Wild Era 3, Ch 36: Deathgaze Seer

When in doubt, attack.

It was good advice for a mage, just like it was for a warrior, so that was what Kelin did. 

Whoever was the quickest to cast often seized the advantage. Sometimes it could decide the fate of a battle.

The seer let out a shout of anger as he saw the Wildfire heading toward him again and he summoned a river of mana that turned into wards as he tried to block it.

He had quantity on his side, enough to flood the entire mausoleum until the air turned nearly liquid, but Kelin’s ability to weave mana was incredible.

The spell was like a blade as it carved through the wards and drove toward the seer’s connection to the ritual outside. It was a violet thread connected to one specific area of the man’s soul. 

When it came to soul magic and precision control, Kelin’s superiority was clear.

The Wildfire sliced through the wards like a prismatic needle and headed straight for the link, ignoring everything else. 

Ethereal flames exploded in every direction as the spell landed. The impact wasn’t as large as the first strike, but it was targeted. 

Wildfire spread along the link, burning through it like an incinerating wave. The link crumbled and frayed until it snapped.

The seer staggered, letting out a maddened howl as the energy he was controlling turned chaotic. 

Streams of necrotic energy twisted out of his grasp, turning into wraiths and specters in the air, and the bones scattered across the mausoleum shuddered as loose energy filled them.

The power of the City of Bones raged through the room in waves of chaotic energy that flooded everything.

The Elite at the center of the ritual let out a roar as new energy filled it. It had been locked in place, but the shadowy chains holding it down snapped one by one as it flexed.

It grabbed one of the thicker ones and tore it apart. Then it got to one knee as it slowly stood up, making other chains shatter around it.

The seer was in no condition to deal with it as he grabbed his head and thrashed in place. The link shattering had delivered a painful backlash. Shards of the ritual energy had lanced through his soul and meridians. 

It didn’t look like it was enough to kill him, but it would take him some time to force them all out.

Kelin had no plan to allow the Elite to join the battle, so he threw a Soul Star at it. 

The five-bladed spell exploded throughout the undead priest’s soul and turned its necrotic energy into an inferno, which quickly spread through its limbs.

The remains of the spell holding it kept it from fighting back too much and the priest staggered away, losing control of its limbs as it fell to the ground and began to thrash. 

An instant later, its soul ignited, incinerating what was left of its energy.

Kelin’s mana and soul energy both were dropping from the spells, so he pulled out a major mana potion and downed it.

Then he grabbed a handful of Soulfire Infusion talismans and hurled them at the seer, followed by the intensified Soul Arrows and Soulfire Bolts that had been circling his staff.

The spells exploded around the seer and tore apart some of his wards, but they had less effect than the link breaking. His mana shield was powerful and he was already beginning to recover from the backlash.

There was also a massive amount of chaotic mana in the air that matched his affinity, so he was like a fish in the ocean.

The seer stabilized himself and began to draw that energy in, letting it spin around him in streams as he suppressed the backlash in his soul. It looked like dark and white waves washing through him.

Those waves washed away the flames from Wildfire and the shards of ritual energy, breaking them apart into nothing.

Then his eyes snapped back to clarity. 

He glanced down at his chest where the spear had gone in. His hand hovered it, not daring to come any closer. Then he looked across the mausoleum at Kelin.

“Not bad,” he said, his expression turning cold. “But it doesn’t change my plans. It just makes me want you more as my servant.”

Without the ritual channel to call on, he was weaker than before, but he still had his core abilities and the dense mana of the mausoleum. 

He reached out into the air around him and retrieved the last wisp of a flame that had been burning in his soul. A dark wave of mana trapped it and he held it in his hand, like a lone spark. 

He closed his hand and crushed the wisp into a thread of ethereal smoke.

“Your magic is like the antithesis of necrotic energy,” he said as he studied it. “I can see so many things we could accomplish together. You would be the ultimate weapon against the elders. Killing you would be a waste of your potential. There is only one fate for you, and that is to serve me.” 

Kelin didn’t bother replying. He focused on absorbing the mana from the potion as he began weaving a new spell. 

Those two Wildfires had been his best bet, but since they hadn’t worked, it was clear that most other things wouldn’t either. He was out of extra energy and his mana and soul energy were flagging.

He had plenty of talismans, but they were all at the First Evolution, which meant they were only a drop in the bucket and almost useless.

