“What power… I must uncover his secrets.”
An old mage watched as a massive surge of fire energy struck a watchtower. His group had already forced their way through five others, but this one was their limit. Most of his companions were barely clinging to life, while he alone still held some strength. They had shielded him so he could cast his spells, but the situation now looked dire.
“Is he trying to…”
The tower burst into flames, yet the firestorm did not end there. It surged onward, hammering the massive mana shield that protected them. Anzeneus alone could sense the subtle fluctuations in the flow of mana. He realized that the strike had been aimed at a precise point for a reason.
“...”
He frowned, analyzing the situation. With the towers destroyed and the relics disabled, the guards bound by the enchantments would soon awaken. Unfortunately, many of their allies had already been devoured by the monstrous cult entities, and the survivors would likely be disoriented. If they were to stand any chance, they needed every possible ally.
“Master Anzeneus, what are you doing?”
“Helping your friend. Please look after this old man afterwards. I doubt my body will last much longer.”
Though uninjured, his stamina was nearly gone. Only a single mana potion remained, enough to restore a fraction of his energy before he began casting. Young Lord Arthur saw his intent and gave a solemn nod. Azure flames swirled around him, erupting into a firestorm that surged into the crimson blaze, fusing the two into a greater torrent. Yet even combined, the force was not enough. The barrier still held firm.
“Lady Bernadette, we must aid them!”
Julius shouted from behind the Solarian paladin. The woman answered with a nod and raised her sword high. Golden light gathered around the blade, intensifying as the oldest Valerian sibling placed both hands upon her shoulders to strengthen her.
Arthur stood back, observing. He recognized that Julius and Bernadette were performing a combination technique, though he regretfully did not know how to help them. Still, he activated every skill he could muster and raised one of his rapiers. His left arm hung uselessly at his side, weakened by the injuries he had sustained.
Bernadette thrust her sword forward, unleashing a torrent of divine aura. The blast spread as wide as her blade, and beside it flared a thinner crimson ray, born from Arthur’s desperate strike. Together, their attacks converged on a single point of the barrier, and at last it began to give way.
The barrier’s surface rippled like a pond struck by stones. Cracks spiderwebbed outward from the impact point, but instead of shattering, the dome resisted, bending inward and refusing to shatter.
*****
‘Almost there, just a little more.’
Roland’s head burned as every rune on his armor shone under the strain of various rune empowering skills like rune overload. He poured every ounce of strength into his spell, struggling to push the barrier past its limits. The dome buckled and bulged beneath the ceaseless surge of power. His allies joined in, and for a moment it seemed they might break through. However, the defenses soon roared back to life.
‘No… is this some kind of hidden safeguard?’
The dome’s surface shivered with new energy. Cracks had already formed, yet the shield drew on a massive surge of mana. Its construction was far more sophisticated than Roland had anticipated. Energy from untouched sections of the barrier shifted to the point of impact, reinforcing the weak spot just as it was about to give way.
“No… this.”
He gritted his teeth and forced more power into the spell. Switching targets was useless, for the shield would only redirect its strength again. Even with Arthur’s aid, it was hopeless. Just as despair began to take hold, something impossible occurred.
“What?”
Roland froze as the impenetrable barrier split open. It did not yield where he had struck from within. Instead, it burst apart from the outside. The impossible had happened. The barrier, which had seemed eternal, did not break under Roland’s desperate assault, nor under the combined strikes of his allies, but from beyond.
A perfectly straight horizontal line appeared, glowing white-hot as if scorched by some unseen force. It looked like a great wound in the barrier, and through it, the outside world came into view. Noise erupted instantly, a wave of shouts and cries carried through the gap. Torches blazed in the darkness, revealing thousands gathered beyond, an army flying the Valerian banner. But the tear was small, and worse still, it was already closing.
Before Roland’s exhausted eyes, the wound shuddered and began to mend. Threads of condensed mana crawled across the gap, weaving the barrier whole again. The relief he had prayed for had not arrived, nor had the army he so desperately needed.
‘At least I managed to disable the relics, that has to count for something.’
He threw himself forward, trying to keep the tear from sealing shut, but monstrous tentacles as thick as trees lashed out at him. The witch stood there, her body twisted into a grotesque form, more like the abomination he had faced at his wedding than the spider she once resembled.
Things were going badly. His companions were spent, their potions gone. The soldiers were only just waking, and even if they joined the fight, Roland doubted they could hold against the endless tide of monsters. Even if they were victorious, it would demand many lives.
