Echoes of War, Ch 37: Titan Spells (Patreon)

As Sam finished handing things to his avatar, a faint awareness tickled the edge of his mind, and he looked back toward Aster Fall. His eyes narrowed as he caught sight of a tiny streak of blue-white energy shooting toward him through the Void. It wasn’t very fast, but the energy signature was unmistakable.

Aster Fall was invisible from here, but the total distance wasn’t too far. It was just close enough, for example, for a small ship full of Silver Nagas to be chasing him.

“Of course they are,” he sighed. It was nearly impossible to keep the nagas out of a fight, even if it was one that would kill them.

His sudden disappearance and the message home must have been enough to send them into a storm of action. They’d probably been on the Ice Drake within five minutes of his disappearance, with the full intent to track him down and join in on whatever he was up to—the more dangerous, the better.

The nagas lived for battle. No matter how much he wanted to keep them from dying, they refused to allow it. He didn’t have long to decide what to do about them and a sense of frustration warred with gratitude in his chest, but since they’d come, all he could do was bring them along. There was no time to go back to Aster Fall and even sending them back might tempt the Vos’Rekan to head there instead.

What was more, the nagas were born for battle. They wanted nothing more than to fight and die beside him. He had to respect that. They would feel like their lives were wasted if they died of old age instead.

Instead of continuing along the path he’d already chosen, he suddenly disappeared in a streak of silver light, heading for the ship. He couldn’t leave them out there alone. If they wanted a battle, they could come with him.

A moment later, he appeared in front of the Ice Drake. His movements were quick as he reached out with a hand and surrounded the entire ship in a field of astral energy. He glanced over his shoulder to see the Vos’Rekan already turning toward him, so there was no time to chat.

He saw Sleset’s scaly face fixed on him with blazing eyes as the naga raised his four blades into the air and let out a resounding hiss of approval. Behind him, 400 other nagas and 200 astral golems stood in steady ranks. It was all of the forces he’d deployed at the relic.

The golems were intelligent aura artifacts and could make many decisions on their own. For them to be here, it meant the nagas had quickly told them what was going on. They must have agreed that blocking a threat to their creator was more important than defending the relic.

Then Sam and the ship both disappeared into a streak of silver light as he flashed back to the position he’d had before. The Vos’Rekan roared in the distance as it slowly swung back to track him. It didn’t look happy to see its prey bouncing around in front of it. At least it was more pissed off than before.

Hopefully, it would keep chasing him.

As the Ice Drake and its inhabitants reappeared, Sam stood at the head of the ship, maintaining the silver bubble of astral energy around it as he increased the speed. The enchantments on the hull blazed like a sun was burning through from the inside as the ship leapt forward at five times the speed it’d had before.

Waves of aura poured out from him, stabilizing the enchantments as he held them at a higher level than they should have been able to maintain without exploding. Flames radiated from him in every direction and poured away from the hull, making it look like the ship had turned into a shooting star.

His expression was hard as he turned to look at Sleset, but he couldn’t decide whether to scold him or to approve of his choice. Before he could say anything, Sleset gave him an enthusiastic hiss, baring his fangs with a naga grin. His desire for battle made his posture tall. The silver lightning bolts and jagged patterns across his scales blazed with energy as he bathed in Sam’s aura.

The naga turned to look at the Vos’Rekan in the distance, taking in the five hundred mile-long beast his lord was about to fight, and his grin grew wider. He pointed at it with one of the curved blades in his hands.

“Chasing,” Sleset said confidently. 

It was a word from their culture, when they were hunting prey and encountered someone in the area. It suggested he planned to take on the Vos’Rekan by himself and Sam could just watch.

It was impossible for Sam to not laugh. He looked at the nagas on the deck as he shook his head. He was just glad his family wasn’t with them.

“I was trying to save your life, but it seems you want to risk it,” he said with a chuckle. He couldn’t decline their help now, so all he could do was thank them for coming. “Your dedication will be sung for a thousand years. Very well, take your places and prepare for battle.”

“It will be a great fight, my lord,” Sleset said with a pleased hiss. “We are Oathbound nagas, so how could we miss it? We would not be your Silver Army if we sat by and did nothing. Your name will echo from the skies.”

