Path to Transcendence

Chapter 434: Unstable Enchantments

Julius had never really fought with someone before. Most of the time, he was the person who had to hold back so that his teammates could get involved. This was the first time he was the one barely keeping up.

Emil, the enemy Tier 5, and the alpha Frost Bear were all beyond him. To be honest, it was mostly Emil who was holding them at bay. Julius’s job was to be a pest and to cause as much damage as he could. Even that was only possible because of his new [Void Strike] skill.

He was putting so much pressure on his own body that it required frequent pulses of [Phoenix Renewal] to keep him going. Despite tearing his body apart, it barely gave him enough power to keep up. But that was enough.

[Void Strike] was showing its worth. The skill was able to partially penetrate the powerful defenses of the Tier 5s. The Frost Bear was able to handle most of the strikes with more ease, but that was to be expected considering how sturdy its weaker comrades were at Tier 4. The Tier 5 human, on the other hand, wasn’t handling them as well and was very clearly pissed off at Julius.

Julius could tell that the man wanted nothing more than to wipe him from the face of the continent, but wasn’t able to. Emil was constantly attacking with his massive warhammer, putting on so much offensive pressure that neither the bear nor the man was able to give enough attention to take out Julius.

It also didn’t help that Julius had [Void Step] and was able to escape whenever he wanted.

Speaking of [Void Step], Julius was forced to use it again when he felt a piece of the Tier 5s domain grab hold of him. Usually, this would have been a death sentence. The domain was too powerful and Julius would have been forced to explode a small section of his soul to escape, but now with [Void Step] he was able to get away with a mere step as long as he was quick enough.

His teleportation landed him right behind Emil, who was accumulating a concerning amount of damage. His arms were covered in burns, and his chest had a large gash from one of the Frost Bear’s blows.

However, Julius already had a plan to take care of that. He extended a piece of his aura and prodded the village chief with it.

Emil seemed confused by this, but he must have recognized Julius’s aura signature and allowed his aura to connect with Julius’s. That confusion quickly turned into one of disbelief and mirth when he felt Julius start to infuse life mana into him.

Julius knew that he wasn’t the primary force of this fight. Luckily, his skill set didn’t limit him to being just a sledgehammer, even though that was how he typically liked to fight. He had other abilities that allowed him to act as a proper supporter for others.

His recent addition of healing magic only helped expand his repertoire as well. He let out a small chuckle as he let his life mana run free and direct it toward Emil. He didn’t hold back his life mana; this wasn’t some weak Tier 2 or 3 whose body wasn’t able to handle the full brunt of his healing magic. This was a fully fledged Tier 5 and a pretty decent one at that.

He still managed to slap together a structure of life mana, but he mainly focused on feeding Emil pure life mana with a touch of his Phoenix Concept. To everyone’s surprise, including their opponent’s, Emil’s injuries slowly but surely started to stitch together.

However, what was even more important was that the fatigue the chief had been slowly showing throughout the fight had almost entirely vanished. Julius knew that the man could handle some scrapes and bruises, but stamina was more important, especially when Julius could already sense the enemyʼs armor beginning to flag.

Whatever enchantment they were utilizing to keep up with Emil was starting to show signs of wear. They would not be able to keep it up indefinitely, and the moment he began to slow, that was when Emil should have the advantage.

The problem was still the bear. Julius didn’t know how intelligent the monster was, but it appeared that it understood that Julius was a bigger problem than meets the eye. Instead of attacking Emil once more, it had decided to go after Julius.

The enormous creature opened its maw, and Julius widened his eyes as he felt the potent collection of ice mana. A beam of deadly ice magic tore at his head. The speed was unbelievable, and it was only thanks to his early detection that he was able to get out of the way with a blast of kinetic energy.

The ice beam turned everything around it into an icy hell. The ground froze solid, and to his immense concern, he was able to sense that the bear was no longer in the same place it was before. It was already chasing down Julius, using the attack to hide its approach.

For such a large creature, it moved like lightning. Julius was about to use [Void Step] to get away, but to his disbelief, he felt the bear’s domain extend for the very first time. Julius hadn’t felt the Frost Bear’s domain extend out past its body this entire fight, so he had believed that the bear wasn’t able to.

He had believed wrong and was punished for it. Unlike the domain from the other man, this one was very ice-centric. The domain used Concepts of ice to slow his mana manipulation and his overall reaction. It was like trying to drag himself through a pit of quicksand. On top of this, the domain froze his body, trying to turn him into a popsicle.

Julius had to act quickly. Thankfully, he had some experience with fighting against the influence of a domain and immediately supercharged his soul. Then he exploded a small portion of it, and the explosion allowed him to get free of the domain’s oppressive nature narrowly.

It could not have happened sooner, either. He barely had enough time to mold some aura-woven mana around his body to protect himself. But it wasn’t enough. The bear crushed his torso, and he felt his internal organs get turned to mush as the gigantic paw plowed into him.

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Not even his improved kinetic control allowed him to siphon the force in time.

He grunted loudly as all of the wind got ripped from his lungs and half of his body got smashed to pulp. He hardly realized that he was flying through the air until he crashed into the cavern wall. The stone didn’t stand a chance, and he went straight through it without any resistance.

He felt his consciousness fade and his mind go completely numb. He knew that he was a complete mess. The lower half of his body was gone, and only a small part of his upper half was left. It was only thanks to his instincts that he had been able to protect his body with a last-minute defensive barrier to blunt the force he took when he smashed into the wall.

