Immovable Mage

– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 217, Season of the Setting Sun, Day 96 –

Fate was completely taken off-guard by Terry’s flight. Her blue eyes quivered while staring at the location where the human had still stood a moment before.

“I should have known this would happen,” cursed Xuan. “He thought we’re here to get revenge.”

Fate woke up from her daze. “Why…? Want to… pay… back… debts. Terry… benefactor.”

Xuan grimaced at Fate’s unfortunate choice of words and tempo. “I’ll explain the difference between paying back a debt and payback later. He must have thought that I’m here to cause trouble and that you are here to avenge the initiate. Terry doesn’t know that the initiate was your enemy…” He glanced at the other lizans. “...or that they were being controlled to lure you out. He doesn’t know that he accidentally ran into a trap that had been prepared for someone else.”

Fate’s eyes were already glowing brightly from her parallel spellwork. “Fate… entangled.” Her slit pupils dilated and she jerked her head towards an intense mana signature approaching from the side. She tightened her grip on her mage staff and glanced at Xuan. “You take…”

“I’ll try to get his items back to him.” Xuan understood what Fate was trying to say. With a pang of guilt, he muttered. “...the ones that are left.” He bolted away to follow Terry.

Fate used the lizans native tongue to instruct the other lizans. Most of them ought to accompany and guard their lost prince.

Afterwards, Fate channeled her mana and teleported into the neighboring tunnel with a fire spell primed and ready.

*KA-PFff* Flames licked all across the tunnel. Vines sprang up to guard against the spell but were incinerated in an instant.

“AHh…” A woman dressed in a formal crimson suit screamed and jumped back. She glared hatefully at the black-scaled lizan that had ambushed her without warning. “Who are you?”

Fresh burn scars were still visible on Beatrice’s face and body. She quickly cast her own spellwork to treat her injuries.

“I’m Fate.” Fate’s blue eyes glared threateningly at Beatrice. “You… not allowed… harm the benefactor.”

Fate unleashed a rapid chain of spells to assault Beatrice. Her revealing magic had already shown Fate that there was only one way to deal with this Thanatos woman.

Fate had originally planned to help and escort Terry personally, but it seemed that this was not the fate in store for either of them. Her magic had revealed that Terry was not one to be transported against his will. If he resisted her teleportation, she could not bring him along. Begrudgingly, Fate had to accept that the threads around her benefactor had become entangled in another way yet again.

Beatrice was desperately defending herself while being pushed to her limits against this unknown opponent. She did not understand what was going on, but a gnawing feeling told her that she had the Arcanian to thank for her current predicament.

As if destroying her estate and inviting others to steal her possessions had not been bad enough. Now, Beatrice even had to fight frantically for her own survival. She could only curse Terry silently in her mind.

***

[Prepare the Heavenly Wolf Slash!] Terry transmitted a thought transmission in order to maintain his regular breathing for their mad dash to the tunnel exit. [We don’t have a key.]

[Got it. Here, I don’t believe this will do me much good from now on.] Rafael flicked the magic necklace from the dungeon to Terry. [I don’t like the thing sucking my mana.]

Terry stored the cloaking necklace back in his dimensional storage. He had to agree with Rafael. They were past the possibility of sneaking around. From now on, they would have to fight to buy the last bit of time.

All or nothing!

Terry’s eyes turned fierce.

[Remember, buddy, if I use the Heavenly Wolf Slash to crash the exit, I won’t be able to use it for whatever is waiting right outside.] Rafael warned grimly. [If I get entangled with small-fries, I won’t be ready to confront the big guys. You know my—]

[I got it.] Terry spoke with the resolve to go all out. [Leave it to me.]

[Alright, brother.] Rafael grinned a toothy grin. [Let’s put up the show of our lives! Let the Mad Empire remember the Rising Rookies for all eternity!]

Even though Terry had often rolled his eyes at the exaggerated boasting of his felan companion, he had to admit that Rafael’s words served to take the edge off the situation.

The martialist spin on the situation inspired a feeling of awe and excitement as opposed to pure grimness. A chance to stand up and defy the heavens as opposed to being trapped in a desperate situation.

Let’s do this!

Terry could already see the massive door that represented the exit. He made sure to match the pace of Rafael.

