Ch.28 [Both] Dynamite and Warfare (Patreon)

A/N: Siege warfare: in medieval warfare, the fight ends if an army cannot breach a fortress’ walls. There’s literally nothing for soldiers to do except wait for a retreat. Range: Cannons can shoot 450 to 900 meters (1,800 for siege cannons), and ballista can shoot ~300 meters. The Goldenspire troops are just over 200 meters away. ]

-

The representatives overlooked Goldenspire's vast army from the walls. There was a fleet of griffins, thunderstags, and shadowmantas, flying black manta rays with studded, poisonous tails. They also brought battle rams, massive creatures resembling baby elephants with ram horns, and earthshakers, slow 40-ton rock golems that shook the ground, preventing archers from attacking during sieges.

Trebuchets had large boulders loaded, ready to catapult them into my walls. Fires blazed through the area, lighting the path for the soldiers and giving archers fuel to send fire arrows over our walls to kill our people.

This was warfare, a truly dirty and disgusting matter.

General Thimes rode a griffin in the center, and in the back was an archwizard on a wyvern, waiting for the pre-war conference to conclude before starting the calamity spell.

A calamity spell raised the stakes, but it wasn't practical. Calamity spells aren't explosions but rather powerful forms of conventional magic with a wide area of effect. For example, water calamity spells can create floods that destroy crop fields, destroy houses, and drown people, and earth spells can trigger massive earthquakes. In effect, they're intentional natural disasters.

There are limitations. The mage who casts it must see what they were casting it on and has to survive it themselves. There was also a range for the magic to connect, requiring mages to be at a height lower than what archers could hit.

The chant required 256 lines or more, took 30 minutes to recite, and the mage couldn't mess it up, or it'd fail. Just chanting one required intense concentration.

Most importantly, they required stored magic. No mage could release a calamity spell that changed the entire environment with their magic alone. Therefore, they saved magic in crystal balls for years or decades to use for the spells. If the caster messed up the spell, it would deplete the mana and accomplish nothing.

Still—

For most, breaking an archwizard's concentration as they flew through the air was futile, so people ran for their lives. However, we could, and it would be my top priority. After all, if they completed that spell, it would destroy Sundell and take our kingdom with it.

I was serious.

"ARE ALL THE REPRESENTATIVES THERE?!" General Thimes shouted, unaware of how effective amplification magic was.

"We are," I calmly replied, speaking into an amplification magic circle on the back of my gauntlet, using it like a microphone.

"GOOD!" he yelled back. "WE'RE HERE TO—"

BOOOOM!

Before he could begin, an explosion sounded, and the wall the representatives stood on violently shook, leading to them panicking. "Hurry! Get the representatives to safety!" I commanded. "General Thimes is trying to kill the representatives to prevent witnesses to their archwizard!"

"A-Archwizard?!" a Frosthold representative parroted, running down the stairs. I confirmed, and the panic spread.

"W-What was that?!" General Thimes didn't know what was happening because I cut my amplification circle. However, he didn't cut his amplification spell so he could explain himself and show his earnestness. "Find the traitor that attacked the representatives. I want his head—NOW!"

"I can't believe he would attack foreign representatives—during a pre-war conference, no less!" I scoffed, leading the representatives to thunderstag carriages while General Thimes ranted. "Don't worry. Our bunkers can withstand a calamity spell, so rest assured—you'll be safe."

The representatives stuttered and nodded, tears of gratitude welling in their eyes.

I inwardly scoffed at their pathetic expressions and looked at the guards surrounding the armored carriages with an earnest expression. "Take the representatives to the bunkers, and protect them with your lives!"

"Yes, sir!!" They responded in unison, loading up the representatives and surrounding the carriages with guards.

I watched them ride away with a complex expression before scaling the wall to begin our attack.

---

15 minutes ago.