With a quick glance at the Vos’Rekan, Sleset began to organize the ranks behind him, preparing them to cast enhancement spells and to create joint formations. A silver light shone around the nagas now that they were within Sam’s aura, making their scales shine with reflected silver stars. Their strength was soaring from the Blessing of Silver Stars.

As Sam pointed the ship toward the distance and pulled it in a quick jump along another astral thread, new plans surged through his mind as he considered how to integrate them into the fight. The Blessing of Silver Stars and their unique combination attack and defense abilities as his followers might be worth far more than he’d imagined. He’d tested that out a few times, but he hadn’t imagined using it against a Vos’Rekan until now.

Perhaps it would be useful. He glanced at the description of the ability again.

The class incorporates elements of crafting, battle, and leadership. Artifacts and golems crafted by your hand will be innately imbued with a version of your astral aura that will enhance their abilities. Allies will be blessed by your aura, receiving a bonus to their attributes and skills. If they fight alongside you, your presence will strengthen them. Those who swear loyalty to you will receive increased benefits over casual followers.

Followers sworn directly to you will receive 20% of your Charisma to all attributes, an upgrade of one tier to all skills with a maximum of Epic, and a unique ability to attack and defend as a group.

Artifacts crafted by your hand will be innately imbued with your astral aura, granting them an astral blessing that suits their nature and improving their characteristics by a single tier or 20%, as long as your power is great enough to allow it.

Many of the nagas were near the peak of the Third Evolution and as Silver Nagas, they were strong and agile. The 20% boost to their attributes and their group abilities would be an important element in this fight.

He had 3,023 Charisma now, which meant each of the nagas would receive 604 to all of their attributes, for a total gain of 4,228. It was similar to boosting their strength by around 40 levels in the Third Evolution. He gained 150 attributes per level with a Heroic Lord-tier class, which would make it about 30 levels for him, but most classes got around 100.

The nagas’ levels had been growing on Aster Fall with bonus experience from the Flaws they were closing and then again after hunting the spirits of madness. The original generation was near the peak of the Third Evolution, while the rest had an average level of around 320.

The boost wasn’t going to let them face the Vos’Rekan on their own, but it was enough to push some of them into the Fourth Evolution. For the rest, especially those who were still in their Second Evolution, it was enough to push them directly into the early Third. Overall, it gave him the equivalent of nearly a hundred Fourth Evolution fighters and three hundred Third Evolution ones.

It was a sharp contrast to the forces he’d had before. There was a big difference between fighting alone and having his army with him, not least because they offered a massive pool of mana for joint enchantments and each of them could use scrolls and the equipment he’d crafted them on the way back to Aster Fall.

Not to mention, all of their equipment was crafted by him with an astral blessing. There were dozens of different effects, from enhancing their elemental attacks, to faster healing and mana regeneration, attribute enhancements, enhanced clarity of thought, and improved defense. Some of it could unleash all of the stored energy at once in an attack.

That was a lot of stored mana and spell damage. Thirty years of it.

The Vos’Rekan had high resistances, but some of it might still get through. His options had just expanded, and as he considered the group enchantment he’d used at the king’s palace in Veritan, his plan for the Vos’Rekan changed.

The only problem was getting through the Vos’Rekan’s dimensional bubble to attack it from a distance. Ideas surged in his mind as he checked on the beast’s location. Then he pointed the ship’s prow at a large blue star that burned in the distance, shining like a beacon.

It was well outside the range of the World Seal.

*****

The light of the blue star washed across the ship’s sails as Sam pulled the Ice Drake off the astral path and headed straight for it. Beside him now, there were three avatars that looked exactly like him, except that they were dressed in different clothes.

The Vos’Rekan roared again, its anger growing as it continued to chase, but at the same time it was growing frustrated that it hadn’t been able to eat him yet. A trail of destruction stretched out behind it, the remains of asteroid belts, Void beasts, and everything else that had got in its way, including two small planets around distant suns that it had eaten as it passed by.

It kept turning its head back toward Aster Fall, and sometimes to other sources of energy, showing that it was getting distracted, but it was still following. Sam glanced in the direction of Aster Fall as he sensed the World Seal, and then he nodded.

This was far enough.

