Chapter 83

Titania was silent as the earth elemental burst in one of the tunnels deep into their base before melting into nothingness. It had outlived its usefulness momentary. If the earlier assault was a hammer, the current one was a scalpel, and a clumsy earth elemental would only hurt us.

“Let’s hide us from the view,” I murmured even as I cast one of the best concealment spells I had learned, making our figures fade into the background, with shadows wrapping around us.

[+2 Arcana]

[-316 Mana]

However, as we walked, I could feel a slight stirring in connection with Titania. Curious, I followed the connection, only to realize her emotional-suppressor from her light magic stirring in discomfort, pushing against the bondage I created. It was an ineffectual thing, barely pushing back before my own Companion Core worked its magic to reinforce the bonds, making them even stronger. Still, it was an interesting reaction against an arcana spell, even the slightest component of darkness stirring against.

Such an inconvenient ability. No wonder until now, Titania was a furious hammer of destruction on the battlefield. Her powers didn’t allow it to be otherwise.

Surprisingly, her next words proved that she was already moving ahead of her earlier instincts. “We should try to steal the information from their headquarters,” she whispered.

I was glad to see her already leveraging subterfuge in her thinking, though still elementary. “Normally, it would work excellently, but under the current situation, it doesn’t work for two reasons, one tactical, and one strategic. Do you want to guess why?” I questioned, wanting to encourage her sneaky approaches. I was starting to like her more and more, above and beyond her power, so I was willing to spend the necessary time to correct her thinking.

Luckily, with her spectacular mental stats —spectacular for the rest of the world, not in comparison to me— I didn’t expect our impromptu lessons to take too much time. I had all the confidence that she would prove a quick study, and if she didn’t, there were several more interesting lessons in subterfuge we could employ back in Silver Spires.

“Umm,” she murmured as her face scrunched in concentration. “Their defenses should be activated, and that would make sneaking in too risky,” she offered.

“Good, that’s the tactical challenge we’re facing. If we wanted to sneak in, we should have done that before our initial assault. But what’s the strategic challenge?”

She thought for a bit as we closed in the distance between us and their operational headquarters, even though we had to take a few detours, whenever my Biomancy waves alerted me to a nearby undead presence. “I’m not sure,” she murmured, disappointed.

“No worries,” I said as I patted her head while she preened, a part of me still unable to believe her changes, from the indomitable head librarian to the girl eager for my approval and a liking for chains. “It doesn’t make strategic sense, because I have already raided that place and discovered their most important advantage, all without making them aware. It doesn’t make sense to risk getting caught.”

“Can’t we just burst out together if we get caught? We’re certainly strong enough,” she offered.

“Not exactly,” I explained. “First of all, I was able to sneak in the last time because I was able to engineer a distraction without implicating me, mostly due to luck. Without that, the headquarters are too crowded to sneak in, even for my abilities. More importantly, if we get caught while trying to get in, it’ll alert them about a possible breach of information, forcing them to change their plans. We want them to hit our perceived weakness,” I explained. “Sometimes, a hidden card is more valuable than ten out in the open.”

[+3 Speech]

She nodded as she tried to process my explanation, while I received a nice surprise. Apparently, teaching someone could also improve Speech —though I suspected it was mostly about it changing her general outlook to the strategy, and not just acquisition of the new knowledge. However, before we could delve any deeper into the topic, we arrived at the entrance of the secret location. “I’ll attack first, stay hidden, and wait for my order to attack, even if you think I’m struggling,” I explained, even as I gripped my dagger tight. I left her quite a bit behind, shouldering the task of handling the first response alone.

It was time to test my new weapon.

I walked toward the headquarter, using my arcana to examine the wards as I got closer. I was happy to note that the ward scheme was the same, confirming that they had no idea about the earlier breach. And since I had studied their wards intensely before, it was almost trivial to trigger an alarm, informing that there was someone in the outer wards, trying to break in. I even avoided the most obvious trigger, and instead touched one of the hidden ones, to better sell the attempt. Otherwise, my presence inside wouldn’t be convincing.

