Chapter 35: Shock to the System

  Replenished, Blychert quickly fell back into his paces alongside the rest of the party.

  The cobbled together strategy was far from ideal, given that they were down a man and the fact that each of them was fairly at their limit. Several days’ worth of delving did that to a person’s body, whereas Gurogan and his cronies seemed relatively fresh-faced. Bly didn’t doubt that Reingard could prove a worthy adversary to the giant at one hundred percent. But their party leader was already carrying a wound, and he was also down a weapon.

  Still, that didn’t seem to deter him.

  Metal echoed, weapon skills flashed, and bodies flung at one another as if their very lives depended on it. In many ways, they did.

  For his part, Bly focused all his efforts on dealing with the giantess spellcaster.

  It wasn’t difficult drawing her attention, a few counteracted spells targeting his companions with a bit of defensive magic saw to that. However, that didn’t mean he had an easy time of it. Her overall magic was chaotic, uneven in a sense. She deployed elemental magic as her primary offensive spellcasting type, but the spells themselves didn’t necessarily seem measured.

  One moment, she’d cast a series of spells targeting an individual, only to suddenly pivot into an area-effecting spell that not only caused Bly’s party concern, but her own as well. Even then, and lightning magic aside, it was her defensive magic that seemed the most infuriating to Bly.

  He was poised with his own offensive spells, able to pump them out in quick succession and to a certain degree of accuracy that left little to be desired. But no matter what he did, the giantess seemed to always be one step to the right or to the left, easily able to avoid being hit when his magic should have clearly struck true. Frankly, he was starting to wonder if she hadn’t been holding back in their initial battle.

  Bly paused, a moment to catch his breath and wipe a bead of sweat from his cheek.

  He had no idea how he was supposed to counteract her magic, or at least with enough precision to get any kind of successful offensive out of it. Devouring threads was thankfully converting a portion of the few minor hits he’d taken back into usable mana, lowering the overall stress on his transmogrifier, but it was exactly ideal. His armoring and barrier spells were keeping him in the fight.

  But for how long?

  Glancing towards his right, Bly regarded his companions.

  At least they seemed to be doing okay. Reingard was locked in a furious exchange with Gurogan, which was a spectacle on its own. Bjadir had just successfully taken out one of the others by the looks of it and seemed to be on the verge of overpowering the second. Meanwhile, Bly spotted Cynric slinking low through the battle unnoticed, now hovering over Skaldan’s limp body.

  The cackling laughter of the giantess brought Blychert back into the moment though, and he shirked off his fatigue—he just needed to keep going a little bit longer.

  A series of magical exchanges thereafter brought Bly a touch farther from her distance-wise, as he maneuvered and blocked his way out of a few near-fatal spells directed at him. It didn’t afford him the time he needed to come up with something clever on the spot, but the wheels were starting to turn.

  “Come on…” he murmured to himself, deflecting yet another glancing lightning bolt with a well-placed shield spell.

  Planting his feet, Bly steadied himself and cast a series of six icicle spells, mentally gesturing for his scattershot ability to apply to the first, third, fourth, and sixth iterations. With his freehand, he then directed the physical manifestations of that ice in the direction of his choosing, hoping to close-in the giantess and leave her with little room to maneuver as easily as she had been.

  The ice exploded magnificently, shimmering by the glow of his light spell hovering overhead. But when the dust cleared, the giantess was no more harmed than she had been a moment ago.

  She laughed—manic, really—in the face of Blychert’s attempt.

  Growling with fury and unabated exhaustion, Bly stepped forward and cast another conglomerate of spells.

  Double icicle into a fire lance, fire bolt immediately into a freezing chain, ensnare at her feet, system command after system command… it seemed to have had an effect, the giantess was caught off-guard in the sudden barrage. There was doubt that she hadn’t expected such a pattern of quick spellcasting from his likes.

  Good, just what he needed to gain the upper hand.

  The giantess stumbled, unable to prevent a hit from the latest of Bly’s icicle spells. The elemental cold pierced her shoulder, and she reeled in wailing agony. But Blychert pressed for his advantage, gaining more territory the longer he persisted.

  Yes, that was it.

  He was closer now, enough to make his close-quarters spell more highly effective. She was on the backfoot too, finally! If he just kept going, one or two more well-placed shots, he just had to—

  It took less than a second, but Bly was suddenly forced into an array of defensive maneuvers and spells himself. Lightning burst against his shields, as he now found himself stepping backwards, losing ground in the process.

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  His eyes widened as the dust cleared again.

  What was that?

  Out of nowhere, she’d perfectly adapted to the speed of his system spellcasting, easily outpacing and outmaneuvering his offensive measures in a matter of seconds. Furthermore, she had put herself right back into a position of pure advantage, keeping Bly well out of arm’s reach.

  His arms collapsed, as he allowed himself a moment to think, to breathe. How was he meant to combat someone who seemed to adapt so quickly?

  What could he infer from her magic? What could he strategically use against her?

  What would Alyse do in a situation like this?

  Bly’s mind was foggy, like he couldn’t think straight in that moment. Everything that had happened over the last few weeks, everything that he was trying to accomplish here in Frostwall, and somehow he was stuck down here fighting for his life, again. The only difference, this had nothing to do with the dungeon. Not really, anyway.

  Time wasn’t stopping just to save his companions, not this time.

  …Time?

  Bly’s brow furrowed at the possibility of something that had just occurred to him.