General Thimes was a stern man with a leathery face and eyes that hinted at a lifetime of warfare. Tonight was no different; he was charged with vanquishing The Demon, Ryker Everwood, and ending his reign of tyranny.

"Sir! Our men are in position; the citizens are drunk, and their forces are surrounded," a soldier in silver armor said. "We should attack now."

"No," General Thimes replied. "We'll play these things by the book. They have no hope of victory, so we needn't sully our hands."

Around him was an army of fantastical beasts and modern weaponry, the best and strongest gold could buy. Amongst him were top mercenaries, and above him was a certified archwizard. Combined with the overwhelming might of the four wyverns and the Ironfall forces to the southeast waiting to perform a pincer attack, The Demon had no chance of victory.

General Thimes did as he was told without question. When he wasn't told to do something, he followed the rules. He wasn't a "good" man because there was no place for goodness in war. However, he was a fair man.

"Let's make our address," he said, getting onto a griffin with a mage performing amplification magic. "KING EVERWOOD!" he shouted.

"S-Sir, you don't need to shout!" the mage yelled, holding his ears with a spinning head.

The general rolled his eyes. "MY NAME IS GENERAL THIMES OF GOLDENSPIRE. WE REQUEST A PRE-WAR CONFERENCE!"

The Demon responded almost immediately as if he were waiting for him. "I agree to your conference, and have delegates from other kingdoms to act as witnesses! Do you agree to speak in their presence?"

General Thimes' mind went into overdrive. His spies told him that foreign representatives weren't there due to the threat of war, so they planned to attack. Now, it was a precarious situation because Priest Aelius had broken war rules and attacked on The Demon's birthday, and now there were representatives they could accidentally kill.

He had to consider negotiating a temporary truce.

"I AGREE!" General Thimes roared. The mage clasped his hands around his ears again, dizzy and swaying from the loud sounds.

As the representatives assembled on the outer works, a commander addressed General Thimes. "General, I don't remember seeing that embrasure," he cautioned, pointing at the gap where the representatives were standing.

On castles, the gaps where archers shoot are called embrasures. These pieces were similar to teeth and made walls look like a crown. It was an iconic look that people found in every walled fortress, so it was strange that the walls of the Sundell didn't have any.

While it was strange, so was King Everwood. Therefore, Goldenspire believed that the walls were whole—until an embrasure abruptly appeared, exposing the foreign representatives.

That meant one thing:

“We need to watch out,” General Thimes said after telling his mage to cut the amplification magic. “They likely have removable walls that are hiding their soldiers. Be prepared!”

Soldiers spread his words like wildfire until he got positive confirmation that everyone had heard. Then he asked the mage with him to restart the amplification spell.

“ARE ALL THE REPRESENTATIVES THERE?!” General Thimes yelled, making the protesting mage dizzy while blood leaked from his ears.

“We are,” The Demon replied.

“GOOD!” General Thimes yelled back. “WE’RE HERE TO—”

BOOOOM!

Before he finished his statement, a loud, bright explosion abruptly rocked the walls.

"W-What was that?!" General Thimes roared, scanning the area from above. However, he didn't sense any mages below or see any cut-outs in the wall. Moreover, the trenches that The Demon dug didn't have water, sand, or people. There was no one there!

Then he looked back at the embrasure and found that all the representatives had fled. At that moment, he realized how terrible the situation was: he had called all the representatives, and a traitor had attacked the walls. He was set up!

General Thimes' face heated up in anger, and he looked around. "Find the traitor that attacked the representatives. I want his head—NOW!"

Things went from bad to worse when he said those words. He turned to the mage behind him. "Why are you still amplifying this?!"

The mage yelled, "What?!" with blood rolling down his ears. Unlike the general, who was forged with soul mana meat and could withstand the amplification spell meant for a mile—he couldn't. So he could only hear something loud but not what it was, and he was partially deaf.

General Thimes' face heated up in anger, and he grabbed the mage and threw him into the Solsa river from 75 feet in the air, instantly killing the man and sweeping his body away. "Status report!"

