Low-Fantasy Occultist

Chapter 419

The roar of spellfire, the clatter of Devon’s armor, and the heavy breathing of the guards all disappeared into an eerie silence as the area spell took effect.

To a novice mage, losing the ability to speak incantations was a death sentence because it required much greater focus and broke the rhythm of spellcasting. If someone like Tim had cast it, it would have been a double-edged sword.

But these were elite Tower battle mages, and they didn't miss a beat in adapting, clearly expecting its effects.

While the other two kept up their suppressing fire, unleashing a barrage of spells so swift that even Nick had to hunker down, the female mage swung her wand in a wide arc, almost glowing with power.

A large fire orb started to form at the tip of her wand, drawing in the surrounding oxygen from the tunnel to power an explosion intended to incinerate the entire corridor.

Nick knew he couldn’t let that land, but he didn't panic. He’d prepared ahead exactly to handle this kind of situation, so he simply tapped the butt of his staff against the stone floor, sending a pulse of will through his established [Territory].

All around the strike team, the [Emakimonos] he had painstakingly painted earlier flared to life and started changing the battlefield.

As the mage finished the spell and prepared to cast her strange fireball, the glyph beneath her feet activated. A localized vacuum took hold, not causing damage but instantly depriving her spell of oxygen and destabilizing the mana matrix.

The roaring construct sputtered, turning into a vaporous orange before collapsing into harmless smoke.

Shock flickered in her eyes, but her training took over immediately, and she didn’t waste time denying what had just happened. She abandoned the attack, dropping into a defensive stance and tapping her wand to her chest to cast a layered, non-verbal shield.

"Now," Nick mouthed, thrusting his hand forward. The word was soundless, but the intent was clear.

Devon, Kael, and Vance charged, aiming to completely take away the enemy's momentum from their explosive entrance and turn the tide.

The three Tower mages seemed to have realized that the environment was hostile and would actively fight their spell structures. In response, they tightened their formation, standing back-to-back in the narrow tunnel, weaving rapid-fire, low-tier spells that required mana to sustain and could be cast so quickly that Nick’s traps wouldn’t spring in time.

They still lost some of their strength from [Territory], but it enabled them to stop the incoming rush.

The mage on the right aimed his wand at Devon, who was still rushing straight ahead like a runaway freight train. A surge of white-hot flames burst from the wand, something Nick recognized from Lasazar’s classes as an [Inferno Wall] meant to melt steel and turn flesh to ash. It filled the tunnel's width in a wave of destruction that had been used more than once to crush entire peasant rebellions.

It’s said that only experts in fire mana can cast it. That means these guys are really putting everything on the line. They must hold important positions and careers, yet here they are, risking it all because of Hone’s request to silence a teenager.

Despite the real danger from the wall of flames, Devon didn't slow down, and Nick watched with fierce pride as his brother demonstrated the extent of his martial progression.

His sword began to glow with a soft blue hue, which gradually took on a silver tint as it expanded to encompass his entire body, and Nick realized that this was a high-level expression of [Aura] that only the finest Knights were known to possess.

Its intensity grew with each step as the merging of minds between man and blade reached its peak, making it impossible even for Nick to tell where one ended and the other began.

With a silent roar, Devon lunged straight into the [Inferno Wall]. The flames parted around his Aura-coated armor like water moving past the prow of a ship, and he burst through the other side, completely unharmed, right into the personal space of the horrified mage.

Devon reversed his grip, using the flat of his heavy claymore, and slammed the flat blade against the mage's hastily conjured shield. The spell shattered beneath the sheer weight of an Aura-infused strike, and the crossguard hit the mage squarely in the solar plexus. The man doubled over, his eyes rolling back as Devon casually kicked his legs out from under him, sending him crashing to the floor, unconscious.

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Considering that the man must have been at least ten, if not twenty levels above Devon, the victory was nearly ridiculous, but Nick had stacked the deck in their favor as much as possible by interfering with any and all magic cast within his [Territory], and more importantly, the mage had made the mistake of allowing a knight to get up close.

After all, regardless of the level, a martial class's physical stats would always greatly exceed those of a mage.

On the left flank, Kael and Vance showed why Xander kept them on his personal payroll.

The second male mage tried to cast a spatial distortion to separate the two guards, but Nick triggered another [Emakimono] on the wall.

Ethereal chains of pure glyph-binding shot out, wrapping around the mage's wand arm and forcing his aim off target.

The spatial tear carved a harmless gouge into the ceiling. If it had been a little stronger, it probably could have cut through enchanted armor. Even if it wasn't a direct hit, it might have crippled one of the warriors and turned the tide of the battle. That was exactly why Nick was waiting patiently for his turn.

Vance instantly noticed the stumble and took advantage of it, slipping under the mage's line of sight. Instead of aiming for a direct sword strike, which could have allowed the mage to react in time, he used the edge of his heavy kite shield to viciously bash the man’s knee, knocking his stance loose. The subsequent spatial rend that the mage cast fizzled into nothingness, its structure disturbed before it could even fully form.