“HEAVENLY WOLF SLASH!” Rafael roared and slashed his glowing claws across the air.

The intense mana blades were accompanied by a powerful mana resonance. The giant white wolf dashed and ripped the massive door apart, together with some of the surrounding walls.

The wolf did not stop at the wall and several mana martialists from the Thunderous Palm Sect that had waited in ambush were ripped apart.

Terry accelerated with a burst technique and dashed through the cloud of dust while leaving a few immovable items behind to protect Rafael and give him cover to move forward. Terry already knew the positions of everyone outside thanks to his mana perception. Before the dust had a chance to settle, Terry had already arrived in front of his first opponents.

“What—?” The injured martialist had no chance to react before a spear pierced into his skull.

Without pause, Terry darted towards the next pair of opponents.

The martialists discovered to their horror that their cherished weapons refused to yield an inch.

One of them had the sense to let go of his transfixed sword and punched with bare fists, only to have his fist collide with an immovable spear.

From underneath the spear, Terry dashed forward with two keen daggers dancing around the air. The blades of mana were so intense that they were glowing even outside of mana sight.

“TERRY!” A mana martialist from the Blazing Sun Sect rushed forward with a movement technique. “I’LL KILL YOU!”

Terry darted into the sky on layers of divine mana that disappeared as soon as his feet left them.

The Blazing Sun Sect member used a forceful jump technique to follow Terry into the sky only to find a pair of immovable throwing needles in his path.

Before the martialist could even feel the pain from the sudden holes in his body, Terry had already changed direction and simultaneously, Terry’s barrier spear rushed into the martialist’s back from below. Terry had intentionally left the spear behind to use it in combination with his inscribed glove.

Terry rammed full-force into the martialist, he retrieved his short spear from the dying man’s back and then watched the martialist being propelled right onto the immovable needles once more.

“Terry!” More mana martialists appeared.

Terry turned around to face them while nimbly dodging their attacks. When they charged at him, Terry evaded to the side while placing transfixed throwing needles into their path.

As soon as one of them had fallen for the trap, Terry darted back to finish off the impaired and injured opponent.

“HOW DARE YOU!” A powerful flaming fist was charging towards Terry.

Terry casually transfixed his septimum bracer right when the fist was arriving.

No matter how powerful the opponent’s fist was, it only served to break itself when colliding with an immovable object.

While the assailant was screaming in pain, Terry switched burst techniques and smashed his palm upwards against the man’s chin. In one fluent motion, Terry used his other hand to slash a keen dagger across the man’s throat.

“Terry!” Furious shouts were carried over from a mixed group of security guards and Thanatos soldiers.

Terry sensed several spell centers in the area and mentally counted the time until the entrance ticket should become usable.

He rapidly punched out disruption discharges to eradicate all the spell centers before the spells could activate.

Instead of reharvesting his discharged mana, Terry immediately began circling it around the area. In a matter of seconds, torrents of mana were gushing from his body into the surroundings, only to immediately reshape themselves into mana refractors and a swarm of rotating spell slicers.

Terry adjusted his disruption field to leave a mana-less gap with him and Rafael at the center. It was a necessary adjustment. Terry could not afford to have the ticket’s teleportation fail due to the interference of his oscillating mana.

While Terry was concentrating on maintaining a hold on all of his expelled mana, the enemies closest to him were taken aback by the feeling of intense mana suppression when all the mana in the area already had an owner.

For many of the mana martialists, this was the first time that they seriously looked at Terry. Right at this moment, Terry completely let go of his mana cloaking and his mana signature lit up like a bright star in their mana sight.

*BOOM* *KAWAMM* As if to accompany the thunderstruck feeling of the martialists, loud explosions were reverberating in the distance as the unmistakable sounds of an intense battle rang over from the location of the Proving Grounds.

[Stay below me!] Terry instructed Rafael.

[I don’t think I can whip out a powerful attack soon, but a weaker—] reminded Rafael.

[Don’t! I still got this. Focus on preparing the strongest attack you can muster!] Terry continued counting mentally. [I get the feeling we will need a trump card. I’ll hold them off for now.]

He darted around the area while strategically placing immovable tertium slabs to block potential large scale attacks as well as to provide cover and limit the enemies’ movements.

