Sacrifice Mage

I tried not to let the pounding headache distract me as I ran along with Ugnash. He was the only one from my squadron who wasn’t already in the significantly bigger fracas. The shrill sounds of battle drew us onwards faster and faster, as did the sights. Even from where I was positioned still a good distance away, I could only stare agog at that huge monster.

The oversized variant of the Steelblood Demon was easily several hundred feet long. Its flatter, more crocodilian maw was big enough to crush a suburban house in its jaws without letting any of it spill outside. Its wings stretched far enough to blanket a small town in flames.

That thing… was impossible. Where had it even come from?

Since Se-Vigilance seemed to be keeping it busy, I tried paying attention to the rest of the battle. It looked like the original plan of keeping the little squadrons separate was being abandoned under the sheer ferocity of the assault that the Nether Vein had unleashed.

Or rather, it was because there was only one person—besides myself—who had the ability to stop the Steelblood Demons for good.

“Councillor Lassikhio’s Aspect can use anything as fuel,” Ugnash said. “These things can’t reform from ash.”

That was a wild Aspect to possess. Well, I suspected it was more a powerful Affix to an Aspect. But the point was that Lassikhio was the only one among us who could deal with the specific variant of immortality our opponents displayed.

I didn’t need long to wonder how effective the Councillor’s Aspect was compared to Sacrifice or Entropy.

“Holy…” I muttered.

“Right.” Ugnash said, briefly eyeing the enormous spears jutting out of the ground, each one bearing one of the Demons and burning them away. Even when the metal melted instead of burning, it wasn’t able to run off. The melt got turned to ash too. “It can burn other Aspects too.”

I shook my head a little. That was functionally no different from Sacrifice then. Except, Lassikhio probably didn’t need to worry about the pesky restriction of needing to own something before burning it.

“But you weren’t using Sacrifice before were you?” Ugnash asked. “That energy I felt…” He seemed to shudder a little even as we ran on. “I felt like I was vaporizing from the inside before I even got close.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It wasn’t Sacrifice. It’s my Aspect of Entropy.”

I explained to him very briefly what it was and what it did. Trying to talk about it from the perspective of Earth knowledge wasn’t going to help, so I did my best to dumb it down as much as possible. I was probably a little too careless about my explanation because he didn’t look like he got it. We didn’t have time for anything in-depth, though.

The real battle was upon us.

I didn’t have a plan. Didn’t have a proper idea of how I was supposed to contribute to this mess.

It wasn’t like I could unleash Entropy here. Even if I was selective about where it started working, I couldn’t put others in danger from the fallout. No, we needed a different tactic here.

Of course, said different tactic was already on play. Most of the expeditioners were focusing entirely on defence and survival, pushing back the monsters until Lassikhio could reach them. Once the Councillor joined the fray, it was game over for the Steelblood Demons. They burned away, even if they were brutes constructed from metal.

The problem was that there were too many of them. Lassikhio couldn’t be everywhere. He was essentially facing the same hurdle I had. The one that had led me to use Entropy instead of Sacrifice.

There were too many monsters coming in from the Nether Vein.

This problem was made worse by the presence of the huge one. I had a feeling Se-Vigilance could have greatly lessened the load on Lassikhio, even if she didn’t have as obliterating an Aspect as he did. But she was busy. And she wasn’t succeeding.

I took in a deep breath as I rushed in. Ugnash had already given me health and mana potions, and those had helped a ton. But there was a mental component to it. Throwing myself back into the fray needed me to get over the tiny hesitation I had acquired after coming so close to death. The tiny niggling worry that I might come close yet again. Or worse.

Ugnash and I crashed through a bunch of the monsters. While my companion tanked them, I slammed in with crushing weight from above with the help of Gravity.

Sacrifice burned away the Demons into fading white flecks, reducing the load on Lassikhio by a tiny fraction.

“We need to finish here fast,” I said. “And then we can combine to take down the big bastard.”

Ugnash grunted, unconvinced. I didn’t blame him. It was the most off-the-cuff plan of off-the-cuff plans.

We arrived to assist our group. Khagnio and Cerea were fighting off one Demon while Tavarth’s squad was handling the other. I was about to jump in and try to find an opening for Sacrifice, but Lassikhio arrived at the same time.

He was a storm of fire and impaling thrusts. He smashed into one monster to send it flying, then raised his spear high, more spears erupted from the ground. All the nearby monsters cried out as they got impaled thirty to forty feet into the air. Flames engulfed them. Their shrieking died seconds later, the fire turning lurid, fatal red.

I thought Lassikhio was about to jump off to destroy more monsters, but he rounded on me instead.

“Thou hast taken too long!” he admonished me. “Time is of the essence. Begone.”

“What?”

His arm moved in a blur. My body reacted instinctively like he was going to strike for some banished-gods-forsaken reason, but he was just pointing. I blinked. He was pointing at the gargantuan threat Se-Vigilance was keeping at bay.

“You want me to fight that thing?” I asked, incredulous.

