– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 219, Season of the Setting Sun, Day 41 –

Terry's mind raced while considering their options. There might be only a single Hound present, but they were facing a prince of the Lich Kingdoms. They couldn't lock the space against Anand, which meant their best option would be to continue in their previous endeavor and teleport away.

"Are you sure Siyu's free?" asked Ying.

As free as she can be.

Terry nodded. "Let's get away!"

They managed a single teleportation before a spatial lock awaited them. Terry broke through the sealed space, but only two more transfers later, Anand was already waiting for them with a barrage of spells.

Terry jumped in front of Ying with bursting mana. A pair of spatial blades broke themselves on him while his divine barriers blocked a greenish fire. His disruption domain eviscerated other spells that were shaping up and prevented Anand's gates from anchoring themselves.

Terry sensed many mana distortions around them and knew that Anand was calling in reinforcements through unanchored transfers. "Flee!"

Terry briefly burst his mana and then allowed himself to be transported away by Ying. In the back of his mind, he commended Ying for choosing transfers that brought them closer to their allies.

They attempted to escape with Anand on their heels, which proved to be impossible for long.

"He's more skilled than I!" growled Ying. "He's blocking my unanchored transfers before I can set them up. Short-distance still works and perhaps back towards the kingdoms, but…"

I can't believe the bastard still has leeway to sabotage Ying's spells. Such complex spellwork and spell chaining…

Terry focused on blocking the incoming attacks and disrupting their enemy's spellwork, but he could do little to protect Ying's spatial transfers because Anand had a better mastery over space and didn't have to directly target Ying's spell structures to sabotage the transfers.

Short distance or back towards the kingdoms…

He's trying to pull in reinforcements again…

If we can't go right, perhaps we can go three times left?

Keep them busy along the way?

Terry jumped back to coordinate with Ying, and then they vanished.

When Anand followed the distorted space to the target location of their unanchored transfer, he couldn't help but furrow his brow. What was the point of fleeing from his summoned reinforcements if they then choose to directly teleport towards their garrison?

Anand finished his dual-casting. One twist of space to box in the opposing dimensional mage. One teleportation to follow them. He vanished with a self-satisfied grin.

Anand's grin didn't last, because the scene upon his arrival was beyond his expectations. Mana-corrupted beasts were rampaging through his forces. Beasts that had no business existing in this part of the Lich Kingdoms.

There was simply no pattern or reason to the beasts.

From mid-level icicle echidnas and skullfeast hippos all the way to high-level venomflame drakes and brightblaze tigers, the beasts raged through his forces with utter madness.

Some of them should prove an insignificant problem to get rid of, but the motley beasts even included those with mind-affecting abilities, like bloodlust sirens and terror grizzlies.

Anand's mind snapped into focus and he turned his head towards a location where a powerful duskthunder snapping turtle manifested from nothing. His eyes barely caught the figures of his two opponents before they vanished again. He didn't know if he was imagining it, but he could hear a mad cackling over the noises of battle.

Anand scowled. He could squash the beasts relatively quickly, but any delay in his pursuit would risk Ying getting past his spatial twists. He harrumphed and followed without hesitating. If they had banked on him abandoning his pursuit, then they were mistaken. If sacrificing a few pawns was necessary to achieve his goals, then so be it.

This was just another secret to add to the list. A list of secrets to extract from his soon-to-be-captives.

***

This isn't working.

Terry cursed inwardly while taking the last sip of his dungeon-provided bottle with his own liquified mana. From here on out, he would have to rely on regular mana potions again, with all their usual downsides and consumption limits.

His idea to drop enemies within enemies had worked out somewhat. At least the regular Lich Kingdom soldiers appeared troubled by the various mana-corrupted beasts reconstituted from dungeon cores.

However, only a few of the most powerful creatures ever caused Anand to hesitate and only when Terry dropped them in specific locations. Locations in which neither Terry nor Ying dared to dawdle for long.