A wave of dread washed over him when he realized he had thrown his voice away and couldn't ask for a report. Therefore, he had to fly back to the ground to find another mage.

As he prepared to unmount from his griffin, a commotion broke out that made him turn around.

The embattlements on the top of the wall suddenly gave way to thousands of embrasures as large concrete-steel cutouts were kicked down, falling like dominoes and raining down the earth.

"W-What are those?!"

"I'm not sure!"

"Wait, those are the bows!"

To the soldiers' horror, there were thousands of Ryker Everwood's fabled cannons and bows. However, there weren't people other than the people operating them.

"Don't tell me they plan to use those exclusively to—"

"You've attacked my people and I will not stand for it." The Demon's voice came in crisp and clear. "Die."

BOOM! Boom-boom-boom! Boom, boom, BOOM! Boom!

The battlefield turned into a horror scene in seconds. Hundreds of explosions swept dirt through the air, followed by hundreds of people screaming and cracking sounds.

"Commander Carol!" General Thimes yelled. He looked to the ground just in time to see a dirt explosion followed by his commander's head disappearing along with parts of his shoulder. "W-What…."

It wasn't just his commander. The ten people behind him fell like dominoes, each losing a limb and buckling as if armor meant nothing.

This was a cannonball. It's a steel ball six inches in diameter that shoots at 2,300 to 3,000 feet per second with smokeless powder. Once fired, it will blast through castle walls just as easily as a human's head. The impact causes powerful shockwaves that injure soldiers; if it bounces, it can cut through a dozen soldiers, and if it hits a rock, it explodes like a frag grenade.

In the medieval era, when armies fought in tight quarters, shoulder to shoulder, back to back, this weapon was simple but undeniably murderous.

General Thimes’ force of 21,000 lost a thousand people in seconds—and that was just the beginning. His eyes followed a series of massive flaming arrows as they approached his griffin. Arrows weren't supposed to reach his griffin 300 meters away! However, they did, and fast, so he jumped off a split second before the arrows pierced the bird and hit the ground.

Worse, the ballista arrows had a clay pot on the tip containing ethanol. Once it impacted the griffin, it shattered and rained fire on the general on fire as he fell.

"WHAT IS THIS?! MAGIC?!" General Thimes roared, patting himself once he hit the ground. "This can't be a weapon!"

General Thimes couldn't comprehend that the devastation he watched was child's play. Cannonballs are rudimentary, and ethanol is useless compared to petroleum. He didn't believe it until dynamite-packed mortars rained down on his army.

BOOOM! BOOOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOOOOOM!

Inside each was black powder, and when struck, it ignited as a blasting cap, causing the dynamite to explode violently. The night sky lit up once they hit, sending people and body parts flying. It was psychologically devastating, and disoriented from the loud explosions.

The 20-foot-tall golems toppled as the ground at their feet gave way to explosions, causing them to fall on soldiers. That signaled the beginning of the end. Whether the target was a two-ton battle ram, an armored battalion, or mages with barriers, they all died on impact. Moreover, the ballistas worked around the clock, sending arrows through the sky, piercing thunderstags, shadowmantas, and stormwings.

It was a massacre—

—and it had only been a few minutes.

The battle was essentially over. Since the cannons demolished Goldenspire's trebuchets and battering rams, they couldn't break through the walls. Therefore, only avian mounts could get inside, and most were dead.

On any normal day, the battle would've been over, and they'd be forced to retreat. However, they still had an archwizard and wyverns; that's the only reason they could still fight.

General Thimes was perplexed by the scene. It didn't make sense! Sure, kingdoms made technological advances yearly. However, this? He didn't see improvements to magic, siege equipment, or new fighting patterns. No. He was looking at new weapons. Balls that liquefied soldiers 500 meters away, explosions that came out of nowhere.

