Chapter 793 - 804: Mutation
Apart from Bruto’s suggestion, Lancelot couldn’t think of any better solution. He untied the string of skulls he brought with him and one by one placed them on the black crystal altar.
The top of the altar was large enough for him to pile up the skulls into a small heap. Lancelot placed nine, but when he was about to place the tenth, he suddenly stopped his motion, and he looked around uneasily, as if he suspected someone was secretly watching them.
Everyone was confused by Lancelot’s strange behavior. If there were enemies, he should have directly warned them, right? Perhaps it was something else that made the human knight feel threatened?
"What’s wrong?" Bruto immediately asked, "Is anything amiss?"
"My intuition is telling me not to continue..." Lancelot said with an odd expression, looking down at the skull he was holding in his hand, "You know, my intuition is always accurate."
"Could it be because of this skull?" Bruto leaned in closer, "You mean it’s not entirely dead?"
"It’s not about the skull." Lancelot took a deep breath, "It’s that something will happen once it’s placed... Something very dangerous for us."
"I see..." Bruto twisted his shoulders, rotated his neck, and lifted his shield and warhammer, "Go ahead, I’m ready."
"..." Lancelot’s mouth fell open with surprise, and then he ended up with an expression of wry amusement. He patted Bruto hard on the shoulder, then turned to look at the others, "We are likely in for a nasty fight, you all know what to do."
The companions exchanged glances, and each began to cast spells.
The elf priest was the first to use Circle Upcasting, casting a Fourth Circle spell that could strengthen companions’ life force. Then he summoned a glowing golden ghostly guard in the room, which would automatically attack approaching enemies, also a Fourth Circle Divine Art; to protect the more vulnerable Scholar, he also cast a Second Circle spell, Guarding Bond, which made the target easier to resist physical attacks and magical effects while close to the caster. The downside was that when the target took damage, the caster would suffer the same amount of harm.
Finally, he focused his casting to perform the Blessing Art, a Divine Art that granted three targets a slight edge in all activities involving opposition. Alamir placed it on himself, Kalalin, and Barrend.
As a Curse Swordmaster, Tanya also had spellcasting abilities. However, her spellcasting pattern was different from that of wizards and priests: the half-elf had pitifully few spell slots, only three in total, but all were Fifth Circle slots, which meant unless it was truly an emergency, she would never use her spellcasting ability lightly — but now it was time to use it.