Magic Breaker Ch 130-132 (Patreon)

Chapter 130: Those Who Should Run

PoV: Sylves - Titania

I hold my stomach, laughter bubbling out of me.

[The Earthmother expresses her concern over your health.]

“Oh, this?” I ask, wearing a vicious grin. “Yeah, it’s pretty bad.” But, despite that, I laugh again. My single arm is pressed to my abdomen, doing little to stem the bleeding of my opened up guts.

But that’s okay. Because I’m a bit of a monster. 

I breathe, and then give a hacking cough as pain floods me. My knees buckle, crashing into the dirt. But despite that, I breathe. Despite it, my heart pumps. Blood leaks onto the forest floor, and it would have alerted predators, but it wouldn’t. My mantle hangs below me, and my own blood simply nourishes that carpet of moss.

And then I reach out. Balancing myself on my knees, I use my single arm to tear off clumps of red-green. I push them into my wound, I stem the bleeding. I hiss in agony when the pain races through me, but I continue. I continue until the bleeding is stemmed, until my insides are inside me again, and then I [Sing].

The moss of my mantle resonates. It drinks the blood, and grows. It drinks from the corpse in front of me, and grows. Obeying that truest law of nature, obeying the cycle. Things die, things grow, things live. 

Green clumps spread and close my wound fully. The patch replaces my skin. It’s a bizarre feeling, and it hurts like hell, and it’s nowhere near as good as real skin, but it holds. I’m alive. I breathe in the smell of the forest, and I laugh. 

“Hah. Hahaha.” My voice cracks, as tears run down my cheeks as I howl to the sky. It feels good. 

“Was that violent, huh?!” I scream at the corpse, kicking it roughly. Decayed bones snap like twigs, my mantle having feasted on their marrow. “You thought you were fucking better than me, didn’t you? Thought you’d never fall for it, huh? That you were safe, that you were hunting me, that you could lure me in? But which one of us ran? Which one of us ran?!”

I kick the corpse again, launching it into a tree and having it crumple into a bag of skin and bones. Nothing else left, having already fed the soil. My mantle hums. 

[Violent Trick 19 > 22]

A sneer weaves itself on my lips. They ran. The lot of them, the cowards, ran. 

I stand in front of a corpse, and that corpse belongs to Serra, the scithian mage from Ezekiel’s party. Long swathes of the green sea stood scorched and burnt, but in the end, the mage laid dead. And the rest of the party ran. Because they were pathetic cowards. Because Sylves was wilder than them, because she owned the forest.

She had led them through thorny vines. She’d beckoned the flora to attack them. Drifted just on the edge of territories of monsters. She’d made their life hell for two weeks, until they cracked. Until the mage lost her pathetic temper and cast a fire spell.

Until a bolt of ice had gutted Sylves open and she stuffed her wound with clumps of moss over a corpse. They’d hurt her home, and they paid for it dearly. [Hospitality] was a cruel skill, after all, and one did not burn a fae’s home without recourse. They’d played the game, and they’d lost because they didn’t get the rules.

Panting heavily, I collapse against a tree, the rough bark scraping my back. The forest could kill me now, but it won’t. 

[The Earthmother asks to become your patron Eye again. You are sponsored one minor request.]

Another laugh bubbles from my lips, this time one of elation even as I shake my head. “No.” I still taste blood and earth on my tongue. My skin is bruised and battered, my insides burn, but my mantle wraps around me, hiding me again. I fade away to be just another patch of green. I curl up in that blanket of dirt and moss and weep.

For myself. For the kind of person I am. For how good it felt to kill that fucking bitch for hurting me, for burning something, for hunting my friends. How I loved to turn things around on them, to stalk them, to make them fear me.

That creeping dread as I played them was delicious. And that’s terrifying. 

I played the prey. And now one of them lies dead in the ground.

Because I was always the hunter. Always the monster.

Points go into my heart stat. I cry for a while, then wipe my tears away. When my legs carry me once more, I stand up.

[Congratulations!]

[You have killed a descender. Claim an Authority.]