"How the hell were we supposed to prepare for this witchcraft?" General Thimes stammered, listening to the shrieks from his wounded soldiers. He was supposed to communicate with them, but how? He was now grounded, without amplification magic, and everyone was panicking in disarray. There was nothing they could do; if there wasn't a hole in Sundell's walls, his soldiers were useless! It was a disaster.

“GYARRRRRRRRRAAAAH!”

General Thimes saw a massive blue wyvern shoot out from Sundell's walls. On top of it was The Demon, his young face contrasting against the ruthless look in his eyes. "It's him…."

"HEAR ME, GOLDENSPIRE SOLDIERS!" The Demon roared. "LAY DOWN YOUR WEAPONS AND MOVE NORTH AND LIVE. CONTINUE FIGHTING AND DIE WITHOUT MERCY!"

The blue wyvern breathed deeply and shot a massive wall of blue flames across the battlefield, making every soldier feel its lethal flames.

---

I surveyed the battlefield, riding on Zenith's back with a steely gaze. This was war; these people came to kill my people, set them ablaze, and murder me. I'd give them a chance to live but wouldn't blink an eye at killing them en masse. That was the nature of war. It was mutual.

I saw the archwizard staring at me across the battlefield with a calculating gaze. He didn't look how I had expected him to; on his body, he wore a peasant's tunic and had a clean-shaven face. I'd mistake him for a serf if his killing intent didn't automatically trigger magical pressure.

"Archwizard! Leave this place, and I will not pursue you!" I shouted. "There's no way you can finish a chant under these conditions! Your role here is void!"

Letting him live would be stupid—if he were easy to kill. His inability to cast a calamity spell didn't change the fact that he was an archwizard! Things would turn into a bloodbath in ten minutes, and I didn't want to fight the man.

"What do you want, Demon?" Archwizard Roman yelled. "What drives you?"

"Progress," I replied. "To prepare this world for what's to come."

"You don't deny that you're a demon?" he asked.

"I've learned that doing that is pointless," I retorted.

"What are you?" Archwizard Roman asked. "Tell me, and I'll consider letting you live."

I narrowed my eyes. Few people could say that and follow through, and I could tell he was one of them. "I'm a man who speaks with the goddess of plenty," I replied, adding a new detail to my story to build trust. "She taught me the technology you see."

"Solara is the only god, and he is a man," Archwizard Roman scoffed.

"Can Solara transform into a woman?" I deadpanned.

"No," he replied.

"You'd think your god could do at least that much," I retorted.

Archwizard Roman's eyebrow twitched. "Solara doesn't mask his presence. I've seen him, and he's told me that he was the only god and he cannot transform."

"Odd detail to mention," I mused. "It's almost as though he fears another deity might lead you astray."

His eyes turned murderous.

"My religion is polytheistic, Archwizard," I explained, "and your god, Solara, the personification of the sun, sounds like a blond-haired god who rides in a golden chariot. Sound familiar?"

“Enckinu VIKCA!”

A massive bolt of lightning shot down from the sky with enough force to kill a squadron of troops. Zenith barely flew out of the way before—

CRAaaCK! BOOM!

—the ground below us exploded and turned to magma.

"Two words?" I asked in shock. "That wasn't a warning. Zenith! It's time for battle!"

More crackling energy shot through the air like a Tesla coil, following Zenith as she weaved through the air.

"Thankfully, he doesn't care about anyone else but me," I nervously chuckled. "Thea, this guy doesn't need calamity spells. We need to cut off his thinking—not just his speaking."

"GOT IT!" Thea said, tightly gripping my waist and shutting her eyes. From her mind, she linked to the crowls circling in the clouds. "Weave."

KEEEYAAAH! KEYAAAH!

Massive birds dive-bombed from the clouds, looking like suicide bomber jets more than animals. They screeched with a piercing noise, freezing the battlefield. All six weaved through the wyverns to attack Archwizard Roman.

