Battlefield Reclaimer, Ch 31: Divided by Battle (Patreon)

The spiral of crystal blue flame around Sam compressed into the triangular point of an Essence Blade as he shaped the spell as quickly as possible. He had to take down that warlord before it could harm his dad.

The Earthen Shield around his father was already flickering on its last legs as it tried to absorb the overwhelming energy of the gnome warlord’s charge. The monster’s momentum was running out, somehow, as his father continued to block it, but the runes on its body were becoming brighter.

Whatever ability it was going to use, he had to stop it.

The Advanced levels of Flame Strike and Aura of Crystal Flame that he had just gained were making his spell form much faster than before, and he could feel a new intensity in it, but he still wasn’t sure it would be fast enough.

Hopefully, it would be able to damage the warlord.

As the spell continued to form, he looked up quickly, searching for the source of the shout that he had heard a moment before. What was it? Was there another type of gnome in the village that was attacking too?

What he saw instead was a short, well-muscled dwarven woman wearing darkened scale mail. She was rushing through the village from the opposite side with a warhammer in her hands. Her eyes were pure silver pools, shining with some type of vision ability.

The shout was coming from her, and she looked incredibly fierce. He didn’t have time to look much more closely than that, but he could tell that she was heading for the shamans.

A surge of relief struck him at the thought that she might be able to help.

He didn’t know where she had come from, but if she was going to lend a hand here, they might be able to get out of this. If she could at least distract the shamans for a few minutes....

Behind her, he caught sight of more people. There was a young woman in blue and white clothes who was followed by three more humans a bit farther back. It almost looked like they were chasing her as she tried to keep up with the dwarf.

One of the three looked like a mage or wizard, since there was lightning sparking around her hands, and the other two were clearly some type of melee classes. They were wearing chainmail and had swords at their belts, which they were just starting to draw.

It seemed there were adventuring parties in the tunnels after all. As the young woman entered the cavern, he saw her freeze as she took in the scene around her.

“Get the shamans!” he yelled out, but that was all the time he could spare. Hopefully, they would lend a hand, because these gnomes would be too much otherwise.

He finished compressing his crystal flame and the double-bladed triangle of an Essence Blade formed in front of him. His target was the runic pattern on the warlord’s side.

Whatever skill it was using, the glow of the runic energy was strongest on its torso and if he hit it there, maybe it would disrupt it. If he were even luckier, it might cut right through it.

The yellow Earthen Shield around Jeric flickered and died at the same time as Sam released the spell.

KRriiiiIIIIsssshhh!

The crystal blue blade shot forward from his hands with a hissing sound of roiling energy as it cut through the air. A cloud of swirling blue flames roared back from the edges and it left behind a trail of crackling heat.

Even with the Advanced abilities, the spell was still 20 points of his essence, but the result was much stronger than the Essence Blade he’d used to crack open the gnome barricade.

The intensity and cutting force of the flames had increased dramatically, along with his control. There was a sense of connection with the spell after it left his hands that hadn’t been there before. It felt like he could make it turn in midair, if he needed it to, even after it left his aura.

The radius of Aura of Crystal Flames had also doubled, jumping from twenty feet to forty. The range of Crystal Focus had expanded along with it.

If he’d hit the barricade with this Advanced version of the spell, it would have cut right through the wall and the gnomes on the other side without any trouble.

Still, he wasn’t sure it would be enough against the warlord. The gnome was enormous and the runes on its skin were clearly enhancing it somehow. He had to break them if he could.

He didn’t know what level it was, but it was probably in the mid 30s at least, on top of whatever evolution it had gone through to upgrade it from a marauder.

Down in the village, the shamans were starting to turn towards the running dwarf at the same time as his Essence Blade hit the warlord.

BoooOOOOMMMmmm!

The crystalline blade slammed into the side of the warlord’s body with a sound like an exploding volcano. It cut a foot deep into the warlord’s side, ripping apart the curls of runes that were still gathering power, and picked it up off the ground.

