Chapter 72
Death by Wind
The third-wave construct was the giant worm. Its explosive entrance caused the whole chamber to tremble and brought an abrupt end to Rel’s little nap. He grumbled as he rose to his feet, glaring darkly at the worm and muttering something under his breath about shoving his staff somewhere entirely inappropriate.
As it was only the third wave, it wasn’t quite as large as the one I’d fought, but it was still an absolute beast of a thing. The section of its body visible above the surface alone was at least fifty metres long.
“This thing was a pain in the ass to kill,” I said. “At least for me anyway. Physical attacks aren’t exactly ideal against such a big bastard. Even when I buried my swords hilt-deep in it, there was no way I could reach any of the good stuff.”
Kaelis nodded thoughtfully. “I can’t imagine the grandmaster’s minions will be of much assistance in this fight.”
“Nope,” I replied. “But I’m pretty curious to see how effective his magic will be.”
I turned my attention back to the screen. The creature was still orienting itself, its enormous body rippling in an almost hypnotic rhythm, the movements slow and deliberate.
“When I fought it, it seemed to use vibrations to locate me,” I continued, “so as long as they don’t move or make too much noise, they should have some time to figure out how they’re going to deal with it. If Rel watched my fight, he should have a–”
“Golly gosh!” boomed Sir Rockington III, clapping excitedly. His two enormous hands crashed together with the sound of an explosion. “That is one tremendously large fellow!”
“Never mind,” I said.
The creature whipped around to face them, revealing the cavernous, tooth-lined abyss that was its mouth. A deafening screech rolled across the battlefield, then it dove headfirst into the ground, burrowing back into the earth. The rest of its body quickly followed until it vanished from sight once more.
“Spread out!” roared Rel.
Lightning sparked to life in his eyes, and he shot into the air.
The skeletal knights scattered in all directions, but they needn’t have bothered… Sir Rockington III’s footsteps were so damn heavy he may as well have had a target painted on his back. To the giant worm, it must have been the equivalent of someone screaming in a library.
The ground shook so violently beneath their feet that they staggered a little as they ran.
“Ahh, I remember this part,” I said.
The ground beneath Sir Rockington III’s feet erupted as the construct emerged once more, sending the earth elemental tumbling through the air. He crashed to the ground over fifteen metres away, the jarring impact knocking his top hat loose.
“You despicable miscreant!” he roared as he scrambled to retrieve it. He attempted to brush off the dirt and dust, but only ended up smearing mud across the fabric. His emerald eyes blazed with murderous intent as they locked onto the worm. “I’m going to teach you some fucking manners!”
I’m going to teach you some fucking manners?
Sir Rockington III was really starting to grow on me. Unfortunately, he didn’t get the chance to follow through on his threats.
*
Rel dove in, staff raised, and unleashed a devastating bolt of lightning.
It struck the creature’s side and obliterated its armoured shell. What’s more, the wound immediately began to fester, and black veins snaked outwards, spreading across its body like cracks racing across ice.
Moments later, another bolt struck with similarly devastating effect, and the creature began to panic as the corroding force of Corruption of the Draeven continued to eat away at it from the inside. It flailed wildly, slamming its enormous bulk against the ground in an attempt to crush anything it sensed moving. The skeletal knights leapt desperately out of the way to avoid being pounded into the earth.
Despite its size, it was still only a wave-three construct and was no match for a Trialist of Rel’s calibre. Sure, it could use its bulk to knock his minions around, but it couldn’t deal enough damage to cause them any real harm. Likewise, its durability was nothing special, as demonstrated by the destructive effect of Rel’s lightning.
He paused his onslaught for a moment and hovered above the battlefield, studying his staff thoughtfully. For some time now, he’d had an idea he’d been meaning to experiment with, and the giant worm was quite possibly the perfect test subject.
He raised his staff, staring down the length of the Aetherbark at the giant worm as though sighting it through the scope of a sniper rifle.
He cast his wind spell, but rather than unleashing it to buffet the giant worm, he contained and shaped it. A faint curved outline began to form in the air a metre in front of him, but as he fed more and more power into the spell, the raging wind compressing tighter and tighter, it solidified into a crescent blade of super-dense air.
The amount of power he was feeding into the spell was very likely overkill, but as it was his first time attempting it, he figured it was best to do it properly. His staff began to vibrate, and he had to struggle against it to hold it in place. The crescent was now ten metres wide and so dense that the air around it visibly warped.
The instant Rel let it loose, a thunderous boom shook the chamber, followed by a shrieking howl as the crescent tore through the air. It moved so quickly that it was almost impossible to follow.