As soon as they attacked, the electricity stopped and materialized to attack the birds.

Zenith shot across the battlefield and joined the fray, taking a large breath.

GYARRRRRRRRRAAAAH!

A massive cloud of blue flames cut 100 meters across the sky, hitting one of the smaller, metallic-gray wyverns head-on. While it only charred their scales, its right eye boiled and popped, spurting oozing pus as it screeched.

It flew forward in a blind rage but didn't find Zenith because she had dived downward. When the wyvern looked down, she rocketed to the sky, gripping its neck in her jaws.

CRAaaaaACK!

Its body went limp before 15,000 enemy spectators, and she threw its body into the soldiers below to elicit maximum terror.

Psychological warfare.

The other two wyverns attacked, proving that Archwizard Roman was fighting all six of Thea's crowls from Nightshade Forest by himself. It was grim.

KYYYYYAAAAHHHHHHHH!

There wasn't time to chant a spell strong enough to affect a wyvern, so I pulled a mortar from my pocket and rocketed it into one of their jaws.

Boom!

The wyvern screeched in pain. It wasn't enough to kill it, but it took a grenade to the back of its throat at 200 mph—that would mess anything up.

"HOLD ON!" Thea yelled, gripping me with surreal force. I instinctively held onto a scale as Zenith spun with intense gravitational force, whipping her massive studded tail right into the other wyvern's jaw, causing it to fly across the battlefield and crash into more soldiers.

"Gelum frigus, potentia glaciei," I gritted my teeth, preloading a spell. "Frigus arctum, frigescit mundus; glacies veniat, nivem creet; per glacialem potentiam, tempus congelatur."

An icy vortex surrounded the wyvern I injured, slowing and freezing its movements.

"TREATA BROKA!"

Following Archwizard Roman's voice, meteors from the heavens came crashing down upon us.

Zenith flew to the side, but it wasn't enough to avoid all of them. Many hit her, sending her into a tailspin as Thea and I held on tight. She hit the ground for a brief moment, crunching a dozen soldiers and battle rams, then took off again, flying against the walls at high speed.

KYYYYYAAAAHHHHHHHH!

As expected, Archwizard Roman's wyvern was pissed off from Zenith killing its brethren, so it ignored Archwizard Roman's orders and shot after us, breathing fire as it followed us down the ten-mile outer works of Sundell.

My troops loading ballistae and cannons screamed as the fire passed over them, and loud explosions went off as mortars and bags of gunpowder exploded.

The enemy troops, still easily 14,000 strong, cheered when they saw the explosions. However, their elation and hope stuffed out when we reached a point where soldiers weren't reloading.

"STOP, YOU FOOL!" Archwizard Roman roared, physically hitting the wyvern to force it down. However, it was too late. A dozen ballistae shot massive spears through it at near-blank range, skewering it.

It screeched and hit the top of the wall, rolling and flinging Archwizard Roman down the wall, making the battlefield fall silent for a moment before my troops let out battle cries.

Unfortunately, a hundred-foot fall wouldn't hurt an archwizard badly enough to stop fighting, so, as expected, another meteor spell crashed down on Sundell. For any other city, such a sight would scar the fear of God into people. However—

“Praesidium Invictum, Firmamentum Aeternum,” my soldiers chanted in unison. “Invisible claustra, salus in prohibito.”

In a stunning display of group magic, blue barriers shot up around the wall in a line. They weren’t very strong, D-rank at best. However, there were hundreds of people overlapping their barriers. So when the meteors shattered three of the barriers, a fourth would catch it. Water spells came next, extinguishing the fires without injury.

All hope faded in the enemy soldiers' eyes, and an increasing number dropped their weapons and fled to the north, as no commander was there to stop them. They were in disarray.

"Zenith wants to know what you want to do with the wizard!" Thea yelled, her voice quivering. Archwizard Roman had killed all of her crowls, and none of the beasts in the nearby area would affect the horrifying wizard. I could only imagine how helpless she felt.

