173, 1/2

The fight hadn’t started yet.

Erick was strangely calm. He hadn’t fought against a man like Sitnakov before; either against one of the strongest warriors on the planet, or against a wrought of any skill at all. It made Erick think of Killzone, and wonder if the orcol-shaped Sitnakov was anything like the orcol-shaped general of Spur’s Army. Maybe only superficially? Killzone used his fists, but Sitnakov used two straight swords, so there was a difference there, but maybe not much of one.

Sitnakov vanished, followed rapidly by Tasar and Kromolok, Erick’s [True Sight] and other methods failed to pierce whatever spellwork the three wrought used to hide, but according to the Imaging by Yggdrasil they were still there. Tasar was likely still laid out on the ground, mostly healed but not quite. Kromolok was likely still leaning over the downed Summoner—

The rocky ground where Sitnakov had been suddenly cratered, as though a massive weight launched into the air. In that same second, Tasar and Kromolok blipped away, but they were already [Super Invisible], or whatever fucking spell they had each cast, so Erick didn’t see them go.

The Imaging beside Erick followed the three combatants as they blipped in unison toward Erick’s location; toward Yggdrasil.

Erick took a moment to shift the Imaging to ‘wrought’, as he said to Yggdrasil, “I want you to lightly use [Physical Domain] but only on the wrought or the wrought’s spellwork, when they come into range. Use the map to find them if you can’t see them. Use the [Physical Domain] like I showed you; like you saw me use against Nirzir’s spellwork, to erase that spellwork. Don’t actually pressure any of them with the [Domain], okay? Only vibrate them, or the world around them. No killing; not yet.”

“Okay!” Yggdrasil said, brightly happy.

The air suddenly shifted as a deep power began to thrum the world—

“Pull back a bit, Yggdrasil. Normalize yourself. Amplify and Harmonize only the targets. Keep your Domain away from the land.”

The air shifted again, becoming calmer. Erick watched with Ophiel as Yggdrasil flickered Harmonize and Amplify in pockets of air all around himself. Pockets of vibration appeared next to pockets of stillness, as waves down below blew against the wind and bubbles formed underwater here and there. Yggdrasil’s power extended a dozen kilometers in every direction, skipping over the Wizard’s Tower and the rest of the nearby coastal kingdom, but he pulled his power back from those locations, too, ensuring that his destruction would only affect what he wanted to affect.

If he managed to help at all, then that was fine—

In three short seconds, Erick watched as Yggdrasil rapidly learned how to wield his power, forming a dozen rings and a hundred small pockets of vibrating space all around, prismatic light flickering back and forth inside those pocket spaces like controlled shockwaves. It would be a while till they turned into magenta explosions, but it would happen soon enough, for sure.

Erick let his small joy at Yggdrasil’s first success flow through their bond. “Good job, Yggdrasil. You’re getting the hang of it. When the wrought show, throw some explosions at them, but don’t go for the kill.”

“I understand, Father!”

Erick said, “I’m going to use you to cast this spell, now, okay?” He waited a bare second, feeling for Yggdrasil’s easily given reins, and then he cast a star into the sky.

The blue heavens turned dark, and then exploded in bright white light as radiance washed out across the blue ocean. An Abyss of Extreme Light swelled inside the darkness above Yggdrasil’s rainbow crown, growing fast to overwhelming proportions, unleashing tendrils of twisting shadow all across the land. Erick couldn’t see it himself up there, above Yggdrasil’s upper branches, but the [Undertow Star]’s power cast shadows even into the brightness of this central space.

Erick used Yggdrasil to cast another spell, filling the nearest ten kilometers with [Spatial Denial].

All the while, Erick resummoned his Ophiels, preparing for the confrontation, wondering just how far he had to go against these people to get them to stop, and if he needed to follow up today’s murders with genocide—

And wasn’t that a sobering thought! And yet! Sitnakov had threatened Jane, and Spur, and Poi, Kiri, Teressa! He had threatened all of them and more besides. Erick was ready for extreme solutions if necessary. He probably wouldn’t create his ‘kill everything’ spell… Probably.

Erick prepared himself with [Lodestar] and [Greater Lightwalk] as he stared down at the [Cascade Imaging] hovering in the air, just beyond Yggdrasil’s trunk. With resignation, he lightsteped into the air a hundred meters away from his sleeping space, to stand on the light, and wait.

