[Ashborn-B1] 76. Manifestation (Patreon)

LXXVI

Manifestation

The sprites had divided themselves into two groups. First, a cluster of five or so that aimed to disrupt her movement. Judith called those Disruptors. The second (around seven) aimed to take off her head at every turn. Those were the Hunters.

Judith threw herself back and cartwheeled out of the beam’s path. Before she even landed, a column of light split into multiple arms which shot for her vitals as if they were homing.

She whirled on her enemies. The sprites twirled and pirouetted in the air. Some, in a display Judith had never seen before, conjured bars of light under their feet which they used as footstools to stabilise and change the trajectory of their attacks.

She hissed through her teeth. ‘There’s too many of them!’

A muscle in her chest contracted. Dorothy’s mind puled inside her own, and three barriers shaped around her. The curving light beams smashed into the shields and dissipated.

“You’re letting Dorothy do all the work!” Scar yelled. He was like an angry dad on the sideline of a ballgame. “Don’t you feel sorry for her?”

Judith landed—

“I…do…!”

—and let herself drop to the floor so the light spear passed over her.

Fucking hells. How was she supposed to catch her bearing like this? She’d barely been linked to Dorothy for an hour!

“I know what you’re thinking.” Scar whispered, yet the sound of his voice reached her over the many beams searing towards her. “It’s unfair.”

Flicking her head in his direction caught her a glimpse of his figure. Since the start of the ‘training,’ Scar had remained standing on the hilt of the same claymore. Usually, his expression was haughty, or a mild shade of snarky.

The sprite’s cheeks were sunken with age, and his tail curled into a ball behind his back.

“I understand,” he said. “But, I don’t think you or any of those poor children upstairs understand what they’re up against.”

Another beam cut his figure from her view.

She bit her lips. These disruptor had to go. But they weren’t giving her the time to cast a proper spell!

‘I can help you cast,’ Dorothy said. ‘However, it’ll take away from our defence.’

So she wouldn’t be able to block every hit.

Judith swiped her staff as she jumped again, leaving a sloppy trail of light in her wake that sharpened into blades. They hurled into the disruptors, who merely giggled and twirled out of the way of her hasty attack. Though it didn’t hurt any of them, she got them to stop firing. This was her chance—

“Arch-Fiend,” Scar said. “So they call her in the Old Tongue.”

A frown crept up Judith’s forehead. Arch-fiend? What kind of title was that?

‘Focus!’ Dorothy yelled.

She whirled back to the sprites to find all of them back in formation and channelling.

Damn it! He’d made her miss her opening. Why was he talking to her?!

“I don’t expect you to recognise the title,” Scar continued. “That title was old when I had barely manifested. It’s also not from this realm.”

But no matter how badly Judith wanted to tune the spirit out, what he was saying was of import, so she couldn’t.

Scar rolled his eyes. “When I said you were leaving everything to my daughter, I didn’t mean you should delegate nothing. Divide and conquer. Divert tasks you’re not needed for to your partner. Take on responsibilities that they’re weaker at. Now, where was I…Ah, right, not from this world. You see—”

‘Can you channel and listen and the same time?’ Judith asked.

‘I can, sweetheart.’

Judith was too busy dodging to raise a brow at the use of the endearment. ‘Divert tasks…’

The statement echoed between the walls of her mind. Her class, Swordmage, was a strange one. First of all, the terminology didn’t fit. Despite being called a swordmage, Judith didn’t use a blade. When she’d started out with the class, she thought it was because the name referred to the blade-like constructs she formed when shaping light. However, to name an entire class after a single aspect like that wasn’t like the system. And if that truly was the reason for the name, her class would’ve been a lot more ordinary and not of epic rarity.

The reason, she’d found, was that the name was a double entendre.

She controlled the rise and fall of her chest as she snaked between two beams set on carving through her. In the corner of her sight, Scar’s lips moved. His words didn’t register in her mind. Not even the faint echoes.

Dorothy was blocking him out for her.

‘Activate.’

A film covered her left eye, and illuminated the world. In this realm, the light-attuned essence shaping in the sprites’s palms were like suns melding together in real-time. This heightened sight allowed her to see the attacks coming ahead of time.

