PW Chapter 283: Turning Tides (Patreon)

Astrid’s heart dropped as she saw one of the people she’d been told, under no uncertain terms, to avoid. Gregor was a reminder that Astrid and the rest of the Wanderers were fighting far outside of their capabilities. Yes, what they were doing was sure to guarantee them good evolutions and whatnot, but Gregor was not something they could do anything about. He was a force that they could only attempt to avoid.

“Run! It’s Gregor!” Astrid screamed as she jumped backward. The Wizard or Summoner, whatever they were, twisted her wrist and created a whirling tornado of flames surrounding Astrid and Gregor. The heat was immediately unbearable, and Astrid could only thank her lucky stars that Meteoric Descent quadrupled her Fortitude. That, in combination with the berries she’d already eaten, meant that she was able to keep herself going, even as she wanted to collapse in terror while the sweat covering her body evaporated.

“My Lady is excited to meet you,” Gregor said, his tone conversational. “She heard how outstanding you were and was disappointed I wasn’t able to capture you earlier. I’m glad you returned to give her an opportunity to remedy my mistake.”

“I’m not some prize for her to capture,” Astrid shuddered. Even as she tried to keep herself calm and talk, she could only barely keep herself from just bowing down before his strength. She was alone against two people so much stronger than her…

“Well, it’s time for me to make my appearance,” Gregor said, his tone conversational and pulling Astrid from her mind’s churning. “I do hope that I retain enough control over myself to keep you alive.”

Astrid decided she was well and truly done with this conversation as Gregor planted his spear in the ground. Blood started to crawl up the spear, the weapon swelling as Gregor’s form shifted to become even more intimidating. Astrid braced herself against the clawing terror in her stomach, throwing away the fear of being blinded once again, and threw herself at the wall of flames.

Then she fell back, screaming in pain as half of her body was covered in severe burns. The wall was solid, even though it was made of fire, and she couldn’t simply jump through it. Instead, flames licked all over her body and she rolled furiously to extinguish them.

“Maybe I can just leave you here,” Gregor said, the timbre of his voice becoming more menacing. “Let Mythra do whatever she wants with you. Surely a few burns will help you learn your place before my Lady teaches you humility.”

Gregor said nothing more before he turned and smashed through the flaming wall. Astrid tried to follow after him, but the wall reformed as soon as he’d gone through it, and she was trapped in the fiery prison once again.

She screamed from the swelling emotions, just as much from pain as frustration and fear. The wall remained surrounding her in every direction. Then, whips started to lash out from it and sear into her. Again, Astrid screamed as she was covered with more burns, these ones more severe than before. She could feel her skin pulling tight as her body was reduced to a target for the malicious woman named Mythra.

In just a few seconds, as Astrid tried to gather herself, she had taken dozens more of the attacks. Soon, if not already, a single part of her body wasn’t left uncovered by burns, and a part of her wanted to beg for mercy. Then that rage she’d always nursed ripped, screaming through her chest, and without thinking about it, Astrid spent her second charge of Regeneration, raised her hammer, and designated the ground outside of the wall as the crater. As near as she could tell, it was where the woman actively burning her was, and Astrid could only hope this would let her escape.

With her hammer leading, Astrid’s arm past her elbow exploded in a new flash of pain, but her hammer smashed through the wall holding her captive. The rest of her body followed suit, all of it being seared by the magical imprisonment. Even so, Astrid remained alive, and now she was free as Mythra looked up at her in surprise.

In an instant, Astrid took in the battle. The building she had crashed through had been reduced to rubble, and she could see the surroundings through the destroyed walls. Mythra stood maybe two paces away from where Astrid landed, her fingers constantly twisting to command the two fiery creations battling the Wanderers. Outside, the snake had constricted around Felix, who remained alive and struggling, but was completely trapped. Muti desperately fought against the dragon as it swept towards the two men on the back lines. He was doing his best, while Skandr sent dozens of spells towards Mythra. The Adamantium-tier caster sent blasts of magic of her own to dispel each of Skandr’s attacks while also keeping the pressure on the other four.

“You are interesting,” Mythra said, the words barely above a whisper as she refocused on Astrid. Before she could get any spell working completely, though, Astrid closed in on her. Similar to when Astrid had been fighting the Sniper, the Wizard disappeared in a puff of flame. Different from before, the woman’s escape was actually dangerous, and she only got maybe ten meters away.

With heat still searing her eyes, Astrid pursued Mythra. As the enemy Adamantium tier had to split her attention further, Astrid could see the precise control fading from the two flaming constructs. The one that had tied up Felix didn’t need to carefully maneuver around his defenses, just continue to burn him as it held him there. The dragon, however, became almost clumsy as its source needed to cast so many spells at the same time. Having cornered Muti, Benedict, and Skandr, it now was unable to continue what it had been doing.

Skandr took that opportunity to swipe both hands in a series of lines, leaving a complicated pattern of glowing sigils in the air. They swirled together before flying towards where the enemy caster resumed her attack. She sent two spells of her own to block Skandr’s, but, evidently, he’d prepared for that. His spell slammed into the ground in front of her and formed into a cage of nearly black lightning that surrounded Mythra.

She made movements to dispel it, but instead of creating a restraint that simply hovered near her, the cage slammed closed on her and sent her writhing and screaming on the ground. Wrapped around her, the bindings persisted, and Skandr’s face drained of all color as he continued to maintain the spell with every resource he could bring to bear. The flame constructs froze where they were as their master lost control over herself, and Muti and Astrid both ran towards the caster. Astrid wasn’t faster than the Executioner.

