Chương 115: Lackey

Ryland considered their current predicament. For one, there was the Calamity rising from beneath the waves. For another, there was the Flourinus Order choosing this exact moment to appear as another snag in his current circumstance. A part of him wished to end the Calamity here and now. If he left everyone else to deal with the Order, then he could turn all his focus on eradicating their strongest enemy here.

The problem with that intention was that the Order most likely outclassed everyone but Ryland himself in magic. And they outclassed the others by a lot. Leaving the Mage Knights and the Miner Mages to handle whoever the Order had sent would be tantamount to sacrificing their lives for whatever good Ryland could eventually enforce. Something he obviously wasn't intent on doing. Something he also wasn't intent on saying, either.

Which was why he had instead tried to instil some encouraging confidence in them by suggesting he'd need their participation. Which wasn't necessarily a lie. It just depended on how he went about doing things. He figured out his exact plan the moment the Wound Corridor opened in truth, spitting out the Order operatives they'd need to contend with.

"Ha, it is you," Ankh-Viyo said. He was pointing at Ryland with all three of his bony, crimson arms.

"Th-that's a kurodarr!" someone said from below.

"They're supposed to be extinct," said another. While keeping his two main eyes focused on Ryland, the two on his red forehead glared down. His black robes with the white sigil of a Realm trapped in a claw flapped as he gestured vigorously.

"Do I look extinct to you, you fools?"

"I'm surprised the Order sent you," Ryland said.

"Is Righteous too scared to come by herself again?"

"Don't you dare speak with such familiarity, you traitorous scum," Ankh-Viyo spat.

"You will rue the day you decided to stand against the Order. You will rue—"" [Universal Collapse]." Since Ryland had no intention of simply sitting there and getting blasted by their verbal inanities, he decided to end things quickly. His magic impressed onto reality with another huge spell circle, one that caught almost all of the Order mages popping out of the Wound Corridor. A box of rifts formed around them all.

They had naturally begun flinging their own counterspells at the magic encasing them, though Ryland blissfully didn't have to hear their crazed shouts and so on. He barely even cared to read all their various spell circles. For they were about to die. The box of reality collapsed in on everything it contained, space compressing towards a singular point. Everything within was crushed to nothingness in a matter of seconds. It was a mess, but at least it was contained.

The bodies turned to mists of red, the clothes and all other matter within condensed to a point where they combusted momentarily before turning into utter darkness. And then everything was reduced to a tiny, nearly-imperceptible black dot. Reality reshuffled a moment later. Ryland blinked. He heard several people gasp. A quick look elsewhere showed him that the lone Order mage who had escaped his spell was dying.

In fact, he was dying in the exact same manner as the rest of his comrades had, his body compressed and condensed into that tiny dot. But his death wasn't the important bit. Not by itself. Rather, the Glyph burning in front of what used to be him, was the real cause for concern. A burning red Glyph. A Tier [26] Glyph of Sacrifice.

"Curses!" Ankh-Viyo said as he returned to the state he had been moments ago before Ryland had cast [Universal Collapse]. The kurodarr's extra eyes twisted around independently like those of a chameleon, glaring at his various subordinates.

"You mongrels! You almost had us all. This is insane. Stop gawking and spread out already." They moved a bit too fast for Ryland to catch them all, sadly. And now that he hadn't been able to deal with them with a surprise spell, it was going to be a little bit harder. Keeping them all in view wasn't a possibility either. The moment they had left his line of sight, magic flashed into being beneath him. Shouts and cries shot up from below like geysers.

It seemed the Order mages had engaged with everyone else he had brought. He wondered how things might have been different if he had been here alone. Just a bit more complicated, he supposed. But it wasn't like Ryland would ever have needed to fight by himself if he had chosen to do otherwise.

"Now!" Ankh-Viyo concentrated entirely on Ryland, licking his lips in relish.

"I will bring down the wrath of the entire Order upon you, scum of the cosmos! [Awakened Being Deluge]!" He wasn't casting the spell alone. While his magic was clearly the most powerful, the few other Order mages who hadn't spread apart like the rest were casting alongside him, smaller spell circles connecting with the larger one from Ankh-Viyo. They all formed an enormous gate, one which cracked open to rain down a thousand armed appendages shooting straight for Ryland." [Eternal Bastion]," he incanted.

