Cultivation a fantasy li.., p.34
Cultivation: A Fantasy LitRPG Adventure (Battle Mage Farmer Book 3), page 34
Slashing fiercely with his sword, John cut the incoming mana apart and dashed through the hole he’d made, closing in on Kythov. Seeing his attack easily defeated, Kythov raised one of his eyebrows and muttered under his breath, suddenly exchanging places with one of the robed cultists. With a sharp scream that cut off abruptly, the cultist’s head spun away, accompanied by a spray of blood. From across the room, Kythov let out a laugh and pointed his finger at John, summoning a spectral creature that looked like a small ghoul.
Flicking his sword to the side to clear the blood, John didn’t wait for whatever attack Kythov had in store, instead dashing back toward the Necromancer, flames flaring at his feet as he accelerated. As soon as he saw the flames, Kythov’s laugh cut off and he glared at John with growing recognition. John wasn’t sure how the Necromancer could see, given his eyeless state, but considering that Kythov was a spirit, it probably didn’t matter much.
“You. I recognize you,” Kythov said, his expression starting to warp. “You are the one who killed my body!”
Nodding, John dashed across the room, his sword held down at his side. The Cultists in his way scattered, rushing toward Ellie and Sigvald.
“And I’m here to finish the job,” John said, stabbing his sword forward.
Once again, Kythov gathered mana together and threw it in John’s way, simply trying to buy some time for his spell to complete. Managing to slow John’s thrust marginally, he let out a shout and the empty space where his eyes were located flashed as another ethereal creature appeared, this one looking like an abomination with tentacles for arms. Both of the creatures charged forward, growing in size with each step.
“Haha, that’s a wonderful dream, but your sword is what led me to my current state and, ironically, it is also what will seal your defeat! Let me show you the power I have gained since our last encounter. You freed me to understand a new perspective, allowing me to capture and control the spirits of all creatures!”
With a scream, the ghoul spirit pounced at John, its raking claws leaving strange fluctuations in the air wherever it passed. At the same time, the larger spirit that looked like an abomination lowered what John could only assume was a shoulder and tried to slam into John. Leaning back to dodge the first spirit’s claws, John stabbed out with his sword, skewering the tip of one of the large spirit’s flailing tentacles. With a jerk he pulled it off-balance, taking advantage of its shift in direction to slip past it, stabbing his long dagger into its thigh. Both of the creatures felt more like a thick jelly than actual flesh-and-blood creatures, but since his weapons were coated in mana the effect was the same.
A deep cry of pain echoed out of the large spirit’s mouth, causing a few of the robed cultists to clutch their heads as the sound shook their minds. Before John could pull his dagger out, the other spirit was on him, attacking with lightning-fast slashes. Dodging the first two, John spun away from the side of the large spirit, his sword forming a net of flashing silver as he deftly blocked each blow.
Suddenly seizing an opportunity, John stabbed with his dagger, threading it through the ghoul spirit’s flailing limbs and sinking the blade deep into the spirit’s throat. A choked scream sounded as blue flames suddenly erupted from the dagger, transforming the spirit into ash in an instant. Before the spirit had finished burning away, John had vanished, flying across the room toward Kythov, who was busy trying to cast a spell. The Necromancer’s hands were gesturing wildly as mana gathered around him, but when John disappeared from his view, he abandoned his spell without hesitation.
On the other side of the room, Ellie was fighting fiercely with the robed cultists. Her spells sent raging wind and sharp raindrops around the room while Sigvald’s mighty wings arced with lightning. The spectres assisted her, their tiny figures darting from shadow to shadow as they stabbed crystal blades into the cultist whenever the opportunity presented itself.
Glancing at John and Kythov, Ellie found herself having to blink. Both John and Kythov were moving so quickly that, to an outside observer, their bodies were simply a blur, but to them everything appeared to move in slow motion. John crossed the air, his footsteps exploding with flame every time they fell, compressing the air to such a degree that it was solid enough for him to push off. His sword slashed toward Kythov’s spectral neck, blue flames appearing frozen on its edge, while his dagger stabbed toward the side of the Necromancer’s chest.
