Chapter 331 - Gortia Battlefield 21 (Patreon)

Crushing weight snaps me into focus as the incredible force of an abomination punches me in the face, its fist large enough to cover my whole torso and head with its blow. My body bounces against the mud clinging to the side of the mountain, floating for a brief moment before crashing back down to earth. The wooden haft of the spear that had been impaling me falls atop me, snapped in half by the titanic hand of the abomination standing over me. The twelve-foot-tall monster made of misshapen flesh and bone rears back its club of an arm, intending to bring it smashing down on me for a second time.

As it pulls its arm back, its fist opens, the flesh of the monster’s hand peeling away like a budding flower. Inside what had been a hand, the fanged skull of a huge snake opens its mouth wide. When the abomination swings forward the second time, two six-inch-long incisors strike.

Without thinking, I grab the haft of the broken spear and raise it. The debilitating magic of General Skyfall still clings to me, and it takes every ounce of speed and strength that I can muster to bring the broken spear up. I am so slow. As slow as a mortal woman.

Pain. I hardly register the sensation as every muscle in my right side collapses under the weight of the abomination's attack. My shoulder collapses entirely, bones grinding against one another where the spear shattered them. My elbow hits the mud, digging deep into the ground. The fangs of the snake head stop dead, hovering just a few inches above my heart, as I strain to hold the haft of the spear in place across its open mouth. 

The pain is blinding. No matter how I try to raise my destroyed right side, even calling upon my magic to manipulate it like a marionette, I can’t put any strength behind it. Through gritted teeth, I hove up at the hulking mass of the abomination above me. I only have one arm I can use, and the more I push against the monster, the more I sink. 

A brick of stone cracks down onto my face, turning the world white for a split second, but it isn’t enough to make me lose even an inch to the abomination still pressing down on me. Above me, an Ash Legion soldier raises a sledgehammer high over his head before bringing it down on my nose for a second time.

The blow drives me head under the mud for a moment. With a roar, spitting mud out in flakes, I raise my head from the ground enough to gulp down air. 

I can breathe, I barely have time to think. Did my lungs already…

A second hammer landing on my skull drives out the thought. I feel a tooth chip, but these mortal soldiers can’t do much more with…

Another hammer blow comes. Above me, a second man has joined the first, a stone sledgehammer in his hands as well. 

I lose ground to the abomination, its fangs inching closer. My head is pushed beneath the mud. I try to suck in air and fail. I begin to drown.

Above me, the two soldiers work like men driving in a fence post as they swing over and over again at my head. A second abomination joins the first, pushing against the other’s back to help it drive me into the earth. There is no air. There is only the desperate need to breathe.

But who needs air?

Dragonfire infused with sky mana bursts to life inside me, filling my one usable lung.

Who needs an arm?

Black sand pours out of my vault, the grains molding together and climbing up my collapsed right arm. Together, they form a vice made of jagged lines and sharp angles around the haft of the broken spear. Then, with the full force of my magic behind it, the spear starts to rise, pushing back the weight of the monsters bearing down on me. 

And who needs speed?

As I pull my head back above the surface of the mud, I trigger the magic I have built into my armor for an occasion like this. To be sure, I pour far more mana into the enchantment than it can handle. 

Obsidianate Pauldrons of Erupting Flames(Rare): <Armor><Enhancement> <Magic><Explosion>A pair of pauldrons crafted by the amateur enchanter Charlene Devardem. These shoulder guards are made of the incredibly dense material obsidianate and are crafted for use by a powerful mage. These pauldrons carry an enchantment that allows them to store mana to allow the wearer to erupt with a blast of magical force all around themselves to devastate enemies around themselves.Enhancement: +120 Magic +20 Recovery +20 Defense +20 Magic DefenseArmory Bonus: +75 Defense, +25 Magical DefensePowers: Eruption

The world is lost in a flash of orange. It takes only a second for the flames to clear, and when they do, I sit in baked mud, nothing alive within twenty feet of me. A circle of dirt and charred bodies surrounds me in a circle. Beyond, the soldiers of the Ash Legion stare, eyes wide at the ruin. 

As one second turns into two with the soldiers and me staring at one another, the sensations my soul presence feeds to me start to crystallize into understanding. Flitting forms move above the mountainside, crashing into one another every now and again. I can only make out who is who in the brief moments they collide and pause. So easily I have fallen from that kind of grace. 

Weakened like this, I can’t discriminate with my magic, so I don’t.

Over our entire side of the mountain, my soul presence slams downward on every single person, myself being the only exception. In front of me, the soldiers nearest have the worst of it as they are driven into the mud when an unexpected few hundred pounds drops on their shoulders. When I stand, I drag my body to its feet by tugging on the black dust infused into every part of me, not wanting to put undue weight on my nearly severed arm. 

The vice of black sand throws the broken haft of the spear to the side before circling around and pulling the other half out of my back with a wet sucking sound. My good hand stretches out, snatching a particular bottle out of my vault. When I flick the cap off the bottle, the liquid inside shines crimson and bubbles. Even a single healing draught would cost an arm and a leg, but luckily, I have an in with the alchemist who made this one. 

It is more effective than the ones I might be able to buy in the specialty shops that sell single-use magical items, but it is also far more toxic. Drinking just a few of these would leave a normal person sterile and in severe pain as their bones slowly begin to dissolve as hydrofluoric acid reacts with the calcium inside. If I weren’t resistant to toxins in a similar way that Dovik is, I might even have to worry about such side effects. 

