Chapter 112: 97: All the best romances…

Auratic

The baleful orb raced through the air like an arrow, discharging explosively as soon as it made contact with the earth. Alicia purposefully aimed it in the vicinity of the mages in lieu of a direct hit. She was unsure of its potency, but the amount of energy it demanded hinted at its destructive potential. The area was blasted with a superheated shockwave. She could see the faint glimmer of white distort and disperse to winds when the blast wave contacted their barrier. With their protective wards undone in but a moment leaving them vulnerable. Then countless shrapnels of dirt and debris shot all around, carrying the sparks of beryl with them. The poorly armored spellcasters were shredded mercilessly by these molten slags, peppering even those who stood outside the blast radius. And at last came the burn. Any who were but only touched by the viridian flames suffered its fierce heat and unrelenting burn. Soldiers who had bits and pieces of their clothing set engulfed in flames were quickly overcome by panic, with some clumsily attempting to rid themselves of the blazing apparel as the fire burned abnormally fast over typically nonflammable materials such as metal plates. The flames felt intelligent, hellbent on destroying everything in their path.

The worst was yet to come, as those who were too sluggish to strip themselves of the flaming attire or naively sought to stamp out the flames or tumble to the ground and roll, discovered that these flames were no regular fire. As soon as it reached the flesh, an infernal pain comparable to none other overtook all their being. It felt as if there was a wildfire raging beneath the skin and their very blood was boiling inside their veins and this maddening pain slowly spreading through their entire bodies. Their colleagues tried to help by splattering water from their water skins all over their burning companions, only for the water to vaporize in an instant creating a scalding steam to further torment them. One of them managed to sprint into a large puddle of water from the night’s rain, only to boil himself alive in his own earthen pot. Even as all the water evaporated away, he still burned, thrashing on the floor. The fires subsided only after life had burned away from them. Leaving an immaculate corpse that was scarcely touched by burns. This infernal flame set afire to not only the flesh but the very essence of a being. Sated only by the claiming of their soul.

Seeing the fate that befell their brethren terror took hold over the hearts of the soldiers unscatched by this inferno. Very soon the same people that reached out a helping hand now pointed their weapons at the victims of the fire. Stay back! They shouted. Away! They yelled. Consumed by the delirium of pain and agony, inflamed survivors ran towards their allies, seeking aid, any abatement from the misery. It didn’t take long for those remaining untouched to strike down their burning comrades to prevent the spreading of the fire to the others. At the time they believed themselves to be ridding them of their torture. Just stay down! One pleaded. Let it go! Another begged. How quickly they turned to think of only their own survival. Flames snaked and coiled around the weapons they used to slaughter their own, forcing the wielder to throw it away or suffer the same tragedy. Caught in the anarchy, none even thought that their mage corps survived seeing as how they were completely surrounded by the green hell that still raged on…

As soon as the spell shot out, inky blackness of the Void escaped her and the color returned to her.

‘The devil is very into the color green… Copper sulfate maybe…? What am I thinking about, it’s a bloody magic fire, it doesn’t conform to chemistry. Well that should make them rethink their attack. You know… I like blowing things up, maybe a little more than constructing them. I should have become a demolitionist or a sapper, it’s still engineering, just a different kind of it. Eh… I don’t think demomen get to use the big explosives that much for controlled collapse, not even the well funded ones. Then… sappers would get to do bomb defusals and IED disposal not blowing things up… ugh…’

While Alicia was a little out of herself watching the fire she caused, wreak havoc, at her side the Margrave was intently observing the events unfolding before him. He asked for a miracle, what he got was a glimpse into hell. He was just relieved that he and his people weren't on the receiving end. But at the same time anxious, that this terrible force could have been on the Empire’s side. This otherworldly fire that seemed to be alive could raze towns and cities to ashes in a matter of hours. He had asked for Alicia to show a great display of force in a roundabout manner of course, to see how much of a threat she could pose to the Kingdom. Now he realized that they might be in over their heads. This wasn’t something that could be solved by brute force, not without tremendous risks involved. As such, if she can’t be overcome, then it was imperative they had to win her over… but that was for later date.

