Immovable Mage

– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 218, Season of the Setting Sun, Day 84 –

Vicious’s fluid-like skin was bubbling from sadistic excitement. “Little muppet, it’s time to greet the Pond!” He strolled forward to the barely conscious martialist that had abruptly failed her cultivation breakthrough attempt. “Know that your delectable soul will pay for a better world! A world in which I get better powers. Heeheehee…”

The heavily injured woman stared with dazed horror at the approaching silhouette of darkness when everything in her sight suddenly lit up with intense flashes of light.

Terry had stepped out of the shadows and instantly placed layers of divine mana. He had a small wooden barrel in one hand and a fully charged sword artifact in the other. He violently smashed the barrel with a burst of mana onto the ground to let the prepared mana-coagulant powder free. Another flicker of his mana let loose the fierce rampage of storm slashes from the soft sword. The violent wind picked up the mana-coagulant powder and continued towards its target.

A piercing cry of a phoenix echoed from the cavern walls when Apex appeared and slapped her palms together. Her eyes shifted to an appearance of pure white. The azure flames around her abruptly contracted, paled, and roared forth with the appearance of a bird of prey charging down. The creature of pale flames rushed into the fierce gale and exploded forwards with furious wrath.

Vicious’s first instinct was to flee. But where? Just like in the terrifying nightmare from his youthful carelessness, the translucent golden layers were blocking all directions but the one he despaired to flee from. The divine mana that had haunted his past, had returned to terrorize his present. With his last speck of composure, Vicious attempted to contract his body and offer less surface area for the attack.

There was little point. The frenzied flames licked everywhere. The traces of mana-coagulant substance was forced into the channeler’s body and sabotaged his fluidization. The sharp wind edges hidden inside the flames were tearing at Vicious’s exposed body. A deep scream roared forth from the channeler’s burned lungs.

Terry could smell the stench of burned flesh and hair mixed with blood. His mana touch told him that the cultist’s body was left in pieces. Even so, Terry was scowling with an unsatisfied expression. Their setup and first attack had been a huge success in terms of damage output, yes, but…

A great start, but…

But the accursed cultist had managed to protect his channeling anchor. The pieces they had torn off his body remained connected by the foreign mana that Vicious channeled from the Shapeless Pond. This battle was far from over.

Vicious on his side was still reeling from the first blow. After regaining control of most of his body, his instincts urged him to charge through the gap in the rock and divine mana, a gap that had been created by the violent attack combination.

The channeler was left disappointed when new layers of divine mana were speedily created to fill up any gaps and block his path.

Terry thrust his king spear forward while infusing mana to extend it. He was aiming right for Vicious’s channeling anchor. Next to Terry, Apex was already folding her fingers for her next martialist technique.

Vicious whirled around and unleashed his own counter ability towards the pair. Two narrow streams of black liquid were rushing towards them while Vicious dodged the spearhead rushing towards him.

The darkwater streams were blocked by layers of divine mana that Terry had placed swiftly. Lightning snaked around the spear’s pole and rushed along it to reach the magic spearhead. With a loud crack, dense lightning blasted forth from the spearhead to rip into Vicious.

The divine mana, that had been shielding Terry and Apex, now vanished to reveal the mana resonance of a dark-golden flood dragon that was cracking with lightning and reeking of ozone. The magic phenomenon made of electricity and mana was guided by Apex’s finger movements and it swiftly slithered through the opening that Terry had created.

Vicious snarled and all color faded from his body. The black viscous fluid began spinning in a violent vortex to defend against the powerful attack. Droplets of darkwater were propelled into all directions, crashing onto the walls and divine mana barriers, sizzling and steaming.

The flood dragon shaped of lightning snapped its jaws shut around the mass of spinning liquid. Lightning roared and jumped between its teeth to electrocute the channeler of darkwater power.

The darkwater left behind on the floor in front of Terry’s divine barriers – the blocked remnants of Vicious’s initial attacks – suddenly sprang back to life and darted towards Apex. The channeler had started his next counterattack to disturb the martialist’s concentration.

Terry barely managed to react in time and he blocked the spurt of debilitating darkwater with another circulation of mana into the divine hammer inscription. Unfortunately, his hurried inscription usage was leaving the divine mana layers less sturdy than at his best. The darkwater was delayed but after accumulating on the surface and reshaping into another cycle of attack, it pierced through and shattered.

