The Sixth School.

Chapter Seventy Three: A convergence III…

Greg had been a bit uneasy about the flying vessel. The last time he’d lost connection with the earth under him it had been so jarring that he’d been unable to focus on anything else despite being in a rather precarious situation. As it turns out, it was nowhere as bad as he’d been fearing it would be. Sure, not having his feet on the ground felt odd and a bit uncomfortable, but it was a lot like the feeling one got when on a plane. It was more of a mental awareness that he was separated from the ground rather than the visceral reaction he got when the earth-lock formation had been activated. Whatever the formation had done, it wasn’t just simple separation like being lifted into the air. Even from the air, Greg got the feeling that if he grew strong enough, he could still connect to the ground below him. When the earth-lock formation had been activated, however, even while still standing on the ground, he was completely cut off from it. Unable to connect to the element in any meaningful way.

In a way, Greg found himself glad that he’d experienced the earth-lock formation. Having gotten that experience, getting on the flying vessel was a lot less jarring for him than it would have otherwise been. With something to compare it to, the slight discomfort he felt was a lot easier to bear than it would otherwise have been. Also, what little discomfort remained, Greg could easily distract himself from by turning his attention to the figure of an old Asian man with long, flowing, snow-white robes, standing stalwartly on a sword and flying alongside them.

As an avid reader of Eastern fantasy stories where martial masters could zoom around on flying swords, Greg immediately recognized the trope that the being was imitating. The figure’s hair was completely grey, the front half of the hair on his head shaved clean while the back half was woven into a long braid as was common in Kung Fu movies. With inordinately long eyebrows and a flowing white beard that reached down to his navel. The image was clearly the stereotypical depiction of an old grandmaster and Greg had to suppress a snicker of amusement as he imagined the being suddenly saying, “Hmph, you’re courting death!”

Gliding above the treeline and even above the town was exhilarating at first. But by the third hour standing in the same position, a lot of the novelty of the experience had faded. Instead, apart from the strain of being in one position with minimal movements, there was a growing feeling of boredom. Breathtaking as any vista might be, after the first hour of looking at it, your mind tends to begin to wander. As such, Greg couldn’t help the slight delight he felt when they caught the first signs of the warping effect abyssal mana was having on the trees and animals of the forest. Taking it as a sign that they were getting closer to the convergence, he’d become more alert, readying himself for anything. He didn’t succeed. Even if someone had described to him in detail what would happen next, Greg seriously doubted that it would have helped him prepare for what came next. The disturbing spectacle of the monkey’s death was an image that would stick with him for quite some time.

Despite the slight discomfort of being in the air, the disturbing spectacle of a monkey being devoured by a tree, and all the twisted things they had seen along the way till they came to the zone where the abyssal mana was thickest, Greg still wasn’t prepared for that first step off the flying vessel. Thus far, Greg had always thought of his earth connection as something interesting if not good. Strange as it was, it allowed him to perceive and understand things from the earth that he otherwise never would have. Sure, it had landed him in a bit of trouble with the obsidian earthmover, but by the same token, it was useful in its own way. It was like having a stream of information that he was uniquely privy to. It was with that first step off the flying vessel that he realized that the sense could be as much a bane as it was a boon.

 The land wasn’t screaming, it wasn’t in pain… it was dead! And not dead in the sanitary way. The image that immediately came to mind for Greg was of a rotting corpse. Discolored, bloated, strange fluids leaking, nasty smell with maggots crawling in and out of it, The clear feeling of revulsion that overcame Greg at that moment was so strong that he was hunched over and puking his guts out before he even fully processed the feeling. This was even worse than the earth-lock formation had been. With the earth-lock formation, it had been like being deprived of a sweet scent that he’d grown used to. With this cursed land, however, rather than being deprived, the sweet smell had been replaced with a rotting corpse! Worse yet, unlike his nose which he could pinch to at least try and stave off any actual odors, there was no way of pinching his earth connection to limit what it was telling him, at least not any that he’d thus far discovered.