Then it flung it across the village.

SLLLaaAAAAAMMMMmmmm!

GoooOOOOOnnnnNGGGGG!

The warlord became a blue-flamed meteor as it sailed through the air for two hundred feet and crashed into the ground in a rolling explosion of sound. It was like a giant had just struck a massive gong that echoed through the entire cavern.

Whatever else it was, the warlord was not immune to pure force.

Sam’s spell was capable of breaking apart a stone fort. Sending a much smaller rock flying was completely within the realm of its power.

There was a smoking crater where the warlord landed and for a moment, everything around it was still. Even the gnome shamans and the new party turned to look towards it, their eyes wide.

The warlord had struck the ground with incredible force.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to keep it down.

A rocky hand the size of a dinner plate reached up, gripping at the edge of the crater, as the giant gnome hauled itself free from the rubble. Its body was covered in stony debris that fell off as it shouldered its way back to the surface.

When it came into full view, there was a clear, black hole that had torn through half of its side, removing a good chunk of the creature’s entire torso.

His Essence Blade had broken the runic pattern there, disrupting whatever the gnome had been trying to do, but it wasn’t enough to kill it.

The warlord was as strong as its name. It slowly levered itself out of the crater as it climbed back to its feet.

---

Ayala was trying her best to keep up with Krana, but her friend was fast. Much faster than she had thought. She didn’t know what had gotten into her as the dwarf ran around the curve in the tunnel and suddenly let out a terrifying roar.

Was there something attacking?

Ayala followed right behind her as they came out into the large cavern. She could hear Ismela and the two guards, Yeres and Lesat, sprinting after her.

“Stop! Where are you going?!” The wizardess was cursing as she tried to call Ayala back. The sound of the guards’ equipment clashing as they ran echoed sharply from the stone walls.

Ayala ignored them as she followed her friend into the cavern. Whatever Krana was doing, she wasn’t going to let her do it alone.

As the area opened up in front of her, Ayala could see the remains of small stone huts and a few of the strange basalt gnomes that the guards had been fighting in the tunnels. Was this where they had all been coming from?

Krana was sprinting across the ground towards two of the basalt gnomes at the center of the area, but Ayala frowned as she tried to decide what to do. She hesitated at the entrance, looking to see what was going on first.

She was only level 9 and her class was still locked, so she didn’t have any good abilities, but she did have some scrolls and a few items that she had collected before she left home....

She hadn’t needed them yet, but it seemed like this might be the time.

BoooOOOOOOmmmm!

An enormous explosion suddenly caught her attention, dragging her gaze towards a large rock that was flying through the air. It was huge, covered in blue flames, and struck the ground with an earthshaking roar, creating a deep crater on one side of the village.

As she followed the flaming trail back to where it had come from, she saw two very strange figures.

One was a muscular barbarian of some type who was holding onto two hammers. His face was pale and he was covered in sweat, but he was staring out across the cavern toward where the rock had landed.

The rock that...was now starting to move.

It had to be another gnome of some type, but it was a lot bigger than any of the ones she had seen before. Her gaze was dragged back to the second figure.

“Aaahh!” She couldn’t help screaming when she saw what he looked like and her breath whoooshed out of her as she paled, scrambling backwards.

He was surrounded in swirling blue flames that looked like crystal. They went from deep, dark blue to a more translucent flicker at the edge, and there were a thousand different shades in between. It was one of the most beautiful flames she had ever seen, but it didn’t stop her next reaction.

A demon!

An Outsider!

One of the evil things her father was always complaining about, on the rare occasions she got to see him. He spent more time talking about Outsiders than he did about her.... He had scared her with stories of them when she was a child.

She shuddered as she saw the being, an instinctive reaction to meeting something she had been afraid of for her entire life. There was also a thread of jealousy, because this figure had more of her father’s attention than she did.

She didn’t know a lot about them, but she knew Outsiders were a threat and were constantly attacking.... Fighting them was what took up most of the attention from the higher-Evolution people in the world.

