Fate Alchemist - A Regression Academy LitRPG

Wulf glanced down the hall the way they came. The fires were getting brighter. More fiends were coming that way.

"Irmond, how do the hallways back to the academy look?" Wulf asked.

"They…look clear from here!" Irmond called.

"Alright. Athllas, I need you to go back," Wulf said. "Use your map—there should be a second route down the east tunnel. Go fast, don't stop, and don't go toward the flame. If you see another crew, get them out. Send everyone back, and once you get to the exit, find Azanthius. Get the professors down here—everyone strong. We're going to need backup."

"But—"

"No." Wulf crossed his arms, and Wraith did the same. "Listen to me, or you will die. The world can't have that."

"I…alright. I'll go. But what about you?"

"I'm going to lead them off. If you run now, I'll be the only one they see, and the only one they chase. Do you understand?"

"I understand."

"Then go!"

Athllas thundered off down the hallway, taking his Oronith out of sight. Wulf turned back to face the approaching demons.

"They couldn't have thought this through," Seith said. "They just sent the top of their class to their death for 'experience'? They couldn't have checked what we were up against?"

"Or they did," Wulf said. "They saw the rooms were empty, and figured it was safe."

"Then why'd the demons come up now?" Kalee asked.

"They're after us. Varl—or that Pyek guy—said so. He needs to kill us, for some reason." Wulf held his sword out in front of him, awaiting the coming threat. "And clearly, he can give the colossal fiends some guidance."

"He had, like, hundreds of chances to kill you. He could've just knifed you or something," Irmond said.

"Unless he wanted to know more about the disturbance I was causing," Wulf suggested. "Which he couldn't do if he killed me."

"Are demons that clever?" Seith asked.

"Demon-spirits can be, as long as they fulfill their goal of killing their target eventually," Kalee said. "Or, of course, if you kill them."

Wulf shut his eyes and winced, then said, "There are more fiends down there. I'd bet any money they're coming up at some point. They're going to destroy the academy and the city before we get any Oroniths in place to properly stop them. Whatever it is, they're making their final push, and it's up to us to delay them."

"How do we do that?" Kalee asked.

"Collapse the entrance," Wulf said. "It'll take time to get through."

"And then we deal with the demons up here," she said.

"Heads up, guys!" Irmond said. "They're coming!" He whispered. "Oh, I finally got to say heads up. Wulf usually does that…"

Two more fiends charged down the hall from the opposite direction. One carried a heavy black hammer with glowing orange cracks in its head, and the other carried a glowing orange whip. The hammer fiend was Low-Gold, and the chain fiend was Middle-Gold.

"How are we going to lead them off if we're still collapsing the entrance?" Kalee shouted.

"I'm…still working on that part," Wulf replied. He pushed them to the side, dodging a heavy swipe from the hammer fiend. It smashed its hammer into the ground, sending shards of rock flying in all directions. Wulf spun, fluttering his cloak up behind him and protecting Irmond and Seith from rock debris.

As he spun back around, he stabbed at the hammer fiend's gut, but the glowing chain caught them across the shoulder. It didn't do any lasting damage to the stone, and it deflected off the armour, leaving only a scorched mark, but the impact sent Wulf staggering to the side. He continued with the momentum, dodging a thrust from the demon's hammer.

The attacks kept coming. He blocked with his shoulders when he could. The chain fiend was using its weapon like a whip, which he could block. He couldn't deal with a hammer, unless he wanted to lose another limb.

But he couldn't deal with two Golds at once.

A set of chain swipes left him reeling, and he wasn't fast enough to dodge an underhand hammer swing. It launched him onto his back and sent him skidding to the edge of the downward shaft. Wraith hung over the edge, teetering.

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"I have an idea how to bring it down now," Wulf grunted. "But I'll need your help. And we're going down."

"Down?" Irmond exclaimed.

"You heard correctly," Wulf said. Before either of the fiend's could land a finishing blow, he pushed himself off the ledge and jumped down to the bottom level. He adjusted mid-air, shifting so he could land in a crouch, then immediately, he triggered the armour's ability.

A pulse of force, strong enough to crush boulders into dust, radiated off the armour in a perfect sphere. It didn't break the floor, but it chipped away at the edges of the down-shaft, weakening them, and creating a massive hanging circle of stone.

It just needed the final push.

"You want me to bring that down?" Kalee asked.

"Not yet! Wait 'til they're beneath it!"

He backed away. The fiends jumped down behind him, brandishing their weapons.

"Now!" he yelled.

Kalee triggered a massive spell skill, clutching onto the rocky ledge with a gravity well, and dragging it down. The stone cracked and buckled, then three Oronith-heights worth of stone and dungeon wall collapsed under their own weight, falling on the fiends and crushing them both.

