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Arcanist - Chapter 22
🕑 Added 2025-03-09 11:56:28 +0000 UTCThe path led to a tight lane that slithered from beside the chaotic mess, seperated from the thick of the battle by a long wall that stretched across the cave. It created a corridor of its own where dozens of Skeleton Soldiers clad in broken plates and wielding weapons of rust and worn metal pressed into the men in shining armors.
From what Valens could see, the two sides were in a deadlock even though the humans were clearly the stronger side. The Skeleton Soldiers made up for their lack of strength with numbers and a fervent state of mindless fury. They didn’t hiss when carved by a sword. They didn’t stagger when an axe chopped halfway into their chests. They fought, and thrashed, and clawed at whatever live tissue they could see before their eyes.
They were a terrible bunch, Valens had to say, but at least they didn’t have any of those Wards and hideous monsters in the lane. Most of them were too large to fit into the small corridor anyway, which was probably why there was only a constant line of Skeletons being directed there to keep the numbers up.
Still dangerous.
Apathy settled hard over his mind, and he started thinking about the ways with which he could provide himself and the group some relief in this grand endeavor. There was a terrifying line of animated corpses waiting a few paces ahead, and a constant trickle from the main horde that fed into their ranks.
Cut the lifeline.
Valens nodded as Apathy forced the reek of rot and the din of chaos away. What he left with was a cold detachment from the surroundings that allowed him to focus on the path ahead. There was a tight gap on the corridor wall through which the Skeletons had to pass to join their stubborn companions.
“I’ll patch that hole,” he said as Nomad and Celme bounded ahead. When they looked at him he pointed a finger to the hole. “That’ll cut their supply line. It’ll probably turn a few eyes toward here, so we have to act fast if we don’t want to be bombarded by that Necromancer’s foul magic.”
“You can do that?” Celme’s rasped, face blotchy pink with ungodly amounts of blood underneath the skin. The Resonance told Valens that everything in the woman's body was boiling like a broth cooked in a human-shaped cauldron.
A simple nod was the answer he decided to go with. He hadn’t the time to tell the woman that the act of magical healing wasn’t something even an accomplished Magus could easily perform. One had to go through years of specific study and practice to even get the much respected title of Healer in this field. Compared to that, performing a few spells wasn’t something worth a mention.
They had gods here, though, with ways to grant humans their blessings. I wonder how that works?
He shook off the nauseating notion that anyone could become a Healer through some godly ritual in this world, and instead focused on the spell formulae for the Gravitating Earth waiting at the edge of his mind. Unlike Earth Magi who had to imprint the shape or the dimensions of the piece they wanted to move into the spell diagram with perfect detail, he only had to project the vacancy in the long wall’s Resonance which aligned seamlessly to the real gap in his vision into the spell diagram, and move the earth mana to patch that hole in the Resonance.
“Get ready,” he said as they closed in on the gap. Already, some of the Skeletons were looking toward them with questions in their sockets. They hesitated, as if not sure this sudden intrusion was in part a decision from their Master or was there an actual breach in their tight ranks.
Nomad’s sword decided for them, coming at the two who had just walked in from the gap with crushing force. Its tip gleamed with green fog as it hacked a smooth line across their waists, severing the bones and sending the body parts clanking down onto the ground.
“We move!” the undead roared as he and Celme lumbered forward to the back of the Skeleton Soldier line.
Valens reached out to the mana and felt its tingle round his hands, a part of his mind focused on the gap in the Resonance. He sent the invisible earth mana threads toward the ground, right underneath the gap and forced the bare patch of earth to move. It stirred with a grinding sound that sent a tremor across the wall, its edges perfectly aligned to the both sides of the gap and rising slowly to close it.
Then a Skeleton Soldier jumped over the slightly alleviated part, swinging a rusted sword at the undead. The weapon clanked harmlessly off the armor, making the creature stagger back, before a punch plunged into its face and splintered the nasal bone with a sickening crunch.
Valens frowned when the Skeleton Soldier’s strange Resonance interrupted into the gap’s own frequencies. The part that was rising from the ground started to shift to match the difference, taking the animated corpse’s form which led to bone-shaped empty streaks in its otherwise solid surface.
“I need you to keep the hole clean!” he called out when another Skeleton Warrior tried to barge in from the gap. “Keep that space empty!”
Celme’s eyes turned to him almost immediately, only to snap back to the hole when Valens jabbed a strong finger into her face.
“Keep that hole… Clean!”
“Understood,” the Berserker said, reached out with a hand and clutched the Skeleton Soldier from the nape of its neck like one might hold a puppy from its scruff, then slammed it to the ground and crushed its skull with the heel of her feet. Green light burst forth in a rolling wave and pushed the other ones trying to jam their heads over the rising wall.
The Resonance restored, Valens focused on the earth mana and guided it slowly with his fingers. There was a heavy feeling to the spell, as if he was the one raising that part, and some resistance because of all the foul mana sprawling over the fighting mob. Even from this he could tell the Necromancer’s mana pool was something beyond understanding, like an endless ocean that just wouldn’t dry out.
When the tip of the rising earth matched that of the long wall, the spell came to a grinding stop and a loud ‘ding’ rang in his mind.
Ding! You have learned the Class Skill ‘Gravitating Earth - Master!
