Chương 349: (342) 5.38. Now You See Me…

Vin's creation of Mage Hand had actually given him the experience needed to reach level 46, and seeing as his endurance, magic, and focus were all above 70 at this point, he decided now was as good a time as ever to start trying to keep his other attributes from lagging too far behind. Dropping all three of his free points into dexterity to raise it to 29, he closed his interface as he reached the end of the man-made dungeon.

Standing behind the closed door, he cast Tremorsense, using the vibration magic to get a sense of what he was dealing with outside the dungeon. As he'd suspected, there were two other rankers standing at attention on the other side of this door, no doubt to ensure the guard heading in to feed him and check on him didn't try and smuggle anything in with her, such as a key.

Each one was armed with a sword that would be more than capable of cutting through his flesh, and based on the ease of which they carried themselves, he had no doubt they were both highly trained warriors. They've done this enough times by now that they know about how long it should take the guard to ask me the question and give me my food. That means I only have a minute or two before they grow suspicious of why she's taking so long… Vin scratched his chin as he quickly got to work on a plan.

Because of the restrictions on his divine boon, he couldn't attack the two rankers unless they attacked him first or he thought someone's life was in danger, but there were plenty of things he was capable of that didn't constitute an attack. That said, none of those things would put these two down for long, so baiting them into attempting to hurt him and giving himself a chance to retaliate was definitely the safest option. His plan in place, he got to work.

Dropping Tremorsense, which only worked to show him actively moving things, such as living creatures cursed to have blood constantly flowing through their bodies, he instead used Sense Stone to detect the precise layout of the keep hallway and the dungeon as a whole.

He'd used the same spell days ago upon first waking up, hoping to discover that the dungeon was nothing but simple stone and that a quick cast of Stone Shape would be all it would take for him to make a hole in the wall and free himself from his unjust imprisonment. Unfortunately, the spell had shown him that there were spaces free of stone running along the entire exterior of the dungeon, hidden within the stone.

He didn't have a method of sensing metal, but it was a safe bet to assume that whoever had built the cells to hold high-strength individuals had included the metal in the walls to stop them from busting out in the event they did get out of their cell somehow. Curse whatever architect had built this dungeon so carefully.

With the aid of Sense Stone giving him an excellent mental map of the outside hallway, Vin carefully picked out a spot just past the waiting guards and cast Stone Wall, summoning one giant slab of solid stone directly in front of the guards and cutting off their own access to the hallway. He could hear the two of them cry out through the door as they suddenly found themselves trapped between the wall and the door, and he chuckled as he used Mage Hand to pick the lock.

With a click, he swung it open, waving at the two rankers as they turned to stare at him in shock.

"Hey there! Either of you guys know where I can find an exit?" Based on how one of the rankers immediately began trying to bash through his stone wall with the pommel of his sword as the other drew his blade and came at him, he could only assume one of the guards had been instructed to report any sort of escape attempt while the other was to try and stop him. That was about all the thinking he had time for, however, as he quickly found himself focusing on simply staying alive.

He didn't have whatever weird magical sense allowed the rankers to see one another's rank, but based on the guard's speed and strength, Vin assumed he had to be quite up there.

"You're almost as bad as fighting Alka!" he grunted, narrowly dodging a slash that would have cleaved through his good arm, before using his golem arm to block a kick aimed for his midsection. It was clear that the guard was doing his best to avoid killing him, which was arguably the only reason why Vin was still standing. He'd gotten better at defending himself thanks to Alka's intense training and fighting against her Slayers, but he was far from an actual warrior, which his opponent very much was.

Deciding he couldn't risk drawing this out, he leapt back and cast." Enhance Gravity!" he said, cranking the gravity around the man up several magnitudes in an attempt to pin him to the floor. To his shock, while his clothing dragged down as though trying to rip itself off him, the man himself barely slowed down as he rushed him once more.

"Oh come on, how many points in strength do you even have?!" The two of them exchanged a handful of blows as Vin was quickly forced back almost to the cell he'd just broken out of before he managed to catch the ranker off guard with a new tactic." Aqua Sphere!" he tried, finally earning a look of shock from the warrior as he flooded the small hallway with water and the two of them began floating.

The man might have been able to shrug off increased gravity, but it was clear he didn't have any experience fighting underwater as he struggled to move toward him. Putting his Swimming skill to work, Vin carefully darted around him, blocking a slash with his golem arm before popping out of the water on the other side." Stone Wall!" he cast, sealing the ranker behind a foot-thick wall of stone.

