Ebony's Fable

Ebony tossed the humanoid weapon back into Dusk. After 20 minutes, he had no choice but to unleash her. Embarrassing himself about for taking too long.

Out of 49 of their opponents, only 8 were lethally harmed by their bombs. 14 had their exoskeletal defences compromised. The rest were mostly fine from the impact but were taking damage over time from residual heat.

Covering over a hundred kilometres by himself, they left the range of lethal temperatures. It would’ve been easier if he didn’t have to lug around a tree that was 9 metres across and 20 metres tall. A large number of them targeted Dusk because they knew it was both the source of Ebony’s power and the reason he was being tied down at all.

The winged ants weren’t able to operate long. The heat completely took away their ability to fly after a minute.

However, when physical stats are sky-high they can bring about magical effects.

Just one of them was all it took to wrestle Dusk and keep it grounded until he started freezing them on contact when Dusk decided that it was worth the exchange of mana against the vaporising temperatures.

The stiff motions of a revived corpse made it possible for him to slip under their attacks many times. Most of them stood a little taller than he was and were twice as long. Their legs were long and mismatched jointed but he predicted all their moves.

Prediction could only go so far. Evading by a hair’s breadth, countering with an uppercut did little. Quake Kick did not deal lasting damage against unmelted Ant Emperors.

Ethereal Fluid Blitz was kept at a stack of 120 before it was forced to reset when they did a suicidal pincer tackle to stop his body from moving for a brief moment. Even though they knew of the chill they would take as his flames dug into them. If it wasn’t for their inherent weakness to both heat and cold, he didn’t know how he would’ve taken advantage of them as much as he did.

The muscle memory of these Ants also didn’t allow him to finesse the numbers to stab or bite each other. The Tetramyths’ used their legs like a tier 2 swordsman, stashing and stabbing with trained precision. Whenever he tried to manipulate the ice and flames within them to move their legs or attacks slightly, an acid spitter would interrupt at mid-range.

They knew he was able to see it coming even without looking, so they attacked their allies to prevent greater harm from stabbing each other with their sharp pointy legs.

‘I can…no I can’t’ Ebony initially paused to stall when he saw how much the bombs had affected their opponents.

But he didn’t know when or how many reinforcements the Necrochitins would get.

Dusk already shrunk by a quarter in 20 minutes, so he unleashed the gluttonous one who did not rest but ate in the meantime. He had allowed her to watch what was going on outside since it was useful information.

When she popped out, they were already surrounded.

A seemingly endless stream of Kings and Grandmasters was in every direction. The Tetramyths weighed the benefits and disadvantages and threw these useless troops at them for the low percentage increase in the success of their encirclement.

It was the right move since every minute he was powerful was burning days of his mana away.

‘I’ve never used so much mana in such a short time. Now I know, without any sort of mana enhancement, I can defend myself against an Emperor warrior. Taking skills and technique into account, a proper King should be no problem at all. Mages who can’t use Domains are even more helpless.’ Ebony did not think highly of these few species of Tetramyths.

It was fine if they depended on numbers and a strong skill to close the gap of stats or Physique of an Insect race compared to other races but their technique or basic fighting ability was nothing special.

Obviously, these ants depended on their numbers so much that whatever planet they went to, they just had to overrun the population and eat while possibly sacrificing their breathens. Whoever survives the longest becomes a true kin, and then, they learn proper skills and techniques.

The beast was unleashed for merely 2 minutes, there was only so much energy she could recover in 20 minutes after emptying herself by creating their bombs.

That two minutes allowed him to send Dusk almost a thousand kilometres away. Then he snagged the flaming woman who knocked herself out the moment she was in his arms. A bit too trusting but he couldn’t blame her after she slain another Necrochitin. Slain, all he did was counter and push through.

Taking away his buff on her with Battle Hymn, he should be able to handle her offensive capabilities. But it wasn’t the time to sneak a peek at each other’s strength.

A blood halo remained by his side. It might be her version of a clone but all it was, was a weapon and occasionally a barrier.

‘The fortress is in sight but it’s still far.’ Ebony didn’t blame his good eyesight.

A sea of insects stood between him and his destination.

“Blossom.”