There were only a couple of options left, including the Ember of Ash in his storage. He quickly retrieved the chunk of wood and held it in his sleeve.

He needed to target the ritual circle. 

It was the focus that was still giving the seer some control over the mausoleum. Even without the larger ritual outside, the City of Bones was a dangerous place. 

He couldn’t let the seer keep drawing on it.

The spell he was working on now was his best shot. 

His Second Evolution had given him two new Soulfire Runes and he’d been developing them at the back of his mind ever since.

They were called Incineration and Nimbus.

Incineration was a pure offensive rune, one that could focus Soulfire into a long-lasting flame that burned away other energy and material.

It was a good choice for dealing with the energy here, especially if he could combine it with the properties of Wildfire. Since it drew on the Law of Soulfire, it might be enough to burn through the density of the mana and then to keep burning.

As for Nimbus, that one was a linking rune. It allowed him to stabilize other energies inside a Soulfire enchantment, whether or not those runes were part of Soulfire’s aspects, and it was what gave him the confidence to combine Incineration and Wildfire. 

It also worked to extend the range of his spells and had some other effects, but it was the linking aspect that was essential here.

He was hoping it would be enough.

Runes flared between his hands as he wove the spell together, twisting Wildfire and Soulfire into a structure that looked like a prismatic golden flame.

He worked as quickly as he could, but the seer was recovering at the same time. The mana around the man was chaotic, which prevented him from using it easily, but it was still healing him.  

The seer stretched, releasing some cracking sounds as his bones adjusted. 

“You broke my link to the outside,” he said. “That was impressive, but it won’t be enough. That was my part of control enchantment that made it easier to draw on the dungeon’s mana, but it was only one link.”

He dusted off his shoulders and walked forward, stopping next to the two youths at the side of the ritual circle. Their eyes were closed and they seemed unaware of anything happening around them.

“These two are also linked to the ritual,” he said as he placed his hands on their heads. “And with their help, my control will be the same as before.”

His hands closed around their skulls and dark claws extended from them, tripling the size of his hands.

Then he twisted savagely.

The two youths’ necks shattered in his grip and he tore their heads off their necks. It left him holding a head in each hand. 

Kelin released a wave of Soul Paralysis through the area, which made the seer freeze for an instant, but it wasn’t enough to stop him.

It was just enough time for a couple of intensified Soulfire Bolts to slam into the man’s face.

The seer’s head snapped back as the spells hit him, but his body flared with wards that blocked most of the impact. 

The only result was that his nose shattered and blood trailed down from it, spilling across his lips and giving his face a demonic appearance. It was appropriate for the look in his eyes, which was dark and wild.

The two bodies fell to the ground and began decaying instantly under the force of the energies in the mausoleum. 

Streams of blood and flesh disintegrated from them, leaving only their bones behind.

The same thing happened to the heads in the seer’s hands, leaving him holding only two bare skulls. His expression barely changed and he only clucked his tongue.

“It’s too bad you’re making me do this,” he admitted, somewhat regretfully, “but you’ll be a better prize than they ever would have been. Their families will have to accept the loss.”

He began to chant something under his breath that twisted the air around him. 

The energies swirling through the mausoleum gathered and divided into two parts, one flowing into each skull. 

The skull in his left hand ignited with a white Bone flame, while the one in his right hand began to burn with a dark necrotic one. Then a violet aura appeared around both of them and spread through the area.

As soon as it did, the chaotic flows throughout the mausoleum calmed down. They turned into dark currents and began to swirl around the seer.

It was a little weaker than before, but only by a third.

The seer raised the skulls into the air and placed one beside each of his shoulders, where they floated. Mixed with the blood on his face, it gave him a macabre look, one that was fitting for his clothing and personality.

He smiled at Kelin and the two skulls opened their mouths, smiling as well in a gruesome echo.

“The more you fight, the more I like you,” he said, laughing. He stretched out his hand again and mana from the area flowed around him, dark and violent, but perfectly under his control. 

“What will you do when the entire world drowns your mind?” he asked. “Come, take my hand and follow me.”

He stretched out his hand and the enslavement spell returned again, a dozen times as strong as before, making a sense of incredible pressure settle on the area. 

Illusions of ghosts and people appeared between the two of them, flickering as they tried to reach Kelin and cross the distance. 

They surrounded him on every side.

It looked like space was wavering as the mausoleum became indistinct, like a mirage fading away, until only the hand reaching out for him was present. The mana around it was a deep pool, slowly swirling as it tried to draw him in.