Then, out of nowhere. His HUD flickered for an instant as he dodged another strike and vaulted onto a higher wall, putting some distance between himself and the witch he struggled to contain.
“Wait… who is that?”
The tear in the barrier had shrunk to almost nothing, yet someone had slipped through. A lone figure stood inside, unnoticed until now. On the scorched stones of the last watchtower, he remained.
He was old, his silver hair catching the firelight, his neat white mustache gleaming. Light armor, elegant yet practical, fit his lean frame. In his hand, he carried a long, slender fencing blade. The weapon shone as if polished that very morning, its length covered in intricate runes, symbols so complex that even Roland struggled to understand them.
Roland blinked, stunned. The pressure radiating from the man was staggering. Even the witch, who had seemed ready to die for her cause, fell silent. The instant she noticed him, the last remnants of her human self recoiled in fear.
“No, it’s impossible. How can you be here?”
The man was well known, even appearing at the earlier celebration, or at least someone who looked like him had. Roland had long suspected that the figure in the palace had not been the duke himself but a body double. Now he felt a sinking certainty about what the noble had intended for the cultists, and why his scheme had collapsed so disastrously.
“...”
Silence hung over the battlefield, broken only by the groans of soldiers and guards as they began to wake. The duke gave no reply. He simply scanned the courtyard, taking in the destruction that surrounded them. For a moment, his gaze fell on Arthur and his companions, but soon it settled on Roland’s armored figure.
‘Why is he just staring?’
“If you believe you have won, think again. The everlasting dream will not end. It begins tonight!”
As Roland endured the duke’s silent survey, the cultist leader cried out. In an instant, the remaining monsters rushed toward her. Their bodies convulsed, burst apart, and then fused into her flesh, reshaping her into something even more grotesque and powerful.
“This is…”
The energy rippling from her was not identical, yet disturbingly similar to what he had felt when he was attacked by the cultists. The witch was merging with the monsters, forging a stronger, twisted form, an abomination on the level of a tier-four threat.
“Your Grace, we must stop her! She is trying to ascend into an Eldritch Horror!”
His voice carried across the courtyard, infused with mana. He knew the name well. It was one of those creatures that had severed Bernir’s arm and nearly killed them all. If not for the intervention of the Solarian Church, he would already be dead. The duke himself was a tier-four class holder, yet even so, Roland doubted how he would fare against this woman. She was far stronger than the cultists they had faced before. The thing she was becoming was no mere imitation of power but a true horror.
‘Why isn’t he doing anything?’
Even as Roland’s warning rang out, the duke did not move. He only watched as the witch’s transformation unfolded. The Eldritch Horror he had seen before had been a writhing mass of tentacles, but this one was taking a different, more terrifying form. Yet, he would not just let it turn; he still had some spare power left.
As many times before, Rapid Machine Reassembly was activated again. The shapes that guided his previous spell were restored along with his armor. This time, they rose into the air and arranged themselves into a circle. From within that circle, a massive surge of fire energy appeared. It swelled quickly, growing from the size of a golf ball to that of a boulder, and it kept expanding.
The soldiers who had just awakened were stunned. They saw something like a miniature sun forming above them while beneath it a grotesque mass of flesh and bone writhed, struggling to take shape.
Roland gritted his teeth. The fire sphere burned hotter as it continued to expand overhead. He clenched his gauntleted fist, and the miniature sun compressed inward, the air around it warping as gravity and flame fused into one overwhelming force.
The abomination that had once been the witch shrieked. A hundred mouths screamed across its body as misaligned appendages burst from its twisted form. The air soured with whispers that clawed at the mind. Soldiers clutched their heads and some collapsed, but Roland did not falter.
The miniature sun plummeted like a meteor, tearing the air apart with its descent. When it struck the swarm around the witch, the explosion turned night into day. Smaller monsters vanished instantly, their bodies reduced to drifting ash before they could even cry out. The earth itself shattered, scorched stone liquefying beneath the spell's heat.
The witch’s body shielded itself almost automatically, forming walls of fused flesh, but Roland had never intended her to be the target. He knew he could not stop the transformation or defeat the monster with his current strength. Instead, he concentrated on erasing the weaker creatures that swarmed around her, burning away those that would raise her power even further. Perhaps the Duke did not care if this monstrosity grew stronger, but Roland would do whatever it took to tip the scales in their favor.
Once the force had settled, little remained in the courtyard. The holes the monsters had been crawling through began to collapse, and it seemed that no more of them were waiting below. The witch was still present; however, her body was now sealed inside a strange pulsating cocoon that looked close to tearing open. Roland seized this moment to escape and landed beside Arthur and his allies.