I’m afraid of them, after what happened last time. I’m terrified. But I must go up. I’ve gotten my fill of violence and lies, of bloodshed and the hunt. I just want to see my friends again.

- - - 

PoV: Snow Okiyama - Ion

[Job up! Imbuer 17 > 19]

[Class up! Nullmage 20 > 21]

[Level Up! 59 > 62]

My numbers increase as I work. More revenants arise, but they’re just fodder for my archive. The library of skills in there grows, and my understanding of the priest’s skills has grown by leaps and bounds. I have multiple possible progression paths mapped out, as well as suspicions on how those paths might affect their weak points.

The same goes for the soothsayer- though my preparations are less rigorous. I know to rely on my friends, after all, and Opal has been prepping their own countermeasures.

It’s kind of funny. Most of the others outstrip me in level by now. I’ve been holed up for too long. They’ve been fighting hordes of skeletons each day. Amelie especially has grown. By now her threads are strong enough to turn “conscious” skeletons into puppets. It’s insidious and a little weird to watch, but at the same time, I am proud of her.

Just in case, I did prepare countermeasures against the threads, though.

When the earth above me shakes with violence, I know that things will change. I smell fire. And I can feel the traces of mana. High-levellers recklessly throwing around their weight. 

Apparently it’s more easily allowed on the fourth floor. The higher you go, the fewer limiters there are. Which means that I can feel their mana. Feel it brush up against the edges of my grand weave. The enchantment I spent weeks on, now. And I catch the scent like a shark. 

[Observation 14 > 15]

Sulphur and flames crash against holy barriers. Flamando crashing into Ezekiel as they cut loose. Flametouched and Respitia.

[Flametouched laughs as the bones char. It tells Respitia to pull her pathetic pawns back, before they are turned to ash.]

[Respitia the Pure scoffs in reply, telling it to watch.]

I ignore them, instead focusing. “Bile. Open the ramps to the outside. They’re here.”

The minotaur looks at me with worry in his eyes. “That’s my last debt,” he says quietly, and I nod. 

“Yeah. You’re free to run after this. Thank you for your help,” I say. He’s scared. But he’s still here. And that counts for something. 

Above me, the earth splits apart, and heat washes inside. Flamando is really cutting loose out there. My skin dries up as I face the sunlight, my eyes widening at it. The boneyard burns. Flames are awash on the dry grass and muddy ground. Skeletons catch flame, revenants have their necro-muscles light on fire.

And slowly, ever so slightly, a smile spreads on my face. I wait. For a long, endless few seconds, I wait. 

Then the tower stirs. It reaches down with those fingers of mana, the tide of diamond shelled patterns, as my world goes white. My vision whites out. My ears ring like someone threw a grenade. Heat washes over my face, the shockwave enough to throw me to the ground.

And then I laugh. The mana finishes descending. The explosion is contained. I feel that same feeling again, knowing Flamando is being yanked up yet another floor, and I grin. The heat leeches from the world, the flames smothered, going from the blast of a small nuke to a simple swath of fire.

We can handle that. “Opal, Thatch?” I point a finger. “Get them.”

My two best friends smile, and a moment later, they’re out there.

Chapter 131: Monsters

Flamando burns brightly. The sphere that is his head turns silver-white from the heat, and everything around him burns to ash. Roots burn away, bones charr, and he burns. The flames flow into him and out of him like a heartbeat, and he steps forward.

Mud evaporates under his feet, turning to dry earth in moments. “Ezekiel,” he snarls. “Pet of the Pure. You should be running from me.”

The Bright Priest of the Hunt seems unimpressed, though. And yet, he looks ragged. His robes are worn, and there are faint, bleeding cuts on his cheek. “Rage louder and face the Tower’s Wrath, Flamebringer.”

“Bahahaha! When fighting you?! Fuck off,” he said, and if he had a face, it would be grinning. Instead, the fire that constituted him simply turned a shade darker, and he blasted forward. Great gouts of flame compressed into his fists, and he slammed an attack into the priest.