Sitnakov was 50 kilometers away, over atop the ocean. Kromolok and Tasar were beside each other, about a kilometer away from Sitnakov. Erick couldn’t see them with his eyes, or with any of his other senses, even though he should have been able to at that range…

With another thought, Erick erased his own Imaging and had Yggdrasil cast another Imaging into the sky, using the big guy’s massive size multiplier to create something that was almost a new spell, but not quite. Below the [Undertow Star], directly inside Yggdrasil’s upper canopy, another star formed. The spells did not interfere with each other, thankfully.

A fog rolled in, lifting off from the ocean and inundating Yggdrasil’s entire kilometers-wide body and twenty kilometers in every direction beyond. This was a big [Cascade Imaging]. It would take a while to populate, but it was a 1-for-1 map overlaid atop Yggdrasil, and it should give rather precise targeting of the wrought when any of them showed in the space.

Barely 30 seconds had passed since hostilities seemed inevitable.

Erick wondered how long he would have to wait—

A blue rush appeared in the foggy air next to Erick, inside Yggdrasil’s airspace, coming in from Erick’s back right like a cosmically-fast blur. With half a thought, Erick designated the wroughts as ‘enemies’ and the Star above weaved a tendril of shadow through the space, aiming at the blue blur. Those shadows seemed to move in slow motion against the blue blur, like a ponderous giant moving against a speedy gnat. The gnat almost reached Erick but Erick lightstepped away, through the closest shadow tendril, hoping to draw the invisible Sitnakov into the Drain and Extreme Light.

But the blue blur continued on through where Erick had been, never appearing to any Sight, only half-seen by the glowing fog all around, moving fast through the mist to get away from the ponderous [Undertow Star]—

A blue blur appeared in the fog right behind Erick. He barely had time to move, but he did. Another step through another shadow tendril took him out of harm’s way.

Where Erick had been, the blue blur half-materialized like something out of a fevered dream, arms swinging non-visible swords that sliced the air, filling the world with crashing, sonic booms. The blue blur vanished back into the glowing mist all around, moving fast to stay away from the crawling tendrils of [Undertow Star]. The shockwaves surely would have propagated far, but Yggdrasil saw the problem and locked those destructive waves down with Normalize.

Erick could have sworn he heard a ‘tsk’ out there in the glowing mists.

A moment of nothing passed, and Erick found himself thinking. If Sitnakov was attacking like this, it meant that either he discounted Erick’s power, or he had failed to [Strike] properly, or he wasn’t aiming for a kill. Erick discounted the third option right away. The first two meant that he should aim to kill, too… Unless he could overpower the man and force him to submit in a way that would last? Was such a thing pos—

This would require soul fuckery, probably. Was he willing to do that? Yes. He wa—

The Crystal Star felt suddenly heavy upon his chest—

“Yes, yes; no soul fuckery,” Erick complained at the thing. “I suppose we’ll cut off all his limbs again and lock him down. I can do that, too.”

The Crystal Star went inert.

While Erick spoke, nothing had tried to attack him again, which was odd. Erick had expected—

Sitnakov’s voice carried on the wind, “You can still surrender. We’ll have to strip [Duplicate] out of you, but that’s fine, right?”

“How about I strip off the arm I gave you? Eh? How about that?”Erick said, “And a punitive tax on both of your legs, as well!”

Erick watched his surroundings, but he also watched the sky. The mist all around Yggdrasil began to fade as [Cascade Imaging] worked overtime to clear the air. As vision increased, Erick could see great columns of twisting shadow chasing a rapidly moving and rapidly resolving blue blur about a kilometer away. Yggdrasil worked overtime, too, opening up pockets of flashing purple space into the blue blur’s path. Neither shadow nor explosion seemed able to reach the man, who danced around every obstacle and even through several, blasting right through every bit of spellwork that Yggdrasil managed to make hit, dissipating magenta vibrations like so many scattered explosions.

Yggdrasil seemed to be a lot better about hitting the man than [Undertow Star]. Erick was surprised at the pace of Yggdrasil’s learning, but shouldn’t have been; the big guy learned quickly, even if his speech was still odd. [Undertow Star] underperformed, though. That spell wasn’t exactly sentient so all it could do was chase the target with tendrils of shadow. It couldn’t aim where Sitnakov was going to be, and so Sitnakov took great advantage of this weakness.

Erick almost wanted to solve that weakness, but the spell already had ‘Summon the Undertow Star! All are the same; all are different.’ as its first line of spell description. If Erick increased the tier anymore, it might actually turn sentient, and that seemed like a bad idea.

Anyway.