It seemed more and more likely that this was it for the Empire’s assault. Ending not because they couldn’t continue the fight, there were siege engines still operable. But with the troop morale down in the dirt despite their numerically small losses, relatively speaking, due to the ravage from Devil’s Sunrise, a victory seemed unattainable. The loss of their mages was a huge blow since it severely restricted the variety of tactics they could employ. Scaling the fortifications was a possibility, but it would be a costly one, and that was only the first step; those who made it to the top of the walls would have to fight their way to the gatehouse to raise the gates while being fired on from the town side. Only then, after seizing the gatehouse the entire Imperial army could pour in and crush the opposition by numbers, but to make that possibility into a reality, it would have to be built on mountains of corpses just to take the walls. General Meginhard knew that he needed to take drastic action to turn the tide back into their favor. So long as that tower where the fiery attacks came from stands, his troops will never have the resolution to press the attack. The general had known of the presiding lord to be an accomplished pyromancer; he even made a generous estimation of his capabilities on top of that, but it was clear that he vastly underestimated him. The most vulnerable time for an opponent was often after their fiercest attacks thus took to the battlefield personally…

As Alicia came back to herself as her body adjusted to the sudden drop in energy levels, she noticed the enemy was charging to the walls.

‘Is that… a cavalry charge? Against mostly intact walls…? I can’t imagine this going over too well… Man, tactical warfare is weird, no wonder people have to train for this.’

Alicia thought she was the only one baffled due to her contemporary lenses. But it was shared with Margrave beside her, who in place of perplexity felt an uneasy foreboding. What was their purpose? Before long Alicia spotted a familiar person leading the charge, she had not seen him before but had memories of observing him overhead angles… Memories of her Familiars spying on him. He was the leading general in this attack, usually a cautious man from all the reports she received from Alfred. Soon after she sensed a gathering energy of magic held in their hands with glaring burst aureate glow. She saw at least three of these before an unsettling premonition came over her.

A chilling scream of someone rang out, before she could even think to ask what or why, first and foremost in her mind was a feeling that the rickety tower underneath her was about to collapse at any moment. And her body was already starting to move on its own to flee, but just before that.

‘Wait! Reynold!’

The lights she had seen were indeed of magic, related to the earth. Lithic spears shot towards the town’s fortifications flying at tremendous speeds and striking against the weak points of the already battered walls, crumbling them down. Largest of these petrous javelins were aimed directly at the tower the two were on top of, cleanly punching through.

‘This is why you use reinforced concrete!’

Even as the ground gave out from under her, she quickly managed to recenter herself. And as the tower crumbled down Alicia instinctively and inadvertently used therianthropy summon her Araneae appendages to cling on and stabilize herself to a larger piece of the collapsing tower. She was conscious about revealing the other part of her to any would-be observers, even with the help from Stealth, but valued not getting caught under a falling rubble a little more than maintaining secrecy. Without much effort she spotted Margrave in free fall. Falling from such height, along with the raining debris, she could conceivably come out unscathed with the plethora of skills and spells available to her, but for a human even if they were somewhat sturdier than the average, she judged it was not compatible with a long and prosperous life or just staying alive in general.

‘I have to get to him.’

With the assistance of her extra limbs she quickly ran on the relatively stable sections of the tower still standing, using her additional legs as support for scaling while trailing a line of silk along the surface with her palm, creating an anchor of safety but not for herself. Due to the urgency of the situation, she created the silk through magic, fast and loose. She didn’t have time to refine structure with the more finer details of a standard web. It was all stretching lines of capture silk, sticky but not durable on its own without the framework. ‘Ahh, this is going to suck!’ She never really got used to how spiders ‘jumped’ and avoided using her spider legs to jump at all costs. An Araneae had much different muscle structure than mammals. The hemolymph, the equivalent of the blood, rushed to extremities forcing the limbs to snap open with force which generated the thrust. This action was what created the ‘jump’. But even in her hybrid form, this meant her head and upper body was temporarily drained of blood and she briefly suffered from symptoms of severe hypotension. Blackout, dizziness and sense of doom that came along with it, though momentary, still frightened her. She never had a heart attack before, but was convinced that this was the closest thing she ever had to one.