Turning, Vin spotted the other one through the empty hallway, nearly having managed to make a hole wide enough for him to squeeze through. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Damn, I wish I could just hurl a Fireball at him! Vin thought, for once feeling the restriction of his divine boon all too much. Unlike the guard he'd just bested, this one had yet to actually attack him.

Because of that, instead of blowing up the man from afar, Vin ran forward, shouting.

"Hey you!" he said, waiting for the man to glance over his shoulder. Doing his best to channel his inner Shia and giving him a maniacal grin, Vin shouted again.

"You're next!" Just as he'd hoped, the moment the ranker saw that Vin had dispatched the other guard and was running down the hallway at him with insanity in his eyes, his face paled. Grabbing a dagger from his belt, he turned and hurled it at him. Batting the spinning blade out of the air with his golem hand, Vin grinned and pointed a finger.

"Fireball!" The explosion took care of both the remaining guard and the remains of the stone wall he'd initially summoned to trap them, though it did have the slight side effect of probably alerting anyone even relatively close by that something was going on near the dungeon. Not wasting any time, Vin rushed down the corridor, throwing Tremorsense back up again to keep an eye on his surroundings. Four rankers rushing down toward the dungeon from the north and two more from the west…

Which means we go wherever the hell this way leads! Vin didn't have any idea what the layout of the keep was, but seeing as only one of the hallways available to him wasn't currently filled with highly skilled warriors rushing down it, his choice was an easy one. Unfortunately, this decision was taking him away from the location of the actual dungeon he needed to escape through, but that could wait for later. Getting out of the keep with his head still attached was more important at the moment.

Throwing himself up a set of stairs three at a time, he cursed as he picked up another ranker running his way. Not willing to turn back and tackle the small crowd that had gathered at the dungeon, Vin continued forward.

"He's over here!" the woman shouted as her eyes narrowed, and Vin blinked as he recognized the ranker with her massive warhammer. It was the same one who had ambushed the guy by leaping off a roof, and it looked like he was about to get a first-hand look as to how good she was when it came to actual fighting. The two of them met in the center of the hallway, and the ranker aimed for the side of his head with a powerful swing from her warhammer.

Either she hadn't gotten the memo that he was supposed to be captured alive, or she had some sort of nonlethal skill like Grunch. Either way, Vin wasn't planning on finding out, as attempting to pulp his head like a grape was more than he needed to be able to retaliate in kind. He answered her powerful swing with one of his own, and as steel met whatever the hell his prosthetic hand was made of in a flash of blue mana, the winner became obvious.

Her warhammer was blasted to pieces in an instant, and while she was still recoiling from shock, he focused on her feet as he ran past her." Binding!" Her shock quickly turned to screams of outrage as she realized her feet were functionally glued to the floor. She'd need to take off her boots in order to keep chasing him, which would take her at least a couple of seconds. Combined with the fact that she was now down a weapon, Vin felt pretty confident she was out of the fight.

Sprinting down the rest of the hallway, Vin cursed as he felt the vibrations of rankers closing in on him from all sides.

It seemed the warhammer wielder's shout had been heard loud and clear, as more than a dozen rankers were nearly upon him. Freezing in the center of the hallway, Vin desperately tried to come up with a plan before he spotted a nearby window and blinked at his own stupidity. What the hell am I doing? I'm a mage! Just as the first few rankers turned the corner and shouted at him, Vin turned, sprinting right at the nearby window and hurling himself through it.

He ignored the shards of glass that slashed across his skin as the window shattered, along with the shouts and screams from those behind and below him, instead focusing on throwing together the required runic formation within his core as fast as possible." Redirect Gravity!" he shouted, swapping his orientation around so that 'down' was now due north, in the direction of the dungeon.

It was a blow that he hadn't been able to retrieve his fire-knife, but his life and the lives of the other missing Earthers were far more important than that of a random artifact he could probably recreate given enough time. As he began soaring away, burning through mana at a ridiculous rate while 'falling' across the sky and away from the keep, he let out a sigh of relief at his successful get away.

A bit too quickly, it would seem, as a sword screamed through the air up at him and slammed into his gut point-first before he could get far. Golden light erupted from the point of impact as his divine boon saved him from getting skewered, and Vin reflexively grabbed the sword by the blade with his golem hand as he coughed painfully.

Shooting away through the sky toward the dungeon, he managed to pinpoint the source of the thrower, his eyes widening as he spotted the distant silhouette of a man standing what had to be nearly a quarter mile away. The ranker king, standing upon the roof of the keep, staring coldly at him as he vanished from sight.