Falling hundreds of metres with a group of tier seven demons and their giant dark-tinted fireball of doom wasn’t exactly part of my plan for the day, but here we are, and I need to make the best of it, and fast! Without enough time to think, I react instinctively and implement my first impulse, which is to reach the demons in any way that I can!
Gravity Mana floods my mandibles, and I reach out to the three demons, grabbing them with an almighty YOINK!
The strain on my mana is evident. Even if these three aren’t exactly packing heat in the mass department, they aren’t slouches. For whatever reason, likely the fact their attention is so heavily focused elsewhere, they seem unable to resist the energy taking hold of them and reversing the direction of their fall.
The three mighty tier seven demons suddenly stop falling, stand still for a moment, and then reverse direction, lifting through the air toward me. Considering the shock of it, they react with incredible decisiveness, turning to lash out at whoever dared to attach this foreign mana to them. Before I can so much as introduce myself, I’m bombarded by a series of spells that burn and damage my carapace. Thankfully, the powerful demons didn’t have much time to put a lot of juice into this effort, or I might have been obliterated on the spot. Instead, I merely endure a solid roasting before I cut the connection between us and defend myself, allowing them to begin falling again, except this time they are above me, and way too far from their explosive magic to keep assisting it.
As I freefall, I can already feel the spell diminishing in size as the Colony rips into it without the demons able to compensate for the loss. Now I have another issue, namely that I’m currently above this veritable bomb and I’ll be caught completely in the blast if I don’t do something!
Dammit! I knew I’d regret not getting wings at some point, and here it is. Seriously! Who wouldn’t want to be able to fly, Anthony, you moron! Alright then… what can I do? Think, think, think, think-think-think-think-think!
With precious seconds left before I splatter against the shields of my own allies and then promptly get roasted alive, I do what I can with my available resources. Working at the speed of thought, my brains whip up all the force mana I can muster, which I immediately spin into a series of condensed bolts. All I can think of is trying to move my position, and the only way I can think to do that in midair is by using the kinetic energy generated by Force Magic!
Manipulating the spells outside my body is difficult and takes precious time, but I gather the six bolts I’ve been able to create on my left side and let ’em rip at the same moment. My Force Magic still isn’t that strong, but since I’m free falling without any means to brace myself, the magic knocks me to the right as all of the spells slam into my carapace at the same moment. Thrown violently off-course, I tumble away before an enormously dense surge of energy registers on my antennae, followed by a blinding flash of light.
KRAKOOOM!
Holy moly! That was Lightning Magic! Above me I see the enraged and twisted face of Brixin as her spell goes wide due to my last-second manoeuvre. Yikes! I’d almost forgotten about them, I was so worried about falling. Speaking of which, I’m still falling! I seriously hope that terminal velocity is not a literal term.
My diversion is enough to send me sailing to the side of the many-layered barrier the Colony has erected, as well as the impact zone of the doom fire the demons created, just not by a whole lot. I likely won’t be able to escape the fallout of the fireball unscathed, but at least I’m not going to be dropping flat into the middle of it. As the ground rushes toward me, I once again think that being able to close your eyes isn’t such a bad thing sometimes. Brace for impact!
I extend my legs out in the hopes of sacrificing them to absorb some of the impact and spare my insides from the pain that’s coming, when at the last second, a forest of tentacles explodes upward extending straight for me.
Crinis!
36. Assault on Orpule, Part 12
Thank goodness for amorphous blobs of terror! The tentacles twist through the air beneath me, creating a dense noodle stack that I plunge into like a boulder that fell off a cliff. Everything melds into a blur as I plummet the last fifty metres and then—
BANG!
Oof! In an organ-rattling collision, I smack into the hard stone of the plate with nothing but the tentacles of Crinis to cushion my fall. Predictably, my legs fold like a house of cards before my carapace is rocked by the impact and my head starts spinning. Yikes. Not a fan of that.
[Thanks, Crinis! You’re a life saver…]
[I almost didn’t make it in time!]
[But you did. That’s all that matters.]
I trigger my healing gland and sigh in relief as the cooling fluid rushes throughout my body, mending everything that was damaged in the fall and beginning the process of once again restoring my legs to full usefulness. Luckily, they haven’t been ripped off this time, merely shattered in several places, so I should be good to go before too much time has passed.
BOOM!
I must have been falling slightly faster than the spell, since at this moment a cataclysmic detonation resounds from the side. My antennae scream of danger, and I use my mandibles to sweep as much of Crinis behind me as I can whilst my brains throw out the fastest barriers I’m capable of. They’re flimsy as heck but the best I can do on such short notice, and certainly better than nothing. Thank goodness I already triggered my healing gland.
The heat is immense as the fireball unleashes its remaining payload of doom, except there is more at play than pure Fire Magic. The spell had been miscoloured, flecked with darkness where one would expect Fire Mana to be bright, and I can feel the difference now as the flames eat into my carapace even as it burns me. This must be a combination of Ash and Fire Magic, putting the two most prominent elements of this stratum together into one horrific concentration of death!
How nasty.
My HP drops steadily as the fire rages, and I find myself fighting on two fronts. On one side, I’m trying to utilise my magic to hold off the worst effects of the spell by eating into the mana and countering with renewed barriers once my old ones are shattered, whilst at the same time, I fight against Crinis as she tries to wrap her limbs around to protect me.
[Dammit, Crinis! You’re weak to mana like this, you’ll just melt in an instant! Stay put!]
[I can help protect you, let me go!]
[Absolutely not! Just sit still, will you?]
[Never!]
[I’m ordering you!]
In the face of a direct command, there’s nothing Crinis can do, though even then I see her limbs shivering as she tries with all her being to force herself to disobey my instruction. My heart clenches in my chest in the face of her devotion, and I draw her ever closer to shield her from damage.
[You just saved me, now it’s my turn to save you,] I tell her firmly, even as she refuses to yield in her attempts.
By the time the detonation has finished, the area around me is a smouldering ruin and I am in a not insignificant amount of pain. Checking my HP bar, that I was too scared to look at prior to this point, I see that after everything I just endured, I’ve been chunked down to just under half of my pool. Considering regeneration fluid was making its way throughout my body throughout the explosion, it’s a shocking amount of damage to remain. The carapace on my back has almost entirely been eaten away, and what’s more, it is very slow to regenerate.
Perhaps a lingering effect of Ash Mana? I don’t know enough about the stuff to say for sure, but I have a sneaking suspicion my hunch is correct.