The abyssal mana wasn’t just corrupting the land. It wasn’t even just killing the land. It was taking what was left over after and defiling even that. In a way that Greg couldn’t even put into words, the land was being turned into something that would spread even more of what killed it. Like gangrene, it wasn’t enough for it to be just dead, it was being turned into something that would spread into healthy land, infect it, corrupt it, kill it, and then transform it into more of itself! With absolute certainty, Greg had in that first step realized that it wouldn’t be enough to prevent the convergence from taking place. They’d have to somehow cleanse the mountain of the rot that was spreading through it, otherwise, within a year or two, nothing would be able to go on living on the mountain. Or, at least, nothing normal.

“Are you okay, master?” After some time, Olivia’s voice finally managed to cut through the overwhelming nausea that Greg felt at that moment.

Gritting his teeth, Greg forced himself to ignore the feelings coming from his earth connection. It wasn’t by any means easy, but Greg already had almost a full year of training by his familiar to withstand the extremes of any sensation. Except for the days he’d either been trying to assimilate a beast core and the month and a half that he’d been passed out after his ascension to the first tier, every other night had been spent in willpower training. The sensations from his earth connection had ambushed him, catching him unprepared, hence the puking. Clenching his hands into tight fists, however, Greg stood back and forced his expression into a neutral one. “The land under us is corrupted!” He stated by way of explanation. Greg went on to lay out all that he was feeling through his earth connection and his conclusion that they would have to cleanse the whole mountain lest it all become unlivable within a year or two.

“Can you manage?” The healer calmly questioned. His teacher’s whole demeanor had changed. She wasn’t exactly callous or uncaring. Instead, Greg was reminded of a movie in which he’d watched A general talk to one of their soldiers. They were now in hostile territory and she needed to know whether she could rely on him or not.

“It’s hard, but I can,” Greg replied with a nod, grim determination in his eyes.

“Good, because unless we first cut the inflow of abyssal mana at the source, we can forget about saving the mountain,” She replied, turning to Olivia and holding out her hand for the snow-globe-like compass. “The first thing we need to determine is the area covered by the convergence before the real work begins,” she stated.

“You know, I don’t even know how it is we are planning to stop the convergence from taking place!” Greg couldn’t help the bit of embarrassment he felt even as he admitted to his ignorance. He had been so caught up in the flow of things that at no point had it even occurred to him to stop and ask this most important question. It was, after all, the whole reason they were even up here, to begin with!

“Form…”

Whatever else his teacher was about to say, it was drowned out by the shrill cry of rage coming from a creature that looked a lot like a gorilla except that what looked like armadillo-like plates of armor covered most of its body except for its face, fists, and feet. The creature also had several tentacles emerging from its back and waving ominously in the air above it. Now, Greg couldn’t by any means claim to be an expert on the creatures of this world and their morphology. Who knows, perhaps gorillas with armadillo plates for protection and tentacles coming out of their backs were normal creatures in this world. But after what he’d seen earlier today, he wasn’t willing to take any chances. His reaction to the threat was immediate.

In barely a second, Greg had drawn a longsword from his storage ring, in the next, the sword had crossed half the distance between where they stood and the gorilla that was charging at them from between the trees. Before the beast could even register what was going on, not that it even had the faculties to do so in its present state, the tip of the sword disappeared into its mouth. The beast was flung several meters back, as a result of the force that the blade had carried.

“Excellent reaction time,” His teacher said looking genuinely surprised at Greg’s reaction speed. Olivia, on the other hand, wasn’t as surprised as the healer. She had watched his development across several dungeon dives over the past year. Greg had already learned that the one who strikes first can gain a significant advantage if they are smart about where they hit. That lesson, however, had transitioned from a vague notion to an ironclad law ever since Greg discovered the fighting rings. These weren’t lawful or sanctioned fights where there were rules about what you could do or not do. When you stepped into that ring, you either came out a victor or a corpse. Nonsense such as posturing, shit-talking, and any other extraneous actions were the sole reserve of those who were already strong. In any fight where you were at a disadvantage, you had to keep your eyes open for any and all opportunities to take your enemy down.

