Chương 17: Chapter 1-16 – The Valley of Dead Shadows

My final test was a Warrior-level Shadow guy, someone capable of flicking out his blade and killing me from a hundred yards away. That was nice for him, but it didn't help him when I picked him out of the stretching shadows and rammed a full flight of Shards into the grinning bastard and his black sickle.

He struck back instantly, but I was already gone, Winds picking me up and whisking me away, and furthermore three different streams were moving in three directions when he got there literally seconds later, smoking and burning and looking very much put out. Shadows exploded through the trees, and an even greater darkness descended. Devilsight didn't really care. I could still see, and my Wind Trails were already made.

My Detect Shadows actually covered most of the area of what he was doing, some sort of Shadowy Domain effect where he could move about and exert his powers to the fullest, slowing me down and tying me up with half-tangible darkness while his speed was at its utmost. I was out of the area of effect within seconds on my own, but that didn't stop me from locking onto him and sending out Rays of my own from outside his now-occluded visual range.

The burning fires and colors literally bored a coruscant hole through the Dark Magic, the vivic flames exploding around the Rays in an eager, hungry spiral that looked more impressive than how dangerous it actually was. The Rays smashed into the frustrated Warrior-class Shade, and it howled in anger and pain as it burned. I rolled out of the way and down as crisscrossing, scything, soul-cutting lines of darkness sliced through the trees as if they didn't exist, trying to cut my spirit right out of me.

Happily, slicing out blindly didn't help its accuracy, and my Shield and Armor whined as the soul-slicing power bounced off them, Force effects were specifically useful against incorporeal-style attacks! The thing had to charge over, out of its Domain, to get at me, which it promptly did, flitting around as easily as a bird inside there, scythe raised high despite the Shade burning as it swept around the tree through my Wind Trails... and grimaced when it saw three more of them blowing away in different directions.

Then my hand came down on its head from above where I was clinging to the tree, and I discharged directly into its skull before it could flinch away. Point-blank Shards blew its head completely apart with Radiant energy, raged down into its body, and sliced it apart, sending its limbs and weapon flying aflame from the blast. Vulnerable to Radiant damage, and it had still taken three shots to kill. That was, like, very humiliating and showing me how weak I was here.

"That is very impressive Novice-class magic," King Cloud Moon hooted from two hundred feet above, where he'd been watching all this with interest. The Shade likely would have been frozen with terror if it had realized the Baron-level Owl was there, and it could likely have been popped apart with a single Note from the big Bird.

"You think so, Elder?" I wasn't impressed, but then again, this was hardly a full Shards layout. Still, these things had incredible damage mitigation against lower-Tier magic. It was taking half the damage or less, which, when combined with the Health and Soak multiplier it was getting from being Warrior-Class, meant it required incredible amounts of punishment to bring down. Broken magic breeds broken magical defenses.

I really, really had to get my Spell Penetration up to overcome that 'Spell Resistance' defense here...

"It would normally require dozens of Novice-class spells to bring down a Warrior-class creature," the King informed me, gliding down in perfect quiet to one of the immense tree-roots near me, perching upon it as lightly as a sparrow. None of the local wildlife even realized he was here, so he had to be controlling his voice so only I was hearing him, too.

"You are using a Tier Four Wind Trail so quickly, so your other spells must be benefitting from the same effect, and perhaps the odd energies imbued in them are aiding you." The fact my Shards were extremely powerful by Power of Ten standards skipped right past him. After all, he didn't have any unit of comparison, except other Novice-level spells. The Class Jump was simply too great.

That Shadow Domain spell had covered a massive area, equal to a Widened V effect in my experience, and yet was only the basic Adept-class Shadow Element spell effect! I set the back of my mind to puzzling on how all the various factors worked together, wondering just how Caster Level seemed to fit into what really seemed to be a case of just massive amounts of energy. Was Caster Level really immaterial in the current system, and basically just an expression of how familiar people were with a spell?

If that was the case, the idea of low-Class spells being 'dangerous' simply wouldn't occur to anyone who was truly powerful. Sure, they might be enhanced enough to be able to deal with Servant-Class creatures, but truly threatening Warrior-Class enemies would take immense amounts of refinement. Well, something for the future. I didn't know what was available out there, after all.

"How is the spatial tension here?" I asked the King calmly. He Trilled at the air, as delicately as a songbird, and I could see ripples of Sound Magic vibrating on the magic all around.

"It... is clearer," he breathed out in wonder.

"The Elements of Darkness that were trailing from the Shade are gone..." A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. I bent down to the ground and picked up a Soul Crystal the size of a chicken egg. The Shade's soul had burned down nicely with its body, imploding as the vivus did its thing and punished it for Dark choices in life and death. This gave me two of them. Only five more to go, and then who knew how many more later...

"Something you think Flowing Silver Emperor will make use of?" I asked calmly.

"If it is something you can make on a greater scale, all of the Beast World will be interested," he confirmed solemnly.

"Well, then, let's go see Him and see how I can help, then."

I wasn't sure of the sheer size of the area threatened by the Dark Plane, but I wouldn't have been surprised if it equaled the land surface area of Terra. It curved off a long way and vanished over the horizon, clearly representing an area at a bare minimum of a couple thousand miles across, and potentially much, much bigger if the radius was organic and uneven, and actual martial conflict and fighting the Corruption determined the extent of it.

