Arcanist In Another World-Chapter 11: Stray Souls

Tongues of fire sprawled down through the cave in heated momentum, threads of fiery mana merging into a giant maw that made for the crowd of skeletons. It swallowed half of the flood and coughed out piles of burnt bones all across the opening. Furious flames roared in the Skeleton ranks. They leapt from one bone to another, set them aflame and slithered down to suck at the foul mana keeping the corpses animated.

Another wave splashed on the ground and stretched in a fiery blanket to lash round the Skeletons' feet. Bones melted, and a dozen of the creatures plopped down and started clawing at the earth, still trying to crawl toward the undead out in the front, refusing to die out.

“Ouch!” Nomad yelped as he caught some stray darts in his passing. His chest piece burned with a darkish blaze, draped with a half-melted liquid that glinted silver. Even then the tip of his sword blasted skulls and rib cages alike, eyes widening with what Valens thought as wicked pleasure.

And so, the world burned with glorious flames.

Valens found himself caught in a moment of deep contemplation facing this sickening picture of scorched earth and melted bones. Of elements reaping souls no longer existed. Of Warmagic showing its real face to him.

The drain from his mana pool seemed so little a price against the devastation he unleashed in a moment. He thought, with no deliberate purpose, of a different scenario in which his own people replaced the animated corpses below. The Inquisition and its dogs. The paranoid fools and their masters. Men who knew so little about magic, but feared it all the same just because they’d grown listening to a bunch of stories.

What would they have thought of him had they seen this scene? Certainly it would add to the claims raised against him as a dabbler of forbidden magic. He was beyond that line, now, having cast more than a few spells destructive in nature by his own hand, but then, there were no such lines in this world. None that he was aware of, at least.

His fingers dulled around where the fiery threads stretched forth. The numbness spread across his arms, and down his chest where it burned a painful song. Still, he pulled them high and directed the Inferno toward the running undead, washing the ranks of Skeletons still hot on his tail.

You have managed to defeat [Skeleton - lvl 16]! For killing a creature above your own level, you are granted bonus experience.

You have leveled up! 5 Stat Points granted!

You have managed to defeat [Skeleton - lvl 15]! For killing a creature above your own level, you are granted bonus experience.

You have leveled up! 5 Stat Points granted!

You have managed to defeat [Skeleton - lvl 18]! For killing a creature above your own level, you are granted bonus experience.

You have managed to defeat [Skeleton - lvl 17]! For killing a creature above your own level, you are granted bonus experience.

You have managed to defeat [Skeleton - lvl 19]! For killing a creature above your own level, you are granted bonus experience.

You have leveled up! 5 Stat Points granted!

You have leveled up! 5 Stat Points granted!

Ding! [Mana Manipulation(Master): 5 > 6]

Ding! [Mana Manipulation(Master): 6 > 7]

Ding! [Apathy(Master) : 3 > 4]

Ding! [Inferno(Adept): 1 > 2]

There was no end to the walls of text clouding his vision. Each time he felt a curious wave of warmth wash over him, a sort of blanket that was invisible to the eye, yet unmistakable there.

More. I need more!

He relished the feeling even as he guided the Inferno. Found himself smiling for a reason he couldn’t quite comprehend. Was there really a purpose to the Warmagic, this forbidden practice of sorcery that Magi of old used without any restraint? Did they see it as Warmagic at all?

Perhaps there had been truly a sensible reason as to why the First of the Magi decided to create something so vile like a rootmetal. It could be dangerous in the hands of the wrong people. It could be a terrible power through which one could force one’s own rule over the crowds.

Without it? The Magi were no different than overqualified workers wasting their years of education and deep talent for, what, exactly?

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It eats away the mind.

Valens shuddered. His mind had begun straying toward dangerous thoughts. Sinister thoughts. Thoughts that’d long since churned in his head after he witnessed the truth of his old world. He’d been nothing but a slave, back there.

He paused when it sounded like some movement right around his feet.

Gravels rained down from the pocket in which he stood as he cast a curious glance at the sudden tremor. Just below the edge, a few inches away from the place, a yellowish, bony hand was scraping against the wall as a Skeleton tried to pull itself up toward him.

Valens reached out to the Resonance and caught a fiery tongue amongst the burning storm. The maddened rush of the frequencies belonging to that single thread of fire quieted under his touch. It became as tame as a newborn pup, waiting eagerly to be directed by the one who called out to it.

With a flick of his fingers he commanded that tongue to lash against the climbing Skeleton from the back. It clacked through the air, and crashed into the bones. The Skeleton let out a painless hiss through its teeth, hands stopping just for a second before it continued its climb.

Scowling, Valens kept his control over the Resonance active and raised the same hand. The thread of fire responded. It coiled through and around the Skeleton’s ribcage, and tightened hard.