He rode Dusk as far as he could while raining petals, they contained flames that would only activate if they landed on the desired target. It helped that the tree lost more than a quarter of its mass. Rather than cutting through the air, they decided to cut through the horde instead. The massive lump might help them more than the Necrochitins.

“CH!!!”

“How silly.” The edges of his lips raised when he heard a familiar scream.

A dark horizontal beam disintegrated hundreds of bodies in its path. The work of a certain prince who evolved some months ago. He could not survive a single blow from an Emperor of any sub-species with or without the Crown Princess by his side. And she shouldn’t be all the way out here.

So Ebony was more than a little surprised to find that they were both coming towards him. Barrier magic would help reduce his mana consumption but Mallory might not be able to withstand many blows before she was mentally knocked out.

He ducked and let the slash tear through their lesser kins. Tanking all the other hits at a loss of mana to cover as much distance as he could. There was no way Hector and Mallory were so deep in enemy territory alone, meaning he might have to protect a greater number of people.

As people with status, the Tetramyth kin had all memorised and marked these individuals. They must have an entourage but he prepared for the worst.

‘So we are saved.’ Ebony didn’t expect anyone to save them. He initially ignored their pleas for help. He believed things that happened around him were unrelated to him but at the same time, he was of a mind that he had to help himself. That was the only way he was taught, to never expect someone else to save himself.

Old man Wilson was in the lead of the entourage. There were a surprising number of freelancers. Two squads of Guardian Knights who had a squad of arcane mages to enhance their speed. Freelancers were the better choice when it came to group mobility but they weren’t going to let Mallory move without Imperial soldiers.

They were all riding something. The famed Iron Wagon.

A Dwarven creation with eight double wheels powered by one of the Mage Association’s creations. It had spare metal legs and arms for different terrains and was quite an imposing vehicle. An array of enchantments were packed within its large frame the wagon virtually a mobile fortress. Ebony had only seen it once until today and it was similarly on a quest to save some nobles out in the wilds.

As someone with a ‘magic tower’ or ‘mobile fortress’, he knew how darn expensive it was to operate something fast and powerful.

Normal people might be experts at mana efficiency unlike he was, but money was money. They were likely burning Purples every minute. The purity of mana from a Grey to Green or a Green to Blue wasn’t that obvious to him but it was to a specialist and they made full use of the properties.

The rescue group did not put up a barrier as the Guardian Knight took the front while mages took potshots. Hector was doing his thing and punching beams in space. It might damage Dusk to the point where its mana dropped. But other than that, Hector himself had a lot of gaps in his combat style that needed work.

As a pure enhancement mage wielding more than 8 elements…somehow. Physical ability was by far his biggest strength. Mana poisoning also wasn’t a thing for him until he choked himself with all 8 elements. To be fair, the simplicity of his combat tactic was refreshing. Just punch things harder.

It usually worked against monsters of all types. Just not so well against agile or deceptive creatures.

Two points of suction formed behind Ebony, since he had support coming in soon he didn’t hold back on mana consumption and did his best to hold the Emperors back while running.

Then he flipped the regions’ gravity upside down but the ants built a bridge and latched onto each other in record time. Thousands of them were all helpless at the weightlessness and pull. Those that were sucked in were squashed and killed while the others looked as if their bodies stretched.

Ebony increased the size of the spell while Dusk shrank noticeably. They were removed from the spell’s effect which took more than half of his mental capacity. Gravity Quelling Vortex was more than just a smidgen of mightiness when he was wasting all his mana on his Domain.

It was one of the only spells that he did not have full control of when it came to the effects it had on the surroundings. Since it greedily called upon ambient gravity mana, it took a lot of effort to split a fraction of gravity to hold himself down.

An Emperor-ranked Necrochitin was absorbed but he didn’t receive a kill notification for it. However, it couldn’t escape so that was one down.

Using Gravity Quelling Vortex and holding himself down completely rids him of the ability to use other gravity spells so he couldn’t create Torrent Path and had to Flicker normally. Dusk was less than half as its original size and barely held the 4 people inside safe.

So he ran and ran.

Barrelling into the wagon which didn’t even have much floor space for him to lie on.

“Hey.” Mallory held her white staff and looked down at him hugging a 5-metre tree that almost pushed people off the wagon.

