Chương 88: Quake

Adolin flew through the air at high speed. In just a few moments, he would be facing three archmage-tier threats. The three enemies waited ahead of him, and they were different from the ones he'd faced before. Two of them weren't hiding their identities—the warrior and the mage. The third one, a mage, had his entire body concealed beneath a cloak. The warrior was a man in his early forties. His hair was completely white, and he wielded a two-handed sword. The mage was a woman, and an old one at that.

She seemed to be the only one who hadn't used magic to make herself look younger. Well, maybe she'd used a spell or two on her hair, since it was still dark brown. Instead of a staff, she used a white wand with a blue crystal attached to the top. The last mage carried nothing and was completely concealed beneath a cloak and a mask. It looked like a man, but that was only a guess based on his height. Adolin would have to keep them occupied until the Count came to reinforce him, or until the butler decided to act.

He wasn't sure he could deal with them alone without destroying half the estate, which would only cause more casualties among the estate's staff and soldiers. The Count had asked for a few seconds, but Adolin knew it would take much longer than that. So he drank another potion and took a deep breath. Hopefully, he wouldn't need to use Calamity. Or maybe he should. It would cost Eduard a fortune to repair the estate... He cut the thought off. The new world was changing him.

Even in the state he currently found himself in, where his only goal was to win the fight, he was still having random thoughts that shouldn't have been there... The two mages took flight, while the warrior remained on the ground and used a movement skill that made him almost invisible to the naked eye. Adolin used Mana Sense and spread it throughout the area. He poured more mana into the spell to cover a larger part of the gardens, which were about to turn into a battlefield.

He took a deep, long breath and created a platform behind the enemy mages. Then he made another beneath his feet and used Blink. As soon as he appeared behind them, he didn't waste any time and cast Sever, targeting both mages. Just before the spells landed, they cast barriers around themselves, and Sever crashed against them. The good thing about his current fight was that he didn't need to divide his attention between multiple battlefields.

All he had to do was focus on the enemies in front of him, and unlike when he had fought the corrupted general, the battlefield wasn't confined. He had free rein. He cast Sever again and blinked to another platform he'd created behind the warrior, who was already charging toward him. Before the man could even register that he was gone, Adolin attacked with three Severs. The first spell struck the warrior, and the barrier artifact came to life.

Then the mages cast two more barriers on him, which the remaining spells struck. Blink. Adolin appeared behind the mages again and cast Sever. Both spells struck their barriers. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to fight them. The mages had enormous reserves of mana and powerful barrier magic, and if that wasn't enough, all of them wore barrier artifacts. He kept blinking across the battlefield, targeting only the enemies he had an opening to hit. They didn't manage to hit him even once.

As soon as they locked onto his position, he blinked away. Even though the strategy was working, the problem was that he was only buying time, nothing more. If the Count returned now, he would only make the battle harder. The man was powerful, but his presence would ruin Adolin's strategy, forcing him to split his attention and support him. The wind around the next platform he blinked to changed. It was moving much faster than it should have, trying to throw him off balance.

Then, before he could even steady himself, dozens of black spears shot toward him. He cast Earth Creation, and a wall of packed earth rose in front of him. It blocked the enemies' view, and he immediately cast Flight, lifting off the platform. The wind caught him and carried him away at high speed, and he let it. As soon as he was away from the wall, dozens of black spears shot through it as though it wasn't even there. The mages were still in the air, while the warrior rushed toward him much faster than before.

Adolin cast Wind Spell on the mages. The cloaked mage was hurled into the wall by the gate. The woman cast a wind spell of her own, negating most of his. Even so, she was still pushed far from her original position. The woman was a Wind Mage, while he wasn't sure what kind of magic the other one used. It reminded him a little of the corrupted mana he'd encountered back in the dungeon, but the battle was moving at such a high speed that he didn't have time to analyze it. The warrior continued advancing toward him.

Adolin tracked him with Mana Sense and predicted his path. He cast Bigger Inferno at the spot where the man would appear the next moment. The unfortunate part was that he was in the middle of the first garden Adolin had visited. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. The vortex came to life above the garden and descended toward the ground. The man tried to evade it, but it was already too late.

The vortex burned everything beneath it and started consuming the once lush, blue garden. A moment later, the man burst out of the vortex. The barrier around him had blackened, but it still held. Even the most destructive spell Adolin had below the archmage tier wasn't enough. At least the barrier had taken significant damage. If he wanted to break it, he would have to keep the man trapped inside the vortex for more than a few seconds, which wasn't possible.

The mages were already flying toward him, so he blinked twice, appearing on the other side of the battlefield. He always tried to position himself near one of the walls surrounding the front of the estate and avoided the mansions, because any spell that missed him could strike the buildings where the Count's forces had taken refuge. As soon as he appeared on the platform, multiple spells were already heading toward him, so he blinked again. The same thing happened on the next platform. And the one after that.

