Chapter 75 - Crescendo (SD) (Patreon)

“Eeeek!” Witch Alorakana squealed as another rat was crushed to meat paste before her eyes. The swarm of vermin was unending, and their dead remains steadily piled up around the barrier. It worried Elrhain that these rats also came from the tunnel behind them.

The boy scoffed, tempted to get back at Alorakana for bullying Agwyn when she was such a coward. But the occasion wasn’t one for get-backs. It was best not to agitate adults when their life was in peril.f

“Uncle Tudor! We can help. The five of us have ignited all our nodes!”

Apparently, not everyone thought so. Vesiphis, along with the black meanie, Efa, Olwina and Ariana brought out their Nascent totems, ready for some action. Howell and the rest also had their lifesaving talismans in hand.

This, of course, agitated the hell out of Tudor, being the responsible adult he was.

“Absolutely not!” The dwarfish dhionne didn’t give them the time of the day. Fighting to the death differed from fighting under controlled conditions like back in Haragol village. One mistake, one shift in concentration would be all it took to lead to catastrophe.

Elrhain nodded, then pushed Agwyn forward. His girlfriend got the hint and walked up to the idiots.

“P-Pwease don’t go. W-what if those smelly rats get in? Annie can’t fight them alone!” She quivered with tears in her eyes.

The idiots awkwardly exchanged glances for a few seconds, not knowing what to do. Until Cadfael stepped forward. He was silent but positioned himself between Agwyn and the rats. This time, Agwyn turned a blind eye to any ulterior motives and the smirk on Cadfael’s lips as he glanced sideways at Elrhain.

…. Though she made a mental note of it.

Vesiphis and the rest hesitated for a while longer, then gave up. They circled Elrhain, Agwyn, Cati, Ysbail and Ruba like bodyguards.

「Kids don’t have a sense of danger.」 He complained. 「Always thinking the world revolves around them. That nothing could actually go wrong until something goes horribly wrong. Vesiphis has ways to go before becoming a qualified manager.」

「Shush. These assassins…. They have a plan. Those seven are obviously stalling. And that woman in white… wait, there’s something in her hand!」 said Agwyn. Elrhain’s eyes pricked before his vision zoomed in to where Agwyn was looking.

The glow was faint. And it didn’t look like anyone else had noticed. Only Elrhain’s supernatural sight, and Agwyn who was mentally connected to all of Elrhain’s senses, glimpsed it. The feeling was like when Elrhain had spotted the vine-bearded man. There might be soul-magic spells hiding whatever the woman in white was fidgeting with.

Elrhain pondered what to do. His hypersensitive ears picked up more roars coming from the tunnels that entered the cavern, accompanied by the sound of raging water.

He took a deep breath, then shouted at the top of his lungs, “SLUG WOMAN! THEY ARE STALLING! THERE IS SOMETHING IN THE WOMAN IN WHITE’S HAND AND THEY’RE COUNTING ON THAT TO GET US!”

Every head in that room snapped in his direction. No sooner than that, another devastating torrent of manna exploded from Cyra’s draconic form.

******

“After today’s attack, they will increase guards around the two children until not even a fly could sneak in. If any of the three sky realmers are present, breaking through will be hopeless.” The Impelakt spoke in a slow, measured tone.

“We are to assimilate?” Asked Reconer Galina.

“You are. The others need only stall. So they shall go for pure power. Reconer Galina, extend your hand.”
The Reconer did as told.

The shadow of the Impelakt did the same. A trickle of manna exited from his hand and merged with Galina’s.

Her eyes glowed white, and nausea washed over her. She supported herself by propping up her body with her free hand. A sudden influx of glyphs and knowledge overwhelmed her mind.

“T-This is.”

“[Spectral Sacrifice]. Reconer Galina, you have one task. This holy will remember your merits, as will the Impelakty for generations to come, but only if you succeed.”

“I hear and obey.” There was no hesitation in her voice.

As the Impelakt had said, she only had one task. Her comrades shall oblate their bodies and souls if need be to take pressure away from her.

The Impelakt gave a few more commands and a rare word of encouragement. His shadow then vanished as if it had never existed.

Less than an hour later, four more reconers joined them after using an ancillary riogh-heart to open a gateway to their location. Half a day after, they used the same method to infiltrate the Elder’s rest.

While not even out of the gateway, they first triggered multiple gheistrum outbreaks in all nearby manna-rioghs. This should distract most reinforcements for at least a few good minutes. They also commanded half of the mutant plague rat horde to flood into other tunnels and fill those with plague miasma.