That’s why she stepped to the left of a column before it even launched.

Raw light essence pulsed through the blue stone engraved in the head of her bone staff. “Bladed Dominion.”

A shower of brightness burst from her staff and cloaked all of the sprites, who continued giggling. As her second skill, Bladed Dominion was a technique Judith hadn’t had a lot of time to experiment with.

Bladed Dominion: Infuse your light with the Commandments of the Blade.

The description was short but that didn’t take away from the skill’s complexity. It’s why her mother had spent day and night teaching her the fundamentals the moment she unlocked her class and could shape light, in hopes to give her a head start.

The radiating light grew so intense it shadowed everything in the chamber.

Mother’s voice filtered into her head like the woman was standing next to her. ‘The First Commandment of any blade is to cut through its enemies. If you can understand that, then your light will be able to reach her.’

Judith’s facial muscles relaxed. Her lips curved. Those were Mother’s words before she banned all of their instructors from training her. ‘Their time and effort is better spent elsewhere,’ or so she said.

She didn’t blame her mother. It was the truth, after all. Though their branch was not ruler of the clan, they were one of its highest ranked members, so they had access to the Vire’s best instructors. Every hour the teachers spent trying to get some worth out of her middling talent was an hour they could’ve spent on Caelia.

The light pouring from her staff shimmered as the first commandment filtered into the element. Usually, the attack blinded herself, too, but her new eye had no trouble seeing through the attack. She watched mutely as, where the light touched the sprites, their skin split apart and golden-liquid seeped out.

All giggles died and morphed into cries.

Judith rolled out of the way a stray beam. Though she could see clearly, her chest had trouble expanding. It felt like her ribcage was stabbing into her lungs. The exertion made it so she missed a step. Instead of landing on her feet, she fell to her knees.

Her gaze whipped up. One of the sprites was covered in so much blood their face was no longer visible. A terrible scream ruptured from its throat, and it threw its arms. Overhead, the world morphed underneath the passage of the light column, whose weight was so great it must’ve been summoned from the heavens themselves.

Judith’s lips pulled. Her control of her third skill was lacking. Instead of cutting all of the sprites into tiny pieces, her light had mangled them, though not to the point that they couldn’t move.

‘Get up,’ she told herself.

And though they wobbled, her knees bore her weight. But they responded too late for her to get a solid stance that’d let her jump out the way.

In a blink, the beam carved through the earth and left a molten path in its wake. Then it was in front of her.

She took her staff in both hands. ‘Dorothy…’ A bundle of light shaped over her arm and came to rest on her own hand. Warmth suffused Judith’s insides and eased the pain in her chest.

The column rammed into her like a crashing cloudship. If not for Dorothy’s reinforcement, it would’ve cut through her staff and left her in two pieces.

Now, she only slid back through the dirt, kicking up a mound of earth as she did so. She groaned and leaned forwards. ‘Dorothy. Tell me if they’re throwting anything else.’

‘I will. They’re all all flying through the air like madmen, though. The pain is too much.’

Hearing that gave Judith the strength she needed to twist her staff so she ended up on the side of the column. Carving through the ground, the light passed her.

Shoulders heaving, Judith whirled back on the sprites. Like Dorothy said, they were all flying at random, headbutting each other or anything remotely in their way. However, the first of them were already regaining their composure. Spinning towards Judith, their eyes filled with a dangerous light that promised no quick death.

Judith felt herself smiling. There was a whole other world of pain waiting on them if they wanted to kill her.

Ashwing circled the giant, humanoid golem attacking the central pillar.

[Golem General - lvl. 50]

The elite didn’t do anything so obscene as hurl a boulder to strike us out the air. It spread its arms and conjured a miniature tempest that drug us down by our hair.

Ashwing was yanked to the ground, but she managed to stabilise. She clapped her wings, but we were barely moving upward…worse, we were slowly falling.

I grit my teeth and cycled her agility as hard as I could. Below us, a pack of dog-like golems salivated, waited gleefully until the two pesky flying rats finally entered their range.