Somehow, they had managed to predict where he would appear and attacked before he even used Blink. The warrior had stopped chasing him. He stood just outside the garden Adolin had burned to a crisp and stared at him. Then the man turned and started moving toward the buildings. Fuck. It seemed the chase was over. They were forcing him to fight. He blinked twice and appeared behind the warrior. The man ignored him and continued toward the buildings.

He sensed the spells already heading toward him, so he used Blink again, appearing a few meters to the side before using Mana Control. He formed hundreds of earth and ice spears around him and launched them at the warrior. The attack forced the man to turn and start avoiding or destroying the constructs. A few spells struck Adolin's barrier and came close to breaking it, so he blinked a few meters away, staying close to the warrior.

He cast another Mana Barrier and poured more mana into it before sending a few Severs toward the man. More and more spells hit him, forcing him to drink two mana potions to keep his reserves high. He wasn't sure if stopping the warrior was the right call, as it let his enemies know he intended to protect the civilians. Soon, one of the mages would start targeting them, and he wasn't sure if he could stop it. He glanced through the eyes. Everything was fine around the estate; no new enemies had arrived.

The Count was fighting the warrior Eduard had been keeping busy, while the butler was still nowhere to be found. Adolin stuck to the same strategy of attacking the warrior to keep him away from the civilians. The only way to deal with the enemies was to use Calamity, but he needed time to prepare the spell, and time wasn't something he had. He needed a distraction, one that would keep them off him and keep them close together for five seconds.

A few seconds passed as Adolin kept blinking and attacking the warrior, preventing him from getting close to the mansion. His barrier came close to breaking multiple times, but he always blinked away just before it did. It was becoming harder to use Blink without his movements being predicted and getting ambushed the moment he appeared. There was also the concern of what would happen if the cloaked mage used something like the core overload the corrupted had used inside the dungeon.

At the mage's level of strength, the overload would probably affect the entire estate, if not more. The small skirmish had also revealed multiple weaknesses in the barriers the mages used. They were effective against stronger spells, but if overwhelmed by a large number of weaker attacks, they broke much faster. So, he stopped attacking with Mana Control and waited for the perfect opportunity to use it again.

Adolin blinked again, appearing just to the side of the warrior, and cast Bigger Inferno, followed by Quicksand a few steps ahead of him. A moment later, the warrior stepped into the quicksand, and the vortex of purple flames descended upon him. Just as the vortex descended on the warrior, a spell filled with enormous mana struck Adolin in the back. He let out a scream as searing pain spread through his back, and he was launched dozens of meters toward the buildings.

He lost control of all his active spells as he slammed into the ground. His whole body ached. He crashed through one obstacle, then another before finally skidding to a stop. Pain flared throughout his body, and he cast an advanced healing spell as he gritted his teeth. He'd sensed the spell in time to blink away, but if he had, it would have struck the buildings—or at least landed close to them. He pushed himself to his feet and looked around.

He was only a few meters from the buildings, and the mages were already heading toward him. The spell that had just hit him had been at the archmage tier. Taking a deep breath, he cast Mana Sense and spread it as far as it would reach. He picked up a familiar mana signature. But there was no time to think about it. Mana continued gathering around the mages, and the warrior had already escaped the quicksand. His whole body was burned, but it was recovering quickly, and he held a potion bottle in his hand.

It seemed keeping Mana Control in reserve until he could guarantee a kill wasn't possible. Maybe the reinforcement he was hoping for would arrive much sooner than he'd expected. He wasn't sure if the reinforcement had switched sides or was simply affected by the same mind spell that had taken control of much of the staff. But if it was the former, it would be better to find out now rather than later.

Adolin focused on the mana signature deep underground, raised his staff, and cast Quake, the earth spell he'd created for Calamity. The ground around the mana signature shook violently, and the earth began crumbling. In a few seconds, the entire place would be wrecked, and whatever was keeping him trapped underground would be destroyed. Then he used Mana Control and spread his mana throughout the battlefield, establishing his... domain?

Now that he thought about it, what he usually did with Mana Control was fairly similar to what the Count had done with his Domain. The only real difference was that Adolin didn't infuse his area with elemental effects. He shrugged and created hundreds of constructs from every element. The mages were chanting, and whatever spell they were forming, judging by the amount of mana they were gathering, would be at the archmage tier. Chanting... Why were they chanting?

Every spell they'd used before had been cast without chanting... It wasn't the time to get distracted. Adolin brought his staff down, and every construct shot forward as new ones formed in their place. Through Mana Sense, he felt the familiar mana signature emerge from the deep crater that now marked the place where he'd cast Quake.