32. Mortal Demigods (Patreon)
Content
Damien swung open the window and soared into the night sky with levitation. As a B grade mage, Damien could sense the movement of mana to a certain extent but even a random citizen could feel the enormous movement of mana in the air.
The ground rumbled as the towering city walls began to rise into the night sky. Damien then looked to the center of the city and saw the Royal palace glow a brilliant blue color. It was similar to Dalon’s hands while rune engraving but on the scale of a palace.
Soon a booming voice resounded from the palace, and Damiens instantly recognized the serious voice as the King. “Citizens of Kassinki, a pack of Wyverns are heading towards us from the north. Defensive measures are being put in place, please retreat to the nearest underground bunker for safety. I call upon the assistance of any A-grade mages, you will be rewarded handsomely.”
The message ended and Damien witnessed people running out of their homes, some still in their nightwear. They all ran towards designated underground shelters.
Damien knew he couldn’t participate against an A-grade threat with his pathetic strength, but he was certain he could watch from afar without much danger. He made sure Fay was hiding in the basement of the tavern before ascending into the sky once again.
The enormous city walls had surged to three times their original height and now towered over the entire city, the walls glowed with a slight golden hue, “Magical reinforcement…” Damien muttered as he continued to survey the surroundings.
“When this was a game, Wyverns were considered ‘regional bosses’, they would spawn randomly in the wilderness and the player would be alerted about their location and given a quest. If the player didn’t defeat the boss in the given time the boss would despawn and the player would lose the chance for great rewards…”
Damien hummed as he thought more deeply, “But since this is the real world now, those regional bosses never despawn… I have never seen how a city would defend itself against such a threat, it's a good opportunity to observe.”
“Now how is the palace glowing like that…'' Damien squinted his eyes at the palace as it was almost too blinding to look at. “That amount of mana should be impossible… unless there's a mana vein nearby.”
Damien then nodded thoughtfully, “It only makes sense that cities would be built upon a mana vein, otherwise this level of defense would be impossible.”
Suddenly the enormous mana collecting around the palace dispersed and a golden hue surrounded the entire city, “A spell disruption field?” Damien muttered in amazement.
Damien inspected the thin golden layer and as a mage he knew this was the bane of all mages. It was a shield that would consume itself to destroy incoming spells. “I guess covering the entire city in an actual shield would be too ridiculous…”
Damien then looked past the city walls and was surprised to see small golden blobs of light littering the horizon. Squinting his eyes Damien could just about make out the closest blob of light, “Oh it seems all the towns and villages are being covered in actual shields.”
Damien then noticed mana flowing out of the city towards these blobs of light along underground lines, “Are those the equivalent of power lines? So the palace draws up power from the massive mana vein below the earth and then distributes it around the kingdom like a power station?”
Suddenly the mana in the air shook and began to gather towards the Mage Tower, the golden runes on the white tower gradually began to light up.
“Is it charging up like a battery?” Damien was amazed by the sight. Within a few minutes, the white tower shone like a beacon of hope with golden radiance.
“Wyverns are usually a B grade threat on their own but if they come as a pack it can be considered an A grade threat. Luckily a Dragon isn’t coming otherwise even with all these preparations the city would be wiped out. They are considered S rank threats for a reason.”
A terrifying screech was heard from the north causing Damien to turn his attention to the approaching flock of Wyverns, the darkness didn’t impede Damien's vision as he counted twenty adult Wyverns littering the skyline.
They were between ten and twenty meters long with varying shades of scales. Once the Wyverns were within range of the city, Damien noticed a few powerful auras explode out across the city.
Nearby in the eastern wing, Damien witnessed a fairy shoot through the sky, she was tiny with little white wings and long pink hair. Her aura however was enough to almost suffocate Damien as she passed by.
“Amaltheia Magigrace, the ‘Queen’ of the Mage Tower,” Damien remarked as he recognized the fairy. “A grade in spirit magic.”