Having expected that, he waved the notification off and joined the undead and the Berserker as they moved toward the Skeleton Soldier ranks. Only a handful of them seemed aware of the closing threat while the others further into the ranks were still occupied by the approaching human tide. That gave them the chance to grind the horde with two or three creatures at a time.
Nomad took most of the burn. His armored bulk nearly blocked the greater half of the passage, which also limited his use of the sword to only fast thrusts and close swings. Celme didn’t have that problem. Her sleek form was like an eel as she moved through the Skeleton Warriors. She punched, and kicked, and her fingers drilled whenever an animated corpse tried to use its armor to take a hit.
It was strange watching them from the back, as Valens felt like he was in the company of two stubborn fools too lost in a twisted competition. The undead grunted loudly when the Berserker stepped round him to deliver a punch, and on more than one occasion went for a wide sweep to purposefully keep the woman away.
Meanwhile, Valens walked slowly, for which he was grateful as his mana pool renewed constantly. He couldn’t help but think about what awaited him on the other side, though. People of this world. Human and undead both. New traditions. New of everything, for that matter. At least he would be away from the Inquisition’s tight hold for a while.
Fresh air was something he dearly missed. That, and strangely the idea of being free. He wasn’t ever free, now that he thought about it, not after Master Eldras took him from the streets. It was the best thing that’d ever happened to him. He didn’t remember much of anything before that. Only bits and pieces. Lounging about the taverns, waiting, fingers painfully cold, stomach aching, never knowing where he’d sleep next.
Memories, as Nomad said to him, sometimes were just dead weight over your mind.
He shook them off and swept an eye across the diminishing line. Most of the Skeleton Soldiers were around level sixty here, and they now seemed hesitant whether they should be more worried about the pressing human forces or the odd group of three that hacked at their ranks, which Valens had to admit was a hard decision to make.
[Warrior - Level ??]
[Warrior - Level ??]
When he tried to check the humans, he couldn’t see their levels. Their shining armors all carried the same patch over the left shoulder, a double-headed snake that coiled round its body with both heads hissing at each other. They used a great array of weapons from swords to pole axes, and some others simply punched the Skeleton Soldiers much like Celme.
They are strong, likely focused on Vitality, Endurance, and Strength, but where are the Healers? I don’t see anyone that looks like a Priest here.
That was odd, as most of the men and women fighting in the melee were smarting from cuts and deep gashes. He even saw one man bleed out in the front from a deep tear across his neck. Nobody tried to help him as he choked on his own blood, falling into his knees with one hand clasped round the terrible wound.
A second after he was crushed under a number of armored feet.
Where were the Priests? The healers whom Celme seemed to have great respect for? They should’ve been carrying the wounded back from the lines to be treated, so why then nobody bothered to spare another glance to the men and women flailing right beside them?
Valens scowled as a man staggered back when a rusted spear caught him just below the ribcage. Men around him turned at him, their eyes growing wide. Then they moved. The people who hadn’t batted an eye to their fallen companions were now in a frenzy to aid this particular man. One of them snapped the spear’s shaft from the middle and the other handled the Skeleton Soldier who tried to lunge at the wounded man with its bony fingers.
Not a simple fellow, that’s for sure.
Blood spurted out the moment the man pulled the spearhead off. A most horrifying mistake. Valens winced involuntarily, fingers itching to help the man, but they had dozens of Skeleton Soldiers between them. He couldn’t risk it, which meant the man would likely die by what was otherwise an easily fixable wound.
But against the expectations, the man shook his head, took a step forward and hauled his sword high, wincing as he brought it down upon a Skeleton Warrior who managed to pass through the other two. So, he could deal with some pain. He then turned and thrust the weapon into another Skeleton, caught it with the tip and sent it sprawling over to the side. His skin was visible through the hole in the armor, and Valens couldn’t stop himself from staring at that gap. The wound was still bleeding, but it already started closing on its own.
The stats are at work here, I guess…
“Last lines!” that man roared with the sword held at high. “Push forward! These mindless bastards can’t take us anymore. Move!”
The human lines pressed in reheated fervor, closing the distance between them and Valens’s group. Nomad and Celme were no different as they crushed one Skeleton Warrior after another, barely aware that a storm was wrecking chaos around Valen’s mind.
Soon green lights mixed into the golden sprinkle of the humans’ armor. They illuminated what was left from the Necromancer’s horde - a group of pitiful skeletons that got squashed between two groups.
Valens sighed out a weary breath when the humans started hacking at the last few creatures while Nomad and Celme dealt with a particularly stubborn one. They were mostly done here, which surprised him as he hadn’t expected things to go this smoothly.
A shadow fell over the lane. The others were still too focused on the fight in front to notice the oddity, but Valens managed to shake himself off and get a good look at it. He blinked.
No…
There was a giant sword coming right at them, clasped between the hands of a creature that towered over the corridor’s wall. Its skull looked similar to that of a human’s, except it was twice as big and its arms were easily over six feet. Every bit of its body frame reeked of the Necromancer’s venom.
“Sword! Watch out!” Valens screamed, but his voice was lost in the din. His mind churned as he prepared a Gale and felt the spell’s force in the palm of his hand. He stretched it toward his two companions, twirling the spell round their bodies and pushing them back.
The tip of the giant sword cleaved down at the place where his companions stood a moment ago. It choked the wall and everything around them in a cloud of dust.
……
