The boulders sailed through the air, before gravity dragged them towards the Illvarian troops around Alice. Alice waited until the boulders were within range of her tendrils before she reached out to stop them. She nearly dropped one of the two boulders near her, because they were much heavier than she had been prepared to handle. Luckily, she still managed to stop it before it crushed the nearby troops. The other Illvarian Mages did the same, protecting the [Soldiers] around them before they threw the boulders back in the direction they had come from. Most quickly dropped to the ground or flew in random directions, but it still damaged the concealment enchantment even more.

Alice was surprised by how much slower her responses and actions felt without the boost from {Adrenaline Rush}, and how much harder it was to stop massive, heavy objects when she had less time to process how much mana she needed to influence things. The boulders the Society had used also looked and felt like catapult ammunition, instead of the hand-sized stones and beads Alice normally saw in fights. These factors made it much harder for Alice to respond to changes on the battlefield, because she was very unused to this kind of fight. She wished that she still had access to {Reflection}, since it would have made stopping the boulders and even counterattacking with them trivially easy. However, even without her limited-use Perks available, she had still managed to protect the nearby troops from the first wave of Society attacks.

Meanwhile, the nearby [Soldiers] began quickly grouping up around the Kinetic Mages of Illvaria, actively making sure that all of the [Soldiers] were within range of someone’s mana tendrils. Average level soldiers had a hard time dealing with massive missiles, so they would need to either get close enough to the enemy troops that their Mages became afraid of friendly fire, until they were closer or until the other side ran out of mana to start truly deciding the course of the fight. However, that didn’t completely stop the non-Mages from helping. Several of the [Archers] unslung their bows, before nocking their arrows. Some of the [Archers] shone with rainbow mana, before they released a coordinated volley of arrows into the half-broken enchantment hiding the Society base.

The enchantment hiding the Society base was already on the brink of collapse after the Society and then the Illvarian Mages had thrown a bunch of boulders through it. With the hail of Perk-boosted arrows peppering its edges, it finally collapsed completely. The jagged bits of random colored mana in the air disappeared, and for the first time Alice got a good look at the base they were attacking.

It was a squat, stone building, around the size of Alice’s magic academy. Similar to Alice’s Magic Academy, it had a variety of strange enchantments sprinkled through the building, boosting its durability and adding other special functions Alice couldn’t make out. Behind the building was a river, cutting off any easy access to part of the building, while the trees inside of the enchantment had been cleared out to make it a killing field for good [Kinetic Mages]. A small moat had been dug around the Society base as well, ensuring that troops would need to cross a moat or river no matter which direction they approached from. The roof of the building was shaped like the top of a castle, giving the Society Mages on the roof a good angle to rain projectiles on the [Soldiers] below, and also gave them cover to duck behind in case of return fire. On top of the wall, fifteen Mages stood next to a pile of large round stones, ready to hurl more missiles at the Illvarian army.

On the ground in front of the castle, another fifty or so Mages stood, these ones holding swords, spears, bows, and shields. Unlike the Mages on the castle wall, they were close enough for Alice to see some of their Magic seeds. And without fail, every single Society Mage on the ground had access to an Organic Magic seed. Alice could already tell that these [Organic Mages] would be a terrifying melee unit if they were proficient in weapons.

The first volley of arrows shot by the Illvarians weren’t aimed very well due to the previously limited visibility, so they ended up hitting nothing. However, they had served their purpose and broken down the rest of the concealing enchantments surrounding the base.

With the enemy finally revealed, the [Soldiers] holding bows quickly reloaded and fired a second volley of arrows at the [Organic Mages] on the ground. A hail of arrows zipped through the air, before several of the arrows turned rainbow and sped up. A few of the arrows, instead of speeding up, simply disappeared from Alice’s physical and mana-based sight. Their rainbow-colored silhouettes were still easy for her to spot, but to most people the arrows would have simply seemed to vanish in midair. A final portion of the arrows began zig-zagging in midair, making their trajectories strange and hard to predict or interfere with using kinetic magic.

Since the Society [Kinetic Mages] were focused on offense and weren’t positioned to protect their [Organic Mages], the Society members on the ground were on their own for defense. The ones holding shields raised their shields towards the skies, and some of the higher level ones flashed with rainbow mana. As if they were drawn to magnets, most of the arrows in midair slowed down as their trajectories changed, before they all flew directly into the rainbow Society shields and bounced off. Luckily, a few of the invisible and zigzagging arrows ignored the shield-related Perks and struck their targets. However, it didn’t seem like any of the injuries were fatal, so the Society Members quickly healed away the various injuries from the arrow volley.