Yggdrasil was doing very, very well. Erick was thoroughly impressed. It didn’t take the big guy long to figure out that he needed to ‘prime’ his magenta explosions before shoving them at Sitnakov, and so he was doing that, a thousand times over, all across the land. Growing magenta explosions hung around Yggdrasil like Christmas decorations, and when they were ready, Yggdrasil funneled those explosions directly into Sitnakov’s path, through tightly-controlled branch-sized tunnels of Harmonize/Amplify—

The blue blur appeared behind Erick again, throwing out a [Tether] instead of attacking.

Erick batted the [Tether] away with his sunform, feeling the weight of a supremely-honed Domain working overtime to connect; he almost failed. Direct confrontations with the man were not advised, apparently. Erick lightstepped away, directly across the path of a shadow tendril. He barely got a glance at Sitnakov before the man stepped away again. In that brief moment of contact the [Cascade Imaging] above revealed him as a blue, wispy hologram, with a mean smile.

Reminded Erick of Bulgan, actually.

That almost sent Erick over the edge into ‘kill right now’ territory, but he stopped himself. There would be no pulling back once he murdered a prince of Stratagold.

Erick called out as Sitnakov ran away, “I’m going to start using [Luminous Beam], soon! This is your last warning to stop this nonsen—!”

“Father. It hurts.” Yggdrasil said, “Left. Right.”

Concern flooded Erick as he rapidly looked around, using Ophiel to see—

Tasar held in the skies over the deeper ocean. The green adamantium archmage held her staff aloft, and the world around her transformed into a glittering expanse of tiny, bright lights, like an orange-yellow sunrise captured in a land of dew drops.

Each drop of whatever suddenly shimmered in sync, spreading—

In the other direction, over the coast, Kromolok stood over the beach and radiated waves of power into the air, like Erick’s own [Physical Domain] but vastly different. Those waves expanded and expanded, each one radiating further than the one before. He had likely been channeling his Domain aura for the last thirty seconds, but it was already a kilometer wide and growing fast, pressing up against Yggdrasil’s [Physical Domain] with each larger wave like an industrial wood chipper, gradually eating away at what Yggdrasil could not protect—

And then Tasar’s summons had glittered enough. A thousand packets of power streamed in every single direction, but the ones directly between Tasar and Yggdrasil reached the edge of his Domain much sooner than all the rest, crumpling the [Physical Domain] inward with great, vanishing explosions of Void, each glittering summon taking out massive swaths of power, causing a collapse of Domain.

Every part of Yggdrasil’s [Physical Domain] suffered damage as the collapsing Domain forced him to compensate from opposite directions at the same time. All of his control weakened, throwing off his careful pursuit of Sitnakov, sending magenta shockwaves wild.

Good news, Tasar’s summons hit the twisting shadows of the [Undertow Star] before they could reach Yggdrasil’s canopy, and were promptly erased by the Extreme Light Star. Bad news, the Star vanished; it had used all of itself to extinguish all of the remaining glitters, ending Tasar’s attack.

But Tasar began to glitter again, gearing up for the next salvo.

Sitnakov attempted another sideways attack, coming in at Erick’s upper left back.

The man was practically a blue ghost now, and he was also obviously itching to get a [Luminous Beam] to the face, which is exactly why Erick didn’t do that. Instead, he had seven Ophiel each cast their own spells at Sitnakov, near simultaneously but in order of most-to-least probable to work, while the others held in wait with [Harmonic Counterspell], but only after Sitnakov tried his [Tether]. Which he did.

Erick barely dodged the [Tether], slipping Sitnakov’s power up as Erick went down.

And in that moment, Ophiel cast.

[Air Breaker]. [Prismatic Breaker]. [Ward Destruction]. [Grand Dispel] for 7,500 mana. Another [Grand Dispel] for the same. [Force Breaker]. [Fulmination Aura].

[Air Breaker] was useless; the spell struck an absolute Domain, which made sense but Erick still had to try. [Prismatic Breaker] met the same resistance. [Ward Destruction] caught on something; Erick wasn’t sure what. [Grand Dispel] ripped away something else; again, no idea what. The second [Grand Dispel] ripped away Sitnakov’s [Super Invisibility], making him appear as a being of black wind. [Force Breaker] touched on something, breaking one of the man’s swords, but not the other.

[Fulmination Aura] skittered across the revealed man, but briefly, as Sitnakov’s eye went wide. The man had an [Air Domain] of some sort, as well as [Greater Air Body]. The guy had some sort of reflection active, too. Lightning skittered across his black metal body and did nothing.

Sitnakov tried to airstep away, though, and that’s when the [Harmonic Counterspell]s struck. It didn’t work completely for the man was thick with Domain, but the spell did stagger the man barely enough as he tried to get away. Erick had cast another [Undertow Star] into the sky, through Yggdrasil, just as [Fulmination Aura] started to reflect.