Kelin’s attention was mostly on the spell he was weaving, but as the seer’s spell closed in, he snorted and flexed his will.  

A blade of soul energy sheared through the spell and shattered it. 

His soul wards weren’t what they’d been in his past life, but no illusion at this level had a chance of shaking him.

He sent a wave of Soul Ignition through the connection at the same time, trying to ignite the seer’s soul directly. 

The seer’s head snapped back again from the backlash as the illusion broke, but the energy he’d gathered absorbed the impact. More blood splattered his face and chest as it poured down from his nose like a river.

“You have a strong resistance,” the seer admitted, not bothering to wipe the blood away, “but it doesn’t matter. There’s enough energy in this room to enslave the minds of an entire army, and it’s all at my command. How long can your mana last? Mine is endless. You’ll be an excellent servant, whether you want to or not, even better than this one.”

He reached out and tapped the Boneslave Disciple on the skull, which made the undead turn to examine Kelin. It had been standing at the side all this time, waiting for an order. Its eyes glowed with a dark black flame.

“He was an enemy of mine once. Now, he’s a pet imbued with some power from the Lord of Bones.”

The seer flicked his sleeve and a wave of power from the room began to spiral around him, making his bones jump into sharp relief as they pressed against his skin. His aura resonated with the surroundings and more streams of energy began to sink into him.

His mana signature began to rise, radiating power intense enough to crush mountains to dust and boil oceans.

“Cripple him,” he ordered, pointing at Kelin. “Just leave him alive.”

As soon as the words left his lips, the Boneslave Disciple blurred as it crossed the distance. Its hands rose, revealing the sharp edges of its claws.

Kelin raised his staff as the undead approached. It was almost too fast to track, but as it crossed into his aura, a wall of stone appeared in its path.

That wall flew forward and slammed into the servant, showing that it was a massive stone fist. 

The blow hurled the creature across the room to the far side, where it crashed into a wall.

The mausoleum echoed with the impact, sounding like a great bone drum with a deep power that resonated in Kelin’s body, making his bones tremble in response, but the wall where the disciple had landed barely showed a mark.

The rest of Gaius’s body appeared behind the fist in a swirl of stone, forming slowly as he built himself up from nothing. He’d been lying in wait in the runes along Kelin’s skin until he was needed.

Now, he took the field.

As the disciple fell to the floor, fractures were obvious across its body and some of the bone plates protecting it had shattered, but it wasn’t enough to keep it down.

As it absorbed the necrotic energy in the area, the damage was disappearing and new bones formed to replace the broken parts.

It leapt back up and charged toward Kelin again.

Gaius stepped forward to meet it. His body was only half-formed due to the suppression of the area, making him look like half whirlwind and half avalanche, but his steps thundered on the bone floor. 

The undead slashed at the stone, but its claws left almost no mark, the impact disappearing as the stones spun through Gaius’s structure.

Another fist smashed into the undead and sent it flying again.

The bone plates protecting the creature absorbed most of the impact, and with the mana infusing it, it would be hard to keep it down.

Kelin glanced at the thing and flicked his hand, sending a couple of soul arrows at it. 

They seared through the air and disappeared into the servant’s soul, where they began to burn.

Then he ignored it, trusting that Gaius would keep it busy.

Gaius hammered at the thing, sending it flying across the room again, even as flames began to flicker through its body.  

The mana flowing into it fought against the flames, slowing down its regeneration, and Gaius began to get the upper hand.

He grabbed it by one leg and picked it up, and then he brought it down again, slamming it into the ground. After that, he smashed it into the wall. Bone shards flew in every direction.

“Impressive again,” the seer said, looking surprised as he took in the elemental and the flames burning around the undead. “Your resources are surprising, but it’s time to show you what this ritual can really do.

“I will flood you with bone energy from this place and enslave you directly. You already have the foundation for it. Your elemental will follow. I can see his Evolution is incomplete. He can become a Gravestone Elemental and devour the souls of the living to make them rise again.”

The area around the seer turned dark and began to spiral, creating a strange pattern of necrotic energy and Bone essence. 

The energy was so dense it was almost solid, like a night-black sphere of jade hanging in space, and it weighed on the area with intense force, making the floor of the mausoleum creak in protest.

The sphere began to spin, releasing tendrils of mana flared out. They landed on the discarded bones of the skeletal guards that had been in the mausoleum.