"I want to negotiate with him to leave," I laughed. "I don't want to fight him, that's for sure."

Whether Archwizard Roman was from Solstice or not, I was convinced that he had met and received a blessing from Helios, as Aphrodite did for me. That meant he could perform two-line chants that rained meteors, and God knows what else he got from Helios.

I mean, Aphrodite gave me the power to dissolve people at the molecular level, for fuck's sake!

Even if he wasn't, he was an archwizard who had honed his strength over centuries or millennia of warfare until he got bored at the top and became a peasant. By contrast, I showed up seventeen years ago, I'm still a virgin, and this was my first battle—I had no chance in a direct confrontation with him!

"Still, I doubt he'll negotiate and we can't give him time to chant, so negotiation is out," I grimaced. If he could turn the ground to magma in two words, I didn't want to know what a regular spell would be like. "Thea, grab something to annoy him, Zenith, fly over him—I'll drop dynamite."

Zenith flew around and approached the man, warping the atmosphere as he mumbled. I pulled out sticks of dynamite from my bag. "Hey, Archwizard!" I yelled, throwing them like fastballs. He caught them and crumbled them without looking, not stopping his chanting.

The atmosphere warped above us, and electricity cracked through the clouds. Whatever he was doing was summoning rain, thunder, and promised death. I needed to end this quickly.

Thea connected to a thunderstag trying to fly away to Goldenspire and rerouted it. Zenith tried to get a better vantage point, and I kept throwing sticks of dynamite at the man.

CrrrRAaaacCK!

A bolt of lightning shot down in the distance, piercing the earth, followed by another, picking up steam in a line as it worked its way down here. By the time it arrived, it would likely shred Sundell perfectly without touching General Thime's troops.

"Is this guy practicing his lightning?!" I inwardly exclaimed, simultaneously impressed and horrified by his self-control. I gritted my teeth, pulled out an impact trigger mortar, and hurled it at the man. "Catch!"

Archwizard Roman didn't give in to my taunt and caught the mortar as usual.

Click.

BOOOOOOOOM!

The nitroglycerin-soaked sawdust around him exploded on contact, sending dust and debris billowing through the air.

I held my breath as I waited for the smoke to settle. It was anyone's guess what had happened to him. On the one hand, he was an archwizard, forged of soul mana and centuries of combat, so it wouldn't be surprising if he weren't hurt. On the other hand, he was standing on ten sticks of fucking dynamite. It would be insulting to modern weaponry if he just walked away.

Archwizard Roman came into view as the smoke cleared, still standing—but not unharmed.

I followed his cackling expression and saw that the mortar had blown his hand off, and his lower body was slightly mangled, albeit whole, from the dynamite. The laughter in Archwizard Roman's eyes seemed to convey that he didn't think he could get injured during this mission, and now he was looking at a missing hand.

"Unbelievable," Archwizard Roman laughed. "I was going to let your people live, but I hate you. I HATE YOU AND YOUR PEOPLE! QUILO PORGAN!"

He crashed to his knees and thrust his good left hand onto the ground. The ground shook, splitting apart and buckling under the wall. However, to Archwizard Roman's shock, the wall didn't start crumbling as it should've.

Reinforced concrete is exponentially better than most building materials because it's resistant to shearing forces—vertical forces—like seismic activity. Therefore, his cracking attempts stressed the wall and made it crack. However, it wasn't the end-all breach spell he had planned on.

Still, the ground groaned, and the wall cracked, spreading it apart and creating a breach large enough for the soldiers to rush through.

The Goldenspire troops, aimlessly standing around and dying since there was no breach, cheered and charged, crossing the Solsa River to attack. This was their chance!

"STAY BACK!" Archwizard Roman yelled, hearing the soldiers rushing toward him. When they filled up the first ditch—

BOOM! Boom, boom, BOOM!

