Immovable Mage

– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 219, Season of the Rising Sun, Day 2 –

“Mother, we have to leave!” A middle-aged man was shouting with a pleading voice. Behind the man was his wife that carried their children in her arms.

“This is my home!” The elderly and plump woman shouted back. “I’m not leaving!”

“There is no time!” The man begged and put a hand on his mother’s arm to pull her along. “I’ve checked the portal and it has been abandoned. We have to run! There is no other way—”

“This is my home!” Grandma refused and shook her arm free. “Your grandpa built this house with his own hands! I’m not leaving!” She was limping to the kitchen and picked up a pan. “I’m going to find Tamsin. We’re going to fight!”

“Fight?! We’re manaless. You’re nearly seventy!” The man cursed under his breath: “Tamsin, that damned woman!”

“This is madness,” the man’s wife shook her head. “Dear, we have to…” Her eyes were begging to leave. She knew how hard it was for her husband to abandon his mother. “It’s a miracle that the city is still standing. We have to— The children! Please!”

It was at that moment that the earth started quaking violently. A frightening shadow was cast over the part of the city that included their house. Through the window, they could see a gigantic creature straight out of an insane nightmare. Spirals of teeth embedded in rotting flesh of eerie colors. A haunting picture of wrongness.

They all froze with terrified gazes.

The heavens themselves appeared to intervene when something bright manifested in the sky. A stark contrast of translucent shining gold in front of the dark terror.

***

Terry was furiously channeling mana with bloodshot eyes. He was going way beyond the mana throughput his body was built for. Even with all his recent advances, his current rate of reckless mana use would leave its marks. It was a decidedly idiotic idea, but that was all he had left.

He had darted nearly all the way to the undead behemoth and desperately hoped that his first experience with an undead hellspawn still applied. If it didn’t, then there would soon be an intense devouring-aspected suction force that would turn his most recent brainchild into a stillborn.

Back in the cavern of Emily’s adulthood ceremony, the mad necromancer had managed to control an undead juggernaut. Matteo and Sigille had mentioned something about it being unable to use its active abilities and that it only displayed the passive traits inherent to hellspawn.

Terry had not seen any of the widowmakers display their withering-aspected breath-attacks that usually manifested in the shape of locusts. That was something to embolden his hopes.

Unfortunately, Terry had seen the undead behemoth grow right in front of his eyes. That was definitely an active ability. He could only hope that there were still some limits to the active abilities the controlling necromancer could trigger.

Terry forced down his own uncertainty to fully commit to his idiotic idea.

U-shaped tertium transfixed in the air close to the behemoth.

An orange spear pierced far up into the sky while the blunt end found its way underneath the behemoth.

A bursting Terry soared upwards together with the spearhead until he had reached his desired destination. He did not have time to take out his notebook. He could only rely on a guesstimate. He feared he would not be able to achieve what he needed with a single hammer. His aunt Sigille might have been able to do it, but he was not his aunt.

Focus! Just DO IT!

Terry refused to give in to doubt. He still lacked the strength of the Divine Hammer, but he had his own strengths to work with.

His mana raged into the four divine hammer inscriptions on his body. He transfixed two of the septimum pearls embedded near his hips on his armor. He transfixed a pair of other septimum pieces to use his bidirectional attraction glove with. And then he swung his fists down with all the force he could muster.

While Terry was spinning madly, a furious flurry of divine mana hammered onto the long end of the unbreakable lever.

Faster and faster.

Terry never stopped swinging his fists and legs while also accelerating with the help of his bidirectional attraction inscription until both his mana channels and his stomach were begging for mercy.

Even faster until every one of his muscles and senses was begging him for the sweet release of death.

Until the orange lever tipped to slam downwards and a colossal shadow was traveling fast over the lands. The undead behemoth was hurled all the way into the volcanic thunder of the forbidden zone and the trajectory of its gigantic figure had captured the gazes of all observers.

***

“By the Lady!” exclaimed a human man with wide eyes.

“It’s a miracle!” exclaimed a dwarf next to him.

An elven woman narrowed her eyes and muttered: “What an inspiring display of power…” She quickly recomposed herself and looked over the members of her circle. She saw a chance. “You have all seen it! That was a sign from our Lady! Do not fear for she is with us!”