I could feel the thrumming of the Manafield from miles away as more active conflict zones hove into view. There were Winds howling, Lightning thundering, Fires blasting, and the Earth shaking all over the place, with flashes of Light standing out in streams and threads of Shadows here and there. Cold winds laden with Ice slid by us. I politely asked the Owl King to use his most basic Sound Magic during the hour or so of flying, and began matching Stars up to it.

The energy inside was a derivative of the seven basic Elements, but the Stars themselves were unchanged in tone or attempt. I had long deduced that a Mage would have Stars filled with only the Mana of the specialized Element, but the seven Star format remained unchanged regardless... and arcane Mana worked for any Element, that was its special thing. The pattern for Sound magic was also quite unlike Wind Magic, so there was no overlap.

Five thousand different potential patterns gave plenty of room for alternate forms. I let my Stars dance in the rippling waves of the low thrum coming from the great Owl, who was watching very curiously as my magic extended out, the Stars danced with his power, and began to line up. I noted that it seemed to be important that it started as Wind, and ended as Lightning.

The other Stars fell slowly in line, one by one, as I connected them into the proper format, and soon added a gentle Note of my own to what the Owl was doing. The effect was like a great sonar bubble, giving me awareness of Sound over a massive area, right down to breathing and heartbeats, footsteps and wings beating. I could tell the precise direction of different spells going off far in the distance, and instantly zero in on any creatures in the local area by their breathing and heartbeats.

Huh, not much different from being a living sonar, in other words. The other Elements were probably extremely envious of the sensitivity to living things that Sound Mages had. On the other hand, things capable of dampening their own Sound vibrations, like, oh, Shadow creatures flitting about, could totally take this by surprise. It was actually listening to sounds, not echoes, so it wasn't a true sonar effect. It was hearing everything that could potentially be heard inside an area at the moment it made a sound!

Still pretty damn cool, and I could totally see why Owls would have it as an ability. Who cared about eyes? They could hear their prey from literally miles away, and had zeroed in on me without much effort back then, only a little thrown off by the leaves in the way of that tree. I could also totally flummox up anyone using this effect, so I wasn't too worried about it.

I happily hummed along and began building up the spell with Rep Counts, asking King Cloud Moon what the next tier of this should be able to do, and Casting and re-Casting it to achieve the effect as he guided me along, fascinated with how quickly I was mastering it.

I could feel the Auras from miles away, but was distracted by something else.

"Ho, King Cloud Moon, how would you like to make a big fat entrance, and really garner some notice?" I asked him, looking down over his side as I held onto his feathers.

"It never hurts to gain approval from one's ruler," he admitted cautiously.

"What are you planning, little Human?"

"I think that's a valley full of Darkness goop, but there's nothing going on down there." He turned his attention to a valley we were overflying.

"That is correct. Many bodies of Darkness Creatures and Corrupted Beasts have been thrown into it."

"Well, I'd like to go down there and set it all on vivic fire." He paused for only a second, before banking quickly and beginning a swift dive towards the valley.

"I think that will demonstrate much to the Emperor," he agreed.

"They have already noticed us, of course, but I am just one of His servants among many."

"Kind of what I thought. Let's do this right, and you can get some kudos out of this, although I don't know how much it will benefit you in the future."

"The Emperor will remember," he stated confidently.

"Also, I would like to see the mistfire truly burn..."

"Then you should be in for a show. Hover over the middle of it for a moment, and let me start the blaze..."

It was pretty simple, looking at it all. The torn, tumbled, and rent carcasses and parts of many magnificent Creatures, Tainted and Corrupted by Dark magic, were strewn literally everywhere, dropped in by passing Beasts, hurled here by Wind Magic, or just slaughtered here and left behind. Likewise, the ground was thick with the remnants of Shades of unknown sorts who had died here, the thick murk of their unnatural bodies permeating everything, and defying even massive amounts of Fire or Light to get rid of them.

It was a freaking reservoir of gasoline to vivic fire. I just targeted the dead carcasses, because it was all I had to do. Once they were set alight, the thick Darkness in the air made them flare, the gooey stuff soaked into the ground caught like tinder, and in mere moments, several acres below us were on fire, giving King Cloud Moon plenty of room to land.

I brought up a Disk, moved up top of his head for the best vantage point, and began laying about in every direction, explosive bursts of Radiant Shards infused with vivus, Banefire to Shadow, and Holy energies exploding in every direction. Mistfires rose, spilling off white fogs that ignited ever more vivus, and they began to spread and spread...

King Cloud Moon hopped a few times after noting the range of my magic, bringing me over into range of more carcasses or areas thick with the black stuff, and vivic fire erupted quickly. I wasn't fancy or truly boosting anything, only occasionally adding mage Mana to the spells for some additional speed and bursts on impact. No, this was a slow, steady clearing of ground, igniting thirty-foot circles one after another, and watching the vivus spread slow and steady as it found its ideal food and got to work.

Unsurprisingly, there were Shadow creatures among the dead, hiding there and taking cover against the Beasts swarming in the surrounding hills and forests. Sometimes King Cloud Moon Hooted, and they exploded as they were vibrated apart, and sometimes they caught a volley of Shards and I blew them to misting pieces without hesitation. It didn't take long before we had an audience, and it only grew with time.