the woman’s face. Only to be shattered once the Twins laughed above her.

“Tomoe!” Maura cackled. “Claiming glory that isn’t yours, you complete failure? Nathan, I’m pretty sure her name’s something like Momoko. She’s just some schoolgirl. Not a famous samurai.”

Tomoe, or whatever her name was, shook with fury. She glared up at the succubi circling above her. “I’d heard you two would be here. That you’d been brought low by a mere Bastion and turned rogue due to giving in to your baser lusts. You’re a failure to our master, as he can’t send the real versions of you here to clean up your mess.”

Laura gagged. “As if that’s the real reason. The boss just doesn’t want Nathan to fuck any more of us onto his side.”

“You’re always so disgraceful. I’ll take great pleasure in handing your heads to our master after I burn this pathetic world to the ground.”

“Baby steps, Momoko,” Maura taunted.

While the Messengers spat barbs at one another, the Champions focused on keeping the horde at bay. Sen added two more walls of fire, while Janice and the other two Waier Champions pulled back to the far wall. Nathan waved them toward that wall, but they stopped short of it, even as a barrier activated.

Now they were cut off from the defenders. The Champions had committed themselves to fending off the Messenger. For what little that mattered. Nathan could teleport to the other side if necessary.

Tomoe spun her spear while glaring at Maura. An ominous power rose from her, tingling Nathan’s magical senses.

Even though she aimed at the succubus, Nathan automatically began casting a fifth rank spatial slash. The Twins simply grinned as a shroud of darkness covered their bodies.

Tomoe’s body shot toward Maura in a flash of light. A solid afterimage remained behind, so realistic that it had fooled Nathan in his fight with her in his original world.

Apparently it fooled Sen, as a lava lance obliterated it and spewed molten rock everywhere. Nathan cursed and leaped backward to keep clear.

Above him, Tomoe slammed into Maura, spearpoint first. Except she failed to penetrate the shroud whatsoever. Her blade stopped dead, holding her in place.

Or maybe that was Laura, who laughed as she held her arms toward Tomoe. Some sort of spatial spell extended from her arms toward the other Messenger.

“You know, I’ve been shittalked for not doing anything today,” Maura said, her voice echoing across the clearing. Menace filled her tone. “But maybe I should show off a little for my budding dark lord. Remind him of the difference between shitstains like you and actual Messengers.”

Maura’s red eyes gleamed, and she slashed Tomoe’s body with her darkness-covered arms. A shriek escaped Tomoe. She fell to the ground, blood pouring from her body and splashing all over the ground. Some even struck Nathan.

He rubbed it off. His spell remained ready.

After all, the immense power in Tomoe remained present.

Laura’s laughter stopped as the Twins stared down at Tomoe’s body in silence.

A burst of darkness next to Nathan indicated Sunstorm had arrived. “Is that really the Messenger who nearly conquered Waier? If the Twins—”

With a bestial roar that would haunt Nathan’s dreams, Tomoe shot to her feet. Her torso had been slashed open clear to her ribs, revealing her internal organs and causing blood to continuously gush from her devastated body. Yet it was her eyes that worried Nathan the most.

Not a spec of the woman from earlier remained in them.

“Nathan, get away!” Maura snapped.

She and Laura swung at Tomoe and carved great gouges in the ground, easily dozens of feet deep. Bright white light burst up from the chasms. Gore burst from Tomoe’s body, but far less than those spatial slashes should have created.

He’d seen what they could do. Hell, he used a similar technique. Another Messenger, Thanatos, had been carved apart by spatial slashes like those more than once.

Tomoe’s head snapped toward Nathan. Those eerie eyes locked onto his and he felt a similar feeling from just a few hours ago.

One that told him he was being hunted.

“Hell no,” Sunstorm growled as she shoved Nathan aside and blasted Tomoe with a spatial slash of her own.

It did little more than irritate the berserk Messenger, who surged toward Sunstorm blindingly fast. A cloud of pitch-black darkness burst from Sunstorm, enshrouding both her and Nathan. He cursed and unleashed his own spell at where he expected Tomoe to be, for what little it might do.