The Earthlochian wards resisted only a heartbeat before the soul magic empowered by an ancillary riogh heart tore it apart.

Yet fate would not have it their way entirely. Their targets somehow foresaw the danger and had prepared strong defences.

The battle drew longer around Reconer Galina, even as the Faediaga Eldress rampaged. Until the prince consort noticed a crucial detail in their plans despite the subterfuge spell cast on the ancillary riogh heart.

But it mattered not. Galina’s preparations were almost over.

“Begin assimilation.” She commanded.

Five of her comrades disengaged, then gathered in a circle around her. The remaining two defended by throwing their bodies at the Faediaga’s spells. They grabbed onto her wings and legs and held on strong even as the faediaga tore their flesh apart.

They wouldn’t last long, but ten breaths were all they needed.

Each of the five took out an ancillary riogh-heart, which immediately got the Faediaga’s attention. She roared and slashed, and the blood of their comrades fell. The two reconers on the verge of death used whatever remaining manna they had to activate a particular spell on their own ancillary riogh hearts.

The manna inside the devices spiralled out of control before exploding in a rain of heat and light. The cavern quaked, and the children screamed. Large swaths of the rat horde vaporised in an instant.

The faediaga eldress was forced to back away, visibly wounded. Those explosions were equivalent to the full-powered might of a sky grade [Manna Burst] spell. Even she could not take them head-on with her bare body.

All of this happened in a few seconds. Still, it bought enough time for the five remaining reconers to swallow their ancillary riogh hearts whole.

They would not slowly assimilate as Galina did. They did not need command over the aspects etched into the devices. All they needed was the manna.

And manna, they would get.

Reconer Galina saw a group of dhionne, led by five oceanic realm Earthloch shamans rush out from the passageway behind their targets after clearing away waves of mutant plague rats. The Faediaga roars from the corridors also neared rapidly. Undoubtedly, reinforcement was also coming from other entrances. The gheistrum outbreaks would not hold them back for long. This was the den of the Earthloch elders after all.

But oceanic realmers would be far from enough.

Deep and berserk, the manna from the ancillary riogh-hearts pulsed forth. Each no weaker than the Faediaga Eldress in intensity.

Ancillary riogh hearts were expensive. Tens of high oceanic gheist cores and shards of manna-riogh hearts went into each, along with a single sky realm gheist core. They did not disappoint.

Their foes recoiled, then regrouped. They eyed the bulging, abominate forms of the five assimilated reconers warily.

Her comrades could not hold this state for long. They jumped at the faediaga eldress and grappled her onto the ground. Claws screeched and spells flared. One reconer, the healer of their team, lost her legs immediately before being thrown back with a lash of the faediaga eldress’s tail.

She got up after coughing out blood and innards, then jumped in again as her limbs regenerated faster than eye-blinks. Like leeches in a quagmire, they fought the faediaga eldress without regard to their lives to stop her from interrupting their leader.

Reconer Galina looked down at her hand. Most of the orb had turned into opaque specks of manna, as had her own body under her Reconer garbs. She inched closer to the gateway behind her, grasping the manna with her newfound powers.

Soon, it would be her turn to act.

******

“Impossible!” Alorakana said in fear. “H-How could they just break through the sky realm like it is nothing?! Even supreme talents can’t do that this nonchalantly. What… what manner of cursed dhionne sorcery is this?!”

Elrhain was speechless, listening to a bona fide witch complain about sorcery. But her worries were not unfounded.

“I’m guessing it’s a temporary boost. Whatever the attackers ate looked similar to the thing in the woman in white’s hand. But why is the leader taking so long to do the same thing….” He mused aloud. “Unless she isn’t.”

It was a relief when Shaman Maeog, along with a few more faces he didn’t recognise, jumped into the fray. Tudor joined them to reinforce Cyra, an elderly woman taking over his task.

The five ‘pseudo’ sky realmers packed a punch, as evident from Maeog and Tudor’s grunts. They no longer cast spells or attacked with their spirit totems, going for brute force with beastly growls. Yet the intelligent shine in their eyes remained, the five successfully locking down Cyra and the Earthloch cultivators.

Maeog swung around his hammer-like staff and bashed one attacker away. The attacker’s chest caved in, and he coughed out blood and pus. But his wounds healed in the blink of an eye, and before Maeog could jump back, the attacker grabbed his sword and threw the old man like a sling.

He crashed onto a half smashed boulder, smashing it completely this time. Dust rose like a smokescreen, and from inside, a truck-sized ball of ice flew out, hitting the attacker square in the face. It did little damage.

Shaman Maeog chanted a spell, and the ice ball unfolded into a massive snake twenty meters long and two across. Other shamans, including Tudor and the old woman, also summoned such… beast companions?