Producing pointless war cries just as you are about to attack as the gorilla had done, was the height of stupidity as far as Greg was concerned. If you were going to tell your enemy that you were about to attack, then you might as well go ahead and tell them the exact move you also intend to execute as well. Olivia had also talked to him about this several times. This was, after all, one of the aspects of her theory of combat. Reading all the ways your enemy’s body was broadcasting their intentions and keeping your own body for doing the same. The moment Greg heard the shrill cry from the gorilla, his mind had immediately shifted into combat mode and all extraneous thoughts were expelled. Before the gorilla could even understand that it was about to die, the blade had already sunk to the hilt in the gorilla’s mouth and come out the back at the base of its skull.

“Thanks,” Greg answered his teacher’s praise even as he held out a hand, summoning the sword back into his tight grip.

This was the strategy that they had come up with to ensure the best outcome in any fight they found themselves in. It had been a hard pill to swallow, but his teacher had been quite blunt in letting him know that there was no way he could hope to keep up with her in battle. There was no malice or intent to belittle Greg in her voice, demeanor, or words. It was simply a factual statement. There was just too big a gap in combat style, strategic thinking, and actual battle experience between the two of them. If they tried to coordinate with each other they’d just get in each other’s way, or worse hurt each other in the process. As such, instead of trying to force them into a situation that would be disadvantageous to both of them, the resolution was simple, Greg could fight from a distance.

Apart from a few armors to keep him safe and a significant pile of potions to help with everything from healing to increasing his speed of movement and reflexes, all of Greg’s preparations had been geared toward one who would be fighting from a distance. Flying knives, flying swords, bows, and a whole array of arrows with various effects, items like alchemical bombs that he could lob from a distance, and so on. Greg would help in staving off whatever trouble came their way by attacking from a distance. As soon as that failed and whatever they were fighting tried to get up close and personal, then he was to fall back and let the healer take over.

The reason Greg had gone for the sword and not a flying knife was because of a warning he’d gotten from both his teacher and Olivia. “Controlling flying weapons requires a lot of mental energy. Do it for a few minutes and you probably won’t notice the difference. Do it for two hours straight, and you start to get a headache. Keep at it for five hours and that headache will transform into a migraine. Endure another two hours past that and you’ll probably pass out!” This had been the healer’s word of caution the greater the number of flying weapons Greg bought from the shop. They had no idea what amount of time they’d need to achieve their goal, so her advice to him had been that he should pace himself. The optimal time for those who weren’t trained in using such weapons was a ratio of one to five. His teacher, however, had advised that whatever amount of time passed while he was using a mind-controlled floating armament, he should try to take at least twice as long to rest. That way, he wouldn’t burn out too quickly!

This was why Greg had sought to kill in one move. If he could shrink down the amount of time he was using the armaments to as low as possible, then consequently, his recovery time would also shrink to a negligible amount. Just like now, sending the sword out and summoning it back had taken barely five seconds, in less than half a minute, he would have obtained full recovery as opposed to the one-to-two ratio he was to maintain when things got really bad. Turning back to his teacher, Greg prompted. “You were saying?”

“Formations,” The healer immediately got back into the flow of things. “The thought of two worlds connecting may sound daunting, but in reality, it’s a very delicate process. One that is surprisingly easy to disrupt even when it’s in its last phases. A combination of about six to seven formations will have to be layered one on top of the other to this end. That may sound like a lot, but considering I know problems that require a hundred-plus formation layers to be resolved, seven is next to nothing,” She laid out. “First, we’ll need to set up a space isolation formation. Cutting off the small space in which the doorway is forming from the rest of the world tends to badly destabilize the connection between the two worlds. The second and third formations are the mana dispersal and mana ward formations. The first one disperses any mana in the isolated space while the second one prevents any mana from flowing back into that area, essentially creating a mana vacuum. Doing this will slow down the formation of the connection down to a crawl. A connection that would have formed in a cycle, will now take ten, and one that would have taken ten cycles will now take a hundred!”