The operator swerved the wagon immediately and they began retreating.

“Thanks. Can you heal?” Ebony vomited out the people who needed healing but kept their seals on. One of them might have been dead because he barely felt any energy within.

“I can. Can you still support us, making our way back might be difficult. Three wheels got damaged beyond repair.”

At her words, he unsealed those who nearly became corpses. Ning Xin remained inside the smaller shelter.

“Thank you, everyone.” He did not forget the rest of the people who risked their necks to put themselves forward.

“Aye, just returning the favour.”

“I don’t like being in debt.”

“All in a day’s work.”

Taking a better look, these freelancers were those who used Dusk as a camping ground. All of them were people he dragged out from a horde of Tetramyths or people he sealed and carried to a healer. Covered in mud and dried blood, it was almost hard to tell whose who.

Wilson wasn’t on the wagon, he was clearing the path with a single club. The man who swung and smashed the Troll’s battlefield was achieving greater feats now that he was a King. If it wasn’t for the Manifestation of Natural Preservation, they might not have a floor to run on.

By his side were the stalwart Guardian Knights. The wagon was filled with exhausted fighters, mages and the likes of archers and other ranged weapon users.

Ebony stole Dusk’s mana no longer. It already lost more mana than its Will had a container for. Losing 15% of the condensed Will was the greatest loss. It meant that the tree’s abilities were permanently weakened until he could fill it back up.

The dissipation of Will wasn’t something he could prevent since the loss of mana was a loss of storage for it.

His personal storage of mana made it hard for him to maintain a proper Domain, even an uncompressed version. Fortunately, the horde of opponents that were Kings and Grandmaster didn’t require him to cast a Domain.

Battle Hymn for his allies Endurance and Strength for the warriors and knights, Intelligence and Wisdom for the mages. This group might be a little more elite but they were not in the best conditions, he was careful not to poison them with too much of his mana.

The fading Gravity Quelling Vortex was converted to horizontal Torrent Paths to keep their wagon path clear and push the horde to the sides.

A freezing gust froze and sealed as many legs as it could. Any target who didn’t move within a second or two found themselves frozen for good.

A bow and arrow conjured in Ebony’s hands and he fired the ice arrow into the sky, the arrow shattered and burst into the sea of ants.

6 of his Clones phased out of Dusk and copied him.

Since he had the chance to make so many Clones, he tested their abilities to fight him. He would say that a single one of them was equivalent to 15% of him unless Domain was taken into account. It was simply because his Clones were completely unable to summon a Domain. They were not a core of Arsenal of Will like Dusk despite how much Will they consisted of.

Their capabilities were more than 90% similar to him but their structural integrity couldn’t compare with his main body. Instead, they were better than him in one regard. Ethereal Form Arts.

The clones could turn their limbs into whips and flexibility was not an issue. They could pull off inhuman moves since bodily joints, muscles and flesh were not something they considered.

It was no exaggeration to say that his clones' improvements in martial and swordplay might be faster than his. They were developing something only ice clones could use.

His mana pool dropped by half within minutes and he stopped the bombardment. Sticking his hand into Dusk, he drew out Icicle and leapt out of the open-air wagon. The only reason it was open-air was due to the presence of Mallory, it allowed the others to give ranged support as well.

They didn’t have to worry about ranged attacks themselves, just close-ranged attacks from the Tetramyths so a cover for the vehicle was deemed redundant.

Pest control.

That was all they were doing as long as the true kin of the Tetramyths were not around.

A single swing of his sword left a trail of frozen body parts. Other than the freezing, it wasn’t anything special. Everyone on board the Iron Wagon could do the same, except maybe the archers. That was how flimsy these pests were in comparison.

As a small test, Hector, who had been cut by him and frozen by his flames wasn't able to heal. Mallory would need 3 to 4 minutes to first remove the ice, then a few seconds to heal a small cut.

Not every present knew he had freezing flames. After Cladding evolved to Melding, the effects were less obvious and the wisp of flames on his sliced targets would look like extremely cold air that blew in the wind. He never used his flames against Grandmasters to begin with and the bulk of the Tetramyths were Grandmasters.

The destructive club smasher Wilson, the steady Guardian Knights and the elusive phantom tore their way back to safety while the prince slept and recovered his mana.