Chương 269

Once they'd eaten and drunk, and Orion had rested enough to feel he wasn't about to keel over, Asteria turned her back on the ruined clearing and walked deeper into the Ironwood, gliding silently as if the muddy ground couldn't touch her.

"The sparring is done," she called back over her shoulder.

"But your instincts are still fresh. If we stop now, they might fade back into theory. You need to engrave them into your muscle memory." Orion followed, worried and intrigued at once. The training had been brutal, but the results were undeniable. Yet something told him he was in for something even greater. Pauline flanked him, blending into the darkening woods.

"I won't intervene unless you are about to die," Asteria warned, stopping near a rock overlooking a dense, overgrown ravine.

"The beasts here border the third tier, with some even surpassing it. Your goal is one, and one alone. Survive." She stepped back, vanishing into the foliage, leaving Orion standing at the edge of the descent. A low, clicking hiss echoed from the bottom of the ravine as three Ironwood War Beetles broke through the undergrowth. They were heavily armored insects the size of bears, their carapaces strong enough to withstand strikes from anointed knights.

A month ago, Orion would have hovered out of reach, spending his advantage calculating a gravity well dense enough to crush their shells. He would have been untouchable, and his victory would have been flawless, but he'd unfortunately learned that not every enemy would be so limited. If he reverted to his previous habits now, it'd demonstrate he hadn't learned anything from his mother's training. Power is all well and good, but knowing how and when to use it matters more.

With a sigh at how insane his life had become, Orion activated [Light Exoskeleton] and jumped off the ridge, shedding his mass before he hit the ground. A beetle noticed and lunged, clearing a dozen feet in a single bound, its mandibles snapping shut where his torso had been a fraction of a second earlier. Orion triggered a lateral vector, skating sideways through the air before finally touching down. Given what he knew about their toughness, he opted against a direct assault.

As he slid past the beast, he fired a pinpoint pulse of positive gravity at its front-left joint, forcing the leg to buckle under its suddenly multiplied weight. The beetle stumbled. Orion channeled power from his [Light Exoskeleton], using stored energy to bypass his usual casting time. A searing laser shot straight into the broken joint, severing the limb. He didn't pause to watch it fall because the other two beetles were already charging. Flying back, he seeded the ground between them with a repelling field.

The invisible barrier couldn't stop them, but it shifted their trajectory just enough to make them collide. That gave him the time he needed to summon a rock and charge a [Gravity Cannon] powerful enough to pierce through the two monsters. Slowly, he approached the last one, which was bleeding sluggishly. Its remaining legs twitched, and it looked to be in the throes of death, but the Arcane Overlay suggested it was less injured than it seemed.

As expected, the moment he stepped into range, the Beetle surged, faster than he could react. It slammed into a hastily raised [Light Shield], which shattered with contemptuous ease, but it gave him time to pull back. With its gambit failed, the monster shed its hesitation and charged at him with a hiss that promised death. Again, Orion flew back, using gravity to pull his body around and avoid decapitating strikes.

When he was back in the pre-seeded field, he activated it one last time, momentarily locking the Beetle in place before finishing it off with another [Gravity Cannon]. System Notification! Personally defeated [Ironwood War Beetles] x3 [Lv. 72-81] +71, 200 Exp"You overextended yourself in your eagerness to get it over with," Asteria's voice drifted down from the trees above.

"A faster beast would have taken your head before you could lead it back into your trap. Never commit your entire momentum to a strike. Always keep more than one plan in play." Orion exhaled, dispelling his magic, but gave a thoughtful nod. In truth, there wasn't much the beetles could have done to him if he'd truly wanted them dead. He was simply beyond the power of such creatures. But limiting himself to melee and short-range strikes made everything happen much faster.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. That's why I'm doing this. I need to get used to fighting in less-than-ideal conditions, or I'll be dead weight for my team. They moved on from there, seeking more fights and resting only in short intervals. Asteria offered strict critiques after every encounter, forcing Orion to constantly adjust his flow. He fought packs of Steel-furred Stalkers and venomous Snake-Vines. With every skirmish, his transitions between spells grew smoother.

He stopped thinking in terms of isolated magic and began treating his vectors as extensions of his own limbs, able to manipulate them with but a thought. Ironically, there was nothing magical about his growth. He'd always had the power needed to fight so efficiently, and despite what his mother might have claimed, he had his fair share of battlefield experience. This simply allowed him to put everything together, to make a coherent whole of what had once been scattered pieces.

By midday, the true test of his skill arrived. The forest floor gave way to a wide, muddy basin, and a discordant shriek filled the air. A horde of Ironwood Goblins poured from the hollowed roots of the surrounding trees. There were easily a hundred of them—vicious, lithe creatures armed with crude ironwood spears and heavy slings. Two Hobgoblins stood at the rear, much larger and rippling with raw, unrefined nature mana.