[+1 Arcana]

[+2 Subterfuge]

[-13 Mana]

There was no visible alarm, but I could feel more than a dozen presences inside moving, along with another dozen signatures patrolling the corridors suddenly changing their patterns. A much better response than I had been expecting. Apparently, without the presence of a rampaging dragon, they were much more competent.

Too bad they hadn’t expected someone to be brazen enough to ambush the bulk of their army in the middle of their base.

The first assault of the necromancers was spectacular enough to take down a lesser man. Four of them appeared from behind me, launching a volley of death bolts, while six others appeared on the front, some relying on death bolts, while two of them relied on elemental spells, one casting a large fireball to obscure my vision, while the other cast earth spikes, bursting from the walls.

Even more impressively, none of those was the real attack. No, the real attack came in the form of a hidden presence, its death energy throbbing like cancer to my magical senses. I had no doubt it was a strong lich, stronger than any I had faced to date. I could feel its mana gathering, mixing with the defensive wards as it prepared to launch a devastating strike. I had no doubt that I could protect myself with my magic, but that would reveal a lot of secrets that would best be kept hidden.

Luckily, while my physical stats were lesser in comparison to my magical ones, that inferiority meant little when compared to others, not when my weakest stat, Endurance, was already at thirty, which was supposed to be an unreachable target.

I turned back and dashed toward the four on the back, straining my Speed to the limit for the first time even as I imbued my dagger with the life energy. The spikes exploded against the walls, while the fireball exploded behind ineffectively, leaving only the death bolts to contend against. They had planned their assault well, with death bolts aiming to reach me simultaneously, but their assumption neglected my speed. As I dashed, I first met with an attack wave of four, dodging them without even reducing my speed.

I was among them before they could cast another batch of spells, which was the worst thing a traditional mage, be it an elementalist or necromancer, could experience. Before they could even finish their emergency spells, my dagger flashed, cutting the neck of the first one, and stabbing the neck of the second one, all in the same movement. Both of them collapsed despite the negligible life energy I had injected into the dagger, only around fifty points of mana.

Oeyne’s craftsmanship was truly excellent. Not only the dagger didn’t hemorrhage mana like my earlier attempts, allowing me to use it much more effectively, but the effect was amplified as well.

“I have a feeling that we stumbled upon the opponent of our dear headmistress,” I quipped even as I dashed, not bothering to hide as I run through many of the weaker undead that tried to cut our path, none fast enough to even touch me at full step.

Still, a smirk appeared on my face as I slowed down slightly, just enough so that the four death knights were just a few steps behind us when we finally entered the secret passage I had prepared.

The secret passage that I filled with a great number of traps. Then, when I arrived at the middle of the passage, I cast an air-elemental, much stronger than the ones I cast before. Not the most efficient way to leverage my mana, but with a frenzied lich trying to catch up, it wasn’t time to be stingy.

[-4915 Mana]

I jumped on top of the air elemental, and it dashed away faster than a tornado. The moment we left the cave, I triggered all the traps I had created the previous time, where I had spent hours and a great number of magical reagents. I would have waited a bit more, but I was afraid one of the necromancers recognizing the trap and warning the death knights.

Then, we rode into the dark of the night, with a white glow covering our escape, leaving behind four death knights which almost certainly turned into glitter in the core of the explosion...

[Level: 30 Experience: 439500 / 465000

Strength: 36 Charisma: 51

Precision: 33 Perception: 35

Agility: 33 Manipulation: 38

Speed: 32 Intelligence: 42

Endurance: 30 Wisdom: 44

HP: 3455 / 4920 Mana: 936 / 6300 ]

SKILLS

Master Melee [100/100]

Master Tantric [100/100]

Master Biomancy [100/100]

Master Elemental [100/100]

Master Subterfuge [97/100]

Master Arcana [90/100]

Expert Speech [66/75]

Advanced Craft [31/50]

PERKS

Mana Regeneration

Skill Share

Empowerment (1/1)

Teleportation

COMPANIONS

[Cornelia - Level 17/25]

[Helga - Level 13/17]