Then he reflexively visualized a nearby area of the clearing and teleported himself there. The darkness vanished and he found himself standing only a few feet away from Fei. A blazing blue inferno of mobile demonic candles surrounded him.

“Nathan!” the catgirl squawked, whirling. “But if you’re here, then—”

Tomoe’s bestial cry interrupted her as she tore free from Sunstorm’s distraction. Her hyperfocus on Nathan forced her to charge him at her terrifying speed.

Or it would be terrifying if he hadn’t faced an opponent ten times faster earlier today.

In the distance, Sen began to cast a sixth rank spell. He recognized it as the fire pillar spell she’d used against Artemis. That had been one of the only spells capable of harming the nigh-immortal Messenger.

“I said no,” Sunstorm growled as she appeared in front of Tomoe.

Once again, she snapped off her spatial slash. Once again, it did absolutely nothing. Even the Twins struggled to stall their fellow Messenger, spitting curses in the process.

“Two fucking elites in one day,” Maura shouted. “This is bullshit! Shouldn’t there be a cooldown?”

Nathan nearly made sense of those words, but now wasn’t the time to focus on the nonsense the Twins spouted. He needed to remain alive.

Focusing on teleportation again, he grabbed Fei and reached for Sunstorm.

“Go!” Sunstorm snapped, dodging his grip. “I’ll be fine.”

Choosing to trust in his Champion, Nathan teleported away with Fei. She yelped when they reappeared beneath the remaining patch of wall.

To his surprise, Janice had returned. The other two Champions were nowhere to be seen, but instead a wall of glowing water washed away the demons attempting to charge the wall. Janice turned to face him, shock in her eyes. She shook her head.

“Griem said the Nationalists had been wrong about you, but I think even he underestimated you,” Janice said. “What is this insanity? Even when I fought this Messenger before, she hardly seemed this… mad.”

“But she used the explosive ability?” Nathan asked.

“Indeed. It’s what seriously wounded me. I barely took her out with my trigem ability.” Janice rubbed her wrists, as if something had happened to them in the previous battle. “She was rash, but not insane.”

As if to punctuate that point, another berserk scream ripped through the battlefield. Nathan looked over to see Tomoe slashing at Sunstorm with massive swings, albeit ones lacking in skill. Sunstorm moved like the wind and dodged the attacks effortlessly. The Twins had given up on fighting Tomoe, and instead took Fei’s place as demon fighters.

Then Tomoe’s spear glowed. Her next swing at Sunstorm looked like a blur of light.

The assassin’s body exploded into leaves, right before a burst of darkness covered the area. Sunstorm reappeared next to Sen, the jade in her chest glowing. Her trigem ability allowed her to survive mortal blows. Although Nathan would need to top it up before she could survive another.

“Do you have a plan?” Janice asked.

“No, but I think somebody else does,” Nathan admitted, his eyes shooting to Sen. “Otherwise, I suspect enough of Fei’s flames will work. Whatever magic is powering her body has to run out eventually. I do have one more trick, though.”

If direct attacks with elemental or spatial magic wouldn’t work, Nathan’s best bet was to try mental magic. Against Artemis, it had proven surprisingly useful.

He recalled the magical technique. A mental lightning strike, directed at his enemy’s mental presence. At worst, it should stun Tomoe. At best, it might seriously harm her and allow the others to bring her down.

While the Messenger raged and looked for him, finally spotting him and charging him once again, he focused his spell. Fei’s flames and a burst of ice spears from Janice caused Tomoe to vanish temporarily.

But he found her mental presence. Then he hurled his lightning bolt at her, expecting it to explode against her mind and send her into spasms.

It never reached her. Instead, some other presence shielded her. One vastly more powerful than Nathan had dealt with, save for the times he’d drawn the attention of Doumahr’s goddess—or whatever he summoned by speaking Omria’s name.

“Shit, two elites,” he breathed.