Ironwood Goblin Class: Swamp Gremlin [C-rank] Level: 62 Mind: 79 Attunement: 228 Body: 227 Traits: Greedy Bloodline [C-rank]; Swamp Creature [C-rank]; Berserk [C-rank]; Ironwood Hobgoblin Class: Swamp Commander [B-rank] Level: 102 Mind: 499 Attunement: 628 Body: 527 Traits: Greedy Bloodline [B-rank]; Son of the Swamp [B-rank]; Commander of the Insane [C-rank];"Goblinoids are considered one of the weakest races and are often dismissed even among monsters, yet their numbers are always large, and if left unchecked, they can put even minor factions in trouble.

Do not underestimate them," Asteria said quietly.

"Many a mage fell before realizing they'd made a terrible mistake by doing just that." The first sign that she'd not been lying was that, unlike what he'd expected, the goblins didn't charge him blindly upon entering their swamp. They formed loose ranks, and soon slingers released a coordinated volley of stones. Orion knew then and there that he couldn't take to the air; he would be a sitting duck, especially since several of those stones glowed with mana.

Thus, he triggered a negative gravity loop and sprinted directly into the horde, far faster than his Body stat should have allowed, even with his exoskeleton's enhancements. Death rained down as he drew closer, but Orion seeded the air around him with rapidly fluctuating gravity points, creating a distorted slipstream. The stones caught in the shifting fields curved harmlessly past his shoulders, then crashed into the mud, sending waves splattering in every direction.

Before the second line could unleash its payload, he was upon them. A goblin thrust a spear, and Orion shifted his center of gravity, letting his momentum carry him under the guard. He planted his palm on the goblin's chest, creating a repulsive force that sent the creature flying backward into its kin, knocking a dozen of them down like bowling pins. Unfortunately, there were too many for him to stop and secure the kills.

He skated through the mud, weaving a path through the horde, drawing their attention and forcing them to group up. One of the Hobgoblins had had enough and roared, its club glowing with destructive mana. It swung, tearing through the air and forcing him back with its surprising speed. Grinning, the monster advanced on him, slamming its weapon down as it caught up, uncaring that it occasionally struck its own allies, forcing the goblins to make space around them.

Just as Orion reached the edge of a bubbling pool, the Hobgoblin smelled victory and lunged, trying to force him back into what he was pretty sure was a tar pit of some kind. This time, however, Orion ducked under the blow, chaining an [Accretion Disk] to his right hand. He spun the humming spatial blade upward, severing the monster's club and the hand that held it in a clean strike. The monster howled in pain and rage, and rushed at him, only for Orion to zip upward and let it fall into the trap meant for him.

He didn't have time to do more than that, though, as the other goblins began unleashing their slings again, forcing him to give up [Light Exoskeleton] before it burned itself out and to cast [Event Horizon]. The situation was not particularly pleasant, but it wasn't desperate either. Unfortunately, he could feel himself slipping back into his old patterns. It would be easy to hide behind his shield and hammer the horde with light magic, but that would defeat the purpose of the trip.

With a deep breath that almost made him cough, given the rancid smell of the swamp, he anchored the defensive magic around his body rather than at a stationary point in space and flew into the horde. The goblins had clearly not expected that, and they shrieked in confusion and rage, but it was short-lived. Two monsters were flattened as he slammed into the ground, and with a thrust of both hands outward, he expanded [Event Horizon], sending dozens of goblins flying in every direction.

A heavy thud drew his attention to the side, and he saw the remaining Hobgoblin trying to hack its way through the shield, only for the rusty axe in its hands to slip from the warped space and slam into the mud. Red steam began to emerge from its body, and though Orion fired a [Gravity Cannon] at it to try to disrupt whatever it was doing, it shrugged off the blow. The monster howled, the sound barely reaching Orion but sending ripples through the swamp.

The remaining goblins quickly echoed it and began steaming red as well, their shrieks rising to a pitch high enough to scare away every other living creature in the vicinity. That must be the Berserker's rage, he considered. He wasn't very worried, because brute strength didn't mean much against the fundamental forces of the universe, but his mother had told him not to underestimate the goblinoids, so he wouldn't. The remnants of his [Light Exoskeleton] still clung to him.

The spell had fallen to the wayside in recent times because it was a bit too flashy for the covert operations he'd had to engage in, but he was finding it was a good way to coalesce light without having to set up in advance. Using what little power remained, he ripped the structure apart and fed it into another matrix. With no reflective surfaces for him to bounce light off, he couldn't play his favorite trick, but then again, he didn't need it, did he?

[Event Horizon] was still active, so he channeled all that power into a single beam, feeding it more mana as it slammed into the spell's edge. With a twist of variables, he ensured the shield treated the light as enemy magic, so it reflected it to the side. That saw it reflected again and again as it was trapped within the dome. Though the principle of Light Refraction was only mentioned in relation to crystals, Orion couldn't see why it had to be so.

As he felt the beam's power grow, he found confirmation of his suspicions. It hadn't taken him more than two seconds to set up the attack, but by then the horde had finished bulking up, and he was now surrounded by an army of insane monsters. Almost as if on an unseen signal, they all chose that moment to attack. Orion slammed his hands together, detonating [Event Horizon] and releasing his enhanced light in a wave.