– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 216, Season of the Setting Moon, Day 33 –

“What—?” The soldier whirled around and slashed his axe.

Terry reflexively transfixed the axe and nimbly jumped into the air above to avoid and bypass the soldier without slowing down. He didn’t have the time to properly sort out who was an enemy and who wasn’t. He didn’t have the time to properly engage the enemies around him either.

Terry darted through the heated battle while transfixing equipment within a range of two meters around himself. The Immovable Object spell maintained a path for Terry to pass through by keeping others out of the way.

In passing, Terry used every opportunity to sabotage the soldiers that were wearing the special prison guard insignia. The fact that Terry did not have time to engage the prison guards himself, doesn’t mean that he would miss a chance to interfere in the ongoing conflict between the different soldier factions.

“What kind of magic is this?” Many soldiers and guards were cursing at Terry barging through. “Damn Arcanian!”

“Has that man gone mad?” exclaimed one of Yujin’s messengers with surprise when she saw Terry continuing past the soldiers and right into the conflict with the hellspawn.

Next to the messenger, Yujin creased her brows and stole a glance back towards the tunnel that led to the Valkyrie. She could see the unfolded tertium cube that Terry had transfixed, but she was unable to detect the spell structure responsible for the effect.

“Reposition!” shouted Yujin. She directly addressed a handful of her most trusted subordinates. “Block the path towards the Valkyrie. Don’t let anyone from Claude’s people get past you.” She raised her voice: “Everyone else with me and push into the next chamber! Press both hellspawn and enemy folks alike!” She murmured pensively: “I hope the Arcanian knows what he’s doing.”

“Platoon leader.” Another messenger arrived. “Claude is asking for a ceasefire to deal with the hellspawn.”

“Hmph.” Yujin frowned but forced herself to consider the overall situation. “Tell him: only under the condition that they never step between us and the Valkyrie’s chamber. Non-negotiable. Our rearguard will consist of my people.”

“Understood.” The messenger departed again.

“I wonder what the Arcanian has in mind,” murmured Yujin. “I don’t see what could get us out of this situation now that everything has come this far.”

Meanwhile, Terry was busy dodging hellspawn attacks left and right while taking deep, measured breaths and focusing on his mana sense to judge the best route to take. He used his skewer box to transfix a wall of needles into which a widowmaker charged the next second. “SCREE!”

Terry rotated in the air and jumped horizontally through the gap between the injured widowmaker and the wall. Right after passing through the gap, Terry retrieved a cheap shield, tackled a hellion into the wall, and transfixed the shield to pin the hellion for long enough to allow Terry to continue undisturbed.

The next one is what counts!

Terry’s whole body tensed slightly when he saw the shape of the young juggernaut approaching. The juggernaut took up nearly all of the space inside the tunnel and it did not leave enough space for Terry to squeeze by the side. The juggernaut was the last major obstacle blocking Terry’s entrance into the next chamber where the veil tear was located.

Terry inhaled sharply and his thoughts raced before he decided to take his chance in a direct confrontation of strength. Even though Terry did not have much confidence, he did not have time for a very sophisticated strategy either. Every second that the veil tear remained open was another hellspawn to face later. Terry clenched his teeth and summoned a tower shield, which he transfixed in front of him.

*CLANG* The young juggernaut collided forcefully against the immovable shield.

Right after the immovable shield had taken the momentum away from the juggernaut, Terry pressed his back closely against the shield. He positioned his legs so that he could make the best use of them and relied on his boot mechanism to get a secure foothold in the air. Terry deactivated the Immovable Object spell and burst his mana to empower his legs. Step by step, Terry pushed the juggernaut back.

As soon as the juggernaut recovered from his earlier unexpected collision with an immovable object, the hellspawn put up a fierce struggle and Terry soon found his task much more difficult.

“Hmph.” Terry transfixed the shield. He bent his back and lowered his head. Upside down, he hurled a bolas underneath the immovable shield and positioned it with the help of his bidirectional attraction gloves. Without a moment’s delay, Terry returned to his pushing position and deactivated the Immovable Object spell once more.

Terry burst his mana beyond his limits and pushed against the young juggernaut. The blood rushed to Terry’s head when he finally sensed what he had been waiting for – the juggernaut toppled over the transfixed bolas. In an instant, Terry had broken forth and pressed the tower shield into the fallen juggernaut to pin it to the floor.