“A finger of the Bright Lady!” gasped an elven man.

“For the Lady!” “For the Lady!” The channelers rejoined the fight with frantic enthusiasm. In a matter of minutes, their holy mana was spreading everywhere. Healing the defenders. Assaulting the undead. Frenzied fanaticism had driven away even the slightest trace of fear inside of them.

“That…” The human man that had first spoken looked hesitatingly at the leader of their circle. “Bright, I…” He gulped. “Wasn’t that divine mana? Not the holy mana of our Lady?”

“A sign does not have to be so literal as that, Luminous.” The elven woman smiled. “And every faithful fights best when supported by their faith. It is our duty to defend the innocent lives within the city. It is my duty to ensure that we fight at our best. Do not doubt that the Bright Lady is with us. Our goddess works in mysterious ways…”

***

A husband and wife were staring out the window of their house with mouths agape. A monster from hell had arrived to block out the sky only to be flung away like a pesky fly. Even the following roar from the heavens themselves did not manage to shake them from their dumbstruck state.

Only when the man recognized the strange figure limping on the street outside their window, did his mind catch up with reality. His elderly mother. His fragile manaless mother. Armed with nothing but a frying pan and her stubbornness. Heading straight towards the haunting horrors to defend her home.

At that moment, the man knew that his mother would not remain alone. Tamsin would be there. The man had many insults for that hassle of a woman waiting in his throat, but he did not doubt that the stubborn old bat would join his equally stubborn mother.

He wondered how many other stubborn-headed fools there were left in this city…

He and his wife had tried his best to scrape the money for the portal together ever since the first rumors of undead hellspawn in the neighboring countries. It had all been for nothing. They never had a chance.

They had worked so hard to build a life for their little family. They had been ready to abandon everything to ensure a safer future for their children. They had resigned themselves to face dangerous travels and to start from scratch in a new place that would probably be a lot less welcoming. Now all their sacrifices and all their convictions seemed so meaningless. Entirely futile.

Long suppressed anger rose up from the depths of his soul and it overpowered his resignation. Before he knew what he was doing, he retrieved a rake from the corner of the room. He regretted not buying any proper weapons instead of saving up for the portal fee.

When his wife saw the stubborn gaze in his eyes, she sighed and put down the two little children. She picked another frying pan from the kitchen and nodded at him and then looked around.

Their little children. Their little house.

Their home. Their city.

Their fight.

***

Well, that was a shit idea.

It worked though.

I think.

Ugh…

Terry was dangling dazedly in the air. He did not remember the last time he had felt this nauseated. Even though he had stopped spinning, the world he perceived through his senses decidedly ignored that minor detail and both his senses and his insides remained firmly in the grip of inertia. He just wanted to puke and make it stop.

His instincts blared warning bells in his head, but he had no leeway to react in time. The way his head was still spinning, he would not be able to count his own toes, much less pinpoint and block the complex incoming spells.

The next thing Terry felt was a sequence of wetness and suffocation that was followed by agonizing pain. Adrenaline pumped through his veins and helped alert his mind to the nature of his suffering. His mana flared and he stomped on immovable metal to escape.

As soon as he had breached the bubble formed of darkwater, he switched to the divine hammer inscription to conserve mana and reduce the strain on the coil springs in his boots.

Terry barely registered the signs of corrosive damage on his armor. The sizzling. The stench. He could only imagine the pain he was feeling mirrored similar debilitating damage on his body. He was glad for the shielding shadow fabric from his magic brooch and the passive protection of his sizable mana pool. He feared that his armor had seen his last day but perhaps it would last long enough to hunt down the mage responsible.

He was zigzagging through the air while tentatively circling his mana through all his magic equipment. One of his Shape Metal imprints had collapsed. One of his sheath-inscribed leg straps had been destroyed and the throwing needles inside were already plummeting to the ground.

Luckily for Terry, the rest of his magic equipment remained fully functional. His cloak and armor had protected the inscribed wraps and glove. The divine hammer inscription heavily featured the light-aspect and the glove automatically mended whatever damage it received. His keen daggers had been protected by their sheaths and his king spear was evidently not threatened by such lowly attacks.