“The fourth formation is the obscuration formation. This one is just in case there…”

“Uuh, guys,” Olivia’s voice interrupted the explanation causing the two of them to turn to her. The familiar, however, wasn’t looking at them. Following her gaze, she was looking in the direction of the gorilla that Greg had just killed, or at least had tried to, given that the thing was slowly and jerkily picking itself up off the ground. Greg was certain that, at the angle that the flying longsword had come out the back of the gorilla’s head, it must have cut the beast’s brain stem in two. How then the thing was still alive, Greg didn’t know! “I don’t think the denizens of this twisted land are very happy with our presence here,” She said, her gaze turning in another direction to reveal several beasts, all with warped features, slowly approaching them. Ever since they’d crossed into the lands infected with abyssal mana, they hadn’t encountered any two animals working together, not even those that were usually social animals. That these beasts had chosen to set aside their hostilities to come after them, was indeed odd. “I think it’d be wise for us to postpone the explanations till after the situation is resolved, wouldn’t you say?” She suggested even as two, double-edged, blood-red daggers that curved forward slightly, appeared in her hands!

Greg had been willing to arm Olivia just as much as his teacher and himself. Much to his surprise, however, she turned him down. Instead, she only asked for one thing, the dual dagger set that she was currently holding. Greg had tried to insist that she at least get some armor, or healing potions if she didn’t want the former. His familiar, however, had just smiled and said that the blades would be all that she needed. Now admittedly, the pair of daggers had an inordinate number of enchantments, enough to be rated as a peak tier-two item. Boasting a nigh-unbreakable hardness, enhanced sharpness that didn’t dull, and an enchantment that kept any fluids or debris from attaching to the blades, the daggers could afflict its victims enhanced pain, sleep, paralysis, or necrosis depending on which enchantment Olivia activated. Even the healer had seemed impressed with the pair of daggers when Olivia was done laying out all their perks and abilities. For an item in the lower tiers, it was a surprisingly versatile weapon.

A fact that was put on full display in the next second.

If not for the sudden displacement of air, and the flying debris in her wake, Greg would have believed that she teleported. One second, she was next to them, and in the next, she was standing behind the gorilla with its head rolling off its shoulders. The thing had been put down so fast that, forget Greg or his teacher, the creature itself was probably dead before it even knew what had happened. Abyssal corruption or not, the creature was unlikely to recover from a severed head. Whether it was because it had happened right in front of them, or some unknown facet of their abyssal mana corruption, Greg didn’t know. But the eclectic group of monsters that had been slowly approaching them became even more rabid than they already were. Releasing a varied array of furious howls, roars, chitters, and screeches, the fast-growing mob of creatures started to charge toward Olivia. Gripped by sudden fear on behalf of his familiar, Greg took a step forward ready to call her back to his side. The words, however, died on his lips as Greg’s perception of the familiar fundamentally changed. The always chipper familiar that rarely took anything too seriously, was a harbinger of death on the battlefield.

Rather than use her extreme speed to move back to where Greg and the healer stood, she ran straight at the incoming stampede. Greg would have expected Olivia to use her overwhelming speed advantage to maintain an advantage over the mindless beasts. But that wasn’t what she did. A ghost. That’s the only word that came to mind as Greg watched the chilling spectacle before him. For two months before he was indisposed as a result of his ascension, Greg had been learning about the theory of combat from his familiar. In-depth as Olivia had tried to make those lessons, however, none came close to watching her dismantle a whole group of monsters with the ease of one who was walking through their garden and pruning a few errant tree branches.

The first thing Olivia had emphasized when it came to combat, was efficiency. Never do in two moves what you could do in one! This had been the expression she’d used to explain this concept, but watching her, the depth of this simple concept of efficiency was put on full display. Olivia didn’t make any move she didn’t have to. She didn’t evade any more than she had to, something that always left anyone observing feel like she was only avoiding disaster by the skin of her teeth. And yet, when one looked at the calm but cold and calculating look in her eyes, they’d immediately recognize that none of what she was doing was a fluke. Her eyes were constantly studying each of the creatures around her, making minute adjustments to her stance that always ensured that with only minimal movements, none of the attacks against her succeeded.

