ImmovableMage
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226 Draining Experience
🕑 Added 2025-02-01 00:00:01 +0000 UTC– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 219, Season of the Setting Sun, Day 26 –
The Bloody Duchess was rushing through the air in her bat form. That battle had been an unmitigated disaster. How had this damnable backwater city state gained the full support of a dimensional mage capable of anchoring gates?
The vampiress had received reports about two dimensional mages before. An elven woman of suspected Guild affiliation, who had not really interfered in the fighting, and, of course, the renowned Spellcrusher. As troublesome as the Spellcrusher was, she was not capable of long-distance anchored transfers.
The Bloody Duchess had made her plans based on all the information available to her. She and her court had gathered information about the new nuisances that were obstructing their plans in the area.
They had crafted plans to deal with every one of the troublesome players – old and new alike. Unfortunately, the Spellcrusher and that damned dwarven woman had made it increasingly difficult to get accurate information out of the city that stubbornly refused to submit to the inevitable.
When the One-Mage Army and the Elemental Fury had left the scene, the Bloody Duchess and her allies had seen an opportunity to utilize the Spirited Duchess’s strengths to the full extent, only to be rebuffed by the damned Magebane.
They had underestimated the nullification mana’s unblockable effect on the husks and soul possession. They had hoped that the Magebane would depart with the Elemental Fury.
They had been wrong. The entire operation had been less fruitful than they had hoped, but nothing was wasted except some mana and time.
Sure, there had been some setbacks – that twice-wasted city state had earned them nothing but setbacks for a while – but none of them had appeared insurmountable.
The Magebane might counter the husks, but he would fall to a well-placed blade or be crushed underneath a mountain of rock.
The One-Mage Army might have shrouded the city state in an army of seemingly impenetrable constructs, but her own body remained soft flesh that was waiting to be bitten.
Elemental Fury? Whisperer? Freedom’s Guardian? That dungeon researcher with his arcane spellwork? Sure, they were all troublesome in their own way, but each could be taken care of with time and well-placed action.
The Spellcrusher with her teleportation and spirit-bond might be more slippery, but as annoying as her mage-hunting experience and as intimidating as her large-scale battle magic and anti-magic might be, her presence changed nothing in the long run.
That new dimensional mage, however?
That was a disaster beyond a single lost battle and army.
Dimensional gates were the worst possible obstacles to any plans for their invasion.
The Bloody Duchess had only been born near the end of the last Lich Kingdom expansion. She had not been taking part in the battles of the time.
However, the moment she had dethroned the previous duke of her court, she had gotten the talk.
The memory still caused a shiver to run down her spine. Never in her wildest dreams would she have made her nightly assassination public. Her plan had been to silently eradicate the obstacle in her path and then use all the influence she had gathered as a countess to vie for the position.
Contrary to her expectations, a lich had appeared in the room before she even wiped the duke’s blood from her claws.
Any misguided idea of putting up a fight had vanished the moment the lich woman had unleashed her mana.
For the last time in the Bloody Duchess’ life, she had felt like a mouse in front of a tigress. Like a manaless insect in front of that terrifying mage of a woman.
Even calling that shape of magic fire, ancient robes, and bones a person was painting a picture that was too soft and human.
That shape had belonged to one of the mightiest beings in the Lich Kingdoms. That female skeleton in her loose robes was one of their terrifying lich kings.
Fortunately for the vampiress, her expectation had been overturned a second time that night. The lich king had not shown a single inclination to punish her. Instead, her glowing green skull had cackled with a hollow and raspy female voice before explaining to the young upstart her new duties and the expectations that would be placed on her as a duchess.
One of those duties was studying the battles during the Era of Upheaval, particularly the clashes between the Lich Kingdoms and the Arcanian forces. Of the many lessons that could be drawn, the threat of well-utilized dimensional mages was drilled into them as one of the most important ones.
