Chapter 992 – The Surface of Ohmior 1 – Knight Encounter

Chapter 992 – The Surface of Ohmior 1 – Knight Encounter

They carefully approached the pack of Ohmior Knights. When there were only fifty metres more between them, the enemies brandished their weapons. The entire group stopped then. They were tense, waiting for John to go ahead and initiate the fight.

‘Got to get this right,’ John thought. If he placed the AoE wrong, it would make everything a tad more complicated than it had to be. “Three... two... one...” he counted down. “GO!”

The Unstable Arcana spawned at the same time the command rang out. A wave of silver magic washed over the backline of the semi-circular formation of enemies. Picking a target at random, the Unstable Arcana threw a Mana Chain at the bowman, while the staff and sword-wielding Ohmior Knights were only subjected to the damage.

Standing outside the area of effect, the four-armed and axe-wielding enemies started charging first. Shredding guitar and drum sounds accompanied Metra’s warcry as the First of Wrath met the extra-armed golem with Rex Magnar. Playful glockenspiel sounds played to John’s right as Lydia followed Aclysia and Beatrice into engaging with the axe-wielding enemy.

John fully trusted that those four would be able to keep those enemies busy. Metra’s buff and Astrotium exterior would allow her to keep one enemy occupied on her own. Aclysia would tank the other one, while Lydia and Beatrice dealt the supporting damage to keep them in place. Undine would stay around to heal that group – or Metra, if things got so desperate that she would die otherwise. Even if the buff was disabled by that intervention, if taken out of the fight, she wouldn’t be able to do anything.

While the frontlines clashed, the rest of John’s party moved through the centre of the walkway to assault the backline. They would have been met with energy arrows and magic, had it not been for the continuously spawning Mana Chains hindering the movements of those two. By pure chance, the sword and shield-carrying Ohmior Knight had not been hit by a single Mana Chain and was, by now, outside of the damage range of the Unstable Arcana.

‘Now,’ John gave the mental command, causing Gnome and Salamander to fuse mid-run. Emerging out of a blur of bodies and energy came a curvy, tanned warrior woman, wearing a yellow dress beset with grey blades and plate. Her braid fluttered in the momentum of her charge, glowing like the surface of a lava pool.

Smlere’s fist crashed against the shield of the Ohmior Knight, stopping the advance of the enemy. Raising its sword, the golem was ready to punish this clash. A quick assault by Rave put an end to that plan, the Lightbearer dashed around the shield and punched the Ohmior Knight in the side.

John was a bit worried whether her knuckles could take it. Her bodysuit had been ruined during Copernicus’ ascension to Tier 5 and the replacement was not ready yet. What she currently wore was the best stand-in gear the Gamer could fashion in the hasty preparation for this barrier. However, he didn’t have the time to stop and check on her.

With the three melee enemies distracted, John, alongside Siena, Nia, Sylph and his Mandala Sphere, went to the backline. The Unstable Arcana continued to pulse twice a second, bombarding the two with Mana Chains. Although they kept breaking them with relative ease, it did keep them stationary in the continuous damage pulses and an easy target for the assault of the group.

The majority of the group went to assault the enemy healer. Siena and Sylph dealt raw damage, Nia interrupted whatever shields or heals the enemy tried to cast, and the Mandala Sphere cast another Unstable Arcana with the mana stored inside it. This added to the Unstable Arcana John had originally placed and the Companion Arcana pulse that continuously hit both the healer and the bowman with two regular damage pulses and an extra, cost-free one every 30 seconds. Every single one of those pulses created a Mana Chain.

They also continuously applied Arcane Rejuvenation to his enemies.

John first followed the rest of the group to the healer, but retreated after he hit it once with Remnant Kick. The Martial Arts Technique, unlocked by Arcweaver, dealt damage according to how much mana he had spent on Arcane spells in the last minute. With more than three quarters of his almost 12’000 MP sunk into Unstable Arcanas, that was a hefty chunk of change. The kick blasted a golf ball-sized hole into the leg of the animated armour.

