Chapter 4536: Fight Murder with Murder (Part 2)
Chapter 4536: Fight Murder with Murder (Part 2)
As he expected, the self-destruct enchantments of the assassin’s equipment detonated a split second later, forcing the rest of the mercenary units to be wary of the old Professor.
"You’re not the only ones who know a thing or two about arrays, kids." Vastor’s swift finger movements as he conjured the Magus Level array, Murder, mesmerized Dhiral.
A massive seven-pointed magic circle feeding on the abundant world energy of the Academy’s Awakened forest formed beneath the Master’s feet and stretched long enough to encompass Ryssa and Dhiral.
The magical formation collected the world energy, split it into its individual components, and shaped them into energy crows of the seven elemental colors.
The assassins finished conjuring their own magical formations a heartbeat later, but Vastor blew them all up with a single Disarray spell. The conflagrations disrupted the assassins’ plans and teamwork, while the Spirit Barrier kept mother and son safe.
The squad leader inwardly cursed and pointed his finger at Vastor in a silent kill order that changed the mission parameters.
"You can try, boy." The Master appeared in front of the squad leader like a ghost, striking his chest with a palm strike and reassembling his shattered ribcage into a tight corset with the combat Healing spell, Constriction. "Much deadlier warriors than you have tried, and I’m still here."
The fused bones refused to expand and limited the lungs’ capacity. The assassin could still breathe, but the slightest exertion made him faint.
The spell took too much focus and time from Vastor. By the time he was done with Constriction, dozens of enchanted blades came at him from every direction.
"Run, Zogar. Run!" Ryssa yelled, feeling responsible for their situation. "Don’t worry about us and call for help!"
Run.
Zogar Vastor had heard that word many times. The first time, it came from his family tutor back when the Master was just a boy and needed to build the stamina to cast enough consecutive spells to pass the White Griffon Academy admission exam.
Run.
He had heard it again from his schoolmates; the word was filled with mockery rather than concern. Vastor had never been tall, and many believed that his short stature made him an easy mark for bullying.
Next was his instructor in the Queen’s Corps. The old veteran soldier didn’t bother to hide his disappointment when it became clear that the Master’s growth spurt was over and that his height would remain far below average.
A mage’s true power lay in his magic, but their survival depended on their physicality. With Vastor’s short legs and arms, the instructor deemed that the young man would have a very short career in the Corps.
Run.
The Master had heard it again in recent times, during the attack of the Undead Courts. His now-wife Zinya had urged him to leave her behind and get himself to safety.
Run.
Zogar Vastor was no stranger to this word, yet only a few times had it made his blood boil like in that moment.
Ryssa was pregnant with Marth’s child, and his godson trembled beside her. The parallel with what one day might happen to Zinya and one of his adoptive children was painfully obvious.
The Master’s rage at the assassins and his disappointment at being once again underestimated ran hot, yet his blood ran cold. He waited until the last moment to unleash the tier three Battle Mage spell, Earth Blossom.
The ground beneath his feet erupted in stone spikes and walls that resembled the thorns and petals of a colossal rose. The spell conjured dozens of projectiles, and every single one of them was aimed with surgical precision.
The stone spikes flew at the assassins from the front, following their same line of attack. If the mercenaries ignored them, the spikes would hit them as perfect counters, adding the assassins’ momentum to their own.
If the mercenaries dodged the thorn-like projectiles, instead, they would lose speed and crash into the curved stone walls that moved on either side of the spikes. Either way, the timing of the assassins’ coordinated attack would be ruined and their battle formation thrown into disarray.
The mercenaries didn’t fall for the trap and created a third option. They sidestepped the spikes and released a simple fireball each at the incoming walls. Zogar Vastor was alone, whereas the assassins were many.
Even though they used spells of the same tier as their opponent, the mercenaries believed that a single Earth Blossom couldn’t withstand a rain of Fireballs. They were right.
"Amateurs." A flick of Vastor’s wrist altered the stone petals in a subtle, almost imperceptible way.
The walls’ curved surface became slightly convex before shattering under the barrage of Fireballs. In their new configuration, the stone petals gained no extra toughness, but now they reflected the brunt of the explosion back to its caster.
The resulting shockwaves sent the assassins flying back with deafening tinnitus, and the scorching air burned their lungs, leaving them breathless. The second layer of stone petals would have shielded the Master from what was left of the conflagration, but there was no time for that.
The remaining mercenaries weren’t conceited brats and hadn’t forgotten their mission. The unknown old man was just a setback. The Dryad and the hybrid were the only targets.
Once the assassins realized breaking the Spirit Barrier would have taken too long and that, because of the old man’s interference, their window of opportunity was already closing, they changed tactics.
They doused the emerald dome with intense streams of fire, turning it from a haven into an infernal trap. All barriers let air and heat in, or those inside would suffocate and be blinded.
The temperature rose so much that Dhiral and Ryssa sweated bullets, and the air became so hot that their bodies burned with every breath they took. The Spirit Barrier would become a dignified magical pressure cooker in the span of a few seconds, and mother and son would turn into steamed vegetables.
The Master used the Glide spell to charge forward and one of Earth Blossom’s stone petals as both a shield and a ram. He moved in a straight line, crushing everyone and everything in his path now that his mana was focused on a single target.
A punch to the gut forced one assassin to interrupt the assault or die. A kick to the stone slab sent it crashing into another assassin, breaking her focus and throwing her into her closest ally.
The Murder of elemental crows did the rest.
Vastor focused the water crows inside the Spirit Dome, lowering the temperature and restoring the humidity of the soil with a spring rain-like drizzle. Ryssa and Dhiral could now breathe freely and absorb the nutrients from the ground again.
The Spirit crows, instead, fused with the barrier. The cracks disappeared, and the blackened areas cleared as the emerald dome returned to its full strength. Thunder crows sent their victims into seizures, earth crows sprouted earth tendrils in their wake, darkness crows dove down in suicidal attacks, and light crows blinded the assassins.
The fire crows circled above the Spirit Barrier, ready to defend against anyone who might slip past the Master or raise the emerald dome’s temperature in case the enemy switched from heat to cold.