Even a Gold-Tier fiend couldn't survive that much rock. But just to be safe, Wulf approached the protruding back of the chain fiend and drove his sword into it, killing it. He then chipped off a chunk of its carapace. He'd need that.

He walked around, hunting for the other fiend, when Irmond fired an arrow into the heap of stone. It blasted through a loose chunk, revealing the head of the second fiend. Wulf stabbed the top of its head too.

Once he was sure they weren't going to move, he stepped away from the pile and leaned back against the wall. "Irmond, what do you see?"

"Some flames in the north passage, but we have time," Irmond replied. "They're Middle-Golds still."

"Understood. Seith, damage report?"

"Eighty percent body integrity," she said. "Your joins are doing fine, and though the armour's a little dented, it's nothing we can't fix."

"Excellent."

"Excellent?" Kalee asked. "Now we're trapped in here with them!"

Wulf almost smiled at her and told her that the fiends were actually trapped in here with them, but he held his tongue. It wasn't exactly going to go like that. Instead he said, "The fiends aren't threatening the city. We just need to survive and take out as many as we can. We need the mana, and we need to live."

"We're a single silver."

"We're in the Wraith," Wulf said. "It's maneuverable, and these guys don't have excellent perception. Irmond, have you found any weak spots in their shells?"

These fiends were slightly different. They were older, and their outer carapaces and knotted skin wasn't the same as the fiends he was used to fighting. They'd been here since before the original demon invasion, trapped, slumbering in some room somewhere. But he didn't know exactly where to stick a sword to pierce them.

"Around the front of the neck, beneath the chin," Irmond said. "And where the shoulders meet the neck."

"Excellent," he said again. "I'll aim there."

Before the next batch of fiends could get dangerously close, he took off down the westward hallway. There weren't nearly as many glowing plant bulbs hanging from the ceiling here, and the hallways were darker and rougher. There were alcoves from previous fights, which the dungeon hadn't patched yet, where fiends had pushed monsters into the wall, or had carved a path of destruction.

It was dark enough to hide, as long as he didn't glow. Problem was, the Wraith had massive glowing lines between its panels. It wasn't exactly subtle.

When he found his first hiding spot, a shaded alcove with some fiend-smoke still trapped in it, he simply disconnected from the dream-link, and the Wraith went dark.

"What are we doing?" Irmond asked.

"Waiting," Wulf said. "Not drawing attention to ourselves. And making some poison."

He opened his storage pendants, and, without leaving his golem, he pulled out his large steelglass cauldron. "We need some poison in our knives, and something strong enough to work against the big fiends." A single vial of poison wasn't going to cut it against something as large as a fiend.

He dumped the last of the foliated widowlob venom into the cauldron, then heated it with the burn box, mixed in some plant matter for good measure (even if he didn't have time to turn it into a tincture, the base strength of the venom was enough to dissolve it.

He didn't know how much time he had. Once he had it boiling, he stirred so fast he nearly splashed it over the sides. It wasn't his best work, but when it finally thickened, it transmuted, and he practically prayed for poison.

The Field granted him his wish. Slowness, strength, and a poison that caused the internal organs of the target to burst in a painful, horrific explosion. Just what he needed. Though his advancement progress was only at thirty-two percent, he was more concerned about the potion itself. It was Middle-Gold tier.

He called Seith up to the back of the cockpit, then handed her the cauldron. "Can you feed that into the glands in our daggers?"

"I've got it," she said. "You want the cauldron back?"

"I think I can make a better one. Don't worry about it."

She scampered away. Wulf didn't see her complete the task, but Irmond called out, "One's coming. Doesn't look like it sees us yet."

Running back to the harness, Wulf prepared to slot himself in. He didn't complete the connection yet.

"Seith?" he asked. "Got the poison in yet?"

"Give me…two seconds!"

The fiend rounded the corner. It carried a massive club on its shoulder, though it was only a Low-Gold. But best of all, it was alone.

As soon as it crossed in front of the alcove, Seith called, "Got it!"

Wulf slotted himself into the harness, activated the dream-link, then sprang out. He pressed the short-sword against the fiend's neck before it could react, approaching from behind, then squeezed the handle and dragged the handle across.

The fiend screeched and howled, then began writhing and flailing. Its arm caught Wraith in the chest and flung it into the wall. It whirled its club up into a fighting position, even as its throat gushed black tar, but halfway through its swipe, its glowing orange markings dimmed, and it stopped.

It collapsed, falling forward. Wulf rolled to the side to evade it, then jumped back to his feet.

"One down," he said. "Now we kill what we can until help arrives—or Pyek shows himself."