The flight here had taken a few hours and his avatars were ready. Each of them held a glowing golden spear and was equipped with the best spare artifacts that he had available.

It was mostly equipment he’d made for the nagas, so it was at least designed for the peak of the Third Evolution, but there were some things for himself that he’d created as tests or practice and then discarded when they weren’t quite what he had in mind, like a shield amulet that was now around the neck of his first avatar.

It was called the Amulet of Stellar Deflection. It worked, but it was about two feet across and wouldn’t shrink any further. He’d messed up part of the spatial enchantment that compressed it when he’d been experimenting with dimensional enchantments. It made it much less useful than the majority of artifacts he had, which could change their size freely, but it wasn’t a problem for one of his avatars to carry it now.

They were the same height as him and now that they had absorbed enough energy, they looked completely solid. Unless you were able to sense the small differences between his real body and his avatars, it would be hard to tell them apart. It should work to distract the Vos’Rekan.

“I’ll call you One, Two, and Three,” he said as he looked at the three. They didn’t need names and they didn’t have distinct personalities, so he just gave them numbers. To anyone else, these avatars were him. They were a part of his mind. When the avatars nodded back at him, it was like watching himself in a mirror.

His mind held three smaller areas now where the actions and awareness of the avatars resided. It was a bit like reading four scrolls at once, but nothing he couldn’t handle. Behind the avatars, the nagas and golems were arranged in more complex ranks than they had been before. Now, they were divided into three sections, one for each of the avatars. Each group had about 200 troops.

As they headed toward the blue sun, the Vos’Rekan was quickly closing the distance behind them. It would catch up any minute now. The edge of the dimensional bubble was leading the way, twisting space in front of it.

From here, the beast looked even more massive. It was large enough to block out the entire area of the Void behind it. It was like watching a continent fly toward him. The spikes on its back were mountains. Unlike before, however, the vortex in the beast’s mouth was minimal. Its long fangs were bared instead and a dark black glow radiated from the stony protrusions that were a mile long, creating a chasm like the earth was about to swallow him whole.

Above that cavernous mouth, the Vos’Rekan’s yellow eyes shone between the rocky protrusions on its nose like two evil moons rising over the mountains. It wanted to swallow him directly, without even using its dimensional abilities.

As Sam kept his eyes on it, he sent out orders. Instructions poured from the three avatars to their contingents and the three sections split away from the ship. A moment later, the avatars raised their hands and each of the teams was surrounded in a silver shield of astral energy. They continued to spread outward, creating a triangle with Sam at the center as he stepped off the ship and put it away.

He stood in the Void as he took a deep breath of the chaos winds, his eyes locked on the Vos’Rekan. He was prepared for a battle to the death, but he wasn’t planning on it. The beast had followed him here, but now the hard part began. He had to injure it enough to drive it away. Otherwise, it would head straight back to Aster Fall.

All around him, lines of astral energy from the three points of the triangle began to congregate.

Each avatar was channeling mana from the nagas, creating a triple-layered formation that shone with complex runes along the lines. Mana and essence swirled around them, swiftly building a pyramidal structure with Sam at the point. Without hesitating, the avatars began to combust auras, pouring stored essence into the enchantment to make it even stronger.

Most of the auras were Ice-aligned this time, which made the astral energy glow with a blue tint. Sam had a 40% benefit from his Adept of Ice trait when it came to using Ice elemental energy, so he’d settled on it for this battle. It would help strengthen his spells and make his avatars’ abilities more efficient. It also made a strong foundation for the enchantment.

The intensity of mana throughout the pyramidal enchantment increased as the nagas poured in mana from their equipment. It was followed by hundreds of scrolls as they pulled them out and began to activate them. Sam hadn’t held back on supplying them from his storage. He’d made an endless quantity of scrolls over the thirty-year return to Aster Fall, and this was the best time to use them.

None of the equipment or scrolls was past the Third Evolution, but the sheer intensity of power the vast number radiated had a strength all its own. At the center of the enchantment, Sam reached upward as he released a massive burst of astral energy, which turned into a silver vortex.

A Starlight Vortex began to spiral in the dark, gathering spare astral energy from the Void as it sent rays of essence down into the enchantment, boosting the mana and essence regeneration speed of everyone within range. The last time he’d used this spell in battle, it had been against the Outsider near Alora’s world. Now, it would help him again.