Right now she needed to catch Reynold from mid air, with just a normal jump she didn’t know if she would make it. ‘I wouldn’t have to do this if I could only just shoot web… wait I can shoot web!’ Inherited from the Reteiactus species, their modified fangs could spray a mix of venom and silk usually used for immobilizing prey, though it had a poor range and accuracy, but today it would save a life. Avoiding the ‘spider’s jump’ she managed to get close enough to start spraying silk at the flailing noble in fall. As soon as the little bit of it got a hold of his arms, she pulled him closer. Pulling him to her embrace. It might seem romantic even to a bystander free from context, until the point where she started to wrap him in thin sheaths of silk. Once she reached him, she stopped creating more silk from her palms and instead wrapped it around her entire forearm. Without production, the silk on her hand instead acted as a lifeline that stretched and stretched until breaking little by little swinging them back as it went.

This was no surprise for Alicia, she intended for the silk to break, instead of suffering one big fall, it was a series of small drops until they reached the ground. Unfortunately, the part of the wall where her silk was anchored started to fall apart, causing their descent to start little earlier and little quicker and the silk quickly ran out. It had carried the both of them as far as it could, and the last stretch of fall wasn’t all too bad. But what was a problem were ruins of the former tower falling on top of them. Just before hitting the ground she spun around with him to face the rocks bearing down on them. Again it seemed like she was cushioning the fall for him.

She didn’t even feel her fall, it felt as ordinary as jumping onto a bed - of rocks and stone uncomfortable but not something that would kill her, and it wasn’t quite the feather fall considering the tiny crater that formed around her due to the Falling star. What had the potential to kill her were the large stones few seconds away from crushing the two of them.

Dust and rubble engulfed them, seemingly squashed. After some time when there wasn't any more rubble piling on top, applying a little more force to the barrier, Alicia created a sizable opening for both of them to walk out. Reynold was still laying on top of her, for him it all happened too fast for him to process, one moment they were falling, the next something grabbed him and started tying him up, then there were sounds of massive stones falling around them, so close that he thought he was being pulverized under them.

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Flabbergasted still, Alicia’s remark pulled him to reality somewhat.

Despite the enchantingly amorous situation she managed to get into, within her still remained a spirit of a man. A man’s spirit who was still very much so straight.

Her words dispelled the mood with the biting cold of arctic waters.

After he rolled off of her Alicia got up and helped with any remaining silk on him.

Climbing the intact part of the wall from the outside Alicia quickly found her quarry. She pulled out her bow from the gaping maw of the void along with a single arrow. Ingin, her bow made from a semi-living sapling had sprouted a few new twigs due to disuse; these didn’t inhibit her from drawing it nor did obscure her sight so she left them be for now. Before anything she was recalling her lessons from Faenas. ‘Let’s see if I was a good student…’ First, the method of aiming, tracking; when you follow your target with your eyes before learning to predict how they move, how they think. For distant targets you have to learn to see the ‘ghost’ of your target. A ghost was an imaginary location where the target would be by the time the arrow reached them. In layman’s terms, it was leading a shot on a moving target. The other method was trapping, used for nearer targets. After placing your point of aim ahead of the target, the shooter looses their arrow as soon as they cross their point of aim. There was a time and place for both of them. Here she opted to ‘trap’ him. She had a fair idea of the path her target would take as he was keen on leading the charge through the hole he made through the gatehouse he tore down. ‘When you aim… use both eyes and respond only to movement…’

After choosing the trapping point a fair bit ahead of him, she nocked the arrow ready. Faenas’s advice echoing in her mind. ‘When you pull, use the entire arm’s muscles… forearms, biceps and shoulders all of it…’ As she slowly started to pull the strings, winds swirled around the arrow, from the tip to the fletching gracing it with their blessing that gave it an explosive force.

