Verlin Merlin
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Chapter 50- In illusion lay her hope.
🕑 Added 2022-06-20 14:20:44 +0000 UTCRay
The image of a person bowing before another appeared, the environment overly green. A greenish white patch appeared before him, as if it was a hilly road. Ray walked on carefully, wondering what he should do. The lab should, logically, have Professor Revelia, but she might have moved on.
Now what? Ray had no idea where in the base she could be. But he did have an idea as to where the door was. Ray conjured yellow glitter, shooting it at where the door was supposed to be. The yellow glitter came in contact with the person in the middle of the road…and exploded.
A roar emerged as the silhouette turned towards Ray, red eyes glowing within. Two arms of shadow rushed towards him, prompting him to conjure a wall of black glitter in defense. The place was confusing, and unnerving.
Ray began attacking erratically, a little yellow glitter there, a little air somewhere else. The figure distorted to air, making him rush gusts at it. But the figure always reformed, and resumed attacking Ray. The vest had already started vibrating, A dispersive wave emerged that stopped the arms in their tracks and made the space around him distort.
At least, Ray was now sure that whatever was in front of him wasn't very real. Just confusing, and disturbing. Ray gave up attacking the figure, relying on his already working defenses to defend him as he attacked where the door was supposed to be.
The yellow glitter collided with an invisible barrier and disappeared, as if having no effect. Ray worried that he was losing again, but he had no choice. Throwing away caution, Ray conjured nine thousand pellets of yellow glitter, and shot it in a single line at the door.
A bright dot appeared as space distorted and the smell of smoke permeated the air. A hole appeared in the door, revealing the corridor after, as the illusion unraveled.
The green bled out into white as Ray conjured Earth walls around him, ready for an attack. Not a moment too soon. As soon as the illusion fell, a number of attacks rushed at him, colliding with his shields as the vest worked overtime to dull them. Ray put the attack effectiveness between 30-50%, the vest nullifying the rest at the cost of Ray's mana. But Ray would rather lose mana than his life.
"The Void finds you wanting." Anita's voice called out as her Void element collided with the air before Ray, tearing through the illusion and returning his mana vision. Ray reeled from the sudden emergence of colors.
Pink, blue, red, black, yellow, green, violet. The air was rife with mana colliding and mixing, trying to get the upper hand over one and another. The attacks were colliding with each other, causing chaos in mana. But far more were attacking Ray. The battle was not like fighting Corriss who didn't know how to fight properly, these people were professionals.
"The Void finds your conduct wanting." Anita said as a wave of black mana headed towards the people attacking, Ray joined her, backing her up with a wave of yellow glitter. Void worked to kill the people there, and the few that survived died to Ray's attack.
Tier 5 Human killed x3: 500 × 3= 1500 mana (mana differed to 150 x3= 450 due to combined effort)
Tier 7 Human killed x2= 1000 × 2= 2000 mana (mana differed to 350 × 2= 700 due to combined effort)
Tier 9 Human killed= 3000 mana (mana differed to 1300 due to combined effort)
Total mana : 2,450 mana
Tier 8 (18,846/25,600)
What? The distribution made very little sense...unless the System was counting Humans as worth more mana. Ray did know that Sapients had naturally more mana than beasts at the same tier, but to even be worth more… And then there was the other thing. Was the System observing contribution in real-time now? Ray didn't remember the System doing that before.
But Ray didn't have time to waste thinking about this, a wave of black mana headed towards the door as Anita shot Void at it, destroying it.
"I think we should have waited a bit" Ray said. "The rest of our group are not here."
Anita just looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Come on, let me show you what your big sister can do." Anita walked into the relatively empty corridor. The Elves were still in their cages, but the stage in the middle was missing. And so were the jailers. But not for wrong. Ray sensed mana move to his right, a bolt of yellow approaching fast.
