Sean’s POV

“Slinking off to hide somewhere?” I snarled as I intercepted Olearis as he tried to leave.

“Guards!” He yelled, sending the two nearby guards towards me. They were covered nearly head to toe in void steel, and already Olearis was starting to run. Fortunately for me, voidsteel was only physically as strong as steel plate. Three shots to each head, and the bodies were falling to the ground and bleeding out. I looked up just in time to see him just about to the exit, so I created a stone slab in front of the door.

“What the?” he turned around, paling as he saw me walking between the dead guards. “You know magic? Then perhaps I can offer you-“ His voice was cut off as I shot him in the forehead as well.

“OW! THAT HURT YOU SONOFABITCH!” He snarled, and I flinched when I saw the bullet forcibly pushed back out of his head and clatter to the ground. “Burst forth, Serpentia Horde!” He cried, flinging an arm in my direction and unleashing hundreds of snakes in an instant.

“Icy rampart!” I borrowed Elendria’s favorite move, flinching as several snakes slammed against the ice hard enough to crack it. There were a few that started phasing through the ice, but by the time they made it through there was a roaring fire waiting for them.

“Lightning bolt!” I countered after the snake assault had stopped, only to glare as the bolt struck his outstretched left hand and coursed down the side of his body, seemingly doing no damage whatsoever.

“Fast spellcasting won’t save you from his constricting coils! Cloying Darkness!” I had no sooner banished the snakes when Olearis sent his next series of attacks at me, this time inky blackness that covered half the room. My darkvision wasn’t effected, though I decided to play like it was. “Beware, foolish human. These shadows bite.” He released several teeth of shadow that moved through the darkness like fish swimming in the ocean.

“Show yourself you bastard!” I cried, spinning in place and sending lances of flame out to no avail. I knew they would be swallowed by the darkness, but didn’t want to give away how many elements I could manipulate. I was also enjoying the air of frustration Olearis was giving off as each of his teeth either barely missed due to a last second flail or inadvertently became roasted by a lucky lance of flame.

“Come in silence and strike with swiftness, carrying your prey to the Underworld. I summon thee, Nehebkau!” Olearis hissed, and I saw a dark green serpent as big around as my thigh form and slither towards me. Once it reached behind me and started rising, I swiveled my hips and unleashed the spell I had been building.

“Arctic blast!” a cone of cold air blasted out, mixed with just enough shadow magic that it was able to move through the cloying darkness around us and engulf the surprised serpent. I leapt backwards, using a blast from my wings that I rapidly withdrew. With all the separate battles going on, I didn’t want to leave a pair of massive wings hanging about, even if they resisted physical damage.

“Underworld flames!” Olearis hissed, blasting his summoned creature and driving away the cold air surrounding it. “By my permission, carry him to the Underworld!” Olearis called, and I swore I saw a smile on the snake. Then he spat a glob of poison that struck me in the chest. It felt like my entire body was being taken over by ice, and searing pain shot through me as the world around us faded into a featureless fog with just myself and the summoned snake. As I watched, he morphed into a more hybrid form, keeping the snake head but on a human torso.

“Welcome, to purgatory human.” He smiled, stepping forward as he conjured a spear made out of fog. “Here, all your system attributes mean nothing, as your body was left far behind. You are but a spirit, and will have to relearn how to move and interact with everything. Pity you won’t have the time.” He said, thrusting the spear towards my chest.

“Ice bolt!” I snarled, batting the spear aside with one mana gloved hand as I sent a spear of ice into his thigh, staggering him as his eyes widened in disbelief.

“Ha- ha- how?” He stammered as I drew myself back up to full height.

“It won’t matter, you won’t live long enough for the knowledge to benefit you.” I said, sending my senses into the fog around us. I probably shouldn’t have been too surprised to find that it was mostly spirit particles and not water. I flexed my will, and a few physical laws, and suddenly I was holding a halberd with a large hook on the backside and a vicious axe head.

“We’ll see! HAAAAAA!” I moved forward to hook his leg and sweep him off his feet, but he breathed a wall of green flames that sent danger warnings through my body. I leapt backwards, using a gravity assist as I didn’t want to touch those flames with my wings, and I was glad I did. The flames rapidly devoured the small mana shield I had left behind before bathing my former position.

“What’s the matter, human? Can’t take the heat?” He taunted as I started circling him. Each time I would try and feint, he would counter with a more concentrated blast of those damned flames, one that I was forced to counter with a bubble of mana for it to consume. To make matters worse, he had removed the ice spike and it had healed already. That’s when I got a crazy idea. We were already surrounded by spirit particles, why not use them to launch divine magic?

