Chapter Four Hundred And Eighty One – 481
Days passed.
Felix's team was now well within the Tangle, a forest of massive seaweed fronds and bursts of wild coral. They had passed from the Temple complex on the first day, entering the dense jungle that spread for miles in every direction. The light from the surface did not reach them there, but the fronds visibly glowed with life Mana and the clusters of bright pink and orange coral were filled luminous plants and animals. Sea life was everywhere, and while most fled from their procession, there were schools of dead-eyed fish the size of small cars that ignored them completely.
> Toa'ut said, jutting his thick jaw at the big fish. >
Felix, astride the big War Naga's back, grunted in acknowledgement. Normally he'd have happily asked more questions, but he was otherwise engaged. Beef rode behind him, the both of them secured with straps connected to a harness made of vines and chitinous buckles. Toa'ut had not complained at all despite their combined weight, and they had covered a ton of distance. The War Naga were fast.
Etched onto the makeshift harness, familiar sigils pulsed rhythmically, each beat dragging a portion of Felix's Mana from his channels and directing it into Beef's own. Felix had cobbled together a miniaturized version of the array he'd used back in Bogfeld. A considerable feat for him. A perfect memory was handy for such things, but the true difficulty laid in reorganizing all the important parts.
Invocation is level 68!
Theurgist of the Rise is level 83!
> Felix asked, his voice tight and warbling as it wafted across his Sunken Ward. The spell allowed for communication between them all, so long as they remained close by, but the tension was from the ward but the array. After hours of it, the sensation was awful, like vomiting in slow motion. Every part of his channels felt battered, and he recognized the symptoms of Spirit strain. >
Beef nodded, his orichalcum helmet hung at his belt, and his bare face was slick with moisture. The glow of Felix's Sunken Ward covered them all, outlining their forms in faint shrouds of darkest blue and keeping the water off of them, but it did nothing for sweat. > He wobbled slightly, and the harness between the two of them went taut for a moment before he caught himself. The kid shuddered. >
> Felix asked. The array was necessary because Beef was funneling his own power through the now distant Risen that he'd sent through the Shadowgate. The Skill operated on similar fundamentals as Felix's old Oathbinding, establishing a stout connection between Beef and the corpses he raised that allowed him or Hallow to manipulate directly.
> Beef's eyes were distant, staring at nothing as he pressed his Perception through the Body of his Risen. >
> Felix reminded him. >
Beef did perk up at that, though his eyes were still clouded and distant. >
Channeling his magic through his Hallow Rise Skill was incredibly draining, hence the harness to hold them together and on the back of Toa'ut. The ritual fed Felix's Mana into Beef, allowing the kid to continue to provide materials to their distant team as they reconstructed enough Manaships to get them to Haarwatch. According to Karys reports, the ships were almost complete thanks to Beef's efforts as well as the Henaari craftsmen on sitea number of them were remarkably good with the vessels. The original plan was to have Beef make and help assemble the ships through the use of his Chitin Construction and Shipwright Skills, but being able to do it remotely was incredibly useful and allowed the Minotaur to stick by Felix's side. He'd considered refusing Beef's request to stay behind, but honestly Felix wanted to keep an eye on him. Letting an Unbound loose in a potentially chaotic war was probably unwise when they'd spent so much time retrieving the guy. A little Mana drain and Spirit strain was worth it.
> Felix asked.
> Beef grunted as he adjusted himself. >
Damn. He'd noticed the kid knocking back a few Essence Draughts during the trip, but to have two Skill rise into Journeyman and another hit Apprentice Tier was great. >
>
Aside from Felix's sigaldry Skills, he'd put his Sunken Ward through the ringer the past few days. Keeping the spell constantly engaged was a bit taxing, especially while also draining his Mana into his friend, but it was necessary. The spell had risen from level 3 all the way to level 19 and all of his friends were coated in its dark-blue shroud. Even Pit and Hallow's two forms that both clung to the back of three of the War Nagas.
Hallow swam atop herself, the small Homunculus riding on the back of the chitinous Multipede and unleashing pin-point barrages of crystalline needles. The needles weren't enough to kill outright, but they were painful and distracting, allowing the Nagafolk to dispatch the Hatchlings or their mounts with greater ease. Isla fought too from the back of a Naga warrior, casting green-gold bolts at the advancing Fathom spawn. Where they hit, swathes of strange, fungal growths sprouted from their eyes and mouths and gills, causing the Hatchlings to spasm and tear at their own flesh.
As blows were traded back and forth, four more foes slipped from the other side of the reef, and these were far more intimidating. Where the Hatchlings and their fat fish-mounts were Tier III creatures, these others were far more Evolved. Broodvipers riding atop Drakin, according to Felix's Voracious Eye, the former an Evolved form of Hatchling and the latter an Evolved form of the Draktopus. Both were musclebound and dark, mottled to blend into the terrain around them, and possessing a raw, chaotic power that all but crackled around them as they sped into the fray.
> Felix shouted, unable to do much but watch. If he moved, Beef would expend all of his Mana and his Risen would crumble to dust. >
Without missing a beat, Vess split off from her dwindling foe just as Lavix thundered by her position. She reached out, snagging the edge of the Naga's spine and riding down with her spear held out like a lance. The Broodvipers and Drakin charged, as muscled and brutal as the War Naga, and met Lavix in a furious clash. The odds were in the Fathom spawn's favor, being four against two, but they clearly had never accounted for a Dragoon.
>
Ten silver Spears manifested around Vess like a kaleidoscope of death, each one manipulated in a different direction. Two sank into a Drakin's side, while three more engaged with the Broodvipers' own crooked weapons. They clanged aside, but not before all five Spears detonated. The Drakin fell, it's gut torn asunder, and Vess followed its rider down.
>
Vess, her partisan, and her remaining five Spears all dropped onto the injured Drakin and dazed rider. The reef exploded, filing the water with cloud debris as a crackling wave of lightning spread outward from the impact. More furious roars and sloshing thrashes spread upward, until everything went still.
You Have Killed A Manawarped Broodviper!
XP Earned!
You have Killed A Manawarped Drakin!
XP Earned!
Felix felt the tiniest trickle of experience feed into himapparently just warning people counted as contribution but didn't warrant much in the way of rewards.
Vess rose from the rubble like a rocket, dust, bubbles, and newly conjured Spears riding in her wake. With the aid of Lavix, they fought the last Broodviper and Drakin, though weren't able to surprise it again. It was wary of their tricks, and as the Nagafolk finished off the regular Hatchlings, the Evolved enemy attempted to make a tactical retreat. Before it had swam more than twenty yards, their forms were pierced by frozen lightning, crystalline shards, fungal rot, and two silver Spears apiece.
They did not survive much longer.
> Beef said with a deep, agonized groan. He reached his arms up, stretching so hard Felix could feel the water ripple with each popping joint. > The kid blinked, mouth agape as he stared at the blood, dust, and floating corpses that littered the waters all around them. >
Felix almost groaned himself, all too happy to disengage the siphon array. The return of his Mana felt like blood rushing back into numb legs; a painful restoration. >
>
> Toa'ut rumbled. He nodded with his huge, bulbous head. Beyond the now-broken coral shelf, the large fronds of the Tangle had thinned, and the open waters beckoned beyond. >
