The Third Gate: Chapter Forty-Four (Patreon)

So, while I am taking a break this week, I did get the Mana Mirror chapters done. As such, you can expect them, but probably no Effaced chapters

-

As I ran, I reached for Dusk’s realm and drew power from it. I didn’t have any plants that produced Hudau mana, and conversion to third gate was a horribly inefficient process, but I still had enough to restore myself to full power in my other gates, and to convert up a bit of power for the beastgate. In addition to what I’d recovered naturally, I thought that I should be able to squeeze out a burst of dragon’s breath, maybe two if I was lucky.

Next, I drew out a flight potion and drained it. My current batch only lasted ten minutes, but in a fight, ten minutes might as well be an hour.

Inside of the astral plane, Dawn began forging her self-harvesting crystals, which I mentally sent a pulse of thanks for, even as I drained the potion and lifted into the air. I didn’t take a body enhancement potion yet – the speed was focused on the body, so it wouldn’t improve my flight speed, and that was what I’d be relying on most, especially with my Foxstep causing my spirit to rebel against me.

Dusk and I launched into the air, and Dusk began to draw from the birds of her realm. Her ability to draw on the spells of those within her wasn’t one that typically saw much combat use, as it took extra effort for her, but she’d been working on it, and she began to flow magic into a sphere around us, improving our flight with a half-dozen bird spells.

On her cloud, she led the way, and within moments, we were hovering over the clearing. Siobhan and Kene were glowing brightly with blue auras, while the assassin’s hammer rained blows down on it. Kene’s tattoos were glowing, runes spinning off of them and blending with the magic of the enfield as the pair turtled within the aura.

“Hey!” I shouted, my tail thrashing in anger as I summoned my staff from my spirit. “Your target is right here.”

The assassin turned, rising into the air to meet me. She didn’t even speak, just blitzing across the distance with a speed I couldn’t match.

But Dusk could.

Dusk, with her flight assistant spells and the immortal’s cloud beneath her, met the assassin in midair. She thrust her hands out and the air cracked as she unleashed her shockwave attack, but the assassin retaliated with blasts of wind that stopped them dead. Dusk released a sandstorm lance, drawing on my Enhance Forging to improve it, and the assassin blocked it with her hammer, then unleashed a lightning bolt, which Dusk dropped out of the sky to avoid, then re-summoned her cloud and zipped around the assassin.

I wasn’t idle, flicking out Fungal Locks to slow the assassin’s movements. I didn’t use Enhance Forging on them, nor did I draw on the Ninelight Morels, wanting to keep both of those cards in my back pocket to catch her off guard.

While she tore through my Fungal Lock spells and released hammerblows of wind to harry Dusk, I began charging up Mantle Dragonfyre. I wasn’t going to kill her if I could avoid it, but she’d already shown herself to have Arcanist level healing potions in addition to powerful healing magic of her own.

Then a ball forged of light and life appeared in front of me, with the familiar feel of Kene’s mana. It burst apart in a flare of fire, and there were two, then three, then four, then five. They swirled around me, flickering with magic, until they surrounded me. Then a channel to Kene opened through them, and enhancement magic, magic resistance, flame runes, and even Siobhan’s defensive shield began to flow around me.

I gaped at Kene, who grinned at me. I was so surprised that I almost lost control of my dragonfyre, which would have been a disaster, but I managed to just barely keep it cycling.

“Told you I needed the animation-silver. I’m with you, even though I’m down here!”

Their words came buzzing from the orbs of light that were swirling around me, glowing brightly.

I shook off my daze and shot towards the assassin, who released a bolt of lightning from her hammer. It struck the glowing shield around me, and some of the motes faded, but the others began to replicate again, filling in the gaps in the layered magic.

Briarthreads exploded around me and launched at the assassin, joined by three quick crescents of Blademoss, all of them glowing with Kene’s enhancement magic and runes. The air around the assassin blurred as she dove back, but Dusk had been waiting for that, unleashing lances of sand up at her, followed by an orb that seemed to be a snowstorm trapped in a tiny space. The assassin smashed them out of the air with her hammer while thrusting her hand at me. There was a flare of gray magic from her hands as the plants crashed into them and bounced off.

“You haven’t even advanced to fourth gate?” I asked as I used a brief Immovable Lock on my legs in tandem with the flight potion to whip myself out of the way of a hammer blow, and Dusk dove in to shockwave at the assassin’s stomach. The shockwave threw the assassin back, tumbling, but she righted herself in midair and released a half dozen arcs of electricity at us. Each of them screamed danger to my spirit, even through the shield of Kene’s magic, and I knew enough to listen to my instincts.

I couldn’t teleport, not if I wanted to keep control of my Mantle Dragonfyre, so I decided to play one of my new cards. I let the lightning close in until it was striking my shield, then I stepped into Dusk’s realm. I waited two breaths, then stepped back out. The assassin stared at me, shaking her head, and lifted her hammer. Crackling blue light began to swirl at its head, and I raised my hand.

“I gave you back your hammer once,” I said firmly. “I think it’s about time to reverse that decision, don’t you?”

