A Relatively Powerful Mage

Imri didn’t panic; they had expected the Troglodytes to push towards the surface eventually. He almost perpetually wore his armor, weapons, enchanted items, potions, and charged Espeonite crystals. He was far from alone in this, and by the time he reached the mana repository, many soldiers had gathered, including Emelia. Imri had to resist the urge to argue she should stay behind, knowing that it would simply waste time and accomplish nothing. Caroline, Avery, and several of the earth mages were also gathered.

Imri was pleased to see that most of them had the mutations associated with the heritage rank up, including the newly made Troglodyte heritage. That particular heritage had given the imbibers some combination of resistance to poison, poison bite, tremor sense, or the ability to hear a higher pitch. Imri certainly considered this a potent option for Celestia’s fighting force.

Imri didn’t wait long before explaining how his portal would work to those who hadn’t experienced it yet. He didn’t love that his mana would be strained before the fighting started, but hiking to the battle would probably result in missing the fight.

He opened the portal in the ground, its dimensions only slightly larger than a sewer manhole cover. Everyone quickly went through, with Caroline and Emelia being the last two, excluding Imri, who went through last.

Spell Rank Up

Dimensional Portal F to E: 3% increase in the spell's mana efficiency.

To Imri’s relief, there were no signs of the Troglodytes. The unit that had been scouting the caves, which included Sawyer and Russ, had returned safely, only looking slightly winded for their retreat. The soldiers standing watch were a bit taken aback as a dozen people fell several meters to the ground despite having been repeatedly told about this tactic. Major Harper did keep his composure, striding over to talk to the new arrivals, motioning for Sawyer to join them. Sawyer had obviously kept busy, gaining quite a few levels while Imri had worked on his home. He also now sported longer, wiry hairs that were a sign of the Tremor Sense trait from the Troglodyte heritage.

“Glad you could make it, Mr. Padar. Sawyer will brief you on what happened,” the major explained.

“I felt them coming with my new heritage; there were dozens if not hundreds of them. We retreated here as quickly as possible, collapsing tunnels as we did,” Sawyer said.

“Hundreds?!” A soldier exclaimed. Major Harper glared at the man while Imri did his best to appear unconcerned. It was the number Imri had expected, so at the very least, he wasn’t surprised.

“At the very least, that should have bought us a few hours, if not more. We have plenty of time to prepare for their attack,” the major said to address the concern among the new arrivals.

“I wouldn’t count on it; they are D-grade creatures. Even though strength isn’t their primary attribute, they are certainly strong enough to clear any collapse quickly. They can also fit through incredibly small spaces, possibly creating alternate routes to the entrance that we haven’t been able to explore,” Imri said.

Sawyer sighed, having probably told the major the same thing and gotten nowhere. At least the major seemed to be taking the notion seriously now as he barked orders to get everyone prepared for the impending fight. In the major's defense, it was hard to believe how capable a D-rank monster was without experiencing it.

“I’m going to give you some more time,” Imri said as he strode away from the main contingent.

He reached a narrow point between the entrance and the first cavern and waited in ambush. His estimate of a couple of hours was a bit off, as he had been waiting less than a half hour when the first Troglodytes approached. The Dimensional Tear was placed, and the trap was as effective as it had been the previous time, easily slaying a pair of creatures. Unfortunately, the Troglodytes had somewhat adapted to the tactic; while they still couldn’t detect the tear directly, the duo had effectively warned the main contingent of ambush.

Imri sighed and released the spell, then used a Blink to return outside the caves, not wanting to turn his back to the faster creatures. His mana had already reached dangerously low levels, and he was forced to absorb some of the mana from his charged Espeonite crystal.

“They’re coming, and they’ve adapted to not charge headlong into my traps,” he explained to the major. The soldiers tensed up at the news, but soon, they moved into place as the major shouted orders.

Soon, another pair of Troglodytes came into view, their proportionally massive maws on full display within natural light for the first time. The creatures stopped at the edge of the cave, their high-pitched clicks no longer bouncing back as they expected. Even without enchantments, the Troglodytes would have been easy targets for the waiting archers. The pair of Troglodyte scouts died from a truly excessive volley of arrows.

A moment later, dozens of high-pitched clicks sounded from further into the cave. In almost no time, the Troglodytes began surging outward in large numbers.

This time, everyone let loose, firing an assortment of projectiles at the mass of creatures. The most common projectile were fist-sized orbs covered in runes. They activated as soon as they struck the ground, releasing a loud burst of sound and a concussive wave of force. They did little damage directly, but the combination of effects disoriented the creature's primary two senses while only being a minor annoyance to the humans who had prepared for this engagement by putting in earplugs.

