Immovable Mage

– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 217, Season of the Rising Moon, Day 16 –

Terry stood high up in the sky and observed the altar below.

[Rafael, why?] Terry sent his thought transmission. His eyes were glued to the felan with the leopard appearance that was fighting below.

The mana resonance of a giant white wolf rampaged through a group of martialists that challenged Rafael for possession of the altar.

“It’s possible he doesn’t hear me.” Terry muttered to himself.

Is it though? Why don’t you test that?

Terry hesitated. He knew that now, right after a heavenly wolf slash, Rafael would be the most vulnerable.

For a time, Terry simply continued observing the battle between Rafael and the other martialists, engrossed in their fighting as well as his own inner conflict.

Rafael fought well even without the availability of his heavenly wolf slash. In the Proving Grounds, Terry rarely had a chance to observe the felan like this. In their Rising Rookies team-up, they had always planned around each other’s strengths, which meant that Terry was in charge of buying time for the powerful mana resonance technique.

Terry’s eyes glanced towards the light on the altar and estimated the time until it would extinguish according to the change of mana intensity he had observed so far.

I guess I have an advantage when it comes to accurately gauging the remaining time…

Terry couldn’t rule out that there were mana martialists with keen mana senses, but from his own experience, their mana sense was at most as developed as those of the average mana cultivator, which paled in comparison to an average mage.

Terry watched Rafael engage in close-combat while recognizing the familiar mana flow for a heavenly wolf slash preparation.

“He seems to be doing quite well in charging the attack even when having to fight,” observed Terry. “Not to its full strength, but still.”

It’s possible that the difficulty for charging the attack increases non-linearly with increasing power.

“Makes sense,” mumbled Terry pensively.

He watched the giant white wolf devastate Rafael’s enemies once more and then glanced at the altar’s light.

He was not surprised when some of the more patient martialists that had lingered around the altar without making a move suddenly charged forward.

These martialists love to show off, but there are also many that love to hang back and exploit another’s battle for their own benefit. Hoping for others to wear out an opponent and then jump in to take the spoils.

Terry had to think of his own flight from the undead horde and how he had baited it into clashes with other beasts from the Wastes. This was the lesson on opportunities from Tuara, the dwarven leader of the Stonewardens from the Veilbinder’s time.

One enemy is a challenge. Two enemies is an opportunity. I guess they’re not all idiots. Their timing is still off though. There is still time before the challenge comes to a conclusion.

Terry inhaled deeply and then sent another thought transmission. [Rafael, I want an explanation.]

When no reply came, Terry finally mustered his spiteful resolve. He intentionally waited until a moment where Rafael was pressured heavily. [RAFAEL!]

Rafael messed up his evasive maneuver and suffered a light wound on his shoulder.

Terry’s expression darkened. [Rafael, you better have something to say.]

No reply.

[LEFT!] Terry’s thought transmission caused Rafael to become distracted with his attention involuntarily shifting towards the wrong side. The staff from one of his opponents smacked his ankle and Rafael had to scramble to get into a better position to defend.

[You could hear me the whole time, you…] Terry swallowed the insults in his mind. Instead, he used two more opportunities to successfully sabotage Rafael’s fight. Terry was skilled at identifying inopportune moments in the flow of battle.

[FUCK OFF!] roared Rafael in Terry’s mind.

Then another roar came, but this time from the felan’s lungs. “This one’s mine! I didn’t want to use this, but you miscreants leave me no choice!” He crushed a little spherical object that instantly created an intense mana shield to surround him on all sides.

“Fire’s breath, the damned cat used an artifact,” cursed one of the martialists.

“Must have picked it as a reward for the first trial.”

“Did he know there would be a battle royale at the beginning of the second trial?”

“Are you daft? These tombs always have something like that.”

“Let’s see how powerful a barrier this really is!” Several of the mana martialists refused to give up and unleashed their attacks against the spherical barrier. However, none of them was successful in breaching it.

Even at a distance, Terry could see why.

A layered barrier. At least one layer carries the space aspect. They won’t be able to get through that with power alone. It does not seem to be pulsing with different aspects though. Static. Structured. Wait…

Terry could now make out that there were three layers.

The outermost layer had been breached, but was then recreated.

The second layer appeared stable but not impenetrable.

The last layer was one of space.