He had a feeling that if he hadn’t done that, he would have died. He doubted even a healing skill as powerful as [Phoenix Renewal] could help him recover when all that was left of him was a smear on the wall.

As his mind was floundering, the subconscious realization of how close to death he was pounded into his soul. And for some reason, instead of getting scared or panicked, he felt an uncontrollable wave of rage wash through him.

He didn’t know where the rage even came from, but as [Phoenix Renewal] and Drasil regenerated his body piece by piece at a time, his glowing red eyes started to pulse dangerously with unrestrained fury.

***

Sten POV

He felt a sense of relief when he saw the boy get taken out by Ondayg. He had taken a direct hit from the Frost Bear. He doubted that many Tier 4s, or even some Tier 5s, would be able to survive such extensive damage. Although the boy was a healer, there was no way he could have survived.

Sten shouldn’t have felt such relief from someone so much weaker than him being killed, but the boy had been a pain in the ass, more so than Emil, if he was being honest. He had taken out half of the Frost Bears by his lonesome and had even managed to land some blows on Sten.

Before he could get too distracted, he reminded himself that he still needed to finish things up. His empowerment period would only last for a couple more minutes. He needed to kill Emil within that timeframe. Thankfully, with Ondayg’s help and no more support from that boy, it should be simple. Then he could help the rest of his men clean up the rest.

However, just as he was preparing to go in for the final attack, he felt a sudden chill race through his spine. He glanced back and was almost too slow to block the shining blue staff smashing right toward his face.

To his astonishment, the boy wasn’t dead at all. No, instead, his body was shrouded entirely with powerful mana that someone of his tier never should have at his fingertips. He was suddenly moving so fast, it was unfathomable. Sten threw his armored elbow up to block the staff, and his brows furrowed tightly when he realized that the blow was heavy.

The staff was way harder than simple mana should be and was covered in that weird spatial energy. That was on top of the powerful kinetic energy and fire mana reverberating from its surface. It was the same weird spatial energy the boy used to infiltrate his barrier at the beginning. Sten was wary right away and blasted the boy away with pure mana as he felt the spatial energy dig into his armor much deeper than expected.

Or at least, that was what he tried to do because the boy avoided the attack and kept on attacking Sten. There was a terrifying madness in the boy’s red eyes as he moved like a demon. Each strike was aimed at one of his vitals, and Sten flinched at the cold brutality of the assault. He, a Tier 5, was being beaten back by a mere boy.

Eventually, he gave up on the battle that he was having with Emil and extended his domain to suppress the boy. However, he was shocked once again when he felt a weird explosion rock from the boy, and his domain lost its grip.

More blows started to get through his defenses, and the spatial energy started to damage his own armor. Sten started to release more and more mana to try and get the little demon away from him, but it wasn’t working. Even if the boy was hit, he just used his stupid teleportation skill to get in Sten’s face once more.

Sten wasn’t injured yet, but there was nothing he could do as he was slapped around. While he wasn’t exactly the most experienced fighter, nobody at Tier 5 was completely inexperienced. Still, he found himself at a loss as he was completely outclassed.

The red-eyed demon kept on the assault. Suddenly, large spikes of mana started to attack from all directions. The boy didn’t seem to care that he was in the way of some of these attacks; he was only focused on hurting Sten, and that cold, apathetic fighting style made Sten’s stomach tighten in fear.

He knew right away that this boy didn’t care about anything else but killing Sten.

A powerful pulse of mana or utilizing his domain to pressure the boy. Nothing that Sten did allowed him to change the tide of the fight. His domain was unable to grasp the boy, who was somehow avoiding being suppressed by it.

What was even more troubling was that Emil was holding back Ondayg as this was happening, but to Sten’s relief, Ondayg had finally pushed Emil back just enough that he was able to help Sten.

That relief turned into concern when the boy suddenly stopped his relentless assault on Sten and turned around. In one fluid motion, he gripped his staff, coiled his hips, and threw the staff at Ondayg in a piercing bolt of blue light. It was like the little demon had eyes on the back of his head. Furthermore, he must have been channeling kinetic energy into the staff for a long time because the impact was enough for Ondayg to get knocked off balance.

This was enough for Emil to take the opportunity to smash his warmhammer into the Frost Bear as the boy resumed his attack on Sten.

Strike after strike pounded into his armor. He didn’t have the combat skills to protect himself, but had faith that his armor could protect him. However, that faith quickly turned into dust as he felt a small hairline crack on the surface of the Blightfrost Steel chestplate.

This hairline was small, but it might as well have been a massive fucking hole in the armor. By channeling that much mana through the chestplate, he had already stressed the armor to its limits. Thus, a fracture was a terrible sign.

The enchantments suddenly crackled as the flow of mana was unbalanced. He desperately tried to keep it together, but as he was, he felt the destructive aura of the boy start to seep into the enchantments.

He tried to swat aside this aura, and he usually would have been able to do this with ease. However, with so much to focus on, he was unable to protect everything. Eventually, he left a small gap, and that was all the boy needed.

Sten had no idea if the boy did it on purpose, but his aura messed up the stability enchantments, and the powerful mana that was contained within the suit of armor went out of control. Once it began, there was nothing he could do. It was like an avalanche; everything collapsed onto itself, causing a landslide of destabilized mess. And before he could do anything, his armor imploded. His mind went in and out of consciousness as he took the brunt of the force.