  The giantess wasn’t manipulating time; there was no way Gurogan retained the services of a powerful mage like that. And anyway, if she had been, he supposed he’d be dead by now. They all would. But she was toying with him, wasn’t she? That had to mean something…

  Shuffling to his left, Bly deployed a larger defensive spell to block an incoming attack, and to give himself a few more precious moments in thought. The nasty bolt of lightning burst across the yellow vibrance of his barrier, but the spell held.

  Bly glanced through the magic, towards the giantess.

  Was it possible that her true magical abilities lie in divination? That the real reason she adapted so quickly to his countermoves, was because she was quite capable of intuiting where she needed to be and in what order she needed to act. Maybe it wasn’t a full-on glimpse of the future, but more of a… feeling? He didn’t see her casting any spells to those likes, which meant it could be passive divination magic. And what’s more, she didn’t see him as a threat because of it, did she? No matter what he did, she could aways posture herself into a position capable of countering. Or so, she probably believed.

  After all, a diviner had the luxury of foresight.

  Bly scoffed in his own, spitting on the ground to his side in exhausted amusement.

  If his analysis was correct, then there was only one play he could make. And if he was wrong, well, then let the better spellcaster win the day.

  “System command…”

  The approach was simple.

  It was dangerous, falter even a little bit and he was as good dead, but what other choice did he have? She had to be taken out, and he was the one who had to do it.

  The shield spell collapsed, and Blychert dashed forward the second it disappeared. However, with a hasten spell active on him directly, his movement speed was doubled again. The giantess should have been anticipating a play towards her, like he’d tried several times already. But that wasn’t the play here.

  A lightning bolt blazed past Blychert’s face, but he persisted forward. A split second later, he cut to his right and headed directly for the others some ten yards away. Closing in on three-quarters of that distance, Bly cast an empowered summon swarm, doubling directly into a concealment spell, before finally changing that into a masked aura.

  The combo would hopefully achieve two things: low visibility and confusion in the mind of his own opponent.

  The swarm of tiny jackalwings burst into the surrounding area by the hundreds, completely obfuscating the fighting party in a ten-foot radius, just as intended. At the same time, Blychert ducked down through a swing of Gurogan’s massive battleaxe, the attack of which was directed at Reingard, just as the other two spells began to take effect. With his magical aura stifled and with a heightened degree of stealth, Bly used the moment in which his line of sight on the giantess was severed, to immediately activate his cloak of instant vanishing.

  In the blink of an eye, he was invisible, and he had just under sixty seconds to strike while it lasted.

  Ten yards.

  Bly’s breath was haggard as he sprinted forward towards the giantess. The exhaustion hanging over him, paired with a massive mana expenditure, was pushing him further into the red than even some of his more treacherous fights from the past.

  Five yards.

  The giantess was caught out completely, now was the time to finish it!

  Three yards.

  Two.

  One.

  “Input spell override—blade of frost—”

  The giantess turned, Bly caught her gaze looking directly back at him. But there was nowhere else to turn, and he had her right where he wanted her.

  A half-second’s breath, the blade of solidifying ice forming in Bly’s hand, plunging it forward. A burst of magic manifested, yellow and glimmering, spewing forth from her fingertips. But Bly was already past her hands and on the other side of her shield spell, rendering the attempt at one desperate defensive completely useless.

  The blade punctured cloth, bursting through flesh and bone until it pushed out the other side with as sickening a sound as Bly had ever heard. She gasped, an almost breathless sputtering, as her hands reached down. Blychert snarled, pushing even further with an audible grunt until both toppled over and hit the ground hard.

  Bly’s heart pounded in his chest.

  The giantess mumbled something unintelligible. But her body shook as if she was no longer in control of her own faculties. Her eyes rolled, and she went utterly still a few moments later.

  Eyes widening, Blychert stumbled and crawled backwards across the ground a few feet away.

  He hadn’t meant for that to happen. He just meant to take her down, that was all. But at that moment, everything was such a blur of noise. There wasn’t time to think about it, he just acted.

  He didn’t want to kill her.

  He didn’t…

  But she was dead. Wasn’t she?

  “It’s over, Gurogan.” Reingard’s voice lifted through the expansive chamber, “Your buddies are dead, and there are three of us.”

  Bly looked up a few moments later, delirious somewhat, his hands were shaking uncontrollably. By that point, hasten and the cloak’s effects had worn off, but he was so out of it that he wasn’t even thinking about his spells or abilities.

  “…Is that what you believe?” Gurgaon replied, branding his battleaxe. There was still an air of calm about the giant, even though the bodies of his own companions lay strewn about the chamber floor.

  Reingard and Bjadir stood a short distance from the giant, both on guard, and Bly was on the ground only fifteen or so yards away himself. Somehow, they were the ones who now had Gurogan backed into a corner, but Bly doubted that meant much.

  He was a force to be reckoned with, and Blychert could barely find the will to stand up.

  “Just give up already, man.” Reingard chuckled, as if amused, “This is embarrassing enough already for you as it is. I mean, this was your ambush, right? Can’t even beat a half-dead party on your own terms…”

  “But we are not finished, kag…” Gurogan said in response. Slowly, the giant peered over his shoulder to where Blychert sat in frozen shock, and grinned, “And by my count, there are only two of you still standing. I like those odds… very much.”

  He was right.

  This wasn’t over yet, not by a longshot. A million things were racing through Bly’s mind, whether he wanted them to or not, and his whole body felt like it was rejecting him in that very moment. He was completely paralyzed. Both Reingard and Bjadir looked to be at their absolute limits too, barely looking like they could hold out for too much longer.

  It didn’t really matter what Reingard believed, did it? Gurogan had them right where he wanted them.

  And it was terrifying.