Terry was already working on new layers to fill up the spot, but he could sense that Apex was beginning to change her own attack.

The fierce-eyed woman with the tight ponytail sharply whipped her head around and slammed her right fist into her left forearm and then forward. Azure flames were following her closed fist and right when it lost contact with her other arm, she opened her fingers and flames roared forth to evaporate the incoming darkwater.

A successful defense, but not like they had planned it.

She doesn’t trust me. Not fully. Now her concentration for the flood dragon resonance was broken. Terry was frowning. He was not sure if he should groan in frustration or shrug his shoulders. I’ll have to be the one to adjust.

Without missing a beat, Terry forced his own naturalized mana into the spearhead to activate the powerful lightning-gathering magic before the resonance was losing its power. He simultaneously activated the pole’s lightning creation magic.

A sharp sizzling pierced the air when the lightning danced around the king spear’s pole.

A thunderous boom shook the cavern and the whole mountain around it when the flood dragon’s lightning was absorbed into the spearhead, mixed with the pole’s power, and reemerged as another furious blast of densely packed energy.

The mass of darkwater that was Vicious was bubbling furiously. He had been caught off-guard. His body was contaminated with some accursed mana coagulant and did not react as quickly as it should. Much of his gathered body had been torn apart. His attempts to injure his two assailants had failed.

In contrast, Vicious had already suffered several devastating blows. The martialist bitch had never been this prepared. He had never seen the decrepit hag’s brat as this much of a threat either. His instincts were screaming to flee outside. He splashed through the remains of divine mana that had been shattered by his enemies’ powerful attack combination.

Terry made sure that the cultist did not escape from their grasp and did not flee too far out of their reach. He summoned another divine barrier while both he and Apex continued the pursuit.

She needs more time.

Terry was paying close attention to Apex’s mana movement. He had seen her fight, train, and cultivate. Her mana had changed in quality and density when compared to before her recent cultivation breakthrough, but ignoring the absolute intensity and focusing on the relative difference, he believed he had a good grasp on her timing.

Terry burst his mana and overtook Apex before she would do something reckless or wasteful. He used a martialist talisman and a golden burning lion rushed forward to rip its fiery claws into the fluid-like cultist.

The edge of the tunnel walls were beginning to melt and glow. Even Terry in his fire-resistant armor was beginning to feel the heat with sweat accumulating on his face behind the barrier visor of his helmet.

Shortly after Terry’s talisman-summoned fire lion, Apex unleashed another phoenix resonance that left Vicious no room to even breathe. The cultist madly whipped around, attempting to dodge, and to slip through any gap in the divine barriers that the duo’s attacks were causing.

Terry quietly heaved a sigh of relief when seeing the unreserved attack from Apex. He had been worried that she would break her rhythm again. He was glad that she had a sharp battle instinct, but she did not seem used to working with others. Quite the contrary.

Honestly, Terry was surprised that the hot-tempered martialist had even agreed to ambush Vicious in this coordinated manner. Despite her agreement, Terry doubted that she would stick to their plan if her battle instinct told her to deviate. Unfortunately, that battle instinct had been trained fighting on her own. She did not seem to trust Terry to cover her properly.

This might not be a catastrophic problem if they just wanted to give Vicious a beating, but Terry was aiming higher. He wanted to see the cultist that had threatened his whaka eradicated from this world. He refused to let this creature escape this folded space. He wanted to see Vicious dead once and for all.

Back to the plan.

Terry stabbed forth his king spear yet again. He relied on his own mana and the pole’s magic for filling the next gap before Apex was ready to unleash her full power once more.

Their plan was as simple as it was brutal: a relentless assault. An unending beatdown until the despicable cultist had breathed his last.

Terry had his suspicions that the brutality and straightforwardness was why Apex had agreed to his plan in the first place. He had his doubts that the martialist would have permitted any other way. He did not only choose this course of action to appease his battle-frenzied ally, however. No, for once in his life, Terry preferred this particular battle style over the more cautious approach his accepted parents had trained him in.

Because Terry honestly thought it was the best course of action. As confident as he was in his mana foundation, he did not want to put his stamina against a channeler with a connection to a god-like entity. His battle against Harrison and other channelers in the Guardian rebellion in Libra City was one thing. Vicious was unfortunately on a whole other level.

