Chapter 91: Arc Mage
The pack’s coordination began to reassert itself as the alpha’s will imposed order on the survivors. The creatures spread out further, using the forest’s natural cover to approach from multiple angles while avoiding clustering together where area attacks could devastate their numbers.
Jack watched their repositioning with tactical interest, already planning his next moves.
His Arc Blast had proven devastatingly effective against individual targets, but the pack was adapting to avoid giving him easy multi-target opportunities.
Jack raised both hands, blue electricity crackling between his fingers as he prepared to unleash his new ability. The Static Field would level the playing field by disrupting the pack’s greatest advantage. Their coordinated movent.
But before he could complete the casting, six jackals launched themselves forward in a coordinated assault. Their timing was perfect, each creature attacking from a different angle to overwhelm their targets through sheer numbers.
Claws like curved swords whistled through the air toward Jack’s position. One jackal leaped high, aiming to take him from above while two more flanked his left side and right side.
Their bone masks glead in the filtered sunlight as they closed in for what they expected to be the killing blow.
Jack’s response was imdiate and brutal.
His left hand swept out in a horizontal arc, trailing blue lightning that ford a defensive barrier of pure electrical energy. The first two jackals struck the barrier and convulsed as thousands of volts coursed through their bodies.
Their charge beca a tumbling crash as their muscles seized and their coordination failed.
Simultaneously, his right hand pointed skyward toward the leaping jackal. Another arc of lightning bolts lanced upward, catching the creature in mid-flight and cooking it from the inside out.
The corpse fell to earth like a teoric impact, creating a small crater where it landed.
But the flanking attackers made it through.
Claws scraped across Jack’s ribs as one jackal slipped past his electrical defenses, tearing through both leather and flesh.
Pain exploded along his side as four parallel cuts opened, blood soaking into his shirt.
[-253 HP]
[HP: 347]
The damage was significant but not crippling, thanks to his Endurance, Jack could keep going. He spun away from the follow-up attack, blue lightning already gathering around his wounded form like protective armor.
"Jack!" Caelen’s voice rang out with divine authority.
Golden light blazed from the priest’s staff as he channeled healing energy across the battlefield. "Radiant Heal!"
Warmth flowed through Jack’s injured body as divine magic knitted torn flesh and restored lost blood. The pain in his side faded to a dull ache as his wounds closed, leaving only bloody tears in his clothing as evidence of the attack.
[ 139 HP]
[HP: 486]
But Caelen wasn’t content with simple healing.
Sacred energy gathered around the priest like a miniature sun as he raised his staff toward another group of approaching jackals. "Sacred Barrier!"
A do of golden light materialized just in ti to intercept a coordinated charge from three more creatures. They struck the barrier with bone-jarring force, their claws scraping uselessly against the divine protection while holy energy burned at their flesh.
The barrier held for crucial seconds, giving Jack ti to reposition and launch his counterattack. Arc lightning leaped from his fingers toward the stunned jackals, double-proccing into devastating damage that dropped two of them instantly.
[ 10,000 EXP]
[ 4 Dread Cores]
anwhile, Corvin had engaged another group of jackals in aerial combat. His speed and agility allowed him to stay airborne despite their attempts to leap high enough to reach him.
He would dive down to scrape his claws across a jackal’s back, then beat his wings furiously to gain altitude before they could retaliate.
One jackal, cleverer than the others, had positioned itself beneath a low branch. When Corvin dove to attack, it leaped from the branch rather than the ground, gaining the extra height needed to intercept the raven mid-flight.
Claws t talons in a brief but vicious exchange. Corvin’s strength proved decisive.
His talons punched through the jackal’s reaching paws and found its throat. Both creatures crashed to the ground, but only Corvin rose again, dark blood staining his midnight feathers.
The pack was learning, adapting their tactics with each exchange. But so were their opponents.
Nineteen jackals remained, their formation more scattered now as they tried to avoid his area attacks while maintaining pressure.
Several bore burns from their encounters with Caelen’s magic, while others showed the scorched fur and cracked bone masks.
Jack planted his feet in a wide combat stance and raised both hands, blue electricity beginning to gather between his palms.
"Static Field!"
An expanding web of blue electricity that spread outwards like a spider’s web made of pure lightning. The electrical network expanded rapidly, covering a wide area.
Six clustered jackals found themselves caught in a cage of crackling death. Static electricity arced between the trees, across the ground, through the very air they breathed.
Each creature that tried to move triggered additional discharges that locked their muscles in place.
[Static Field Activated]
[6 targets affected | Movent speed reduced by 75%]
The jackals convulsed as electrical pulses disrupted their nervous systems. They weren’t being killed, they were completely immobilized!
