Sacrifice Mage

Chapter 240 (B3: 67): Brazen Assault

The simmering anger I had been nursing ever since I had seen what had been done to Sreketh had flared hot and bright at seeing people from Claderov attacking Kalnislaw estate. Attacking . The cowards had even ganged up on him. Realizing that they were undoubtedly weaker individually, they had decided to attack him at once. Pathetic losers. A distant part of me had wondered if the flash pan of emotions roiling through me counted as a sort of Flare too, like I had been considering recently. But it was so far removed from my current circumstances that I couldn’t even begin to pay it a second thought.

Instead, my eyes were assaulted with lightning sparking to life around the opponent charging at me.

It formed a curious construct around him. A part of it was obviously armour with the way it wrapped around his torso and gauntleted his forearms. Twin short spears jutted out from his hands. There was even a strange framework of long bolts firing off his back like the weirdest pair of wings I had ever seen. With a yowl like he was being burned by his own Aspect, he attacked.

I hefted my mace closer, though that wasn’t super effective. Obviously, someone embodying lightning to that degree would embody the speed it was well known for too. Which this guy did.

He slammed in with a thunderous strike, almost turning into a living lightning bolt himself. I swung my mace to hit him head on. Unfortunately, I was struck first.

It was too bright to even tell which part of the man even hit me. Twin impacts registered on my chest, each one like a thumping blast straight from the heavens. A bolt from the blue. I growled as I was thrown back, my feet even leaving the ground for a few seconds before I quickly used Infusion to hit the ground and halt my momentum.

“The Pits?” my opponent said. “How are you not fried to cinders? What’s that around your body?”

Reverence Everlife had come to life the instant I was about to be hit. The golden shimmering armour was only slightly cracked at the points of impact. Of course, within its embrace, I was perfectly fine.

“Huh,” I said, a slow grin etching onto my face. “You’re just as weak as you look.”

The rage I felt now got reflected in Lightning Rakshasa’s eyes. He screamed as he rushed in for another blow.

Peripherally, I noted that Hamsik had engaged the Scalekin. I couldn’t pay much of any attention to them, however. My opponent had decided to pull out all the stops, manifesting lightning everywhere, turning the whole area so bright that I was almost forced to squint.

I might not have had light-blocking nictitating membranes like Gutran, but that was fine. Illumination’s Highlight Affix sufficed well enough in its stead.

That was what let me note that the barrage of bolts manifesting and firing at me from multiple angles was nothing more than a distraction. The Rakshasa knew he wasn’t going to get through Reverence Everlife that way. Especially not when Gravity’s Repulsion Burst was combining with Massless Interaction to repel some of the bolts.

It was the man himself who shot at me, angling to a position just a bit over my head. Then he slammed down with a stake of lightning aimed right for me.

I had already prepared Field Manipulation, and with Siphon active, the Rakshasa’s reliance on natural gravity was fully exposed. His eyes widened as his plan to slam a bolt down on me personally failed completely.

He still threw down the lightning he had so carefully prepared, but I had added another layer of defence to my arsenal. Forget cracking Reverence Everlife, Reflection layered my armour with a mirrorlike coat with the help of Imbuement, sending half the bolt’s power skittering all around me.

I immediately reversed Siphon to Infusion, the man crashing down an instant later to meet my mace swing. Infusion had raised the weight of the spiky metal head to add the extra oomph to the impact.

Sadly, it was just a glancing blow. A burst of lightning sent the man retreating backwards. I only managed to break the lightning armour around his arm, nothing more.

My opponent cursed as he shook his hand. The blood drenching his fingers splattered to the ground, sizzling away with more lightning.

“You—”

I channelled Gravity once again.

The man yelled out in surprise as he was forced to bow to his right, his posture entirely disoriented now.

“Idiot,” I muttered.

The little bits of my mace I had embedded in his arm with Granular Control were now weighed down immensely, throwing my opponent off-balance. This gave me the perfect opportunity to unleash all the Flare I had been gathering all around the field with Concentration. He screamed as he was swallowed up in his flames.

That was what he got for using lightning to scorch the entire area. It just created way too much heat for me to manipulate with ease. I hadn’t even needed to concentrate on Manifestation.

Of course, the Rakshasa’s lightning reflexes came into play again. He had risen high, getting out of the blast zone to stare at me with beady hate around his burned face.

“You lowlife ,” he growled. “I’ll show you real power.”

“ power?” I scoffed. “You’re Gold-ranked at best. Worthless.”

His eyes goggled so hard in rage, I was sure the eyeballs would pop out of the orbits. As it was, he just yelled out and manifested more of his lightning.