If their objective had been to kill enemy soldiers, then they were doing well, but they wanted to get away and get back to their allies. The longer they confronted Anand, the more Terry was sure that an all-out battle would not go well for them.

Now what?

After a tremendous investment of Terry's mana – nearly two mana pools worth – they were nearly back where they had started. The few times they had forced Anand to stay behind and deal with a summoned creature had bought them a few unanchored transports of longer distance, but they had never moved beyond their enemies' communication block or transfer barrier.

Anand must always create the transfer barrier from the outside inwards. If we're fast, we can pierce further outwards, but we're always colliding with the outer obstruction and it takes too long for Ying to get rid of it.

They could use short-distance teleportation, but long-distance continued to be thoroughly blocked.

Terry focused on his mana perception. According to his senses, they had gotten closer to their allies, but barely so.

Not worth the mana and risk.

The only upside was that Terry could already sense faint traces of magic battle at the edges of his perception, which meant that they were getting close. They only had to get within the range of a single allied sensor.

Unless Anand has another trick up his sleeve to prevent us from being sensed?

Perhaps I should have waited before forcing Anand to show his true face? Perhaps we would have succeeded with a few longer distance transfers and—

Stop it.

Focus.

Terry scowled at the mana distortion that was sure to announce Anand's arrival. He timed his welcome gift perfectly.

The darkness-aspected blasts from Terry's mana sublimator rushed towards Anand the moment he arrived.

Anand's barrier and shadow shield broke. Some of his skin melted off, only to immediately recover as if nothing had happened.

Anand moved his hand and wielded a small space-aspected barrier to block incoming spatial blades. He glowered at Ying. "You can't beat me. I've held back because of what you mean to Syn City. Because of your potential value in replicating the success that is the Spirited Duchess. But…" He unleashed a vast array of chained spells with the flick of a finger. "I've run out of patience."

Terry frantically unleashed his skills to help Ying defend against the assault. He knew Anand was powerful, but it was getting even worse than he had expected. It wasn't just that Anand was stronger, but also that Ying appeared increasingly weakened.

Did we overdo it with the continued teleportation?

Did we miss an attack during the transfers through enemy territory?

No wait…

Terry focused on his soulsight and cursed.

I've underestimated the earlier damage to Ying's soul.

By the impressions from his soulsight and mana perception, Terry judged that the only reasons Ying was still keeping up were his powerful equipment, the boosts from the consumables, and an endless supply of rage.

"You made me abandon my daughter!" Ying growled and his mana channels strained under the torrent of mana being shaped into shadow-aspected whips, arcane spears, and spatial blades.

I can protect us for a while, but this isn't going well.

Terry had trouble keeping up with everything he had to do.

Destroying any attempts to anchor gates.

Destroying any hostile spell structures before they could be ignited.

Destroying spatial attacks and barriers.

Warring against Anand's mana shielding around spellwork and magic items with disruption fields.

All while allowing Ying's spells to pass.

Terry didn't even find a chance to use his king spear, because he was always pressed for time. He didn't think he could afford the mana for a heaven's fury strike anyway, but still.

Most of the time, Terry was pressured to rely almost entirely on his mana sublimator and his quickly diminishing supply of mana cores. He could only thank his luck that he had the support of capable crafters and dungeon divers, because there was no way he would have ever held out without their mana cores.

Terry felt a grim satisfaction whenever he successfully smashed a divine hammer into Anand's stupid face. To his immense chagrin, it was never enough. The monstrous bastard's bones seemed to right themselves with barely any effort.

"Surrender!" roared Anand. "I'll give you one last chance, Ying. Come back to the Lich Kingdoms together with the Spirited Duchess, and we—"

"Never!" growled Ying with bloodshot eyes. His daughter had suffered enough. Never again.

"Then perhaps I should drag your daughter back first." Anand snarled. "Then we'll see if you'll change your mind."

Ying flew forward frenziedly. He had failed once to protect her. Never again.

