Chapter 44

Hakon paid more attention to his structures than the fights around him. He trusted that the others would be fine, for one, and he was slowly starting to get the hang of it.

And while he had yet to fall into a trance, his condition was not too far off either.

Exhaling deeply, mana flowed into the conjured weapon in steady streams. When that wasn’t enough, [Mana Infusion] triggered, flooding the structure with even more mana. That, against Hakon’s expectations, worked much better than anticipated. Sure, the conjuration cracked from the pressure coming from within, and a lot of mana poured out of it even faster than it had from the previous conjuration.

The mana structure’s integrity was clearly not as durable as it should have been. That was yet another thing Hakon added to his to-do list as he cast [Reinforcement] to stop the leak temporarily. The layer of [Reinforcement] rippled and threatened to break apart as the mana from within ravaged the structure, so Hakon released the blade before it could fall apart.

He attacked the injured monster even though it was already on the ground, its chest heaving heavily as blood pooled around it. The strike ended the Terror Deer’s suffering before the conjuration destabilized and fell apart. While that was much better than anticipated, it was nowhere near the level Hakon wanted. If anything, it showed him several more things he had to fix and improve.

That’s not it. I need to do something else.

Reinforcing the conjuration worked, but its stability was important as well. Thinking back to the states of mist, water, and ice, Hakon was reminded of something else entirely.

He couldn’t quite tell why he thought about them, but turning to watch the others fight made him think of the training ground and the Ironwood dummies they’d used before the Rite. Following that, Hakon thought of the hay dummies they’d thrashed when they were smaller children. Hay. It was nowhere near as tough as Ironwood. If anything, it wasn’t all that special, yet it withstood the violent antics of dozens of children once compressed and reinforced.

Hakon did reinforce his structures already, which left him with ‘compression’.

Could that work? He wondered, leaning heavily on [Mana Manipulation] and [Mana Shaping] to conjure a sphere the size of his head. But it didn’t stay that large for long as he compressed it with raw willpower. That worked much better than anticipated, as the sphere shrank to half its size.

“More,” Hakon grunted, pressing down even further. It was harder, and a headache crawled up the back of his mind, but he pushed further until the sphere was the size of an apple. At that point, the structure was much harder to control. His control nearly slipped several times, and hairline cracks spread across its surface, yet no mana leaked.

Hakon used [Reinforcement] nonetheless, strengthening the structure only to press down further. That turned out to be too much. He was already having a hard time maintaining so many Skills, but the real problem was [Mana Manipulation]’s level. It was simply not at a high enough level to support the ideas forming in Hakon’s mind.

And that was exactly why he had to keep going. To push further, forcing his Skills to advance under pressure.

But that required time, a lot more mana, and a gargantuan amount of effort.

For now, Hakon could only watch a group of Terror Deer charge his way. The small sphere hovering before him shifted slowly at his command, but it didn’t transform into a blade. The conjuration’s pressure was already too much for him to bear, every modification was harder on the mind and his mana reserves than the last. With that in mind, all Hakon did was give the sphere a pointed tip. Even that transformed the light headache into a mind-splitting catastrophe, but it worked.

A burst of mana was all the pointed sphere needed to shoot forward and pierce through the closest Terror Deer’s skull. The monster collapsed to the ground a heartbeat later, which was followed by several prompts trying to catch his attention.

They were prompts he couldn’t check because there were simply too many, irritating Hakon more than ever, and he still had to face several Terror Deer thirsting for his blood.

Unfortunately, it was their blood that would be shed. For the Ancestors, and, in a way, for himself as well.

***

Heavy breaths filled the corpse-ridden clearing. No one escaped the fight unscathed. Except Astrid, maybe, but while she did not get physically injured, the constant use of her Ancient Power and Runeskin wore her down as well. She was just as drained as everyone else.

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Hakon was the first to regain his bearings. He did not jump to his feet right away but checked up on the others, even when his blurry vision made things more difficult.

Björn looked like a mess. His whole upper body was riddled with holes the size of a fingertip, some of which were still bleeding or stuffed with fragments of an unfortunate deer’s antler. But as bad as Björn looked, his healing was monstrous enough to keep him alive. It wouldn’t surprise Hakon if the Blessed warrior’s wounds would heal faster than his own.

Looking down at his body, he could only shrug. His wounds were not all that bad, but his mana reserves were empty. After earning a Level earlier, Hakon did not think about holding back for a moment. That came back to bite him now that [Natural Regeneration] couldn’t use his mana to heal him faster.