The meaning of Maura’s ranting reached him. He wasn’t battling Tomoe, but another Messenger controlling her. Or empowering her, in this case. A puppet master.

Despite the failure of his mental attack, Tomoe still stopped dead. Life returned to her eyes temporarily. She looked around in confusion. Then pain wracked her body and she collapsed to the ground.

“What… is…” she gasped out around mouthfuls of blood.

Then her eyes faded back to those eerie empty orbs. She stood up. Or, rather, the puppet of Tomoe stood up.

Sunstorm appeared next to Nathan. “We just need to hold her down a little longer.”

“Got it,” he said.

Unfortunately, so did the puppet. Tomoe’s head snapped toward Sen, twisting at an impossible angle with a crack of bones. The spellblade kept casting. She trusted in Nathan and the others to protect her.

Fei and Sunstorm dashed off, attempting to slow Tomoe with their attacks. Even Janice understood, summoning up a pair of supercharged fourth rank ice spells intended to freeze Tomoe in place.

Yet the Messenger burst forward, hardly slowed as she raced toward Sen in the distance. Demons rushed around them, with little holding them back. Nathan ignored them. Once Tomoe fell, the demons would go with them.

Rather, he needed to keep Sen safe. Nothing he’d tried so far worked. He also couldn’t teleport Sen away, as it would disturb her spellcasting.

Something clicked in his mind at that thought. If he couldn’t teleport Sen away, why not teleport Tomoe? Grabbing her might not be possible, given she would send his head flying across the battlefield with a flick of her wrist.

But he’d seen a similar enough technique in the past. He began preparing a supercharged fifth rank spell. As he hadn’t cast this spell before, he didn’t know how powerful the spell frame needed to be, but he knew he needed something bigger than the spatial slash.

Seconds passed. Valuable seconds, as Tomoe continued to blitz through Fei, Janice, and Sunstorm. The Twins returned and managed to hold Tomoe in place for a precious few moments with their bodies.

Nathan knew he owed Maura dearly for helping so much today. They rarely pitched in like this, because they didn’t have much reason to. If he wanted the Twins to act like his Champions, he needed to treat them like them.

Especially as it was their efforts that kept Tomoe just short of Sen. Nathan felt the power rushing through his body, filling his spell frame. Maybe he didn’t have enough.

He needed to try anyway. He slashed his sword at Tomoe, cutting through her torso.

And, more importantly, the clearing between her and Sen.

Instantly, the messenger froze. She felt the powerful spatial magic fire off. Yet nothing happened. Her neck spun to face him and those empty eyes considered him. Some being that wasn’t Tomoe stared at him through those eyes.

Then she looked back at Sen and charged her with a bloodcurdling scream. With just a handful of steps, Tomoe would tear apart the fragile spellblade.

The moment her foot crossed the line Nathan had cut in the air with his sword, Tomoe vanished. Her scream continued to echo, but from behind them.

Mindlessly, Tomoe charged across the clearing toward Sen. Everyone stared at her, dumbfounded. Nobody stopped her as she ran right up to Sen and, once again, teleported hundreds of feet away.

Sen’s spell approached completion. He felt the immense power within it, just as he had the last two times she’d cast these unknown spells she’d been using recently.

This time, Tomoe stopped charging. Those eyes of her stared right at Nathan.

Somehow, he knew the being controlling her was giving him some acknowledgement of victory.

With a scream of fury, Sen unleashed her spell. Her greatsword wreathed itself in white-hot fire as she slammed it into the ground in front of her. A scream of pain ripped out of the woman.

A furious torrent of flames erupted from beneath Tomoe, consuming her instantly as it tore a hundred feet into the sky. For several seconds, Nathan saw only white-hot fury blazing in a vortex.

Sen collapsed to her feet. Her greatsword returned to normal and the pillar of fire vanished. All that remained of Tomoe was a set of blackened bones, standing in place for a mere second. The fact so much remained was proof of the immense power being pumped into Tomoe’s body. Then even the bones faded away.