I yanked on the hammer with Transport Item, trying to teleport it to my own hand. The spell wasn’t meant to force things away from people, let alone powerfully enchanted items, but it did put a strain on the assassin as her muscles bulged, fighting the teleport and allowing Dusk to lash out with quick cuts of Briarthreads. The assassin let out a howl, summoning her gray shield, which felt like it was coming from an artifact of some kind.

And I completed the second cycle of Mantle Dragonfyre.

The air split with red and brown light as power tore down on the assassin. Her eyes went wide as she brought the hammer down at the stream of magical magma, blasting at it with lightning.

The assassin was beyond what a normal peak third gate mage could manage, feeling more like one of Ed’s managers, the ones who’d had years at the peak to consolidate and improve every single minute aspect of their power. On paper, she was far stronger than I was.

But as my dragon’s breath crashed through the waves of lightning and poured into the hammer, it was hard to tell. Her hammer began to melt to slag, and she dropped it, hissing in pain as she shot upwards on a current of air. Her arm was bright red, covered in welts from the exposure of being near such concentrated heat and power.

I shot up, following her, while Dusk did the same, filling the air with shockwaves, snowstorms, and sand lances that the assassin had to dodge and weave between. Her body began to glow bright green as her regeneration spells flowed through her, working to repair the burns on her arm.

I Foxstepped behind her, and she spun, but even as my spirit fought against my control, I attacked with a power that I’d spent a lot of time honing, and one that the assassin wasn’t too familiar with.

My blow caught her in the chin like a horse’s kick, and she was thrown back in the air, spinning out of control. She smashed into several of Dusk’s spells, which left scores all across her body, even as the regeneration spells worked to undo the damage.

I wrestled down my rebelling spirit, then launched at her as she produced a potion and drained it. Bright light flared around her, and I shut my eyes, but a moment later, the light was gone, and she was standing there, completely uninjured.

“How expensive was that hammer?” I asked conversationally. She growled and raised a hand to the sky. I threw my senses upwards, empowering them with Sky Dragon’s Senses.

Above me, a storm was brewing. It seemed to be made of mana, rather than a natural storm, so I assumed that this was the work of the assassin.

Before I could fully react, the assassin was on me again.  Her fist struck my chest and I exploded down and back, flung across the forest and away from Dusk. 

I slammed into a thin tree and snapped it in half. She rushed down at me, and I just barely managed to recover in time, spinning out of the way and lashing out with a kick. It struck her arm with a boom, and green light flared around where I’d struck. 

But the assassin’s life gate was dedicated to body empowerment and healing, and she kept up, throwing a row of punches with rib-shattering force. 

At least, rib shattering for a normal person. 

Between Kene’s replicating defensive orbs, my old aura pin, and my significantly empowered bones, the blows stung, but were a far cry from deadly. 

I retaliated with a series of swift kicks, stolen from Ikki’s style. None of them were especially fancy, but they pushed back the assassin’s lead.

We spun through the forest, trading blows, every spare lash from her fists cracking bark and snapping branches, every missed impact from my kicks sending leaves flying and stones up into the air. 

I was tougher than she was, my churning full-gate spells replenished my stamina in a steady stream, but she was stronger and faster than I was. Worse, she was a better fighter than me. She had skill, control, and deadly precision behind each of her blows. My time training with the Time Prince had sharpened my combat skills, but I was still overwhelmingly a mage, not a melee combatant. 

So I started fighting like a mage. 

I finished powering the Tortoise Time, and the slowing field washed over the assassin. As I rained blows down on her, and with each attack, I left a Material Echoea behind each strike, caging her in. Briarthreads errupted around me, the briars and flame runes digging into her. With my Mass Enhance Plant Life, I caused blademoss to climb the trees around her and unleash their sharp blades from a dozen directions at once. Beneath her feet a carpet of stonesprout shot up, stabbing into her feet. Fungal Entwinement mixed in, and the mistshrooms released waves of mist into the air, hiding my motions from the assassin, while Vampiric Senses let me peer through the mist with little enough trouble.

The power crashed over her in a massive wave, and in moments, the power shattered through the barrier of the assassin and left long, scoring wounds across her body. 

My third gate life mana was draining rapidly from keeping so many plants growing and releasing power at once, but I could see the assassin fumbling in her ring for another arcanist healing potion. 

As the cuts deepened and the crack of a bone resounded through the air, I let go of my spells, allowing my plants to collapse back into Dusk’s realm. Time resumed its normal pace, and she shoved the bottle to her lips. Light flared around her as she drank the potion, and the cuts began to heal. Bone crunched and flesh squelched as the potion set whatever I’d broken back into place. 

Despite not having the hudau mana for it, I thrust my hand out as if preparing to release another Mantle Dragonfyre, and allowed my tail to swish lazily behind me.

“You lost. Again. Surrender.” 

The assassin began to laugh, a dry, wheezing cough.

“You think you’ve done something? Mercy? Kindness? Redemption? Those are lies peddled by people too weak to do what’s needed in order to make themselves feel better, or worse, to have a false moral high ground. The resonance humming in the air around you is nothing but a cloak of ego and lies.”

Then tempest mana poured from the sky.