As always, his spell did more than enough to protect him. The blows from all those arms and tendrils, each bearing an armament imbued with enough mana to make Primordial-ranked mages jealous, hammered in with frightful power. His barrier actually shook for a moment. But Ryland was taking care of his opposition with ease. Just a few Glyphs of Sundering around him had the arms and everything they held started to collapse and break. In seconds, they all turned to dust.

But not before they had left their mark on his magic. A little too late, Ryland noticed that the arms and the weapons had all borne Glyphs of Decay. It was reducing his barrier's effectiveness, allowing the hits to chip away at his protective spell far more easily than normal. Ryland cast a powerful Glyph of Repulsion to force the arms away. His Glyphs of Sundering continued tearing them apart. But the damage had been done. The Order had seen to it.

Ankh-Viyo had pulled on a mask of triumph, his manasoul surging even brighter as desperation to take advantage of the opportunity he himself had carved out possessed him. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

"Ha, ha!" the kurodarr screamed.

"Now I've got you! [Interstellar Burgeon of Time]!" They reformed their magic into a new spell circle. Into several." [Mindscape]," Ryland cast. He wouldn't have gotten the time to read their overlapping spell circles normally, which was why he was slowing down time for a little bit. Thankfully, he found the Glyph he was looking for, just as their magic unleashed.

A comet-like stream of furious power scoured through the area with such air-bursting ferocity, the world itself appeared to shriek out as it rushed at Ryland. Everything was shaded an eradicating white and blue. It was all thanks to those multi-layered spell circles, each amplifying the output of the last to form obliteration made manifest in the form of a gargantuan beam.

One Ryland couldn't just displace with a handy rift because they knew he'd be up to something of that sort so they had added a specific Subglyph to prevent that. A Glyph of Multidimensionality. Now, the energy was coruscating through multiple layers of reality itself, so Ryland couldn't displace it easily. So instead, he tried a different tactic." [Endless Evolution]," he cast. He didn't stop just there, though." [Soul Shift]."

In the span of a blink, that tremendous magical force had already reached Ryland, determined to eradicate him now that his barrier spell had decayed a bit. And in that same span, Ryland had finished preparing his counter. His arm changed. As his manasoul rippled out stronger and stronger, a new arm replaced his old one. An arm of metal and flesh intertwined, wires running in place of nerves and blood vessels, thunder sparking along the entire length instead of blood.

Thunder, and enough of mana to fill a lake. Ryland stopped the Order's magic with an outthrust palm. The impact mimicked a thunderclap landing atop an unsuspecting tree. Space itself fractured at the collision, light and heat pouring out with volcanic intensity. He could have slapped it away, but did he really want to just send it in some random direction where it would have no useful effect? Instead, Ryland handled the power with his Inscription-reinforced arm, before finally sending it back down at an angle.

Straight to where the Calamity was trying to rise. The detonation let off further explosions. It was water, after all, and splitting it at a particulate level would simply lead to continued ferocity in the presence that intense light and heat. Was the Calamity vapourized as well? Ryland significantly doubted it. But it felt nice to redirect the Order's own magic to their creation." Noooo!" Ankh-Viyo screamed. He glared at Ryland with all his eyes now.

"You hateful monster. You will know true horror. You—"" [Sun Summoning]," Ryland incanted. If that beam of frightful power—of magic that was at least Tier [25] by Ryland's keen judgment—hadn't been enough, then surely bringing down the sun itself would have to be enough. Or, at the very least, it ought to stymie the Calamity even further. The problem with such a destructive spell, as ever, was the presence of others. So, while [Sun Summoning] worked its magic, Ryland finally turned to the others.

There was too much madness going on everywhere for him to focus on any one specific thing. Battles were strewn all over the area, over and across every rocky face floating over the sea. Magic sparked and defused and detonated everywhere, every mage desperate to end their fight and come out alive from the fracas. That said, if Ryland was to observe with the aid of a modified cast of [Omniscience] since the summoned sun was far too bright, he spotted a worrying pattern.

The Order mages were still superior to the ones on Ryland's side. He had been afraid of this. The Flourinus Order had been operating for centuries now, had been training the worst battlemages across the Realms for far too long. He doubted there was a single operative below Titan-ranked in their whole group. Conversely, while Ryland could rest assured in the Mage Knights' prowess, he doubted a single one of the Miner Mages was Titan-ranked. Maybe the Head Miner, but that was about it.

