Chương 47: Lightning Spell

Ch 47: Lightning Spell No matter how confident I was in my spell casting speed, falling ten floors was no less scary. My heart was beating wildly as I held Sahirah tightly and cast a custom version of Haste to kill our momentum. The very instant our feet safely touched the ground, I heard a sequence of three loud metallic crashes. When I followed the sound of those metal plates slamming into each other, my gaze landed on the ruthless Grey who had killed his own people with that huge sword.

He stood there like a mountain in front of his two armored companions, their gazes connecting to mine through their helmet slits.

"You really think you can run away from us with such a basic movement spell, human?"

"Well, running away is not exactly part of our plan." As I said those words, the first salvo of Mana Needles made contact with the three dark armored Greys. The armor acted on its own, the runes glowing as they shaped mana into barrier segments one after the other, ready to intercept the incoming Mana Needles. Yet, unlike most spells, those needles were denser than the barrier themselves. They made contact. The only thing Sahirah and I saw was a flash.

And then those barriers had suddenly developed new holes and cracks. More impressive yet, the armor behind them had also been scratched, though it apparently managed to stop the needles from hurting their bodies.

"Watch out!" warned the ruthless Grey with the huge sword as he inspected the damage.

"The school roof is full of hostile Driari firing an unknown spell!" What this Grey man had just noticed was Zira and the Driari I had managed to hire using my aim assistant wristbands to snipe them from a long distance. Yet, despite our initial success, those three Grey soldiers moved before the second salvo could even be fired. They burst away with their own movement spell, relocating to a place where Elitha's tower itself served as their cover. I frowned.

Unlike that last battle in the city, this team's decision making was quick, and they figured out how to defend against one of my trump cards in a matter of seconds. That was definitely not good.

"Is that Lord Krosak?" asked Sahirah. When I looked around, Sahirah's head was tilted, her eyes of green and amber fixed on the floating ship high above us. I followed her gaze, noticing that the ship's deck was different now. First, the place had been protected by a multi-layered barrier, blocking anyone in the school's roof from firing a Mana Needle at Lord Krosak. Second, Lord Krosak himself was unconcerned, staring down at us with a wide smile on his face. And third...

At least a dozen armored Greys were getting ready for battle over there, helping each other lock their armor plates in place, quickly preparing to swarm us with more muscle and equipment than I had prepared to fight against. Lord Krosak raised a hand near his mouth as if it were a microphone, and one of his mana rings started to glow, evoking a magic circle near his mouth.

"The bare minimum I asked for," said Lord Krosak through some sort of voice amplification spell, "was that you not disrespect me in public. But what you did is way worse. Much worse." He glanced at the school roof, realizing that even now Mana Needles were flying towards his ship, constantly damaging the first few layers of his defensive barrier. He continued, "The two of you assembled an army of Riftstorm arrivals to fight me.

With this, the adoption refusal ceases to be a private disagreement and becomes an instance of organized resistance against nobility itself. Unfortunately I cannot adopt you anymore no matter how much I still want to, and death is the only outcome the other noble families will accept. As for everyone who works for you, they shall spend the rest of their lives behind bars." Sahirah's eyes went wide.

She turned toward me, and when our gazes connected, I saw a weird mixture of determination tainted with fear coexisting in her features. For the first time ever, she forgot the lack of privacy within Elitha's translation domain, and said something I wasn't exactly prepared to hear.

"Her ancestors will never forgive a girl if she dies before introducing her human to her family." Wait, family? Was she not worried Elitha might figure out she intended to open a portal to her homeworld? Well, that was a question for later. Right now I needed Sahirah's help to deal with Lord Krosak's threat. I placed a gentle hand over her head.

"I'll be very happy to meet your family, but right now I need you to get the custom spell I made for you," I said.

"You are our best chance of getting out of this mess alive and free." A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. I was perfectly aware I had basically told my sharp toothed girl she would have to save herself instead of promising to solve everything like a brave knight, but I smiled anyway. Why should I be ashamed of hiding behind a powerful woman when things got tough? That was my signature move at this point.

Sahirah, unaware of the shameless thoughts crossing my head, accepted my encouragement and reached for the folded spell attached to her shoulder strap. Lord Krosak was observing from above, while the three armored Greys on the ground had been forced to use Elitha's tower as cover, giving us time to do whatever we wanted while the Greys on the deck finished assembling their own armor.

When Sahirah finished unfolding the large spell, her gaze alternated between the thousands of runes I had inscribed on red paper of the highest quality and my face, as if asking my permission to activate this monstrosity.

"Hands on the safety marks," I said, "and fire at will at every target with an armor." She nodded and acted immediately. The moment her hands reached both Mana Drain modules on each side and injected her mana, the pathways started to light up, awakening module after module until even the runes at the very center of the large paper lit up. Her long black hair floated around her as though gravity had lost meaning, while the air itself began to glow around her.

As if that was not impressive enough, my spell's antigravity module activated, another module offering her a small kinetic push that sent her levitating. Her feet left the ground, and when she was perhaps three times her own height above the ground, a multi-layer barrier covered her body from each side. Right now, she became the focal point of attraction of all Greys, all of them staring at her without understanding what was going on.

Meanwhile, I took advantage of the distraction to communicate with the sales team through a spell.