“TERRY!” One of the Thanatos soldiers from the Proving Grounds was fed up with trying to wrestle mana from the area and from seeing his long-range attack spells eviscerated in the rotating field of spell slicers. He was charging over while relying on magic boots to step into the air.

Terry dashed forward to confront the man in the sky. He flicked several pebbles and then dodged behind one of them.

The soldier’s line of attack was blocked by the immovable pebble and his shift in movement caused a slight delay, which Terry immediately exploited by transfixing the steel caps on the man’s magic boots.

Terry flicked his wrist to hurl an item while thrusting his other arm forward with his barrier spear.

To the soldier’s credit, he was quickly adjusting his body to dodge even though his boots had become immovable. Unfortunately for him, there was a throwing needle transfixed right in the path where he reflexively leaned his body.

The man decisively grabbed forward to catch Terry’s spear, only to see Terry let go of the spear without hesitation.

The soldier tried to pull his arm back but realized too late that the spear had transfixed.

The last thing the soldier felt was a pair of mana blades entering his lungs.

Terry retrieved the spear and stared down at the rapidly increasing number of opponents around him. He continued counting. “Not much longer.”

He could already sense the beginnings of a mana distortion.

I should try to stick as close to Rafael as possible.

As an additional precaution, Terry also increased the inner gap of his disruption field.

“TERRY!” A furious mana martialist dressed in the robes of the Blazing Sun Sect charged over with the flickering image of a golden crow behind him. “YOU KILLED MY—!”

The man impaled himself on a pair of immovable throwing needles.

Before the martialist was able to recover, Terry was already in front of him.

“Who cares…?!” growled Terry while blocking the martialist’s punch with an immovable bracer and proceeding to pierce the martialist’s heart with his spear.

Terry’s own thoughts continued ringing in his head: Who cares why a beast bites?

Welcome to the world of beasts.

Terry’s mana perception and mana control were pushed to their limits.

He had been emitting mana much quicker than he was regenerating it. His own mana pool ran dangerously low and he could only compensate by reharvesting mana ad-hoc. Whenever he needed mana for a burst, spell, or targeted disruption discharge, he reclaimed mana from his disruption field.

Terry’s swarm of spell slicers grew denser and denser, blocking and obstructing all magical attacks.

Terry’s fortress of immovable items to block long-range physical attacks stood unbreakable and undisturbed. Terry was carefully guiding his spell slicers around the Immovable Object spell structures by placing the mana refractors and moving his mana accordingly.

Whoever dared to rush through the disruption field found themselves suffering in many ways. They experienced the suffocating feeling of mana suppression. Their mana sense was overwhelmed. Their own mana circulation was disturbed.

Whoever dared to test their prowess against the immovable objects quickly found their own strength lacking and came to regret it with howls of agony.

Whoever dared to overlook even the tiniest pebble found their swift charge ending abruptly and with nothing but pain and injury as their reward.

Whoever dared to rush through the remaining gaps in the immovable fortress was still grappling with their own diminished state and senses when Terry already appeared in front of them with weapons in hand, layers of divine mana underneath his feet, and a fierce look in his eyes.

***

Xuan stared at the fluctuations of space around Rafael and Terry. For a second, his red eyes contained a flicker of greed. “Fortuitous encounter…” However, he quickly managed to recompose himself.

This was in the past. This could not be him anymore. Xuan had to be better than this for his future.

Xuan stared at Terry. The Arcanian that had once dared to lecture him in the Proving Grounds.

The upstart that had once defeated him against all odds.

The hidden benefactor that had unwittingly sprang a trap for Fate, that had managed to kill an initiate and thereby liberated some of his tribe as well as allowed Xuan a chance to learn the truth, all before Xuan had even met him.

Xuan quietly exclaimed the name he would always remember from this day forth: “Terry…”

Xuan glanced at the lizans fighting off the mana martialists and Thanatos soldiers in his vicinity.

He balled his scaled hands into fists. He realized that he would not be able to return Terry’s items today. There was no chance to properly explain himself. There was no room to resolve this issue completely on this day.

Xuan resolved himself for another course of action. “Then—”

*KACRACK* Lightning cracked loudly. “RAFAEL! DON’T YOU DARE!”

“TERRY! YOU’RE NOT LEAVING HERE ALIVE!” Countless mana resonance images of golden crows appeared all around and the temperature went up several degrees from their combined martialist techniques.