She was frozen in indecision as she stared between Krana, the gnomes, and the demon.

She didn’t even notice Ismela coming up behind her or the sharp intake of breath as the wizardess caught sight of the demon.

---

Sam looked down towards where the warlord was starting to climb out of the pit and frowned. He was down to 17 mana and 25 aura. If he scraped every ounce of energy out of his body, he might be able to hit it once more, but that would leave him a useless wreck for at least a few minutes.

A new spiral of condensed crystal flame began to surge around him as he reached for his belt pouch and grabbed at the scrolls inside.

“Dad, use the scrolls!” he yelled to his father. "Fire first!"

He wanted to bombard the gnome from afar, hopefully slowing it down or killing it before it could get back up to them.

His dad was pale from the collision with the gnome and his Earthen Shield had still not returned. His stamina had to be almost tapped out now. He shouted an acknowledgement as he grabbed for his own scrolls.

They activated them at the same time.

The runes on the sheet in Sam’s hand ignited, flaring with energy as the lines began to burn. In an instant, the sigils came to life, twisting into real flames that began to consume the mana around them, and then the entire scroll ignited into a flaming sphere in his hand.

To the side, he could already see a similar fireball leaving his father’s hand, and as soon as his was formed, he hurled it toward the gnome.

BooooOOOOoommmMM!

BooOOOOOooMMMmm!

Two thunderous explosions of flame rocked the area as the Fire scroll spheres impacted the gnome warlord, striking it on the chest in a rolling echo that followed one after the other. They had originally been filled with Earth mana, and they were far stronger than a normal Basic spell scroll.

There was no Earthen Shield surrounding the gnome, and the strikes were powerful enough to hurl it back into the pit that it had just climbed out of. Whatever else the Essence Blade had done, it had definitely broken its runic defenses.

The warlord's dark grey surface started to char, turning red in areas, as the flames washed over it.

A sense of hope was filling Sam’s body as he turned towards the two shamans. The dwarf was about to reach them, but it didn’t look like she had the ability to fight them both at once, and if he wanted to win this, he had to take them out.

He threw a crystal fireball at each of them, one after the other, as fast as he could form them. Another four points of essence flowed away as the spells struck.

Bright yellow shields surrounded the shamans right before the spheres struck, which were swallowed a moment later by the crystal blue explosions that erupted around them. The impacts knocked them backwards, but as the flames faded away, it left them looking only a little worse for wear.

The dwarven woman was approaching them now and there was a gleaming, silver light shining all around her as she raised her hammer. She seemed to be shouting something. The head of her weapon shone brilliantly, like a shimmering diamond in the cavern, as energy gathered around it.

She struck down with her hammer and somehow the shield in front of her shattered, falling apart into shards of light. At the same time, the shaman raised its hand and lunged toward her, with a dull, yellow spike flaring around its fist.

Before he knew what was he doing, Sam was racing towards her, as the spiral of condensed flames around him separated out into a dozen crystal flame arrows. It was almost all the essence he had left and it dropped him to a single point of mana and 9 of aura.

Fortunately, his arrows were a lot stronger than they had been an hour before.

Kriiiiisssssh.

Kriissssshhh.

Four of the arrows left his hand at once, flaring as they soared across the cavern. Trails of sparkling aurora-like flames surged behind them, like comets in the night.

The arrows struck the shaman whose shield had just shattered and pierced through its right arm, ribs, right leg, and its head with sharp, hissing impacts. For a moment, it seemed like the gnome just hung there, frozen in the air.

Then the arrows ripped through to the other side, exploding into roars of hissing flame as they shattered apart its body in an intense eruption. Pieces of the shaman’s corpse went flying in every direction.

The dwarf was stumbling backwards, her hammer raised to block, and there was a scorch mark on her armor where the shaman had hit her, but she was alive. She spun to stare in the direction fom which the arrows had come and for a moment, her eyes and Sam’s met.

