Chapter 208 - Battlelines

Nate shielded his eyes as light exploded across the sky like a miniature sun. When his vision had cleared there was no sign of the lightning tree and he could barely make out a figure that he assumed to be Aisling fleeing from a snake made of light. Destroying the lightning tree must have managed to erase two of the serpents but the third cut through the sky, its speed incredible to behold. Allais was easy to spot, a new serpent of light coiling around her protectively like some kind of barrier. 

This was the first time he had ever seen Aisling fight at what was obviously a disadvantage and a hint of worry crept into his heart and mind. The problem was that he had no way of helping her. Not unless they swept the field of their own opponents, which seemed unlikely to happen quickly. What had started out as a powerful opening from his side, was now slowly being pushed back by the weight of numbers and what Nate was quickly realising to be sufficiently equipped opponents. Every Gold member he saw, he judged to not only be a High-Gold, but also better outfitted than the Asmuisillan soldiers had been. He was just guessing, but he suspected Allais had opened the Guild Vaults to make sure her side was as outfitted as they could be, not to mention buying their loyalty. Nate couldn’t fault her, since to an extent he did something similar, even if he did so only because he wanted better things for those he cared about. Just because he lacked an ulterior motive such as a desire for their loyalty, didn’t change the fact that he did his best to outfit his side. No, he couldn’t fault her for that. He could, however, fault her for being an insufferable bitch, but he realised he was partial due to many of Kiri’s woes and for betraying everything the Guild stood for. It was time to let her know just how angry he really was.

Nate watched as a gigantic Frick crashed into two spear wielders, ignoring how their spear tips ripped into his body. The mammoth blue goblin threw his arms up, launching his attackers away. Next to his Familiar, Britt continued to catch attacks on her armour and shield while returning the assault with bone-breaking swings of her hammer. Together, though, they were failing to hold back the line. How could they? They were outnumbered eight to one. Some of the Golds, left unoccupied, were already circling to assist the Jamisons. That wouldn’t do. Nate went through his options in less than a second. Gravity was out. Too widespread and the fine control that would limit the targets in a constantly shifting battlefield would be unreasonably costly in terms of mana, especially when Frick was already a drain on him. Earth was an option, but Frick had pointed out that someone was contesting him. Likely one of the few Gold Mages in the back. Sleep and Dream were both considerations, but discarded quickly. Targeting so many while they were still in fighting condition faced a similar problem to Gravity, especially since they would have greater defenses against something that targeted them. Their internal mana would resist him and the fight was still in its early days. Something cost-effective, then, to buy time and let them whittle down the number of opponents.

Nate spun up an Illusion runic array, incorporating the Sigils for Illusion, Sound and Smell. He targeted the other side of the battlefield that was the Guild training grounds, trying to capture the mages, the Golds circling away from the fight with Britt and Frick, and Helen Jamison. The goal was to confuse their sense of direction and so the Illusion, driven by his Intent, appeared like a swirling mass of colours that kept intersecting and flowing like water all around them, including around their feet. To add to the confusion, the sounds of battle were constant, mixing with the real sounds to make it sound like the battle was all around them. Finally, he added a constantly shifting smell that ran the gamut from sweet, to savory, to rotten. The only purpose was to try and overload their senses and make it hard for them to rejoin the fight. When the blanket of Illusion covered the back half of the battlefield, there was a stutter as the frontliners were cut off from the supports.

Step one complete, Nate split his focus. Maintaining his Illusion rune, he spun up two new runes, the limit of his capabilities if he wanted to retain the ability to teleport when—not if—he came under attack. The two runes were identical, both containing his new Empower Sigil along with his Master-tier Soul Sigil. One was aimed at Kiri while the other went to Frick. The drain on his mana was significant and he knew he couldn’t hold it for long, but the goal wasn’t to keep it going. The goal was to use the time he had to buy everyone the opportunity to seize an advantage. 