Fortunately, so were the powerful mana resonance attacks of a martialist of Apex’s caliber, even more so after her recent breakthrough. The only drawback was that these techniques were often rigid and inflexible.

Terry had seen an extreme example with Rafael’s Heavenly Wolf Slash. Even though Apex appeared less constrained in her battle style, Terry had realized that this came at a price. Switching a technique mid-way would cause backlash to a martialist. He had also learned that a seemingly finished technique might still hide some power.

Just like spellwork, a resonance can be successfully unleashed but prolonged if guided carefully. Relinquishing control of a released resonance before it has run its natural course would cause it to disperse more quickly. To someone with Terry’s attitude, this constituted an unacceptable waste of mana, especially in a battle against a channeler.

Therefore, Terry’s job was obvious. He would act as the quick jab to give Apex room to act as a powerful cross punch. Back when Bjorln had practiced hand-to-hand combat with Terry and his siblings, he had emphasized the importance of different techniques to work with each other. Each had its place. All weave together into powerful combinations more effective than the sum of the individual moves.

Terry saw Vicious’s fluid body dance up around the wall to the ceiling and then contract into a dense ball of water. Terry narrowed his eyes and created divine mana layers on the ceiling, fearing that the cultist was aiming to drill a hole into the rock to escape or to avoid the other barriers.

Contrary to Terry’s expectations, Vicious was preparing to accept more damage from Apex’s latest attack in exchange for a better starting position when the divine barriers had shattered. With the sound of water escaping from a high-pressure container, Vicious rushed forth to escape beyond the grasp of the divine hammer inscription.

Terry and Apex both dashed forward to pursue and spoil the cultist’s plan. Both discovered their movement’s impaired. The many droplets of darkwater from earlier had gathered together and reshaped into a sticky viscous liquid that was trapping their feet.

Reflexively, Terry transfixed the septimum pieces in his equipment. With the help of immovable metal transfixed in the air and a burst of mana, he rapidly pushed out of the sticky trap.

The fierce flare of mana from Terry’s side reminded him that he should give Apex a hand before she might interrupt her current martialist technique for something a quick spell could fix. Without the slightest pause, Terry accurately prepared a sequence of immovable rocks and metal pieces for Apex to continue forward with raw power and without interrupting her circulation of mana.

Terry burst his mana and took the lead of the duo. He ripped another battle talisman in half. A purple translucent skull was summoned and charged forth at Vicious’s mana signature. This particular talisman was hard to avoid and it required continuous evasive maneuvers by the channeler, which would buy time for them to catch up.

“The Pond will drown you!” Vicious spat curses at them and channeled another mana ability. The fluid body of water suddenly expanded and a giant torrent of darkwater was summoned from deep within his channeling anchor to charge violently towards Vicious’s enemies.

As intense as the purple skull from the battle talisman was, it faded into nothingness inside the dark flood.

Terry’s instincts screamed to stop and hunker down to block the mana ability whose touch alone would doubtlessly debilitate. He consciously refused to follow his instincts with close attention to the mana signature beside himself.

Aspect and timing… Should work out.

Terry held his breath and hoped his battle instinct was right. He tensed up and prepared himself to react at the last moment if his judgement turned out to be wrong. Instead of hunkering down, he darted up towards the ceiling.

The thunderous roar from behind himself told him that his mana perception had been on the mark.

The dark-golden silhouette of the furious flood dragon charged forth and reached the incoming body of black water in an instant. The creature of lightning did not seem to fade or slow down when coming into contact with the darkwater. On the contrary, it accelerated, seemingly draining power from the channeler’s mana ability and ripped through the water with a vengeance. The fierce mana resonance tore into Vicious’s body right when the channeler’s darkwater ability was about to reach the relentless duo.

Terry rapidly transfixed an unfolded tertium cube, fortified the few tiny gaps with layers of divine mana, and simultaneously used his bidirectional attraction glove to pull his ally up.

Apex on her part had already jumped upwards to take cover behind the immovable metal.

The darkwater ability had weakened from the furious mana resonance technique. It crashed against the immovable metal and rushed underneath when the metal and divine mana barriers did not budge.

Terry ignored the few droplets of darkwater that had managed to squeeze through and were blocked by the shadow fabric created from his magic brooch. He had to focus.

They had landed another blow on the channeler. Ostensibly, they had won another exchange. However, there was more to the exchange. Vicious had succeeded in keeping them at a distance.

