The knights came in a tight wedge, shields overlapping, and blades level, a formation I would have respected if I had not spent the last three months being drunk by a demon and was, consequently, in no mood.
I counted them. Forty-seven. A respectable number for a guard detail. But they were just knights. Armored humans with swords and shields.
The fox on my shoulder tilted its head. "They’re not very lively, are they?"
"Lively? They look lively enough to me."
"Look at them, Elric, they move like they’re following a script," she said. "Like they’re not making decisions. Just... executing. I have seen your memories; even trained men are not supposed to move like this."
I did not have time to ponder her words; besides, I had not seen enough of the world for the fox to draw a compelling reference from. This place made me uncomfortable, and I wanted to leave.
Like the first armored knight that attacked me, these in front of me were invisible to my senses, and if I could not see them, I would not be able to sense them as they were grey smudges on my senses; I could not even feel the heat from their bodies, or hear a heartbeat... I should take apart that armor to see how it works.
With Storm Bearer active, I reached for the lightning essence that was supposed to be all around me, but I could not find much of it; there was barely enough essence in the air to fill the gaps between my teeth.
I held out my hand, and I called the lightning essence over to it, and it looked as if I held dozens of tiny tadpoles made from lightning. For hundreds of meters around me, this was the only lightning essence that I could gather.
I was beginning to see why there were no mages down here, and how so many powerful creatures could be kept in this place without magic going crazy and wrecking it all.
Similar to the essence dampeners in the camp, the essence in the surroundings was being actively suppressed. A major part of a mage’s strength would be cut off in this place, since an average Adept depended on the essence in the air to fuel their Anima regeneration.
This meant that Storm Bearer had lost one of its advantages since I could no longer draw endless essence towards me for my use. However, I was still a lightning source, meaning my body could passively generate lightning essence. However, at a much-reduced rate because it was being stolen from me almost as quickly as it was generated. Still, I had my Anima, and that was not being affected, and unlike other mages, my Anima’s regenerative capacity was off the charts.
All of these thoughts rapidly passed through my head as I switched out my Legendary Title to one that I had not used since I acquired it. I had not even read the description for it, but the knights were moving towards me rather slowly, so I could quickly see what the Lightning Adept Title was all about.
Lightning Adept — Uncommon
Acquired by: becoming an Adept with Lightning as your primary Discipline.
Effects (while equipped):
- All lightning-based Disciplines and Skills cost 10% less Anima to cast.
- Lightning-based spells are 10% more effective (range, duration, or damage, whichever is applicable).
- The bearer gains a passive awareness of ambient electrical charge within 50 metres (Storm Sense — minor).
- Lightning Resonance growth is slightly accelerated.
This was not so different from what I expected. If I were an average mage who had reached the Adept level with lightning as my main discipline, then this Title was a vast increase over the Acolyte Title that just gave me an increase in my learning speed.
It gave me a rather stable increase in power that was eclipsed by Storm Bearer, and this Title was rather useless to me at this point, as there was no hidden advantage I could gain from it. Regaining a measure of Storm Sense was nice, but I had the same features with my Loom, and the accelerated growth of Lightning Resonance was meaningless to me with my channels that enabled me to run so much lightning through my body that even if my Lightning Resonance was slow, it was growing faster than any mage could match up.
Sighing, I switched this Title to Death Touched. If Storm Bearer could not give me much advantage in this place, then I would rather have something that could help me detect hidden dangers that my senses could not detect in advance.
With all my preparations done, and the knights were still over twenty meters away from me, apparently not in a rush to apprehend me, I began my attack.
I threw the lightning essence I had towards them, and it splattered against the knights in the front of the formation. They did not seem to have any magical defenses apart from the weird stealth effect of their armor, and the essence soaked through it and into their bodies.
In the same motion that I used to toss out the lightning essence, I also raised my hand, Lightning Edict. Break.
Seven knights at the front of the formation collapsed. Their armor crumbled into themselves as if they had been squeezed by a gigantic hand.
For one second, the seven knights that had squeezed into a ball hovered in the air before they fell to the ground with a resounding crash. However, the knights behind did not stop. Even after they had seen the horrific deaths of their fellow knights, they simply stepped over their bodies and continued their advance.
This threw me off for a moment, before I shrugged, "If that was the way they wanted to play it... Fine with me."
The voice of the Hollow Avatar reached my mind, "Try not to kill all of them."
I agreed with it, "I want to know what this place is, and dead men are bad conversation."
"One should do..." the fox said, "keep one."
"Sure," I said as I became Lightning Incarnate and then stepped into the ranks of the knights.