“Divine ice bolt.” I calmly said, blasting the same thigh that I had earlier, only this time the bolt nearly took off his leg!

“AAAAH! Divine magic? But how?” He cried as he tried to crawl away. “Brother’s help me!”

Not wanting him to get away before reinforcements could arrive, I leaped on top of him and started to bring my halberd down on top of his skull when two other creatures appeared.

“Hold a moment, human.” The one with the head of a bird said while waiving a hand, while the one with the head of a crocodile simply looked on. As his hand finished, I felt my entire body lock up. I struggled against it, as the spike of my halberd was right at the base of Nehebkau’s skull. “Perhaps there is a boon we might offer in exchange for our partner’s life?”

“Yes! Yes! I can give you information about Olearis! I know how his bonded armor works!” Nehebkau started speaking as quickly as possible.

“I already know.” I said, finding that at least my jaw could work. “He turned it into woven threads that are layered throughout his body. That’s why he could stop my bullet and why the lightning bolt did no damage.”

“Not just that!” He said. “All throughout his body! He has wrapped each bone in layers as well, so that in case it breaks he can still move!”

“Hmm, now that is something I hadn’t realized.” I said, relaxing my arms a bit. The bird guy’s magic lessened as well, but I wasn’t quite done. “In addition to that, everything has a weakness. Tell me what the weakness void armor has, and I’ll let you go.”

“Heh, I like this guy.” Crocodile head said. “Get information that can be useful against more than just the immediate fight.”

“Void steel is formed from the chaotic and trace eldritch energies of the void. You need a divine, ordered magic!” he cried from beneath me.

“Divine ordered magic?” I mused, thinking. “Divine light.” I said, shooting off a beam of white light into the outlying fog.

“Too random!” He cried, squirming a bit. “You have to add control to absolutely every aspect of it! Light is too random, so is fire and water. Ice and earth could work.”

“Hmmm, crystals?” I asked, stepping off and letting him go. “Alright. I consider our deal fulfilled.”

“We thank you.” Crocodile said. “While there are a lot of us that do the same job, it is a job that gets busier every year.”

“Don’t worry about being gone.” Bird head said. “We have been moving at the speed of spirit, which is much faster than the mortal realm. Olearis hasn’t even finished destroying that wall you created. Farewell mortal who smells of home.”

“Home? HEY WAIT!” I started forward, but the fog billowed around me with a wave of his hand, and I found myself back in the throne room and facing Olearis as he was using darkness to consume the stone blocking the door. As quickly and quietly as I could, I created several claymores and placed them around his legs. “Rubber mana barrier.” I said as I cast a barrier around Olearis.

“Huh? You again? To think even Nehebkau would fail.” He shook his head, then poked the barrier around him. “What’s your game this time? To protect me?”

“Oh no, I just want to make sure all of this hits. Detonation.” I said, detonating the claymores at close range.

“AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!” His scream was agonizing as the bones in his legs were pulverized. Even if the ball bearings missed his shin in the initial explosion, the rubberized barrier simply reflected it back at him until they hit. As he crashed to the floor, I dropped it and walked over, making sure that the stone in the floor rose up and crushed his hands to prevent him from trying to cast spells.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” He cried, struggling to move. “Why can’t I stand?”

“It’s your bones. See, reinforcing them wasn’t a bad idea, but there’s a problem. You simply erected a cloth bag around them. How do you expect a cloth bag of powdered bone to support anything?” I asked, placing a foot on his back. “Now, I’ll need you to be quiet unwilling test subject number one. I have to concentrate to get everything right in this new spell.”

With that, I stood at my full height and concentrated on exactly what I wanted the divine magic to produce. Snake guy thought that light was too chaotic, but there are ways to fix that if you know what you are doing. I needed it to be powerful, so it had to be blue light. I was going to use magic to break physics a bit, letting me create light of a single frequency with zero phase shifting. Since order was important, I was even restricting it to a single polarity as well, then using divine energy to amplify the power.

“Divine laser.” I said, blasting a beam of blue light that cut through the neck and into the floor below Olearis within seconds. He never even got the chance to scream before his cauterized head was removed from his body. I saw his eyes blinking for a few seconds in pure terror, but there was no movement from the void steel at the site of the injury. It looked like my new spell was going to work wonders.

“Stop gloating and fucking do it!” I heard, and looked up to see Duerse getting ready to strike down the two elf lords. Without anything else at hand, as I had burned through a good bit of my mana, I used what I could and threw Olearis’ severed head at his brother. The shock on the king’s face when it hit let me get over there in time to defend the two elves, who had used the distraction to good effect and had backed away.