The lich kings didn’t cower in front of Arcana like the other empires, but they had taken their measure and had grown wary. Their magic might rival the magic sovereigns, but they had been outnumbered.
Outnumbered, at least in the past. According to some whispered rumors, the Empire of Magic was crumbling under the weight it had misguidedly chosen to shoulder.
If it would not break, then it would at least strain enough for the lich kings to test the waters again.
The lich king ruling above the Bloody Duchess’s court had ridiculed the magic sovereigns for risking the forest for the trees. All that power only to fail using it to demand what was necessary. All because of some untenable principles. Idiotic idealism that could only lead to self-inflicted ruin.
The Era of Upheaval had not been the right time to avenge the First Lich King’s reputation and save the realm from itself. It had evidently been too early. Arcana had successfully pushed back at the highest level and at every level of combatants below that.
While the highest level had always been determined by a variety of factors, the levels below were easily summed up in a single pair of words: dimensional gates.
Dimensional gates had taken encircling, flanking, blockades, and supply attacks, and then turned them all meaningless. Trying to conquer a region supported by dimensional mages of such skill meant that one always faced the entirety of forces and supplies.
The Bloody Duchess cursed her bad luck when remembering the frenzied elven vampire that had faced her army. That man appeared different from the Guild-associated mage in the first reports.
The Guildhead acted like hired help.
Hired help could have been dealt with easily. She could have given a better offer or simply prolonged the battles until the help’s employers were sapped of resources to hire them with.
Unfortunately, it didn’t appear like it would be this easy.
That man had not fought like hired help.
That man had to die and die quickly.
The Bloody Duchess had naturally dispatched some of her messenger bats as soon as she had extracted herself from that disaster of a battle. However, her bad luck appeared to continue.
At this point, she was sure that none of her messenger bats had arrived where they were supposed to. Just like she had encountered none of the forces that had been supposed to be at the checkpoints she had passed.
At every checkpoint she aimed for along her escape path, there had been roaming death aura creatures and undead runners, but not a single Lich Kingdom mage in sight.
The Bloody Duchess could have chalked up the first few checkpoints as unfortunate coincidences, but when she saw one riddled with inanimate hellspawn corpses, she had to change her way of looking at the situation. No whisperer of their forces would waste valuable resources like hellspawn corpses and leave them behind.
As soon as the Bloody Duchess had reached this conclusion, she had hastened her retreat. She had not hesitated to further enhance her speed with spells and consumables. She had even sacrificed her last transport artifacts – no matter how short their transportation distance might have been.
The Bloody Duchess could not believe that her pursuers were still on her heels, but she did not want to slow down just yet. She had been rather unlucky as of late.
Her only consolation was the fact that she had at least escaped the Thanatos Proving Grounds in Whetstone City. Perhaps her current streak of bad luck was just the karmic balance for the lucky break that had allowed her to escape the Mad Empire. She still had no idea how her cell had opened, but it had.
Little consolation that luck of the past proved to be when the Spellcrusher and the Guardian appeared right in front of her.
***
Terry didn’t hesitate. The moment he laid his eyes on the damned duchess, his mana burst through his channels and he rushed at her with disrupting spell slicers in tow. Behind him, Amelia was already teleporting to another location to call Dargones to her side.
Terry took a grim satisfaction in facing the Bloody Duchess. He had been forced to face the Lich Kingdoms’ count on their terms. He had been injured from previous battles. He had still missed the equipment he had to abandon in Thanatos. He had to cover for a city of manaless close-by and had no choice but to keep his enemy focused on himself.
Now though?
Terry was at his peak. Powerful mana roared through his channels and his flurry of attacks was a nightmare for the vampiress to defend against within his disruption domain. The duchess might have been higher in rank than the count, but from everything Terry had seen, her close-combat abilities were not that far above the lower-rank vampire.
To the duchess’s credit, she quickly adjusted to the spell-eviscerating disruption domain. She switched to self-target spells and empowered herself. Too bad for her that the venomous claws she had extended from her fingers stopped right at the worst possible time…
Her normal nails might not be viable spell targets for Terry, but grown out into claws?
