ALL NOVEL 78 - The Abjurator
Lieze pulled herself up and out of the sewers with laboured breaths. Not a second later, she was diving behind her Gravewalkers as shining javelins of light fell from the sky like raindrops. A battle like no other was unfolding, and she’d managed to emerge directly behind it. Past the scores of censer-wielding priests, she could hear the sounds of flesh tearing and the horrified screams of those overwhelmed by Drayya’s thralls.
“As expected, she’s gone and bitten off more than she can chew…” Lieze muttered, “We were right to flank them, although I wish we could have surfaced in an alleyway, rather than the middle of the road…”
She was vulnerable. The manhole had created a bottleneck for her thralls. Only 30 or so had managed to surface in the time it took for the formation of soldiers to take notice of them. She would need to buy a minute or so for her forces to assemble.
Her hand disappeared into the fathomless depths of her Bag of Holding, fingers wrapping around the cold glass neck of a potion flask. With only a cursory glance at the azure solution within, she popped the cork and downed the entire thing in a matter of seconds, clenching her eyes in disgust at the bitter flavour.
Lieze’s MP - 1,140 / 1,140
Condition Gained - Alchemy Sickness
Without wasting another second, she brandished her magical focus and concentrated on creating a [Blood Barrier] large enough to protect her thralls for a few precious seconds.
Lieze’s HP - 220 / 245
Lieze’s MP - 740 / 1,140
Interestingly, there was no limit to the size or shape of Lieze’s [Blood Barrier]. She could choose to encircle herself and nearby allies or morph it into a shape suited to her current needs, such as when she created a ‘plug’ to protect a sewer entrance when she and her comrades were escaping from the square.
Of course, making the barrier large would also make it simpler to target, and its size didn’t necessarily reflect its strength - a detail she hoped the soldiers wouldn’t pick up on. At her command, 8 litres of blood flowed from her Bag of Holding to create a barrier of undulating matter in the air above her position, creating a shield capable of absorbing the priests’ javelins.
“Sorcerers! Don’t waste your time breaking that barrier!” The guard captain screamed, “Turn your attention back to the front! Knights - move to the rear and eliminate the monstrosities at our rear!”
“It worked…” Lieze thought, “The barrier isn’t that strong, but it’s large enough to intimidate them. Now I need something to keep those knights distracted while Drayya pushes through…”
“My lady!”
As a member of her group emerged from the sewers, he ran over to take cover beneath the [Blood Barrier], peering forward to see a line of plate-clad knights marching towards their position.
“We won’t have the numbers to hold them back until all of our thralls have made it out of the sewers!” He exclaimed, “Do you have a plan!?”
A plan. Yes - that was what she needed. But no matter how fiercely she combed her brain, there didn’t seem to be an effective strategy for repelling the knights.
“[Blood Spikes] can’t target enough of them at once… another barrier will only buy a few seconds, at the very most. My [Heavenly Favours] are useless… isn’t there anything?”
In a flash of pure inspiration, she recalled her first foray into the sewers with Drayya. When the two of them had encountered one of Marché’s thralls, she reached an epiphany: there was no need to wait for the scale to supply her with new strength. At her current level of power, she could easily pioneer her own techniques with a little thought.
“We have a few Gravewalkers here… weak, low-level thralls… expendable…” She thought, “Higher-level thralls require more magical power to raise… if I concentrated that magical power into a thrall that couldn’t contain it…”
Something pierced her mind, like a brass tack being inserted into her brain.
Technique Learned
Type: [Spell] Name: [Corpse Explosion]
Description - Description - Spend 3x a targeted thrall’s level in MP, causing its body to instantly rupture. Anyone caught in the explosion’s radius is dealt HP damage equal to 8x the thrall’s level. The explosion radius increases proportionally to a thrall’s size. No matter how much HP the targeted thrall has, its HP is instantly reduced to 0.
Unique Undead Learned - [Wailing Cube]
Secret Quest "Breaking the Mold" Complete!
Description - Invent a new type of undead creature
Reward - 2,000xp
“That’s it!”
The cultist crouching next to her held out an arm in surprise as she launched forward, kicking a Gravewalker in the spine with all her might and sending it tumbling towards the encroaching knights. At the same time, she used her focus to channel an absurd amount of MP into the thrall’s body, causing the veins beneath its rotting musculature to inflate before exploding in a shower of boiling blood and steam.
Lieze’s MP - 722 / 1,140
The explosion was larger than Lieze had anticipated - enough to knock her clean off her feet as flecks of crimson dashed her robes. The knight who had been unfortunate enough to be standing right next to the thrall suffered an even worse fate, their screams bouncing across the street as shards of bone pierced their armour and helpings of scalding blood ate away at their exposed flesh.
The sight was so gruesome as to instil the victims’ comrades with indecisiveness - more than enough time for Lieze to push yet another thrall into a cluster of their forces before detonating its corpse yet again.
Lieze’s MP - 701 / 1,140
She recoiled that time, turning her face to avoid being splattered with boiling flesh and resisting the flash of hot air accompanying the explosion. But she was not afraid. Rather, she was ecstatic. The cruel torture unfurling in front of her eyes was the result of her own efforts. There would be no end to the inspiration she could draw from suffering.