“Se-Vigilance yet holds it at bay,” Lassikhio said, words rushing so fast that I was having trouble understanding him. I understood there was no time to waste, but come on, giving me the wrong idea might just make things even more disastrous. “But tis not enough. She alone fails. It must be eradicated, Moreland. Dost thou comprehend?”

I wanted to argue because no, that wasn’t a direction or a plan or anything I could act on. It felt like throwing me to the wolves. But we didn’t have time for elaborate plans or figuring out the right response. Lassikhio was barely holding things together here, while Se-Vigilance was barely fighting off that titanic beast.

If we wanted to change the tides, then we’d need to go beyond what we were currently capable of.

So I just growled to myself and nodded. “I’ll go. Just don’t let anyone else die.”

Lassikhio didn’t even bother gracing me with a reply. All I got was a hard look before he disappeared with a burst of fire. The monsters dying above rained down in ashen snowflakes.

“We won’t be dying, mageling,” Khagnio said. “Now get your scrawny hindquarters over to that thing.”

His drawling, annoying voice helped me focus. I wanted to clobber him. Best to reserve that aggression for the enemy, though. With my teammates’ farewells ringing in my ears, I rushed off to take down the biggest threat the Nether Vein had thrown at us yet.

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If Se-Vigilance had any inkling of my approach, she didn’t show it. How could she? She was rightfully way too busy taking care of the flying monster.

Now that I was underneath the monstrosity, I took a second to decide how I was going to approach this. It might have been better to coordinate with Se-Vigilance but distracting her during the battle she was undergoing would be a fatally stupid move.

The monster was so enormous. It was easily as long as a small train, but several times wider all around. The body was built like a serpent’s, but instead of ending at one tail, it had multiple coming out and flailing all around. It didn’t even need to belch fire on its own. Every bit of its motion, every flap of its colossal wings, all threw a storm of fire in every direction.

I took a deep breath. Decision made. I knew how I was fighting that monster now.

With as much Power as I could push into my legs, I pushed down, then jumped straight up. It was gratifying how my take-off made the little area of metal shake and shudder, even more so when I felt the air drag itself past my body.

With Siphon taking away the natural gravitational pull on my body, I was able to rise higher than my jump normally would have allowed. My heart seized a bit in my chest when I rushed past both the huge monster’s maw and Se-Vigilance not much farther off. It was probably the height of good luck that my ascent didn’t meet any obstacles with how close to them I was.

A part of me wanted to laugh as I shot past them. How ridiculous that a random guy was shooting for the moon past two enormously powerful beings locked in mortal combat.

I rose high. My sudden appearance had put a short pause in the battle, where both combatants were too surprised to continue trying to kill each other. Though, now that I had come close enough, I could see that Se-Vigilance had done a number on the gigantic Demon, even if she hadn’t managed to kill it yet.

The monster roared, though it was soon distracted by more of the Councillor’s prismatic feathers slashing into its side. Perfect. That gave me the chance to reach real high.

High enough that the Netherthreads rushed to me to tear me apart. Stupid. Imbuement and Reflection just had them spearing away from me, and I managed to Sacrifice some as I reached the peak of my ascent.

[ Sacrifice

You have Sacrificed 1 [Minor] Affixed Reflection of an Aspect. Windfall bonus activated.

Reward: Reflected Affix categorized as Lightshade. 10 casts of a temporary Affix—Lightshade—assigned under Illumination Aspect.

Casts remaining: 10 ]

Not that getting Lightshade had been my real goal here. That was just an added bonus. Rather, spreading the effect of Illumination far and wide enough for my light to fall on the entire monster was what I was going for. I wasn’t just channelling Illumination. With Multicast, I had my other Aspects ready to barge in as well. Which they did.

It wasn’t fully up yet. I didn’t feel the heat or the weighing sensation that should have accompanied the light shining upon me. But it was coming. I could feel it in the mana writhing in me.

The tiny moment of time I had was perfect for slamming down, though.

I didn’t care how much more Se-Vigilance and the huge Demon had fought. Little bursts of Flare corrected my positioning and subsequent course so that I was cannonballing straight at the monster. A huge part of me wanted to scream cowabunga or something similarly idiotic. I felt like the adrenaline rush was affecting my thoughts too.

Come on. I was dive-bombing the largest monster I had seen so far in this world.

The impact was beautiful. I may have been slightly biased, but it was. I didn’t damage the monster as much as I’d have wanted, and I didn’t even manage to rip through the wing joint that I had targeted. But my impact did wreck the huge Demon’s balance, making it careen in midair like an airplane hit by the mother of all turbulence.

“Councillor!” I shouted in the mere instant I was in contact with the monster. “Let’s bring it down!”

I wasn’t sure if she got what I meant. There was no time for elaborate planning conversations. I just jumped straight upwards again.

Another burst of Flare, using heat I manifested and drew from the monster with Concentration, had me soaring tremendously high once again. The Demon was trying to right itself to counter me, though it was distracted from doing so by the storm of prismatic feathers that Se-Vigilance had unleashed.

My headache spiked as I reached the zenith of my climb once again. I did my best to ignore it, and to ignore the growing whirring sensation inside my skull, while I focused on accomplishing my goal.