The recreation costs mana and that has to come from somewhere, there has to be a time limit for the whole thing. Terry glanced at the altar’s light. Rafael’s battle sense still seems to be better than his mana sense.

[Why?] Terry sent his thought transmission to Rafael. He repeated it when there was no reply.

[Oh, grow up, Terry!] came the exasperated reply from Rafael. [Why would I tell you everything? You used me and I used you. We used each other to survive Thanatos. That’s all there is to it. I even gave you a chance to back out before we hit the estate. What more do you want from me?]

Terry could not say he was surprised, but deep down, he was left disappointed. [So much for all your talk about buddies, brothers, and whatnot.]

[Get over yourself,] scoffed Rafael. [Even brothers have to compete for resources, especially in a treasure trove like this place. There can be only one at the apex. Why shouldn’t it be me?!]

‘Why shouldn’t it be me?!’ The words echoed in Terry’s mind.

“Alright then…” muttered Terry with another look at Rafael’s protective barrier. In his mind, the image of Rafael and the way he looked at the felan had already changed.

First layer is like a normal barrier, not much stronger than the one I encountered at the demon advancement in the aspect being hunt when I was in Tiv.

Second layer appears like a stronger version of that but more rigid. When penetrated at a single spot, it would shatter.

Third layer is a spatial barrier.

“Why shouldn’t it be me…?” Terry had already made up his mind even though it was still racing to come up with a solution to the second layer. All his past experiences flashed in front of him in an instant. From one moment to the other, everything clicked into place.

Charge.

Terry swallowed a pill that the martialist reference book called ‘bones of iron’ and chugged a pair of martialist potions for bodily resilience. He turned in the air, dumped a large portion of his mana, and then dashed down head-first towards Rafael.

He pulled his mana behind him…

In front, he created a sequence of focus refractors in his path.

Terry had never tried this before, but he could already sense the dense army of spell slicers shape up behind him. He knew he needed an unstoppable shift. A small one would suffice, but it had to go through one layer of physical material as a medium to breach the second layer.

Terry had a few thin tertium slabs, but he did not have time to sequentially batter it with disruption discharges and he needed many shifts to get through even the thinnest material.

That was why Terry added an impromptu adjustment to the fundamental idea of his disruption field. What he could not achieve with the initial discharge, he could create with repeated pulling and refocusing. After watching the martialists and their predictable attack trajectories, a straightforward charge seemed like a natural fix to his movement problem. Terry was not able to move his rotating disruption field around quickly, but moving his mana in a straight line? That was doable.

The only challenge was that this adjustment did not allow for reusing the same mana refractors for extended durations, which meant that it was a tremendously inefficient use of mana. Fortunately, Terry was able to handle the mana loss for such a brief period of time.

Some of the mana martialists began sensing a change in the surrounding mana. A faintly suffocating sensation caused by Terry’s strong pull on mana.

Eventually, the first of the martialists raised their gazes into the sky. Like a thick wall of lightning in their mana sight, the countless spell slicers were crushing down from the heavens. At the front of the spell slicers, Terry charged with an intensely focused expression. Pulling and re-accelerating the mana behind him took a lot more out of him than he had anticipated.

Terry grit his teeth and abruptly accelerated with a burst technique that pressed mana into his muscles way beyond his limits. He pushed himself on layers of divine mana that he had to repeatedly recreate to get a good footing to accelerate further.

Terry turned in the air and placed a small thin tertium slab underneath his feet. He used the Shape Metal imprint to reshape the tertium to become even thinner while still retaining some thicker areas to be targeted with his Immovable Object spell.

He prepared to slow his descent at the last seconds with the help of his equipment. He knew he could not slow down too much or the timing with the spell slicers in tow would be off.

This is going to hurt.

Terry braced himself for the impact and placed one of the magic healing beans from the oasis into his mouth.

As soon as he was near the barrier, Terry kicked both of his feet and swallowed the magic bean. From his feet, he unleashed a dual discharge right onto the first layer of the artifact’s barrier. In the same motion, Terry rammed the tertium slab against the protective shield with another burst of mana.

The first layer broke. Terry could feel the tertium bend and give underneath, now sticking closely to the shape of the artifact’s barrier. It compressed in parts to be even thinner from the force of impact.

Most of all, Terry could feel pain as if his knees would break out of his legs any second now, as if his thighs would rupture from the forceful impact.