Terry knew better than to let such an unexpected opportunity pass. The duchess might contest his active spell by attempting to disrupt it with her own mana, but a single moment was enough. He suppressed the reflex to use his king spear. Why waste his own mana when there were other options available?
Terry was better equipped than ever before. Armed to the teeth and covered in as many magic items as his current mana could support. He temporarily transfixed his king spear in the air while two monster cores appeared in his hands.
A metal alloy flowed from a dimensional pocket in his bracers and reshaped in his palms into small bowls. In his grasp, the inscriptions hidden underneath his knuckle plates activated. The light and fire-aspected cores violently blew up into furious mana that tore into the unwitting vampiress.
Terry’s first thought was that this newly improved mana sublimator prototype was a joy to use. Brynn had warned him that it lacked the previous safety margin and to not get too reckless with it. A single mistake in his timing – a moment too long to shape the metal or to turn it immovable – and he might blow up his own hand.
Terry’s second thought was to wonder what else the developing pen friendship between his aunt Brynn and Poppy, the elven crafter from the Chara Settlement, might yield in the future, especially now that Brynn had the Crafting Tower behind her.
Focus.
Terry pressed his advantage, but paid careful attention to his opponent. They had succeeded in their first objective: landing the first major blow to put the duchess under pressure.
Trapped. Injured. Desperate.
They had a general grasp of the Bloody Duchess, but there was no benefit in overextending themselves. They wanted to take her life without trading one of their own.
They were facing a mage and vampire, which was an annoyingly resilient combination.
If they could bait her into wearing herself out while they were keeping their wits and searching for the best opportunities, then great.
Terry couldn’t afford to get too reckless. That was not his role in this battle. They had all the advantages. They were near certain that the Bloody Duchess didn’t have another dimensional artifact – at least none that would allow her to flee.
Sadly, the duchess still appeared to have an artifact that helped her block unanchored transfers. Otherwise, the Spellcrusher would have already thrown the duchess into a volcano or forbidden zone.
Terry’s role was to keep his senses sharp and look out for the only real hitch that might spoil their plans: potential interference. They had not forgotten that there were other duchesses remaining. Even if Siyu had secretly defected, that still left three of the Unholy Duchesses that could screw everything up if they made an appearance.
Of course, they had considered such risks. Terry could ensure that the space remained free and as long as the space remained unsealed, Amelia could ensure a safe escape for them.
If it came to the worst, they must not be blindsided. Terry, as their best sensor, was responsible for ensuring a safe advance notice.
Terry could read the panic and deliberation in the eyes of the Bloody Duchess. She had hesitated relinquishing her claws but was apparently not willing to risk her own mana disruption against Terry’s casting speed to wrestle for her own limbs.
Terry had a role to play, and he wasn’t alone. He jumped back when he saw her spit a mouthful of black blood his way. When the sludge collided with his barrier of divine mana, it began sizzling.
“Charming,” muttered Terry dryly. As soon as he had gained distance, he opened up his mana disruption domain for Amelia’s spells to reach the duchess before Dargones’ wave of nullification mana would arrive.
Terry didn’t bat an eye when the light lances pierced into the vampiress, but he involuntarily flinched when the nullification discharge hit next. He didn’t know how it felt to have his own mana pool simply erased.
Terry also wasn’t eager to find out. He trusted there was a good reason why magebanes were as feared by mages as they were.
Terry had to give it to the duchess for keeping her wits about herself. She didn’t dodge or block – both options would have been futile given her circumstances, because with Amelia and Terry here to box her in, facing the nullification mana was only a matter of time.
Instead, the vampiress used all available time to use her last powerful items before the nullification would destroy them once and for all. She used the temporary reprieve from the disruption domain to get in a few precise spells of her own.
