NOVEL NEXT Chapter 359: Scorching Swarm
"You should come see this," Kazuki called out.
Priam stepped up beside his friend, brushed aside a branch, and peered toward the horizon.
"Fuck."
The curse drew the others over, and they all froze at the sight unfolding before them—a horde, vast and relentless, laying siege to the tribal encampment. The undead were so densely packed, they resembled a tide of flesh crashing against the fortifications.
The moats, long since filled with crushed corpses, no longer served their purpose. The Necromoon had a singular solution to every problem: throw more slaves into the fray, more bodies into the grinder. And, it was working.
Piles of cadavers rose into grotesque hills, each fresh kill adding to the slope. Some had already reached the height of the ramparts, forming natural siege towers for the swarm. Desperate, the tribal defenders resorted to explosives and abilities, fighting to push back the masses of bodies.
"What now?" Jasmine asked.
"Fly over it?" Louis grinned. "Always wanted to try."
He hadn't finished his sentence when a necro-raven slammed into the enemy rampart. The force field flared for a heartbeat, vaporizing the bird in a flash of combustion.
"On second thought… maybe not today," the old man grimaced.
Despite the monstrous horde, Priam was confident he could cut through with Kazuki and Jasmine. However, Blueberry, Osiris, and Louis complicated things, and with Rose in tow, a dash was off the table. Except by hiding them in my internal world, but Concepts Archipelago is a card I'd like to keep close to my chest.
"We'll carve a path," Priam declared.
"My wind can push back the swarm," Kazuki offered. "If I carry Osiris and Jasmine pulls Rose into her shadows, we might make it to the gates unscathed."
"You're assuming they'll open up fast," Jasmine pointed out.
Kazuki frowned, then turned toward Priam.
"Our arrival is going to say a lot about us—and about Oasis. Cover me for a few minutes," declared the Juggernaut.
Spotting a flat stone, Priam sat cross-legged atop it. He closed his eyes and dove inward.
His blood was beating in his ears like war drums. The fetid air of the undergrowth was clinging to the back of his throat. The cold night air was raising goosebumps on his forearms. Mundane senses, irrelevant now. Blocking out these physical stimuli with Micro, Priam continued his descent. Something stirred in the depths. Both cool and warm, new and ancient, wild and soft… Priam found a connection.
His human heart didn't just pump blood. Neither liquid nor gas, aether flowed along a spiritual pathway toward his head. There, the first Gate imprinted the channeled energy with the properties of [Ciphered Record]. The current then plunged into the intimate dimension where his soul resided. Priam's quintessence purified the energy, which split into two streams. One flowed back into his blood and his network of golden meridians to power certain skills and resistances. The other diffused into his soul space, then into his Domain.
Of the three Supremacies, this one was his favorite. It granted him both perception and dominion over a three-meter radius sphere centered on himself. Where once he had to touch an object to siphon its momentum, [Kinetic Sovereignty] now let him manipulate anything within his Domain. The same rule applied to all his abilities, including [High Aether Manipulation].
Summoning a pea-sized seed of aether before him, Priam channeled his mastery to shape it into a pattern recognized by the primordial force—a rune bearing the meaning of Battery. Its function was obvious: a reservoir able to store aether. Priam knew half a dozen sigils with similar functions, but this one offered the greatest capacity. In return, any flaw in its lines would halve the energy it could hold.
Not that it mattered. Priam didn't make mistakes.
With machine-like precision, the mage sculpted the rune, then built a pyramid of solid aether around Battery. He hollowed out a section behind each of the four faces, revealing negative space that formed a second rune: Fire.
A white letter on a black background stood out as sharply as black on white. In the same vein, a rune could be formed of aether—or carved from the absence of it. The latter was subtler, but could be filled.
Switching energy sources, Priam funneled Pyro into the voids, igniting each cavity to create four flaming Fire runes. Once the aether from Battery reached them, it would resonate with the Concept itself. The resulting blaze of Pyro would make pure-aether flames look like candlelight by comparison.
Inspecting his work, Priam allowed himself a faint smile and began charging Battery. Not once did he blink, watching for the slightest instability. Barely thumb-sized, the pyramid could generate a fireball capable of frying a Tier 1.
Moments later, Battery reached capacity, having swallowed fifty units of aether. Fused with Pyro, it now carried enough punch to severely wound a fragile Tier 2.
Priam opened his eyes and studied his feather-light creation with a critical gaze. A gust of wind could send it spiraling into a tribesman.
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Materializing two thin sheets of aether, he attached them to the pyramid. On one face, he inscribed Necro and Attraction to steer it toward the undead. On the other, he etched Kinetic to allow it movement. Now, any necromantic source would act as a magnet to his creation.
"Better," Priam murmured, admiring the construct. If one squinted past the pyramid shape, it resembled the Golden Snitch from Harry Potter. Only far more dangerous—and much slower.
"Looks like a firefly… or a fire-butterfly," Rose whispered as she approached. The teen was careful not to touch the pseudo-insect, fully aware it was one spark away from catastrophe. "It's beautiful…"
Priam turned his eyes toward the churning sea of corpses that stretched between them and the encampment. One butterfly wouldn't cut it.