「They look like the spirits we met on the night of the blessings.」Agwyn noted.

The new additions brought in a magnitude more destructive power. The cavern was all but ruined, with the mural pillars and rocky outcrops smashed to bits. It quacked every time another spell from a shaman clashed with the berserk punch of an attacker, neigh unrecognisable from what it had been just a few minutes ago. Not to mention all the rat corpses lying around, the burnt smell of rotten minced meat permeating in the air.

“I-It’s not gonna collapse, is it?” Agwyn asked the old shamaness. She winced as gravel fell from the ceiling onto their barrier.

“The caves aren’t so shoddy, deary. It’s been reinforced with manna for hundreds of thousands of cycles.” The old woman spoke as she continued to put manna in the barrier. “The gravel falling is only the loose rocks. You don’t have to worry. Besides,”

Even strained, her toothless grin spoke of her confidence.

“The Faediaga are here.”

As she finished, familiar torrents of water drilled into the cavern from every entrance. They were like Cyra in her watery form, if not as intense. But the torrents raged, blood from the gheistrums they had slain mixed with the water like whirlpools of red.

Each torrent swivelled around the attackers. Some formed into draconic beasts, and others remained as water seeking to bind the pseudo sky realmers in prisons.

“Eldress!” One faediaga with a broken crown roared. It was a maiden by her voice, and her voice was urgent.
“Naira, just in time!” Cyra roared back gleefully. “Only half of you came? Where are the rest?” She asked, addressing the few dozen faediaga, before sending a beam of blue manna in the woman in white’s direction.

One attacker blocked the spell in its path with a pained grunt, his hand shattering into ice. But the lost limb grew back just as fast.

“Eldress, gheistrum rife every cavern. It’s the same in the underground sanctuary. The elderly are looking after the youngest, while the others fend the rampant gheists along with Earthlochian cultivators.”

“T-The sanctuary?” Cyra stammered, then roared with renewed fury. “Not only do you go after my daughter, but my flock too?!”

Her manna rose higher, and the cavern quacked rougher. As if to match her rage, the five fake sky realmers also wantonly released spell after spell as if manna was just a number.

No matter what Cyra and the others did, they could not get closer to the woman in white.

“This is bad.” Elrhain quipped. “They went from offensive to defensive without hesitation. H-Hey, why are we staying here in the first place? Can’t we retreat?”

“Amazing idea!” Alorakana cheered while Cadfael scoffed.

“No can do deary.” The old shamaness said. “The cavern on the other side crawl with these rats. They fill everywhere they breathe with a lake’s worth of poison clouds. I can’t guarantee that oceanic level safeguards can defend against that, while only the Chieftainess can move this barrier. The gheistrum hordes stamped up from the Dim Subterranean Abyss too. It’s like every manna-riogh under the Elder’s rest went crazy all at once. How… intriguing, what did the Impelakty discover I wonder….”

“That’s not the point! The slug woman could’ve just taken all us children and escaped after realising she couldn’t kill the woman in white. She wouldn’t have gotten injured because of those explosions! So why do we have to play by their games? Their target is obviously us two. Escaping would’ve forced the assassins to chase. But look at them! They are solid but definitely not as fast as Cyra flying at full speed in her watery form.… wait…. Where’s the woman in white?” Elrhain flailed his chubby arms up and down while Agwyn nodded along, hugging him tightly. He almost missed the woman in white dissolving into a starry cloud while her armour and spears dropped with clangs. The cloud shimmered for a second and entered the portal the attackers came from.

“Huh, she escaped alone?” His voice had not left his mouth when the remaining five attackers screamed with a beastly sonic boom. They forwent all defences, not caring for the claws and fangs tearing apart their flesh.

Their manna rose, then concentrated into points of power around their hearts.

“Stay back! They will oblate their Marrow cores!” Cyra shouted, and the Earthlochian cultivators and Faediaga scampered to the periphery of the cavern. Their lifesaving spells rose in defence to shield the coming blast.

Cyra enveloped the children with her serpentine body, squeezing inside the barrier. Then she, along with Maeog, Tudor, the old shamaness and even Alorakana, frantically fed all their remaining manna into it.

All this happened in just a few heartbeats. After that, all Elrhain saw was white.

His ears rang and his eyes stung with pain.

He felt a hand on his shoulder.

Someone tugged his clothes.

He flew. Something deep inside him snapped, and agony a million times worse than the pain from the blast overwhelmed his soul. The last thing he heard was a blood-curling scream of a little girl he could no longer feel with his mind.