Damien glanced at the university but noticed that the Dean didn’t make his move, “That old man is likely too engrossed in research to even notice what's going on.” Damien chuckled to himself.
Two other powerful auras entered the night sky from the north and west wings of the city, “Their auras are so suffocating it's like trying to look at the sun directly.”
The three miniature suns of aura stood side by side in the sky and observed the approaching threat.
***
“Owl what are you doing here you bastard,” a tiny but profound voice filled with anger entered the old man's ears. The elderly man who sat casually on a cushion suspended in the air gave the little fairy a grin, showing all his missing teeth. “You know me Amaltheia, nothing gets me more excited than shiny coins,” he responded in a croaky voice.
The fairy buzzed around his cushion with a clear pout on her face. “I don’t like you old man, you creep me out.”
Owl just chuckled to himself at the fairies' remarks.
“Stop fighting, let's work together.” The old man and fairy stopped fighting and looked towards a tall half elf who emerged from a portal. He was dressed in black with a weird purple swirling pattern.
“Oh hi Jannalor~ how’s being the president of the guild treating ya?” Amaltheia said happily and flew over to sit on his shoulder. The half elf gave her a weary smile. He then looked at Owl with a disgusted expression, “What can a Psychic mage even do in this fight?”
Owl just shrugged, “I’m just here for moral support.” Jannalor sighed and surveyed the east side of the city, “I guess the Dean will not be joining us…”
“That darn old man is just as useless as Owl!” Amaltheia exclaimed, causing Jannalor to flick her head, “Don’t insult the Dean like that, he taught both of us magic after all, although our year groups were three hundred years apart…”
Amaltheia cried out as she rubbed her head, “Are you calling me old? Three hundred years is nothing to a fairy!”
Just before Jannalor could apologize they noticed the Wyverns were in the range of the Mage Towers weapon.
Jannalor eyed Amaltheia and she nodded, she took a small device out of her spatial ring. If Damien saw the device he would call it a laser pointer. The little fairy pointed the device towards the Wyverns and pressed a button.
The enormous amount of mana that was pulsing around the golden runes lining the tower, rushed towards the top and collected. Within seconds the dense mana was accumulated and fired towards the Wyverns.
A beam of light soared across the sky, it was so bright that anyone within a thousand miles of the city would believe it was in fact day time instead of the dead of night.
The pure beam of light was a hundred meters in diameter and slammed into the Wyverns with a speed that the poor flying lizards had no chance to react to.
The attack lasted a mere second and the darkness of night reappeared as quickly as it was gone. The golden runes lining the Mage Tower had lost their shine, but the ones near the base began to gather power again.
“It will be ready to fire again in ten minutes,” Amaltheia commented and the two other A-grade mages nodded in agreement. Jannalor then cracked his knuckles, “Time for us to step in.”
Owl quickly noticed with clairvoyance that the beam had killed two twenty-meter wyvern’s and their corpses were falling from the sky towards the city walls. Although the walls would survive they could deal heavy damage to the enchantments.
With a nonchalant flick of his wrist, the two wyvern corpses that weighed at least 10 tons each were abruptly stopped in the air. Two portals appeared below the corpses and Owl moved his finger causing the corpses to fall through the portals.
Jannalor nodded at Owl and they silently agreed to split the money of the corpses. Now only eighteen wyverns remain. Jannalor’s eyes turned pitch black as he chanted his spell, a small pitch-black rift formed next to him and he reached his arm inside. His face contorted in pain for a second as his eyes rapidly switched between pitch black and bright hot white.
The space around him trembled and warped as void affinity mana poured out of the rift, Jannalor then pulled his arm out of the rift causing it to suddenly collapse. His arm was wrapped in void tendrils that seemed almost too alien to look at.
He then brought his arm and slashed in a downwards motion. A slash of the void that seemed to ignore distance appeared on a wyverns body, and it screamed in pain as one of its massive legs fell to the ground. However Jannalor wasn’t finished, he slashed and slashed again. With every movement of his hand, a wave of the void that crossed space in an instant and was undodgeable appeared on the wyvern's enormous body, severing limbs with ease.