Terry did not have much time to feel relieved because the blood was rushing to his head and inflicting throbbing torture. It was so bad that he missed his inscription activation and stepped into nothing but air. In his tumble, he furiously burst his mana. He had missed the spell activation and targeting because of the preceding mess, but he remained conscious enough to realize that this was most likely a blood-aspected magic from the lower system.

More!

Terry could not take it anymore. He clasped his head while screaming and curling into a ball. His vision had already turned red from the flood of his blood welling out of his eye-sockets.

More mana!

Under the violent pressure of mana, his blood vessels were shifting shades fast until they were nearly black. But even that was not enough to stop the blood-aspected torture and the helpless ball of pain that was Terry continued plummeting towards the merciful ground that promised peaceful death.

An unresolved shout escaped from Terry’s lips as a defiant whisper. “More…” What more was there?

His all-out burst had not been enough to shake the active spell off.

In his desperation, he emitted disruption pulses but since the spell was targeted on his body and nothing external, this also proved pointless.

External.

Terry continued falling while his mind wandered back to a Tiv Guardian classroom. A lecture on aspected bursts. The impressive insight of the Divine Hammer. Insight wasted on a young man with a major aspect impairment. An insightful technique that had appeared pointless for someone whose mana only carried a single aspect.

“More…” whispered Terry hoarsely. He inhaled deeply and clenched his fists to focus. He closed eyes to better ignore the ground growing larger in his vision. For this moment, he was nothing but mana. He could not afford to split his attention and divert his focus.

Focus.

Squishy, bubbly, and flowing. Different mana absorption rates. He rebalanced the mana to account for all of it and then he burst his mana once more. Compressed and forced it into the path he had prepared.

When the mana burst into his internal focus refractors, Terry’s eyes lit up with unprecedented intensity. He roared: “MORE!” While the draining disruption raged through his own body until he was finally free of the blood-aspected torture.

Terry did not have to see to know that he was quickly running out of time. He immediately transfixed all the spring pearls that were hidden in his armor. With his current velocity, the first coil springs quickly snapped and he was beginning to tumble wildly in the air. He used his bidirectional attraction gloves to continue pulling on the transfixed pearls. He summoned weak divine barriers where he believed to be down and in front of him. He utilized everything at his disposal to safely slow down and survive the incoming impact.

Terry somehow managed to land on his feet. His knees and thighs were protesting profusely, but his mana-enhanced body persevered while creating a small crater in the earth. His breath quivered while he opened his bloodied eyes. At the sight of the undead juggernauts stomping towards him, a mad smile graced his lips.

His mana detection field felt the familiar shape that might be mistaken for a weird sword. He circled mana into his bidirectional attraction glove and used it to catch the falling king spear. The instant he caught it, he dashed forward again.

There were more.

More.

More enemies for Terry to take down with him.

Persevering. Defiant. Unyielding. He fought ferociously while the eyes of many were following whenever they could afford it. A battle-marked armor with ill-matched colors. Peeking through a barrier visor was a blood-smeared face with almost black blood vessels. His whole body was covered in blood, bile, and rotting flesh. An almost monstrously looking miracle-maker that emboldened their desperate defense.

Terry was neither aware nor very interested in who was watching. He was too busy cleaving through the undead in his path. He knew that all of the previous mess would take its toll and that he was already on a timer until the final bell. Even if the damage to his body and mana channels was not as permanent as his destroyed equipment, he was not in a position to take a break to recuperate. Not with so many manaless in the city behind him.

At least in the fight against the mana-cursed in the dungeon’s folded space, there had only been battle-crazy martialists to worry about. More risk of being stabbed in the back, for sure, but overall much less to worry and care about.

Terry only hoped that the time he was buying would be enough for most of the weaker folks to escape safely. Hopefully, his manaless acquaintances like Daisy and Brandon would be among the lucky ones.

Terry’s eye twitched when he sensed a spell shaping up near himself. The caster was fast, but not fast enough to shield their spell structure against Terry’s disruption pulse. The attempted attack only served to remind Terry that he had a hostile mage to locate among the mass of undead.

Terry considered allocating some mana for mana touch scouting again but he honestly wasn’t sure how much he could spare. Less mana for the scouting meant more time required. More mana for the scouting meant less mana for his battered body to sustain itself. He didn’t know where to make the choice for the proper trade-off.