Barriers stacked. One of golden light, and one by their vanguard - Igrys. Her tower shield was slammed into the floor, and she braced against it with her shoulder, enhanced by golden magic.

The magic shattered. A violent gout of flame blasted against her shield like a miniature explosion, rocking the ground and sending gouts of fire spewing to her sides. The shield glowed red hot, even as she pushed back. A second ringing blow slammed into the metal, turning it from red to orange, and her skin sizzled against the shield’s grip.

“Ezekiel!” Igrys cried, and the priest simply nodded. Spells descended as a barrage around him, barriers, fire, marks… He even summoned his bow. Ezekiel was a hunter, and he swiftly drew and fired a radiant arrow, which parted Flamando’s fire.

It struck the inferno through the heart, and the flamebringer stumbled back a few steps, coughing plasma. Then their spellblade was upon him.

“He’s faking it,” Orri, the sumeen soothsayer whispered. “He’s faking it!” they screamed.

But by then, Flamando already moved. Viciously and violently, the flames crashed into the oncoming blade. Railles did her best to twist out of the way, to somehow dodge, but Flamando was faster. He was stronger. And he was also alone.

A barrier by Ezekiel gave her another moment, and her ice-infused blade carved a line across the burning man. He hissed in genuine pain, then another arrow carved through him. Still, he moved forward, still the flames poured out of him. That was his authority, Ezekiel noticed. Destruction.

The world burnt so easily around him, lighting at a faint touch. It came apart and the tower hummed a warning. Ezekiel didn’t need to do much more, they just had to bait a bit more from the man and he would vanish.

But it dawned on Flamando, too. He couldn’t fight them for a prolonged time. So he smiled. He grinned with tongues of flame licking a jagged pattern across the sphere that was his head. And he rippled, the limiter removed entirely.

Heat washed across the fourth floor, and for the first time, Ezekiel noticed how much stronger Flamando was. He had to be well into his 200s. The priest shivered, the confidence fading from him, even as the tower roiled.

Because, suddenly, Ezekiel was facing a descender.

[Respitia the Pure calmly recommends you run.]

And the world turned to fire.

- - -

PoV: Inu Brook-Chavez - Hound

“There,” I whisper. 

The flash of light is unmistakeable, and when I swipe my senses across that area, I feel it.

Snow.

No one else is quite the same. I am so familiar with their profile that [Empathy] makes me certain in an instant. It’s impossible to fake that.

I smile, smacking the metal gauntlets of my armor together, letting the resonance ring out. They vibrate on my fingers and my skin turns numb. “Let’s go,” I say. Dar blasts forward a half-second later.

- - - 

PoV: Thatch Bream - Hush

The ground is still on fire. The air hurts as I breathe it in. It’s hot, and my skin aches at the heat.

But the fire is nothing compared to the coals in my chest. 

Usually, I’d shy away from the anger. I’d hide from the fury. Curl up and let it burn itself out. I’ve done it a million times before. I know that time and distance would make it die down eventually. But I don’t do that, this time.

Instead, I remind myself of why I’m angry. I let my skin blister, the pain feeding my anger. I remember how I got separated from my mom. How we were hunted. Starved on the second floor. Chased across the third.

I remember how I spent days hiding in a hovel. Days running through a deadly forest all on my own. Ambushed by a descender and beaten to death, all because of this. Because of a petty grudge. Because Respitia couldn’t tolerate Snow turning down her recruitment.

The flames inside me curl, and my [Rage] spikes. It burns, it thrashes, and I breathe. I [Channel].

My anger doesn’t define me. I breathe again, and I walk through the flames. They lick at the boots I wear, an item enchanted to resist heat that I bought with what I earned killing skellies. Opal disappears next to me, [Blinking] ahead.

I breathe. In the midst of my walk, I meditate. My anger doesn’t define me. My [Rage] doesn’t define me. Yes, it’s part of who I am. A part of myself that I need to manage, but it is not my actions.

The mantra echoes in my head over and over again. I seek a purpose. An outlet. A channel.

