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Chapter 403 – Second Parade
🕑 Added 2025-09-21 06:00:12 +0000 UTCA grey streak shot through the battlefield, bouncing from platform to platform around the earth mage. It was naturally Percy, who took advantage of his higher mobility to dodge all his opponent’s attacks.
Domain blasts and stone constructs of all shapes and sizes fell everywhere, leaving the rocky terrain full of craters as wide as houses. As for the snow, it was long gone, the ground beneath the two combatants laid bare.
No matter what the woman did, she couldn’t get anywhere close to hitting Percy. Sadly, the opposite was also true.
A storm of burning scythes spun around him. Some, he used as footholds, while a few more ended up crashing into – and shattering against – one of his opponent’s domain-infused spells. Most of them, however, broke into pieces on their own, only to regenerate into more copies a second later.
Whenever he gathered enough, he sent them after the earth mage.
“Another failure…” Percy clicked his tongue as he saw his constructs shatter against the woman’s willpower for the hundredth time.
At least, he had pressured her into withdrawing more of her domain. He’d even forced her to throw some of her mana into the mix. Still, Percy was a long way from inflicting any lasting damage.
The problem was that none of his individual attacks packed much of a punch. A thousand times zero was still zero. To win, he’d have to somehow leverage the sheer number of his weapons, to land a more powerful blow.
‘What if I time all the hits better?’
It wouldn’t be easy. The only way he could handle so many weapons in the first place, was by offloading part of the task to his mana. Through his affinity’s innate properties, he breathed life into the constructs, merely directing them as they moved on their own. But the Harvesters were neither truly intelligent, nor very coordinated. Landing a thousand slashes in an instant was something he hadn’t done before.
‘Well, it’s worth a try… I should probably change the imagery too…’
Up until now, Percy had grouped his scythes into tornadoes. It was a relatively simple formation that had allowed him to maintain a lot of them, but it was way too chaotic for his current purpose. To get what he wanted out of the spell, he’d have to switch to something more orderly and densely packed.
Scrambling his brain for a few seconds, he eventually settled on something he figured might work. Not missing a beat, hundreds of scythes broke free from the whirlwinds, shooting to the woman’s sides.
Responding to Percy’s intentions, the constructs rearranged themselves into two densely packed groups, their tips pointing toward the earth mage as their edges gleamed with unconcealed hunger.
The woman raised an eyebrow, but didn’t lose her composure. Releasing more mana from her core, she shot several large boulders at the scythes, trying to stop the attack before it even commenced.
Having expected her reaction, Percy willed the scythes to move out of the way, but did so without disturbing their formation. The Harvesters flew in a flexible circle around the earth mage, dodging her spells while staying together. Some inevitably got hit, only for their neighbours to copy themselves to replace them.
The formation approached the woman, the scythes inching several metres closer with each violent revolution. They flew faster too, turning into a blur before long.
The Blue fired more spells at them, accomplishing nothing but wasting her mana. Eventually, she seemed to realize she couldn’t prevent the attack, so she switched her focus to blocking it.
Giant walls of stone rose around her, encasing her into a dense sphere over a dozen metres wide. She clearly withdrew more of her domain too, as the pressure on Percy instantly weakened. In fact, her companion’s domain was nearly gone too, which probably meant that Micky had done a great job with his own battle.
But Percy didn’t have the time to worry about his familiar. His new attack had already reached a critical point, requiring his undivided attention. Pushing all the distracting thoughts aside, he cleared his mind of anything unrelated to his constructs.
Right as they were about to sink their blades into the barrier, the Harvesters turned immaterial. That wouldn’t allow them to ignore the Blue’s domain, but they could at least bypass the physical components of her shield.
The very next second, the two spells collided.
The battlefield hadn’t exactly been quiet before. Between the frigid winds still howling in the distance and the shrill cries of the grey wisps dancing by Percy’s side, it had been rather noisy, in fact. But it might as well have been as silent as a graveyard, compared to what ensued.
A grating sound split Percy’s ears, as countless scythes ground themselves into dust against the barrier. The stone walls crumbled too, one after the other, the colossal sphere shrinking rapidly. The weapons weren’t cutting into the material directly, but they did push back against the willpower holding it together.
Once the Harvesters were gone, the woman lowered her defences, revealing her shocked expression. She clearly hadn’t expected Percy to gain so much ground in so little time.
In the end, the attack never reached her, however. Taking everything into account, Percy estimated he’d need to pack five times as much power into the move, if he wanted to peel the rest of the woman’s domain off.
‘The timing could use more work – I need to visualize the attack better. And I have to use more scythes too…’
The first issue would be easier to solve, but the second was rather tricky. There was a limit to how many scythes could hit the woman at once. The more he added, the more they got in each other’s way.
Over the next few minutes, he shifted to defence. He dodged the Blue’s spells, slowly rebuilding his flock of Harvesters. At the same time, his mind raced at a hundred miles an hour, trying to come up with a solution.
