Low-Fantasy Occultist

The clouds churned above them with ominous rumblings, responding to his will, and the air around the Grumblers ionized, lifting fur and dust.

For a moment, Nick nearly felt sorry for the creatures. They were born already doomed, whether by the judgment he was about to deliver or the constant farming of resources that would begin once the dungeon had been tamed. Their destiny had always been death.

Yet, they were clearly trying to kill him and his teammates, and he had limited tolerance for such monsters. He pointed the staff at them and condemned them, “[Lightning Bolt].”

The sky responded to his request, and a moment later, a pillar of white-gold lightning struck the first Grumbler, as thick as a tree trunk. It completely engulfed the monster, shining so brightly that even he had to look away.

Before the thunder even finished rumbling, a second bolt struck, hitting the other Grumbler with equal fury.

A deafening explosion shook the battlefield, overshadowing the goblin screams in the background. For a moment, only light, noise, and the scent of burning flesh filled the air.

When Nick forced his eyes open again, both monsters were still alive, if barely.

The first Grumbler’s chest was a blackened ruin, its hide blistered and split, and ribs poking out beneath charred flesh. One arm hung by threads of cooked muscle, while the other twitched spasmodically, its claws clenching and unclenching.

The second had fared little better. Half of its face was gone, leaving one bulging eye still intact and rolling in panic. Its legs trembled, knees buckling, but raw, stubborn vitality kept it alive.

Lightning, even boosted by his preparations, clearly wasn’t enough to kill them unless he really started pouring in the power.

Nick’s lips thinned as he drove the Shard’s butt into the soil and reached into the thick soup of fear, rage, and bloodlust saturating the air. The shamans’ spells had primed the ether, and the dying Grumblers’ suffering stoked it to such a degree that he barely needed to flex his will to take hold of it.

Sound dimmed. The colors faded to pale, and for a moment, all he could see was the spiritual landscape: the nasty flares of goblin souls, the larger, heavier masses of the Grumblers, and the domain flowing like a river in the background, suffusing everything and giving the monsters purpose.

Hate and terror spun around them in heavy waves, and Nick absorbed it, compressing it into a cold, dense core. The Shard hummed hungrily, its orb darkening and swallowing light until it was midnight black.

“[Bolt of Wrath].”

The lightning that tore through the sky this time was several times larger and pierced the goblin horde’s spiritual shield, crashing into the two Grumblers before they could even get their bearings.

Chunks of their existence simply ceased to be, as flesh and bone vanished where the spell passed, leaving ragged gaps punched clean through torsos and skulls. What remained fell in pieces that twitched once and then went slack.

Shuddering faintly at the violation, the domain let out what felt like a distant growl, but it was too far to exert its will and could do nothing but watch as its agents were killed.

The goblin horde’s courage had always been superficial, and with their giant battering rams toppled and the storm still raging above, the thin veneer cracked.

The push against the Crest eased as the monsters struggled to come to grips with the new situation.

“Now!” Raphael shouted.

With the biggest threat gone, Nick let the storm handle most of it, releasing its lightning into groups of goblins scrambling over each other, like hammer blows of light.

Joran’s buried flames erupted next, catching anyone who tried to circle around the trap field. Lina kept refreshing clay snares, and any goblin that got too close was caught, with its legs engulfed and snapped at the knee, leading to a quick death at the hands of their melee fighters.

Arrows and spears still flew, but the wind deflected most, and whatever managed to get through clanged harmlessly off the shimmering gold of the Crest or skidded along Willow’s secondary layers.

The horde didn’t last long after that.

Without shamans to lift their spirits or Grumblers to break the wards, the goblins’ instinct for self-preservation finally overtook any orders they’d been given, and the front lines began to falter.

At first, only a few goblins stumbled backward instead of forward, trampling those behind them. Then more turned around, snapping and shoving, and within seconds, the warband’s cohesion fell apart into a complete rout.

“Don’t let them scatter,” Raphael said coldly. “We can’t have them regrouping behind us.”

“On it,” Nick said.

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The wind suddenly reversed, colliding with the front of the retreating goblins, knocking them off-balance and slowing their flight. Lightning flickered across the ground in thin, snake-like arcs, following the groups as they ran and striking them down.

Yvonne vaulted out of the Crest again once the pressure on the shield eased, heading downhill with Malik and Monte. Terence followed, staying close to Monte’s shoulder, ready to spear through any survivor.

They moved like a scythe through grain, as the goblins, already half-destroyed by magic, were easy prey to disciplined steel. A remaining hobgoblin tried to rally a group of survivors, but Raphael folded the space around its chest, killing it instantly.

A few nearly reached the edge of Nick’s range, their hearts pounding with desperate hope, but the invisible lance of a [Jet Stream] sliced through their necks. The ones behind tripped over the fallen, piling into messy heaps that another bolt then turned into smoking masses.

It took less than five minutes for the warband to go from a roaring tide to a twitching heap.

The storm overhead started to fade as Nick loosened his grip, allowing the clouds to thin. The rain reduced to a light drizzle, then stopped entirely, leaving behind churned mud as the only sign it had ever been there.

Next, he drew in a breath and let go of the Crest. The golden dome disappeared, the stylized thunderbird breaking into drifting sparks that flickered out one by one.

The System chose that moment to chime in.