148 Illusion Spell

'Bingo,' Doevm thought as he heard his light crystal thud against an invisible mass. He smirked and he raised his spear overhead, taking aim. 'I may have sealed my mana, but my eyes are more than enough to see through a novice illusion spell.' He condensed blue life essence around his eyes, searching for more signs to prove his guess.

'Illusion spells are a great way to hide, but every spell has its weakness. If the user is unskilled, they form a line between reality and illusion instead of blending them together.' He moved his gaze to the floor around the illusion. It was like the evidence of battle had been cut off, forming a hemisphere on the ground where no shadow could form and no blood had been spilled.

The area shimmered again, forming a silhouette no bigger than a small child. Doevm couldn't hear the glass-like material shattering over the gunfire, screams, and metallic scrapes. He did however, spot a few pieces of Ploly fall to the ground outside of the hemisphere. The faint shimmer grew eight times in size and a new creature hopped out of the seemingly empty area. 'That should be where the Creatures keep coming from. I don't know how they are doing it yet, but I will soon enough.' Before he could release his spear, a familiar sensation but made his hairs on end.

The guards turned and moved like something had brushed past them. Ever so slightly, the pools of blood and shattered bits of light crystals swept along the ground, heading straight towards Doevm, who instinctively ducked before a pair of daggers swept right over his head. "You again!" He growled as he backed away. He changed his grip from a throwing stance to an underhand stance. The black clothed rogue closed in. Doevm parried the twin poisoned daggers away just inches from his vitals. A vile substance dripped onto his shirt. A drop turned into a hole in both fabric and armor, stopping just before his skin.

'If I get hit, I'm dead,' Doevm thought. 'I don't have the mana to heal myself anymore.' His head jerked to the side as an arrow dented his helmet. Stars entered his hazy vision. 'I have to fight that archer at the same time. You have got to be kidding me! I can't even see him!'

Sparks showered down as blade scraped against armor. In between weaving in and out of the slashes a blunt thud crashed against his back. Pain pushed a groan out of his mouth. Sections of his vertebrae creaked, struggling to remain whole. He flew forward and lost his balance, giving the rogue a chance to swipe at Doevm's neck.

'Front flip.' Doevm leaned forward. The daggers passed just above his helmet. His feet left the ground as he flipped over the rogue, who turned to face him. Doevm ran his spear into his chest, ripping the light leather armor open.

It went right through the rib cage and through the other side, but he didn't feel the familiar satisfying twitch as he did every time when hitting an opponent's vital. Instead of the rogue's eyes losing their light, they almost brightened, as if he had wanted to get hit. Doevm drew his spear back. The rogue kneeled. Doevm didn't see a pierced heart, but plain bloody flesh. The hole in the rogue's chest closed in a few seconds with blue life essence.

'That bastard,' Doevm thought. 'That was just like body modification magic. He moved his heart with life essence. Of all the ways to ruin a fight, this is it.' Doevm wiped off another book inside himself, calming his hot head a bit. At the same time, however, dirt collected on a specific book inside of him, "Lich's Malice". It dirtied faster than he could clean. 'I guess I can't afford to play it safe anymore. I wanted to cripple them, but at this rate, the reverse will happen.'

Doevm's chest expanded as life essence condensed around it. His armor cracked in several places, unable to handle the strain. The rogue fell back. 'I know how to lead, but none of these men will follow a nobody like me.' He glanced over to the apprentices. 'The apprentices have little experience leading, which is why they engaged the creatures instead of pulling everyone together. If I can just point them in the right direction, they can take it from there.'

Doevm forced the air of out of his lungs as he yelled, "The creatures are coming from behind an illusion spell. Find it and we can cut off their reinforcements!" His voice carried over everything, ringing inside every man's ears like the words of that accursed goddess.

The knights, who were on the backfoot, gained a second wind. They pulled themselves into formations, no matter their different backgrounds. The apprentices knew that their time to lead had come. They finished off their opponents and jumped in front of the improvised formations. Copper life essence condensed around their eyes, which were locked onto the faint shimmers at the back. "Push and we can take them down!" They roared. The knights let out a war cry and charged with renewed strength in their screaming limbs.

The rogue backed away from Doevm as the bulk of the knights grew closer. The archer fired one last arrow before retreating, which Doevm caught. "That won't work on me anymore," he said as he snapped it in two. He looked straight at the illusion spell, which the archer had been hiding in. He could have sworn that he heard a yelp.

The creatures backed away from the gathering knights, forming a semicircle around the invisible space. Gunmen were still firing, but in slower intervals. Their already tired hands were running out of energy and ammo. Doevm and the rest charged in a make-shift v-shape formation.

