The Golem Mage

The battle was about to begin as Roderic Vale led his team of mages onto the battle ring.

His posture was straight, shoulders relaxed like they were never going to slack.

He had the stance of someone who had survived real wars and learned to remain calm within them, with his ash-blond hair tied back loosely at the nape of his neck, with a few stray strands falling over his forehead as he moved, and his eyes were a striking steel-blue.

He wore a long dark coat reinforced with silver runic plating, light enough for movement but strong enough to deflect spells.

His Spell Gauntlet sat on his left arm, pulsing with faint blue inscriptions, while a runic longsword rested at his left hip and a mana revolver was holstered at his right thigh, completing his tri-style combat persona.

Behind him were Serena, Cassian, Talia, and Grayson, once both teams looked settled and ready, the referee slowly levitated into the air and said,

“Now, let the match begin.”

It was just a few words, but the moment he said them, Grayson dragged his mana warhammer along the ground as he began leading the charge to close the distance between the War God Mage Academy team and his own.

Closely behind him was Roderic, Talia Frost threw two rune disks toward the ground immediately, but before they could hit, they spun and began floating a few meters above it, as she jumped onto them and they lifted her into the air, while Cassian and Serena spread out wide.

Cassian pointed his pair of mana pistols toward the War God Mage team, and Serena looked ready to throw a couple of enchanted disks.

Each disk in her hands was layered with an array, making every single one of them a spell on its own.

In Alec’s eyes, she was like a woman holding a bag of bombs, as the Argent Guild team started to execute their plan, Alec’s irises turned blue—not enough for everyone to notice, but enough for him to gauge their power.

“Hey, big boss Alec, how long are we just going to be standing here and waiting for them to overturn us?” Pale blurted out, unable to stop himself from calling him “big boss” due to how nervous he was feeling at that moment.

But just at that moment, Grayson reached the front line of the War God team, and Pale happened to be the one standing at the very front.

As Grayson closed in, he raised his warhammer into the air, the hammerhead glowing with light, clearly imbued with some kind of energy.

Seeing such a ferocious move, Pale didn’t even think twice, he quickly conjured an ice hammer and swung it upward from below, hoping to meet Grayson’s hammer strike head-on.

However, before that could happen, Pale felt a gentle tug at the back of his clothes, it might have felt gentle, but he couldn’t resist it as he was yanked backward, pulled far away from Grayson’s hammer.

As his body swung back, he finally saw who had dragged him—Alec—and he couldn’t help thinking, ‘So you finally decided to act.’

A moment later, Grayson’s hammer, coated with dense Qi, crashed into the ground.

Boom!

A muffled explosion rang out as the shockwave from Grayson’s attack rippled across the battle ring. Alec, who was close by, raised his arm to shield his eyes as the wind pressure slammed toward him. From behind Grayson, Roderic appeared, bending low as he moved forward.

He didn’t waste even a breath, as he flowed right into Grayson’s attack pattern like they’d rehearsed it a hundred times beforehand. Before Alec could react, Roderic had already drawn his blade and was thrusting it toward Alec’s chest.

“Sophia,” Alec called out gently.

No further command was needed, as she seemed to understand him better than anyone at that moment, she thrust her hand toward his location, casting a Shadow Portal spell that wrapped around his entire upper body like a cloak made of darkness.

The strain showed on her face, that keeping a portal of that size active demanded intense concentration and mana which ripped through her mana reserves.

Roderic’s sword finally reached Alec and pierced into his chest, but instead of sliding through cleanly, the blade slowed, its forward momentum drained, as if he were stabbing into mud rather than a person.

Seeing that the sword had been engulfed, Sophia immediately began changing her hand signs, preparing to cast another spell.

However, it wasn’t as if the other members of the Argent Guild hadn’t realized she was responsible for their captain’s failed attack, as Cassian aimed at her and fired, with both his mana pistols spitting bullets in her direction.

Before the shots could reach her, Knight slipped into her shadow using the Shadow Travel spell and emerged in front of her.

His twin daggers appeared in his hands, as he gripped the inversely, and with clean, sharp movements he began to deflect the bullets, buying her the time she needed to complete the spell she was brewing.

[> Mid Tier Spell – Shadow Counter