Infinite Mana - Chapter 204: Molten Answer (Patreon)

The Guardian tried firing back. A red cannon shot emerged through the flames. Sieghart dodged. Another followed. Then a third. The attacks became less accurate. Sieghart smiled. The molten material coating the Guardian had begun deforming further under the continuous heat, interfering with the structures it used to reshape its arms. He increased the barrage.

More Giant Fireballs formed. More detonations followed. The chamber floor trembled continuously now, as though the entire dungeon objected to someone repeatedly setting off magical artillery inside one room.

Sieghart’s coat whipped around him beneath every shockwave. His hair moved wildly. The heat should have become unbearable. Protection absorbed enough of it to keep him standing. The Guardian remained inside the inferno. Its red glow became difficult to distinguish from the flames. Magic Vision still found it. The creature was moving. Slowly. Much slower.

Another idea surfaced so abruptly that his concentration shifted. A slow smirk appeared across his face while the Guardian struggled through molten metal and distorted heat.

It was an awful time to experiment with something he had never attempted before. The Guardian was still firing from inside the inferno, the chamber was unstable, and one failed calculation could leave him standing still in front of a weapon designed to kill him.

Naturally, Sieghart tried it anyway. He canceled two of the forming Glacial Fists, used Impulse the moment another red projectile tore through the flames, and launched himself sideways while bringing both hands together in front of his chest. The cannon shot crossed the space he had occupied and exploded against the distant wall. Stone fragments sprayed through the chamber, but Sieghart barely noticed them because his attention had already narrowed toward the mana gathering between his palms.

Fire Mana came first, bright red and violently hot, responding with the ease of something he had practiced thousands of times. Earth Mana followed a moment later, heavier and slower, resisting the shape he wanted far more stubbornly. He did not bother trying to create an elegant spell structure. There was no time for careful diagrams, repeated testing, or the usual sequence of failures that accompanied building something completely new while nobody was trying to impale him.

Sieghart simply forced both kinds of mana together. Red twisted around brown, heat sank into the dense earthen structure, and the combined mass became increasingly unstable as he compressed it harder between both hands. The Guardian fired again. Sieghart activated Impulse before the shot reached him, sliding across the chamber while refusing to release the half-formed spell. Maintaining two different elemental structures during sudden movement made his temples pulse almost immediately.

The mixture resisted him. Fire wanted to expand, Earth wanted to remain stable, and Sieghart wanted both properties at once. He kept compressing until the floating mass in front of his hands became a glowing orange-red sphere surrounded by violently distorted air.

“That looks dangerous enough. If it doesn’t explode in my face before reaching you, I’ll count that as a successful first attempt. Anything beyond that is already better than expected.”

Sieghart thrust both hands forward and released it. The sphere crossed the chamber more slowly than a Fireball, leaving a wavering trail of heat behind it while drops of incandescent material separated from the surface and splashed across the stone. The Guardian reacted immediately. One cannon arm flattened and widened into a defensive plate, placing the reshaped limb between its torso and the incoming sphere exactly as it had done against Sieghart’s previous attacks.

The glowing orb struck the arm and did not explode. Instead, it flattened across the polished surface with a wet metallic splash, spreading thick orange material that clung stubbornly to the Guardian rather than bouncing away. For an instant, Sieghart only stared. He had expected an explosion, fragmentation, or possibly the spell collapsing before reaching its target. He had not expected the improvised mixture to behave almost exactly like actual molten rock.

The Guardian seemed equally unprepared. It swung the affected arm violently, apparently attempting to throw the material away, but the glowing substance stretched across the surface and remained attached despite the sudden movement.

Mana surged through the limb as the Guardian tried reshaping it. The transformation slowed, stuttered, and then partially failed because the molten material continued heating the metallic structure while sticking between plates that needed to move. Sieghart’s smirk widened. The creature could adapt to impacts, projectiles, frost, barriers, and even his improvised metallic ammunition. Something physically attached to its body was a considerably more irritating problem.

The Guardian finally tore part of the glowing mass away by reshaping the arm into a narrow blade and whipping it sideways. The process took several seconds, and several seconds in this fight suddenly felt like an absurd amount of time.

