Spell Weaver [Book 2 Complete]

Olivia hissed through her teeth, and Alex could see her gripping both of her daggers in a white knuckled grip.

Alex looked around them and saw that the monsters appearing on the ridge were only congregating on the eastern ridge, from deeper in the convergence area.

“Shit,” he said, walking to the edge of Sam’s Refuge and peering down into the black that separated the two groups. He lifted his head in time to see the first of the monsters howl and descend the slope in a reckless, bloodthirsty charge.

Breathing in deeply, he used his movement skill to dash to the nearest geyser of mana.

Guess I need to do this after all.

He used his mana threads to form a spell circle and kept it as small as possible, worried about pulling in any of the Night aspected mana. He activated the circle with a pulse and used his [Mana Siphon] to pull as hard as possible.

Months ago, when he’d used the same spell circle on the sun elves’ ritual, it had felt akin to molten fire flooding his spiritual veins. It had injured him in the long run, and he hadn’t even been able to pull as much as he might like due to the limitation of his mana channels.

No such limitation existed now.

Drawing with the full force of his skill, his mana was topped off in only a couple of seconds, with his body feeling no negative side effects. If anything, his veins felt chilled, as if a pleasant breeze had blown through his body.

He lifted his free hand and began to split his attention, creating a lightning bolt spell circle. “Watch out,” he said to Olivia, who stood nearby. She moved aside, but stayed at the ready, watching the approaching wave of black.

Alex cast one circle after the next, feeling like a modern-day machine gun. His mana wasn’t a contributing factor in the equation any longer. His damage potential was only limited by how quickly he could form and activate spell circles.

For the first time in a long time, Alex switched the spell in his [Spell Storage] slot. Instead of a barrier, he now stored the offensive lightning spell. With the System’s ability to use much more of his Willpower than he naturally could, the spell circles formed in a fraction of the time, and the next circle was in place and ready to fire before the other one had finished flashing from his vision.

Lightning cracked down over and over, to the point that everyone else in the group covered their ears. He knew that to them, it looked like he was merely standing with one palm close to the ground, and lobbing lightning bolts like it was nothing with the other.

Notifications began to appear in his vision, and he saw blue motes of light rise into the air and drift toward his location.

The smell of the air around them changed, and in the dozen seconds or so that it took for the front row of monsters to barrel down the crater’s wall, Alex had cast nearly twice as many bolts of lightning.

Despite the devastating damage of his spells and the lightning's natural tendency to branch off and hit nearby creatures, it wasn’t anywhere near enough to stop the growing horde.

When he realized this, his heart dropped.

“Sam, we need to move back—”

His command was cut short as the front of the wave reached the Triskürm. The first five creatures stepped onto the doorway, but were anything but exempt from its pull. As a group, they’d taken less than three steps before the hands of shadowy Night reached up and began to latch onto their limbs. The hands were of varying sizes and shapes, though their power was clear. When a creature of the Night was ensnared, it didn’t take another step, but instead was slowly pulled into the portal below.

Each member of the party watched with wide eyes as the next wave hit the ground and stepped on their fading comrades, only to make it another step further through the shadowy terrain, before they too were trapped and being pulled to the domain from which they’d come.

“Holy smokes,” Mark said as both of his limbs slowly fell to his side.

Alex relaxed along with him, letting go of his siphoning skill and pausing his torrent of offensive spells. He let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, relieved they now had a few minutes of reprieve.

Looking at the group, he found Nox lying next to the aspect of Concealment’s body, his large maw latched onto the partially deflated corpse. The sight was enough to almost make him gag, but he looked away, knowing that the companion had a lot to gain by draining the essence of the aspect.

Alex flopped onto the ground next to Sam. The healer had calmed considerably with Sarah’s help and sat with his eyes closed, concentrating on maintaining a sense of calm.

“How are you doing, buddy?”

“I’m okay. I can’t think about it more right now,” Sam said with a shaky voice.

“No problem. You’re doing great,” Alex said, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Guys, come over here. Let’s regroup.”

“Don’t you think we should get moving?” Sarah asked.

“I don’t see a reason to right now. The longer we stay out here, in Sam’s trait, the more of them blindly run into the Triskürm.”

“Less we need to fight,” Jonathan agreed.

“Exactly. So come on, let’s sit for a second and think about next steps.” As everyone came to join them on the rocky ledge near the crystal’s base, Alex allocated his three free points and was surprised to see an additional window appear in his vision.