Blood in the Deser Page 9

  Then, he infused his body with all the six elements, while casting one of his new spells as fast as he could. The two Talons were a man and a woman, the first using a sword and shield combination, the second twin swords instead.

  Bloodlust and madness twisted their features, to the point that not even Yurial would have wasted time pondering if she was hot or not.

  "Beware! All their equipment is on par with the corps! Even their tattoos seem to be enchanted." Solus warned him.

  "Just my luck. I need a damn weapon to block enchanted blades, but I still can't afford the academy's prices!" ¨C

  A chunk of the tattoos disappeared, boosting their speed like a high grade potion and allowing them to reach Lith before he could finish casting. They placed in opposite directions, forcing Lith to create a blind spot in his visual field.

  Much to their surprise, he didn't even try following the movements of them both with his eyes. Instead, he turned his back on the shield man, focusing only on the double wielding woman.

  Nonetheless they didn't lose focus, executing a two pronged attack where each strike was meant to corner the prey, by making the attacks coming from the partner harder to evade. Yet Lith dodged them all flawlessly, even those coming from his back.

  The first exchange was more than enough for Negal to understand what was happening, forcing him to violate his creed already.

  "What are you doing, you idiots?! That's Full Guard! Red, white fall back!" To prevent their target from escaping, Negal started weaving the anti air magic array.

  For a split second the Talons froze, thinking their General had gone mad.

  Full Guard was a common Mage Knight spell, that created a spherical blue aura with a radius of 1.65 meters (5.41 feet) all around the caster.

  Thanks to Full Guard, a Mage Knight had no blind spots. Whatever entered the sphere would be detected, allowing him to counter attack and dodge with surgical precision without even looking.

  What Negal said didn't make sense, though. The cyan aura surrounding their target had a radius of over twenty meters (66'), something every one of them knew by experience was impossible.

  The spell range, even at tier five, was supposed to cover only the length given by the arm plus weapon length. When their instinct and discipline kicked in, making them obey the order, it was already too late.

  Lith had previously ignored the earlier football coach gibberish, but now, violating his creed Negal had exposed himself.

  "Warden at three o'clock!" Solus shouted the moment she recognized the energy pattern. ¨C

  Lith exploited the opening, darting toward Negal while extending his arms, with a motion that made no sense to his enemies. At that distance, any spell coming from a ring could be easily avoided.

  The red and white team moved backwards, without stopping their chants, trying to keep the distance from the prey while the black team was in hot pursuit. Their problem was twofold, though.

  Lith was too fast for his chasers, and no one in the Talons knew of spirit magic's existence.

  Fast like a snake, tendrils of pure, invisible mana travelled the space between predator and prey, coiling around Negal's head. Spells rained on Lith from all directions.

  Some he managed to dodge, others he had to tank in order to not lose focus, letting the combined effects of earth fusion and his uniform to block most of the damage, while light fusion regenerated the wounds as soon as they were opened.

  With each step he took, Lith's magical force became strong enough to overcame Negal's enchanted protections, horribly deforming his head before popping it like a balloon.

  Spirit magic's range had already reached fifty meters (54.7 yards) back when he had saved Count Lark's family.

  Now it could hit as far as Lith could see, yet the farther he was from the target, the weaker the effects.

  "Okay, the Warden is down. Eight more to go. With a bit of luck, the shock from my use of spirit magic should stun them for a couple of seconds, giving me plenty of time to evening the field." ¨C

  Yet, luck was a fickle mistress. What Lith ignored, knowing nothing about military except what he learned from the movies, was that in such tight knitted units there were two only two kinds of generals.

  The ones whose death would destroy the morale, turning them into sitting ducks, like he had hoped, and the ones whose death would turn his soldiers into battle frenzy demons unafraid of death.

  Farion Negal belonged in the second category. Most of the members of the Talons were either psychopaths devoid of empathy or cold blooded killers, they didn't care about anything but themselves.

  Killing Negal was the equivalent to cutting their lifeline, they had no idea how to survive outside the battlefield without him. A few were even grateful to him for having rescued them before their execution.

  Each and every one of them took it personal.

  To make things worse, Brigadier Phita Beruit, second in command, quickly regained her cool, avoiding the situation to devolve into chaos.

  "Black four! Red two! White two! Don't let the General's death go to waste. F*cking kill him!"

  Brigadier General Beruit was an ex member of the Queen's corps. It was thanks to her knowledge about the corps' protocol and equipment that the mission had gone so smoothly, up until Seephit's death.

  Unlike the others, she had already seen someone moving so fast. Once, Beruit had been a member of the Queen's detail, witnessing her inhuman speed. During an ambush, she had killed three assailants before her bodyguards could even move.

  In her mind, now everything finally made sense, all her questions had found an answer. Why six members of the corps had been sent to protect an insignificant commoner. Why the pay was obscenely good, even for the Talons' standards.

  "The f*cker is a member of the royal family!" She shouted.

  "We have to make this quick, before they send someone looking for him!"

  Everyone in the Talon had heard Beruit's tale at least once. No one had ever believed her, thinking it was a self-delusion from when she was still a rookie. But now things had changed.