I thought I’d have to fend off more of the bolts, but no, that wasn’t the case. Instead, the sparks appeared to be gathering at one location. High above me, a small deluge of storming power was concentrating into one, dark cloud. The air itself began to thrum.

Starburst. That was what it viscerally reminded me of. And the ideal response to that would have been to find some way to evade it.

But the gloating look on the bastard’s face, fuelled by disbelieving rage that I could ever hope to match what he was capable of, rooted me to my spot. I stood there, letting his power accumulate, letting him throw whatever he wanted in his futile pursuit of overcoming me.

And I prepared my own defences at the same time.

Unbelievably, it took almost a minute for the enormous bolt to manifest and finally strike down like the lance of some sleeping god waking up enraged. I had even started counting the heartbeats at one point.

“” the Rakshasa screamed as he unleashed all his pent-up power.

The lightning that crashed down felt like a meteor impact. It was so bright, even Highlight couldn’t let me see anything through the glaring radiance of it. So powerful that everything around me, including the air itself, was obliterated from existence, reforged into superheated plasma.

Plasma. Hmm… I’d need to think about that.

The point was that I was fine. Despite the overwhelming power, despite the incredible fury contained within that manifestation of lightning, I survived.

Framework had already created an entropic shield of spiralling horns around my body. At the moment of impact, I had thrust my arm upwards, unleashing another Repulsion Burst while Field Manipulation and Siphon were on overdrive. And of course, Sacrifice’s Overclaim fired out a web of white mana to catch and ensnare everything.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

And all that with Reverence Everlife and Reflection still active and running.

When I could see again, when my heart had stopped hammering and my ears had stopped ringing and I could breathe right once more—the explosion had created a small vacuum where I had felt like I was about to burst—I just stood there.

Brimming with all the power and energy I had pulled in with Absorption and Intake.

“H-” the Rakshasa yelled, eyes goggling even harder than before. Both his hands were on his horns, like they were hair and he wanted to rip them off.

“I told you already,” I said. “You’re .”

He screamed. Then he launched himself straight at me, entirely ignoring the fact that Framework was up and active. The spiralling white horns of entropy were growing even farther outwards, and the Rakshasa crashed through them.

For just the briefest instant, I saw his eyes widen. There was the briefest recognition that he had utterly screwed up. Framework was eating away at his armour, his lightning, and .

And still he continued charging through the mess. He had determination if nothing else.

I swung my mace to meet his charge. He was too fast. Even after I had timed my swing correctly, the Rakshasa just swerved to one side, lightning sparking as he seemed to teleport to the right of me. His arms swung up, the twin daggers of sparking electricity rising high to stab down.

Only for Stellar Lance to manifest, unleashing a laser that burned through the Rakshasa’s shoulder.

In all honesty, prior testing had revealed that I didn’t need as much energy for Stellar Lance as I used to for Photonic Compression. All the energy I had gathered earlier with Absorption and Intake to send to Stellar Lance with Mana Conversion was just insurance.

The Rakshasa screamed as he was flung back long before his strikes could land on me. Stellar Lance’s brilliant flash had blinded him, and I was only saved thanks to Highlight.

My adversary still managed to use his lightning-fast reflexes and get away from the worst of my counter.

But I wasn’t letting him escape that easily. Quickly shutting off the first laser, I focused on another spot, targeting a different spot with another overpowered beam with Stellar Lance.

It didn’t land this time, though. At least, not on my actual target. The other jerk from Claderov, the Scalekin, whipped around on sinuous legs, the scales on his upper torso converting into crystalline horns that reflected off the worst of the lasering blast. I left a sizable wound, but it wasn’t debilitating.

“.” The Scalekin rounded me, letting his partner recover by using a quick healing potion. “We should have ended you earlier. You’re never going to stop being a thorn at our side, you stupid, Pits-cursed .”

Hamsik had done a number on the fellow. His scales had fallen off in several places, and his left arm was hanging useless on his other side. I was sure I even spotted a gory glowing bullet wound on his chest. But he remained undaunted in the face of impossible odds. I was almost tempted to give him actual credit for that.

I sneered at him. “Then why don’t you try it, bastard.”

Hamsik made to keep contributing, but I held up a hand. I had this. Even if the Scalekin’s attack would undoubtedly be followed up by the recovering Rakshasa.

But the nice thing was that the battle between me and the Scalekin was finally on a playing field I felt at. His arms rippled and turned into monstrosities, one becoming a clawed amalgamation of nightmares, while the listless one became a living dragon. Apparently, that latter transformation even took care of whatever injury his limb was suffering.

This was good, though. This was . I grinned as I met him blow for blow, hitting him with my mace, using Empowered Deflection and Reflexive Mana where appropriate.