To no one’s surprise, the Bloody Duchess had focused her assault on Dargones, evidently perceiving the Magebane as the biggest direct threat.
They could let Dargones step towards Amelia’s side, but that would create an opening for the vampiress to escape their prepared encirclement. Not a major problem given Amelia’s teleportation abilities, but an avoidable problem with Terry present.
Terry knew he didn’t have to worry about any mana-based attacks with Dargones. The Bloody Duchess might as well throw puffs of smoke and cotton balls at the Magebane for all the harm that mana would inflict on him. Without missing a beat, Terry’s mana zoned in on all physical projectiles, and they all transfixed at once.
For a moment, Terry wondered what to do about the few projectiles that were unlike the others. Most projectiles flung by the artifacts were simply various forms of sharp, pointy, or heavy, but a few turned out to be containers of liquid or glass. Presumably, those were meant to break and release their contents on impact.
Terry’s mouth contorted into a mirthless grin while he channeled mana into the drift tattoos. It cost a lot of mana, but the idea was too tempting to pass up.
At least choose the option that’s less costly. Terry reminded himself.
Instead of relying on the drift tattoos to retrieve the containers, he maintained the drift but used his bidirectional attraction inscription to pull at the floating objects – at least as far as possible. Keeping only the drift active to enable the floating while avoiding it for acceleration was one of the ways he had discovered to conserve mana.
Terry signaled Dargones to wait a moment while dropping the duchess’s attack containers right back onto her. He had felt no mana from inside most of the containers, which had him suspect they contained forms of non-magic poisons, acids, or flammable materials.
Terry would never forget the utility of non-magic options. He himself had relied on poison, acid, and flammable liquids plenty of times in the past.
Unfortunately for the Bloody Duchess, her attempt to bypass the Magebane’s magic protection was backfiring tragically. A plume of poisonous and corrosive gas was forming around the vampiress and even if such an attack was nothing she would normally feel threatened by, the nullification mana that was enveloping her at the same time forced her to face the poisons almost as weakened as a manaless vampire.
Note to self: ask Miguel about non-magic poisons that act quickly and can be airborne. Seems like an excellent combination when working with a magebane.
Second objective done, I guess.
Terry nodded to himself. The number of spell centers accumulating in the sky around Amelia – outside the reach of the nullification mana – told him that the Spellcrusher had come to the same conclusion. The Bloody Duchess had been pressured into committing a grave mistake.
Terry and the others were all biding their time, ready to pounce on the flailing duchess. In their ideal scenario, they would be able to safely take the duchess prisoner for interrogation. As one of the Five Unholy Duchesses, the vampiress should be a useful source of intelligence before they would kill her for her role in the invasion.
The Bloody Duchess quickly reached the end of her rope. Her items were used up or destroyed. She was besieged by anti-magic abilities from all three of her opponents. All while being blasted by long-range area-of-effect spells from above and hounded by close-combat mana cultivators.
Pushed to the end of her abilities, the Bloody Duchess made a last ditch effort and flung herself frantically at Terry, evidently perceiving him as the easiest in line to break through.
Terry hurled divine hammers at her to maintain his distance while setting up his disruption domain. What he didn’t expect to see was for his divine hammers to shatter upon contact with the vampiress.
Idiot. Did I mess up the inscription usage? Did I accidentally disrupt my own…? I…
Terry pushed away his intruding doubts. He had spotted the weird ring on the duchess’ finger. The crystal reminded him of the transformation by the channelers of the ‘Vigilant and the Virtuous’ – channelers that relied on anti-magic.
The anti-magic properties could survive contact with nullification mana?
Terry did not lose his focus for long, but something else suddenly changed in the Bloody Duchess. Something that caused her to violently change her rhythm and close in with an unexpected velocity and abrupt rush.
Terry noted the blood trickling from the duchess’s eyes while she unexpectedly pulled him into a tight…
Hug?
The Bloody Duchess was clinging to Terry as if her life depended on it.
