Raze's body was hit cleanly by the tower's energy beam. The impact was staggering, largely because he had never expected such a massive, permanent-looking building to move, and certainly not to move with such predatory speed. He was caught mid-air, a sitting duck for the magical artillery.
Thankfully, he was already wearing his god-tier blazer. The legendary garnt shimred as the beam connected, its enchantnts working overti to absorb and deflect the brunt of the kinetic and magical force. Even so, the sheer pressure of the hit sent him reeling.
As he was knocked back through the air, he gritted his teeth, fighting against the centrifugal force to regain his footing. He began to summon his Qi to stabilize his flight, but he quickly realized that this wasn't just a single strike. The first tower hadn't been acting alone.
It wasn't as if it was the only tower that could move.
In the second area of the fortress, the ground groaned as all of the towers began to shift on hidden, massive tracks. They slid across the earth like chess pieces on a board. As they drew closer together, they synchronized their mana output. Multiple beams shot out at once, joining together in mid-air to form one giant, catastrophic pillar of light.
This combined beam hit Raze's body cleanly while he was still recovering in the sky.
The others, fighting desperately from the ground below, stopped for a split second as the sky turned a blinding white. They could see the staggering amount of mana being expended. It was a level of power that should have disintegrated any living thing. Even soone as powerful as Raze would have been lethally wounded by an attack of that magnitude, that was, if he had no way to counter it.
But Raze was not a typical mage.
The massive beam of energy suddenly began to flicker and distort. Instead of an explosion, the light seed to be sucked into a vacuum, turning into nothing as it was consud by a spatial anomaly. A short while after, Raze's body disappeared from the path of the beam entirely, only to reappear in a different position several ters away.
He descended quickly, his boots hitting the dirt as he landed back on the ground where he had been with the others. He was breathing heavily, his chest heaving as he checked his status.
'Damn it, I had to use the ability of the blazer,' Raze thought, his mind racing. 'If I had taken the full force of that combined attack, it would have been an incredible amount of damage. I wasn't even sure if I would have survived long enough to reverse ti, so I had to use both the blazer's absorption and the ti reversal imdiately.'
He wiped a bit of blood from the corner of his mouth. Using such high-level artifacts and spells in tandem ca with a heavy price.
'There's always a risk of what mories I will lose when using the blazer's ultimate defense,' he reminded himself grimly. 'And I have to use the ti reversal instantly if I don't want to suffer from the blazer's permanent side effects. I just never thought I would have to use such a trump card so early in this raid.'
This was an unexpected variable. While Raze possessed extrely powerful weapons and enchanted items, the fortress itself was proving to be more than just a stationary target. As he watched the towers, he could see them gliding across the terrain, repositioning themselves with eerie chanical precision. They were moving in a calculated pattern, forming a perfect circle that surrounded the entire group.
'I can protect myself... but can I protect the group?' Raze thought, his eyes darting between his allies.
The issue was clear: with the towers being able to move, they could launch coordinated attacks from multiple different angles simultaneously. They were essentially giant, stationary-turned-mobile homing devices.
Raze began to reflect on the gravity of their situation. What had driven him into this position in the first place? Had his desire for justice or revenge blinded him to the tactical reality?
Did he really think they could be successful with so few people?
Part of him thought back to their victory against Alter in Pagna. During that war, they had also faced a group with extrely powerful artifacts. Alter had a fortress of their own, a massive army, and nearly limitless resources. Raze's side had succeeded then, but there were key differences that he was only now beginning to fully appreciate.
This fortress in the Noble Land was ten tis more difficult than anything he had faced in Pagna. The magical engineering was superior, the traps were more sophisticated, and the defense was more reactive. On top of that, during the war with Alter, Raze had his allies, real numbers. He had the entirety of the factions coming together, a united front of warriors and mages to help him wage war against the Empire.
This ti, they were only a small, isolated group.
'All of them are here because of . They are in this situation because they followed my lead,' Raze thought, his resolve hardening. 'Since they are here because of , I have to do everything in my power to ensure they survive!'
He lifted his sword high, the tal singing as it caught the light of the charging towers. Suddenly, an ink-like darkness started to bleed out from the blade, spilling onto the ground and rising into the air like smoke.
'The final formation... the Eternal Night Formation.'
This was one of his most taxing techniques. It would allow Raze to use a number of his high-end skills in rapid succession by absorbing the ambient mana of everyone around him. If he tid it perfectly with his ti spells, he would be able to fight without tiring, effectively becoming a perpetual engine of destruction.
'I'll take out as many of the mages as I can around us first,' he decided, the shadows swirling around his feet. 'And then, I'll do what I can to take out those towers... or find whoever is controlling them!'
Little did Raze know, the person controlling the chanical movents of the fortress was watching his every move from the safety of the central palace.
Idore sat in a darkened chamber, his hands resting on top of a giant, glowing orb. The surface of the sphere held a shimring magical display of the entirety of the Noble Land. In the projection, the towers could be seen as small, glowing icons. With a simple swipe of his fingers or a thought, Idore could move them across the ground at will, directing the flow of the battle like a grandmaster on a chessboard.
He watched the dark smoke begin to rise from Raze's position on the map, a small smirk playing on his lips.
"The Dark Magus was a good test for the Noble Land's defenses," Idore said to the empty room. "But it was exactly as I expected. He was only able to get past the second wall before being forced to use his best items."
He leaned closer to the orb, the light reflecting in his cold eyes. "He still has only seen the tip of the iceberg of what the Noble Land can truly do. We have barely scratched the surface of our power."
He moved two of the tower icons closer to Raze's location on the display.
"So keep pushing, Dark Magus. The further you go, the more I have to show you. And the more you will realize how hopeless your struggle really is."
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