Through grit and ingrained reflexes, Terry managed to press on. He was able to both transfix the tertium slab as close to the barrier as possible and then adjust his position with the help of the movement pearls in his armor.

These beans are even more effective than I thought.

Terry was hastily stuffing his mouth with more of the magic beans that would help take care of his ill-treated legs. He was still chewing when the army of sizzling spell slicers impacted on both the barrier and the transfixed tertium slab.

Another drawback of the disruption rush: aiming was less than precise. Even though Terry could make some last adjustments by positioning and shaping the mana refractors, the time was way too limited for him to take perfect aim. Of course, this meant that much of the spell slicers – and therefore the expended mana to create them – was wasted.

Fortunately, this drawback mattered less in Terry’s current goal. He did not have to hit exclusively the tertium slab anyway. Some of the misaimed spell slicers would make sure that the continuously regenerating first layer would never stand for long.

Terry felt relief from pain as soon as he had swallowed the second mouthful of magic beans. He made sure to recast the Immovable Object spell whenever he feared some of the spell slicers would threaten to disrupt the active spell.

Terry was still swinging around a rotational axis he had created with the help of the septimum pearls in his armor when the bombardment of spell slicers on the immovable object showed an effect.

Tiny indentations appeared on the transfixed tertium slab, like infinitesimal droplets of rain hitting golden sand. The successive spell slicers hit the same areas over and over again until finally, one unstoppable shift pierced into the second layer of the barrier.

And with a loud noise, the second layer of the barrier shattered!

Terry hastily transfixed his boot mechanism to get a good jumping point.

Crap, now the second layer is recreating itself.

Terry barely had time to curse when his eyes shifted to confident pride. The artifact had attempted to recreate the second layer, but it had shattered again – the shifted tertium was still in the way and did not yield.

Terry transfixed two different pearls from his armor. The mid-bracer pearls on his arms created a new rotational axis and with the force from his previous jump, Terry’s feet were kicking out towards the third layer of Rafael’s protection.

With a burst of mana, Terry broke the spatial barrier and his double kick landed straight in the chest of the shocked felan. The spatial barrier, too, tried to recreate itself, but was torn apart by Terry’s mana burst before it had any chance to succeed.

Rafael’s protective artifact blew up while the felan himself was sliding across the altar’s platform all the way to the edge. Without relenting, Terry dashed forward, his senses extending toward the changes in the altar’s light.

“No!” Rafael was holding onto the altar’s ledge. He was wheezing after getting the air kicked out of his lungs. [Terry, I need this altar! I need to get the scripture! I—]

Terry transfixed another pearl and kicked Rafael from the platform while relying on the pearl to make sure he himself would not leave the altar’s boundaries. He landed back with his feet on the platform and caught the gaze of Rafael.

Terry pointedly ripped apart the communication talisman that Rafael had given to him in Thanatos. He hoped to look angry or stern, but he suspected that this was not in his honest eyes. He felt too much disappointment for that.

Rafael on his part realized that there was no chance for him to earn this altar in this round anymore. He was overcome with frustration and resentment for failing at the last minute. The failure hurt his pride, as did the accusation in Terry’s eyes. He shouted in defiance: “You would have done the same thing!”

Terry opened his mouth, unsure of what to say to that. He felt an immense calm wash over him despite the bustling attacks from other mana martialists. He knew that the light would extinguish before any of the attacks would reach him.

Would I?

Terry considered how he had acted in Thanatos in order to get what he wanted. How he had been deceitful even while speaking truths…

…but he had done so towards enemies or strangers, not towards companions.

Could I ever do that to my own companions?

Terry involuntarily recalled the time he had not informed his sister Lori and the others about the blood-aspected signature that turned out to be the blood tulip they had been searching for. True, it had been to avoid pulling them further into danger, but it was not honest, or at least not entirely upfront. He had burst his mana to remain behind, to take away the choice they would have surely made, the choice that would have put themselves in danger.

Would I?

Terry felt the familiar pull of a building unanchored spatial transfer targeting himself when another memory sprang up in his mind.

Follow the kind of person you want to become.

Terry subconsciously smiled. He may not know exactly who he was, but he knew what he wanted to become and he was dead certain about what he never wanted to be. His eyes were still resting on Rafael as he finally replied quietly but firmly: “No.”