A new Star in the sky licked through Sitnakov’s body, twisting Mana and Health out of the man with a tiny, almost invisible Drain. Sitnakov had some sort of massive damage mitigation multiplier to be able to tank [Undertow Star] like that. Or else his Domain was simply that strong. It wasn’t a lot, but it could be the turn of the tide.

Erick was honestly surprised that any of his spells were working at all.

And yet, Erick knew that if he won…

Whatever. He would win and then sort out the fallout after this was over.

With a guiding hand, he propped up Yggdrasil’s [Physical Domain], linking deep with his largest [Familiar] to show him how it was done. Soon, massive tunnels of magenta shockwaves were rippling around the entirety of Yggdrasil like his rainbow crown, but larger, and more violent.

Erick sent those larger shockwaves at Tasar’s continued [Void Bird Summoning], or whatever it was she was doing. It was enough to obliterate much of her incoming power, but she was already weak from her run in with Melemizargo. Perhaps she was pulling her punches, though? Perhaps. Highly likely, even.

Kromolok was very much pulling his punches. His [Shredding Domain], or whatever it was, allowed him to get closer but he couldn’t keep on the pressure and he faltered, falling back.

And Erick discovered a fun fact about Yggdrasil that he should have realized earlier. Yggdrasil covered a large area and had a massive size multiplier, so anything under his branches was close enough to be considered ‘close range’, opening up quite a few fighting options.

Sitnakov might have dodged with kilometer-wide airsteps, but he was still within range since Erick could target anywhere within all of Yggdrasil’s branches like it was the spell’s origin point; he could cast three kilometers away from himself if he wanted, and he did, multiple times. Just small spells, mainly. Things to trip up Sitnakov.

A [Force Wall] here, directly at his shins. More [Grand Dispel]s to strip away more defenses.

Ophiel harassed the man with lightning and otherwise.

Erick opened up with a sudden, unexpected [Luminous Beam] cast in the very air directly in front of Sitnakov and aimed at the man’s feet. The result wasn’t as impressive as Erick hoped. Sitnakov retained his feet. They didn’t even look singed. But Erick had done damage, for sure. Maybe not much damage?

Erick called out to the man, “You’re a tough little shit, aren’t you?”

“And you’re a danger to the world!”

This was a war of attrition.

Tasar was out of it, though. Erick’s pressure with a magenta [Physical Domain] explosion had caused another internal break of some sort and Kromolok had taken her far away, down the coast. The Mind Mage was at her side, healing her again. Both of them were out of the fight, and Sitnakov didn’t even notice. Or perhaps he had?

Granted, Sitnakov was very, very busy at the moment. This was a war of attrition, sure, but Sitnakov was on a timer. Even with fantastic spell and ability efficiency, and the Stats to back up a lot of Regeneration, he was under the effects of [Undertow Star] and Yggdrasil was back to throwing more magenta explosions at Sitnakov. Yggdrasil had learned from Erick’s use of his power, and his skill at striking Sitnakov had tripled.

And yet… Maybe Sitnakov was on a timer?

He managed to escape the Star’s shadowy tendrils quite often, but he wasn’t fully evading them anymore. They clipped him now and again, drawing off more power in the form of white light out of Sitnakov’s black body.

Tasar was certainly on a timer; black blood seeped from all of her half-healed wounds as she lay on the sands of the beach, barely cognizant of her surroundings while Kromolok healed her as best he could. Tasar’s staff was gone, and so was all the extra adamantium that Erick had given to them. Erick wasn’t about to let them die, though, so he broke off some Ophiel from harassing Sitnakov to copy some more adamantium knives. He dropped those knives on the beach next to Tasar and Kromolok. The white wrought gave a worried ‘thanks’ before grabbing the adamantium and stringing it into Tasar’s wounds, healing the woman as best he could.

Erick checked his own mana and saw that he was fine; he was already pacing himself. He summoned Ophiel when they got low, and had Ophiel resummon all his own smaller defenses before sending him back out there to harass Sitnakov.

Sitnakov had started off strong but he was pacing himself now. Running through the sky, tanking magenta explosions, halfway-dodging shadow tendrils, he searched for openings, letting Erick’s spells take their toll and not caring too much. Erick’s spells might have injured him, but they had not done nearly enough. Sitnakov seemed to be enjoying this, like he was waiting for the perfect opening.

Which was exactly what he was doing.

Erick called out, “If you’re waiting for me to deploy my Domain wide enough for you to crack it, you should know that won’t happen. I had to walk through Domain-wielding monsters to get here, too. I know not to leave myself vulnerable like that.”