‘You wanna throw shit at me buddy? What goes around, comes back around with a vengeance.’

Lilting, rhythmic droning quietly ringed in her ears, pulling Alicia in a trance like focus. This… tune grew louder and more complex by the passing second and so did her concentration. She didn’t even think twice about shooting when the General’s gilded armor came into sight. Just before the arrow began its flight.

A line of black streaked through the air. Perhaps due to some self-preservation instinct the commander attempted to avoid the incoming darkness but it was far too little, far too late and he could only take it with his shoulders. The shadowy dart pierced through the bulky shoulderpads of the splendid armor as though they weren’t even there. The projectile didn’t even slow down as it cleanly dismembered his right arm causing it to spin to the air before flopping down to the ground like a piece of meat thrown to dogs. Blood cascaded from the open wound draining like a fountain faucet. The high rush of combat quickly drained from him and his aides. The charging cavalry stopped in their tracks. Already in dire straits, brutal loss of their leader was the final straw that caused the soldiers to rout with contagious fear.  An orderly retreat was no longer a possibility.

General Meginhard only then saw the ephemeral figure of someone… someone glowing in the golden light of the sun. It appeared as though even the fair sun picked favorites. That was the last vision burned into his eyes as he lost consciousness from blood loss. His limp body was frantically carried by his bodyguards. Residents of Viveria erupted in celebration when the invaders swiftly withdrew, with no distinction between commoners and nobles, young or old. And thus concluded the siege of Viveria, the historic records of the event were widely debated and contested, as with any event of antiquity. But none argued that this battle was the earliest of the White Lady’s lore, where the miracles started…

Auratic

The captain be late by a few days. But! In turn I give ye landlubbers about 50% longer chapter. Arggh. Ahem, anyway, so ends in my mind at least, book 2, wow, much progress, such speed. I didn't know how to show how the votes were influencing the story because well... in order to show it naturally I would have to write a chapter in multiple variants which would slow down my already sluggish pace. Instead you get a small line that indicates whenever a narrative event is modified by you guy's votes. yey.

Piracy

If you are wondering what that pirate speak at the beginning of the notes were, I found out that this story is being Pirated. We did it guys, we made it to the big leagues, by being pirated, I mean that's the true measurement of your success right? Anyway, I found one site, accidentally by seeing that someone was less than happy with their story also being pirated. Wondered, 'huh, is mine by chance here' and lo and behold it is, with a stolen artwork with their site's logo splashed over it to a boot. I am sure you all are used to the glorious placeholder image, I never commissioned an artist for the cover image.

Anyway, I don't really mind if this story gets mirrored elsewhere so long as it's not in breach of the current Creative Commons License and a proper credit is given. It's free already, not like I'm generating ad revenue or anything. And taking any meaningful anti-piracy measures by modifying text to only work in certain way are going to be more of a nuisance to the regular reader and their effectiveness is going to be dubious if any at all. This is doubly troubling for some other readers that I know who have expressed some issues with accessibilities and TTS before. So I elect to not change anything from my end.

I'm thinking about going a little harder on the LitRPG aspect of the series, with more shift towards the fantasy. (Think generic asian MMO that uses sexy 3D models clickbait you into their microtransaction hell, scanty armor, more popculture stuff things like that). Add in some more 'video-gamey' elements.

Oh and here's almost all of the new Void category of skills you guys have picked. (P.S Right click and open the image in a new tab for higher quality)

Don't click this spoiler.

You fool! Why have not heed the warning! Now you shall forever be cursed by the knowledge of the Spussy.

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