Leaving behind the echo of his voice, Terry vanished from the altar whose light had been extinguished. His timing had been impeccable. From the moment of his crushing descent all the way to the end of the altar’s challenge, barely more than a minute had passed.

“The mantis is stalking a cicada, unaware of the oriole behind itself,” muttered one of the martialists that had been left behind.

“Great! My only problem is which oriole won,” grumbled another.

“No point in whining. Did you see that? That artifact blocked all of our attacks combined but shattered in an instant from that person.”

“What was that? Two kicks? What the hell?”

“There was also some kind of ethereal attack, at least I couldn’t make out what the mana actually did.”

“I think I saw that person before, he blocked an all-out attack from that giant from the Icy Dew Mountain. Easily even. Like it was nothing at all.”

“For real?”

“I saw it too! He even caught a spatial thorn with two fingers.”

“Okay now I know you’re just bullshitting.”

“Damn it!” Rafael’s stifled roar finally escaped from his lungs.

“Oh, right, shouldn’t we get some payback from the felan?”

“I never liked these realm invaders.”

“Shut up, there are other felans here and some of them could snap our necks with the flick of a claw. Don’t drag me down with you just because you don’t know how to hold your tongue.”

“We may not be able to do anything against the other felans, but this one is fair game, no?”

“True, no point in meddling with someone unfathomable, but I do feel like venting.”

Rafael’s expression darkened. He could try to run, but knowing some of the people here, another approach would be more promising. “‘Unfathomable’?” He sneered. “Parlor tricks, nothing more. Terry is no stronger than I am.”

“Could have fooled me,” jeered another martialist.

“Yes, I was caught off-guard,” huffed Rafael testily. “Just like you all. We have all been left behind. We have all fought honorably and while we fought, Terry came to snatch away the spoils.”

“Honorably, sure.” One of the martialists grinned.

“Right, upstanding cultivators like us would never think of waiting for a chance to ambush those engaged in fair combat,” added another with a hearty chuckle.

“No matter how we got here,” interjected Rafael. “We have all been left behind while Terry went ahead. Even if we manage to get through the altars in the next round, the rewards will hardly measure up to the first round of winners. We’ll be left with second pickings.”

“As if,” scoffed another martialist. “Finding a treasure first doesn’t mean anything, the ability to hold onto it is what counts.”

“Exactly!” agreed Rafael quickly. “So if you want to improve your chances, I might be able to help. I’m familiar with his parlor tricks. All I’m asking for is one specific item. I don’t care about anything else. So how about we make a deal?”

***

“Heeheehee.” Vicious gleefully laughed to himself. Around him, more than a dozen martialists were lying dead on the ground.

These martialists did not all die by Vicious’s hands. More than half of them were killed through fire, lightning, and sheer blunt force.

“I wonder if the bitch even realizes how badly I got her.” Eric was practically ecstatic with the situation. “I love my new abilities, although…” He frowned playfully. “…their limited area is a shame. I hope the pond will remedy that in the future.” He grinned. “All these young geniuses should certainly earn me something spectacular.”

Vicious licked his lips and they created waves as if someone had touched a water surface. He changed into a fluid form of dark viscous liquid and inhaled slowly. “Haaah. I couldn’t have chosen better timing.”

“If she fails, she dies. If she succeeds, she still dies.” Vicious’s fluid surface rippled from his anticipation. “The Pond is gonna have its pay. I may not even have to lift a finger any further, but it would be a shame to lose the opportunity for some fun.”

Eric glanced around the area once more. A bout of dark water carried over the bodies to him. He greedily examined the storage items from the deceased martialists. “So many muppets to collect the treasures for me. The Pond appreciates your service.” He sneered. “…and your souls.”

After Vicious was done harvesting his spoils, he looked at the altar again. “I should thank whoever broke Arcana’s barrier and these vengeful Arcanians. Without the chaos, it would have taken so much longer to reach the Pond’s next level. Heeheehee, I may even thank the Valkyrie when this is over. Without the chaos ending, I might have missed the best chance to switch locations and eat up these two particular muppets.”

Eric involuntarily shuddered and ripples moved across his skin. Thinking about Terry had reminded him of Sigille. “I hope that self-righteous decrepit hag will turn in her grave when I send her nephew to the eternal pond.”

***