Terry only managed to react thanks to an early warning from his mana touch. The moment he felt Anand's spell activating and noticed the slightest deviation of his own blood flow, he executed a disruption burst while also pulling Ying back with his bidirectional attraction glove.

The bastard combined three spells at once. Some kind of Frenzy effect, a blood-aspected attack similar to the one that hit me after repelling the undead behemoth, and a Haste spell on Ying.

Trying to separate us?

Terry quickly retrieved a set of scrolls and ripped them apart. While torrents of lightning assaulted Anand, he felt the calming effects of the healing and mental balance scrolls.

Terry's expression became grim. At long last, they had been forced into using their supply of scrolls. Targeting a dimensional mage was difficult, but at least it wasn't as straining as targeting several enemies at once.

Hopefully, the scrolls would prove more effective than their attacks so far.

Hopefully, the scrolls would buy them some much needed room to recover and some time to spread out the ingestible consumables to avoid the negative effects of overconsumption for as long as possible.

That was when Terry sensed something unexpected. The mana of his companion rose to unprecedented heights. "Ying?"

Terry stared with horror at what looked way too similar to the martialist's forbidden techniques.

"Foolish," spat Anand. "Sacrificing your mana foundation? Even your life essence? For what?"

"Never again," growled Ying while his skin darkened and his vampiric eyes glowed a bright red. He threw everything he had at the tormentor of his daughter. The monster that threatened to force her back into the cursed kingdoms.

Terry sighed but quickly readjusted his views. He had planned to use the scrolls to buy time for an allied sensor to detect them. To tilt the odds in their favor even if that didn't work out.

Perhaps he had been too naive once more? With Anand threatening Siyu directly, there was no way that Ying would be satisfied with fleeing.

And who knows what Anand would have done while we were buying time?

They were still within the prince's territory, after all.

The bastard was still holding back!

Terry saw Anand fend off the empowered vampire and gritted his teeth. Their enemy appeared pressured, but it became clear that Anand had never completely given up on persuading Ying.

The monster had never gone all-out.

Terry mustered his resolve. Whatever Ying had done, he was now pushing Anand to show more of his abilities. At this distance, there was a chance that their battle would be caught by allied sensors.

If they gave them a powerful battle to spot. Now or never. Time to unleash everything they had.

Scroll after scroll.

Core after core.

Terry used the first breathing room to pull a specially prepared storage item from the Academy bag hidden underneath his cloak of shadow fabric. No proper dimensional storage item would hold the contents inside.

Some forms of magic don't react well to storage dimensions. Enlarged spaces and weight reduction enchantments were fortunately a different branch of magic.

Three anti-magic prototypes jumped from a hidden space and they immediately charged Anand under Terry's command.

These powerful constructs were their last trump card.

Terry didn't let up and continued throwing everything he got against the monster, knowing that Ying would do the same.

Anand quickly became overwhelmed by the combined power of the constructs and their magic attacks.

Inside of Terry, there was a faint hope that perhaps today, the monster would finally fall. He dared not hold on to that hope, because behind it, there was the lingering dread of discovering what else Anand might have held back.

***

At the center of a chaotic battlefield, a single figure suddenly stopped. The man lowered his bandaged arms that were clenching the fiendish blade. His purple eyes closed and the grey-ish skin on his forehead contorted in concentration until the dark lines from visible blood vessels were joined by deep wrinkles.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Matteo's eyes opened with a gaze of unspeakable hatred. He barely mustered the composure to shout his orders and use his communication talismans.

Thankfully, he wasn't fighting alone.

Matteo had never prided himself on his mana sense. Compared to his cousin, or even to some of their scouts, his mana sense was not worth mentioning. He had already relied too long on his elemental sense to properly hone his mana sense.

However, there was one mana signature Matteo would always pick out from a mass of others. A mana signature that would catch his attention like a burning needle in his eye. A mana signature he would never allow himself to forget.

It had been brief, but it had been enough for him to be certain.

Before the furious gales of his elementals carried him up into the air, a deep growl of loathing rose from the depths of his lungs and shaped a single name: "Anand."