At the same time, Sam’s aura grew more intense. It blazed in a silver wave from four origins, himself and his avatars, as it spread across the groups of nagas. Their attributes increased as starlight began to shine from their scales. At the same time, his Terror’s Bane trait bolstered their mind, shielding them from any fear-based effects that the Vos’Rekan might have.

Then he began to mold the astral energy all around him. The essence from the combusted auras and mana was dense, and he relied on all of his abilities as he wove it into a complex enchantment.

His Aura Weaver and Runelord traits steadied his mind, and his innate abilities for Essence Control, Rune Formation, and Spell Forging made his work quick and efficient as he pulled together the different threads and braided them into a single form, one that connected him to the three divisions. Lines of power flowed from the nagas to him and back again.

The avatars acted as enchantment nodes that intensified the power passing by them as they supported him in maintaining the spell. They also continued combusting auras, constantly adding to the power available. It was burning his wealth, but it was the best way to fight here. None of the nagas or even Sam himself would be able to do much damage to the Vos’Rekan on their own, so they had to work together to make something stronger.

The scrolls and spells from the nagas were caught by the enchantment and held frozen, their power pouring into the runic lines. From there, a wave of Shatter Aura turned them into loose energy, and then that mass of power poured into the lines of icy silver power. Here and there, the golems spread out, stabilizing the energy and acting as minor enchantment nodes, their mana cores purifying the chaos into a streamlined whole.

The pyramidal enchantment thinned out, its shape transforming into the brilliant lines of a four-pointed star with Sam at the top. The connections resembled blades of condensed astral energy as they hummed with enough force to make the space around them tremble. An explosive power filled his Sam’s muscles as he took control of the enchantment and Intensified it even more, making it shine brighter.

This enchantment was based on a racial memory he’d inherited of a titan group spell called the Fourfold Star, one that they’d used to hunt Vos’Rekan in the past. It was designed for four Titans, and it combined their strengths into one while covering their weaknesses. Under Sam’s control, the blades of energy between the stars could both cut through spatial distortions and stabilize the space around them. It was intended to tear apart the Vos’Rekan’s dimensional bubble when it was stronger than them and let the titans close in, where their individual strength could punch holes through the much larger beast.

With his three avatars taking the place of the other titans and his Silver Army pouring energy into the spell to maintain it, it was close to the original intent. Intensifying the aura of it was just a cherry on top that made it more effective. The titans built well, both in their crafts and in their enchantments.

Most group spells like this put a heavy demand on the participants, but this one left everyone free to do their own thing as long as they maintained the flow of energy to the head star, which was Sam. Even now, the nagas and his avatars were turning toward the Vos’Rekan as they prepared more individual attacks. Their powers would be boosted from the spell too, just like his. Even their use of scrolls would be enhanced, which was important because the group enchantment was already placing a burden on their mana.

The golems weren’t able to contribute much mana of their own, since they didn’t regenerate it as easily as a living being, but they were an unexpected blessing in stabilizing the disparate energies into one. The free aura from the combusted auras combined with the mana from the army and then the golems helped to stabilize it before Sam gathered it all and fused it together into pure astral essence.

Hopefully, it would be enough.

At that moment, the Vos’Rekan closed in with a roar that splintered the Void. The leading edge of the dimensional bubble around it slammed into the Fourfold Star, nearly crushing it in an instant. Cracks spread across the golem’s armor as the nagas shuddered under the impact.

Sam growled as he poured out his essence and slashed with the golden spear in his hand. The lines of the group spell burned brighter in response as it punched through the beast’s dimensional wave. It was like a spear stabbing into an ocean tide. The dimensional wave curled around them as a tunnel formed.

Pressure crashed down on every side, but it was loose and chaotic, rolling away in places at the same time as it tried to push inward. The blades of the star sliced through it steadily as Sam ran forward, pulling the spell and the army along with him.

The Void was full of crashing and rolling energies in his Dimensional Sight as they broke through. A moment later, they were inside the dimensional wave, their formation still burning brightly as they headed straight for the Vos’Rekan’s fifty-mile-wide maw.