A chain reaction of explosions went off when a ballista with a fire arrow shot a dynamite blast cap, causing a two-mile chain reaction that instantly killed a few hundred soldiers and horses.

That was the first of three ditches.

Archwizard Roman was furious and planned to declare me a demon. However, while he expected his breach to spell our doom, it released the one thousand ground troops led by my father onto the battlefield, sending them rushing at him in a swarm.

My father ran into the fray without knowing that an archwizard was on the other side, waiting for him! I tried to yell, but my father was informed and aware.

"Careful ahead!" Leon roared. "A wounded archwizard is nearby!"

My pulse slowed but not by much—they were running toward an archwizard! "Turn around!" I ordered from the skies, using the amplification magic circle on my gauntlet. "He's too strong!"

Time slowed. Archwizard Roman grinned, preparing to meet my father head-on; I jumped off Zenith's back. The three of us would collide soon—and I'd be the last because I was landing on the other edge of town.

"Spread out!" Leon boomed with his sword out, responding to my order.

"HILIKA CROSSA!" Archwizard Roman roared, waving his hand. A sharp blast of wind blades cut through the area, shredding the wall. However, they missed my father and the troops who spread out with the speed of mages—all of them. My father and the towering Ajax moved far faster, on par with sages, as they took the man's flanks.

I landed on the ground with a resounding thud and charged forward, peeved that my father and guard were waiting for me instead of running away.

"MOVE!" I shouted as I approached. Unfortunately, it wasn't fast enough. Sensing my abnormal fixation on Leon, Archwizard Roman shot forward, thrusting his hand through my father's chest. The sight left me in shock and made my bloodlust multiply exponentially.

However, things weren't as they seemed. A force hit Archwizard Roman from behind, sending him flying forward—right through my father's body.

"An illusion?" I muttered, wide-eyed, as I reached the position. I turned and saw my father scoffing from behind Archwizard Roman as he blended into the shadows again. I looked back at the archwizard and saw a huge gash in the man's tunic, but no wound—Leon's weapon wasn't strong enough. That wasn't a good sign.

"You're all going to die!" Archwizard Roman yelled. "TREATA BROKA!" The sky set ablaze, seemingly signaling the end of times as a biblical meteor shower crashed down from the heavens. It was an arrogant attack that would also hit the archwizard, but he knew he could survive it.

The support mages cast barriers over the soldiers, but they wouldn't be strong enough to withstand the attack. 'Oxygen!' I mentally exclaimed, reaching the center of the soldiers and lifting my hand high. 'Separate!'

The area above my hand warped, separating the oxygen and snuffing out the flames. However, magma retains heat, so I cast the fastest ice spell I could chant. "Flastra, ventus glacialis! Terra frigefac!" I shouted, sending an icy gust of wind into the barriers.

As expected, the barriers instantly shattered, sending glass-like shards of light through the air as the rocks slammed into my soldiers and made the approaching enemy running across the Solsa River cheer as they approached.

Archwizard Roman clicked his tongue when my superhuman soldiers got up from the attack groaning instead of dying. "You pests! HILIKA—!"

Midway through his chant, another force hit the wizard—Ajax's fist. It sent the man flying as the goliath man chased after him at blinding speed, catching up and kicking the man's body to the side with surreal force. A resounding crack sounded as Archwizard Roman's body crashed into the reinforced concrete wall.

Ajax rushed forward to pulverize the man with his bare fists. Unfortunately, a monstrous wave of pressure crashed into the guard, sending him to his knees. "Do you think that you could fight me, little boy?" Archwizard Roman spat, standing and brushing off his shredded tunic. "Your petty gains mean nothing in the face of an Ancient."

I reached the position, planning to slap the man with a glucose-water rupture spell, making his body explode. However, when I rushed into range, I toppled over from the pressure, falling to my knees and gasping. I hadn't felt this suffocated under Alphonse Gurring's pressure as a child. It made King Veil's bloodlust seem insignificant.