Moving only a fraction slower, Kythov held out his hand and a puff of foul-smelling smoke erupted from it, clearing to reveal a familiar skull that appeared from the air next to him. His other hand was thrust forward, fingers splayed out wide. A dozen spirits, moaning and shrieking, poured from his hand, swirling around his body. As John’s sword came close, the spirits threw themselves into his blade, impeding its progress. The first and second ones were burned to ash by the flames that surrounded the blade, but by the time his blade arrived at the third one, it had slowed down by a fraction.
More and more spirits poured out of his outstretched hand, interposing themselves between Kythov and the blue flames as the Necromancer lifted the skull in his other hand and spoke an arcane word. Sensing mana gathering, John abandoned both his attacks and slid back as large bone spears poked out of the air, stabbing at him. Using his dagger to deflect one of the bone spears into the others, John spun around, his sword slashing up at Kythov from a tricky angle, only to find himself chased by the tortured spirits that continued to pour out of Kythov’s hand.
Gritting his teeth, John tried to push through them, but even though the spirits died as soon as they touched the blue flame on his sword, each one that died seemed to add a small weight to the tip of his sword, trying to drag it toward the ground. Realizing he was being targeted by a curse, John let out a shout and pushed more mana into his blade, burning away the corrupt mana clinging to it.
[+1 Doom Point.]
[The apocalypse draws closer.]
Seeing the blue flames flare up around John’s blade, Ellie’s heart sank. It was clear things were starting to get serious if he was being forced to use his mana. Pushing aside a green dart that flew toward her with a gust of wind, Ellie pushed mana into her eyes, activating True Sight. John was occupied with Kythov, so he couldn’t destroy the enchantment siphoning off the mana from the dimensional door and feeding it to the sage Necromancer and his legendary level minions. Scanning the room, she saw a twisted collection of mana in the air. Clumps of mana hovered over each of the spots where the robed cultists stood, and as Ellie watched they twisted and flowed out of the room, heading back down the passage. Crouching down, she ignored the cultists, trusting Sigvald and the spectres to protect her as she sought a way to disrupt the enchantment.
Burning through the curse that shrouded his sword, John pulled all the mana in the surrounding area into the flames that coated his blade, causing them to burst forth with greater strength, at the same time thrusting toward Kythov’s heart. The ethereal Necromancer redirected the bone spears to intercept John’s attack, and even as they slammed into his sword a new bunch of sharpened bones stabbed at John, their points glinting with a poisonous green glow. Continuing to push the tip of his sword forward, John’s dagger danced, blocking all the bone spears stabbing toward him as he attempted to kill Kythov then and there.
With the deluge of spirits still pouring from his hand failing to block John’s attack, Kythov’s body flickered and he vanished, reappearing nearby. The skull in his hand flashed again and this time a ghostly skull shot out of it, expanding until it was four feet tall as its jaw clattered, biting down on John’s head. Twirling his sword, John used the side of the blade to slap the skull away, crushing it into pieces, and then borrowed the counterforce to redirect his sword into a chop that fell down on Kythov as John stepped forward. Blue flames danced around him, continuing to incinerate the spirits that charged toward him as he chased after the retreating Necromancer.
Faced with another attack, Kythov screamed, his jaw twisting grotesquely as thousands of insects suddenly poured out of his mouth. Each of the insects had a hard shell with three pairs of wings and a saw-like proboscis on its head. A small white skull marking on their carapace alerted John to what they were even before he heard Kythov’s shout.
“Face my corpse beetle legion!”
[+1 Doom Point.]
[The apocalypse draws closer.]
Eyes narrowing, John drew back a step, his sword cutting a corpse beetle out of the air. Slamming into the ground hard enough to leave a crack, the corpse beetle struggled back to its feet, twisting this way and that in pain. Two of its wings had been sheared by the blade and blue flame continued to flicker on it, trying to eat through its tough shell.
Corpse beetles are resistant to flame, even my flame. This is going to get difficult unless I really let go.
