175 - Collapse

Alexandra acted before the ambient darkness could recover and snuff out her perception again. Sword in hand, she took a step toward the Architect.

When her foot hit the ground, she realized what she was about to do. She couldn’t let him live. She couldn’t let any of Lila’s subordinates live. They were after her.

Were they?

She assumed it was the case. They would have no reason to come to the basin otherwise.

Could they even recognize her? Again, she had to assume it was the case. Like the Keepers of the Iron Ink, one didn’t become a fully-fledged Architect of Humanity before reaching Platinum. Presumably, those men weren’t blessed by Peshan. They wouldn’t detect her divine class even if it wasn’t shrouded by the sickness of the false sun.

But if they were after her, they had to carry a description of her physical appearance with them. Maybe she should wear a mask…

Then again, nothing screamed she had something to hide more than hiding her face.

No. She had to kill them. She’d killed before, but the circumstances felt different. This time, it was cold-blooded.

Alexandra steeled herself and kept walking toward the man she had found. If only she were Gold-rank like him, she’d finally get a chance to recover her lost lifeforce.

She stopped a few steps away from him. The Architect didn’t react. He couldn’t see her. From up close and beneath a heavy helmet, his facial expression was imprinted clearly within her perception. His eyes were darting left and right, narrowed as if it would help them pierce through the veil. Sweat pearled down his forehead. He was young. Younger than her. His heart was beating fast.

A darkness elemental was harassing him, unable to pierce through his armor. She frowned and adjusted her grip on her sword. There was no gap where she could strike.

Unwilling to alert her target, she considered her options. Her solar skills weren’t working properly. Even with the progress she’d made, it wouldn’t be enough to cut through his armor. She might be able to cook him alive, as the heat component was less affected than the light.

Too much.

She wasn’t quite willing to stoop so low. Not yet.

Dark Bolt was a sure hit, but to affect a Gold she’d probably get a sickness. Not worth it.

I guess it’s Drain Life.

It would take longer, so it wasn’t necessarily more humane than the cooking method. She didn’t like it, but she also didn’t lose sight of the fact she was up against a Gold. Even if her stats were approaching that rank, she was still Bronze rank.

Being careful was a necessity.

She checked on Speck. The elemental was still entangled with its brethren. From the unadulterated glee filtering through their link, she got the idea that her familiar was winning.

Alright, let’s do it.

Drain Life.

She wove a thread of mana toward the Architect. When it reached its armor, something happened. Foreign mana lunged at her thread and snapped it.

Fuck. I should have known the armor was enchanted.

The disturbance didn’t escape the man’s attention. He might be struggling in this complete darkness, but any would-be Architect was elite and highly trained.

Through her senses, she saw him shift.

She quickly pulled back her thread, afraid that he would be able to track her through it.

He opened his mouth. Spoke. The darkness swallowed his voice.

The sound of steel banging against steel rang to her left. Nothing entered the bounds of her perception.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

I guess there’s no other way.

Alexandra bit her lip as she prepared Rays Of The Sun. For cooking, slow and steady was the way. Solar Blast was all about burst release. It was hot, but she believed that his armor was sturdy enough to withstand her weaker skill.

To be fair, since evolving, Rays Of The Sun was simply a better and more versatile spell to the point where Solar Blast had lost most, if not all, of its use.

She cast Rays Of The Sun near the man, making sure to suppress the light component of the spell so that he wouldn’t see her. Heat rose.

But as it rose, the heat chased the darkness elemental away. Alexandra couldn’t see where it went. All she knew was that it had stopped attacking the Architect.

Not ideal, but the elemental wasn’t getting through that armor anyway.

Yet it wasn’t the end of her troubles. The Architect located the source of the heat and used a skill to dispel it.

“Shit,” she whispered.

The man spoke again. This time, she didn’t need to hear it to understand what he was saying.

“Who goes there?”

Or something along that line.

Alexandra took a step back, keeping him at the edge of her perception. She was in a pinch. Nothing she tried was working.

She knew why, too. Rays Of The Sun wasn’t meant to be used like that. The solar energy was supposed to travel long distances, keeping the source of the spell safe from her enemies. The darkness stopping that, she had to expose it to him.

She gritted her teeth and tried a Solar Blast instead. The result was a lot more immediate. A loud explosion rang in their confined corner of darkness.

As expected, the man’s armor was enough to block it.

I don’t have infinite mana.

She really had to stop going underground.

A quick scan of the armor revealed that it was completely undamaged. Firing more blasts wasn’t going to change that.

Free from the elemental’s harassment, the Architect moved, sweeping his surroundings with his spear as he slowly stepped toward her.

It seemed like her spells had been enough to tip him off.

She stepped back. As long as she had the perception advantage, she would be fine.

One Solar Blast wasn’t enough. Many Solar Blasts wouldn’t be enough either. But what about one big, massive, ultra-condensed Solar Blast?

Solar Blast was born from Heat Blast. Both skills radiated heat, but in truth the blast was a result of pressure.

Solar Blast – Common:

Cast a blast of solar-mana-induced pressure.

Each level increases the blast’s maximum power.

Alexandra pushed mana into her skill and didn’t let go.

The mana within her core surged, threads swirling as Alexandra poured every ounce of willpower into maintaining the spell. Instead of letting the pressure detonate instantly, she locked the spell in place. She compressed the solar mana into a dense sphere, clamping down hard against its desperate urge to expand.

Sweat slicked her palms, her knuckles turning white around the hilt of her sword as the sheer strain threatened to tear the spell from her control. Solar Blast was meant to be a simple, common skill, a quick burst of pressure and heat. But as she forced more and more mana into the tiny point, the spell's fundamental structure began to groan under the weight of her intent.

She didn't want an explosion. She wanted pressure.

The heat radiated backward through her mana threads and into her own flesh, blistering her skin, but she ignored the pain.

Then she knew.

That’s it.

Alexandra didn't hesitate. She locked onto the Architect's position.

The young Gold-rank felt the sudden shift in atmospheric density. He swung his spear in her direction, but he was too far.

She released her spell.

A horrifying, hollow thump echoed as a sphere of absolute pressure snapped around his torso.

The plate armor, impenetrable to her sword, resilient against her heat, and fortified with enchantments, offered but a second of screeching metal resistance before it gave.

The thick metal plates buckled, folded, and crushed inward like a tin can caught underfoot. The steel groaned as it collapsed against the young man’s chest. The air was expelled from his lungs in a choked gasp, his spear dropping from his hand as the pressure compressed his upper body into a fraction of its original width.

The sphere of collapsed space released its hold, and the Architect slumped to the ground in a ruined, misshapen heap of mangled steel.

Alexandra removed her perception from the scene, unable to bear witness to what she’d done.

Solar Blast has evolved into Solar Collapse

Solar Collapse – Uncommon:

Cast an implosive sphere of compressed solar pressure.

Each level increases the skill's maximum pressure and crushing force.

Alexandra cleared her throat, spitting out the foul taste that came up from her guts. Her skin stung from the burns. She had spent a little too much mana, but physically, she was fine.

Her stomach churned as she remembered the misshapen heap, a cold wave of disgust washing over her, but she forced herself to focus. She didn't have the luxury to process it. The oppressive dark was already folding back over the dead Architect, and the surrounding cavern remained a battlefield. Muted, violent hums of fighting echoed on. The rest of Lila's squad wasn't going to vanish just because one Gold was down, and she still didn’t know how the Paladins of Yshar would react to her presence.

She shook out her sword hand, re-centered her perception, and moved. Speck was almost done with its meal.