All of the mana martialists from the Thunderous Palm Sect and the Blazing Sun Sect charged forward frenziedly.

“Hmph.” Xuan’s red eyes flashed with unrestrained ferocity and he himself burst forward with rapidly circulating mana.

Xuan’s massively heavy body soared into the air. He gave his all to unleash the strongest gravitational field he could muster while rushing right into the center of mana martialists.

Within Xuan’s path, everyone fell from the sky like dead flies.

Martialists, Thanatos soldiers, and security guards were all pressed down into the ground.

“You—” An elder from the Blazing Sun Sect stared incredulously while resisting the gravitational force. Shortly after, he was crushed into paste by a mountain-like body and the massive momentum of Xuan’s charge.

“Insolent!” An elder from the Thunderous Palm Sect glowered at Xuan’s back.

“We can’t get distracted now,” reminded another martialist in black-yellow combat robes. “Forget the fool from the Soaring Mountain Sect. We have to stop the thieving cat or we will lose our chance to send more people to the secret realm.”

“Fine.” The elder crushed his artifact and with its additional burst of power, he unleashed his strongest attack of the day right towards Terry and Rafael.

“Shit, TERRY!” Somewhere in the middle of all the chaos, a man in crimson uniform was cursing loudly. “I hate this Arcanian!” Yesenia’s assistant burst his mana beyond his limits and rapidly cast two spells at once.

His first spell blocked the lethal attack from the Thunderous Palm Sect elder. “If it wasn’t for the overseer’s order…”

The second spell allowed the soldier to teleport in a ray of light to stop the two fugitives from escaping.

“TERRY!” A woman from the Blazing Sun Sect rushed forward with pure hatred in her eyes. “YOU KILLED MY FIANCÉ!”

Inside the gathering mana of the entrance ticket, Terry was hurling an item and then transmitted his signal to Rafael: [NOW!]

“HEAVENLY WOLF SLASH!” Rafael unleashed his charged attack. One mana blade flew out for each of his claws. The mana resonance of a white wolf followed.

The mana blade ripped apart the container that Terry had thrown out earlier.

Next, they cleaved through the woman from the Blazing Sun Sect, who emitted a blood-curdling scream.

Only the ray of light in which the overseer’s assistant teleported continued undisturbed through the grid of intersecting mana blades, right until it collided with the dark liquid in the air.

“AHH!” The overseer’s assistant materialized in the middle of the descending darkwater. He clenched his teeth against the agonizing sensation.

While his equipment and body were corroding under the debilitating effects of darkwater, he was trying to cast a healing spell… “Terry! N—”

The soldier’s concentration was disturbed painfully when Terry’s fist smashed into his face and unleashed a disruption discharge right into his brain.

Terry had paid close attention to all of the stronger mana signatures. Of course, Terry would pay attention to weak-seeming mana signatures of people he knew to be strong. This naturally included the Thanatos soldier with light-aspected spellwork whom Terry and Rafael had encountered before.

This Thanatos soldier had toyed with two of the sect elders without ever losing his mana cloaking. Terry had suspected that the light-aspected magic would allow the man to avoid the Heavenly Wolf Slash, which was why he had sacrificed his last container of darkwater as a way to counter the light-aspect.

“TERRY! I’LL MAKE YOU PAY!” A furious shout reverberated over the area. The source was a woman at the center of at least a dozen security guards. The security manager of Beatrice’s estate appeared about as livid as Terry had expected her to be.

Just when the security manager was about to direct her prepared attack spells, an unconscious body dropped right in front of her. To the security manager’s horror, she recognized the battered body as belonging to her employer. “Lady Beatrice!” Her lapse in concentration caused her spells to fail.

After dropping Beatrice’s body, Fate arrived in the middle of the fighting lizans and prepared to evacuate all of them, including their lost prince. Her brightly glowing eyes focused on the two figures at the center of everyone’s attention. “Terry… May fate be with you.” She moved her eyes away and concentrated on saving her tribe. “Pay… back… when fate allows.”

“Almost…” Rafael exclaimed excitedly. “We’re almost ready, brother!”

Terry was too busy to get excited.

He had to maintain all of his Immovable Object spells that immobilized opponents.