My [Gaze] pierces through the flames. I see them through the heat-haze, the remainder of the priest’s party. Four of them. And I know that Sylves killed one. I breathe. I let the anger flow into my fists.

And then I smile. My steps pick up speed, and instead of slowly stepping through the flames, I sprint. There’s no one around to mind, so I let the anger flow. My steps crash into the ground with unrestrained fury, and the dry earth cracks as I’m sent skyward.

Opal appears in the battered remains of their party. Flamando did a number on them all, and now Opal’s blade crashes against the spellword - steel ringing against steel. I see their guardian grimace as she lifts the piece of slag that remains of her shield. She turns towards Opal, she draws one foot back, and then she moves to charge.

When I stare at her. 

Anger channels through my glare, and my [Piercing Gaze] stabs into her leg. She gasps for a moment, stumbles. It didn’t truly do any permanent damage, but it throws off the activation of her charge, and when she’s ready to move again, I crash into her. 

And I think I find breaking things quite relaxing.

My shoulder slams into her jaw, sending her sprawling to the side in a simple equation of weight. A half-second later, cloth wraps around my leg, and I’m wrenched off my feet. The world spins, and I slam into the ground, air spilling from my lungs. I laugh as I choke, grabbing the cloth, and pulling as hard as I can.

This time, the sumeen comes flying towards me, yanked off their feet. II grin visciously as my boot slams into their face, leaving them sprawling, even as lances of fire stab down towards me - and slow.

Barriers of mana hover above me. [Protection], from Norman. I don’t know where he is, but he’s overseeing this part of the fight, and I let a laugh come from me as I rise again. “Is that all you got?!” I demand, blood already flowing down my face. The ground split open my skin, and the crimson liquid hisses in the air.

My rage burns. I’m not as tough as Inu. I’m not as fast as Opal. But when the cloth wraps around me again, trying to hold me in place, there is one thing I am.

Strong.

Cloth wraps around my arm, and the mage wrenches, but I dig in my heels properly. I make a [Channel] between me and the ground, and anchor myself. And then I pull.

Most of my stats are in power. So many of them, in fact, that I can feel my bones creaking when I do it. The sumeen stumbles again, blood in their face from where I kicked them, and my rage bubbles higher again. I pull - and the vanguard slams into me.

Her charge is brutal and I feel a few of my bones snap - then hum as they remain in place. My new epitaph is healing them, already, my own blood and sweat and anger fuelling my regeneration. I rise from the crater I was in, huffing steam, eyes red from blood, and I walk forward again.

Ezekiel flaps those crystal wings of his, moving to heal their soothsayer, and I step close to the vanguard. She’s tall, wearing heavy metal armor, and definitely tougher than me. I still slam a fist into her face, even when she takes it and hits me right back. I just laugh, then hit her again.

The blow does more damage. It builds on the previous one. I [Channel], and this time, I do it properly. I fill her up with my [Rage]. Anger pours out of me, leaving me feeling lighter, and into her, biting her rationality.

[New Skill acquired!]

[Inner Peace 0 > 3]

It’s a faint thing, but I see some of the hesitation behind her eyes disappear. Some of the healthy fear she developed of me. She slams a blow into my stomach and it sends me flying, crashing into the earth, sprawled out and gasping.

Then I get up again. She charges, I sidestep, and I slam my elbow into her nose. Both our bones crack - but mine is already on the mend again. Meanwhile, her face twists into a snarl. She doesn’t have it. Doesn’t know how to manage it. How to calm the fire.

I do. I [Channel] it into every movement, into every exchange. I am aware of it all, and I even dodge and sidestep flaming spears when I need to. My eyes see her muscles twitch before they move, the way her blood shifts telling me her next trick.

For a few seconds, I match her blow for blow - only until another Skill crashes into me, and something new breaks. It hurts, but the flames burn higher, and so I get up. I rise from a new crater, more blood flowing down me. And again, I taunt. “Is that all you got?!” I demand.

The vanguard screams, and slams another blow into me. I smash her cheek in in exchange. [Rage] fills her, flooding out of me. But it hits a tipping point. The fire in me is so bright, it cannot be held back anymore. It light up.