A leash of fire brushed harmlessly against a wall of water just next to them, but the warriors paid it no attention, trusting Nick to watch their backs.

As the mage staggered forward, dropping his guard to catch himself, Kael pivoted smoothly behind Vance. With surgical precision that had to come from a skill of some kind, Kael drove the heavy pommel of his broadsword into the base of the mage's skull. The man fell like a puppet with its strings cut.

Within a minute, the tides had completely changed, leaving only one.

The female mage clearly understood she was outmatched. Her team was defeated, her surroundings were hostile, and the physical fighters were closing in.

She locked eyes with Nick, recognizing the source of her troubles. If he hadn’t been there to interfere with every bit of magic, if the tunnel hadn’t been filled with dozens of [Emakimonos], forcing her to constantly jump around and preventing her from helping her companions, things would have turned out very differently.

With that knowledge in mind, she chose not to engage the warriors and instead directed her wand at Nick, releasing a barrage of arcane missiles, each packed with enough force to shatter a boulder.

At the same time, she tapped her heel on the ground, trying to activate a contingency teleportation artifact sewn into her robes.

For the first time since the fight began, Nick stepped out from behind his defensive position and engaged her directly.

Sweeping the Shard down, he conjured a localized [Windburst] in the path between them, catching the arcane missiles and redirecting their energy into the stone walls, where they detonated silently in harmless bursts of dust.

At the same time, he asserted his dominance over the ether. ‘You shall not leave my Territory,’ he projected into the ambient mana, activating the last of the [Emakimonos] and sending a ripple through the tunnel’s walls.

The spatial anchor she was trying to latch onto warped and dissolved under Nick's interference, and her teleportation artifact sputtered and sparked, unable to connect with its twin on the outside.

Panic finally pierced through her professional mask.

She backed against the tunnel wall and channeled all her remaining mana into a [Prismatic Aegis], a perfect, multi-sided dome of interconnected shields.

It was the peak of defensive magic for mortals, made to evenly spread physical and magical impacts across its surface.

In a straight fight, it would take Nick minutes to break it down even with his strongest spells, and that would be more than enough for her to reinforce her artifact for another teleportation attempt that would succeed.

After all, Nick wasn’t a spatial mage despite his vague interest in the subject. If he had taken Raphael with him, this might have been a completely different situation, but he couldn’t allow her even a moment to work.

Closing the distance, he reached deep into his soul, drawing on the Tree of Life's conceptual weight and feeling its power grow within him.

Crimson power crackled across the top of his staff, barely held back by his willpower, but he wasn’t trying to squeeze his emotions into a destructive spell this time. Instead, he gathered them, kept the storm in check, and let the pressure build until the air itself seemed to hum with barely contained violence.

He approached the edge of the [Prismatic Aegis], and the mage stared at him through the translucent barrier, her chest heaving as she maintained the complex spellform while working on repairing the artifact.

It was, admittedly, a display of skill he’d be hard-pressed to replicate. Oh, he could double-cast fairly easily these days, but the finesse she demonstrated here was beyond him in anything but ritual magic, and he was man enough to admit that, at least to himself.

Unfortunately for her, it’s not enough. It will never be enough, not against me. "[Hubris' Reach],” he mouthed, still under the influence of her silencing spell.

The kinetic-spiritual force bypassed all defenses entirely, forming directly inside the dome, and hit the female mage squarely in the chest with the force of a battering ram.

Her eyes widened as she gasped silently, a final breath leaving her lungs. The [Prismatic Aegis] shattered into a shower of harmless light as she slammed into the stone wall and slid to the floor, completely incapacitated.

With her unconsciousness, the [Zone of Silence] finally collapsed, and sound returned.

"Clear!" Kael shouted, pressing his boot firmly on the neck of the mage he had knocked down.

"Clear," Devon echoed. He looked at the scorched stone where the [Inferno Wall] had been, whistling softly. "That was way too close. Nice trick with the floor traps, Nick.”

"They were professionals," Nick said, his voice slightly hoarse. He dismissed his [Territory], letting the ambient ether return to its natural flow, and knelt beside the female leader, systematically disarming her of her wand, several hidden daggers, and a spatial ring, even as he double-tapped her with a [Spirit Blast]. A moment later, he did the same for the others, just to be sure.

"Did you find anything useful?" Vance asked as he scanned the dark tunnel ahead. "A token? Something to tie to their employer?”

"We don't need anything like that," Nick said, standing up. "Hone isn't stupid enough to give such a team a signed permission slip. But the Tower's Prosecution division doesn't require physical documents. When we bring these three into the High Council chambers and place them inside a [Zone of Truth], they won't have a choice but to reveal their master.”

“So we have him, right?” Devon asked with a grin, before it faded from his face as he read Nick’s expression.

Something didn’t feel right. It wasn’t because the fight was too easy. He had expected everything to unfold quickly, and his preparations were enough to ensure victory even against experienced mages, but the silent resignation in the woman’s eyes told him he was missing something.

But what?