It passed through the giant worm without slowing, continuing all the way to the wall at the opposite end of the chamber. Despite the enchantments protecting the stone, the force of Rel’s spell carved a massive chunk from the wall, revealing the dense arcane barrier hidden behind it.
The chamber fell silent for a moment, the giant worm frozen in place as though struggling to comprehend what had just happened. Then a great spurt of black ichor erupted from the wound, and the top half of the creature’s body toppled sideways, the incision so clean that the cut was perfectly straight.
It was fair to say that Rel was pleased with the result.
It had taken nearly fifteen seconds to condense the air into the ten-metre crescent blade it had become, but he was fairly certain that with a little practice, he could shave some time off that. However, the spell had been complete and utter overkill for the giant worm, so it would not always be necessary to charge it to such a monstrous extent.
He raised his staff and cast the spell again, this time only condensing the air for a few seconds. He sent the much-smaller crescent racing towards the giant worm’s twitching corpse, and although it was still outrageously fast, it was noticeably slower than the first had been. When it reached the construct’s body, it once again cut clean through it, but this time, when it emerged from the other side, it had lost much of its potency and quickly unravelled.
Interesting.
Whatever constructs emerged in wave four were going to find themselves the subjects of some arcane experimentation. Their lives might be short-lived, but at least they could take solace in the fact they’d died in the name of magical progress.
*
Auroria stared at the screen through wide eyes.
That spell…
Throughout her time at GEC, she had always worked in the Trial Department, taking on various roles over the years. This time around, it was overseeing the assessments for the Expedition Centre. In the past, she’d been involved in designing and managing quests, dungeons and features such as the Tower of Potential.
As a result, she’d monitored tens of thousands of Trialists, many of whom had decided to pursue the path of the arcane. They all tended to follow a similar path of progression: find a scroll, study the spell intensely under the guidance of one of the GEC instructors, then slowly build up a small arsenal of spells throughout the Trial. Until they’d learned to cast several spells reliably under pressure, they generally had to continue relying on other means of combat such as melee or ranged weapons.
By the end of the Trial, those who showed a natural affinity for magic might begin experimenting with small adjustments to existing spells and attempting to create basic variations of their own.
What Rel had just done was something else altogether…
At first, Auroria had assumed he’d found a scroll that taught some form of blade-of-air spell, but based on the conversations she’d overheard while his friends watched the assessment, that clearly wasn’t the case. He could apparently cast over a dozen spells, only half of which he had learned through studying scrolls. The rest he had improvised by examining the runes engraved on weapons and various enchanted objects.
It should not have been possible.
She knew that she was duty-bound to report it to GEC. The only reasonable explanation for his level of arcane mastery was that he had found a way to circumvent the restrictions placed on Trialists when entering the Trial. It had never been done before, but that didn’t mean it was impossible. After all, she had only recently witnessed Rel overcoming the concealment shroud placed upon the transmission spell.
And yet…
Despite their… colourful behaviour, she couldn’t help but like the strange group of Trialists.
“Ohh,” said Peter. “It looks like the fairies are up next.”
Auroria shook her head, clearing her thoughts before refocusing on the screen. The fairy-like creatures had just emerged from the trees, their fluttering wings leaving trails of gold and silver sparkles in their wake. They fixed Rel and his minions with huge, innocent eyes and waved a little greeting as they flew closer.
A crescent of compressed air tore across battlefield and cut one of the fairies clean in half, the two pieces of its tiny body thudding to the ground. The blade continued onwards and sliced into the fairy behind it, carving a deep gash across its stomach before the spell finally dissipated. A fountain of blood sprayed from the wound, the creature’s pained shriek filling the chamber.
The other fairies took up the call, shrieking not in pain but in fury, then began to transform. The blue of their eyes was washed away by a sea of black, and veins of the same colour began to spread across their skin.
Unlike Peter, Rel and his minions did not hesitate. They charged into battle and were among the fairies before they had chance to cast their paralysis spell.
As wave-four constructs, the fairies were powerful and fought with frightening ferocity. They darted forward, razor-sharp teeth bared. During their transformation, their small fingers had lengthened into black claws, and they swarmed the skeletal knights and Sir Rockington III in a whirlwind of teeth and claws.
A dozen or so fairies ignored the summoned minions and raced through the air towards Rel.
They did not get far.
He unleashed a barrage of miniature blades of air, each no more than a foot wide. They carried just enough force to slice cleanly through the fairies’ bodies before the spell unravelled.
The fight was over in less than two minutes, the ground littered with fairy corpses. Rel’s forces, however, had not emerged entirely unscathed. Two of the skeletal knights’ bodies had been damaged so badly that they could no longer sustain the summoning magic animating them.
Rel opened the abyssal portal once more, allowing Commander Osian and his knights to return to their realm.