Skul barrelled into the thick of the hounds. Erri was close on his tail. The two cut through the golems like a scythe reaping wheat. Before I could so much as blink, they’d reached the elite and forced it to dismiss its attack.

Ashwing and I slingshotted into the sky after the tornado died. ‘Goddamn beasts.’

They were tougher to kill than anything we’d faced so far. Luckily, we’d already taken care of most of the other golems, so the elites had our full attention.

I spun a spool of branches as I spun back towards the elite, but eased up once I saw the fight. ‘Those two have it handled.’ Though the elite was a high level and could take a hit, it was slow. Skul and Erri were amongst the fastest fighters in our force.

My gaze went to my system screen.

Waves Rebuffed: 2/5.

Behind me, the central pillar burst into a fountain of light. The elite’s legs burst and melt in a snap.

“Just two more gems!” Kiran yelled over the hissing steam.

I held up two fingers. “Two more! How is Aurille doing?”

“Fine! We’re more worried about the Immortals!”

Wasn’t that the statement of the year.

The Immortals’s pillar was the one Kayle was strengthening. She was one of two—outside of Aurille and myself—that we trusted to spend any time among those rats. However, while we weren’t worried for her, the rest of the army was a different story.

Immortals had too many suicidal tendencies. It wouldn’t surprise me if they’d all gladly give their lives to kill every other disciple in this shrine.

I turned to the horizon, where another horde of golems was already forming. Their numbers would again double.

‘Are they being strengthened, too?’

The central pillar was collecting more energy, but the shockwaves weren’t killing more golems. Better yet, some were surviving the blast altogether. What was going on? If they were being powered, it must be—

I peered. Something…there was something beside the Frost Giant King.

“Kiran!” I yelled. “Do you see that, too?”

Not sure why I was asking him since Ashwing’s eyes were a lot sharper, but he gave me a confirmative.

“Some kind of bird?” he said.

My view of the indecipherable blob sharpened. The two long smudges attached to its torso could be wings, yes. However, what was the giant ball floating behind it?

I chewed my lips. Below me, Rin poured her all into a fight with some of the leftover golems. Meanwhile, Ren was melting one into a puddle.

‘I’ll have Skul stay here.’

“I’ll go take a look!” I called.

“You sure?” Kiran said. “I don’t think that’s the best idea—”

Ashwing raced off before the last of his sentence could finish. Investigating on my own was dangerous, sure. But if we got caught off-guard even once, we’d all perish in this shrine. It also helped that the golems lacked any form of aerial disruption besides the ones throwing boulders. Dodging them was child’s play for Ashwing at this point.

Shockwaves of cold gushed from the north. As we crossed the distance, the figure of the Frost Giant King became larger and lager. I couldn’t even call myself an ant compared to it.

The winged creature grew clearer in Ashwing’s sight, too. Its plumage was the blue of a frozen sky, except for its chest, which was the white of an approaching avalanche. Six rhombus-shaped feather adorned its forehead like a crown. Together with its streamer-like tail, the beast had the regal appearance of a Divine Beast. Perhaps more so than even the Divine Beast roosting in the pillar. But it was not one of its kind…perhaps that was the light I saw coursing through its gaze—jealousy. A want and desire.

I turned to the massive, frozen orb floating behind the bird. Streams of cold air drew into the sphere. It grew larger with each second. The core of the icy body rippled and sent a shockwave through the shrine. The constructs it touched grew a carapace of frost which protected them against the central pillar’s flame. A hardened layer formed over already wicked nails. Horns sprouted from the side of the mouths of hounds which they could use to spear whoever. Before long, the entire golem army had morphed.

However, worst of all, was that the frozen orb in the sky didn’t seem like it was going to disappear. Instead, its surface rippled again, and the beginnings of a hand burst through the shell.

‘Damn it.’

It was spawning monsters. Monsters that’d undoubtedly be stronger than the regular golems.

‘We need to destroy it.’ Sooner rather than later.

I steered Ashwing around. ‘I’ll have to get Aurille—’

A shiver made me glance back. Thousands of shimmering daggers formed in the sky around the flying beast as it rushed forwards.

Towards me.