Although Amaltheia took a minute to admire Jannalors amazing control over space and void mana, she began to work her own magic. After a minute long chant her tiny body glowed a bright white, appearing as a miniature star in the night sky and then her body seemed to expand rapidly in size.
An enormous spiritual avatar of a yeti appeared above her, it was kilometers tall and wide and dwarfed the night sky. It’s head alone was bigger than the royal palace which just showed its ridiculous size. The titanic spiritual yeti let out a thunderous roar and swung its fist towards the wyverns.
Most of them easily evaded, but the yeti’s fist still connected with one of the smaller wyverns, causing a sonic boom as it sent the corpse flying all the way back to the Kazimir mountains.
The remaining fifteen wyverns decided to launch their own counter attack. They all began charging up their breaths, Jannalor used his reach through space to slice at their necks, stopping the attack from five of them. The other ten however were able to release their breaths.
Beams of different colours descended upon the capital. They impacted the golden hue shield that wrapped the city, the shield burned its own structural integrity to interfere with the mana within the breaths.
The atmosphere boiled as it became superheated from the mana being forcefully destroyed and warping the spells integrity. Owl casually contained the balls of superheated atmosphere and threw them towards the ocean that's south of the city.
Despite the golden hue’s defense and being supplied endless mana from the palace, a single beam from a twenty meter long red scaled wyvern managed to penetrate the shield. The superheated beam of mana smashed into the north side of the city, destroying a couple of buildings in the process.
“Tsk.” Jannalor cursed, “If only that old fool could leave his research for a single moment and help us out…”
***
Damien was levitating in the air and watching the fight from afar, “They say A grade mages are like walking demigods. When a mage makes a contract with a spirit or obtains an elemental stone their power and comprehension of that school of magic will skyrocket. To compare a B grade and A grade mage is like comparing an automatic rifle to a nuclear submarine.”
Despite it hurting his eyes, Damien watched from a distance as the yeti that looked like an incarnation of a god caused sonic booms every time it moved, “There's a reason Amaltheia’s nickname is the ‘Tiny Giant’.” Damien said while chuckling.
Damien also found Jannalors usage of space and void magic very impressive, “The Grandmaster of all the guilds in Kassinki, Jannalor. If I had to rank the powers of A grade mages on the continent he would be in the top five.”
“Amaltheia’s magic looks impressive but it's only practical purpose is for destroying large armies or fighting large monsters. Considering there's only twenty known A grade mages on the continent I would rank her around 10th.”
Damien then thought of the final person there, “Owl would easily rank 20th, Psychic mages are the weakest after all. Look, all he can do is move corpses around because otherwise the wyverns mana circuits will defend themselves from his mana.”
Damien calmly watched the rest of the battle, the mage tower ended up firing three times in total, Jannalor killed 10 of the wyverns by himself and Amaltheia with the help of the mage tower killed the rest. Owl just moved the corpses and protected some people from falling buildings.
Eventually, the final Wyvern corpse fell through a portal and the battle was over, “As expected, with the home advantage and hiding behind this magic disruption shield the Wyverns never really had a chance. If the battle actually got bad the Dean might make a move.”
Damien shuddered slightly thinking about the Dean of the university. If he had to place him on the rankings he would easily be the first place, “Luckily for everyone that old man is only interested in knowledge and keeps out of mortal affairs. In fact even if Kassinki was invaded I'm sure he would stay out of it as long as the university was left alone.”
Damien let out a long sigh, “I need to reach A grade as soon as possible, it's a shame that A grade in Psychic magic is so weak compared to the other schools. Not to mention a Psychic elemental stone does not exist and a Psychic spirit is one of the rarest.”
Damien then grinned, “But who needs luck finding things when I know the location before anyone else? I should also raise my Space Magic to A grade. Maybe then I can compete with some of the lower rank powerhouses…”
Letting out a final sigh, Damien flew back down towards the tavern’s bedroom.