Alice also realized something interesting – many of the Society Mages on the ground didn’t seem to have Perks supporting their combat abilities at all, at least so far. After a few moments of thought, Alice realized that many Society members were fundamentally researchers, not combatants. While Magic still gave them a massive advantage over regular people, and the Society obviously had combat-trained Mages, some of the Mages on the ground didn’t seem very threatening. Even with the help of their Magic, their Levels were quite average, and some of them didn’t hold their weapons with much proficiency or move with the fluid grace those with high [Dexterity] and battle experience naturally had.

Furthermore, the Society’s troop placement was also rather questionable. Their [Kinetic Mages] were placed near ammunition, but they weren’t close enough to their ground troops to protect them, and Alice also questioned whether having the Society Organic Mages line up in front of their research base was really the best tactical decision. Although she was a novice at military strategy, she felt it might have been better if they had hidden inside of the base and ambushed Illvarians as they went inside, or just stuck their entire army on the roof and collapsed the entrance to the building at some point in the fight. While the Society might have their reasons for arranging their troops the way they did, Alice felt it was more likely they didn’t have a [Commander] who knew what he was doing.

The Society Mages on top of the wall launched another volley of boulders, and Alice and the other Illvarian [Kinetic Mages] struggled to keep the boulders away from the [Soldiers] who didn’t react quickly enough. Alice tried to find an opportunity to counterattack the Society [Kinetic Mages], but she was having a hard time even handling the boulders thrown her way. There were maybe nine or ten Illvarian [Kinetic Mages] fighting against fifteen Society [Kinetic Mages]. If Elder Sujia and the other two Mages in Alice’s group weren’t much higher level than average, they wouldn’t have even been able to keep the [Soldiers] on their side safe. Besides, even if Alice sneaked in a few projectiles, the Society Mages would just stop them in midair and send them back to her. Since Illvaria’s side was barely holding on, it wasn’t the right time to start counterattacking.

Meanwhile, Sepplo, the [Commander] Ethan had put in charge of the Illvarian troops, frowned as he analyzed the situation.

“It’s a shame we didn’t catch them by surprise,” he said with a soft sigh.

“Given how many people we left Metsel with, it isn’t surprising that the enemy learned we were advancing towards this base,” said Elder Sujia, with a sigh. “Still, it’s indeed a shame.”

“Their ranged abilities are better than ours. I’m surprised they scrounged together so many [Kinetic Mages]. Most Society members are [Organic Mages], or some mix of weird seeds. Since they have the advantage in ranged warfare, there’s nothing we can do about it. If we keep fighting a ranged battle we’ll be at a disadvantage,” said the [Commander] with a shrug. He seemed to be chatting with elder Sujia, and his voice was soft enough that Alice had a hard time making out his words even though she was fairly close to him. “Do you have any ideas how to deal with the moat? We can’t get a proper melee battle started if we can’t reach them, and I don’t like our odds if we can’t force the Society to fight a melee battle instead of a ranged one.”

Elder Sujia frowned, before she looked at one of the boulders and fell into thought. Then, she nodded.

“I have an idea. It’ll be a bit messy, but it should at least help us get across. But we’ll need to be careful.”

“Good enough for me. Advance!” said the [Commander], increasing his volume with a Perk this time.

The [Soldiers] began pushing forward, and Alice moved along with them. She made sure to keep herself in the middle of the nearby [Soldiers], so she could respond to any missiles aimed at them. Then, out of the corner of her eye she suddenly saw a flash of purple.

If Alice had been under the effects of {Adrenaline Rush} she might have managed to block it in time. However, since Ethan had forced her to spend her Perks before the mission, she felt a sudden wave of helplessness as she watched a tragedy about to unfold. From thin air, dimensional mana spewed out of a newly made portal. A sword tip suddenly flickered into existence out of thin air, aiming directly for the [Commander]’s eye.

Before Alice could react, the [Commander] flashed with rainbow mana, before he swung his sword faster than her eyes could track. The sword tip reaching towards his eye was suddenly batted away, and then the [Commander] stabbed through the portal.