An eruption of heat threw away the Councillor’s attack, but it didn’t matter. I was plummeting down with the aid of Flare and Gravity yet again.

And this time, I was channelling the new Lightshade casts I had gathered up. A stream of light-clones shone to life in my trail, echoing the impact and momentum I was diving down with. This time, I did manage to hit the wing, punching through the flaming construct to crash into its side. The Demon screamed out with a belch of infernal fire.

I didn’t need to yell out at Se-Vigilance. She got the signal just fine.

One of her feathers turned blinding bright, growing instantly to massive proportions. I had barely finished transferring the momentum of my impact before the ship-sized sword was slicing through the wing joint.

The monster screamed yet again as the burning wing fell away from its body, its manoeuvrability further thrown off by my light weighing it down.

“I’ve got it,” I said.

There was no point in injuring the creature or harming it if we couldn’t make the damage last. That was why I was yet to see any real lasting marks on the monster besides the wounds affected by the glowing feathers. If it could just regenerate itself with the molten metal, then we’d make no progress.

Not so when I was on the case with Sacrifice.

White threads wrapped around and burned away the enormous wing that could have served as a sail for a small fleet of old fire ships.

[ Sacrifice

You have Sacrificed 1 [Moderate] Remnant of a Jade-ranked Steelflame Tyrant. Windfall bonus activated.

Reward: Essence already active. All Essence boosts improved by 5 ranks. Duration extended by 40 minutes. ]

The monster started plummeting as the Essence around me changed. Every bit of it that had broken against the smaller Demons earlier, now reformed into a brighter, almost crystalline version. Plus, I got wings too. A facsimile of the same appendages that burst out of the Demon—no, this was different, a Tyrant—speared out from my shoulder blades, wreathed with lurid fire.

I couldn’t really appreciate it because the monster’s screeching was distracting me. It should have plummeted down with a tremendous crash. Turned out it was smart enough to shoot out a stream of flames that were so compressed, they actually acted like a jet to slow down its fall.

“That thing is…” I shook my head.

“Smart?” Se-Vigilance offered.

“Smarter than I thought, yeah.”

A moment later, the monster finally touched down with a tremendous tremor. The world shook. I almost had to look away with the amount of fire and heat concentrated in one spot creating a brightness that was almost blinding.

“Your light is strong,” Se-Vigilance said.

Right. In the chaos of the fight, she was now under its influence too. I hadn’t even tried moderating its effect or anything like that.

“You’re strong too, Councillor,” I said. “If you can just shrug it off like that.”

She focused on our target below. “We will need to replicate the little trick we pulled off just now. I see no other way of taking it down.”

I tutted. Having already been gathering energy, compressing heat with Concentration and shaping it with Capacity, while imbuing Illumination and infusing Gravity, this was the perfect vantage point from which to use Starburst. This far off from my target, I wasn’t going to be interrupted as easily.

Se-Vigilance gave me a bit of space as I gathered more and more power. The air vibrated with the sheer energy I was drawing in. Faster, faster—

The Tyrant roared up from far below. I couldn’t let it get too agitated. Which was why I had Sacrificed the casts of all my Aspects well before starting to combine them into Starburst’s cocktail.

We fired at the same time. I had thought it was just going to be me unleashing a beam of irrepressible energy at my opponent, but no. The Steelflame Tyrant had gathered up heat in its maw once more, and it had even successfully spotted that I was preparing an attack against it. Or it just wanted to kill us from below. Either way, my blast was met with a beam of pure heat.

The detonation felt like it cracked space itself. Our rivalling streams of magic made my eyes tear and my ears start bleeding. That would have been bad enough, but the monster’s blast was pushing mine back.

I could only stare, slightly aghast, as Starburst was overcome by the Tyrant’s terrific power, the growing detonation from the collision of our powers rushing at me with incredible speed.

It was hard to tell if I’d have survived it without Se-Vigilance’s presence. Just before impact, more of her prismatic feathers came to life, quickly surrounding me and caging me in a protective embrace. I performed my own defence too, of course. Tendrils of Sacrifice shooting out with Overclaim, while I also focused on Vital Mana and Reverence Everlife.

The blistering explosion still did a terrible number on me. I found myself falling as I lost control of my Aspects, focusing purely on Absorption to tame the livid heat trying to eat me alive.

It was, once again, Se-Vigilance’s presence that guided me safely enough to the ground.

“Arise, Ross Moreland,” she said, her aura flickering with power, manifesting more feathers crackling with thunderous energy. “We must destroy the beast before it regenerates. You must destroy it. I can only create the opening.”

The Tyrant’s furious screaming drew me up as much as her words did. It was momentarily distracted by the storm of prismatic feathers slicing around its massive head.

Throbbing pain ripped through my skull, like the headache was trying to crush my brain. I could feel a pulsing, spiking sensation trying to emerge from it. What in the world was my mana core up to in there? With Se-Vigilance nearby, I could have tried asking. But we had to focus on the real goal.

I forced myself to work through the pain. “I’m ready.”