In a single instant, my blood, all that’s coating her, lights on fire.

[Bloodflame 9 > 10]

Sticky, dark flames coat her, and I feel relieved. My rage is somewhere else now, a poison inside her mind. My blood burns her. I turned myself into a weapon, now, and she wants me dead. So, I run. 

Opal blinks into existence next to me, and nods with a smug grin. They’re bloodied, not nearly as much as me, but we both hurt. 

We don’t need to run too far, though. The ramp is already in sight. And, with the roaring vanguard only a little behind us, we barrel down into the depth of the earth.

Chapter 132: The Array

PoV: Snow Okiyama - Ion

Opal appears next to me, and a second later, Thatch comes down the ramp, covered in blood. I stare at him, but say nothing. Instead, I wait. I hold my breath for a second, then two…

And then, the first of them comes.

It’s the vanguard. A woman, clad in iron, her face bloodied, and flames licking at her skin and armor. She growls and snarls, charging into us like a raging bull. Which is, frankly, a terrible plan.

But it is effective. A half-dozen attacks crash into her armor and do just about nothing, which makes the blood Thatch made her shed all the more impressive. He’s panting and looks like shit, but she’s hurt, too.

So we set our plan in motion. 

The first step is to get them all down here. That shouldn’t be too troublesome; I can already feel the others pressing in on the edge of my [Observation]. The spellblade, then the priest and soothsayer. But we need to buy time - which is where Amelie comes in. I give her a nod, and the girl returns it.

Her task is stalling. And we prepared sufficiently. Our puppeteer has covered the entrance after the ramp very thoroughly in a spiderweb. With simple twists of her hands, threads upon threads crash down on the vanguard. They sink into the joints of her armor, and the raging woman rips dozens apart with each motion.

But there’s always more. Amelie has been spinning this web of hers for nearly a month, and she is a spider, after all. Threads woven from mana, silk and bone all wrap around the vanguard. She struggles and tears at them, the iron of her armor writhing to shift into blades and spikes, and yet, her movements slow.

The threads dig into the wounds on her skin, worming inside of her, and the woman screams in pain. I watch and wait.

It takes three seconds for the spellblade to enter, and then one second for her to shred the web we so meticulously set up. Her sword flashes out a dozen times, coated in trails of light and shadow, and she swiftly frees her companion. “Get it together, Igrys!” the spellblade cries.

And then, her blade flickers and does something dangerous. I lean forward and watch as she cuts at the rage implanted in the vanguard by Thatch. There’s an aura to the motion, a pressure. Not from a skill, but from something deeper.

Instantly, the woman’s eyes clear up, and she grits her teeth. Igrys, the vanguard, shifts the metal coating her, and it flows away, thinning, becoming a new shield for her to wield.

For a moment, I wonder if she needs one to channel her skills. Then, I throw myself to the ground when it rapidly soars through us, slamming into the distant walls and embedding itself ten feet into the earth.

I feel as Norman works even harder to hide us, to buy us just a little more time. Then, from above, comes the soothsayer’s voice. “It’s a trap,” Orri says calmly. “Get out. We all die down there.”

And that makes me click my tongue. Igrys, the vanguard, instantly has her eyes widen. She turns for just a moment, but by then it’s too late. 

Bile brings up the stone wall. I wanted Ezekiel down here, but this is fine. These two are more dangerous than the others. They’re variables. I don’t have their loadout archived. So I activate my trap.

[Job up! Imbuer 19 > 24]

[Level Up! 62 > 64]

[Inscription 18 > 21]

[Congratulations!]

[Advancement achievement completed! Your masterpiece is accepted. You may change your job upon achieving the level threshold.]

Mana pours into me as I advance, the tower finally taking notice of what I made. And it most certainly is an enchantment. Mana doesn’t just thrum around us, it roars. 

It’s denser than anything I’ve felt outside of the tower itself. The mana is so dense I can feel it, tasting faintly like ash on my tongue. It distorts the world, moving it a shade towards greyscale with the density.