Terry dashed through the air on layers of divine mana. He left a final parting gift for the young juggernaut: a transfixed barrel of acid that poured its contents directly onto the hellspawn’s head.

Finally, Terry managed to enter the chamber with the veil tear. Even though the narrow tunnels suited Terry’s combat style, they were rather annoying when pressed for time. Despite the fact that the chamber was swarmed with hellions and other hellspawn, Terry found it easier to maneuver and make his way to the veil tear. At least until—

*Pa-kshh* A pale tendril whipped towards Terry.

Terry dodged but the tendril abruptly changed direction mid-air and pursued him. Terry relied on his rotation pearls and his divine hammer inscription to make a sharp beeline. While in motion, Terry retrieved a shield and used it to block the whipping attack. *Clang* Terry allowed the force of the impact to propel himself away from the pale tendril and only adjusted his trajectory to avoid the criss-crossing arrows of corrosive liquid that were being spit by the surrounding hellions.

“Hmph…” Terry grunted and his mind raced to consider his options. He had been able to make out that the tendril originated from the back of an ascarab some distance away. The human-sized worm with arms was keeping his distance from Terry.

“Crap,” exclaimed Terry. He spotted suckers sprouting on the tendril and he very much doubted that this was a good sign. Terry did not recall information about these pale tendrils from the introduction to hellspawn book he had read. Therefore, Terry was forced to make a judgement based on how this pseudo-limb had behaved so far during this short encounter.

Terry allowed himself to drop to the floor and retrieved a U-shaped piece of septimum from his storage bracelet. When the tendril snapped towards Terry once more, Terry blocked with his shield and then forcefully rammed the U-shaped piece of septimum into the ground with the tendril in the middle. After a compressed Immovable Object spell to make sure the tendril remained trapped, Terry darted forward and hoped that the tendril was indeed corporeal like he had surmised.

Terry’s stomach plummeted the moment he was sensing several mana threads weaving themselves into spell fabrics near some of the suckers. In contrast to the spellwork Terry was familiar with, Terry had no idea about what to expect from these woven spell fabrics. Fortunately or unfortunately, Terry did not have to guess for long because he suddenly felt his mind and body assaulted by an intense feeling of exhaustion, as if all stamina and concentration had been sucked out of him.

“No!” Terry gritted his teeth. He could hear the voices of Bjorln from their earliest days of mana cultivation training. From the time when Bjorln had insisted that they empty their mana pools. Terry could almost feel Sigille’s dreaded staff thwack him whenever he had lost concentration during their all-out spars. With an inhuman level of defiance, Terry pressed forward against the screaming protests of his body and mind.

“Scree!” A widowmaker jumped right into Terry’s path.

Terry was a moment too slow with his debilitated body and sluggish movements. Now that his body had failed him, his spellwork instincts reflexively took over and in a surge of mana, the many septimum scales hidden inside his mushroom leather armor became immovable.

*Krchkss…* “SCREE!” The widowmaker’s two bladed arms failed to inflict a serious injury on Terry. Instead, the hellspawn nearly ripped one of its own arms off.

Terry hurriedly pulled a metal ingot from his Academy bag and relied on the Shape Metal imprint in his armor to shape and transfix a metal ring around one of the widowmaker’s bladed arms.

Wearily, Terry forced himself to start moving again. In his mind, he was shouting at himself to continue. His inner shouts were accompanied by others in the voices of his whaka. Terry was almost close enough to the veil tear to reach it with a layered discharge. Terry had to remind himself that even if his oscillating mana was able to mend the veil tear in this way, this would represent a tremendous waste of mana.

I don’t know how much I will be able to reharvest either— Damn it.

“Urgh…” Terry felt his mind and senses assaulted by an unfamiliar power. He felt dizzy. He felt nauseous. He felt… bored? Listless? Melancholic? Terry didn’t even know why he bothered anymore and his movements slowed down, until he came to a stop with a puzzled look.

A hellion’s arrow of corrosive liquid impacted on Terry’s chest. He could see and hear it sizzling through the layer of mushroom leather before being stopped by his septimum chest plate.

“Huh…” Terry examined the corroding acid with a detached and disinterested expression. His mana sense told him that some of the Tiv soldiers had begun engaging the hellspawn in the chamber as well. Terry was cognitively aware that he should feel relieved or even glad about this development, but he just felt bored. Terry glanced around listlessly and spotted a crocodile-headed pharoh among the hellspawn.