Nate focused on Frick as Evindal and Portos Jamison went flying across the arena, blasting straight through his Illusionary space and out one of the walls of the training grounds. Portos’ blade had clearly been buried in Evindal’s shoulder, but Nate wasn’t concerned since the movement had been driven by a tree. He suspected Evindal had taken the blow to separate Portos from his sisters. Frick, empowered by Nate’s rune, was now moving too fast for the Golds to keep up. There was something else there. Frick was too fast for what Nate’s assistance should account for. A new Skill, perhaps? Frick had said he was close to evolution. Had he achieved his Embodiment? Nate didn’t know, and now wasn’t the time to ask. Frick’s titanic blue arm blurred and one of the less armoured Golds fell to the sand, skill crushed. One of the other Golds screamed in anguish, but that left her open and Britt’s hammer collided with her chest, launching her into the Illusion. That same Illusion wasn’t going to last much longer, but the moment it had stolen from their opponents had already reaped benefits. 

On the other side of the battlefield, Luc, Null and Kiri all fought Kartier Jamison. Fought, and were losing. Even with some of their control and spells suppressed by the Blood Automatons, Helen and Kartier proved a fearsome combo. Helen hadn’t slowed for a second due to the Illusion. Some sort of Blood Sense was Nate’s guess. The support mage was clearly empowering her sister with at least four spells. A blood armour along with blood enhancements for speed, strength and regeneration. At the same time, she was maintaining her own blood armour as well as a blood barrier, both of which were preventing Luc from doing more than annoying both sisters with mosquito bites in the form of poisoned needles. Most of the time they didn’t even crack through the armour.

If Helen felt like a stable pillar of blood, Kartier felt like a hell-cat with tendrils of blood whipping out from her as she swung her twin blades, bending in ways that seemed impossible without breaking bones. Kiri so far had kept her distance, fighting at her maximum range. Even so, Nate could feel that she had been healing wounds she took from the whips of blood. Nate realised why a moment later, when Kiri teleported using her soul energy to deflect Kartier’s sword before it could carve into Null. The Nullifying Swordsman was doing well, able to completely remove any whips of blood from existence when they got close to him. The problem was that he couldn’t do anything about the Platinum’s blade, and Kartier was faster than him. Faster than Kiri too, Nate noted. Golds against Platinums, even with their improved tiers, and the lack of an Embodiment was shining through. Only Luc’s interference was keeping the fight even remotely balanced. While the Arcane Riftwalker’s poison and needles seemed ineffective against the two Blood-based powerhouses, his Magnetic Arcanist class was letting him interfere with Kartier’s attacks. He could sense the mana as Luc pushed Kartier’s sword away and made the woman a second too slow to raise her buckler. Three of Kiri’s daggers flashed past, two deflected by the blood armour, while the third scored a cut through the dark red coating. No blood bled from the wound and, within a second, the wound and armour had sealed back up.

Through his Sphere of Awareness, he felt the earth beneath his feet begin to move. In response, he teleported, appearing on the opposite side of the battlefield. Most of the supports had already escaped the confines of the Illusion, and so he ended it as he formed another rune using the Power, Wind and Tunnel Sigils. 

“Incoming,” he sent to Frick.

The blast of air picked up the mage that reeked of the Concept of Earth, launching him towards Britt and Frick. Frick jumped into the air, catching the man and aiming him headfirst towards the ground before spiking him with enough force to pancake the man's head. The earth, however, gave way beneath the Mage’s head, flowing like water to cradle him, causing no discernible damage. A second later, Frick’s hands were forced open as a barrier of dirt and sand grew around the mage before Frick was forced to let him go to dodge spikes of earth shooting up from the ground. Britt was forced to retreat as well and Nate sensed as some of the Golds were turning towards him. The fastest were already moving. He wouldn’t get them all, he realised. But the goal wasn’t all of them. The goal was some of them. 