We’ve bought a dozen minor mana-cores and installed them into the array to act as batteries, in addition to the power the runes themselves hold, and it’s also connected to me. For the first time in a month, I drop my attunement loop, and instantly, I feel the pressure.

My vessel wants to crack and burst, but my new epitaph holds it in place. There is work for me to do, after all. And this grand array, a titanic room filled to the brim with power, exists for only one thing. One thing alone. It’ll be burnt out in five minutes, but for those five minutes, in this place, magic breaks.

[Suppression 24 > 25]

My skill breaks through the second threshold. The bottleneck snaps and shatters, and I cast it through the massive array. Because that’s the wonder of it.

[Selection 21 > 23]

It’s targeted. I designate the vanguard and the spellsword, and instantly, they crumple to the floor. It’s as if a titanic hammer fell on their heads. Mana that I should never have is at my fingertips. I burn through a torrent of the stuff to throw them to the ground, and yet, right next to me, Opal [Blinks]. They appear in front of the spellsword, and the woman grits her teeth.

Despite the massive amount of resistance, she moves. She fights. She even matches Opal blow for blow, her speed and power great enough to do so. But then, Richard bites her leg.

The little hiy’ht chews through her armor in a second, pulling her footing away, and Opal’s blade ruthlessly exploits the chance. I feel the vanguard try to move, to capitalize, but Amelie has one more surprise. An army of skeletons pours from alcoves, throwing themselves on the massive woman, slowing her down, and so do I.

Norman ensures we stay safe. Richard, Thatch and Opal take down the spellblade. Amelie and I hold down the vanguard.

Another, more personal cast of [Suppression] flows out of me and into the vanguard. She was drained by Sylves on the third floor, hurt by Flamando on the fourth, chased, punched, burnt, and led into a trap. I press down on her with a gigantic formation, my own unrestrained, vastly overlevelled mana, and a skeleton army.

And still she rises.

Somehow, she gets up from the floor. She reaches out, and her shield begins to hum, as if trying to return to her, and even as I try to shatter the spell, it holds. Oh, it chips, alright. It’s a thin, pathetic version of the spell. So, the shield hovers towards her slowly, instead of carving through my neck like a lightning bolt.

An aura spills from her, pressing against my suppression. It’s not made from mana, but it’s unmistakably full of power. Violent, steadfast power.

She rises, and I summon a sword made of solid mana. It brims in this place, drinking from the enchantments based on my skills. That’s what being an imbuer is all about - distilling my own abilities into runes. And then, the array reinforces my hastily imbued temporary construct, until it turns from a dagger into a longsword.

I swing it, just as the woman tries to bash my nose in with her shield.

Her power is hampered severely, thrice, four times over, and she still matches mine. I swing at her, and she parries me aside, a blast of force pushing my sword away, then moves to sweep out my legs, only for more skeletons to throw themselves at her. She crushes the puppets, and steps towards me again. I break a lance of metal that rises from her armor, forming mana needles to pierce into her joints.

She’s forced to break them, because the dispelling would have killed her. But as she moves her shield arm out, I refine my [Suppression]. I target only the weak points. I mimic Norman, making some of my mana needles sneakier.

My brain overloads again, pushed too far by myself, and a bit of blood trickles from my eyes, but a single needle hits. A sneaky, half-translucent blue-grey spear of mana sinking into the joint just behind her knee. 

[Solidification 17 > 18]

The vanguard goes down. And then, there’s a gurgle next to me. A heartbeat passes. Then another. And then, Thatch bursts through the skeleton army, and slams a fist into the woman’s face that pulps it. As I watch her die, she just looks… surprised. As if it hadn’t been meant to go that way.

Thatch slams his fists into her a second time, then takes a deep breath. I see him get up, and then deactivate the enchantment.

The fight only lasted one minute. Not because of the enchantment, but because of me.

Keeping it up took its toll, and I taste iron and ash. But despite that, I laugh. In front of us, there are two corpses. And above, I can already hear the sound of fighting. And the familiar warmth of someone very dear to me.