LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 144: Starting the offense
[Beast continent]
Acting as soon as Darganth finished speaking, Serania stepped back before casting a spell that slowly made her form fade into invisibility.
‘I’ll focus on the weaker mage.’ She informed Darganth through a telepathy spell.
‘Go wild.’ Darganth replied in affirmation.
Finishing their short conversation with this, Darganth lowered his gaze to look at the aura users. Letting his arms and shoulders abruptly jolt forward, he turned his hands into their clawed state while also letting his fully unfurled wings appear on his back in one intimidating motion.
Watching with an amused smirk as the beastmen opposite of him unconsciously stepped back, he simply waited. Only when the hesitation faded from their eyes did he respond in kind by calmly walking forward to close the gap between them.
Ignoring the crater ahead of him, Darganth simply walked over it. Anchoring his feet onto the fabric of space itself, he walked through the air as he closed in on the beastmen.
Alerted by this effortless display of such difficult magic, Leor, the third order mage, acted decisively. With a swift motion of his arm, over two dozen tree-like constructs emerged from the ground all around Darganth.
Bending as if they were made of rubber instead of solid wood, they moved to capture Darganth. At the spearhead of this attack were the tree's equally malleable branches that started lashing out at him like whips.
Swatting the first one out of the air like a fly, Darganth dodged the second one by simply turning his torso slightly. Dodging the next one by leaning his head to the side, he stepped back as a pair came flying at him from the side.
Dodging a couple dozen more with relative ease even as more and more branches came close enough to reach him, it took multiple seconds before the attacks managed to just graze him. Ricocheting off the backside of his wing, the tree branch sprung to the side where it got entangled with a few other branches.
Using this opportunity, Darganth spun around and dashed through the gap left in the wake of this. Dodging the handful of branches still blocking him with a quick beat of his wings, he arrived near one of the tree trunks a moment later.
Slashing at the tree with one of his claws, he easily tore through its bark and lodged his hand into the trunk itself. Pulling himself up and rolling onto the trunk to dodge the slashing branches that struck his previous position a moment later, he thrust his other hand forward before the mage could manage to coordinate the spell to stop him.
The backs of his hands facing one another, Darganth secured the grip he had before he started to pull outwards. Grunting as he was met with resistance from the wood, it took him two strong tugs before the unmistakable sound of wood splintering reached his ears.
At first, it was only a small crack, but as he continued exerting force on it, it quickly expanded along the width of the tree. Yanking it apart with one final pull, Darganth opened the tear further until it cut through the three-meter-thick trunk.
Letting the upper part of the tree fall to the ground with a thud, Darganth turned around and incinerated the branches that had been pelting the back of his wings with a wave of his hand. Though this only affected their tips as the magic that powered them grew in strength the closer to the trunk it was, he didn’t bother with this.
Instead, he turned around to the network of branches that had previously filled the gaps between the spiraling trunks to keep him inside, or more accurately the now dying parts that had originated from the trunk he just destroyed.
Destroying the withered remains of this wall with a casual swipe of his arm, he calmly stepped out of the spell's imprisonment with a smirk on his lips. Dusting the small wood chippings that had covered him from his shoulders, he took another moment to rid himself of the splatters of sap that had fallen on him before he spared the beastmen below him as much as a glance.
The first thing he noticed once he did was that most had their backs turned to him. Only Jaron and one aura user had kept watch in case he broke out of the spell, with both now staring at him in shock as there had been no forewarning in the form of mana fluctuations that he would soon break free.
Leor was meanwhile focusing somewhere to Darganth’s left, a static shield that consisted of thick leaves obscuring him completely. The remaining aura users were standing in formation behind him, all having their weapons raised and carefully watching their surroundings.
A moment later the source of their vigilance was revealed when multiple streaks of light shot through the air. Striking the leaves protecting Leor in rapid succession, they sunk a couple of centimeters into the foliage before fading as it drained them of their energy.
Wasting no time, Darganth conjured his usual spear before joining the fray. Leaping from his elevated position, let himself fall for a few meters before halting his descent abruptly and lightly touching down on the ground.
“He broke through!” Jaron finally shouted in alarm, his shock having been overwhelmed by the sense of danger now that Darganth finally acted.
Not waiting for a response, he conjured two small mountains of ice to his sides and readied himself as Darganth rushed forward. The aura user aiding him was meanwhile taking up position in front of him, his shield and spear pointing forward to block Darganth’s path.
Reaching the warrior a moment after he had gotten into position, Darganth didn’t slow down his sprint and lunged forward. Ducking under the thrust with which his opponent met his charge, he swung the back end of his spear down onto the shield, driving it into the ground.
Jumping up before his opponent could react, he slid his hand down along the spear and took hold of the shield. Pulling it forward right when he was reaching the peak of his jump, Darganth used the leverage the shield provided to spin around his own axis and push himself over it.
Turning his head to the left to see where exactly his opponent was, Darganth saw that he had dropped his spear and was in the midst of drawing a shortsword while trying to gain space. But having only made it half a meter, the beastman was still well within Darganth’s reach so he struck out.
As Darganth’s spear pierced forward, his opponent’s eyes widened in fear. Realizing that his attempt would be too late thanks to years of fighting experience, he acted on instinct and brought his other arm up.