The corpses shuddered as their bones began to move, swiftly reassembling themselves into their old forms. Within seconds, there was a squad of dangerous-looking skeletons standing around the area.

More mana flowed out from the sphere and condensed in the air, turning into a row of shadowy wraiths that joined the skeletons.

The seer’s subclass was a Boneweaver Savant, which was a variant of a necromancer. He focused on curses and controlling minds, but he still had the ability to summon undead.

Every one of them was at Level 299, just barely below the Third Evolution, but the mana flowing through them was like a river as the mausoleum filled them with power. 

They weren’t normal undead. Their souls were part of the mausoleum, not independent. 

If Wildfire tried to burn them, it would be the same as trying to burn down the entire ritual at once.

“These undead are empowered by the Lord of Bones,” the seer said. “They have endless energy, as do I.”

The seer pointed at Kelin and the undead turned as one to look at him. Their eyes were glowing pools of dark mana and arcs of blue lightning.

“Convert the elemental and hold the mage,” the seer ordered. 

The wraiths flew toward Kelin while the skeletons leapt across the floor toward Gaius. It only took a moment before they encircled them both.

There were a dozen of each type and they attacked in an instant.

The wraiths arrived first, their forms lengthening into long shadows tipped with claws as they dove toward Kelin.

Their claws sliced across his mana field and he pulled it back. He didn’t have the mana to spare to block all of the blows, so he put his faith in his physique. 

Trails of blood began to run down his chest and shoulders as the wraiths tore at him. It flared with golden flames and a tinge of darkness from the necrotic energy in their touch.

A feeling of coldness spread across his body, stretching from wound to wound, but he didn’t have the attention to spare for it. 

Then the skeletons reached Gaius.

Each of them was almost as strong as the Boneslave Disciple and they carried weapons that were covered in a dark aura. The disciple hadn’t managed to harm the elemental, but these cut deeply into Gaius’s structure.

Gaius let out a deep roar of anger as spears stabbed into the whirling stones and disrupted his essence, but he kept fighting.

His fists slammed down into the skeletons, shattering their bones and hurling them away, and he began to make his way back across the area to protect Kelin.

Skeletons shattered as they struck the walls, but they reformed swiftly, their bodies rebuilding themselves. They flung themselves back again, tearing into the elemental.

It was like a pack of wild dogs savaging a bear. 

Gaius grabbed one of them and crushed its neck and head before he hurled it away, but three more leapt onto his arm and stabbed into it with darkly glowing blades.

With each blow, necrotic energy entered his structure and savaged his mana flow, pressing threateningly against his spirit.

To help, Kelin created a Flame of Life and sent the phoenix spirit soaring toward Gaius. Its wings flared outward, shedding droplets of flame that burned away the necrotic energy.

It flew in a tight circle, soaring around the elemental’s head, and its light illuminated the area, like a beacon of life in the darkness, and Ascending Flame made it burn more brightly with every moment.

It was enough to drive away some of the undead energy, even as more piled on.

Gaius hurled another skeleton away and then picked up two more, crushing them to pieces against each other in an explosion of bones. Then he grabbed another pair and slammed them against each other, adding them to the pile of broken shards.

Normally, he would have been able to lock them in bands of stone, but it was all he could do at the moment to hold his body together inside the mausoleum. He didn’t have the spare mana or earth to move around.

He stomped across the floor and took up a position in front of Kelin, where he began to attack the wraiths as well. His fists flew through their shadowy forms, tearing them apart into shadows, and stone lances pierced the air, stabbing at ones that tried to approach.

Golden runes glowed all around him and on Kelin’s body as the elemental shared his strength, trying to keep everything away. 

It gave Kelin the opportunity to keep working on his spell, and for a moment, it worked. 

Gaius stood tall, blocking every blow from two dozen undead that were close to the Third Evolution. 

He was like a towering wall with hands.

But with every blow that landed on him, more necrotic energy flowed into his body, until it looked like a growing shadow.  It was already covering half of him, slowing down the shifting of the stones he was made from. 

The energy was also infiltrating his mana flow, making it harder for him to move.

The phoenix circling the elemental poured its energy into him until its wings dimmed and then it shattered into sparks, which fell down on Gaius and burned away what they could, but it was a candle against a wave of night.

The seer stood at the back, smiling as he watched. The energy flow around him was just as strong as before.