At the current distance, his divine hammer inscription usage was limited. The layers of divine mana he could summon would not obstruct the channeler’s flight attempts for long. Terry refused to let the creature off the hook with just a beating.

He could already feel Apex itching to dash towards the cultist. Right through the tunnel that was now drenched in darkwater. Darkwater that would quickly follow the cultist’s bidding.

Even if Apex relies on a fire-based movement technique to evaporate most of the darkwater, this would… No. Not enough. Time for a quick jab!

Terry ducked first from behind the cover, sealing the surrounding darkwater with layers of divine mana. He burst his mana and hurled a sequence of rocks through the tunnel towards Vicious.

Some of the black liquid dripping from the ceiling abruptly changed course and sliced through one of the rocks.

Nothing happened.

A second rock was destroyed. Again, nothing happened.

What Vicious failed to notice was the slight tug on one of the rocks. A slight deceleration created with Terry’s bidirectional attraction glove. When this particular rock was close enough, Terry pressed his naturalized mana into the concealed battle talisman. He remotely activated and guided the talisman’s mana to rush past Vicious.

A shimmering wall of hexagonal crystals appeared to replace a layer of divine mana that was about to shatter under Vicious’s assault.

The cultist roared furiously and Terry could sense a thin cloud of mana emitted from his mouth while roaring.

Oh no, you don’t!

Terry made sure to press the hostile mana back with his own naturalized mana. He still had no idea what this particular mana ability from the channeler would achieve, but he also had no desire to find out.

He sensed that Apex had already adjusted her technique. Fortunately, for martialists, there were many sequences of techniques that allowed adjusting parts. Interrupting a technique mid-way was dangerous and wasteful. However, adjusting a sequence by switching one step with a compatible step from the same cultivation style, was different.

The switch that Apex was performing was turning a first intermediate step into its own lead-up to another sequence. A shift from rapid movement into a delayed charging attack.

Terry knew that these charges came with a risk. He would like to trust that Apex did not overestimate her abilities and that she would not rush into the darkwater tunnel without being certain that the fire would evaporate the black liquid.

Unfortunately, he had to take into account Apex’s aggressive personality. When Thanatos wrote that cracking the skull is worth an injury to your fist, he might as well have described Apex’s natural battle temper.

Apex’s temper had carried her far in life, but Terry needed her in top shape for this beatdown. He would not allow her to get injured this early in the fight if he could prevent it. His mind was racing through the memorized items in his dimensional storages.

It settled on a container prepared by the siblings from the Blazing Sun Sect. Terry hurled it towards Vicious, not surprised by the darkwater stabbing into it. A bronze-colored liquid leaked out of the container and he prepared the magic sword artifact from their opening and unleashed another violent storm into the tunnel.

The sword artifact was sucking a lot of his mana. From what he had learned from Apex, the mana structures in the bodies of mana martialists were indeed more optimized for rapid throughput than a regular mana cultivator. Structures like their dantians also acted as something akin to additional mana pools whose level was filled slowly but could be drained quickly.

Even though Terry did not care much about swords, he did not want to risk breaking the sword and limit his options just yet. His mana control allowed him to supplement his mana throughput. He did not possess a dantian or any of the martialist’s acupoints, but Terry had his own substitute to keep his mana pool filled up for quick access to mana.

While Terry was readying his king spear with his right hand, his left hand quickly returned the freshly drained mana container back into his dimensional bag. His progress in mana control and mana throughput in general allowed him to absorb mana from his pre-filled containers much more rapidly than in the past. He had already sucked the container dry between hurling the container and seeing Apex dash after the furious gale unleashed by the sword artifact.

With wings of azure flames, Apex stomped onto the floor. Her silhouette disappeared only to reappear much further into the tunnel. Frenzied flames were left behind in her trail. The bronze liquid from earlier ignited in a mesmerizing light that appeared to let the few darkwater droplets that survived the turbulent wind and roaring flames crystalize and drop to the floor.

Terry carefully aimed his king spear and transfixed an attachment to make sure his aim remained true at a distance.

Apex arrived close to Vicious with a fierce flicker of flames dancing in her eyes.

Vicious was about to spit darkwater on the martialist when he caught a trace of orange extending towards him. He shifted his fluid body to avoid the incoming spearhead of Terry’s king spear.