“Damn witch!” One of the knights shielded his visor with one arm before grasping his longsword in both hands, “By the Wyrm’s grace, I shall be your executioner!”
Noble were his words and actions, but poor was his perception, as the knight was too focused on Lieze in that moment to notice the silhouette dropping from the heavens behind him, greatsword reflecting in the ethereal moonlight as it descended with fearsome speed.
Armour and flesh became one under the weight of that weapon, which passed from the tip of the knight’s helmet down to his waist before striking the road with a terrible screech. In one instant, the knight had been cleaved in two, twin expressions trapped in a mixture of loathing and fury. Both halves fell with a wet splat, leaving only a Briarknight where the royalist once stood.
“Helmach…” Lieze spoke the name with an instinctive hatred, “No… I shouldn’t lower myself to respecting the name of a dead man.”
Even so, the thrall had appeared to save her. She found a deeply satisfying humour in such irony.
Thanks to Lieze’s stalling efforts, most of the Gravewalkers and Flesh Elementals had risen from the sewers, completing her pincer attack. All that remained was to flatten the royalist defenders from both sides.
“Prepare your [Blood Magic]!” She turned to her followers, “Support the Gravewalkers while Drayya pushes through from the other side!”
Following her own advice, she held out a hand, allowing blood to flow from her Bag of Holding. As she began morphing it into a javelin, however, there was a strange sound - like shattering glass - followed by a wave of violet symbols which travelled across the ground from her rear, spreading to the end of the road and over the rooftops of nearby homes.
Technique Observed (+5%)
As the symbols ran under her feet, the blood levitating above Lieze’s hand went inert, coating her palm in sticky globules of crimson. The flashing visions of the Blackbriar she’d become so accustomed to seeing were cut off without a word of warning.
“What…?” Flexing her fingers as if expecting the spell to resume, Lieze broke her gaze off from the royalist defenders, “Was that… an abjuration spell!?”
The answer to that question wasn’t far off. Deeper into the district, where civilians were breaking down their own doors to escape from her army, another group of royalists and priests was already approaching, and spearheading its movements was a familiar face.
“...Furainé.” Lieze spat.
It was difficult to see, but as she graced the streetside lamplight, Lieze could have sworn that Furainé was wearing the same insufferable smile as ever.
“We don’t have any time to lose!” She declared, “Our spells have been sealed! We need to push through these defenders and regroup with Drayya before Furainé reaches us!”
The time for strategy was over. Lieze discarded the metaphorical ‘leash’ she was using to command her thralls, allowing them to charge and lash out as they pleased. At the very least, it seemed like she still had the power to command them - most likely due to the fact that their corpses were animated by the Blackbriar’s will, rather than her own.
With the knights decimated by her [Corpse Explosion] spells, the Briarknight had a clear gap in the formation to charge into. Spears prepared to halt its advance created an impassable wall, only to be rendered useless as the Briarknight cleared their reach by leaping into the air, forcing two spears to the ground with its feet and causing their wielders to lose balance, heads bending forward as if offering themselves up to the thrall.
With one stroke, their heads were separated from their bodies. The Briarknight dashed behind the line of spearmen, exploiting the slowness of their weapons to tear gashes in the backs of three soldiers, further ruining the impenetrable formation and opening up a fine hole to be exploited by the approaching Gravewalkers and Flesh Elementals.
Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the royalists, Drayya was shaking her hand with a confused look.
“What? I can’t be out of mana! I’ve barely used a single spell!” She complained, “Something’s not right…”
She didn’t have to pay much attention to the battle. Their Rot Behemoths were unstoppable, charging into spears and swords like boulders of flesh, sundering the enemy’s cohesion while her Gravewalkers continued to push further into their ranks. As gaps appeared in their numbers, however, she was enlightened to quite a worrying sight - yet another group approaching from behind Lieze’s position.
“Oh… it can never be easy, can it?” She lamented, “Where has Marché gotten to…? I sincerely hope he’s planning to make a contribution to this battle at some point…”
Her train of thought was interrupted by the sight of the Helmach-Briarknight slicing through one of the Church sorcerers directly ahead, followed in passing by Lieze who was using the devastation left in the Briarknight’s wake as cover to cross the battle’s chaos with some modicum of safety.
“Oh, Lieze.” Drayya blinked, “I don’t know if it’s just me, but-”
She was nearly knocked over as the girl continued her sprint and caught Drayya by the shoulders.
“Furainé is coming!” She declared, “She’s using some kind of abjuration magic! Our spells have been sealed! We need to retreat while we wait for it to wear off!”
“Furainé!? Abjuration magic!?” Drayya lifted Lieze’s hands with her own, “Why bother waiting!? I’ll tear that harpy apart with my bare hands if that’s what it takes!”
“Let’s not make any rash decisions.” Lieze replied, “This group of royalists is finished. We’re not running, just getting a better idea of how to proceed. Once we learn the nature of her spell and locate Marché’s group, you can throw yourself into her arms for all I care.”
“Mmh… fine.” Drayya relented, “-But I’m not leaving this district until I have Furainé’s severed head in my grasp!”