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1159 Words
The stones loudly cracked under the cold. Matt recognized that Aster was using the cold collar he’d enchanted with separate runes. One for her own ice mana, and the other for slowing ice mana. The rune made from her mana increased the ice damage of any spell she channeled through it. Now, he could finally see the fruits of his labor, though they had tested it earlier.
While not a conventional skill, Winter’s Embrace still qualified for the added damage from the collar.
As their comrades forced them forward, the frontmost queendom fighters were shoved into a frigid, flowering jungle that wolfishly devoured them whole. Their fate was sealed after simply stepping into its domain.
The downside of such a natural treasure was that it guzzled mana as if it was endless.
With Matt as her bond, it was.
He crossed over to her and slipped a hand through her spiky armor. Burning extra mana to convert his own mana to her personal signature faster, he charged the mana stones around her neck. Simultaneously, Matt’s Concept surged forth in a tight circle just broad enough to include only his bond.
Mana rushed into Aster and kept her going, expanding Winter’s Embrace, and allowing it to gorge on enough invaders to be self-sustaining, even with its meals being stolen. If the army rescuers left people inside for any longer, the skill could have sustained itself from merely one or two ensnared victims. Aster wouldn’t have had access to that mana, but the skill itself would have continued on its own.
At a diameter of nearly fifty feet, a large enough number of troops were ensnared by the wintery jungle of roses to keep it sustained with a little help from Matt. The push of the queendom’s advance only led more lambs to the slaughter at Aster’s paws. They were so eager to get out of the chokepoint through the wall, they rushed forward into another zone of death. And only the first in line were able to see it.
The best part? Aster was an adorable little fox, and thus shorter than the berm they used as a parapet. She was sheltered from retaliation.
An hour and a half of fervent fighting later, an order went out, which instantly gave Matt pause.
‘All forces, Charge!’
Matt thought someone had gone crazy but relayed his orders as was his duty.
“Charge!”
Taking the lead, he leapt over the berm and swung his sword in a downwards arc. After a second of bewilderment, everyone else followed. They collided with the momentum of the attackers, with each side stalling out for a moment.
Then, Matt heard it. Echoes where there had been none before.
A glance up revealed that the city shields were active once again.
That madman Juni had lied about the amount of mana they had and saved some. Now he was using that final reserve to trap the invading forces.
Matt snickered at the pure audacity of the move.
The queendom fighters, who had been taking heavy casualties before, were now on their heels as attacks rained down from the outer wall and archery positions. So this was why the city AI only wanted half of the artillery brought down from the wall.
Death and destruction showered down from all sides. Ballistae and mana cannons tore lines of death into the panicked attackers, as fast as they could reload.
With refound vigor, the weary kingdom defenders sheared their way through rank after rank of the opposition. Liz was a golem of bloody death, scything her way through the trapped attackers like ripe wheat waiting to be harvested.
Lightning thundered so powerfully, Matt knew that Emily had to be at his side. As the blinding flashes flared out, half a dozen people blinked away while the [Bolt] arced its way through multiple bodies. The spell was empowered enough to chain through and eliminate swaths of enemies in a flash.
Matt and his forces minced their way up to the breach in the wall, to find an open spot free of enemies. At first, Matt thought that their retaliation ended there. But then he saw them.
The real prize.
Matt looked over the breach to discover a formation of Tier 7 elites with their backs against the shielding. The way their equipment looked, he suspected that they carried Tier 8 arms and armor. A hail of arrows from them caught Matt and his people off guard.
They were backed up to an invisible but sturdy wall. Matt pondered his options. Only for a moment. Now wasn’t the time for thinking, it was the time to pay them back for each and every raid.
He launched a max-powered [Hail] with a wave of his staff. It started to batter at his opponents, but they were a Tier higher, and not as threatened as he’d imagined.
Too tired to think straight, he latched onto the simplest option, and ordered a charge into the enemy position.
As he exploded forward with his sword aglow and a berserk roar on his lips, Matt flew through his [Hail] and into the mass of elite troops. He crashed down with a dry-then-wet crunch of someone else’s mangled armor and bones. His reckless blitz prompted enough of the fighters to turn to face him, allowing his allies to charge without immediate reprisal.
A spear pierced through the side of Matt’s leg armor. Luckily, it was a glancing blow, half stopped by his under armor. He managed to step away before it drew more than a little blood.
His own people slammed into the raised shields of the Tier 7 formation. It promised to be a hectic, bloody fight where they were out-Tiered in both cultivation and equipment.
He kicked and lashed downward with his sword as he cut into metal armor. His sword was heavy for its Tier, but not sharper, so the wounds weren’t fatal.
Matt expected the melee to last a while, as it was a brawl in close quarters, when suddenly the air went white.
A huge explosion of cold consumed the area as the air itself seemed to solidify, and ice from the still falling [Hail] started to elevate. The world around him seemed to slow then stop, as if space time had been flash-frozen. The fighters surrounding Matt all stilled.
Then, just as suddenly, they were gone, and the illusion shattered.
Nearby, a wheezing, quivering Aster collapsed onto her side next to a field of ice, blood, and churned earth, with Matt at the center.
His lungs heaving, Matt slumped to the ground. He felt boiling hot despite his armor blocking external sources of heat. He hadn’t noticed the heat until just now.
Deactivating it sent a shock through Matt’s system as the still freezing air washed over him, jolting him fully awake from what now felt like a bad dream. That had been stupid. Monumentally stupid.
What was I thinking?
- Writer
