NOVEL NEXT 0054
Piercing the heart of the last member of another group searching for the ritual, Tanja could finally relax. Though just to be sure, she still activated her blood magic and moments later a hole appeared in the body. Unfortunately the tenacity of her opponents was rising with their levels, so even critical hits became increasingly less likely to actually kill someone. Well, unless one had special skills which supported such an attack, but the young woman was unfortunately missing such abilities.
At least she had more chances to use her magic.
[You killed a Human Lv 105.]
Enjoying the mess she had made for a moment, the girl turned back to her party members after looting the body. They had finished their fights already a bit earlier, though they also didn't have to face a tank.
"Was all this playing around necessary?"
"Hey! You should try to fight an opponent with that much health yourself, if you think i was playing around!" Tanja tried to defend herself.
"And you couldn't have just destroyed the shoulders first before going for the heart or head, instead of slowly covering your enemy with fleshwounds all over their body?"
"..."
The illusion mage was about to step in to stop the more or less friendly but nonetheless meaningless bickering of her teammates, when suddenly enormous spell circles appeared above the nearby forest.
Without the need to do anything, silence returned to the battlefield.
Though being used to surprises in the middle of a battle, it only took a split-second for awe to turn into urgency. Giant spell circles don't randomly appear. At least not in low level realms.
A quick look at their quest basically confirmed that it was likely linked with their faction's progress. And while it was good to see that the remaining time had sharply decreased, everyone would now be able to notice the location of the rite.
"Fine, fine, i doubt they need any help, but we can try to make contact with whoever cast the ritual anyway."
Setting out, the three soon entered the white forest. Though while they kept their guard up, the location was entirely too quiet. Seemingly all life had vanished, even though it had previously been one of the more densely populated areas in the realm.
Either something had slaughtered everything or the beasts had assembled elsewhere and were preparing a focused strike against the ritual. As much as the party hoped it was the former, the latter was unfortunately more likely.
Though that didn't stop them from also approaching the site.
Keeping up their guard and illusion, they were carefully walking through the woods. Though while they were primarily on the lookout for enemies which could see through their illusion or lone unsuspecting targets they could get a jump on, the illusion mage had to notice that the amount of mana needed to sustain her magic was slowly increasing.
A short discussion with her teammates later, after figuring out that it wasn't their magic which needed more mana but a decline in their mana recovery rate, they decided to drop the illusion for the time being. Apparently no enemies were around anyway and it would be better to not exhaust their mana reserves, in case they had to fight later.
At least their enemies should have similar issues, with the giant spell above them being the most likely source of the phenomenon.
Continuing on their way, now even more vigilant than before since they couldn't use the illusion, suddenly footsteps could be heard. Getting ready to respond in case they had run into someone from their opposing faction, they were quite surprised by what they saw next.
[Human Lv 34 (Unnamed)]
"Hey, you seem like you could need a guide."
A young and low level woman has appeared. Those two facts by themselves weren't unexpected, but finding such a person in the middle of a war as a participant was shocking.
Though still not as shocking as what the rest of her party looked like. They had expected their guide to be just a currier or a scout. Maybe some kid, who was blinded by the rewards, had enough luck to stumble upon the initiator of the war and was now taking care of miscellaneous tasks the higher leveled people didn't want to do.
But no!
[Human Lv 19 (Unnamed)]
[Human Lv 13 (Unnamed; Initiator)]
She was according to Eas the strongest person around, nearly tripling the level of the initiator. And the group which initiated the war consisted of just three people.
With that discovery alone, Tanja wanted to question their sanity, but the level 13 girl totally broke her. She was seemingly controlling the rite alone and without help. The amounts of mana flowing around even started to lighten up the area around her.
And looking closer, the spell circle above the forest weren't the only ones which were part of the ritual. Engravings in the rocky ground could also be seen. Not necessarily the best material for a spell circle, to the blood mages' knowledge, but since the spell worked, the initiator had seemingly everything under control.
Arriving in the realm, Jeanne could already feel the change in the environment and not just the hot and dry climate. The mana itself seemed to be permanently on the move, flowing towards the giant glowing spell circles reaching high into the sky.
Her first instinct was to shoot an arrow at the spell, but with the distance it would be hard to actually reach her target and then cause damage. Also even if she hit her target, they had likely counter measures in place or could repair the destroyed part of the spell. It would only reveal her presence and make her a prime target for any assassins of the opposing faction.
So suppressing her instincts, she turned to her escorts and made her way over to their camp. Attacking the spell during a coordinated assault would have likely better chances to succeed and if not, it should cause enough distraction that her contract could be seen as fulfilled.