  Beruit couldn't believe that Negal had hid from them such a valuable piece of information. She knew not even the General took her story seriously, but being so meticulous that act of carelessness seemed so out of character.

  "I'm what?!" Lith couldn't avoid to inwardly sneer at that rubbish.

  "First, I'm the bastard son of Count Lark, and this time of the Queen?"

  "Two more enemies coming up close!" Solus warned him.

  Lith could only sigh with relief.

  "Just what the healer ordered." ¨C

  Then, he activated the spell he had previously casted, turning the world around him dark.

  Chapter 138 Despair 2

  Being a self-taught true mage with very little knowledge outside of tier three, had always been a problem for Lith. He had to make up from scratch most of his spells, and not having much free time, if not none at all, his toolkit was quite limited.

  For such reason, most of his spells were derived from imitation. Phloria's Full Guard, the Ry's slipstream effect or the Wither dark aura were all tricks that he had picked up along the way.

  His fight with the plant Abomination had allowed him to further understand darkness magic, and how to overcome its obnoxious limitations.

  Darkness was an element capable of inflicting an enormous amount of damage overtime, and to add insult to injury, it was extremely hard to defend from it. On the other hand, though, darkness based spells were so slow that outside niche situations they were nigh useless.

  Vampiric Touch required physical contact, hence it was a last resort. The Wither's dark aura had good range, but required a huge mana expenditure compared to the damage dealt.

  That was why Lith had thought long and hard about it, trying to figure out a way to use darkness magic to cover for his weak points. No matter how much he planned in advance, he was still an amateur fighter, lacking any professional training.

  Despite being m
uch slower than Lith, two members of the Talons were enough to force him to go all out just to not be turned into mincemeat in a few seconds. Thanks to their rich battle experience, they were able to anticipate his movements and adjust their attacks accordingly.

  Not to mention that even speed could do only so much in front of such refined teamwork. The moment they closed in, they had used the range advantage granted by their blades to restrict Lith from escaping or counterattacking.

  To gain the upper hand, he needed to fight dirty and shamelessly like before, exploiting the fact that his opponents knew nothing about true magic. When the four melee experts approached, black tentacles emerged from Lith's body, trying to grab whoever came near.

  The Talons' first instinct was to cut them down, but the tentacles were made of pure energy, so they passed through the blades like a breeze, lashing at the enemies' bodies, sucking out their life force and giving it to their master.

  Death Call was the answer Lith had devised to his problems. Anyone that came too close would have to endure the vampiric touch of the tentacles, that were nothing more than a dense mass of dark magic guided by his will.

  The compact form meant that, unlike the dark aura, the draining effect was fast and efficient, while the mid range of the spell made the slow speed irrelevant. Thanks to Full Guard, Lith was completely aware of his surroundings, therefore able to manipulate every single tentacle like it was one of his limbs.

  Combined together, the two spells offered a perfect defence. Come close, become food. Stay away, suffer true magic. Lith didn't need to attack anymore, he could simply focus on dodging while the tentacles did the rest.

  Barely a few seconds after the activation of Death Call, the close range Talons realized what was happening. They were out of breath, their movements getting sluggish, each strike sloppier than the last.

  Their opponent, instead, was suddenly fully healed, either dodging or deflecting their combined attacks with his bare hands, without even breaking a sweat. But the most shocking part was when the five of them, Lith included, noticed an unforeseen side effect of the spell.

  The four Talons seemed to be aging by the second, their hair getting thin and grey, while their faces were now full of wrinkles, the skin starting to sag. It was actually a mere cosmetic effect, caused by the sudden loss of moisture and life force.

  Nothing that a few drinks and some rest couldn't fix. No Talon feared death, but age? That was another matter entirely.

  For the first time in many years, the members of the Talons started to feel fear. From the moment Seephit had opened that Warp Gate, their day had quickly turned into a nightmare.

  Since when kids could rip off heads? Since when spells could be cast with no magic words or hand signs? How could possibly exist someone capable of killing a soldier of the calibre of Negal with just a wave of the hand?

  Last, but not least, what kind of monster could summon an unnamed horror?

  "Black, fall back! Red, fire at will! White, hold your fire until Red is done!" Fear had never made Beruit falter, and this time was no different.

  By alternating the waves of spells from the two teams, she planned of raining on the monster enough destruction to make the nightmare end.

  When the four of the Black team tried to retreat, they discovered that the black tentacles had turned solid. Infused with spirit magic, they dragged back their victims, using them as meat shields against the incoming attacks.

  It was after the first shockwave arrived, that Lith understood to have gravely underestimated tier five spells.

  The four bodies, even with all their magical protections, were barely enough to block the first one, a densely packed chain of lightnings that boiled the four Talons from the inside, turning them into charred corpses.

  The second spell from the Red unit ripped them to shreds, forcing Lith to dodge and wave countless wind blades, capable of cutting through rock and dirt like a hot knife pressed against butter.

  Those he didn't manage to avoid, penetrated deeply into his flesh, stopping only halfway through the bones. The wounds were too extensive to cut off the pain receptors, otherwise his whole body would go limp.