Meeting Darganth’s attack with his forearm, the spear tore through both the aura armor covering it as well as the batsman’s body. Tearing the limb in two as it exited on the other side, the spear continued and lodged itself in the man’s shoulder.
Pushing his spear forward as far as his arm allowed, switched his main focus to the short sword approaching him. Even while howling in pain from the wound on his shoulder, his opponent kept a firm hold on the weapon as he swung it at him.
Snapping for it with his claw, Darganth caught hold of it a couple of centimeters away from his neck. Securely holding the aura-coated weapon in hand even as it cut into his skin, he turned to the aura user with a threatening smile.
However, before he could continue, Darganth’s gaze focused past the aura user as tens of ice shards shot out from the two mountains. Wondering for a moment what the mage was planning, Darganth acted immediately once he realized that these attacks were heading for him without care for the mage’s ally.
Letting go of his spear and grabbing the beastman by the throat, Darganth lifted him into the air before throwing him at the largest cluster of projectiles.
Manifesting a silver-colored aura around him as soon as he sent his opponent flying, Darganth took a step forward and disappeared.
As soon as teleported away, Jaron went on full alert. Conjuring a pillar of ice below his feet to lift himself a few meters off the ground, he made two large pieces of ice break away from the mountains he had conjured. Breaking down further until a cloud of tiny ice shards hovered around him like fog, he waited for Darganth to teleport back.
Slowly the seconds passed by, accompanied by the sound of fighting behind him as Jennia still clashed with the leading aura user, and Leor and the four aura users with him weathered Allaire’s attacks, all the while there was no sign of Darganth’s presence.
During this time, Jaron was growing increasingly frustrated as he was forced to endure the sound of his allies fighting without being able to help. Using this and his narrow-minded focus on Darganth to her advantage, Serania managed to sneak to the foot of the pillar and reached out with her hand.
The moment her palm touched the ice, a cracking sound rang out as pieces of the ice broke off. A moment later another pulse of tremors sent even more tiny shards flying, barely giving Jaron time to react before Serania's third burst of magic caused the structure to explode into a shower of ice.
Catching himself with flight magic as the ground beneath him vanished, Jaron lowered his gaze to look at Serania.
Still standing at the same spot, she was surrounded by a spherical layer of vibrating air. Though it was barely noticeable to the naked eye, this shield spell nonetheless proved itself extremely deadly as it shattered any pieces of ice it came into contact with until no two ice crystals were left connected.
Meeting his gaze, Serania frowned in annoyance when she found Jaron looking around in search of Darganth.
“Don't waste your energy, he isn't going to bother dealing with you.” She told Jaron.
“You think I would fall for that?”
“Believe what you want but it's the truth. After all, why would he waste his time fighting you when I'm dealing with you in his stead.” Serania said.
Narrowing his eyes at the dismissive attitude she showed him, Jaron raised his arms as he took control over the ice mountain standing behind her. Weaving numerous spells into it, he made them fuel themselves on the already existing ice to lower the burden placed on his mana pool.
Simultaneously watching Serania's reaction, a smile formed on his lips when she still hadn't acted a couple of seconds later. Having finished the spells a couple of seconds earlier, he swung his hand in her direction and unleashed them.
The instant he started this motion, the entire mountain abruptly morphed and split into tens if not hundreds of icy projectiles of all kinds. A moment later each and every one accelerated and shot toward Serania's back.
Acting at last, Serania only glanced behind her before rising into the air. Stopping after a few meters and momentarily hovering in place, her eyes turned blue as arcs of electricity erupted from her skin.
Charging herself up further as she waited for the attacks to reach her, she was just about to discharge the gathered energy when a sudden wave of mana struck her. The moment it passed by her its chaotic nature drowned her spells and destroyed them, resulting in the gathered electricity scattering in the form of a handful of small lightning bolts that latched onto the ground while the abrupt end of her flight spell caused Serania to plummet freely to the ground.
Luckily for her, the same phenomena also affected Jaron and his attack, resulting in a hundred now uncontrolled masses of ice flying past above her head instead of following her.
Landing on the ground without trouble, Serania got ready as Jaron reached the ground a moment later. But instead of attacking her, he started looking around in confusion, prompting her to also finally take a look.
To her right she saw a similar picture, with the two fights happening there pausing even as they all felt the surroundings return to normal. Even Darganth had reappeared, though instead of looking around in confusion like the rest of them, his eyes were fixated on the center of the camp.
Turning to follow his gaze, Serania was left confused for a couple of seconds as she didn't see anything extraordinary.
Then, out of nowhere, a deafening roar erupted from there, shortly followed by a massive dragon appearing in a burst of fire. Ignoring the part of the camp his massive 120-meter-long body crushed, and he swung his claw against some target on the ground.
In response, another roar sounded out, followed by the form of a second dragon appearing and blocking the first one's strike. The moment the strike was blocked, both dragons jumped back a couple of meters and met each others gaze with a growl.
Seeing the two dragons preparing to clash in the middle of their camp, the defenders stared at them in shock.
“Attacking Inrad directly, that's either impressive or stupid depending on how well you're going to do Tahas.” Darganth commented out loud.
As the words left his mouth and the two dragons clashed again, the third order aura user reignited their fight as he tried to strike against Jennia while she was distracted.