The mattress was stuffed with goose down. Orion lay staring at the sturdy canvas ceiling of the officer’s tent his mother had given him, savoring the absence of pain after pushing his body for so long.
He drew a long, slow breath, and his lungs expanded in response, free of any phantom pull. Asteria’s magic had completely erased the inflammation, flushing the stress markers from his alveoli and soothing his overworked heart in a way he doubted he could have managed on his own, even if he hadn’t been running for his life for the past few days.
He pushed himself up, resting his back against the wooden frame of the cot, pleasantly full after his dinner of roasted boar, fried vegetables, and pine tea. The baseline comforts of a secure army encampment felt sharp and surreal after the gray desolation of the wastes, though even here, there was no mou to be found.
Reaching with his mind, he called up his status interface. The grueling march and the constant mental strain of maintaining his spells had pushed his skills to new limits. Combined with the machines and monsters they’d had to deal with on their flight back south, he’d managed to scrounge up two levels.
ORION A. VOIDWALKER
Class: [Archrelativist] [A-rank]
Level: 104
Mind: 682
Attunement: 674
Body: 100
Traits: Mana Manipulation [A-rank]; [Holographic Containment] [A-rank]; [Falsifiability Criterion] [A-rank]; [Alter Genesis] [A-rank]
The rate at which his stats were growing was nothing short of miraculous compared with what his fellows in the third tier had to deal with. Even his Body, by far his least-developed Stat, had reached a hundred points.
It wasn’t much compared to his teammates, but it made him several times stronger, faster, and more agile than a baseline human.
Of course, this world has few such people. And those who dedicate themselves to the martial path have truly monstrous constitutions, so I should take care not to think too highly of myself.
In the wastes, he had managed his stamina by constantly cycling [Gravity Step], but the process required active control, even though he’d made it feel so smooth it was automatic. To survive future encounters with enemies moving at the speed of the silver Mage-Killers, he needed to integrate his mobility and defense into a single, cohesive casting block.
It wasn’t something he’d heard of, but after seeing his father produce so many effects from a single cast, he was sure it was the right path to take to eventually become a powerhouse of his own.
He closed his eyes and reached into the Field, drawing raw mana into his mind and shaping it for his first attempt.
Or rather, the first time he put the whole thing together and tried to make it work. He’d been running simulations on it for quite a while.
He started with the foundation: [Gravity Step]. Instead of casting it with every footfall, he structured the spatial metric tensor g μν into a continuous, low-friction slope just beneath his feet. He then layered [Light Exoskeleton] onto the equation, transforming the hard-light construct from rigid armor into a flexible halo that would remain invisible to the naked eye.
To ensure the light would absorb the impact of his strides without shattering, he calculated the structural stress limit using the basic tension formula σ = A/F, distributing the force evenly across the surface area of his calves and thighs.
Finally, he wove his wind-circulation spell into the matrix. Using the Navier-Stokes equations for incompressible fluid flow, ρ( ∂t ∂v +v⋅∇v)=−∇p+μ∇^2 v+f, he shaped a continuous slipstream of air around his body, effectively eliminating aerodynamic drag.
Once he was satisfied that the whole thing seemed as solid as it had been in his simulations, Orion compiled the three spells into a single, unified string of logic. Then he tested the execution.
The Field responded without issue. The mana folded around him, following the flows and direction he imposed upon it, and his body hovered an inch above the cot; his limbs felt weightless, and a cool breeze circled his clothes, ruffling them.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION!
You have achieved harmony between three separate spells. You have crafted [Orion’s Mobility Suite].
You have crafted a Named spell.
Extra experience awarded.
+2,888,666 Exp
Level up!
It worked perfectly. Of course it did. He had built a composite support suite over the bones of spells he’d long since perfected. Yet running the complex simulation strained his mental bandwidth, and the CC was reaching its processing limit.
Still, a Named spell? What is that supposed to mean? I can guess it’s because this new spell has my name in it, but it’s not meaningfully stronger than any of my other creations. In fact, it’s several times weaker than [Gamma Ray] and [Black Hole].
But then, perhaps more power wasn’t the answer here. He doubted that no one in the history of this world had ever managed to come up with a similar suite of spells, and if it were simply a First Discovery thing, he should have received it for other magics.
No, there was more to this than he was seeing. Still, it did seem to imply he was on the right path.
Shaking his head, he dropped the spell, letting the mana dissipate back into the Field, and began laying the groundwork for the CC’s next evolution, a far more valuable use of time than chasing his thoughts in circles.
He sketched out recursive data loops in his mind, drafting the architecture that would eventually enable the construct to handle parallel casting without his active attention.
“I’ll have to find a strong enough crystal to support all of this,” he muttered to himself before his earlier thoughts echoed back at him.
Perhaps power wasn’t what he needed to look for…
Satisfied with the night’s progress, Orion cleaned up and fell asleep.
———
The main army base bustled with organized activity. Spellblades and Paladins in enchanted armor hauled supplies, sharpened mage-pikes, and dug reinforced trenches along a growing wall, while casters of all sorts laid down wards and offensive magics, ready to spring at a moment’s notice should the enemy attempt another attack.
Orion doubted they’d be needed or very useful, given the kind of enemy skulking about, but he supposed everyone wanted to contribute, and this was better than leaving the men idle.
He found Team Obsidian in the officers’ mess pavilion, seated around a long wooden table. The spread was generous, featuring thick slices of salted ham, spiced baked apples, hard cheese, and fresh bread.
