Chapter 457: Trap
With the chaos of battle and the shouts of my friends echoing in my ears, I urged Fable forward toward the tower housing the Shard of Omniscience. It was more of a cathedral, really, with giant carved statues standing sentinel in shallow alcoves and stained glass windows that had turned black with the dust and ash from the Mana Storm’s fallout. The walls and gates had been built much sturdier than those of the city, relying on their sheer mass as much as magic for fortification, so they remained upright even without their protective wards.
But the gates were still barred shut from the inside, and though their enchantments had been stripped, they must have weighed several tons apiece—far beyond the strength of someone like me.
Fable, however, was a different story. He sprinted towards the tower, weaving between magical attacks and explosions. An inquisitor tried to intercept us, but Luxxa ensnared him with a tangle of summoned vines, stalling him just long enough for her to engage him in combat.
With a fierce howl, Fable charged headlong into the gate. At the last second, a surge of mana erupted in and around his horns, and he used them, perhaps for the first time, as a weapon.
I yelped, hunching low over his shoulders as we crashed through the doors like a living battering ram. The wood and steel, already weakened by my previous spell, shattered like porcelain, filling the air with a hail of splinters and metal shards. My wards protected me, but I instinctively shut my eyes, shielding them from the flying debris.
We emerged into the cathedral beyond. No sooner had we entered than a storm of magic—fire, ice, sunlight—descended upon us, blasting the ground around us in a hundred-foot radius. The walls shuddered as the spells slammed against them, and more dust and debris rained down from the ceiling. The stained glass windows shattered from the sheer force of the shockwaves, showering us with a cascade of colored glass.
I didn’t have a chance to see who had attacked us or how many were waiting, but it didn’t matter. None of the spells penetrated my adaptive resistance. Even a thick slab of stone, shaken loose from the ceiling, shattered harmlessly against my Blade Ward.
Several shocked gasps echoed through the chamber as we trotted out of the dissipating smoke, the ends of my hair untouched by the flames. The moment we were clear, I slipped off Fable’s back and grasped my mana before looking around at the surroundings.
The chamber was just as I remembered from my vision, but only now, in person, could I truly appreciate its grandeur. My initial impression was correct—it was indeed a cathedral of sorts, but its scale was unlike anything I’d seen outside of the Divine Throne or Brithlite’s capital city. Perhaps I should have expected it, considering how fanatically the architects of this kingdom mimicked the designs of the Divine Throne.