A more deadly volley immediately followed the disorientation. Large projectiles of earth, crystal, and fire slammed amongst the stunned troglodytes, exploding and inflicting massive casualties. Arrows picked off lone opponents that had escaped the more widespread destruction of the AOE spells. Imri joined them, using his Spatial Collapse spell to crush individual Troglodytes with a gruesome effectiveness that left little of the creature intact.

The major clicked on an improvised remote made from a mostly useless smartphone, setting off a strategically placed explosive to collapse the passageway. While this undoubtedly killed several Troglodytes, its main purpose was separating them into two groups.

Despite the widespread slaughter, the Troglodytes managed to put up some fight. A few recovered their senses well enough to charge recklessly towards their human attackers. Melee fighters, who had thrown the enchanted orbs, moved to intercept them. Despite the surviving Troglodytes being slightly disoriented, they were still stronger and faster than their human opponents. They bit and clawed into unprepared soldiers, inflicting grievous wounds in an instant while also poisoning their opponents. Fortunately, the human combatants overwhelmed them with numbers in a short but bloody conflict.

The healers, both mundane and magical, quickly triaged the injured as the battle ended. Several people had died instantly as something vital had been damaged by the deadly creatures. A few others had lost limbs and would never fight again unless they had the regeneration ability from the Drake heritage. Almost everyone who had fought in close quarters had at least a few scratches and would need the powerful anti-poison that Caroline had prepared. Emelia used her Emotional Projection to calm those who were having panic attacks.

They had won decisively, but no one felt like celebrating. Everyone knew they had been close to death, fortunate that there hadn’t been even a few more Troglodytes. They also had the second wave to contend with soon. Imri hoped that this had been the larger of the two groups, and judging by the number of Troglodytes corpses strewn about, he felt that was likely.

Everyone scrambled to reset their resources back to pre-engagement levels, including recharging enchantments from several charged Espeonite crystals. Their one advantage over the first fight was a massive gain in levels. While a level or two wouldn’t make a significant difference, that was on the lower end of what most survivors had gained. Many of the soldiers excitedly bragged about the three or four levels they had gained from slaughtering the higher-level creatures, a few outliers even gaining as many as five. Imri had only gained a single level, but he would take any improvement he could get. He quickly reviewed his improvements while he had a chance.

Imri Padar has reached level 33 (+1) in Celestial Mage (2F)

Imri Padar has reached level 33 (+1) in Primordial (1E)

Primary Stats

Agility 105 (+1)

Intelligence 218 (+2)

Willpower 177 (+1)

Secondary Stats

FP 141 (+3)

MP 592 (+14)

Mana Efficiency 553 (+13)

Crafting Efficiency 617 (+15)

Imri had topped his mana off for a second time, nearing the limit of the mana he could use before getting the over-channel debuff. He steeled his resolve for the next wave. However, the Troglodytes never came. Their high-pitched clicking intensified and then ceased altogether.

People started to relax, speculating that they had scared the rest of their enemies away after slaughtering so many of them. It wasn’t an unreasonable conclusion, but Imri wasn’t convinced.

That’s when they noticed it approaching. A swarm of strange metallic objects floated above the ground, emitting a brilliant blue light of pure mana that was visible even without mana vision. The various pieces coalesced and clicked into place, appearing to form one solid object, an oblong polyhedral that resembled the nexus in shape.

There was a brief moment where everyone just stared at the strange construct, unsure what to make of the alien object. It was massive, around 3 meters in height and about a meter in the other two dimensions. Imri attempted to Identify it, but his skill failed to return any information, giving Imri a sinking feeling. He was certain that this was a Sentinel.

Everything erupted into chaos as a portion of the construct disassembled back into individual shards, then flew forward like shrapnel from an explosion, only guided towards its targets. People dove for cover, and several weren’t fast enough, collapsing to the ground in bloody heaps as the alien metal shredded through their bodies.

People launched tentative attacks in retaliation. Spells and attacks bounced off the strange construct, seemingly doing no damage in most cases. In other cases, where the highest-level spells were concentrated, there was some effect as portions of the construct flaked off. However, moments later, the dispersed pieces rejoined the main mass of the creature or flew forward as additional projectiles.

Imri fired off his spell, sending a Dimensional Tear towards the center of the construct in a slashing horizontal arc. The void in space slashed through the polyhedral near its center, erasing any of the strange metal it came into contact with.

For a moment, it seemed Imri had destroyed it, as much of the solid construct became the swarm of shard-like metal falling towards the ground. However, the creature quickly reformed into the same structure it had been in a moment before, albeit slightly smaller. Shards that had been fired in the first salvo of attacks also flew back to rejoin the main body.

It launched another salvo, but this time, it was more concentrated. It appeared Imri had been identified as the primary threat, as all of the shards went straight towards him.