***

"ENOUGH!" roared Anand in the sky painted in the late stages of dusk. The fact that these two put up a proper fight and forced him to struggle irritated him to no end. If it wasn't for these strange constructs or their ridiculous supply of magic single-use items, this would have been long over.

He could see that the two would fall to his spellwork eventually. Even the divine hammer wielder with his ridiculous mana regeneration would not last forever. In contrast to Anand and Ying, the rookie opponent didn't have a way to convert the nearby deaths into mana.

As it turned out, 'eventually' wasn't soon enough.

Anand had lost his final ounce of patience. A short while ago, he had even briefly slipped up with his mana cloaking, which wasn't supposed to happen. This was beyond irritating and he was growing beyond tired of being besieged by ignorant ants.

He had achieved miraculous feats to ensure this realm was prepared for what was to come. He refused to waste any more time on what was, at best, a small factor in a minor side-project. If they forced him to choose between the Spirited Duchess and Syn City, then the answer was obvious.

Anand was certain they wouldn't like the answer, and a self-satisfied grin tugged at his lips.

"Remember that it was you who chose this," growled Anand while teleporting away from one anti-magic construct. He fixed Ying in his sight. "You made me do this."

Terry's breath halted when an unimaginable torrent of mana gushed forth from Anand.

Oh no…

Under Terry's despairing eyes, Anand's mana vessels burst with power that dwarfed anything he had ever seen in a single mage.

Run!

Terry instinctively darted down from the sky, not daring to trust his regular defensive skills against the new onslaught of spells.

When his conscious mind had caught up with what he was sensing, Terry couldn't help but halt and stare back with his stomach plummeting and his lungs refusing to breathe.

He saw the anti-magic constructs being ripped apart by carefully coordinated secondary effects of magic.

Blown apart by the physical pressure of countless tiny explosions targeting the joints.

Crushed by rock, whose inner layer already turned into a transparent crystal from pressure.

Melted within the confines of super-heated lava.

Of many spells, a few reached Terry. A hand of death-aspected mana slapped him hard down towards the ground. Its touch drained the life and mana out of him, which caused his senses to go haywire before his crystal pendant activated to shield him from the worst of the incoming attacks.

Terry roughly crashed to the floor and gasped for breath. He desperately tried to fight off the unbelievable chain of spellwork, but something in him had already broken, even while his body was still throwing everything he had into the fight.

Something had happened.

Something worse than the suffocating pressure radiating from the monster.

Something worse than all the spells raining down on him, especially since these spells appeared much weaker than Anand should be capable of right now.

Terry screamed with agony, not from physical pain, but from sensing with full certainty that there were only two mana signatures remaining: Anand and Terry.

His mind played back the multitude of sensations during Anand's power-up and forced a horrifying realization onto him.

Ying was converted into power for Anand…

How?

Terry involuntarily recalled the Heart of Syn City. The ritual created by the Progenitor. By the monster flying above. "Monster…"

Terry madly burst his mana beyond his limits to try to resist the onslaught of spells.

He transfixed countless bone spears rushing forward from below.

He eviscerated death spears by the hundreds.

He blocked attack after attack.

Terry knew he couldn't keep up.

His muscles felt sluggish.

His blood pumped painfully through his veins.

His mana pool was bottoming out while his throbbing head was already screaming for mercy.

Before long, Terry found himself entangled by thick vines on the floor. Surrounded by a cage of bones as hard as steel.

"I warned you," sneered Anand. "Now look at what you made me do. You could have come willingly and painlessly. If you hadn't lured Ying astray, my friend would still be with us. But no, you just had to be stubborn. Now I've lost a friend and a worthwhile side-project."

Terry stared at the ground and concentrated on his breathing. There had to be something he could do. But everything he could think of required more mana than he had available. He was way past his consumption limits, but did he have a choice? He'd rather overtax his body than be taken hostage in the Lich Kingdoms.

Just when Terry tried to retrieve a pill, he felt the vines on his body tighten.