The Skeleton stopped.

Valens jerked his hand back.

The ribcage of the animated corpse exploded into a shower of splinters, bones raining, the empty fury in the Skeleton’s eyes fading as it dropped down into the firestorm.

You have managed to defeat [Skeleton - lvl 20]! For killing a creature above your own level, you are granted bonus experience.

You have leveled up! 5 Stat Points granted!

Valens waved off the following wall of text and wavered on the tip of his feet as the Inferno threatened to grow out of his control.

Uh… A bit dangerous there. The Apathy is slipping.

He shook himself off. With a scornful gaze, he glared down upon the blazing storm as he wrenched back the control, leashing the fiery threads to the tip of his fingers. Their resistance proved futile. Those mindless threads might as well be trying to fight against the sun itself from how quickly they dissolved into Valens’s hold.

His chest burned in response, the drain to the mana multiplying as a price of his momentary loss of focus. Still, Valens had a few more seconds worth of source inside his chest. A look at the now diminished flood of Skeletons scrambling after Nomad showed him that it should be enough.

Seconds crawled past as Valens kept the Inferno roaring down below. There in the scorched opening now stood a mere half a dozen Skeletons facing Nomad, these ones clad in rusted plates and carried in their hands different weapons fashioned from what seemed like a mix between bones and rusted metal.

Valens arched an eyebrow at them, slightly surprised that they had managed to survive the storm. Granted, it was clear the fiery tongues had found purchase in their rusted plates, melted into the bones underneath and left a great deal of burnt marks all over their bodies, but they somehow remained on their feet.

And their fury seemed to be solely focused on Nomad.

“Cut your flames,” came Nomad’s voice, rasping about the cave. He clutched his sword with both hands and raised it before his chest, as a knight might raise his weapon before royal company. He gave a look at Valens. “I shall cleanse this filth by myself.”

Valens had to admit to being a little spent managing the Inferno through the throng of Skeletons, so when Nomad gave him a pass he let it dissolve into several burning lights. He then cast his gaze down below, curious as to see why Nomad wanted to deal with these personally. There was something unsettling in the way his demeanor had changed facing this last group of Skeletons.

[Skeleton Soldier - level ??]

[Skeleton Soldier - level ??]

Valens frowned when he focused on them. Different from the others, these creatures carried the name soldier, which reminded Valens of Nomad’s title. He was an Undead Soldier, and had said he was a proud member of the Legion.

Is there a connection between the two? Or this is just a sign of respect for a fellow warrior doomed with a terrible fate?

The answer eluded him, and instead brought more questions to his mind about the origin of these unnatural creatures. Valens had little idea about the difference between the Skeletons and the Undead other than the fact that the former had been roused from death by a Necromancer — a most terrible Magus who could supposedly hold sway over death.

So then, who forged the Undead and granted the Heartstone that gave life different than the skeletons to Nomad’s kin? He’d mentioned the Liches, their Lords in the world below. Perhaps they had something special of their own that could bend the mana in a different way.

There are way too many questions, many things I have to understand.

The strong curiosity he carried his whole life about mysteries of the world sent a jolt of thrill down Valens’s spine, its frequencies music to his ears. He felt at that moment a desperate yearning for more, and the only way to come close to satiate this need was to first get out of this place.

Metal cried a pained shriek down in the opening, waking Valens from his thoughts. Nomad was deep in the group of Skeleton Soldiers, moving through the chaos with such deftness that showed how great a difference in skill they had between them

His sword found purchase right where Valens least expected, catching one Skeleton Soldier from its collarbone, and impaling it to another’s back before sending them both sprawling over the other two. In and out, it never took him more than a second between the maneuvers.

He’s making a fool of those soldiers.

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The Lightbringers of the Empire had had such Knights in their ranks in olden times. Valens had seen their duels in the spring festivals, their golden plates and giant swords being displayed in a flash of brilliance to win the hearts of the crowd. It was a mere tribute nowadays, but still spoke to the strength of their brotherhood when the world was governed by Warmagic and ancient weapons.

Nomad’s swordsmanship reminded him of them. Though his hold carried the heaviness of respect being shown to his foes, displayed by how he refused to make a move for their heads.

It took him a long minute to deal with them all, after which he lined the now lifeless bodies of the Skeleton Soldiers before him and stabbed his sword to the ground. An air of sorrow seemed to coat him, his emerald eyes lacking that mischievous glint when faced with Valens.

In the end, he gave a hearty sigh and looked up to Valens. “Help me dig a ditch. These men have served their sentence. They now belong to Mother Earth's warm hands.”

Valens nodded without hesitation. He didn’t know why, but he felt with deep certainty that it wasn’t the time to question Nomad’s request. He just had to do as he was told.

……