Alice saw an [Organic Mage] who was glowing purple in the distance suddenly scream, a massive injury appearing on his neck as he slammed his portal closed. It wasn’t a lethal blow, but it was a major injury. As the Society Mage started healing himself, Alice decided to remove the threat of dimensional mana from the battlefield. A dimensional Mage could tear apart the Illvarian group of [Soldiers] if the Mage had enough mana to flood the area with broken mana, and mana baptisms were impossible to heal once they started. She quickly ‘borrowed’ four arrows from a nearby [Archer] and flung them at the Society Mage. One of the arrows nailed him in the eye, and another one slammed into his stomach. The other two missed entirely, but it didn’t matter. He stopped screaming and dropped to the ground, never to move again.

Meanwhile, Elder Sujia immediately purified the dimensional mana that had leaked out of the portal, preventing the [Commander] and nearby soldiers from undergoing sudden mana baptisms.

However, a Society Mage noticed the fact that Alice was preoccupied. He immediately dropped the boulder he had been preparing to hurl, and instead broke part of the wall he was standing on into a spray of smaller stone shards. Then, he flung razor sharp stone fragments directly at Alice. The shards of stone flashed rainbow before speeding up, making it hard for Alice to track their speed and exact location.

Alice used {Extended Organics} to reposition her tendrils, and managed to catch most of the dangerous stone shards. However, she missed two of them, and was forced to activate her necklace enchantment. The remaining stone shards simply halted in midair, before dropping to the ground, but Alice didn’t get hurt by the stone shards after removing the dimensional Mage. Seeing that she was no longer distracted, the [Kinetic Mage] who had tried to kill her didn’t bother targeting her any longer.

Instead, the Society threw another wave of boulders at the Illvarians.

Alice quickly prepared to block the next wave of attacks. However, this time, Elder Sujia’s twelve mana tendrils suddenly tripled, becoming thirty six magic tendrils. The twenty four new tendrils looked different from regular magic tendrils. They were made partially out of rainbow mana, instead of the more ‘normal’ color of mana tendril Alice was used to. These mana tendrils also extended much farther than a few meters away, allowing Elder Sujia to stop all of the boulders in midair well before they got near the Illvarian army. For the moment, the Society Mages paused, looking at elder Sujia’s and her terrifying Perk.

Then, like a giant slamming things into the ground in a fit of rage, Elder Sujia flung all of the boulders towards the ground, aiming directly at the moat that stopped the Illvarian melee troops from accessing the Society’s base. The Kinetic Mages of the Society tried to intercept the boulders in midair, but they were too far away to easily touch the boulders, and Sujia’s rainbow tendrils let Sujia channel way more mana per second into the boulders than a regular mana tendril. She successfully fought off the influence of the Society Mages for a few seconds as she firmly slammed the boulders into the moat and ground them into the dirt, forming an unsteady but usable bridge for the troops.

Then, Elder Sujia immediately grabbed some of the other boulders the Society had thrown at the Illvarians earlier. Most of them hadn’t been thrown back at the Society, because the Illvarian Mages had been pressured enough that they couldn’t find time to counterattack. However, Elder Sujia was no longer playing by the rules, and it was clear that she wanted some payback for earlier. With sudden speed and dramatically improved aim, she hurled the boulders at the [Organic Mages] on the ground.

The Society Mages on the ground, seeing the boulders flying towards them, scrambled out of the way, but even with their physical Attribute bonuses boosted by Organic mana, some of them didn’t move fast enough. Four Society Organic Mages became paste. The boulders had been slammed into the ground with such intensity that they bounced away, flying forward for another few dozen meters before the [Kinetic Mages] of the Society got the boulders back under control. One of the ‘corpses’ healed his injuries before getting right back up and retreating, but the other three remained very dead.

The Society retreated away from the now useless moat, wary of Elder Sujia’s strange mana tendrils, while Elder Sujia rushed towards the front of Ethan’s army and used whatever she could to bombard the Society. Arrows, rocks, anything that was nearby became a missile heading towards the [Organic Mages] on the ground, while the [Kinetic Mages] of the Society tried to defend their allies despite the range limitations of their mana tendrils. Alice and the other Illvarian [Kinetic Mages] took advantage of the situation, adding on to Elder Sujia’s torrent of missiles, and for nearly ten seconds the Society’s members could only flee in terror as Illvaria’s Mages tore holes in their ranks and took down the more vulnerable [Organic Mages]. Even though a wound wasn’t fatal unless it was a one hit kill, some Mages and [Archers] got in lucky hits here and there, and the [Organic Mages] were also forced to waste a lot of mana healing away their injuries. Finally, the Society’s [Organic Mages] got close enough to the research base that the [Kinetic Mages] could protect them, allowing the Society Mages to counter the Illvarian volley. But in the time Elder Sujia had rampaged unchecked, nearly a dozen Society Mages had died.

