Chapter 861: Combination Magic

Chapter 861: Combination Magic

There were ambushes.

And then there were ambushes.

This one was the latter.

The earth exploded below Alex, unleashing clouds of stone, soil and dust like a bomb. Massive tunnels gaped open in the wilderness, belching out hundreds of Ravener-spawn.

The creatures roared, snarling at the young archwizard...and his small army of summoned monsters.

Hive-queens, behemoths, hives-as-one, rampart-crushers, blood-hydras made up the bulk of their numbers, but their commanders, however, were the dreaded spawn Alex had seen in his vision.

The enormous, scuttling beasts with their air-blasting carapaces. Ravener-spawn knights that rode on their backs. Enormous, titanic monsters taller than the tallest trees. Even burning clouds were rising from the earthen tunnels.

But, his eyes were quickly drawn to black orbs clasped in their clawed hands.

Claygon’s words returned.

‘They look like...regular dungeon cores...but the Ravener-spawn throw them...and they...transform...’

Alex’s eyes narrowed.

The world slowed around him as he scanned the dusty ambush field below while breaking apart the streams of consciousness in his mind, focusing them on a single task: finding every dungeon core clasped in the hands of the Ravener-spawn knights looking up at him.

‘One...two...three...four...five...six...seven...’ he counted them quietly. ‘I think the best way to stop this is... I know.’

A stream of consciousness took control of the Traveller’s power within him.

Another took control of his body.

The others kept focus on where the dungeon cores were situated, marking each one’s location, analysing where they might travel to and how fast they might move when thrown.

‘Alright,’ he thought. ‘Let’s go.’

The world sped up again.

The General gripped his aeld sword-staff in both hands.

Then vanished.

The first Ravener-spawn knight shrieked when the Traveller’s sword slid through its spine, cutting through hard chitin like parchment. Enchanted metal slipped through its chest and into the dungeon core.

‘One,’ Alex thought.

The Traveller’s power surged.

Both the Ravener-spawn and the dungeon core were cut in half by his teleportation.

Alex vanished again.

The next Ravener-spawn knight was cocking its arm back, readying to throw its orb when the Traveller’s sword split both its head and dungeon core in the same push-cut.

‘Two,’ Alex thought, already vanishing.

The next monstrous knight was partway through its throw.

A sword-staff teleported them both apart.

‘Three.’

The fourth knight’s core had just left its clawed hand.

Magical metal and the teleportation split core, hand, and the creature’s face.

‘Four.’

The fifth knight had already released its orb; the core had launched, flying about a foot from its hand when Alex split it, the creature’s arm, and its head in two.

‘Five.’

The sixth knight had completed its throw and had followed through.

The core was travelling through the air, already expanding when Alex appeared, thrusting with the Traveller’s blade, piercing the core, teleporting it in parts thousands of feet in either direction.

He vanished.

The seventh core was growing, swelling, already reaching the size of a tall man. Its bulging eyes were forming...

...when the General of Thameland arrived, quickly carving up the orb, teleporting the many pieces away.

‘Seven.’

Alex reappeared among his army of summons in heartbeats.

Every dungeon core was destroyed.

Five of the seven knights were dead. The last two appeared dazed, baffled at what had just happened.

Alex’s jaw clenched. ‘I should’ve been faster. Still, not bad.’

He spoke to his army. “Get them.”

The lead astral engeli raised a flaming spear. “For our summoner!”

The rest echoed her words in unison and charged, the elder air elementals following a moment later, diving into the ranks of the stunned Ravener-spawn, surprising them before they could recover or strike back.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

But, Alex knew their number would not be enough.

Fire clouds vanished.

Air-blasting monsters shuddered, collapsing on themselves.

Only a few of the toughest Ravener-spawn titans remained, their breathing laboured—bodies scorched, breath wheezing, trembling from electric shocks, but trying to stand, still wanting to serve their master.

Their determination was almost admirable to Alex.

Almost.

It felt a little futile, since he still had one more spell waiting.

The third symbol exploded above him.

Once again, the air growled.

This time, the temperature plummeted.

Air that had been comfortable a moment earlier, now rapidly turned chilly.

Then freezing.

In the centre of the group of surviving Ravener-spawn, a point of light materialised, making a sound like a barrel-chested giant taking a deep breath. A revolving vortex formed around that point, sucking frost into the singular point of light.

The whirling mass of frost stopped spinning.

Residual water from the Tidal Wave spell began crystallising, producing great flakes of snow—each larger than Alex was tall—slowly drifting toward the battlefield.

Everything fell quiet.

No crackle of lightning.

No boom of thunder.

No roar of a tidal wave.

Just an eerie silence.

The wounded titans looked around nervously. The silence was unnatural. Unnerving.

Hungry.

And unsurprisingly, the first of the giant snowflakes touched the water.

The point of light and more flakes detonated.

Without a single sound.

Nor flash of light.

Nothing.

Nothing, but the sudden deep freezing of everything on the battlefield.

Water from the Tidal Wave spell stilled, icing over. Ravener-spawn corpses stopped drifting, now protruding above the thick layer of ice.

And the titans?

The titans’ nervous pausing now formed their final poses: Ravener-spawn were frozen like massive statues.

There was no longer movement.

No sign of life in dead eyes.

The silence was finally broken by a loud cracking.

A limb split from a titanic body, now unable to bear its own mass, and fell to the earth with a crash that shook the other towering bodies. As one, frozen titans toppled, striking the ground, shattering in thousands of pieces.

When the last shard of their bodies had come to rest on the battlefield, all was silent for a time.

No sign of life remained among the hordes of Ravener-spawn.

Sound now began returning; the sound of Alex’s own breathing, the wing beats of the astral engeli as they rejoined him, and the low hum of the elder air elementals was heard.

“They are all dead, archwizard,” the engeli said. “A grand display.”

“Good. It was necessary,” Alex said. “Let’s hope it lowers their numbers enough to make a difference when we actually get into the tunnels. Come on, let’s start moving before more show up. An ambush with such powerful monsters, and with so many, means we have to be close. We’ve got to be.’

“Very well, archwizard,” the astral engeli said. “Follow me.”

He nodded, and she led her summoner and the rest of his army along the trail. They passed above the ruins of the battlefield, looking down on Ravener-spawn encased in the remains of Alex’s tidal wave before leaving the icy hell behind.

They travelled further into the wilderness for many more minutes, while, in the distance, the sounds of explosions rocked Och Fir Nog.

At last the astral engeli paused mid-flight, hovering in place.

“Did it stop?” Alex asked. “Did the trail end?”

She cocked her head. “No, archwizard. It does not end here.”

“Then why did we stop?” he asked.

The engeli pointed down. “Because it no longer travels across the wilderness. The trail now leads down into earth.”

Alex’s heart began racing.

“Then...” he swallowed. “That means we’re probably...” he could barely let himself utter the words after so many months of searching.

“...we’ve probably found the Ravener’s lair.”