"That's enough of you," barked Anand.

That power-up must be temporary. If I can keep him talking, perhaps…

"What did you do?" Terry forced himself to look at Anand.

Anand appeared pleased with the question. "An emergency option that we are starting to implement in some of our rituals." He examined his own hand that was pulsing with powerful mana. "You see, sometimes numbers aren't enough to repel the threats to this realm. Victory is determined by those at the pinnacle of power, not by the mediocre masses."

Anand shrugged. "However, many mundane threats are too plentiful to be dealt with by just a few powerful individuals. It would be a waste of the most precious resource among the powerful." He smirked. "Meaning their time."

Terry grimaced when Anand playfully moved some of his mana through his fingers. The mana appeared to continue growing more dense. The only time Terry had ever seen someone with a brighter mana signature was his friend Devon. Terry really did not want to believe that Anand could reach a level of power comparable to the Devonian Lord.

"So the natural solution is a two-pronged approach," lectured Anand. "Empower the weak to take care of the mundane, but keep an option to empower the strong for the true threats."

Empower?

"You mean sacrificing the weak," spat Terry with contempt. "What happened to Ying?"

"He overestimated his usefulness," said Anand coldly. "This is already the biggest value that the Light can bring for protecting this realm." He gazed proudly at the powerful mana flowing through his fingers. "Ying and Syn City had value, but it pales compared to the Spirited Duchess." He spoke haughtily. "Or to Matteo."

Anand stared off into the distance. "Unfortunately, some projects are harder to replicate than others. They require a piece of random chance. A child born with unprecedented mental and spirit resistance or a sequence of events that shape a soul in just the right way."

Anand scoffed. "Syn City is a solved problem. Even though the location in Tiv's Wasted Zone was uniquely fitting to grow the population, the project as a whole is easily reproducible and already being reproduced as we speak."

The longer Anand talked, the more a horrifying realization pierced into Terry's mind. He had felt Ying die, but…

What about the others?

The monster is talking as if all of Syn City was gone…

Scenes flashed in front of his mind.

Gretchen, the death executioner, who handed him a pack of cookies.

Olivienne, the death mage, cradled her little toddler Pedro while the boy shyly handed him a piece of mandarin.

All the kids in Syn City's park playing with Devon…

Some of the teenagers back then might be of age by now. Some of them might have chosen to connect with the Heart. They might all be dead.

Dead, because we picked a fight with Anand.

Dead, because I was too weak…

Something snapped inside of Terry. He didn't listen to the monster's self-satisfied lecture anymore. He was taking deep breaths while crying with bloodshot eyes…

…and desperately pulling in mana. Clawing at everything within his control. Grasping beyond his reach. Frenziedly trying to push his mana control to reach further.

Further.

More.

Please.

Terry didn't know what he could possibly do against the empowered monster, but he had to do something.

Tears.

Tears of impotent rage.

Tears of frustration and despair.

Helpless, they kept streaming down his face while he was begging in his mind for something.

For anything to smash that monster's stupid face in.

Terry didn't care about the vines that tightened around himself and forced him into a crouching ball with his head touching the floor. The pain was nothing compared to the anguish he felt.

He welcomed the pain.

He felt he deserved it.

For being so weak.

Please…

Every fiber of his being refused to let it end like this. Everyone in Syn City. What had they died for?

Please…

His battle-torn heart refused to accept it.

Please…

His entire soul cried out in a desperate plea.

Please, I need more mana…

Let me do something!

By mana, please!

Terry didn't know how long he had been silently begging and stretching his mana sense, but when his mana control grasped deep below the earth, he felt something call back to him.

Not in words, but in a feeling.

A feeling like a friend's recognition.

Something resonated with his mind, heart, and soul.

[Assist!]

Mana opened up to him.

Mana soared from below and right towards him.

No, not towards him.

Towards his soul.

All around, holes appeared in the ground, through which mana escaped more easily. If Terry had any leeway to think, the sensation would have reminded him of the time he had noticed the Valkyrie's prison dungeon, whose many exits had opened under the pressure of hellspawn invaders and looming dungeon collapse.