Sieghart had already started making another sphere. This time, Fire Mana and Earth Mana came together faster because his mind possessed a working result to imitate instead of blindly forcing two incompatible ideas toward the same outcome. The second orb became denser, smoother, and hotter than the first. Sieghart compressed it until the surface glowed almost white near the center, then fired before the Guardian finished clearing the remaining molten material from its arm.

The Guardian attempted to dodge. Its slowed leg dragged beneath accumulated molten metal from the previous exchanges, and the new sphere struck the side of its torso instead of passing harmlessly behind it.

The molten orb spread across its ribs and waist. Orange material crawled over the smooth plating, slipping into narrow joints while the Guardian twisted hard enough to fracture the cooling mineral coating already stuck across its body. Another cannon shot formed. Sieghart used Impulse, escaped the line of fire, and created a third sphere while moving. The spell no longer felt completely unfamiliar; his hands were beginning to reproduce the mixture without conscious correction.

Fire Mana. Earth Mana. Compression. Release. The sequence became easier every time he repeated it, and with Infinite Mana removing the usual concern over efficiency, Sieghart cared more about speed than producing a perfectly economical structure.

The third molten sphere struck the Guardian’s shoulder. The fourth hit its left thigh. The fifth splashed across the cannon opening just as the creature attempted to fire, forcing the red projectile to detonate against molten material before leaving the arm. The resulting explosion tore part of the Guardian’s transformed forearm apart. Sieghart immediately followed with another sphere, coating the damaged section before the corruption could reorganize the softened metal into a replacement weapon.

The Guardian retaliated with everything it still possessed. One arm became a cannon while the other formed a lance, and bursts of red energy crossed the chamber between sudden forward charges intended to interrupt Sieghart before another sphere could form. Sieghart was faster now. Not physically faster than the Guardian, but faster at making the new attack. Each repetition shortened the preparation, and every successful cast gave his concentration another pattern to follow.

He used Impulse to escape a lance thrust, formed one orb while airborne, and fired before landing. The Guardian blasted it apart with a cannon shot, scattering molten droplets across both itself and the floor. That defense only created another problem. The broken sphere did not vanish like a shattered Mana Sword. Incandescent material splashed over the Guardian’s chest and legs, adding more heat and weight to the coating already deforming its body.

Sieghart realized that destroying the projectile was almost as inconvenient as being struck directly. He stopped aiming every sphere perfectly and began filling the Guardian’s available space with more molten material than it could reasonably avoid.

The glowing spheres crossed the chamber one after another. Some struck directly, others collided with cannon fire, and several smashed against the ground near the Guardian before splashing incandescent material across its feet and lower legs.

The chamber became unbearable even through Protection. Waves of heat rolled along the damaged walls, stone cracked beneath cooling and reheating cycles, and sections of the floor softened wherever enough molten material accumulated in one place.

The Guardian’s once-smooth body disappeared beneath deformation. Its polished chest sagged around heated sections, one shoulder became visibly uneven, and both legs moved with increasingly awkward mechanical jerks as molten material invaded the joints. Half of the creature was eventually covered. Red corruption continued pulsing beneath the surface, desperately reshaping whatever remained functional, but every adjustment exposed another softened section to pressure it had never been designed to withstand.

The Guardian tried charging again. Its first step landed properly, its second dragged, and the third collapsed when the warped knee refused to align. The creature caught itself using one lance-arm before falling completely. Sieghart did not give it time to recover. Another molten orb struck the bent knee, followed by one against the supporting shoulder, while a third splashed directly across the center of its back.

The Guardian fired blindly. Red energy passed several meters from Sieghart and tore another crater from the chamber wall. Its targeting had deteriorated badly now that the head and upper torso could no longer rotate smoothly.

Sieghart continued casting. His headache remained, his knees complained whenever Impulse activated, and sweat covered his face despite Protection reducing the surrounding heat, but none of those problems mattered while the Guardian was finally losing ground. The next barrage buried its remaining cannon arm beneath glowing orange material. Another sphere spread across the chest. A third struck the hip, melting already weakened metal until the joint partially collapsed beneath the creature’s own weight.

The smooth Guardian no longer looked refined. Its body had become a distorted statue of sagging metallic plates, hardened mineral crust, red cracks, and glowing streams that slowly ate deeper through whatever the corruption attempted to rebuild.