Before Terry was able to think about what he saw, he was being flung across the cavern by the gorilla-like arm of a young juggernaut. “Hrgh…” Terry rolled across the floor. When he stopped, he could see blood flowing out of his mouth. “Huh…” Terry felt pain, but he wasn’t sure why he should care about that.

This isn’t like me, is it? A thought entered Terry’s mind. Scenes from the Academy flashed through Terry’s thoughts.

I wonder why? What would cause this?

Terry’s inner Academy student raised his head with curiosity. He could see Samuel and Brynn smiling the way they did whenever he had asked a good question.

Pharoh… Miasma…? Varied effects… Terry felt as if he was an outside observer examining a puzzle that did not concern him personally.

“Ennui,” muttered Terry. “Similar effect as the Ennui spell…”

If that’s the case, then… Terry burst his mana beyond his limits and he felt as if his mind was being pulled back into his own body. “Urgh…” The sensation of pain became a lot sharper.

Terry rolled away and dodged the incoming claw of a hellion. The pain in his torso made Terry suspect that he had cracked at least one of his lower ribs. He jumped backwards and downed a potion from his storage bracelet.

Terry coughed and panted. He was still bursting his mana, but he knew that this wasn’t a permanent solution. Terry dodged the incoming attacks while reorienting himself with the help of his mana sense.

“Screw it,” grunted Terry resolutely. He pulled back both arms. He layered several focus refractors and then pressed a dual discharge through all of them. The intense disruption discharge sliced apart several incoming mana projectiles and rolled towards the open veil tear. As soon as it arrived, the tear contracted visibly.

Terry exhaled sharply. Emboldened by the initial success, he emitted discharge after discharge. The voice of worry inside his head was screaming that Terry was consuming mana at an incredibly unsustainable rate. Terry distantly noted that this voice sounded like Isille. When the tear had finally become small enough that only hellions were able to get through, Terry heaved a sigh of relief and paused his discharges.

Regroup with the soldiers? Stay close to the tear to close it completely? Terry could taste the blood in his mouth while contemplating his options.

Most of all, stay alive for now…

Terry gradually stopped his full-out burst and instead chose to cycle two burst techniques that Sigille had taught him – one for agility and one for mental resilience. Noticing that his mana regeneration was sufficient to keep up while also refilling his mana pool made Terry take some courage.

Terry hurled several octavum needles towards the shrunk veil tear. The transfixed needles obstructed even hellions from invading, which allowed Terry a moment to breathe. For several minutes, Terry mostly dodged, recovered some mana, and maintained his needle wall in front of the veil tear.

Just when Terry began getting worried that the soldiers would be overwhelmed, he noticed something unexpected with his mana sense. Terry remembered that he had not bothered to close the reinforced doors he had unlocked when he had entered the dungeon prison.

A fire-aspected slime was the first to arrive and immediately unleashed a sequence of fire arrows towards the nearest hellspawn. Not far behind, more and more dungeon beings arrived on the scene. A few mana corrupted spiders were even carrying vacuum cannon constructs that immediately positioned themselves and took aim towards the veil tear.

“Huh…” For a moment, Terry was stunned. Soon after, however, Terry recalled again the horror stories from Samuel and forced his focus back to the task at hand.

Terry positioned several tertium slabs and transfixed them in the air. While the battle was growing more and more chaotic, Terry had the means to secure himself a relatively safe corner whenever he needed one. Terry recovered mana while making up his mind about which approach to take. He equipped one barrier spear as his primary weapon and prepared to summon cheap weapons as needed.

Another deep breath later, Terry dashed forward. He blocked a hellion attack with the barrier of his spear and then countered with his own spear thrust. Next, Terry followed up by piercing a cheap sword into the hellion's head right next to the lion's mane. Terry transfixed the sword and left it with the hellion. The ichor aspect made it too troublesome for Terry to finish off hellspawn quickly, but he was able to pin them down with the Immovable Object spell.

Finally, Terry arrived close to the veil tear. He fought against the hellspawn in the vicinity and began guiding mana towards the tear while estimating the required mana in order to close it.

Good, now I can close this thing without having to risk my mana bottoming out in the middle of combat…

Determination flashed through Terry’s eyes as he persevered in maintaining his position.

***

“Finally…” Terry exhaled sharply when he sensed the veil tear closing completely.

Unfortunately, Terry was not able to feel totally at ease yet. His biggest worry wasn’t the chaotic battle that raged around him. Not the hellspawn. Not the dungeon creatures. Not the different factions among the Tiv soldiers. No, Terry felt a sense of looming dread which he found difficult to put into words. Subconsciously, his eyes drifted back to some of the many corpses in the chamber.