I weaved in between his blows, dodged when his pet dragon tried to blast me with fire, got in behind to place a vicious strike that was sadly blocked by more of the crystalline horns. Whatever his Aspect was—or were—he was undoubtedly an expert at weaving them together.

A sudden tail blow nearly caught me off guard. That led into his surprising Affixes and Augmentations. Because I was sure the scales, blood, and horn chips flying off at every hit to shoot at me like darts had to be the work of an Affix or Augmentation.

Reverence Everlife was being put through its paces. I could feel my golden armour cracking at several locations where I missed. His hits landed so hard.

“Just. Die. ,” the Scalekin screamed as he leaped straight up, before slamming down both the claws and the draconic head in a hammering strike.

Reflexive Mana set me back just enough to evade the worst of it before I countered, hitting the dragon instead of my opponent directly. He tried to raise it to attack me again, but the bits of my mace embedded inside weighed it down tremendously with Infusion.

The only reason he didn’t get hit was the lightning Rakshasa being a pain in the ass with flickering bolts. I was distracted.

Meanwhile, the Scalekin ripped his arm free from the dragon entirely, blood gushing over him. That was good actually.

As both opponents threatened to rush at me together, I just focused on Stellar Lance. With how empowered the Affix was after its ascending evolution, I was able to set up multiple lines of devastatingly concentrated light, sending out beams in half a dozen directions to make sure that even dodging wasn’t going to help the bastards.

The problem was that diluting the energy into multiple lasers meant none of them were effective enough to be fatal. While I wounded both my opponents, they were essentially still alright enough to continue fighting.

At least I had warned them away from trying to provoke me by fighting together. Not that it stopped them from attacking entirely.

With a roar, the Rakshasa made to attack again.

I sent out Sacrifice threads, latching onto the draconic extension of the Scalekin. It disappeared into white motes in less than a second.

That wasn’t much of a boost. I didn’t even need to think about it. I was right. These bastards were .

So when they tried attacking me together, I fought them back. Field Manipulation covered enormous swathes of the battlefield now. Not just the ground around me to mess with their weight. The Rakshasa was almost able to make successful attempts to get out of its area of effect.

I also had it on the walls of the Kalnislaw estate, which wasn’t too far off. So when the Rakshasa tried to dodge to the side, the distant Field Manipulation just kept him locked down.

His partner tried charging me while weighed down, his scales bursting and popping as he tried to transmute himself into some kind of monstrosity. I just fought him back with my mace. He staggered back after a few exchanges. Even though his own hits fell like a truck, my boost and the combination of my Affixes meant I was well-placed to overcome whatever he tried.

Except for when he caught my mace. A storm of tendrils ripped out of his arm to wrap around my weapon. Then he twisted, like a crocodile trying to rip off an entire limb.

I just let go of my mace and called up a Gravity Orb, switching targets mid swing to slam it at the uppity Rakshasa trying to assault me with more lightning. He managed to evade with his incredible reflexes yet again, but not before the outer edge of the orb had caught his leg, and ripped through a good chunk. He screamed.

The sound masked the other guy’s approach, but I let him hit, all so I could grab onto his arm. Reverence Everlife did shatter finally, my shoulder writhing in agony. But my opponent was locked down.

So I used Ignition Charge once more, Immolation creating an inferno where I stood. Now, the Scalekin was screaming too, only audible over the roar of my pyre because of how close he was. Then the tail struck me hard enough to make me lose my breath, forcing me to stagger back several steps. The end of the appendage had basically turned into a club.

I wasn’t pushed too far back, however. With one leap, I could resume attacking my opponent.

If he hadn’t been pushed away by the Rakshasa, that was. The thundering crackle made me whirl, expecting a blistering blow that would land on me. But instead, the lightning wielder had rammed himself at the Scalekin. The two went flying off together.

I frowned. They were still being affected by Field Manipulation, still within its wide area of effect. So what was the point—

“Ross!” Hamsik shouted with incredible alarm.

I whirled around just in time to catch a glowing glass arrow bigger than any spear I had seen fire through the air with a ripping scream. It had been aimed for me. But Hamsik got in the way and was promptly flung back with an explosion of white light and shards shooting everywhere.

“Ham—”

My worried shout for him was cut off when another arrow appeared hot on the heels of the first one. We were being attacked from a distance. What a .

Reflexive Mana meant I whizzed aside just in time, but even then, the wake of the passing arrow was destructive. My robes were slashed through, my body weeping blood through thin slices all over, and I was forced to close my eyes in fear of the same happening there.

And then, when the arrow struck the ground, the resulting detonation ripped apart Field Manipulation and sent me flying.