Shrieks rose from the remaining demons as they began to burst into white light. The portal rift snapped shut as if it had never been here.

Another invasion defeated.

Cheers rose from the defenders. Ragged breaths escaped Sen in the ditance. Her hair couldn’t get much whiter at this point, yet Nathan knew she was drawing on too much of Ifrit’s power to be healthy.

Before he could get close to her, the Twins descended in front of him with uncharacteristically grim faces.

“Not so fast,” Laura said. “We know the chump behind this.”

“An elite Messenger. I heard Maura ranting earlier,” Nathan said. “We’ll have time later to—”

“Not later, now,” Maura snapped. “This isn’t some random dickweed waving his cock around, Nathan. This guy’s all about destabilization and scheming bullshit. Do you remember ages ago how I told you that Messengers can send agents in? Pet humans to do their dirty work and lay the groundwork for future invasions? Well, this elite specializes in them.”

A chill ran down Nathan’s spine.

He did recall their explanation of agents, as he’d always worried some might have infiltrated his ranks. Up until now, he’d been told that the active Messengers eschewed agents.

Now he faced one that actively used them.

“Janice, I need you to close off the gate and prevent anyone from leaving,” he told the nearby trigem.

She frowned at him. “That’s not a request I’d normally honor, but I feel you’ve earned it. Especially as it’s standard practice here. I don’t allow anyone who enters the portal world to leave it until I give the order to leave, due to the possibility of battling a succubus.” Janice gave the Twins a pointed look.

They stuck their tongues out in response.

Janice chose to ignore them and walk toward the wall. With the demons gone, the defenders deactivate the defensive barrier. Knights in the uniform of the ducal guard swept out to accompany the two other Champions, who bowed to Nathan and thanked him for defeating the Messenger.

“Now’s not the time for thanks,” he said, aware that Sen had carried the day.

Fei, Sen, and Sunstorm crowded together. The assassin spotted him with Janice and blinked over. She remained silent as Janice took command of her knights.

“Have all units form up. The wounded can still report to infirmaries, but everyone must remain inside the portal,” Janice ordered. “We may have an intruder. Nobody leaves for any reason until I order otherwise.”

The confused faces of the knights suggested somebody already had.

“Um, General, didn’t you order Captain Roth to leave earlier?” one officer asked, speaking up where the other knights simply shuffled nervously. “She barely escaped that blast and took a unit of archducal guard to the palace, saying that you’d ordered her to take Archduke von Salms to safety. Given the situation…”

Janice cursed. “I gave no such orders.”

Nathan’s mind returned to the knight wearing this uniform who had been far behind her comrades. No doubt she had been the agent, sneaking through in the chaos of Tomoe’s assault. She hadn’t been able to get through until the barrier had gone down.

“We need to assume this is an assassination attempt, Janice,” Nathan said. “A Messenger is sending an agent directly for the archduke and, I assume, your Bastion.”

- - - - -

Commentary: This likely feels like a shorter, easier version of the Artemis fight, in part because it's intended to recap some of the points for readers who have forgotten some of them. It's not like I can open the book with a battle that leaves Nathan nearly losing after getting his shit kicked in at the end of Book 5, so he has to have a win here. But it's a reminder that things are rougher, but he's still got the expertise and power.

The benefit of reiterating those points is that you probably can see what matters from the Messenger fights in Book 5 (e.g. Sen using Ifrit's power to harm elite Messengers; creative uses of spatial magic; good control of the troops).

Also, I finally make use of Messenger agents, after bringing them up ages ago.

On an unrelated note, Mob Sorcery's pre-order is up (for those who somehow missed the post). It's still unsearchable on Amazon for whatever reason so you'll need to use the direct links from that post until then. It's not dungeoned, as I can't even find it with a direct ASIN search (even on the author backend), so I'm guessing something's fucky on Amazon's backend and I might need to get their helpdesk involved. I'm having a real string of luck with Amazon fucking stuff up, huh? (Although this seems to be a general Amazon fuckup affecting every author publishing in the past 24-36 hours)