A grin tugged at his lips as he focused on [High Aether Manipulation]. In one of his dreams, he had managed to replicate runes. Focusing on the construct, he copied its blueprint into a parallel thought thread and tried duplicating it using the rest of his mind.
His first attempt failed. A minor flaw collapsed the structure into itself. Priam salvaged the energy and tried again. The second time, a line too narrow caused an aether buildup that exploded. The third collapsed at inception.
Not surprising. His mentor had warned him: copy-pasting aetheric structures, even simple ones, was impossible without [Aether Manipulation] at Legendary rank. The memory fueled the Juggernaut's competitive spirit.
On the hundredth failure, he activated [In the Zone]. The world vanished with its mundane senses. Only the aether, Priam, and his brilliance remained.
Two hundred attempts in, he silenced his frustration. At three hundred, he shed his sense of time. At five hundred, he stopped counting. His add-on took over.
On the thousandth try, success. A second, identical butterfly bloomed to life. Priam crushed the joy, refusing to celebrate a fluke.
The one thousand five hundred thirty-second attempt was his last failure.
Lvl Up: [High Aether Manipulation] lvl 52
META (Affinity) +3
META (Focus) +3
META (Endurance) +3
META (Affinity) +3
Each improvement to the fortifications was matched by an increase in the attackers' quality. The defenders' progress, while fast, couldn't match the monsters' endless endurance. Fatigue led to mistakes, and mistakes led to deaths. Unlike the necromantic forces, every life lost was bitterly mourned.
From time to time, the pressure grew so intense that a Tier 4 would appear to annihilate millions of enemies. The tribes could breathe again—momentarily. But such rare interventions were kept to a minimum, each one a step closer to total defeat. The ambient aether had been corrupted by the Necromoon. Despite purification rituals, Tier 4s poisoned themselves defending their own. Low Tiers could buy a decontamination pill from the Sun Shop. Mid Tiers could not. To earn points, one had to kill enemies of equal level—and no necro Tier 4 or equivalent had yet joined the assault.
On the rampart, an Aelbe archer let out a sigh. Today, not a single Tier 4 would lift a finger to repel the corrupted assault. The arrival of the Empire's envoy would solve that kind of problem. The defenders were merely stalling the enemy, buying time until the festivities began.
He notched another arrow and glanced skyward out of habit. Since the Necromoon's arrival, the heavens had been smothered under its cursed light. The firmament was an empty black, and not a single star had graced the world. Yet one now glittered on the horizon. A second followed, then ten, a hundred, a thousand.
A watchman's cry rang out, drawing the defenders' attention to the strange phenomenon. No one liked surprises during a battle. Especially not glowing ones. Especially not when they were getting bigger.
The archer swallowed hard as he realized he was wrong. The stars weren't growing in size. They were getting closer.
"Will-o'-wisps?" he muttered.
His whisper was carried off by the wind, and a voice answered, "No. They're not alive."
The Aelbe spun, catching sight of Braato. The towering warrior wasn't his commander, but disrespecting a Transcendent was foolish—especially when he might be the only thing standing between you and death.
The swarm of stars drew nearer until the archer could make out what looked like bizarre butterflies. Despite their glow, the corrupted didn't react, confirming their lack of lifeforce or soul. A minute later, the alien butterflies were flying above the necro army. In ethereal silence, one landed on the shoulder of a headless grizzly.
The burst of light was so bright that the archer had to shut his eyes. A second later, he was glad he had, as an intense wave of heat slammed into him. The sound reached his ears a moment afterward—a roar of fire and fury.
When he looked again, a gaping hole yawned in the middle of the necro army. The vitrified ground was blanketed in fine ash. The grey powder was the only evidence that monsters had stood there seconds earlier.
A second butterfly descended. Then a third. The archer was the first to duck behind the crenellations, shielding himself from the searing waves of heat. When the air grew too dry, he uncapped his flask and took a long swig to soothe his parched throat.
"It's over," Braato announced a minute later.
Raising his head, the Aelbe swallowed hard at the sight of a sea of fire lapping at the ramparts just meters below. Strangely, the force field hadn't activated. The flames brushed the defenses without hostility, saving their wrath for the Tier 2 undead that had somehow survived the initial blast.
He clicked his tongue at the surreal sight: piles of ash where corpses had once lain. Some residue was white instead of black or gray. The flames had devoured the ectoplasm that made up certain specters. This was no ordinary flame.
In hindsight, it should have been obvious.
Movement in the distance caught the archer's eye. A group emerged from the treeline. Six bipedal figures and a bear, all advancing toward the camp like they had all the time in the world. A few undead, likely drawn by the light, stumbled after them.
The archer drew his bow—but never loosed.
A hellfire tide swerved around the newcomers and smashed into the pursuing undead. When it withdrew, only blackened bones and melted teeth remained.
"By my ancestor's hairy balls…" the archer muttered. Had the Champions unlocked a Mythic skill?
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