The collection of warriors, who were covered in both metal and life essence, struck against the bulk of the creatures. Blood poured down harder than any rain. Screeches rang throughout the hall; some human, some creature, all in pain. Half of the knights were already dead. Those remaining were steadily declining. 'If we don't succeed with this push, we can't hope to reinforce Alexander,' Doevm thought as he dug his spear into a creature's eye.

The rogue was out of sight, which made him worry more than rejoice. The archer was no longer firing arrows. The gunmen were retreating inside of the illusion spell, turning into shimmers. The creatures were falling one by one.

Doevm cut down anything in his path. His life essence thinned. His new comrades' weapons flew by his limbs and into the creatures ahead. Blood dripped over his cracked lips, which were stretched into a smile. He could barely taste the copper because his mouth was so dry. 'This,' he thought. 'This is what I was missing: bloodshed, battle, true fighting.' A creature's arm struck him, pushing the air out of his burning lungs and denting his armor with a resounding crack. The chest plate shattered. He bounced off the knights behind him and rejoined the battle.

He couldn't tell how much of the blood which covered him was his own or from others. The grip of his spear slipped around. He couldn't see the other side of the dragon's corpse, but he imagined that Alexander's fight was nearing an end as well, since the collection of intense bangs were in greater intervals.

…

Alexander took deep, long breaths as he circled his opponent, his eyes scanning for any possible weaknesses under the Resistance leader's black cloak. 'He might have hidden weapons,' he thought. 'The way he moves…it reminds me of how Doevm fought in the tournament. It's like he doesn't put anything into fighting, like it's nothing to him. How disgusting. Yet, why do I feel this pressure from him? Why do I feel that he has seen me fight hundreds of times before? He is predicting each move I make.'

Alexander bolted in, shaking the entire room with a single bound. His sword sung its song: the rhythm of ripping through the air and sharp clangs against the Resistance leader's sword. The mithril wall shuttered as Alexander smacked the leader into it. 'He's weak.'

He lurched forward, the air parting before his advance. The Resistance leader made no attempt to get away from the wall, only holding his blade in front of him. The Resistance leader put a hand forward. 'He's…giving up?' Alexander continued with the cut, but right before his blade reached the Resistance leader, a strange pressure entered into his elbow. He cursed as he adjusted his weight mid-swing. The Resistance leader laughed as the mithril wall was cut into two. The top part fell down, opening the way. Alexander backed away.

"What were you about to do to me?" Alexander asked, his eyes narrowing. He gained some more distance between them. "That was not a fighting technique, nor was it magic. I shudder to think of what would have happened should I had cut you."

"And why would I tell you?" The Resistance leader shrugged as he hopped over the broken wall, his words echoing in the open air. Alexander kneeled down as a bead of sweat dripped down his cheek.

'He reached out with a hand. I don't know what that was but it seemed, if that hand would have touched me, I would have broken in some way.' He looked at the back of his arm, which the Resistance leader had managed to graze. It bulged out in a tiny mass of muscle. A strength ran through him, like an invading essence. 'He doesn't even value his own life.' A shiver went down his spine.

…

'I wish Frey or Hopi were here,' Doevm thought. A creature's massive set of claws cut through his ear, but he couldn't feel much of the splitting pain from it opening. His limbs ached much more. They cried for him to cease his actions.

As he and some of the knights around him finished off another creature, that creeping sensation overtook him again. 'What now?' he thought as he looked around, finding that most of the knights were not looking at their opponents, but up at the back wall. After following their line of sight, going up the ginormous skeletal spinal cord, Doevm's eyes widened. Standing high up on one of the vertebrae was the archer. He had an arrow nocked in his wooden bow. Wrapped around it was a white sack, which was held together by a burning rope. A bit of black powder fell off of it, the same powder the gunmen used. Before Doevm could warn the rest, the bowstring flicked the arrow down into an area dense with knights.

Flames burst forth only to fade away in a bright flash. A sound louder than any thunder made everyone's ears bleed and ring. Limbs and men flew through the air. The blast even killed one of the creatures. The already unstable formations broke down. Then, a girl wielding a massive hammer walked out of the illusion. Doevm could have sworn she was wearing a cocky smile. The rogue appeared next to her along with a squadron of creatures. The archer nocked another arrow. The apprentices rushed in, abandoning the men who they were supposed to lead. Doevm cursed. 'I swear, these people like to take the fun out of everything. If you're going to fight, use your damned fist or melee weapons! I'm sick and tired of this fake magic.'