The healing draught splashes against the back of my throat like whisky, burning as it goes down and heating me up. A significant part of the healing energies inside the potion are shunted away by my body as it tries its hardest to filter and stop the toxic elements, but enough is absorbed to help me stimulate my healing. As I look down, I can see the broken flesh of my chest stitch together as my prodigious ability to heal is supercharged by the healing draught. A second later, the pressure on my lungs lessens as the second one begins to inflate once again. Finally, the energies start stitching together shattered bone and forcing muscle back where it belongs, but I don’t have time to wait on it.

Raising my hand, I point at the nearest group of soldiers. As the men are pressed into the choking mud, dragonfire pools in the palm of my hand. Just before I release it, I pause, thinking better of it. I’m still under the influence of the General’s magic. I should be getting to a…

“MeeeeaaaaaaaAAAaaah!” Galea screeches.

I follow the intent behind the metallic siren in my head and push myself to turn as fast as I can. A blur comes my way. It’s too fast.

Falling back on an old trick, I call upon what would not strictly be considered a combat ability. In front of me, a vault door made of shining gold metal appears. 

A sound like a titan ringing a gong reverberates across the mountain as the insanely fast General Skyfall collides head-on with my vault door, but she does not stop. Before I can react, the golden door is knocked into me at incredible speed. Like a ball, I skip across the side of the mountain as I am blown away by my own vault door. 

The general becomes a blur once more as she moves. It takes all of my focus to even try to predict where she might go. Pulling as much sand as I can from my vault, I send flames scattering in all directions, but the blur weaves through. For a second time, I summon the door of my vault, throwing it between myself and the streak of light chasing me. This time, the general effortlessly darts around the golden door. There is nothing between her and me.

In one instant, the general is there, a streak of silver cutting through the air, and then she is gone. A line of blue light collides with the silver, carrying it far away. The two smears of color turn into people once again when Dovik throws General Skyfall into a ridge more than three hundred feet away. The man vanishes, reappearing at another position inside the range of his soul presence so quickly I can’t say when exactly he moved. General Skyfall turns into a blur of color once again as she swings where he just was. Dovik holds up his hand, an eye appears in the air between the two, and the pair vanishes inside a sphere of magic.

How long can Dovik keep her trapped inside his barrier? I need to do something.

A hand grabbing my arm causes me to spin and nearly throw fire into the face of Junior Priest Sullivan. The man doesn’t seem to even notice as he stares at me. No, his eyes are unfocused, staring past me at something only he can see. 

“I think we miscalculated in some places,” Sullivan says. 

Around me, the raid force arrives. The Ash Legion around us moves to intercept, yelling in their alien tongue, trying to turn and raise their weapons in time to meet the enemy. They never get the chance. 

Like wind, the forward strikers of the raid force cut into the soldiers before most can even think to swing their hooked swords. The elites of the Vivantee cut a perimeter into the side of the mountain, forming a circle a hundred feet across around where Dovik has the general trapped, lining the walls of the raid’s new arena with the bodies of the enemy. Our three guardians, all laden with impossibly heavy and thick armor, charge straight for the largest clusters of soldiers still trying to rally. Some try to fight back, but the endowed soldiers move faster than any charging bull and with twice the weight. They don’t even bother to swing their heavy weapons when they crash into the enemy; momentum alone does most of the work. 

The Ash Legion does not even have time to retreat from the area we are claiming before they are picked off. As the guardians busy themselves with ripping apart formations and tying up the abominations inside our arena, six raid members with bows pick off stragglers before they can even realize they should be fleeing. Not that it would do them any good with the melee strikers keeping anyone from leaving the circle. 

It takes less than ten seconds for the raid force to clear the area and turn their attention toward stopping anyone from getting inside. I could barely follow what was happening. These people are terrifying.

A stinging burn pulls my attention away. Just in front of me, Junior Priest Sullivan holds his hand up, and it glows with a crystal blue magic. Despite the pain, I don’t fight the priest as he holds his hand over my stomach and helps me sit on the mud. The magic in his hand puts pressure on my soul, forcing it to contract and return to me. Crimson light races back toward me, shrinking until my soul presence extends no further from my skin than a few inches.

“You’re lucky that you are a magician,” Sullivan says. “Being able to project your soul makes this a lot easier. Less painful too, I’m told.”

Moving his hand slowly, the priest runs the magic across the surface of my soul presence, moving slowly. It only takes me a moment to realize that his magic is comprised mainly of water mana.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“You were targeted by the general’s curse,” he says, still focusing on something I can’t see. “Curses are nasty. Most work by sticking to the soul like tar. Ah, here we are.”

The priest’s glowing fingers snag as he runs them across the surface of my soul presence. Where his blue mana touches my crimson, there is a faint hint of dirty brown. Grinning, Sullivan presses down with his fingers, managing to slip his nails beneath the brown. The moment he does, the curse appears.

There, standing out against the surface of my soul presence is a mess of sharp lines, symbols etched in a circle. I can’t make heads or tails of the meaning behind the symbols written on the surface of my soul, nor can I recognize the affix of mana they are written in, but seeing it does spark recognition. The curse looks very much like an enchanting array.

With a yank, Sullivan pulls up, tearing the curse off my soul like a dried-up scab. I brace myself for a sudden rush of pain, but none comes. Instead, it is almost as if every muscle in my body relaxes all at once, and the sudden weightlessness makes me fall to my back. I breathe in the air of the bloody battlefield, tasting sweet and warm as I lie in the mud and stare up at the sky. 

“Better?” Junior Priest Sullivan asks, standing over me. With a crackle and pop, the curse array he holds in his hand collapses, vanishing into motes of magic.

I sigh out a breath, letting the second pass. “Water mana?” I ask him.

“Usually works best,” he says before bending over and offering me a hand. 

Being a gentleman, he doesn’t grunt as he pulls me to my feet. Together, we join the rest of the raid force in turning to face the sphere of blue light in the middle of our arena.

“Let’s get this done.”