Corpses.

In a dungeon.

That can’t be good…

Terry was not entirely sure of how the average dungeon collapse played out normally, but he was forced to remember that in some cases, the collapse could become quite literal. Terry cursed inwardly at his sleep-deprived decision making. When he had entered this dungeon, Terry had forgotten the first and foremost lesson that Samuel had taught them in their dungeon introduction lecture.

Never enter a dungeon. Above all, never enter a dungeon without setting up at least one Mark-and-Recall spell.

If I survive this, I’ll probably be scolded when I confess this part… Terry smiled wryly. A corner of his mind noted that this wasn’t the time for such thoughts.

Terry dodged another leaping widowmaker. He ducked underneath the widowmaker’s bladed arms and placed a transfixed needline into the widowmaker’s path.

From the widowmaker’s back, Terry air-walked up to the neck that carried the bat-faced head. Terry transfixed two cheap spears near the hellspawn’s neck. One to hold the creature in place and another as a fulcrum. Without a second’s delay, Terry inserted the bladed part of his barrier spear through the gap between the immovable fulcrum and the widowmaker’s neck. A levered slash later, the widowmaker’s detached head dropped to the ground.

When Terry was about to gather his equipment into his storage bracelets again, he sensed an unfamiliar mana movement aiming for him – the result of an unknown spell fabric. Terry cycled a burst technique for speed and jumped off the widowmaker’s lifeless corpse.

A shattering sound rang in Terry’s ears and his unexplained feeling of dread intensified. He could see the impact of a dark grey mana cluster on the widowmaker’s back which turned into dust instantly.

Terry landed with his feet on the ground. Before he could remind himself to be glad that he had avoided that attack, the floor began to quake.

*RUMBLE* The quake intensified and was accompanied by a loud, deep sound.

Half-mindedly, Terry was wondering why he had never detected any spatial seals in the dungeon until now. He could not recall having heard the shattering sound before, despite bursting his mana all the time.

For a second, Terry thought that everything had turned slightly more silent than before. He could not tell how, but the impression that the dungeon creatures gave off seemed different to him.

Then, Terry detected a change in the Valkyrie’s chamber with his mana sense. The mana in the chamber’s lower area had decreased as if the orange acid had been drained. Furthermore, there was—

Veil tear!

Terry was running before being fully aware of it. He only noticed what he was doing when he was already half-way back to the passage that led to the Valkyrie. He reflexively evaded incoming attacks and left immovable objects behind to block both attacks and enemies that were trying to entange him. He dashed past soldiers whose expressions ranged from confusion, over annoyance, to outright hostility.

All of it seemed like a blur to Terry. He did not know why, but this veil tear seemed different. He could not put the feeling into words, but he was sure that this one was related to the dread that kept welling up inside of him.

A part of Terry’s mind registered that he had just thrust his spear through the throat of one of the prison guards. The woman had tried to ambush Terry. Terry did not stop to follow up and instead kept running when the prison guard was occupied with trying not to die.

The following moments seemed like a dazed dream to Terry. The thought made Terry realize how exhausted he felt but something was still pushing him on relentlessly. Terry had little recollection of his way through the passage but eventually, he got close to the handful of soldiers that Yujin had dispatched to protect the Valkyrie.

“Uhh…” “That’s the Arcanian, right?” “We’re not supposed to let anyone of Claude’s faction through, but what about the Arcanian?” “Commander Yujin didn’t mention…”

One of the soldiers hesitatingly stepped forward to block Terry. “Hold on for a—”

Bright light radiated from Terry’s two gloves. He was already channeling mana through his bidirectional attraction inscription on top. Fleetingly, Terry transfixed two of his bracer pearls. While Terry’s momentum against the rotational axis caused him to swing forward, the bidirectional attraction simultaneously pulled the soldier towards and above himself. Before the soldiers knew what had happened, Terry had already left them behind.

“HEY!” Terry’s dismissive actions had inspired some anger. “Wait, what’s…” A worried exclamation from one of the soldiers calmed the others. They ignored Terry and stared through the passage towards the opposite direction. A large group of dungeon beings was rampaging their way towards them in a mad frenzy. “Fuck.”

Meanwhile, Terry had reached the unfolded tertium cube, which he had left behind before. From a corner of Terry’s mind, he felt a sense of pride at the fact that his Immovable Object spell was still active and how far he had come since he had started practicing the spell.