Although helpful, that was not what John had been primarily after. The successful hit with a Technique meant that every stack of Arcane Rejuvenation was consumed. Another Perk gotten through Arcweaver, that one let him regenerate 0,5% of his maximum mana per stack, with stacks being generated each time an enemy was hit by one of his arcane spells.

John used Magus Step to teleport away from the healer and in front of the other enemy’s drawn bow, about two metres up from the floor. The arrow hit him square in the stomach, dispersed on Particle Skin, and took a fair chunk out of his regenerated mana pool. It hardly mattered, as he hit the bowman with Remnant Strike. That dealt next to no additional damage. While the two Techniques didn’t share their 1-minute cooldowns, they did share the damage stored. All that mattered here, however, was that he consumed the Arcane Rejuvenation on this enemy as well.

0,5% of John’s mana pool was about 60 MP. A damage pulse by Unstable Arcana cost 200 MP. John hitting two opponents with it meant that there was 120 MP per pulse that he could reclaim. The Mana Chain launched with every pulse counted as its own damage instance, upping that by another 60.

John’s passive mana regeneration had been considerably diminished, but he had active ways to deal with this.

“Calm down,” John said. Usually, that would have just caused an angry person to get angrier. With the relationship between the two of them, it convinced the First of Wrath to at least stay her weapon for the moment. Her helmet opened, retreating into her collar segment by segment. John walked over and gave her a hug. “You almost got that one, good job.”

“Almost is for lesser warriors,” Metra growled, but let herself be embraced. She wasn’t exactly angry at the lot of them for intervening. Knowing her, she was also angry at that, but the primary source of her current condition was that she still had the rage that had raised her buff, while the buff itself had been disabled. Robbed of the satisfaction of victory and a body that was weakened considerably by the end of the beneficial effect, she just needed to vent.

“We won without casualties, which is the mark of a successful battle,” John told her. “What’s more important to you, your pride or my success?”

“Your success, my king,” Metra conceded and let him claim her lips. By the time their kiss had ended, she was mostly calm again. If they hadn’t wanted to keep on going, he would have instructed her to peel out of her armour then and there.

“This worked about as well as I expected,” John then reported to the group. “Arcane Rejuvenation works pretty well for enemies that don’t care to dodge... I may have to massively invest in Agility in the future though.”

“Increasing the reliability of your Mana Chains would also be a sensible approach,” Lydia pointed out.

“Right,” John agreed. “Doesn’t really matter how I do it, as long as I can hit enemies with cheap spells and Techniques. Maybe Silver Arcanist will give me something that can be used for reliable stacking...”

Rave snapped her fingers in front of John’s face a number of times. “Keep the build crafting for dinner and let’s keep going before I die of boredom.”

“Right, right... how are your hands, by the way?” he now had the time to inquire about his earlier worry. “Everything working alright, even without the bodysuit?”

Rave raised her hands, the gloves he had given her in tatters. “Sorry there, tiger, but these won’t do. Blew them apart with my martial arts.”

“...but are your hands fine?” John was more worried about her physical condition than some throwaway gloves. Throwaway by his standards, admittedly. The L-Baelementium used to Create them was worth a fortune to the average person.

“I’m a sturdy gal, I can punch metal for twenty minutes,” Rave joked. “Or kick it. Anyway, just some joint pain, nothing Undine can’t fix.”

John let out a displeased sound from deep in his throat. “Alright then...” he accepted the situation, since there was nothing else he could do. That she got a little bit hurt during fights wouldn’t stop her and John wouldn’t demand that she sat this one out for that reason anyway. “...I should have a stern talk with Magoi about this whole thing. There’s no reason why we needed to attach the grinding session to our relationship talk.”

“That does give Lee the time to work out though, which works out for us,” Rave pointed out, leaving her boyfriend silent. “What? Ya don’t want her to have thunder thighs during your first time?”

“Not if that means you get hurt,” John grumbled.

Rave laughed and kissed him on the cheek. “Aren’t you being an example boyfriend today? Ya know what good boyfriends do?”

“Throw their girlfriends at fantastic beasts crafted by the entity that dreams up reality, for the purposes of challenging and growing their abilities?” the Gamer asked a rhetorical question.



“Ya know me so well,” Rave swooned.