The atmosphere at the table, however, was stiff.
Jordan sat ramrod straight, taking small bites of buttered bread. Garrick chewed a piece of ham in a mechanical rhythm, seemingly engrossed in the grain of the wood. Esmeralda sipped from a ceramic cup of warm blood, her posture tightly guarded.
Orion took a seat across from their leader and served himself a baked apple and a slice of cheese. The silence stretched.
"The food is good," he observed.
Garrick paused his chewing. "It is.”
Jordan cleared his throat. "Very fresh.”
Orion suppressed a sigh. They were not treating him with coldness or distance, but it was clear they were still reeling. They had spent weeks relying on him as a peer, only to watch the most powerful man in Cyril fold space like a napkin and casually reshape the earth to save them, all because of him. The sudden preeminence of his bloodline cast a long shadow over the team, even though they’d all already known about it.
Erethemor, however, seemed completely immune to the political weight of the Speaker’s title. He sat at the far end of the table, a pile of cracked bones piling up next to his plate. He tore a chunk of meat from a roasted pork shoulder and swallowed it with a satisfied rumble.
"Your father did good work on the golems," Erethemor grunted, licking grease from his hand. “Big and heavy, as is proper. Should squash the silver dogs nicely.”
The sheer absurdity of calling Antares's Tier Five constructs mere “good work” broke the tension instantly. Garrick let out a rough bark of laughter and ran a hand over his face. Jordan cracked a faint smile, his shoulders dropping, and even Esmeralda let go of her brooding for a moment.
“I know he is intense, and it’s a lot to take in,” Orion offered, cutting into his apple. "But his power does not change what we did in the north. We fought together, bled together, and it shouldn’t matter that I am his son.”
"We did," Garrick agreed, his voice softening. "But it takes a minute to adjust, kid. Our impression was that you were mostly estranged from the Speaker. Seeing him drop everything for you is quite something, not to mention being in his presence.”
Orion shrugged. “I am. I’ve only ever spoken to him a handful of times.”
Before Garrick could reply, an adjutant in Collegium’s robes, but wearing a pin of a staff and a cog to indicate his affiliation with the Alliance as a whole, approached the table. "Team Obsidian. Veil Priestess Voidwalker requests your presence in the command pavilion.”
Knowing better than to leave her waiting, they left the half-eaten breakfast behind and followed the man across the compound.
Asteria stood over the projection table, where a steaming cup of tea rested at the edge and a map of the Magocracy and its borders glowed in the air. It was quieter today, without the frantic rush that had followed Antares’ disappearance.
"Take a seat," she instructed, gesturing toward the wooden chairs.
Orion sat next to his mother, sharing a brief smile with her. She gave him a careful once-over, but seemed satisfied that he hadn’t managed to injure himself further in the past few hours.
"Our border is holding well," Asteria began, waving her hand to conjure a set of wooden markers along the northern edge of the Ironwood Forest. “We recently received a report of a battle in which the golems the Speaker constructed intercepted more of these Mage Killers. The first wave was crushed with few casualties, and only a few machines managed to slip away.”
"And the main swarm?" Jordan asked.
"Hitting the outer tree line now," Asteria replied. "Our infantry and battle-mages are harassing them and preventing them from forming a wedge. The machines are slow, and the mud in the forest is bogging down their treads. The problem is, while we have little trouble keeping them out, we’re gaining very little ground. Our troops lack the offensive punch to push them back into the wastes without our powerhouses taking the field, and we’ve learned better than to do that without preparation after Archmage Teoso fell in an ambush.”
She traced a finger westward, stopping at a red marker for a fortress built into the side of a deep gorge.
“There is also the fact that the broader war is shifting," Asteria continued. "The dwarves have pushed the Iron State out of the Sunken Hold in the west. Their heavy infantry broke the siege lines early yesterday morning, and last we heard, they were fighting to retake the beaches.”
"Stubborn bastards," Garrick muttered with a trace of genuine respect.
"Stubborn and very heavily armed, given that every foundry in the Adamantine Ranges was put to work on this,” Asteria agreed. She moved her finger to the south-western edge of the map, near the coast. "In the south, the elves and the necromancers are still working in coalition. It is an uneasy alliance, fraught with troubles, but it is winning the skirmishes, and whatever method they’re using to keep their forces together is working. The undead provide a tireless meat shield, and the elves pick off the Iron State engineers from the canopy. They are denying the enemy any permanent foothold on land.”
"Then we are the only front not pushing back," Orion deduced, looking at the cluster of markers in the north. A few weeks ago, he would have said they were doing the best, given their great victories, but Uther and his Apprentices'presence had changed much.
"Yes," Asteria confirmed. "Which means we need to break the stalemate. I want to push the machines back into the wastes and shatter their coordination, but my casters are still burning too much mana just to dent their armor. It’s become clear we cannot win a war of attrition against them. We need artillery.”
She looked up, meeting Garrick's eyes, then Orion’s.
"The dwarven forces possess the finest weapons in Cyril," Asteria said. "With the Sunken Hold secured, their artillery battalions will be sitting idle because their naval force is limited. I sent requests for their deployment to this front, but their commanders are refusing to integrate their forces into our command structure.”
“They hate every faction too much to place themselves under a non-dwarven commander, and all of them will still be busy protecting their homeland,” Garrick muttered.
"Precisely," Asteria said. "So, I am sending you."