All Sam saw was a silver light that stretched on for eternity and that slowly swirled with possibilities. And then he was moving again, turning back toward the warlord.

Whoever she was, the young dwarf was helping them, and that made her a friend. He was glad he’d been able to save her.

The warlord was starting to stand up, its skin a muddled red from the heat of the Fire scrolls that had just scorched it. He grabbed at the Water scroll, activating it as he aimed at the gnome.

From above, he could already see a crystalline sphere of Water shooting down toward the gnome, from where his father was standing.

Hopefully, the combination of hot and cold would shatter it.

As soon as Sam’s scroll finished converting into a sphere of roiling water, he hurled it at the warlord. His father’s Water sphere was already there, crashing into the gnome’s hide in an explosion of sharp, whipping tendrils and explosive hissing steam.

ShhiiiIIiiiSSSSsss!

CraaaAAACcckk!!

The gnome’s skin was already beginning to crack apart. As Sam’s sphere struck it, the second Water scroll added an even greater explosion of steam and cutting force. There were more whistling hisses and the sharp pops of exploding stone.

The cutting blades of the Water spheres ripped at the gnome's body, gouging deep lash marks into it. The cloud of vaporized water around the warlord grew thicker, until he couldn’t see it anymore. It was only a blur of darkness at the center.

The dwarf was running towards the second shaman, which wasn’t far from her, and he saw her strange breaking spell appear again, ready to crack the shaman’s shield.

He wasn't sure how she would take the shaman down besides that. It was almost as if she knew he would follow up....

As soon as she struck, Sam was there, four more of the crystal flame arrows flaring through the broken surface as they tore the shaman apart.

Unlike the warlord, the shamans were almost defenseless without their shields. He didn’t know what skill the dwarf was using to crack their barrier, but without her help, it would have been impossible to deal with them so easily.

He didn’t want to know what other spells they were hiding. They had to be a lot stronger than the warders from before. It looked like they were stronger versions of the same evolutionary path.

There were only four arrows left floating around him. He was on the dregs of his essence as he turned back towards the warlord.

At that same moment, his father sprinted past him, heading down from the tunnel above. His hammers were raised above his head and surrounded by the golden glow of stamina as he channeled some new ability.

An echoing reverberation surrounded him, joining together with the humming vibrations that rose from the Hammers of Seven Earth in his hands. The runes on the sides of the weapons glowed as his mana poured into them.

Just as Jeric reached the warlord, his hammers started to sing. He leapt into the air, bringing them down in an enormous double blow at the warlord’s head.

The hammers slammed downward as the hammers' notes intensified, the humming vibrations shaking the air around him. The outer layer of the gnome’s skin shattered as they landed and chunks of stone exploded outwards.

The gnome warlord staggered, barely keeping its feet, as the hammers came down again. It had an incredible amount of endurance, but the repeated blows stunned it. Sam had already broken its runic defenses, and the combined scroll attacks had ripped off huge chunks of its skin.

Now, blow by blow, Jeric's hammers built into an echoing beat like the war drums of the earth had come alive.

The Song of Seven Earths began to shake the cavern, shuddering from the walls as the sonic force of each strike concentrated on the warlord.

The four crystal arrows next to Sam hummed as he waited for the right moment, his hopes hanging on his father’s attack. If they could just take care of this warlord..., everything would be alright.

Just a few moments longer and his dad should be able to break through its defenses and kill it.

The stacking damage from the Song of Seven Earths was continuing to build and there were minor vibrations shaking apart the surface of the warlord’s body.

At that instant, an actinic light filled the air, along with a furious shout from one of the new adventurers that Sam had forgotten about.

A cobalt-blue blast of lightning shot across the cavern, heading straight for him.

“Outsider Devil! Die!” Ismela screamed as she sent the lightning bolt flying towards Sam.

“No!” The young dwarf’s shout rose through the air as she tried to stop the attack, but she was too far away to do anything.

Her eyes grew wide with panic as she watched the bolt fall.