Sieghart kept spamming the improvised spell. He had stopped counting somewhere after the first dozen, and Infinite Mana allowed him to continue without slowing even as the chamber filled with enough heat to make ordinary breathing uncomfortable. The Guardian attempted another transformation, but one arm only shifted halfway before the softened metal sagged around the joint. The corruption surged brighter, trying to force a new shape through material that no longer possessed enough structural integrity to obey.

Another molten sphere struck that arm and finished what the heat had started. The limb folded near the elbow, stretched beneath its own weight, and finally tore away before splashing against the glowing chamber floor.

The Guardian staggered sideways and tried forming its remaining arm into another cannon. Sieghart answered with three more spheres before the opening finished taking shape, burying the entire forearm beneath another layer of molten material.

Red light flashed violently beneath the creature’s chest. Sieghart watched through Magic Vision as the corruption redirected more mana toward the remaining leg, apparently prioritizing mobility now that ranged combat had become almost impossible.

It managed one explosive step. Sieghart used Impulse backward. The Guardian’s damaged foot struck the floor, but the leg could not tolerate the sudden acceleration. The heated knee twisted sideways with a metallic shriek before the entire construct crashed onto one side.

Sieghart raised both hands and continued firing. One sphere struck the shoulder pinning the Guardian upright, another covered its waist, and two more spread across the remaining sections of smooth armor still visible beneath the molten coating. The Guardian thrashed hard enough to send glowing material across the chamber. It attempted to rise, failed, reshaped part of its torso for leverage, and only exposed more surface to the heat already eating through its structure.

Sieghart did not slow down. The new attack had become almost natural now, requiring only a brief convergence of Fire and Earth Mana before compression turned both elements into another incandescent projectile. Eventually, there was barely a recognizable Guardian left. Both arms had partially melted away, one leg had collapsed entirely, and the torso sagged around the brilliant red core suspended inside a shrinking framework of corrupted metal.

Sieghart prepared another sphere and then stopped himself. Magic Vision showed the next impact would probably reach the core, and destroying it would repeat exactly the mistake he had come this deep into the dungeon hoping to avoid. His hand opened instead. Telekinesis reached through the softened remains, wrapped around the exposed core, and pulled with enough force to tear the remaining glowing mana connections away from the collapsing body.

The core resisted for half a second. Red strands stretched between it and the melted torso, growing thinner as Sieghart increased the telekinetic force until each connection snapped one after another.

The core shot free. Sieghart redirected it before it could cross the chamber uncontrollably, suspending the glowing object several meters away while the Guardian’s remaining structure lost whatever force had kept it functioning. The deformed body collapsed into molten fragments and shrinking mineral remains. Red light continued pulsing inside the extracted core, but the creature itself stopped moving as the chamber finally became quiet enough for Sieghart to hear his own breathing.

Only after the Guardian completely stopped moving did several translucent notifications appear before Sieghart, confirming that his reckless experiment had apparently crossed another boundary the System considered significant.

[New Branch of Black Magic Created: Magma Magic.]

[New Spell Created: Lava Orb — Level 1.]

[Lava Orb grants +3 Magic per spell level.]

Sieghart stared at the notifications, then looked toward the glowing puddles spread across what remained of the chamber. His improvised experiment had become an actual spell before he had even finished deciding exactly how the structure was supposed to work.

“Magma Magic. Fine, I’ll admit that sounds better than Fire-and-Earth Ball. Three Magic per level isn’t bad either, considering I invented it by trying not to get shot through the chest.”

The name was obvious in retrospect. He had combined Fire and Earth, compressed both principles until the material behaved like molten rock, and apparently crossed whatever conceptual threshold the System required to recognize an entirely new branch.

Sieghart flexed his aching fingers while the newly created spell settled into his understanding. What had required deliberate concentration only minutes earlier already felt easier to reproduce, as though the System had cleaned up the crude magical structure after recognizing it.

That was useful. Extremely useful. Three permanent points of Magic per level also made Lava Orb one of the more rewarding offensive spells he had created, assuming leveling it did not require melting entire dungeon floors. Sieghart looked toward the corrupted core floating under Telekinesis. The satisfaction from creating Magma Magic disappeared almost immediately, replaced by the reason he had fought the Guardian alone in the first place.

The body was gone, the core remained intact, and the corruption had not been given an obvious opportunity to disappear deeper into the dungeon and find another host. Now Sieghart only had to decide what to do with it.