Rachel
The warriors were getting pushed back. Jonathan was the only one still holding the gate against the raiders and he wouldn't last forever. Rachel did the best she could to eliminate as many as possible.
She cast [Fire Lance] and multiple [Fire Arrow]s on repeat. Every once in a while she would have to cast one of her more costly skills. [Fire Wall] and [Fla Pillar] were both great area denial skills but they ca with the cost of increased mana.
Both area skills took more mana than over 5 [Fire Arrows]. Fighting the waves was always a balancing act for her, juggling mana cost for spells versus effect.
A well-placed [Fla Pillar] could do more damage than 5 [Fire Arrows] but it all ca down to timing and positioning. When the tutorial started, she would go overboard and blaze through her mana pool too fast with more powerful skills.
The waves beat that habit out of her. She was of no help to anybody if she was out of mana. She hadn't even taken up training with a weapon, putting all her ti into practicing the arcane.
As a result, she was the best at it. She could weave the strongest spells and [Ritual Cast] with the most people. She could cast a spell using up to 5 people's mana pools and they didn't even have to be mages.
No other mage here could claim the sa. It was an achievent she was proud of and one that worked to kill the boss on multiple occasions. If only she could have used it to save her son. Thinking of Kyle still hurt.
She was powerful, sure, but she alone couldn't take down the bosses. If it weren't for Jonathan and Chris keeping it at bay, she would be a sitting duck squashed as easily as an ant.
As the warriors holding the gate dwindled, she resorted to more powerful spells. She knew from experience that Jonathan could handle a little fla. She still tried to shield him from the brunt of her spells using [Fire Manipulation] but he could take a hit.
The man was a walking tank. Even more so than Chris in so aspects. Chris could take a fireball to the face and walk away unscathed just because of his stats, Jonathan had skills that produced the sa effect.
His earth armor was notoriously hard to get through using fire. The flas just weren't able to pierce the armor and the force was the only thing that did damage.
With friendly fire out of the way, she threw down an [Immolate]. [Field of Flas] wasn't worth it and the less powerful skill was more than enough. The area around Jonathan started to heat up and the air began to warp and distort.
The raiders attacking showed no outward expression but their bodies started to burn. None of them were protected from the heat like Jonathan was. Burning flesh was never a pleasant sll but when one had fire abilities, it beca endurable.
[Immolate] was an area of effect skill that raised the temperature in said area to boiling. If left active for long enough, water would boil and fluids would evaporate. The skill wasn't powerful enough yet to lt tal. Her Law made it close, depending on the tal.
It also had the added effect of flooding the area with Heat and Fire mana. Heat mana was a lesser version of Fire mana but it worked to make her skills co easier.
After the Blaze Lions, Rachel noticed how important changing the area to your affinity was. With her affinity readily available, mana cost went down, her regeneration increased, and the power of her spells went up.
Everything beca easier.
That was why she couldn't fight on the sa side as Chris anymore. They would cancel each other out and spend most of the ti fighting one another over control of the environnt.
She would work to heat it and spread fire mana, he would work to cool it down and spread ice mana. The two couldn't occupy the sa space. Like Earth and Wind, or Lighting and Water.
The mana types were anathema to one another and canceled each other out.
With the fire mana in the area, she gathered it up with [Fire Manipulation] and cast an overpowered and cost-reduced [Fla Thrower].
The skill was normally cast from the hand or body part, but it was easy enough to move the point of origin down in front of Jonathan. The range Rachel could launch spells from wasn't restricted to her body and hadn't been since the first week of the tutorial.
Ranged casting was one of the best techniques for training mana manipulation. It stressed the abilities in all the right ways to increase the effectiveness of nearly all skills.
Casting a spell at range increased the ntal strain, mana cost, and decreased the control she had over the spell which was perfect for training purposes.
If she used a too-powerful spell or went too far away, the spell would fail and the backlash would injure her but she was practiced enough to mitigate that.
