Supreme Magus

ʼI donʼt like this situation.ʼ Lith thought.

ʼThe shaman seems to always know where I am. She caught us unprepared twice, so itʼs likely that if I stand for too long in the same place, she may attack us from a distance.ʼ

ʼAgreed.ʼ Solus replied. She had regained about half of her strength, but they couldnʼt afford to wait much longer. If the Sergeant returned with the reinforcements the crystal would be lost.

ʼWe need to aim for a quick exchange. We have to get there fast, before she can siphon any element so that we can Blink in for the kill.ʼ

Lith nodded. That kind of approach was outside his comfort zone, but there werenʼt many options left. He took off, flying at full speed towards the location where he had killed most of the members of the Grey Wolf tribe.

RaghʼAsh hadnʼt gotten far. Moving the holy crystal was a delicate job. She couldnʼt fly with it. If anything happened and the spell was broken, the holy crystal would be lost. She just made it float a few centimeters from the ground, pushing it while she walked back towards the camp.

The silver lining was that thanks to the constant contact, she could sweep her surroundings from time to time to check on Lithʼs whereabouts. As soon as RaghʼAsh noticed him getting closer, she knew only one of them would come out alive from their next meeting.

RaghʼAsh ordered. The youths never thought, even for a second, that the shaman was doing that to protect them.

Her only purpose was to protect the last members of the tribe, who were too weak to be of any use in actual combat. RaghʼAsh had seen how Lith had turned her own living bomb against her orc warriors. It was a mistake she couldnʼt afford to repeat.

She watched the two youths disappearing in the woods as she pondered about her strategy. RaghʼAsh wasnʼt used to fight alone, without any warrior providing her assistance.

ʼThe demonsʼ magic is unpredictable.ʼ She thought. ʼMy only option is to overpower them quickly with the help of the holy crystal. If only that stupid beast helped us earlier, I wouldnʼt be in dire straits now. What kind of pet doesnʼt protect its owner?ʼ

The earth trembled below her feet. It was the only sign that the creature was still following her. RaghʼAsh called it her pet, but its motives were still a mystery. It had helped her to survive many times, yet its timing was always unreliable at best.

RaghʼAsh placed her hands on the crystal, channeling air magic through it to conjure a huge storm cloud above her position. Monstersʼ mastery of magic was shallow. Due to their Fallen nature, they would seldom be able to research complex spells and would even more rarely pass them down.

In a ʼmight makes rightʼ society, sharing knowledge or power was like digging your own grave. That limited the shamanʼs knowledge to the first three tiers of spells. Thanks to the holy crystal though, RaghʼAsh could replicate tier four spellsʼ effect or at least equal their destructive power.

As soon as Lith spotted the shaman with Life Magic, he also noticed a pillar of mana going from the ground to the sky. The storm cloud was pitch black and covered a radius of 100 meters around the shamanʼs position already.

ʼSheʼs stealing my thunder, literally!ʼ Lith thought. He was actually scared by how fast RaghʼAsh had summoned such a huge thundercloud. It was something he was still unable to do.

ʼI wouldnʼt worry about that.ʼ Solus chimed in. ʼThere is something wrong with the ground below her feet. I thought the lack of earth element in the world energy was confusing my perception, but even now that the balance is restored the anomaly is still there.ʼ

ʼWhat kind of anomaly?ʼ Lithʼs paranoia sense was tingling. Life Vision showed him nothing but trees, grass, the shaman, and the crystal. Yet he didnʼt doubt Solusʼs words for an instant. He knew here senses were far better than his own.

ʼItʼs a blur, so I canʼt tell you what it is nor how strong it is, but thereʼs something moving there. It could be some kind of spell, a creature, anything. Just be vigilant, okay?ʼ

Lith mentally nodded as he charged the Gatekeeper with all elements but light magic. As soon as RaghʼAshʼs eyes met Lithʼs, she unleashed a natural lightning so big that its flash turned the whole world white for a second, almost blinding her.

Lith was able to react in time only because he had done the same thing in the past. The moment he saw a pulse of RaghʼAshʼs mana reaching for the thundercloud, he Blinked behind her back, aiming for her head.

Lithʼs timing had been impeccable, the precision of his lunge surgical. Yet instead of relieving the shamanʼs neck from the burden of its head, Lith was sent flying before he could even understand what was happening.

Something big and black had jumped out of the ground, as nimble as a shark after a seal. Solus had no way to describe it if not as a worm, but it was a worm like she had never seen before.

Its skin wasnʼt pink nor soft. The creature looked like made of obsidian, with several bumps and deformities all around its body like a lazy artist had given up the job halfway through.

The worm was as big as a bull and about 4 meters (13ʼ) long. Its gaping mouth was big enough to easily swallow an adult man whole. Solus could see it had multiple series of jagged teeth which somehow were rotating at high speed like a buzz saw.

It had been the impact between the teeth and the Gatekeeper to thwart Lithʼs death blow. When the clash happened, the enchanted blade managed to resist the teethʼs destructive force, but it couldnʼt escape their grasp.

The centrifugal force had spun Lith and the blade as if for a split second they had been trapped inside a washing machine, before all the accumulated magic in the Gatekeeper had forced the creature to release its prey.

Between the impact and the spinning, Lithʼs vision was a blur. Yet the black worm wasnʼt faring much better. It writhed on the ground like a beached fish, spitting blood and teeth before reaching again for the safety of the earth.

ʼWhat the heck was that?ʼ Lith and RaghʼAshʼs thought in unison. Whereas Lith was wondering why the magical beast had interfered, RaghʼAshʼs was shocked by dimensional magic.

Both the magicians recovered quickly from the surprise, moving on to their own plan B. Lith Blinked away, not giving the shaman the time to aim at him with a second lightning while RaghʼAshʼs embraced the crystal starting to chant a second spell.

Lith threw against her several Fire Roots, to force her to interrupt her casting and focus on defending the crystal. Yet the moment the Alchemical tools touched the ground, small holes opened below them making them disappear.

When they exploded a few seconds later, they were already gone so deep that the explosion was completely muffled by the ground, sounding more like farts. Everything happened so fast that RaghʼAsh didnʼt even have the time to notice the threat.