Is she attempting to bite me? No, she should be able to tell that my armor wouldn’t allow that, then…?
Terry burst his mana to defend against any potential mind-affecting spells the duchess might try. She didn’t appear to try turning him into a thrall, however. Instead, he felt his mana being drained rapidly.
From the pale look of the duchess, Terry guessed that her life really depended on it. It was not the first time that Terry had seen a self-destructive power-up, but the first time he had experienced one of such magnitude with himself as the opponent.
The proximity to Terry would buy the Bloody Duchess some time, while Dargones would hesitate to use his nullification mana.
Terry’s mana was constantly being sucked into the Bloody Duchess. His first instinct was to cleave the vampiress apart with his keen dagger or retrieve another mana core to blast her into smithereens.
However, he quickly reminded himself of their ideal scenario. Having some mana drained was not worth risking their chance at getting valuable information.
Terry reflexively grabbed a stronger hold of his own mana. It had been a long time since his sparring sessions with Derek in Tiv. His mana wasn’t as easily drained anymore, even if his opponent had the benefit of high-level spellwork.
Terry growled while clawing his mana back. The mana that had rushed out of him in a powerful river quickly changed into a slow trickle.
Terry could see that the Bloody Duchess had not expected this kind of difficulty. It was then that a more recent memory surfaced in Terry’s mind: A group of crafters staring at him with horrified expressions.
Terry lifted his arms and returned the ‘hug’ from the Bloody Duchess while pulling on his external mana bubble that reshaped into many disruption fields aiming for the duchess.
“You want my mana?” growled Terry with mad eyes. “Let’s see how much you can keep!”
His naturalized mana ground over and into the vampiress, disrupting her mana flow – including the harvesting of the mana she had stolen from him.
Rapid rotation by rotation, Terry disrupted her control over the mana inside her body. His mana control was stretched and continued grasping for all available mana.
Terry worked his disruption fields through her body and never stopped harvesting mana and grabbing at whatever was available.
“Not… possible…” The Bloody Duchess gritted through clenched teeth.
She was a vampire.
She was a mighty duchess of the Lich Kingdoms.
She was the Unholy Blood.
Granted, the Unholy Blood had never bothered to learn the highest level drain spells known to her kingdom, but she was still casting successfully! How was she the one being drained of mana instead?! How was it possible that despite her successful casting, she was losing mana here?!
Maybe we can really capture her alive?
Right when Terry was already praising their luck so far, he noticed an incongruent sensation from his mana touch in the vicinity. He felt something where he saw nothing. With a single thought, his mana sight flashed purple and Terry quickly made out the souls of folks rushing over from a distance.
Crap.
Terry continued to hold on to the duchess while signaling his allies about the imminent arrivals and wondering about the impressions from mana touch. He felt their mana, and it wasn’t what he was expecting. Instead of the death, blood, darkness or shadow aspects he was expecting from the Lich Kingdoms, these were…
“Ugh.” Terry felt like cursing. This will be annoying.
The mana signatures indicated that a group of mana martialists were approaching.
Thanks to the early warning, Dargones didn’t have to break his stride in order to nullify the first incoming mana resonance techniques.
Only the sound of bells lingered after the vanquished attacks.
Terry knew they were being outnumbered now, but he didn’t feel like fleeing with nothing to show for their efforts.
On the one hand, martialists with their own enhanced physique were a more troublesome opponent for the Magebane than mages that neglected active mana cultivation.
On the other hand, the prospect of nullification mana erasing their cultivation progress by crippling their dantian or other mana structures should prove devastating.
If Terry was dealing with remotely reasonable opponents, he would think that they wouldn’t dare to risk engaging the Magebane. Unfortunately, he was dealing with martialists and he was willing to bet they would turn it into a battle of near-suicidal offense.
Given their numbers advantage, that could become ugly unless Amelia or Terry backed up Dargones.
