Report. Launching unique skill “Predator.” Icicle Lance Predation and Analysis successful.
Great! Just as I thought.
Really, I half doubted it while it was being explained to me, but this Predator had to be some kind of rule-breaking skill. That magic probably packed a punch, but Predator absorbed it all, leaving me undamaged, and I even learned it to boot.
“Hehh?! What happened to my magic?!”
Sorry, Elen. Can’t explain.
The Analysis wrapped up in an instant, and now I could cast the spell just by thinking about it. No chanting required—that was another nice side effect of Predator.
“Icicle Lance!”
Omitting the casting time, I fired some magic off toward the salamander. Then, at that moment, I understood—the theory behind magic, and how it all worked. My Water Blades didn’t damage a salamander at all, even if they managed to slice right through the guy, but Elen’s magic did the trick.
The reason was surprisingly simple. Casting magic wasn’t about acting upon your surroundings with a phenomenon—it was more like picturing something, then creating it in real life.
I was, in a way, launching a bolt of energy that had the effect of robbing the target of its heat. That bolt happened to take the form of an energy-sapping ice pillar, but it wasn’t the ice that made it work. It was the energy inside. Thus, it applied damage to a salamander, whose own energy took the form of heat and flame.
And the multiple ice pillars I’d just launched—too big, really, to be called “lances”—had just skewered the two flame salamanders. That, apparently, was all it took to rid them of all their magical force. They instantly vaporized, like a puff of smoke, and were no more.
“Yes! All done here. Let me help you guys—”
I figured I would help them out, since I’d had Elen waste a magic bolt on me—but I was too late.
“Ah, crap,” Kabal said, “it’s gonna blow itself up!” As the first line of defense, he launched an Aura Shield, but the salamander’s self-sacrificing explosion was more than enough to blow it away. The three of them were all exposed to the intense heat as they soared backward into the air.
Flustered, I had Ranga run up to them. They were more badly burned than I’d thought. Conscious, yes, but no longer capable of moving—and Kabal, up in front, had taken the worst of it. If it hadn’t been for his shield, the relatively defenseless Elen and Gido easily could’ve died.
“Dammit… Ranga, protect these guys. Get them somewhere safe!”
“But…”
The order gave him pause for a moment, but he fell silent, perhaps sensing the mystical force I was letting off. His wild instincts told him that no back talk would be permitted, no doubt.
“This is an order! Do it! They’ve got recovery potions on them, so get them to a safe place and heal them.”
“As you say. May you fight well!”
“Don’t worry. Ifrit’s all mine!”
That must have convinced Ranga well enough. He nodded, gathered all three of them up in his mouth, and—giving me one more look of respect—sped off. He might have had the wrong idea about my intentions, but either way, all I had left was Ifrit. Now I could fight without reservation. Forget about getting anyone else involved in this.
Let’s get this farce over with, I thought as I stared the fire giant down.
✦ ✦ ✦
The flames whirled violently in the air. Ifrit, before my eyes, had split himself up. Now I had multiple giants blocking my escape routes. He had some tricky talents, but I wasn’t too concerned.
My detection skills could accurately tell where the fire was going. Even if the multiple Ifrits all launched attacks at the same time, I could easily determine their fire’s danger level from the temperature and take suitable action. I already knew that they weren’t all at the same level.
I sincerely doubted that Ifrit could hit me with any kind of effective attack. But at the same time, nothing I had was successful against Ifrit. Those flames were rough. The ground was turning into magma amid the ridiculously high temperatures. No way I could just walk across that, not unless I wanted a class change to “burnt slime.”
Now what…?
Paralyzing Breath and Poisonous Breath were effective only up to thirty feet away. My breath attacks needed to be launched within that distance of Ifrit himself, which wasn’t gonna happen. I needed an attack that kept me at a safe distance while dealing a decisive blow to him. The only thing that came to mind was my new toy, Icicle Lance.
“Take this! Icicle Lance!!”
I launched several icicles’ worth at the Ifrit clones and successfully vaporized a few of them. Vaporizing with ice sounds a bit odd, but with the clouds of water vapor after the attacks struck home, that was the best way to describe it. I started getting into this little target-shooting game, knocking down the clones one by one with my lances.
But—
By the time I thought Oh, crap! it was already too late. The moment I felt it, I was already surrounded. A wide-range barrier to trap me? One of Ifrit’s intrinsics?
In an instant, there was a magic circle painted on the ground, no chanting required to cast it. I forgot I wasn’t the only one who could do that. He had transformed his own body into gas and turned a hundred-yard radius into a searing-hot ocean of flame. Probably one of Ifrit’s high-level ranged attacks, and even worse, the area was brimming with energy from the Ifrit clones I had defeated.
“Flare Circle!”
I heard a voice that I couldn’t quite decipher. Man, woman, young, old? Hard to tell.
There was…no escape. I was at the mercy of my enemy’s spell. Ifrit made me attack those clones on purpose. They were both a distraction and a way to charge up his energy.
✦ ✦ ✦
I mentally prepared myself for death.
Dahh… I didn’t think I had let my guard down, but I could’ve handled that better. And I played right into the enemy’s hands, too! Totally awful.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been so self-centered. We should’ve all taken him on at once. Or maybe I could’ve taken my black wolf form, confused him with my speed, and then lunged at him, taking whatever burns I got. Or maybe a round of Dark Lightning would’ve done the trick. Sitting tight and seeing how things turned out? Not good.
Certain other regrets also entered my mind…
Still, I knew my senses were ultrafast, but it sure was taking a while for the damage to arrive. Not that I minded a painless death, if it had to be that way…
Seriously, wasn’t this going kind of slowly?
Was he just screwing with me?
Weird… I should’ve been swallowed up by the flames a while ago.
Hmmm…?