Every time Gaius tore apart an undead, it reformed and leapt at him again.

At that moment, Gaius stumbled. 

The necrotic energy was covering three quarters of his body and his stones began to shatter, turning to dust as he lost the ability to control some of them.

His form began to disintegrate, held together only by his stubborn refusal to give in.

He forced the necrotic energy away, pushing it into one section of his body, and hurled the tainted section away. 

Stones crumbled as they flew through the air, disintegrating into dust.

It left him barely larger than Kelin, with just a handful of stones circling through a humanoid whirlwind. 

The undead didn’t hesitate as they stabbed into him again, leaving new trails of shadow.

“He’s almost one of mine,” the seer said, chuckling, “like you will be. You'll never be able to trust him again."

“Tempting,” Kelin replied, “but that’s not going to happen. Gaius, go home.”

There was a rumble of refusal from the elemental, a stubborn will to stay, but Kelin sent a pulse of reassurance.

With that, Gaius gave in, his form disintegrating as his spirit returned to the soul chamber. The necrotic energy affecting him was burned away as he returned, unable to cross inside the wards.

Kelin took the impact of it, burning away the residue as it struck his soul.

With Gaius gone, the undead shifted their attention to him and without Gaius’s stoneskin runes to harden his body, the bone lances stabbed into his shoulders, legs, and arms, pouring in necrotic energy and Bone essence both. 

His Constitution held up for the moment under the blows, blunting a lot of the damage, but the necrotic energy continued to spread.

Wraiths tore at him, trying to shred away his skin and cripple his tendons and muscles, and with every touch, he turned colder. His soulfire flared and sparked, drawing on his mana as it fought for him, but he cut it off with absolute refusal.

The spell in his hands was more important and it was almost complete.

The undead were following the seer’s instructions and avoided his heart and head, but a bone spear ripped straight through his stomach and tore out the back, while claws shredded his shoulders and the tendons below.

Four blades pierced through his limbs, and then two spears stabbed through his lungs, one on each side.

He looked like an undead pincushion.

“Stop,” the seer ordered as he walked forward, bringing all of the undead to a halt. “That’s enough.”

He stopped just in front of Kelin, his deranged smile growing larger as he examined him.

“A perfect opportunity,” he said as he raised his hand. “Your bones have an excellent foundation, but this area is full of the lord’s true essence, so it’s time to push it further. You will be a powerful servant, one bound to his will and mine. Once your bones are altered, they will be warding spells controlling you completely. Perhaps I’ll leave your thoughts, but your bones will be mine. I’ll enjoy our conversations in the future.”

As the seer spoke, a spiral of white and black sprang up behind him and streams of energy flowed toward Kelin, following the path of the spears and blades that had stabbed into his body.

A massive influx of necrotic energy and Bone essence poured into his bones.

The whispers of the dungeon returned in a flood, roaring through Kelin’s mind as shouts and screams, broken fragments of old voices, howling spirits, and weeping ghosts.

All of them were furious and greedy.

They wanted the essence in his bones, the reality of a physical body, and to live again. 

His bones creaked under the force, sections disintegrating and being replaced in an instant as they broke and reformed again harder. 

Strange symbols appeared in them, ones from the Law of Bones, and necrotic energy flooded through the center, killing the marrow. 

It was horrifyingly painful, like needles tearing through the center of every bone, but Kelin’s eyes were calm as he ignored it.

He’d felt worse.

All of his attention was on the spell in his hands and the Ember of Ash, even as his soulfire flickered and faded from his bones that were closest to the wounds.

Then he looked up, smiling slightly as he held the seer’s eyes.

“Sometimes, right at the edge of victory,” he said, “you realize you’ve been playing the wrong game.”

With that, he finished weaving the last rune in the spell he’d been working on. It was complete and resting on his palm, even though he couldn’t feel it.

He didn’t need to feel it to know that it was there. 

It was bright in his mind’s eye.

The spell looked like a miniature palace made of flames, one with hundreds of runes flowing through it at every moment to create walls and towers, spires and fortifications.

It was a beautiful structure, one he’d created with the inheritance of Irian Mana Weaving, and it all came together in a complex structure with a single purpose.

At the heart where the throne room was, there were the core runes of Incineration and Nimbus, connected to everything around them like radiant stars. 

Around that, Wildfire burned, as well as all the laws he had access to.

It looked small, but it was incredibly powerful.