His mind operating at incredible speed as he dodged the swarm of corpse beetles, John saw that Kythov was starting to retreat. John was constantly pumping mana into Mental Model and his skill was growing at a visible rate, but he ignored the notifications popping up and burst forward, charging toward Kythov. The blue flames that surrounded him provided a tiny bit of deterrence toward the corpse beetles, but for the most part they were entirely unafraid of them, throwing themselves down onto John and trying to stab their mouths into his skin.
Shaking off a corpse beetle that had landed on his shoulder, John stabbed his sword at Kythov, but the Necromancer tossed the skull he had been holding into the air. Dark mana swirled around it, forming a body composed of twisted mana. Two arms stretched out, grasping bone spears that shot out of mid-air as the skull transformed into a dark spirit. Slashing, John let out a mental groan when he felt the two bone spears stop his blade dead in the air. Despite putting chips in one of the spears and a crack in the other, John guessed the skull warrior wasn’t limited to two spears. Sure enough, after trying to stab John with the cracked bone spear, the dark spirit dropped it and grasped at the air, pulling another, perfectly whole bone spear out.
[+1 Doom Point.]
[The apocalypse draws closer.]
Eight seconds left.
Bringing down his sword with enough force to shake the room, John felt the bone spears the dark spirit was using buckle and then shatter, turning into a thousand shards as his sword continued down, cutting into the dark spirit’s shoulder. Before he could capitalize on the damage he’d just done, the corpse beetles were back, rushing toward him. With an annoyed snort, he was about to unleash a storm of flames around him when he heard a voice call out.
“Sigvald! Help John!”
Crackling lightning arced across the room, stunning the beetles in the lead and causing the others to falter as the formation dipped toward the ground. Wings beating, Sigvald rushed across the room, his beak falling on one of the stunned corpse beetles. A powerful crunching sound rang out as the thunderbird crushed the beetle and swallowed it down. His visible eye lighting up, Sigvald lunged for another before it could get away.
With pecks that were so fast even John had trouble seeing them, Sigvald chomped away at the beetles, stalking forward into the midst of the beetle legion. Freed from their interference, John had already exchanged a dozen blows with the dark spirit, each of his attacks cutting a major chunk out of the spirit’s mana-formed body. Even as he cut into it, he could feel it attempting to pull mana from its surroundings to repair itself, but the blue flames that enveloped the spirit made that impossible. Covering every inch of the dark spirit, the flames raged as they devoured its mana, dealing further damage to both its body and the spirit that inhabited it.
[+1 Doom Point.]
[The apocalypse draws closer.]
CHAPTER 44
With one last slash, John managed to cut the dark spirit’s head apart, destroying the body it kept trying to reform. Before it could fly away, John’s dagger thrust forward and a spinning blue Flame Arrow shot through its eye socket, causing it to explode into thousands of pieces. The explosion was powerful, but John simply drew a shield of mana around himself as he darted toward Kythov once again.
It was obvious from the Necromancer’s panicked expression that he’d never imagined John would be so powerful. Despite being a sage, Kythov lacked one of the most important advantages sages had over other class holders. Typically a sage would rely on their powerful physical body as much as their control over mana, but Kythov, being a spirit, only had half of the strength of a sage. While his mana was tremendously powerful, John’s flames seemed to be the perfect counter for it.
Now, forced to retreat as his two strongest shields, the dark spirit and the corpse beetles, were broken, Kythov’s face twisted into a terrible scowl. John was quickly approaching and there was no space left to run. Forced into a dead end, the Necromancer let out a vicious laugh and threw his hands open, exposing his chest. The pale green body revealed suddenly grew even more solid and a gaping wound appeared, running across his left breast where his heart was. The wound was so deep that it exposed his purplish heart, and to John’s disgust he could see maggots wriggling around in the wound.
Screaming in pain, Kythov ripped the heart from his chest, causing blood to drip down to the ground. Even moving as fast as he was, John wasn’t close enough to stop Kythov from crushing the heart, causing dark blood to pour out onto the floor, carrying with it a stench that caused Ellie to gag. The blood, hitting the floor just before John’s sword pierced his head, writhed and exploded, spreading all over the room.