“Let me go!” hissed the Bloody Duchess, clearly picking up the changed circumstances. “I can answer your questions!”
As if I’d trust you unless we have a knife to your throat. Actually, even with the knife, I wouldn’t trust you.
“We all have magic placed on us,” said the Bloody Duchess. “The moment one of us dies, our last vision gets transmitted to the others.”
Okay?
Our ideal scenario seems out of reach with these interlopers getting in the way. Better for the duchess to die…
Terry paid little attention to the defeated enemy, whom he was draining of mana. He was too preoccupied with figuring out who the new arrivals were.
“If you dare to kill me, they will know your face!” hissed the Bloody Duchess. When her threats weren’t working, she changed her approach. “If you kill me, you won’t ever learn what you need to know!”
Terry was inclined to agree with her… right until he finally recognized one of the interlopers.
No wonder the cultivation signatures felt familiar.
Not long after Terry recognized the identity of their enemies, they also decided to properly make themselves known.
“TERRY!” howled the almost feral-looking woman dressed in stained, white-golden robes. “RETURNEE! YOU’VE KILLED MY SON! I’LL KILL YOU!”
What’s her face, uhh, name again? Mei? Wasn’t she Shen’s mother?
I killed Shen?
“Did I?” blurted Terry. When?
I mean, I definitely would have given the chance. I don’t remember killing Shen, though.
Did I unknowingly squish him with a boulder? The image brought a smile to his face. “Nice.”
“You!”
Terry remembered something else about the woman. Supposedly, Shen’s sect was powerful. Or had been. The woman didn’t look like she or her sect were in good shape at the moment.
More importantly, didn’t Zhang and Rafael say something about the two being from the sects’ intelligence division?
Terry weighed his options and quickly came to a conclusion. Their ideal scenario didn’t seem within reach anymore with the arrival of these people that clearly had a grudge with him for whatever reason.
That still left a near-ideal scenario.
Terry loosened his grip and cleaved his blades through the shoulders of the Bloody Duchess. While the vampiress tried to reshape her limbs, Terry shaped a ring of metal around her neck to hold her head in place and jumped back.
He combined a lightning-aspected blast from his mana sublimator with his king spear and the lightning cooked her veins from top to bottom before blowing her apart.
In a quiet corner in the middle of nowhere, the first of the infamous Unholy Duchesses of the Lich Kingdoms had fallen.
An unprecedented trio of mage hunters had forced the Bloody Duchess into the final and eternal slumber.
Her last sight was a disheveled group of martialists wearing white-golden robes.
Terry’s eyes, however, were already fixed on someone else. Fixed on Mei.
I wonder if the Bloody Duchess told the truth about some kind of image transmission magic activating when she died?
Terry smiled with anticipatory schadenfreude. If, by some unlucky circumstance, that martialist package of potential intelligence escaped from the three mage hunters, then he would certainly get a chuckle out of her and her sect being pestered by the Lich Kingdoms for ‘revenge’.
Amelia had teleported next to Terry. After confirming that the Bloody Duchess had indeed ceased wandering among the living and unliving, she stepped to Terry, where Dargones quickly appeared next.
“Leave?” asked Amelia.
Terry shook his head with his gaze still fixed on Mei. “New target.” A cold glint entered his eyes.
***
Comments
Storyhunter
It's actually kind of nice to see Terry and co use their planning and have things go right for a change. However it makes me kinda worried about how dealing with the spirited duchess is going to go.
Storyhunter
I suspect that opponents on the teir of the litch kings or the rulers of arcania would laugh at him for trying that at this point. But. If someone wants to play drain spell tug of war with him 🤷
Sesharan
Terry’s growing skill with external mana control is becoming something incredible. If he can control the naturalized mana of others, mages might as well just give up.
ALDGD
Nice.
Benji
Oh this was a fun fight! Though more on the 'we totally prepared and shut you down hard' kind of awesome fight. Enjoyed the duchess' perspective. I wonder if she actually had a name?
