Breaking Through The Centre


    Two of the elders who were good at melee rushed forward to intercept Richard, giving the others time to break the encirclement of vines and open up a path for reinforcements. Richard had justnded and couldn’t stand up in time, so they took the opportunity to strike.


    However, the foremost elder only saw Richard open his mouth before the air seemed to distort. Dark red mes blew out in a cone, abyssal mes burning both elders as well as the few other melee fighters left on the tform. One of the druids who didn’t escape in time was burnt into a crisp as well, his own body and mana bing fuel for the fire.


    Many of the druids who were casting spells slowed down from pure fear, almost losing control of their spells. However, Richard didn’t take the chance to retreat as he instead flew thirty metres into the air, his arms spread wide andunching a rain of lightning, ice, wind, and fire down on the enemy. Manacycle was pushed to the extreme, stacking multiple spells on top of each other for extreme destructive power.


    More than a dozen of the elders shot their spells towards him, but each attack was met with one of Richard’s own. Everything collided right in the centre, the different streams of energy exploding with no use.


    The elves who saw this could hardly believe their eyes. A single human was taking on more than a dozen grand druids evenly! Was this person in the legendary realm?


    Of course, Richard himself knew that he wasn’t taking on the druids evenly. ze and Manacycle just granted him the ability to pour out much more mana than almost anyone else at his level, but his mana pool itself was limited. In only two more volleys he would be drained dry. The first exchange of attacks ended in an explosive stalemate, but the sharper druids had already started preparing their next spells.


    It was at this time that the tform shook violently, knocking most of the spellcasting elders down and interrupting them. A mountainous figure had just mmed down from above, the wood cracking under his feet to leak green fluid. Another small figure followed behind, but this one shot right through and to the tform below.


    Tiramisu jumped up the moment hended, turning around to look for Mountainsea whose entrance was supposed to be even grander than his, but all he could find was a hole. With Eleventon and her special vambrace her weight exceeded even his; given her smaller size, she broke through the wood entirely.


    Richard flew down the moment Tiramisu arrived, cing a hand on the wood and lighting the tform ame. A line of fire quickly spread towards the elders, fireballs the size of fists constantly jumping out from within. The treehouse on the tform was smashed apart, finally revealing the ck-robed man within.


    Richard stared fixedly at the ck-robed man as he drew Moonlight from the sword case, hands already bright red as though stained with blood. The fires on the ground suddenly erupted into walls on either side, isting the two from the rest of the battlefield. The sheer heat of the mes left the elves reluctant to assist, not that they would have been eager even otherwise; given the time to engage, Richard rushed over to the enemy even as he shot a fireball out.


    The ck-robed man squatted low, hands stretching out as ck mes spewed forth to counter the attack. Both fires crashed and actuallybined in his hands, turning into a huge orb of mes that was right before the man’s hands. Just as he was about to shoot thisbined me back, however, the man saw Richard’s figure blur from ten metres away.


    Richard took an instant to travel all ten metres, left fist crashing right into the mixed mes. The barely-stable mes immediately exploded, swallowing both the ck-robed man and Richard himself. Richard’s epic-grade robes were burnt to ash, as were those of the enemy to reveal a humanoid with the head of a goat.


    The explosion forced the two to separate, but Richard only took two steps back before stopping and lifting Moonlight into the air. The red colour of Lifesbane even extended to the de itself, and everyone seemed to see a red moon in the sky.


    The goat-headed monster saw Moonlight and screamed hysterically as it tried to step back, but Richard shed over in a single step and cut it apart vertically. It immediately froze in ce as Richard withdrew his de, the blood-like colour already vanishing from both de and arms.


    The enemy must have been powerful in his own right, but there was no way to show it. Richard had pushed Lifsebane to its limits and activated Disintegrator, merging with it the power of the crimson moon. This single strike wiped out all of his reserved energy, mana, and moonforce.


    Nobody else saw the sheer power of it at first; the goat-headed man still remained standing in ce. Many of the elves eximed at the sight, but one of the elders gritted her teeth and shot a grade 9 spell in Richard’s direction. The attack drained so much that she coughed up blood, but just as it was about tond Waterflower shed out from somewhere and pulled Richard out of the way. The powerful spell, almost an orb of pure mana, flew right past their scalps and destroyed a nearby tree.


    Waterflower immediately picked Richard up, leaping towards the astral chrysalis for safety. He had exhausted himself, but there were still many enemies who wanted his life.


    Richard looked down, only to see the goat-headed monster still standing there, eyes burning with unwillingness. The moment their gazes met, he felt a scream in his mind: “MY MASTER WILL AVENGE ME!”


    In the next moment, the body crumpled to the ground. The attack hadn’t been a physical one, instead crushing the very soul. Richard shook his head; if he didn’t know that he had cut through the enemy’s existencepletely, he might even believe this thing was still alive.


    Many other elders quickly came back to their minds, aiming their spells at Waterflower and Richard. However, Phaser silently appeared behind one of them and slit his throat with Annihtion. This was the elder who had justunched the grade 9 spell; unable to move from the exertion, he could do nothing to avoid his death.


    A pale gold glow suddenly covered the entire tform, space seemingly distorting within range. The elven elders suddenly found themselves losing control of the spells they were forming, the mana growing so chaotic that it threatened to explode. The elves were horrified at the thought; such arge number of high-level spells exploding would destroy the tform and anyone on it, but try as they might they continued to lose control.


    These druids were all experienced. Left with no choice, they forcefully cancelled their spells. Forcing such amounts of mana back into one’s body was bound to cause injuries as well, but that was much better than near-certain death.


    The golden curtain onlysted a few seconds before it was gone, but Noelene sighed in relief as she fell back onto the astral chrysalis. This was one of the Church’s strongest techniques in dealing against spellcasters; distortions in time were a fatal blow to such delicate arts as spellcasting. It had been draining, but Waterflower and Richard made it back to the chrysalis safe and sound.