The battle came to a sudden jerking halt as the sun's presence registered for everyone. Ryland had angled the rift that called in a star from the cosmos so that its indescribable power was angled away from where the sprawling fight was taking place. He could hear Ankh-Viyo screaming even as they cast their desperate defence against Ryland's magic. But still. The sun's fury swept in everywhere.

Its outpour of heat and light blistered away the oceans and swamped the gathered Order mages, vapourizing away both their magical defences and their bodies. Closer at hand, the Wardens, Knights, and Miner Mages only suffered a terrific sunburn because Ryland was casting [Eternal Bastion] repeatedly on them all. They cried out and fell back, including Viren and Acrypha, but they remained unharmed overall. Then the sun turned off as Ryland dispelled the rift. The world tried to right itself.

A storm was blowing everywhere with the superheated wind shooting around with slicing speed, while the Gildharbour-sized chunk of the ocean that had just been boiled away was now being filled up by the surrounding water via frightful waves. And at the same time, one of the Order mages closer at hand started burning away, flames quickly giving way to ash. Another high Tier Glyph of Sacrifice burned in the air in front of him.

"Hmph!" Ankh-Viyo said as he reappeared with a twist in resetting reality.

"Seems you've been sharpening your torturing knife on Valorous, haven't you?" Ryland sighed. He looked around at all the other Order mages, including those that were still alive everywhere. It seemed he had his work cut out for him. The best option would be to end the Order mages as quickly as possible, even while he kept Ankh-Viyo busy. So, Ryland began unleashing a bit more of his manasoul, letting it fire up and turn searing bright.

"Stop ignoring me, betrayer!" Ankh-Viyo screamed. He was casting more magic, Glyphs constructing spell circles in no time at all." [Blister —"" [Absolute Null]. [Imprisoned Land]." Ryland's spell circle ate away all mana in the targeted area. This included the magic that had Ankh-Viyo and the rest of the Flourinus Order floating around everywhere. Their spells broke, and then they plummeted towards the ocean too. He'd have loved to throw them into some sort of wild rift or just cast a Glyph of Banishment, but the Wound Corridor was a thorn in his side. They'd just reappear through it. Thankfully, there were far more applications of rifts than just that. The Order mages fighting Ryland's allies were casting all sorts of spells, but he let them bounce ineffectually off his barrier that he had reconstructed. They were ignoring everyone save him, zeroing in on the real threat present. Ryland tutted." [Broken Realm]." The attacking mages all froze. He had made sure to add a couple of Subglyphs that turned the spell extremely potent. One of the Order mages moved a fraction, and the front of his cowl plus several locks of his hair fell off, sliced off cleanly by the fracture in reality. Because he had ignored their silly spell from earlier, he had gotten the time to be quite precise about it too. Despite how the enemy was strewn between all the Mage Knights and Miner Mages and Wardens, Ryland's spell only targeted the Order mages. His allies were free to move. Once they got over their shock at the turn of events, of course." fools… cast… anti-gravity…" Far beneath them, Ankh-Viyo was having trouble rising because of the other spell he had quickly cast right after [Absolute Null]. It had created a rift to prop open land from Realm 76. One of the strongest gravitational fields in existence was now trapping the Order Mages as the ocean rushed back in a storm to drown them all, though they no doubt had defences against that. Still. They were trapped for the time being, which was all Ryland sought at the moment." Excellent," Ryland said, surveying everything one last time. The magic was still far too riotous for him to clearly separate every thread of mana and be sure of everything, but at least the visual test wasn't revealing anything concerning." Now, we can finally—" The sea parted. A long spear of black energy charged into the air, reaching heavenward with no regard for anything in its way. Moments later, clouds began gathering at a terrifically rapid pace. A storm was building." Sir," Viren shouted up from below." Were we too late?" Ryland paused a moment as more spears of darkness rose from the ocean to join the first in the darkening sky. A cyclone of monochrome power was starting to swirl around the jets of darkness." You didn't happen to see the Vestige, did you, Viren?" Viren blinked several times. It was Acrypha who answered." Curse the Calamities!"