He was slamming the blunt end of the king spear into the head of a zombie when realization dawned on him.

Undead.

Terry grinned while his inner Academy student was cackling madly. His mana sight flashed purple and he swiveled his head swiftly to search for the soul out of place.

All of the undead were moving with mana, which made mana-scouting difficult. However, the runners that constituted the vast bulk of every undead horde were generally soulless. As it turned out, the undead hellspawn were all soulless too.

Since his dash towards the undead behemoth and the successive spinning mess, Terry was the defender furthest from the city by far. There were no other defenders whose souls could flare up in his sight which made the single faint speck of purple stand out like a blinding light.

A fierce glint flashed in Terry’s eyes while he forced his mana into the king spear. The lightning-loving spearhead pierced the sky and the heavens roared furiously. The blue-green metal attracting eager electricity was itself guided by immovable objects and divine barriers that forced the contracting orange pole into a path of Terry’s choosing.

Terry snarled almost like a feral beast while he was pulling on the orange pole for it to descend even just slightly faster. He sensed a shade step out of the shadows to ambush him. He summoned a divine barrier to block but did not even care to turn around. At this moment, he only had a single signature in his sights.

Only a single soul to seek out.

A single vampiric soul to vanquish.

Terry struggled to make out a mana anomaly at the location. He could sense something primarily rooted in death, blood, and shadow.

The death aspect blended perfectly into the ambient death from the undead.

The blood aspect was drowned by the flood of blood-aspected mana from a raging corpse corruption. Now that Terry knew where to look it was suspicious that so many blood abominations continued hanging around that particular spot.

The shadow aspect was not perfectly hidden but its traces flickered like a shadow-stepping shade would. The vampire was constantly moving into an ethereal state which Terry suspected to be tied to the shadow aspect. That magic was most likely the reason why even his mana touch had trouble picking the location among all the others.

Ominous rumbling reverberated far up in the sky where dark clouds were gathering to spit forth fierce snakes of sizzling lightning to follow a thin but long line of orange leading the way. Terry was staring with bloodshot eyes and pumped every single speck of his remaining mana into the magic layers embedded in the king spear. The outer inches of his mana bubble warned him that more undead juggernauts were charging towards him, but it did not matter. His aim was set and he was committed to follow through.

No second-guessing.

No matter what.

For an instant, the whole battlefield lit up with blinding light to banish even the slightest trace of shadow. It was the overture to the deafening blast that washed over the whole area until only the stench of ozone and a puddle of blood remained in a certain location.

Terry did not dare to close his eyes. He saw the blood wiggle, transform first into a crimson bat and then into a dwarven woman with hair longer than her body. He felt like cursing that the vampire was still alive but he could see that her mana signature was incredibly faint. A second later, he was out of time.

The juggernaut fist had already been on its way and now it arrived to crash into him.

Terry rolled over the ground. If he had the strength, he would snort. The pain and spinning nausea… It was nothing to what he had to suffer through earlier. He had sacrificed nearly all the mana stockpiled in his mana pool. His body was protesting and begging to stop.

But it would do.

His body could be pushed further.

Even if his mana pool had bottomed out, he still had his mana regeneration to feed him a drizzle of usable mana.

He could do more.

Terry came to a halt and suppressed the urge to cackle like a lunatic. He pushed himself up while muttering hoarsely: “More. Just a bit more.”

To Terry’s surprise, no follow-up juggernaut paw arrived to slap him around. He recovered his breath and realized that the undead horde was moving differently. Something had changed. He whirled his head around to search for the dwarven vampiress, only to discover a group of powerful folks from the city.

Intira and a few hunters. Edmund and another guard. The leader of the local circle of the Bright Lady. Even a woman with a wide-brimmed hat and a light-infused rapier. All of them had instantly darted to action to finish off the vampiress after Terry had forced her out of hiding.

Terry breathed shakily and then noticed the change in undead movement. The undead were fighting each other. The enemy forces were less organized while their own undead fighting for the defense were moving in perfect coordination. He allowed himself a look at the Whisperer.

Thiago was standing on top of his ship carried by skeletal warriors with closed eyes, a raised hand, and with an unceasing whisper on his lips.

Terry allowed himself a deep breath, and then he dashed forward to finish off the enemy undead in his sights.

***