Terry didn't understand it.

He didn't care to understand it.

His inner Academy student could go lie down in a ditch for all he cared at this moment. His desperate grief and frantic defiance had yielded to an all-consuming desire.

A desire to crush the life out of the monster.

A refusal to let the monster live after its victims had died.

The incensed mage greedily absorbed everything offered to him. The mana liquified in his channels and rushed through his items until he was ready.

Terry stared at the monster with bloodshot eyes and ripped himself from the vines. He felt the monster's spells activating on him. The damned monster had not lost a second in casting after noticing something abnormal going on.

Terry shaped internal focus refractors and unleashed unprecedented torment on his own mana channels. His begging had been miraculously heard. He would be damned if he would allow a mind-affecting debilitation spell to prevent him from making use of this chance.

To Terry's surprise, his mana channels soon relaxed and adjusted to the intense internal disruption burst. A corner of his mind whispered to him that he should pay careful attention to how the mana channels were protected from the unbalanced disruption, but most of his mind was screaming to stop wasting time.

These powers were not truly his.

Just like the monster itself, the mage was fighting on borrowed time.

Involuntarily, Terry recalled the scene of an elven vampire wearing the mask of a Hound. The Hound had rambled on and on about desires and being honest about them. At this moment, the only thing the mage desired was to slay the monster in his sight.

A disruption domain unlike any other shaped up around the mage and monster. Hair-thin spell slicers tore into the countless spell structures.

Smaller disruption fields stuck to the monster, making it impossible for it to teleport away.

While the monster was fighting to get rid of the Immovable Object spell on its teeth, Terry grabbed the bone cage and broke it apart with bare hands.

Terry did not bother to retrieve his king spear. The unbreakable spear was a pinnacle item for a mana cultivator, but as much as he loved it, it had one major flaw from a mage's perspective.

It didn't scale.

The darkening sky suddenly lit up in translucent golden light. Light that matched the many dense inscriptions on Terry's armor and the wraps underneath it.

Terry glared at the monster, whose eyes had grown wide. The mage didn't move a muscle while the sky itself appeared to fall down onto the monster. The earth quaked magnificently as an endless barrage of divine hammers smashed the monster into the ground and splattered its blood with every impact.

***

Isille was scowling at the horizon. They had received Matteo's message, but Anand's signature had disappeared as quickly as it had come. She couldn't even be sure that Anand was really there, but if he was…?

Isille had a bad feeling, which was why they had immediately changed their route to align with Matteo, but within the vast area, it was not clear where they should go, especially since they were dealing with dimensional mages.

Isille would like to hunt down Anand to avenge her sister, but her priority was Terry. Unfortunately, she herself couldn't teleport and even Amelia couldn't be in two locations at once. The Spellcrusher still had to assist the other raid squads.

They had to make up their mind on where to check first before their transporter returned.

"What the…?" Bjorln blurted out.

Isille's head whipped around to stare at the sky lighting up. An involuntary mutter escaped her lips. "Big Sis…?"

"Ma?" Emaldine stared while the earth began quaking. Her eyes found Isille's. She could see her expression mirrored in her aunt. Their eyes narrowed and then widened.

"""Terry!"""

They burst their mana and charged forward.

***

Anand refused to believe this. He heaved a wheezing breath while his own blood tried to drown him through his lungs.

His spatial barrier was torn apart by impossible mana, and another divine hammer crashed into his face. He cursed himself for still reflexively using the space aspect, even though it had proved to be the worst of his options against this mage.

Anand grit his teeth. His bone wasn't following his muscles anymore and he could feel the force ripping his own arm out. Worse, he could feel something grinding away at his bones and shards cutting into his remaining flesh.

Determinedly, Anand cut his arm off with a clean spatial blade and allowed himself to be hurled away. He frenziedly channeled his mana into a quickened blood spell to regrow his arm.