Practice and experience aided her in casting the [Flathrower] and it wasn't even close to the maximum she could go.
Flas poured out of where she anchored the spell and the raiders charging into it lted. The raiders behind them rushed into the flas without reservations following their brethren in death.
That was one of the first things that she noticed, they had no self-preservation skills and she had to adjust her skill use accordingly. Where monsters would dodge and go around a [Fla Pillar], the raiders would kill themselves charging through it.
As focused as she was on attacking, and being the most effective on the wall, ranged attacks started to rain down on her. Enemy spells and arrows started to target the biggest threat, which was her.
The magic was easy to defend. Their spells were almost childish in efficiency and the control of the spells the raiders launched was laughable. If she could spare the attention, she could rip them apart with just her mana manipulation skills.
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The arrows were different. They injured her slightly but they weren't enough to really do any damage. [nding Hearth] was enough to recover from the minuscule damage. Her self-healing skill saved the healers the trouble of coming to heal her.
Forced to defend, more raiders started to pressure Jonathan. Rachel thought he was about to falter, but to her surprise, he didn't.
Sothing poured out of him and his... presence skyrocketed. Rachel had seen so information about 'auras' but she didn't know enough to say with any degree of certainty what it was that changed.
One mont he went from near failure to turning the tides with brutal retaliation. His shields lit up and sent bodies flying with every hit. It reminded her of Chris and the blows from his hamr, the body couldn't help but get launched.
With Jonathan's second wind, the fight turned into a stalemate. They still weren't winning, but they would be able to hold off the attack until reinforcents arrived.
Thinking about what Chris would do sent shivers down her spine. She had known him since he was a baby and ever since the apocalypse, he beca soone else.
When Rachel married Brayden and joined the Zalenski Family, Chris hadn't been born yet. It was a few years after that Chris ca into the world. She had Hal at the sa ti that Abigail was born which was 5 years before Chris was.
Chris was always a happy-go-lucky kid, quick to laugh and she couldn't rember a ti he wasn't smiling or laughing. As he got older, sarcasm and jokes were his go-to.
Rachel watched him go through high school and most of college before the system ca and with the frequency the Zalenski family gathered, she wasn't a stranger.
That was why it was such a shock to her of how he changed. Never once would she think that he would kill a person, or cut off soone's hand. When she heard about that she was appalled.
The boy she knew turned into so dieval justiciar, cutting off soone's hand for stealing. It wasn't sothing she had expected and rocked her worldview.
They spent a good deal of ti practicing their Manipulation skills against each other which gave her a chance to ask him about it. She rembered the conversation vividly.
"How could you be so... so... barbaric," Rachel said struggling to find words to describe how she felt.
Chris sat there, the tug of war over temperature forgotten for the mont. He looked up at her and sighed.
"I don't know. I never wanted to nor did I ask for it. I didn't want to lead -I never did- but since I found myself in this position I'm going to do the best I can. It took a long ti to co to terms with what happened... the changes we now face." He stopped and took a deep breath forming the thoughts into words.
"The only thing I can do is try my best. I don't think I would have done what I did if my Dad hadn't gone along with it. He has always been my rock, morally, and he didn't raise complaints when it was discussed. To this day I wonder why he didn't." Chris saying that made Rachel question why Thomas hadn't.
He was always a strict and narrow man, for as long as she had known him. Brayden had the sa qualities. The punishnt wasn't sothing that Rachel had thought Thomas would go along with.
"I think it's ti we, I, realize I need to change. I can't hold onto the morals of the past, the laws that used to protect us. For a while now my Dad has impressed on the importance of honor, of justice, and I think I understand what he was getting at now that I had to go through that.
"I never wanted to cut off hands, I never wanted to kill people either, yet I have done both. The power I hold over people wasn't sothing I asked for. The world is a cruel place and I need to find my place in it. I need to find where I draw the line between right and wrong and what punishnts should co from crossing it. Physical might ant little before, but it ans everything now and people will abuse that." He looked almost sad as he said that. Like it wasn't sothing that he wanted.