Muti sliced straight into the woman’s neck, and with a single strike, she decapitated the Summoner.

Pyromantic Summoner slain. 108,000 experience gained, split among party.

Something that took Astrid by surprise was that, with Mythra’s death, a fiery glow she hadn’t noticed emanating from towards where the main fight was taking place, disappeared. Had Mythra maintained another spell while fighting the Wanderers?

“I’m tapped out,” Skandr said, shaking his head. “Even if I start taking potions and whatever, I’m done. Maybe I can help out a little from a distance, but no promises.”

Benedict nodded in agreement as he played on his flute. Astrid’s own recovery was coming along relatively well, considering the fact that she hadn’t taken any more attacks, but Felix was in a bad way. He rolled his shoulders and obviously spent a charge of Recovery Surge.

“That’s my last charge,” he said. “I’m not in a state to get in a difficult fight either. How are you doing on charges?”

“I’ve got two left, but I’m not sure how much longer I can go either,” Astrid said, shaking her head and then hissing in pain. The movement agitated the open sore that was her entire body now. But she forced herself to simply accept Benedict’s healing and her own body’s natural regeneration.

“Either way, we can’t just stay here,” Astrid said, looking at her party. “We don’t know what’s happening with Gregor and the rest.”

With various sounds of discomfort, the Wanderers got to their feet and ran back towards the battle. From a distance, they could still see arcing blades of light, explosions of mana, and dozens of attacks flying like mad. As they got closer, the first thing that Astrid saw wasn’t actually the battle. It was the results of it. And not for the combatants, but for the innocents who had been nearby.

Broken, twisted bodies were forgotten under rubble, destroyed by casual attacks from people who, compared to them, may as well have been gods. Though she was fairly certain she herself wasn’t responsible for the specific deaths she saw, Astrid couldn’t help but feel the guilt surge in her chest at her undeniable connection with the deaths of these people. She couldn’t bring herself to look to see if there were any children—her heart was too weak to confirm what she was positive was true.

Then, she saw the battlefield. Of the five heavily armored enemy frontliners, three were dead while the other two were fighting hard. From the Duchess’s side, Astrid saw four corpses that she knew belonged to Adamantium tiers. Charles was the one whose name she could remember best, but the others were notable as well. Philip was the only one standing against the two enemy frontliners, though Isaiah, shrouded in his thorns and wielding his long club, was striking at them where he could.

Greely’s vines writhed through the battlefield, striking out at a surprising number of Assassins. Each of the vines bore heavy scorching, evidence of Mythra’s split attention. There were at least five Assassins who seemed to move at the level of an Adamantium tier, who vanished and reappeared all over the battlefield. Greely was barely managing to hold them back, along with Eve, but, evidently, there were more Adamantium tiers on the Marchioness’s side than they’d expected, because the numbers simply didn’t add up. Regardless, with the death of Mythra, the battle seemed to be reaching a standstill once again.

The Duchess’s army was doing their best, but they appeared to only be holding evenly until Gregor arrived.

With so much blood covering the battlefield, the man had swelled to be at least Astrid’s size, thick blood coagulating over his entire body. As she watched, Astrid saw him swing his spear in a swiping attack to create a dozen of the spears that had killed Pauline. Each of them flew out towards an individual Adamantium tier. Philip managed to block it, but nobody else did. Isaiah took a heavy blow to the chest and started to stumble, while many of the others were obviously weakened as their blood started flowing freely from his attack.

Astrid looked around and saw that the assassination squad intended for the Marchioness weren’t present, and wanted to scream for them to do something. It almost seemed like they had heard her thoughts, because Arden appeared in a misty form behind Gregor. The blood-soaked enemy swiped casually towards the enemy who had appeared, but Arden didn’t seem to care as the spear pierced through his chest. The ghostly ambusher’s form barely flickered from the attack. Instead, with both hands, he almost gently started to choke Gregor. Ice frosted over the bloody armor as the other members of the assassin party came forward with deadly intent.

A series of arrows pierced into Gregor’s chest as blades attempted to carve his body to pieces. The blood that covered him flowed around in circles, swiping away any attacks that came close. He seemed to sustain a few attacks, but even as he was held immobile, he seemed to be fine.

“By the grace of my Lady,” he called out. Then, an evil red light exploded from his body and shoved away the attacks he sustained. Gregor seemed exhausted by what he did to free himself, but he simply planted his spear once more in the ground and let blood start flowing from the ground up the haft.

“It seems it’s time for me to make my appearance,” a voice said, and Astrid’s heart seized in her chest. She desperately started flooding her body with Self-Mastery-aligned mana, but it didn’t seem to make as much of a difference as she expected. Then, looking up, Astrid saw a woman wearing a golden dress stride forward.

“Now, bow.”

The Marchioness’s command was followed by most, and she nodded in self-satisfaction. “I’m glad that sacrificing some of my fodder kept that soft-hearted Duchess away. Now, without a higher tier noble around, my commands are law.”

Astrid’s heart seized at the declaration, before a familiar, somewhat husky voice spoke up and dispelled much of the Marchioness’s effect.

“I suppose it makes sense, in a twisted way, to make that sacrifice. However, I don’t agree with that course of action.”

Then, as the Duchess stepped forward and revealed herself, with the Golden Fist at her side, the fight began in earnest again.