In the same vein, Olivia didn’t make any attacks that didn’t end with a dead monster. Some of the attacks were obvious like a dagger through the eye, one to the heart, a severed head, and so on. Other kills, however, left Greg feeling like he was watching dominos falling over each other. In one instance, she cut off the front leg of a bison-like beast, the supernaturally sharp dagger cutting through flesh and bone with the same contemptuous ease. The beast that had been charging her with its head lowered, stumbled past her, its inordinately sharp horns goring a corrupted snow bear that had been about to attack Olivia from behind. The two beasts went to the ground mindlessly tearing at each other, while Olivia had moved on to the next threat. In another instance, an evasion and a kick to the back of a ferret-like creature that had jumped at her face, sent it on a direct collision course with a bird that had been diving at her from above. The two creatures fell to the ground and were mercilessly trampled by the other monsters shortly after. There were several more instances where a simple attack by Olivia which in any other situation wouldn’t have been fatal, still led to the death of said creature.

It didn’t take a lot of observation on Greg’s part to see that the ease with which she seemed to move through the beasts before her was also because of another principle she had taught him. The body is always advertising what it’s about to do. To a true master or veteran of combat, the signs would be screaming at them what your next move would be. Greg had understood the words but had never quite imagined what it would look like in actual combat. Watching his familiar move among the beasts almost like she could see a few seconds into the future, however, drove home just how crucial the ability to read your opponent’s unconscious bodily cues was. Olivia’s eyes were always moving, her head turning this way and that, taking in all the beasts around her even as she made sport of them. It wasn’t just in evading that reading an opponent was useful, half the time, it seemed like the beasts had for no reason whatsoever, thrown themselves onto her daggers to die.

The most remarkable ability Olivia displayed when it came to this aspect of combat was turning this natural inclination of the body to advertise what it was about to do into a weapon against her foes. More than once, Greg lost track of the familiar among the monsters because he was certain she would move a certain way. And given that the beasts seemed to be fooled in the same manner, Greg knew that it wasn’t just his imagination. A few seconds would go by before he’d discover her in a completely different place, with a few dead monsters around her. It wasn’t until this happened for the third time that Greg remembered that with enough mastery of the body, one could consciously throw out false signals to fool their opponent causing them to dance on the palm of one’s hand if they didn’t see through the deception. It wasn’t anything so obvious as feinting right and going left, instead, everything about the familiar seemed to be fully committed to one course of action right up until the very moment she wasn’t. Everything about her would so convincingly tell you that she was about to stab you that it felt like some aberration of nature when you didn’t start bleeding in the next second.

Olivia wasn’t fighting, she was killing. Every movement she made, every swing of her blades, every kick she delivered, every evasion and maneuver she made, all of them were geared toward this one simple objective. She wasn’t trying to hurt or cripple any of the creatures. If she made a move, it ended in the death of the one she was targeting. The most chilling part of watching her dance among the beasts and reap their lives like wheat, was the fact that with every passing second, she was getting better at it! Olivia had more than once stated that only brutes and the simpleminded thought of combat was merely a physical exercise. To her, Taking on any opponent was as much a mental exercise as it was physical. A game of strategy where you sought out and exploited your enemy’s weaknesses and closely guarded your own.

With every creature that she slew, Olivia was learning how these creatures corrupted by abyssal mana behaved. What were their attack patterns? How did they react to pain? Was the mob united in some way? Or was every beast already driven mad with blind rage and looking to tear her apart and nothing more? With every answer she got, Olivia refined her strategy. Like a blade slowly being sharpened, the familiar was only growing deadlier with each passing second. Enough so that by the time the last creature in the first wave fell, it wasn’t a shock to either himself or his teacher. Instead, just like the sun rising in the east, or a stone sinking in water, it felt like the natural, if not inevitable, conclusion of the situation.

When Olivia turned to him and smiled, two things immediately clicked in Greg’s mind. The first was that all this had been for his benefit. Olivia could have remained a blur and taken care of the beasts without having to put on a show for them. She, however, had purposely done so to put on display what she hoped to one day teach him. He suddenly understood why he’d need to at the very least become comfortable with the CONDITIONING BRACELET that made it five times as hard to move before he was taught anything. While she had made it look easy, Greg wasn’t fooled. To be able to replicate what she had just done would require him to be a lot fitter than he presently was. It was a fighting style that demanded precise control of one’s body, split-second reaction, and enough power to make each move lethal. As he presently was he just wasn’t ready to even scratch the surface of this sublime fighting style.

