Chapter 250 : Chapter 250
Chapter 250. Those Who Step Across Die
The Church Knights stopped before that boundary line and used a divine art on the spot, causing a layer of flowing blue film to appear over their bodies.
Fulan knew that this divine art did not have the power to negate damage. It only reduced damage.
These Church Knights were not fools either. It was obvious that Fulan was going to attack the moment they crossed the boundary, so why would they not cast a few damage-reduction abilities on themselves while still standing before the line?
Once they had finished applying those abilities, they took a deep breath before finally taking that step. All three of them crossed the boundary at once.
Fulan, meanwhile, had been watching that boundary with her Mental Power the entire time. The instant they stepped over it, she immediately released the spell she had long since finished channeling.
A crushing pressure descended upon the three soldiers, rendering them unable to move. This was Fulan’s spell, 【Forced Fusion】.
Fulan had grown very fond of using this spell lately. Her Mental Power was stronger than that of an ordinary First-Tier Mage, which made this spell extremely effective against First-Tier targets.
Her powerful Mental Power left them with no way to resist the spell at all.
In the past, the only drawback of this spell had been its tremendous consumption. With such overwhelming power, it naturally required a great deal of her Mental Power as well.
But the trait 【Aether Manipulation】 that Fulan had obtained from that Deep-Sea Golden Dragon had somewhat made up for that weakness.
After obtaining it, Fulan had only conducted a brief test, yet she already felt that this trait was most likely at the level of the Third Tier, which made it extraordinarily powerful in her hands.
First of all, when Fulan used the substance called “Aether,” it consumed absolutely nothing.
That was the conclusion Fulan had reached after her initial experiments. This included both the “Aether” she sensed evenly distributed throughout the surrounding environment and the fact that using “Aether” itself did not consume that substance either.
Moreover, when she used it, it occupied none of her Mental Power or mana, as though it were a perpetual-motion machine that was forever outputting work.
And the only limit Fulan had was that the “power output” of this perpetual-motion machine was extremely limited, only this much.
Whether it was because her current rank was still too low or for some other reason, the Aether she could manipulate now was only just enough to barely cast a low-consumption apprentice-level spell.
But no matter what, this “Aether” had already displayed extremely powerful properties.
Fulan could use it to offset spell consumption, strengthen the power of spells, enhance Mental Power, and more...
It could be said that Fulan felt no regret at all for obtaining this trait. She had already decided that once she reached the Third Tier, she absolutely had to visit the Deep-Sea Golden Dragon again and kill a few more to see whether she could upgrade this trait...
Of course, that was a matter for the future. After that, Fulan had also discovered a small trick for using this “Aether.”
That was, during the process of channeling a spell, she could continuously use this perpetually working engine to keep supplying power, strengthening the spell or refunding the consumption of Mental Power.
For example, just now, while standing below, Fulan had been using “Aether” to remove the cost of 【Forced Fusion】. After completely offsetting the Mental Power consumption, she had then begun using “Aether” to strengthen the spell.
Of course, there was an upper limit to how much a spell could be strengthened by this “Aether,” roughly about twice the spell’s original effect.
“This is determined by the spell structure itself. If I optimize it a little, it might be able to reach three or four times the spell’s original power.” Fulan sensed the limitations of the spell structure.
Returning to the scene, those Church Knights felt the crushing pressure that was about to flatten their bodies, yet they could not utter a word.
They had never encountered a Battle Mage from the Alchemy School before and did not know of the existence of this spell, so the moment they realized they could no longer move, their faces filled with panic.
At that moment, Gillian recognized the spell. As a bishop, she had naturally clashed with many Alliance mages before, so she knew this spell.
“An Alchemy School 【Forced Fusion】? Why is it this spell? Wasn’t she a mage of the Sword Chant School?”
Although doubt still lingered in her mind, her hands did not hesitate in the slightest. As a Second-Tier Bishop, there was no way she could simply watch her believers be killed by the enemy like this.
She used a divine art, 【Tidal Push】.
Strictly speaking, it was a First-Tier divine art, because even First-Tier priests of the Goddess of the Currents were able to use it.
This was a divine art specially developed by priests to defend against the spell 【Forced Fusion】.
They knew that although 【Forced Fusion】 was terrifyingly powerful, if they rashly rushed in to save their companions, they themselves might end up being forcibly fused together as well.
So those clever priests had invented this divine art. Taking advantage of the fact that the spell’s area of effect was very small, they simply used a wave to push people out of the affected area.
In theory, 【Forced Fusion】 also needed time before the fusion was completed. As long as one used 【Tidal Push】 quickly enough, one could rescue people without them suffering any harm.
But matters on the battlefield were never so simple. On top of that, many priests only began channeling the divine art after seeing the enemy use 【Forced Fusion】.
In most situations, that was enough to save an ally’s life, but that ally would still generally require treatment such as the removal of necrotic flesh from the body.
Still, being able to recover one’s life at all was already considered fortunate.
Gillian herself had accumulated quite a bit of experience in using this divine art. Years of fighting against mages had made her highly proficient in it, to the point where she could cast it very quickly.
Under such circumstances, she had quite often achieved, in practice, the theoretically possible outcome of pulling people free without injury.
Because of this, she naturally believed that this 【Tidal Push】 of hers would certainly be enough to save these Church Knights’ lives. And this time, she had cast it extremely quickly. It felt like the best state she had ever been in.
But what she had not expected was that after the divine light of the art struck those Church Knights, the wave encountered a strange sluggish resistance when it tried to push them.
That sense of sluggish resistance prevented the wave she had cast from pushing those Church Knights out in time. At that point, even she had no further way to save them.
She could only stand there with everyone else and helplessly watch as the three Church Knights were fused together, along with their armor and weapons, and even part of the wave Gillian had just summoned was fused into them as well.
What now lay before them was an irregular object that had been pushed back by the wave she summoned, escaping the spell’s area of effect at the very last moment, while releasing all kinds of pungent smells.
As the people present stared at that thing, all of them involuntarily swallowed, unable to suppress the fear in their hearts.
“Urgh!” Someone even retched.
Fulan looked toward the upper left and discovered that it was Blake, dry heaving. She raised an eyebrow and said to the crowd before her:
“Those who step across the boundary die.”
It was a simple statement of fact, but paired with the scene just now, it made the hearts of everyone gathered here turn cold with fear, and no one moved for a long while.