[+1 Doom Point.]
[The apocalypse draws closer.]
With a hole in his head and blue flames starting to creep across his body, Kythov laughed again and pointed his finger at John, causing John to feel as if he’d fallen into a morass. Despite being terribly wounded, Kythov still appeared able to act normally, and John could sense the mana from the dimensional door throughout the Necromancer’s ethereal body. It was clear, now that he was up close, that Kythov had already succeeded in tying himself to the door and its indestructible mana, making it impossible for John to kill him without unraveling the woven pattern the mana took on.
Even as he slowed down, a few of the drops of blood that spattered around the room landed on John, burning away under the intense mana flame that covered him. Sensing the strength of the terrible corruption that existed in the black blood, John’s eyes widened imperceptibly.
“Don’t let it touch you!”
The blood spread across the room like thousands of worms, crawling with lightning speed as it homed in on everyone who was still alive. The first person it touched was a cultist, who screamed and fell to the ground, convulsing as the blood began to corrode her lifeforce. Next to her, the spectre who she’d been fighting tried to retreat but the blood turned to chase after him. Pandemonium reigned as the blood spread across the room in a blink of an eye.
All the way across the room, Ellie reacted too late as a drop of the dark blood from Kythov’s chest slithered up onto her leg, seeping into her skin. Kythov and John had been moving so fast that Ellie, who was entirely absorbed by her attempt to break the enchantment shrouding the dimensional door, had simply not been able to react, and now the corrupted blood had begun to seep into her leg. Her face paled as she started to cast a spell using her crystal ball, but before the second word could escape from her lips, a dagger appeared in mid-air, shooting for her neck.
Out of nowhere, the Master of the Blade, the final legendary class holder of Infinitum, appeared and threw himself at Ellie, his dagger aimed directly at her carotid artery. As skilled as she was and as naturally as she took to John’s training, Ellie’s class was not a combat class, and the speed of an assassination attack executed by a legendary class holder was simply beyond her ability to react to. Across the room, Sigvald let out a screech and started to move, even though it would be much too late by the time he got there.
Likewise, John started to head toward her, but before he could dozens of tentacles erupted from Kythov’s body, grasping at John despite the flames that burned them. Wrapping around his body, they pulled him back, forcing him to stay where he was. Though they couldn’t actually trap him, they could delay him for the split second it would take the Master of the Blade to reach Ellie’s throat with his dagger. A hoarse yell exploded from John, but before it could travel across the room, the Master of the Blade’s self-satisfied expression changed to one of consternation.
Two swords appeared in front of him, both thrusting horizontally across his body. The first was a dark blade that intercepted his dagger, knocking it aside before it could pierce Ellie’s skin, while the second was a silver blade that came from the other side, slicing across his unguarded throat. Believing himself unparalleled when it came to stealth, the Master of the Blade found himself at a loss. He hadn’t sensed either of the attacks before they appeared, and even now he didn’t understand why it was he couldn’t sense any danger.
Moving forward too quickly to stop, his throat ran into the side of the moving blade and too late realization dawned. Thomas’ thrust had been timed to be just ahead of him, allowing his momentum to carry him into the sharp edge of the blade where he cut his own throat. Because the attack hadn’t actually been targeted at him, he’d failed to detect it until it was too late. Having missed his attack and sporting a terrible wound on his neck, the Master of the Blade could have tried to escape, but instead, to Thomas’ shock, he just sneered, even as blood poured from his neck, and used the last of his strength to spit.
Tiny drops of spit transformed into small needles that glinted with poison as they shot toward Ellie’s face, peppering her cheek and ear, even as Thomas’ dark blade stabbed into his heart, driving him backward into the floor. A dozen more strikes followed as Thomas’ two bodies melded together, but no matter how much damage he did to the Master of the Blade, it couldn’t change the fact that Ellie had been wounded terribly.