With a pocket opened up containing only their enemies, he finally reached for Gravity. Dropping the Wind Tunnel Rune and Frick’s Soul Empowerment, Nate created his Gravity Control rune and changed up to down in a small area. Six Golds launched into the sky, the others escaping the zone or anchoring themselves to the ground by Earth wrapped around their feet, courtesy of the Earth Mage. That guy was becoming annoying. He was unusually competent. The Six Golds, however, were in for a very bad time. Nate was already forming the second rune he intended to create as their feet left the ground. The sky above was awash with lightning and light. Flowing beams of the latter snaked across the sky, lancing out towards a flying shape that could only be Aisling. As the six Golds flew into the storm, Nate completed his rune of Light Gathering, binding his Intent to target the six of them. 

The serpents of light themselves seemed to be able to resist the quick working, but the beams of slithering light they launched did not carry Allais’s own Intent, it seemed. Nate saw at least three Golds get burned by the light above before he had to drop the rune as he was forced to teleport again to avoid two spears attempting to skewer him. At the last second, both spear-wielders accelerated with ridiculous speed. He was launched across the arena, his focus disrupted as he smashed into a stone wall, burying him in rubble. The whiplash was disorienting and he felt woozy from the sudden strike followed by the immediate stop, courtesy of the now destroyed stone surrounding him. 

His barrier had held, but within his bracer he could sense that one more hit like that and it would be done. The material and rune might be Legendary, but that was only one tier above Epic, and he was fighting Rare and Epic Classholders who outlevelled him and possessed Embodiments. Besides, the attacks had been from spear-wielders who he guessed had Skills that specialised in penetrating shields and other durable targets. 

Activating Conceptual Spatial Manipulation, he appeared back near Luc to see how the battle lines had changed. In the distance he could see a normal tree growing into the sky, Evindal riding a branch as Portos gave chase. Kartier and Helen were still pressuring his allies, with Luc, Kiri and Null on the backfoot. But his sister wasn’t folding and that was all that mattered for now. The Blood Automatons were clearly starting to run out of mana, the iridescent red blobs having shrunk to a third of their original size. They wouldn’t last for much longer. The Golds, however, were scattered. While they had split up to attack Nate, Britt had clearly downed another one and the two facing Frick showed serious wounds. With six disappeared into the sky, two already dead on the ground, and their numbers split momentarily, the enemy forces had been halved. Nate could feel the processed mana flowing greedily into his Class Core. Unfortunately, that did nothing for his almost empty Mana Reserve. He’d shifted the battle in their favour, but he’d done so by blowing through his mana incredibly quickly. Reaching into his Runic Gallery, he began pulling on the mana gems within to start refilling his reserves. One of these days, he would really need to invest in his Mana Absorption Stat. Especially if the scale of battles kept growing like this. But he had bought himself a moment of respite, long enough to partially refill his mana. A second part of his mind split off to guide the mana into his Barrier bracer.

“Keep them off me. If I can get enough mana for another big push I think we can finish them off,” he sent to Frick.

“Didn’t even need to say so, Boss. This is the best shit ever!” crowed Frick before roaring at the top of his lungs and charging the two swordsman holding the line.

The tug on Nate’s mana from Frick was notable, but thankfully less than the rate at which he was refilling his reserve. In the meantime, he searched across the battlefield. Someone was missing. Coralie had been among their opponents, and vanished as soon as her mother rose into the air. His scan using his farsight sphere of awareness was interrupted as he felt the earth begin to shift again. The Earth Mage emerged from the ground even as walls of stone and dirt rose to hem Britt in, setting her up to be skewered by the two approaching spear-wielders. Nate was already reaching for a Reinforcement rune when the earthen walls fell. The Earth Mage had sprouted an arrow in his eye and slowly collapsed in a puff of sand like a toppled tower as he died. 

Britt’s projected armour shrunk around her and, with a burst of speed, she launched herself out of the way of the incoming attacks. With the Earth Mage out of the way, and Nate with enough mana for another setup, along with the wariness in the Golds now that they had been reminded of Jorge’s presence, the fight was finally shifting in their favour.

A burst of light in the skies above drew everyone's attention.

“NOOOOOO!” screamed Evindal, the pain in the elf’s voice silencing the battlefield, as the smoking form of Aisling tumbled from the sky.