Half a breath later, Terry had returned the unfolded tertium cube back into his storage bracelet and found himself back in the chamber where the Valkyrie continued decimating hellspawn as if they were made of fragile glass.

Terry believed that he caught the eyes of the Valkyrie glancing back towards him, but he did not have the time to dwell on it. He noted that the chamber had changed. The orange, acidic water had indeed been drained somewhere and the chamber’s lower areas were now in full view.

Terry jumped down before even confirming the veil tear visually. His mana sense already told him where the crack in space was located, where the fabric that separated the realms was torn.

Right when Terry landed on the ground, the tear burst open and Terry suddenly found himself staring into an abyss of hell. Dark skies, pale thunder, and endless hellspawn waiting to invade. The worst part was the gigantic behemoth that stood toweringly in front and radiated a strange glow.

Champion. Terry felt a strange incongruence inside of himself. He knew that he should be terrified. He knew that he would feel terrified when confronting such a sight. And yet…

Terry did not feel much of anything, except for the urge to act.

Actions.

While the behemoth champion was still shrinking to fit through the veil tear, Terry had already transfixed unfolded tertium cubes and tertium slabs to block the tear. Another moment later, Terry felt an enormous suction force pull at him. Air rushed through the gaps into the veil tear. Terry’s vision turned red – literally. He realized that blood had entered his eyes and he saw little droplets of his blood flying away from him.

Subconsciously, Terry realized that his mana was drained away from him too and he was already in the process of reclaiming the drained mana without thinking about it. Another flash of detached pride welled up. Both for his reflexive reclamation of mana and for the stability of his active Immovable Object spell structures.

Terry did not linger on his ill-timed feelings of accomplishment and instead, he was engaged in a fierce battle for mana with the devouring behemoth champion. Terry could not remember the last time he had strained his mana control to such an extent.

If anyone were to look closely at Terry at this moment, they might be surprised to see him smile strangely. This smile provided a sharp contrast to his eyes, which were reminiscent of a ferocious beast.

Every shred of mana that reached the veil tear’s edge caused Terry’s smile to widen…

Every shred of mana that escaped Terry’s grasp and disappeared into the devouring vortex caused Terry’s eyes to grow more ferocious with intensifying resolve…

Terry had lost his sense of time. He had even lost his sense for his own mana pool, which had never happened before in his life. Terry had no idea how this battle for mana was going to end, nor how long he would be able to keep this up. All of Terry’s mind was consumed with controlling his mana and guiding it to close the tear.

Emitting mana as fast as he could.

Wrestling mana back from the devouring behemoth.

Guiding it.

Forcing it towards the veil tear’s edge.

Mending the veil tear bit by bit. Eventually, Terry dazedly noted that the devouring force had ceased. Noted that the pale crack had vanished. Noted that the feeling of dread had finally left him. As soon as the tension relaxed, Terry fell unconscious from overwhelming exhaustion. The last thing he noted was the sight of a bright white pulse being emitted from the dungeon wall in front of him.

Some distance above Terry, the Valkyrie was glancing down towards the collapsed Arcanian, who had confronted a major veil tear on his own. Towards the mage that had somehow managed to single-handedly close the tear and in less than an hour at that – a feat she had never heard of before.

Hope was aware that the arcanian man had attacked the prison guards earlier and she had an idea of what sparked the conflict, but she had no clue about the man's motivations or why he was in this place. Her curiosity was piqued, but she did not have the leeway for a relaxed chat at the moment. Hellspawn were still flooding the area in front of her.

From what Hope could tell, Terry was unconscious but safe. Terry’s mana signature was not deteriorating. None of the dungeon creatures appeared to be interested in him either.

Hope would take time for a proper conversation after she had dealt with the hellspawn. After all, Hope just needed to keep an eye on Terry’s mana signature to intervene if something got too close to him.

***

The Valkyrie was tearing through a young juggernaut champion with a Kinetic Drill spell when her attention was momentarily drawn away by the disappearance of a mana signature. Hope creased her eyebrows when she realized that the person whom she wanted to talk to the most had suddenly vanished from the chamber. She had no idea how the Arcanian had done it.

“Hmm…” The Valkyrie continued her battle. She reserved some attention for the approaching mana signatures from the Tiv soldiers that were regrouping in the nearby passage. She intended to remember the appearance of the Arcanian from this dungeon.

***