It wasn't just us. Those in the Solsa River choked, falling into the water and getting swept away. People beyond the river looked strained, and my people were suffocating and holding their necks.

"I was careless with your weapons," Archwizard Roman spat, looking at his mangled hand. The wound had already closed and looked like it was growing. "But I won't make the same mistake."

He lifted his foot above Ajax's coughing head as he wheezed on the ground.

CRAaaaCK!

With a single stomp, Archwizard Roman caused my guard's head to explode, sending a wave of hatred through my body. I moved my limbs, grinding my teeth, but it felt like I was moving against thousands of gs of gravity.

"And you," Archwizard Roman snorted. I followed his gaze and heard my father's concealed body in the distance, with the archwizard walking toward it. "Don't you fucking dare!" I screamed.

"Hoh?" Archwizard Roman grinned. "This one is special to you, is he? Then I think that I'll take my time." He approached Leon, pulled his leg back, and kicked him with a resounding crack, sending him flying across the battlefield.

I knew from the crack that the kick shattered Leon's bones; I could tell he was dead or unconscious from his silence. Not knowing left me reeling. Seeing how fleeting life was only a moment before when Archwizard Roman crushed Ajax's head only moments before made me realize that the same was true of my father.

There wasn't time; I had to save my father. He needed emergency healing magic or a potion to survive if he was alive. But… I couldn't move. I couldn't fight back. I couldn't do anything!

Frustration and anger welled within me as I felt the dirt and rocks under my hand. I needed to escape this pressure… yeah. I've saved this until this moment. "Use cases: escape magical pressure and blind an opponent," I declared.

Archwizard Roman turned to me with a frown, hearing something wildly different than pleading, growling in frustration, or coughing. "What did you just say?"

'Silicon dioxide, feldspar, kaolinite, illite, montmorillonite,' I thought, ignoring him, 'calcite, mica, dolomite, gypsum, iron oxide.'

“Answer me!” Archwizard Roman commanded, increasing the pressure and twisting my mind as he lifted his leg in rage.

It was good enough. ‘Separate.’

The dirt under me separated, and I controlled the silicon dioxide, sodium, and arsenic to Archwizard Roman in the eyes. Then my body shot underground, getting further away from the pressure by the second. About ten feet down, I gasped for breath and finally heard the sound I had dreaded for so long.

Ding!

—

You look busy. Let’s talk later. You better send me some soap! Caio~ Aphrodite ♡

…

Stage: 4

Your rewards:

- Increased lifespan

- Increased mana capacity

- Slight emotional curing

- One omnipotent tool

- Increased range

…

—

I ignored the details as a profound wave of emotional sensation crashed through my body. It felt like decades of trauma and mistrust had created a cocoon around my chest, lifted like a veil, and my chest became clear, sucking in the emotions I was feeling like a black hole.

It was so overwhelming and destructive that I felt I might die. And that feeling fueled my anger and frustration, multiplying it exponentially.

I shoved my hands against the dirt underneath Archwizard Roman with significant force, trying to relieve this never-ending torment that I was feeling. 'Silicon dioxide, feldspar, kaolinite, illite, montmorillonite, calcite, mica, dolomite, gypsum, iron oxide,' I declared. 'Separate.'

----

[A/N: YES! 5.6k words! Five chapters ahead! Five more things to tell your therapist about! Let's gooooooooooo!

We're officially five chapters ahead of RR and Scribble Hub. This is my thank you for signing up early on, even when there were only two extra chapters. I'll continue trying to find ways to thank you for supporting my journey!

Speaking of which, fill out the poll for the next character dev chapter (I'm doing it in the next two weeks). See you tomorrow! ^_^

Note: "[Both]" mean that there was nothing I cut out or refrained from writing (unfiltered). This is rare, but it happens. XD]