Terry grinned viciously and infused more mana into the king spear. The spearhead crashed into the shimmering wall of hexagons. He used a controlled amount of mana to activate the lightning layer in the pole to make sure the barrier would break at exactly the right time.

Vicious was wary of the king spear’s magic. He interrupted his omnidirectional assault on the shimmering hexagons and the charging Apex. He reshaped his fluid body to avoid a potential blast of lightning. He sneered when the lightning magic activated, only to miss him. He failed to notice the change in the hexagonal barrier at the spot where the king spear had unleashed its cracking energy.

Terry had carefully chosen this spot. It was not the first time he had used this kind of battle talisman and he had examined it closely in his mana sight. The trick to this barrier was that it was very good at dealing with force distributed over large areas, but it was weak to sharp piercing and any force that was distributed in an extremely imbalanced manner.

The way that Vicious’s water raged against the shimmering hexagons, the cultist would require an immeasurable amount of power to break it down. In contrast, the spot that Terry had chosen was different. This was the weak spot within the hexagonal structure. This was the place to aim a narrow high intensity attack if you wanted to break through.

Did Terry want to break his own barrier?

Yes!

Behind the shimmering hexagons whose optics and mana intensity obscured what was going on beyond them, a vast mass of mana was being pulled through carefully placed focus refractors, shifting from a rotation into a straight rush along the tunnel.

Vicious might be slightly out of Terry’s most effective range for the divine hammer inscription, but that was not the only skill he was wielding. His reach for naturalizing and moving mana outmatched his range with the divine hammer inscription by far. As soon as the cultist had shown up, Terry had prepared himself to go all out.

Right when Vicious’s attention was all on the raging martialist and the receding king spear, an army of intense spell slicers crashed into the dispersing hexagonal barrier. They rushed through new focus refractors that had appeared in an instant and adjusted the armies’ trajectory. All of them were chasing the cultist’s channeling anchor.

Terry’s practice in aiming his spell slicers for his unstoppable shift combination was paying off. He noted with satisfaction how the disrupting spell slicers found their mark. How they tore through the mana formation that was the source of the cultist’s power.

A brief shiver ran down Terry’s spine from the sensation of his mana touch through the spell slicers that were passing through the channeling anchor. However, his own fleeting sensation of fright was nothing in comparison to the terror on Vicious’s face when his physical body was forced to emerge from the black fluid granted to him by the Shapeless Pond.

Vicious had prepared himself for another mana resonance attack from Apex. He had never expected to face a cultivator’s disruption discharge from behind the barrier that Terry had placed himself. No matter how much they had wanted to sabotage his channeling anchor, such a disruption discharge would diminish whatever mana resonance they had prepared, wouldn’t it?

Eric was quivering with curses when he saw the mass of mana was being moved out of the way much more swiftly than any reasonable person would believe. To further upend the cultist’s expectations, Apex’s continuation of her battle sequence contracted her mana into her own body.

What followed was an unending barrage of mana-enhanced fists and kicks that rained down painfully from the battle-frenzied martialist. Each blow connected with a spot that hurt and let loose a snake of black-golden lightning. Each contact left behind a lick of white-azure flames to torment the pitiful cultist.

Terry reminded himself to never underestimate a skilled mana martialist just because their resonance techniques were blocked. Then he darted through the air on layers of divine mana to catch up with the battle. Simultaneously, he redirected his mana from the disruption rush. He had no idea how long his disturbance of the channeling anchor would last. He also had to keep track of their location.

Not much longer and we’ll be getting close to the exit.

Terry was noting with satisfaction that Apex had timed her battle sequence perfectly. Right when his own mana was out of the way, her technique resonated with the unclaimed mana. He had barely allowed himself to grin, when something changed in Vicious’s body that caused Terry’s expression to darken.

The weird aspect hidden in Vicious’s mana abruptly expanded to cover the cultist’s whole body… and then even beyond.

The weird mana blew up and with it, Vicious’s form grew into something inhuman.

The earth shook from the force of Apex’s finished battle sequence colliding with the channeler’s last resort. The mountain erupted in bright azure flames and a viciously dancing body of black liquid.

The exit was suddenly a lot closer after half the mountain had been blown away.

On the bright side, now I can use the king spear under an open sky!

Terry did not flinch. He refused to falter. He continued chasing after Vicious, no matter how large the cultist had grown. Right beside him, Apex was doing the same.

They would only relent when the despicable cultist had breathed his last.

***