Crusader King Chapter 85: Wooden world(21)

"Shield" said the one fighting against the wooden puppet, and a shield appeared, a do-like violet structure that covered the opponents weapon, with the weapon being on the inside.

Cades had been quite interested, even forgetting about the still fighting Manug and simply getting lost in experinting with this newfound magical application, one that was probably already known on ehetria, but one that he himself had never thought of using, to his current dismay.

Or perhaps one had to be of quite a high rank to use this power, difficult as ehetria had quite a low threshold before one would forsake the gods and be chased out of there, losing everything one had gained, naly the apex, a rank that Cades had long since surpassed, no, completely obliterated when one took into account that most of the puppets he had easily destroyed in his current states belonged to that very apex rank, to the rank that the eximimus queen had been at, to a rank that he had once desperately struggled to, maybe, one day reach.

It all felt so far in the past now, Cades fought as he deflected another one of the hunters attack, summoning a shield to once more test the durability and see if he could enhance it, causing the hunter to strike at it as hard as he could, breaking it within two tries, sothing that did quite impress Cades as the hunter had been adjusting his own strategy with the change of Cades attitude who now saw him as more of a lab rat, if nothing else.

Cades was quite surprised that the wooden puppets had the power to change at all, to Cades it seed as if they were still sohow sentient, no, rather it seed as if the being, or rather the thing, the sickness that was emulating them, was even capable of emulating their sentience, and in that case there was sothing Cades was a bit worried about.

Would it emulate pain and suffering, feelings and fear, annoyance and anger, would it create a true being, a being dominated by another, a being created just to be a slave, and would such a being truly be, that was the question Cades was now asking himself as he was trying to layer his shields, sothing he wasn't really capable of at the first few tries, and sothing he also didn't realize others.

But the question remained, or perhaps that was just the question one should ask, if a being was born to not be but instead be dominated and serve, then would it even be a being ?

Cades didn't think so, but rather than that there was now sothing more important, or perhaps sothing of equal importance that he had to think about.

The second one of the masters, the hunchback that had constantly been chanting had begun to involve himself, throwing balls of fla at him, seemingly not caring that he himself was made out of seemingly flammable wood, and also seemingly quite afraid of Cades, afraid of his power, afraid of his entire being that was now spread out and poisoning his own magic and soul that constantly had to interact with the naturally mana residing in this endless domain of the forest.

The flas, condensed into little orange balls, that the hunchback shot reeked of desperation, so much so that there was no real intent, just a fearful try to escape while already knowing that it was to late, another proof that these beings had feelings, fear in this case.

After a first mont of panic, thinking that the flas would kill him Cades had however already cald down, instead opting to calmly erect a shield to protect himself, an act that resulted in quite the interesting phenonon.

As Cades created the shield using the ambient mana, mostly his own, the fireball itself began to transform, though it was still unstable and ended up causing the shield to fly back and almost hit Cades who quickly evaded with a single step, also cutting into the arm of the hunter who was, despite being quite done with it by now, still fighting while he knew how he was being disrespected.

The shield had transford and wielded quite the interesting orange glimr, as a pulsating heart, it was truly interesting, it was beautiful, and at the sa ti, it was elating for Cades to realize what that ant.

His own magical power, his very own mana, had poisoned everything surrounding him, this was a way to fight if this were to ever happen again, he could use this, and added to that great boon, the hunchback was dying of the poison, and even if he wasn't dying he would be soon, after all, the mana was Cades, and Cades was more than happy to finish the job now that he had gained so much insight into his new powers and his opponents techniques, even realizing how to use the shield per voice-command, though he still had to make the image of the do in his head for it to actually manifest in that way.

Now, just as if they had truly beco nothing more than white mice that Cades held within his lab, as if they were nothing more than his toys, Cades began to go onto the offensive, first slashing through the feeble defence posed by the exhausted, crazed hunter that was seemingly a bit happt to finally go, but less so once Cades sent a weak overload towards the nether region of the once oh so powerful monster.

After that he had to battle the hunchback, a easy fight seeing that the magic cast by the beast was barely able to hurt him right now, as he had a natural defence against his own magic, seeing that his own magic would just be absorbed into the natural, faint layer of mana that surrounded every kind of mage.

It soon fell, its lower regions being maltreated with lightning, and soon after, no, re monts after, Cades finally awoke from his flow and panicked, running to help Manug who probably had no idea on how to solve the "curse".

Covering the distance of a few hundred foot, actually, now a few thousand foot would be an easy task for Cades, though he was quite surprised how wild their battle must've been to force the two to change their location by so much.