Sitnakov chuckled as he burst through another magenta explosion, his voice carrying on the wind, “With this level of power no wonder it took you so long to get down here!” He laughed. “How did you get past the guardians with this weakness? How did you evade our patrols? How did you kill even a single monster?”

“It took me three days and a thousand kilometers to get into this land.”

“What the fuck!” Sitnakov laughed. “Lies? Now, of all times! After we started off so well!”

He was obviously trying to bait Erick into making some sort of mistake.

Erick chose to taunt, instead, “Should have taken you at least four more days, but then Melemizargo had to help you! You had to accept the Darkness’s help! What sort of weak shit is that?”

Sitnakov stopped laughing. He never stopped racing around Yggdrasil’s boughs, evading spellwork as it came for him—

He flashed through the air, appearing directly at Erick’s front, already slashing.

Erick lightstepped away, saying, “I was having some very good talks with Rozeta but then you had to ruin my communion, slaging slagger.” He called out, “Ever think there was a reason Melemizargo suddenly decided to chase you in here, dumbshit!”

Sitnakov frowned, rapidly dodging everything with sudden expert control, weaving in and out and around all attacks, disappearing—

He reappeared in the sky ten kilometers away, across the ocean, standing still.

Only the barest bit of Yggdrasil’s [Physical Domain] could reach that far, so Erick had the big guy pull back, solidifying the spheres and rings of magenta explosions into even stronger power in case Sitnakov resumed his attack.

Erick spoke first, his voice booming across the ocean, “Apologize, or I’ll start blasting for real.”

Sitnakov frowned. His voice carried on the wind, “You’re not taking me seriously.”

“You’re a fucking asshole who needs a good slap upside the head and a few more punches after that, but no! How could I?” Erick said, “This fight doesn’t end with you. A win here means Stratagold would descend upon me and mine and I do not feel like going on a one-man genocide spree! Not again!”

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“Abyss confound it— You’re like my slagging brother.” Sitnakov sighed. “I suppose there’s not going to be any true fight on either side since Stratagold wishes to recruit more than it wishes to destroy, and you apparently can’t handle a bit of banter to truly rile up the fighting spirit.”

Several things clicked.

Erick was incredulous, “You only fight for the sake of fighting?”

“Of course! What other —” Sitnakov scowled. “This speech would have been a lot easier with me standing over your crushed body, but I wasn’t gonna actually kill you or yours. You need some damned therapy, Flatt, but I suppose you do live on the Surface.” With his own incredulity, Sitnakov called out, “This is why we don’t deal with the surface, by the way! Everyone up there is fucked in the head!”

Erick almost [Luminous Beam]ed Sitnakov dead on, from ten directions at once—

He pulled back, and kept to yelling instead, “Don’t FUCKING banter about killing my family or my people!”

Sitnakov scowled as he spat, “Don’t you know who I am?”

“I KNOW YOU’RE AN ASSHOLE!” Only very slightly softer, Erick added, “And Rozeta told me that she told you guys not to kill me, which indicates that murder was a very real possibility.”

Sitnakov scoffed. “She told Kromolok not to kill you, but you won him over when you started revealing key abilities to save our lives.”

Erick glanced over toward the beach with the white wrought and the archmage. Kromolok was still leaning over Tasar, feeding strings of adamantium into her bleeding body.

Sitnakov called out, “All I ever wanted was a real fight but now Kromolok is telling me to pull back— Hey! Ya wanna know who the real asshole is? It’s him! High Inquisitor Head Priest Kromolok. He’s the one who would have actually killed you.” Sitnakov said, “You don’t know about me, but you know of the Forgotten Campaigns, yeah? He leads them. He’s the one you gotta watch out for.”

“All I know is that all of you are suspect.” Erick yelled, “You say the people on the Surface are fucked in the head, but what the fuck is your problem?”

Sitnakov smiled. “I guess I wasn’t born right.”

“… Am I supposed to know what that means?”

Sitnakov’s smile dropped. “Yes you slagging well should. It’s my saying. I’ve had plays made about me and—” He added, “I kill Ancients all the time! I spent a lot of time dragging Bards around behind me, too, ensuring that everyone knows who protects this damned world from these damned monsters.” He happily added, “I even managed to wound Melemizargo once! Sliced him across an eye, I did!”

And now, Erick was mad for completely new, old reasons. “Where were you when I was looking for people to go after Ar’Kendrithyst and kill all the Shades!”

“Look.” Sitnakov’s serious voice carried across the kilometers of air, “I’m a battleforged, but I ain’t a stupid battleforged. You walked into danger and lucked out. That’s all there was to that.”