The second thing that hit him, as he looked at his familiar’s smiling demeanor, was the fact that he was hosting a very dangerous being. Olivia’s almost permanently cheerful demeanor was the kind that could easily fool one into thinking that she was just a pretty face with some knowledge of magic. That, like some low-end secretary, she was only good for retrieving what he wanted from the two system stores and occasionally answering any questions he had. Looking at the bloody figure that was calmly walking back over to them, however, Greg had no doubt that if all those months ago he’d sent her to kill his uncle, tier-zero mage or not, the man would never have seen death approaching.

In a way, it was a bit reassuring and comforting to have such a powerful ally by his side. But by the same token, it was also frustrating as he realized all the danger he had faced with her just sitting back and watching. At the most, she’d helped him plan and nothing beyond. In all fairness to Olivia, the familiar had been open right from the start that she wouldn’t be coddling him. She’d make sure he first got his bumps and bruises from trying his best before she intervened. That knowledge, however, didn’t make it sting any less to see the true depth of Olivia’s martial skill and know that it wouldn’t be offered until the very last minute.

“That was the first few beasts to get here, but they will by no means be the last,” She declared, coming to a stop before them. “We are going to have to dig in, prepare ourselves for a long fight, and most importantly, begin the preparations for preventing this connection from being fully formed!” She laid out.

“Agreed,” his teacher said, two hive scrolls appearing in her hand and without any fanfare, she tore them both in half. When twenty copies of herself materialized around her, they didn’t just stand around, they immediately started moving around the area. Greg didn’t know how she did it, but the healer could somehow allow her clones access to her storage rings without them having to have them in their possession. Some of her clones moved about, marking specific spots by producing white stone slabs that they placed on the ground before moving on. The ones that came up behind them immediately got down on one knee and started carving out runes on it. They weren’t doing it by hammer and chisel either. They just pressed their fingers into the stone and started drawing.

This wasn’t because they were inordinately strong or anything, she also didn’t have any affinity with Earth that would allow them to do this. Instead, it all came down to the material used. Deurite is a unique type of rock. Unique in that, it’s damn near unbreakable by all means except one. The Rock is so hard that it doesn’t even chip when struck by a pickax. And yet, cover your finger in mana and you can push it right through the rock like a hot knife through butter! Which was exactly what his teacher’s clones were doing!

“Aren’t you afraid that they might not be as accurate writing out those runes by hand?” Greg asked.

“There isn’t a single rune that they are using that I haven’t written and rewritten over a thousand times. Forward, backward, diagonally, upside down, on a surface that is bulging outward, on one collapsing inward, even on irregular surfaces I have done it all. I know each one of them by heart. Why do you think I am so insistent you write properly?” She asked, directing a brief glance at him. “We haven’t started learning the Arcane tongue as yet, but you should always keep in mind that, unlike other languages, the arcane tongue is unforgiving of mistakes. One wrong character may cause a whole formation to turn against you. Worse yet, you might even have the right rune, but if it is poorly written, the results become unpredictable. And unpredictable is as good as a death sentence when you are in a life and death situation,” She relayed.

Greg went silent for a time as he processed his teacher’s words. More than once he had indeed wondered why his teacher seemed so hung up on his handwriting. Was it just some quirk of hers or a perfectionist streak in her? But now that he thought about it, he couldn’t help but wonder how it was that he didn’t make the connection. He had seen his teacher employ runes several times in casting her magic. More than mere words or characters, the runes were a bridge between the mana and the caster. The correct rune would act per the caster’s desires whereas a faulty one would at best fail and at worst backfire on the one using it. His handwriting had improved a lot over the months that he’d been learning under the healer, but it wasn’t anywhere near being able to write a single character the same a thousand different times. 

Nodding in acknowledgment of the lesson imparted by his teacher, Greg asked the other thing on his mind. “Aren’t you going to join them?” Despite her copies moving up and down all around them, his teacher remained standing beside him just watching them work.