Jack was already moving, Arc Blast charging around his right hand as he closed distance with the trapped creatures. The first jackal tried to snap at him but moved with the sluggish desperation of prey caught in amber.
CRACK!
[Damage: 1,778]
[Double-Proc Activated]
[Additional Damage: 1,778]
[Total Damage: 3,556]
The creature’s bone mask exploded as lightning tore through its nervous system. Jack pivoted smoothly to the next target.
CRACK!
Another jackal fell, its body smoking from the concentrated application of blue lightning. The Static Field continued to hold the remaining four in place, making them easy targets for systematic elimination.
But Jack’s concentration on the trapped group left him montarily vulnerable to the pack’s remaining mbers. From his peripheral vision, he caught movent.
Three jackals approaching from different angles, their timing coordinated to exploit his focus on the Static Field targets.
"Jack, behind you!" Caelen’s warning ca with imdiate action.
The priest raised his staff high, divine energy blazing around him like a miniature sun. "Searing Chains!"
Golden flas erupted from the ground beneath two of the approaching jackals, forming into chains of pure fire that wrapped around their limbs and torso. The creatures howled as the divine flas burned through fur and flesh, binding them in place while dealing continuous damage.
[2 targets immobilized by Searing Chains]
[Fire damage over ti applied]
But the third jackal made it through, leaping high to avoid Caelen’s binding spell. It descended toward Jack’s exposed back, claws extended for a killing strike that would have opened him from shoulder to hip.
Corvin intercepted it mid-flight.
The raven’s form blurred as he activated Shadow Strike again, his body dissolving into living darkness before reforming directly in the jackal’s path. The collision was devastating.
Corvin’s talons punched through the creature’s chest cavity while his montum carried both of them away from Jack’s position.
They crashed into a nearby tree with bone-jarring force. The jackal convulsed once as Corvin’s beak found its brain stem, then it stopped moving.
Jack used the breathing room to finish clearing his Static Field. Two more Arc Blasts eliminated the remaining trapped jackals, each strike precise and lethal. The electrical web dissipated, leaving only smoking corpses and the scent of ozone in the air.
[ 15,000 EXP]
[ 6 Dread Cores]
Caelen’s Searing Chains continued to burn their bound targets, the divine flas gradually cooking the jackals from the outside in. Their struggles grew weaker as the holy fire did its work, until they too collapsed in smoldering heaps.
"Judgnt Fla!" Caelen called out, pointing his staff toward a jackal that had been circling the edge of the battle looking for an opening.
A focused beam of divine fire lanced across the clearing, striking the creature center-mass with concentrated holy energy.
Unlike Jack’s lightning, which killed through electrical shock, Caelen’s magic burned with righteous purpose.
The jackal’s bone mask cracked and lted under the intense heat before the creature fell, its body reduced to charred remains.
Eleven jackals remained, but their coordination was beginning to break down as the pack’s numbers dwindled.
Individual creatures made desperate attacks rather than coordinated assaults, making them easier targets.
Corvin provided aerial support, diving down to finish off wounded creatures or intercept jackals that tried to flank Jack’s position.
The raven’s enhanced strength made him capable of killing even healthy Gravehowl Jackals in single combat, his talons punching through bone and flesh with equal ease.
[ 15,000 EXP]
[ 6 Dread Cores]
The battle was becoming a slaughter.
Without their fear aura and coordinated tactics, the remaining jackals were just oversized wolves with decorative bone masks.
Dangerous individually, but not nearly dangerous enough to threaten Jack’s party.
Eight jackals left. Then six. Then four
Crackle...
Three more jackals fell in rapid succession, their bone masks shattering under the precise application of blue lightning.
Jack moved through the battlefield like a force of nature, Arc Blast after Arc Blast eliminating targets with surgical efficiency.
The survivors tried to scatter.
But Caelen had been waiting for exactly this mont.
The priest raised his staff with both hands, divine energy gathering around him in a blazing aura that made the morning sun seem dim by comparison. "By the eternal light of Caelora, let none escape judgnt!"
"FINAL EDICT!"
The spell that erupted from Caelen’s staff was unlike anything Jack had witnessed before.
A massive circle of golden light blazed into existence, centered on the priest but expanding outward until it encompassed the entire clearing.
The radiant barrier rose twenty ters into the air, forming a do of divine energy that pulsed with inescapable authority.
[Final Edict Activated]
[Arena Created | No escape possible]
[All enemies within range slowed by 50%]
[Continuous holy damage applied to hostile creatures]
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