He had to throw needles to block and injure enemies.

He had to place tertium slabs to block attacks.

He had to constantly scan the enemies for equipment he could transfix.

He had to make sure that none of his oscillating mana or Immovable Object spells was too close to interfere with the entrance key’s teleportation.

Terry did not even have the leeway to make sense of what the hell was going on with the lizans and Xuan, much less why some of the Thanatos soldiers sometimes appeared to protect him.

Terry’s mind was entirely preoccupied with making sure that he and Rafael would finally be getting out of the Mad Empire.

“YES!” Rafael shouted gleefully when the entrance ticket finally fully activated. He quickly grabbed hold of Terry so that they could both make their escape to the secret realm.

Terry was heaving a sigh of relief, only to fall into despair when he sensed the appearance of another powerful mana signature.

“Terry, you’ll have to stay!” A woman stepped out of the shadows. The scout tasked by Yana and General Eli had feared that she would be too late, but fortunately the slow-moving gears of bureaucracy had not completely sabotaged her mission. In an instant, several shadowy tendrils were rushing from the scout towards Terry.

Terry reflexively hurled out a septimum shield to block. However, the shadowy tendrils not only bypassed the shield. One of the tendrils even wrapped around the transfixed shield and shortly after, the Immovable Object spell was disturbed and deactivated.

Time seemed to slow down for Terry while he stared at the incoming attack.

He knew he could not burst his mana or the teleportation would fail.

He knew his Immovable Object spell would not hold long against shadow-aspected attacks.

He knew that he should not use the spell too close to the teleportation center.

He knew that this was an opponent he could not defeat.

Under the back-breaking pressure, Terry was automatically thinking of his all-out sparring sessions with the Divine Hammer.

Layers of translucent golden mana appeared in front of Terry.

Before Terry’s conscious mind had a chance to catch up with the actions of his body, Terry was already channeling all of his mana into the three wraps of divine hammer inscriptions on his body.

The created divine mana represented the intersection between the light and metal aspects. The glow pushed back the shadows ever so slightly.

“What?!” The general’s scout was taken aback. She had not expected the Arcanian to whip up a defense that carried the light aspect. This was not included in the intel that Yana had prepared for her.

Even though her shadowy tendrils managed to pierce through, they were weakened in the process.

Even though the layers of divine mana appeared fragile, they re-appeared as quickly as the eye could see.

There was an intense race between the shadows and the light that radiated from the divine mana.

For each instant that the divine mana blocked the shadowy tendrils, Terry had a chance to prepare the next layer.

Each sliver that the light weakened the shadow gave Terry an edge.

While the General’s scout was rushing to reinforce her spell, Terry was pressing his mana into the three divine hammer inscriptions without pause.

Even though Terry’s creations were fragile, the speed at which he could use even a single inscription was something to behold.

Terry appeared almost in a trance with his full concentration on nothing but the divine hammer inscriptions.

All around, Terry’s items dropped from the sky because he was not maintaining and prolonging the Immovable Object spell anymore.

His spell slicers moved into the distance and faded into nothingness because Terry was not actively pulling and guiding the mana anymore.

No matter how fast Terry’s inscription usage was, there was a limit to what he could accomplish.

Every broken layer of divine mana was a step forward for the shadow-based attack.

A step that Terry had no way to undo because he had no way to push the shadows back. Even though Terry had become very familiar with summoning the divine mana, he had not been able to move his creations yet.

Terry’s mind ground to a halt when he felt a pull on himself. He subconsciously smirked with his eyes still fixed on the shadowy tendrils that were only a few inches away from reaching him.

An instant later, the surroundings shifted as the entrance key activated and both Rafael and Terry were teleported away.

They had left behind a massive amount of Terry’s mana and a chorus of outraged shouts. “““TERRY!”””

While most of the people present were still in a daze, Fate used the chance to finish her own dimensional transfer spell and she disappeared together with Xuan and the other lizans.

“The General won’t be happy,” cursed the scout.

“The overseer will be furious,” cursed the overseer’s assistants.

“How are we going to account to Lady Beatrice for this?” lamented some of the security guards.

They all looked around for a chance to vent their frustrations. Their eyes settled on the mana martialists that had invaded the Proving City. These outsiders were in for a world of pain.

***