Chapter 32: Warmage
Valens sprang forward, Light Feet carrying him toward the whistling tendrils, onward through the broken ground, breath rasping in his chest. Nearly ten Wards were wriggling at the back of the Necromancer, stretched in a row like a score of highly disciplined soldiers.
Except these creatures had dozens of spear-like limbs, and this close to their Master, Valens could feel the difference in their Resonances. The source line feeding their cores seemed to be cherishing the Necromancer’s rot, cherishing it well like a group of children happy to be around their ever-loving parents.
But it hardly mattered. So long as he could lay a hand over their bodies, he could untie the sourceline and turn them limp. That was the plan, either way.
Tongues of flame came alive on the tip of his fingers as he pushed himself sideways, pulling barely through a lashing tendril and smacking it with the back of his fiery palm. The stretching, elastic skin of the creature popped when the Fireball ripped into it, dark smoke wafting off from where it burned a dozen holes.
That gave him confidence. The last time he faced one of these creatures, his war magic scarcely made a noticeable change. He had to personally operate on its core with a Lifesurge to kill the creature.
Yet this time they couldn’t even shrug off a simple Fireball.
What about Inferno, then?
The lashing tongues roared forth and sprawled into a storm of fire that stretched across the distance. Valens then stopped, peering round the alighted cave, before taking a step back to draw the Wards away from their Master.
Chaos raged by his side, the green fog hissing, the deathly mana seeping through the cracks of the earth. Beyond, each lurching step of the Death Knight sent a tremor that rocked the ground from within. Swords clanked off its dark carapace, sending a shower of sparks about it. Men and women pressed hard into it, got bloodied whenever that hideous sword made for a sweep.
Valens’s nose was filled with the stench of death and golden light, and the rot working underneath the Wards’ tendrils.
Light Feet carried him onward to the side as the Wards ripped their way across the burning storm. There was no pain, no particular response to when their skin popped against the burning heat, but when Valens sent a lashing chain at their Master there was a reaction.
They grew restless, poking at him from all around, sending their tendrils screeching into the air. Valens covered himself with the storm, and relied on his sound vision to find openings through their assault.