Quickened spells were all he was left with against this damned mage in front of him. Any longer spell casting was immediately torn to shreds. If it wasn't for the ritual's continued empowerment, he could not cast even this much to preserve his life. His quickened spells would be too weak.

Anand had abandoned all attempts to teleport away. The spellwork took too long. More importantly, he refused to believe that he would lose to the rookie mage in front of him. He was a prince of the Lich Kingdoms. A mighty protector of this realm. He refused to believe he would lose to—

Another divine hammer hit his face and left immovable teeth hanging in the air.

Anand suppressed the agonizing pain and quickened a chained cast of shadow shields while trying to use the time to retrieve an artifact. He roared with frustration when the artifact was ripped from his hands and ground to dust before his eyes.

This should never have happened. He had caught his target and everything had gone as expected at first.

As it should.

From one moment to the other, the world itself seemed to turn mad. Even with the sacrifice of Syn, Anand could not defeat the raging mage.

This was simply not possible.

Anand was looking forward to squash this impossible mage, who had brought him to this state.

As long as he stayed alive, Anand knew he would come out ahead. That was why he had always focused on survival first. Even if this hadn't been within the Lich Kingdoms' conquered territory, he would be sure to outlast the rookie.

Already, Anand could see the mage lose some of his impossible power. Whatever means the mage was using to control this much mana must have limits. Already, he noticed that the mage was beginning to switch his fighting style.

The divine hammers were decreasing, and the mage had even chosen to wield an unorthodox spear.

The mage would falter.

Like they all did.

As they should.

Admittedly, the mage wasn't the only one who was losing their power. Anand felt his own power fading by the second. Many lives to empower one was supposed to be a quick trump card. Even this many lives weren't enough to preserve such an empowered state for long, not when using the lives of weak ants.

The prince bided his time and allowed his resentment to grow with every wound inflicted on his noble body. All this pain would be repaid a thousandfold when he would tear the mage's secrets out of him.

Just when Anand could hope that he had persevered enough to fight back, he heard the crack of lightning that caused the tiny hairs on his neck to stand up. His pupils contracted when he saw the enormous lightning dragon rush towards him.

With another crack of thunder, his former elementalist disciple appeared in front of him. Anand stared into Matteo's eyes as Soul Fury cut deep into his flesh.

Anand cursed and barely activated a scroll to preserve his own life and hasten his body. He frantically dodged the combined assault of the mage and the demonic elementalist.

Again, the pressure on Anand increased, and this time, his power was already fading.

For the first time in this battle, Anand truly feared for the outcome of this confrontation. He had not planned on facing his former disciple. He didn't want to kill him, either. Matteo was too important for the realm's future.

Anand roared when his leg was boiled by a fire snake controlled by Matteo. He mustered the resolve to kill his former disciple if necessary. He couldn't allow himself to fall. Someone had to protect this realm.

Anand was about to unleash one of his last trump cards when his battle instincts barely warned him in time to evade an unexpected attack. Some of these cursed anti-magic constructs had appeared, which might have been the worst timing possible.

Then it got worse.

Three dwarves charged into the battle with maddened eyes.

Isille's spear bit into his shoulder, and Anand felt a kind of poison enter his veins from the spear's blade.

Emaldine's spearhead exploded right next to his head, and Anand felt his eardrum burst.

Bjorln's Burning Hands spell met a same-naturalized fire-aspected discharge and combined into a flood of flames eager to devour Anand.

Matteo's purple lightning cracked and struck into Anand's veins until he felt his own blood boil.

The mage added blasts with densely packed lightning.

Meanwhile, the divine hammers kept raining down while anti-magic battle constructs didn't allow Anand any room to even breathe.

Worse than the endless waves of agonizing pain, was something new welling up in Anand. His last trump cards and life-preserving tricks were being used up at an unbelievable pace. A long forgotten emotion crept into his heart.

Fear.

Fear of losing the progress and power he had painfully built.

Fear that turned into terror when even more people appeared to support his mortal enemies…

***

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