  Seeing that the monster was still alive, and four more Talons had died, their fear turned into despair, but that didn't stop them. In battle there was no time for whining or grieving, only victory or defeat.

  Beruit and the last member of the White unit unleashed their spells too.

  Lith had no choice left, he could only fly away as fast as he could. He used all his remaining strength to raise a stone wall after the other, hoping that between the distance and the makeshift barriers he would manage to survive.

  Whatever it was, it hit with the strength of a volcano.

  The spot where Lith had been until a split second before had turned into a vortex of purple flames, that exploded with great violence, turning the stone walls in pebbles, trampling them like they were just domino pieces.

  Lith stopped wasting his energies on magic fusion, keeping only the light one to keep regenerating his present and future wounds and earth fusion to try to save his life. Everything else he had, was focused on his speed, trying to avoid being reduced to a pile of ashes by the purple flames.

  Despite all his efforts, the explosion kept getting closer and closer. Lith wasn't fast enough to outrun it, his only hope was to get far enough from the epicentre of the spell to take as little damage as possible.

  But it was all useless. Even from a distance, moving faster that a bullet, Lith could feel the scorching heat burning his feet despite the magical shoes and earth fusion.

  When the flames engulfed him, Lith stopped even flying, letting the shockwave carry him away. A cold shiver ran down his spine, the fear almost made his mind go blank, but he refused to surrender.

  In a last gamble he used all his remaining strength, even aided by Solus, to insulate himself with a thick barrier made of air, quickly revolving around his body to deflect the flames and avoid direct contact, while using water magic on himself, in a way that in any other circumstances would have frozen him to death.

  Despite his water magic spell, the air inside the barrier quickly became so hot that he had to stop breathing to not burn his lungs and throat. His skin got covered in blisters, his open wounds immediately cauterized.

  The pain was strong enough to make Lith cry, and he was happy for it, because despite keeping his eyelids close like shutters, he still feared that without the tears his eyes could boil.

  Chapter 139 Los

  The few seconds Lith spent in that blazing inferno felt like hours, constantly wishing for the pain to stop, while his lungs were desperate for air.

  When it finally ended, he crashed on the ground, tumbling multiple times before coming to a halt.

  The first breath of fresh air he took, was the best he had ever had. His normal vision was blurry, but Life Vision showed him clearly that there was still no trace of his enemies.

  Playing dead had no sense, they had discovered him once, they could do it twice.

  Lith immediately started healing himself, using Invigoration at the same time. Thanks to the world energy, his wounds healed much faster than normal, the bones mended and the burns disappeared without leaving any scar.

  "Solus, any sign of those b*astards?"

  "You travelled several hundred metres because of the explosion, but they are catching up fast. They'll Blink here before you are finished healing."

  "Damn Blink! I can't get close, while they can escape anytime. Also, from range they can dodge or block everything I throw at them. It's only a matter of time before they kill me for good. I'm almost out of tricks." ¨C

  Determined not to die, Lith stood up, waiting for the enemies while racking his brain for a solution.

  "By the gods! He is still alive!" Beruit and the three survivors were all that remained of the Talons.

  "That's impossible!" Lieutenant Calant couldn't believe his own eyes.

  "That was a f*cking War Mage spel
l! It's supposed to blow open castles and can't even kill a kid?"

  "That's no kid, Lieutenant, that's a monster. I'll cast Raging Sun again, you three prevent him to interrupt me or run away, at any cost! We owe it to our fallen comrades."

  The three Talons assumed a triangle formation, but didn't dare to approach. If four had failed, there was no reason for three to succeed.

  "Damn! At this distance, I'm powerless. Think, Lith, think. How can we save ourselves? There must be something we can do. Something only us can do, that will take them by surprise¡"

  A cruel smile appeared on his lips, there was still hope.

  He dashed toward the chanting woman with air fusion, using Full Guard again to not miss any movement. The three performed a Blink, planning on using hit and run tactics to not fall prey of the tentacles.

  But thanks to the combination of Life Vision and his enhanced speed, Lith was able to see where the Gates would open, and react accordingly. He changed direction, aiming for the nearest Gate, punching with his full force before the enemy appeared.

  The hit crushed the Talon's trachea, even severely damaging the spine in the process. Lith kept moving forward, while the corpse still stood up, with a shocked expression on the face.

  The two remaining Talons reacted by instinct, thinking their teammate had simply missed, letting the target slip away.

  They Blinked together, one in front of the target, the other at his back, only to discover he was ready for them. Lith grabbed them by the throat, his hands were strong like a vise, snapping their necks with a twist of his wrists.

  Thanks to the distance, Beruit was barely able to distinguish what had happened. Just like the Queen years ago, Lith's movements appeared only as a blur, but years of training told her to run away.

  Lith's smile grew wider, while his spirit magic was coiling around the last enemy. He twisted her hands behind her back, to prevent her to cast spells or use magic rings, choking her at the same time.

  Even if Beruit had been able to talk, Lith wasn't willing to listen. He knew that if not for the fact of being an Awakened one, he would have already died many times. He feared her and what she was able to do.