Eventually, he felt the urge to slap his forehead, realizing that the answer – or a huge part of it, at least – had been staring him in the face all along.
‘I don’t actually need the shafts for this type of attack…’
If he focused on just the blades, he could fit more of them in a tighter space. He should be able to produce them much faster too. In fact, the opposite was true for his Winding Corridor technique. He didn’t need the blades if he only wanted to use the constructs as footholds. As for the complete scythes, they were only needed when he wielded them properly – with his hands.
Putting his new idea into effect, he ditched the useless handles, seeing some immediate results. The burning crescents broke into smaller fragments, their enchantments greedily drinking the ambient mana to repair them. They flew around the woman faster too, forcing her to put her defences up again, in anticipation for the inevitable blow.
Before long, Percy had amassed enough for another attempt.
Repeating his previous actions, he watched the blades dig even deeper this time. The attack ultimately exhausted its momentum before the halfway mark, however. Had this been the water mage from before, Percy would have probably won already. Unfortunately, his efforts were still insufficient against his current opponent.
‘Man, domains are so troublesome… Zoris, is there no way for me to awaken mine before Blue?’
‘Doubt it. If you were at Green, maybe you could have tried to touch at it. Even then, you wouldn’t have been able to do anything particularly useful. But Yellow is way too low.’
Percy felt the urge to curse, but the former god wasn’t done.
‘However, you don’t necessarily need to possess a domain of your own, to effectively fight against one. The only difference between Blues and you is that they can manipulate their willpower more freely.’
Percy nodded thoughtfully.
It was a well-known fact that everyone – from Reds to gods – used their willpower with every spell. Mana cores passively attached willpower to mana after all, which was what allowed their owners to control it.
The potency of one’s willpower, as well as their control over it, improved with each promotion. This was why Yellows and Greens could manipulate their mana with more finesse than Reds or Oranges. Mages at Blue or higher merely took that to the extreme, wielding their willpower as a weapon in and of itself.
Percy might not have a domain, but he still had his own willpower. It permeated every drop of his mana, and thus, every inch of his constructs.
Realizing he was onto something, he replaced his lost weapons once more, before unleashing another attack against the earth mage. This time, he delved farther into the image in his mind, deepening his connection to the Harvesters.
When they shattered against the stone walls, he pictured his own teeth breaking. He could almost feel the sting of his gums splitting, and the taste of iron in his mouth, or the warm trickle of blood rolling down his chin.
He wielded the blades in a less linear manner too. He moved them back and forth – entire rows grinding against the enchanted rock in unison, stubbornly trying to chew through it. The edges sliced through the domain, while the back of the blades phased through the crumbling stone to find purchase for the next push.
The constructs still broke by the hundreds, but Percy didn’t let that get to him, losing himself in the picture.
Blueish-grey dust and flames permeated the area around the shattered blades, breathing life to a strange shape. It was as much a figment of Percy’s imagination, projected there by his mutated eyes, as it was an illusion forged out of his fused mana.
The shape grew clearer and clearer as the blades continued to phase through the stone, and to slice through the domain. The barrier kept crumbling, despite the terrified Blue’s desperate efforts to reinforce it.
Percy felt his willpower clash against the woman’s. If he compared hers to the full moon, his was but an insignificant firefly – countless times weaker. His control of it was much cruder too.
Even so, he refused to yield.
“You aren’t the first Blue I kill, and you won’t be the last!” he hissed through gritted teeth.
Pushing the constructs through the final stretch, he saw the illusion settle into place. It was the spectral visage of a colossal beast. It looked like the cross between a lion and a wolf, the skin on its elongated maw wrinkled in fury, as its burning mane flared in the wind.
The creature wasn’t native to Remior. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t native to anywhere, because it was only loosely based on one of the many nameless beasts Percy had encountered in his travels. He’d picked this one due to the strange way that the fangs on its top and bottom jaws curved in opposite directions, which more closely aligned with the way he wielded his own blades.
A deep rumble permeated the area as countless cracks formed on the giant sphere. Percy could practically feel the structure giving way under his own teeth, the muscles in his mouth almost aching from the pressure.
Then, the monster’s jaw snapped shut.
The sheer force sent a tremor through the entire mountain, as the beast’s slit pupils glinted with satisfaction. Its fangs – the few remaining, at least – stabbed and sliced through the woman’s soul, shredding the silver silhouette into tattered rags as the name of Percy’s new technique grew clearer in his mind:
‘Carnival of the Savage Gods, Second Parade, Thousand-fanged Maw’
Comments
Groo
"was only loosely based on one of the many nameless beasts Percy had encountered in his travels. He’d picked this one due to the strange way that the fangs on its top and bottom jaws curved in opposite directions, which more closely aligned with the way he wielded his own blades" Really having a hard Tim picturing this
Doîshan
Tyfc really good story telling