"On the right!" he shouted, conjuring an Earth shield to block the bolt. A bolt of black emerged from Anita's finger, rushing at the attacker. The bolt was fast, faster than any attack Ray could launch, reaching its destination within a second. Ray barely had time to register it as an explosion of yellow mana sounded out, just to be ineffective against the black bolt.
"The guy is dead." Anita said, prompting several attacks to emerge from various sides. Ray countered as his vest worked on stopping the attacks. Green glitter caught the attackers in place, black bolts shot from Anita, killing them. A few resisted the Void, but setting their clothes on fire was enough to tide them over.
Tier three Humans killed x7: 100 × 7 mana gained (mana differed to 30 × 7= 210 due to combined effort)
Tier 4 Human killed: 300 mana (mana differed to 110 due to combined effort)
Tier 6 Humans killed x9= 630 x9= 5,670 mana gained (mana differed to 300 × 9= 2700 due to combined effort)
Tier 8 (21,866/24,800)
The mana was luxurious. But Ray felt wrong taking it. The fact that the mana for killing Humans was so much…it represented a temptation he would rather not exist. But he also didn't get a say in the matter.
"I see that you've already tidied things up." the Shadow Princess said, entering the area along with the others. Rena was limping, Derrit was bleeding from one side, but aside from that there were no injuries.
"Did you get ambushed?" Ray asked.
"Yes, beasts in the desert illusion. Did you not encounter them?" the Shadow Princess said.
"No, though I didn't spend much time in there…" Ray said, thinking. The situation was…off. The battle had been too easy. Anita was strong, but to take the entire attacking team? And then there were the Elves around, they'd been whimpering all this while, but the sound...it was repetitive. As if someone was playing the sound of them whimpering over and over again.
Ray conjured blue glitter as he shot water at a cage, and proved his hunch right. The Elf didn't even react.
"Ok, I am officially annoyed with the Xnarthan. “Anita said, pointing her finger at the cage and shooting Void at it. The space in front of the cage flickered before the mana structure changed. Pink mana appeared around the cages as the silhouette of Professor Revelia appeared in the corner of Ray' vision.
Ray wasted no time, attacking with full force. Green glitter entwined her in plants, yellow set her alight. Violet glitter stood guard to stop anything coming. And brown glitter caused boulders to fall on her head. But he was still too slow.
The professor died, but not before she was able to pour what looked like hundreds of thousands of points of mana into a device The mana was transmitted into the walls of the base, likely the defenses' she was talking about.
Tier 14 Human killed: 13,000 mana
Tier up!
Tier 9 (34,866/51,200)
Ray blinked, not sure that it wasn't an illusion. The professor had died...just like that? How...an illusion. The professors' element was only an illusion, and when Ray uncovered her, it left her defenseless.
So she decided to pour all her mana into the defenses instead of trying to defend herself. But the System just counted it as Ray killing her, netting him more mana than he had yesterday.
Ray had now earned more mana today than he had in the weeks prior.
"Well, that was quick." Anita said.
"A non-combat power." Rena noted.“ I think she was the cause of all the illusions we were dealing with. A very good illusion master. " Rena noted.
"But still useless in one to one combat, she should have been safe in the back lines, why was she here at all?" Derrit asked.
"And elemental quirk." Torrin said, looking at Ray.
"Did you know her?" Derrit asked, looking at them with a raised eyebrow.
"Professor Revelia was a professor in the Academy program branch Torrin and I went to. Though Torrin would know more than me." Ray said.
"Professor Revelia's element was deemed grade E by the Academy due to the fact that she had to be in the middle of any illusion she cast. A few years ago, before transferring here, the element was raised to C grade due to how good the illusions she cast were. But she was still known to be a non-combatant."
"What now? Just go home? The Elves are gone, we were too late." one of the rebellion people asked, speaking for the first time during the entire attack. Ray had sadly forgotten his name.
"Well, if the professor had to be in the middle of her illusion, then that means we're still only halfway through." Gordon noted as they all turned towards the other end of the corridor. The next stage awaited.