Then, Elder Sujia’s Perk ended. The partially-rainbow mana tendrils disappeared into thin air, leaving Sujia looking for more exhausted than before. The Society immediately began to counterattack, throwing a new wave of boulders and arrows at the Illvarian side. Two Illvarian [Archers] died when one of the boulders landed in an area that wasn’t protected well enough, and a few more were injured badly enough that they would need to see an [Organic Mage] or they would die soon.

The shields at the front of the Illvarian lines didn’t light up with rainbow mana this time. Alice realized the soldiers couldn’t use their Perk anymore, and tried to figure out whether she should stop the boulders or stop some of the arrows heading towards the [Soldiers] in the front lines. No matter which she chose, some of the [Soldiers] would die.

Before she finished deciding, Ethan, who was hiding near the back of the army and keeping an eye on both her and the fight, finally intervened. From a hidden point behind the Illvarian lines, forty mana tendrils snaked their way into the air, completely ignoring the range limitations most magic tendrils suffered from. Then, most of the arrows were halted in midair, allowing Alice and Ethan’s other disciples to freeze the boulders and prevent them from crushing the [Soldiers] nearby. However, even an Immortal couldn’t control every aspect of a battlefield. Another three [Soldiers] dropped at the edges of the army, where it was harder to protect them.

The Illvarian front lines finally crossed Sujia’s makeshift bridge and reformed ranks on the other side. Then, they pressed forward, braving the storm of flying arrows and random missiles until they caught up to the Society’s [Organic Mages]. The two sides engaged in a chaotic melee. Alice watched from near the back of the front lines as Perks from the [Commander] buffed Illvarian troops, Society Mages used their own Perks and magic seeds, and the Illvarian troops with shields formed a shield wall before stabbing Society Mages through the gaps in their shields. The Society [Organic Mages] were no ordinary humans though, and after temporarily boosting their own strength many times with their Perks and mana, they suddenly flung themselves forward, ripping apart chunks of the shield wall with their bare hands before attacking the soldiers behind with their weapons. Even if some of them were obviously untrained for combat, they could compensate for that with their incredible physical abilities and regeneration.

Several Illvarian [Soldiers] died, and Ethan was forced to increase the scale of his presence on the battlefield as the Society Mages punched through the front lines and began tearing apart the Illvarian [Soldiers]. Alice fought desperately to keep her corner of the battlefield under control, using clothes and projectiles to trip up, injure, or kill Society Members when she could get a good angle on them. However, Alice quickly realized that this type of battle was the one she struggled the most with. [Kinetic Mages] were combatants specialized in precise, surgical strikes using projectiles, or hurling massive objects at their enemies. This kind of chaotic melee, where indiscriminate massive objects would hit allies and where tracking who was friendly and who was hostile became difficult, was hard for Alice to seriously impact the battle. Her Perks from [Kinetic Manabinder] made it easy for her to sense movement around her and see in all directions, but she didn’t have any special method of figuring out who was Illvarian and who was from the Society unless she used her physical eyes to pick out the mana seeds in each person.

However, the [Soldiers] in this operation weren’t pushovers either. With a mix of Perks and better coordination, they quickly regrouped after the shield wall broke, before again protecting the Mages while forcing the Society members back. Some of them were killed, and many more were forced into retreating as they tried to heal their injuries. Finally, the Society front line detached from the Illvarian front line as they used their superior speed to retreat and regroup behind the protective fire of their [Kinetic Mages].

As the Society members were reorganizing and regrouping, some of the Society Mages on the roof of the building suddenly turned around.

Climbing onto the other side of the Society research base was the remaining third of Ethan’s army, led by Ethan’s two remaining disciples. Ethan, naturally, had felt that the Society members may try to flee if things turned poorly for them, and also felt that flanking the Society might be the most effective way to control the battlefield. Thus, from the very beginning, the group Alice was part of was meant to serve as a distraction while the other troops got into position. The Society research base was now surrounded.