"Warlords and tyrants will co and go, rise and fall. People who try to bring order to the chaos will rise and fall just the sa. Other people's morals an little if I can smash them with my hamr to get what I want. The ease of exercising power of others will bring about a society I don't think I will like and I need to think about what I will do about it."
"If I am to lead, I will do it right. I need to find the rules and morals to live by and stick to them. People will easily let their power get to their heads and inflate their egos. I need to co up with a code of honor to live by and it needs to be sothing I can keep." He looked thoughtful before adding in a quieter tone. "For I fear what I may beco without it."
The conversation wasn't sothing Rachel had expected. She had kept her head buried in the sand and hadn't thought about what would happen when they returned. Returned to a lawless world where whoever was strongest ruled and right now, the strongest was Chris.
Might wasn't a quantifier indicative of being a good ruler yet it would determine who would lead and who wouldn't. No one would follow soone who couldn't protect them. To hold absolute power over soone was a scary fact to consider. Rachel herself was more powerful than most of the people she knew.
If she wanted, she could go found a city and be nad empress if she liked. Punishing all those who disagreed. The weight of leadership wasn't sothing that she considered and she was glad that Chris did. Not many would.
After that talk, she ca to terms with what needed to be done. Harsh but fair punishnts were necessary and death was inevitable. She used to think that capital punishnt was wrong and immoral but those beliefs left when she gained the ability to throw fire from her hand.
Taking a hand for theft was a harsh but fair punishnt. Which made her know what Chris would consider harsh but fair for the people who threatened his family.
Death.
Death was both harsh and fair for the people she now faced and she pitied them for it. Chris was still feeling out his code of honor and what it would be, but it was easy enough to decide in this case. He would do it even if he didn't want to, but Rachel didn't think that would be a problem.
The easiest way to piss Chris off was through his family and the raiders sped past that warning sign long ago. Nothing would save them from the retribution he would bring and Rachel wouldn't even put up a token defense against it. For she believed they deserved death as well.
If soone were looking in from the outside with the beliefs of the world before, both she and Chris would be considered evil and tyrants but those opinions died when the world ended. It was ti to embrace change.
The stalemate continued as Jonathan held the gate and Rachel burned any who ca near. The raider's numbers, both human and monster, started to dwindle after the first hundred and dwindled further after the second.
It had been almost an hour by now and they hadn't breached the gate. Jonathan held it viciously.
So of the other mages on the wall next to her had to retreat and enter [ditation] to refill on mana, but Rachel stayed. She could hold out for a while yet and sothing told her it wouldn't be long.
[Fire Arrow] was her cheapest spell and she used it frequently. Evolved from [Fire Bolt] and made more powerful by her Law. Her Law focused on the power Fire had and the destruction it was capable of.
It boosted all of her skills and made them increasingly deadly. The sight of burnt bodies was one she would live with forever but she had co to terms with that.
It seed like the Raiders were getting desperate and committed to one final push. The bodies coming at them increased in intensity and she had to reach deep to continue.
Her more powerful skills ca out to play and [Field of Flas] burned the area in front of the wall as she poured more mana into it creating a vast swath of fla. Her Law empowered it further and raiders dropped as they entered her skill.
[Blazing Spear] pierced through 3 or 4 bodies before its energy was spent. She was scraping the bottom of the barrel mana-wise when she felt it. An oppressive atmosphere that could only co from one person.
As amateur as Rachel was in sensing auras, she could tell who it belonged to. It brought the chill of winter and a sharpness of ice. Promising the chill after death and the cold of oblivion.
Chris was back and he wasn't happy.
His hamr would bring destruction on a scale Rachel shuddered to imagine.
A small part of her wanted to pray for her enemies but it died out instantly.
For what they had done deserved what was coming.
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