“You’ve used the hive scroll before, so you should know that my clones know all that I know. They may not be as powerful as I am, but they don’t need to be for them to set up the formation. They don’t need my help to see to their task. Besides, you’ve paid me to see to your safety, and I’m not willing to risk punishment from a tier-seven mana contract, so your guard is what I’ll be today,” She said calmly.

Unable to answer her words, Greg just turned his attention to what was going on before them. The final and smallest group among his teacher’s clones were moving around clearing all the trees in the area. They never got too close to a tree, lest they suffer the same fate as the rabid howling monkey. Instead, they would stand a short distance away and eliminate the trees in two stages. The first spell they cast would forcibly suck out all the moisture from the trees. The first time Greg saw it, he was confused as to why his teacher’s clones had turned the trees into fountains. It wasn’t until a minute later that Greg understood. With the tree dry as a husk, and dead as could be, they would approach it with a lantern in hand. The lantern itself wasn’t all that special, but when he looked at the seemingly innocuous flame that burned inside, Greg couldn’t help the cold sweat that broke out on his back. He didn’t even know what it was but was certain that if it ever touched him, that would be the end of him.

In the next second, his fears were proved sound. Stopping two paces away from the thoroughly dried-up tree, his teacher’s clone held up the lantern toward the tree before uttering one word in a strange language that Greg didn’t recognize. The result wasn’t anything dramatic. The flame which was about the same size as your average candle flame, slowly floated off the lantern and moved towards the tree. When the flame touched the surface of the tree, Greg had been expecting the whole thing to burst into flame or something equally impressive. He, however, was left stumped when the flame just sank and disappeared into the tree.

Barely two seconds later, Greg felt a deathly fear encase his heart in ice as the whole tree collapsed into a heap of ash on the ground. There were no flames, no blackening of the bark, or the crackling of burning wood. Heck, even the clone that had been standing just two paces away didn’t show any signs that they’d felt any of the fierce heat one would need to turn a whole tree into a heap of ash in a single instant. And yet, as if it had done nothing, the small flame floated onto the lantern and settled calmly onto the wick that had been holding it.

The lantern disappeared from the hands of one clone before reappearing in the hands of another. It didn’t take long for Greg to work out that once done, each clone was sending the item back to one of the healer’s storage rings, where the next clone would retrieve it. It wasn’t long before a clearing, a hundred feet in diameter had been made all around them. For whatever reason, the few beasts that came at them as the clearing was being made, completely ignored the healer’s clones. Whether this was because they were concealed in some way or because they were just purely mana constructs, Greg didn’t know. That, however, only worked in their favor and the work didn’t stop. But while his teacher’s clones weren’t attacked, that only meant that the three of them had a lot of fighting to do.

It was a slog.

Fighting once or twice may be exhilarating. By the tenth time, it goes from exhilarating to exhausting. By the fiftieth time, any novelty or exhilaration one might have drawn from the fight was gone and by the hundredth time, it was just mind-numbing. What was even more discouraging was the fact that they didn’t seem to be making a dent in the number of creatures that were coming after them. The land had been corrupted for miles around them and the number of creatures in that area was probably in the thousands if not tens of thousands. Even though he was fighting at range, even Greg was struggling to keep the beast tide from overwhelming them. Still, there was a light at the end of the tunnel as the healer’s clones worked unencumbered by all that was going on around them. They were ignored by the creatures around them and they in turn ignored the creatures as well. Despite the hours slowly dragging by, the healer kept them updated on the progress that was being made, keeping their spirits up.

When the final rune was drawn, Greg couldn’t help but draw a sigh of relief despite never stopping his motion to send a flying javelin through several monsters that just so happened to be lined up at that moment. His head was pounding from neglecting to follow the healer’s advice on resting for a while after using the floating weapons. The numbers that were coming after them just wouldn’t allow it. As such, it was safe to say that Greg was more than ready for the whole ordeal to be over with. He watched with great anticipation as one of the healer’s clones place a number of blue mana crystals on the control plate of the whole formation before activating it.

Of course, it was at this very moment that fate chose to show that Greg was severely underestimating it if a beast tide was all he thought it was going to throw at him…

***