"Stop firing the Mana Needles at the deck. Focus all your efforts on protecting Sahirah." Right now, she needed protection above anything else. Because when Lord Krosak and the Greys under him realized how much damage Sahirah could cause by herself, she certainly would attract a lot of negative attention. She glanced at me one last time, and when I nodded, she poured even more mana into the spell.

A sphere of lightning suddenly took shape above her head, growing larger and larger as an impressive amount of mana was converted into electricity. Lord Krosak realized something was not right as he witnessed the complexity of the modular spell Sahirah was casting.

"Stop the girl!" The few Greys who had already assembled their armor jumped from the ship like a swarm of angry armored wasps. But before the first one reached the ground, Sahirah's eyes narrowed. My own hair stood on end, the amount of static electricity contained in the sphere above Sahirah crossing a dangerous threshold. The array of heat runes activated, creating a little path of heat between Sahirah's energy sphere and her falling target.

When the air became hot enough to turn into plasma, electricity flowed along the path of least resistance as if the air itself had become a copper wire. Kaboom! One of the armored Greys took the hit in the chest midfall, electricity flowing through his armor and destroying every single rune where it touched, though the body inside was protected as the armor itself became a Faraday cage. Still, without the spells inscribed in the armor, he fell hard toward the ground, unable to control his fall.

He screamed all the way down until he reached the ground like dead weight. Lord Krosak's smile vanished from his face. And when the other armored Greys touched the ground smoothly, they were all staring at the unfortunate soul who was still alive, but likely with quite a few broken bones.

"Attack!" The leader, that armored Grey with the sword, finally gave up his cover and jumped toward Sahirah with sword in hand. His voice set the others in motion, all of them swarming towards Sahirah at once. A few of them held swords, others were casting large fireballs at her, and a few even brandished what looked like maces powered by gravity magic with the intention to break the barrier around Sahirah. The Driari on the school roof didn't waste time, and another salvo of Mana Needles came flying towards them.

I cast the communication spell, and sent an order to Niko's team.

"Short range team," I said, "your turn now!" Niko and a bunch of Zufi suddenly appeared in the distance from behind the various buildings, burning through Haste spells that took their already impressive agility to another level. In less than five seconds, they were close enough for the armored Greys to be within range of my nastier spell. They stopped side by side, raising their arms as their wristbands glowed.

"Microwave the shit out of them!" I screamed. The Zufi didn't have a lot of mana, but they had enough to cast my spell once. Chaos itself spread among the Greys as plasma arcs materialized across their armors, burning the runes inscribed on the surface. Not a single soul understood where this attack was coming from. No barrier was effective.

And they could only hopelessly watch as this invisible force destroyed their equipment, crippling their mobility and their ability to reach Sahirah as dozens of armors got ruined within seconds. As for the ones who escaped... Kaboom! Kaboom! Kaboom! Sahirah herself had never stopped casting, even her enormous mana pool draining itself quickly as she spam cast that powerful lightning spell. Lord Krosak was speechless.

It was as if he couldn't believe a good chunk of his trained soldiers had been neutralized before they could even attempt to break Sahirah's barrier with their maces. Of course, a few of them were casters, and they kept trying to hit Sahirah with various spells. Yet, without their armor, they didn't have what it took to break her defenses.

"Right now many of you will die if I order the Driari to cast Mana Needle," I said.

"Surrender now if you enjoy being alive." My voice sent a wave of fear across the Greys, the ones whose armors were fried staring at me in terror. Lord Krosak finally shifted his attention from Sahirah to me.

"If anyone surrender, your fate will be worse than death. Go after him all of you! The human is coordinating their side." His ring ensured his voice reached everywhere.

"Forget the girl, take him out and we win." The leader among the soldiers, the black armored Grey with the large sword, stared at me.

"No. There's no need for all of us to act." He glanced up towards Lord Krosak.

"I'll take out the human alone. I don't need a functioning armor to kill him." It was a surprise to see someone questioning Lord Krosak's orders. Yet, the moment he deactivated the runes powering his armor and started to move toward me with the power of his muscles alone, fear emerged deep inside me.

"Eric!" Sahirah attempted to hover toward me, but Lord Krosak himself stretched a hand toward her, one of his rings glowing. Sahirah froze in place, staring at me with blank eyes. I recognized the trick instantly. He had trapped her in an illusion in the same way he'd done to me the first time I met him. And illusions weren't Sahirah's field of expertise... Still, the barriers around her were active, drinking her mana even without her active input.

Noticing she was safe was the only thing I had time to do when a sword came flying toward my neck. I was forced to bypass even the Casting Assistant, and raw cast Haste quickly enough to save my life. The armored Grey laughed, and he inklessly cast Haste on himself, arriving at my new position immediately. I tried again. He followed me yet again quite effortlessly.

"You have never met a veteran of the Royal Army, have you, human?" I didn't know what to say, so I cast Haste a third time, aiming for a lot more distance now even though I was needed on the battlefield. Once more, he followed me with a custom Haste of his own, this time both of us distancing ourselves from Elitha's tower and the battlefield.

"No. You've met at least one veteran of the Royal Army. That archmage inside the tower had served the royal army once." I really didn't want to trust Sahirah's safety exclusively on Niko's and Zira's individual decisions, but apparently I would need to defeat this guy before I could return. Realizing that trusting them was my only option, I reached for my pocket, retrieving a privacy-invading system sphere to measure his level and check who was the strongest between us.

An awkward smile covered my face the moment his level appeared. [Nozak Meork, Lvl 213] Yeah, surviving this definitely wouldn't be an easy task.