“Sir Wayland, are you alright?”
“For now, but what about you? Your arm looks broken.”
“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”
He wanted to ask Arthur about the Duke’s intentions, but knew his friend would not have an answer. The duke was not known for dealing with his family often, and even Julius seemed stunned by the events unfolding. Soon their attention turned toward the ball of flesh in the distance. It rippled apart and released a blast of occult energy that caused almost every soldier nearby to collapse once more.
“Evil energy, gather around me!”
Shouted Julius as he activated his shield. A faint dome of radiant light formed around him, and the others rushed close. It lessened the force of the abyssal magic, but even so, Arthur struggled to remain standing.
“By the ancestral wizards, what is that…”
Anzeneus’s hand shook as he pointed at the monstrosity coming out of the ball of flesh. The cocoon tore apart with a sickening crack, like bone splitting under too much weight. What emerged from within made even the veterans among the soldiers fall silent and their bodies to tremble. The witch’s new form stepped into the ruined courtyard, a fully realised horror, its body similar to an Arachne.
Her skin was a throbbing mix of red and purple, shiny with a strange glow. Jagged bone wings with torn membranes stretched out, blocking the moonlight. Countless unblinking eyes sprouted from her spider-like body, shifting around, while mouths with grinding teeth appeared, hungry for life. Tentacles squirmed across her, some with claws, others with barbs dripping corrosive liquid.
Every step she took made the ground shiver, as if the world itself rejected her presence. The whispers grew stronger. They slithered into the minds of those nearby: hollow promises, laughter, screams. Some soldiers convulsed and bled from their ears; others turned their weapons on themselves, unable to endure the psychic assault.
Roland staggered for a moment as even the barrier of holy light was not enough to stop the attack. Arthur was pale, yet he managed to prop himself up with his rapier. Julius gritted his teeth while his shield of light flickered under the crushing aura. Bernadette whispered prayers through clenched teeth, her blade glowing faintly in defiance. Even Anzeneus, though trembling, forced his old hands to weave a spell that produced a shield to protect them.
This was not the same as the relic. It was a direct attack from the monstrosity before them. The creature radiated an aura of terror. Anyone below tier three lost their mind completely, while those at that level could barely keep hold of their sanity. Yet there was one person who remained unaffected, and that person now stood directly in front of the monstrosity.
The duke did not flinch. While others shielded their eyes or clutched at their heads, he stood calmly before the transformed witch, his blade lowered at his side, its runes glowing faintly, prepared to be used. The whispers that sought to crawl into every soldier’s skull broke harmlessly against him, as though the abyss itself dared not trespass too far into his mind.
‘Is he finally starting to move?’
Roland watched as he assembled his own barrier, easing the strain around the group. The floating golems that had survived the surge of occult energies, along with the ones he had restored, moved outward and formed shields around the weakened soldiers to keep them alive. He could no longer contribute to the fight itself, but at least he could still save lives. The Duke, however, seemed to focus only on the being before him, indifferent to what was happening to his subjects or even to his own sons.
The Duke took a single step forward. The sound of his boot striking stone was faint in the courtyard, yet it felt as though time itself had stopped. The abomination froze mid-step, hundreds of eyes locking on him. Even the whispers ceased. For the first time since her transformation began, the witch hesitated.
“Enough.”
The Duke said. His voice was quiet, but in the moment of silence, everyone heard it clearly. The monstrosity screamed, its hundred mouths spewing words of hatred. Each one seemed to carry its own will, and together the sound became incomprehensible. The earth cracked, and dust spread as the towering creature moved. It was nearly twenty meters in height, making the Duke appear no larger than an ant. Yet from Roland’s perspective, the mustached man seemed to tower over it.
The Duke drew his weapon slowly, revealing a thin fencer’s blade. Compared to the hulking monstrosity, it looked like nothing more than a needle, far too small to cause any harm.
The creature hesitated, then struck first. Its countless eyes fixed on the Duke as a surge of mana gathered in the air. A massive ball of occult energy formed before the arachne. Her humanoid hands, tipped with sharp nails, cradled the growing spell.
“Should we move?”
Arthur asked, standing with Roland directly in the path of the forming spell.
“That would probably be a good idea…”
Before they could react, the monster jerked forward and unleashed a ray of unholy, corrosive energy at the Duke. He did not flinch. One hand remained behind his back as he raised his weapon. His movement was neither fast nor was it slow. He thrust the blade into the oncoming attack, and in that instant, everything turned white…
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