Elemental Cats

The tendrils of darkness growing from Toz's shadow stretched out and bound the feet of the knight armors, making them easy targets for the balls of fire, bolts of lightning, and javelins of metal.

The magic hanging in the air around Toz flew out and burned, blasted, and pierced the armors standing around the lava pool. The sturdy armors didn't always break in a single attack, but the shadows holding them still prevented them from escaping a second volley.

But Toz didn't stop after merely damaging the armors. Although they weren't aided by the endless supply of ridiculously fine and dense demonic energy from the Fountain of Death anymore, the armors still had their own supply of demonic energy that let them regenerate.

However, Toz had spread his void magic throughout the chamber. In addition to reducing the enemies' defenses, the void magic also helped erode the armors and make them use up their demonic energy.

Those weren't the only two things that the void magic did for Toz.

The second wave of troops and reinforcements came right as Toz semi-permanently put the first wave of armors out of order. As he had expected, the second wave came with another swarm of hollow knights. But there were also robed mages who were capable of thought and conversation.

However, the robed mages didn't have any intentions of talking with Toz, and they instantly began launching various forms of death magic toward him.

That was where his void magic once again proved its usefulness and versatility. It both made it difficult for the mages to target Toz and decreased the effectiveness of their magic so that it was easier for Toz to avoid or block the magic.

Since the death magic was mostly invisible to the naked eyes of a living person, Toz would have ordinarily had to use his mana vision constantly in order to see and prevent the magic from hitting him. But with the field of void magic accomplishing something similar and acting as a primary detection net, Toz could reduce how much he strained his mind by not using mana vision all the time.

And with how rapidly his mind was spinning just to conjure and manipulate his elements and stop the enemies' advance, not using mana vision was a much-needed relief.

Unfortunately, it seemed like he would have to exert more effort to deal with the second wave since there were at least a couple of darkness attribute mages in the mix who interfered with his shadows. And when he couldn't use his shadow magic to bind the enemies in place, Toz missed his attacks more and more often.

Each attack didn't cost a lot of mana to cast, but the amount of wasted mana built up in the long run and could be one of the factors that would decide Toz's survival.

However, Toz wasn't sure if it would be more effective to switch over to massive area-of-effect attacks that weren't dodgeable. It would reduce the strain on his mind since he wouldn't have to use pinpoint precision and such a varied array of magic. He also wouldn't have to use shadows to restrain the enemies. But it would most likely cost more mana.

Since the only advantage the enemies had was their number, Toz spared himself a few moments to think about it while he continued clearing out the armors. He wanted to get rid of the mages as well, but they stood in the back and hid behind the hollow knight armors and magic barriers that killed whatever came their way.

Eventually, Toz realized something. The reason why he hadn't had to face any of the armors in direct combat wasn't only due to his incessant magic. It was also due to the slowly cooling lava pool surrounding the cauldron-sized island he and the Fountain of Death were on top of.

Since he already had a natural advantage in his surroundings that would help defend against the enemies' onslaught, Toz figured that he might as well make use of it.

With his mind made up, Toz didn't hesitate, and he grinned a little as he was kind of looking forward to what he was about to do.

Toz immediately got rid of all of his magic except the balls of fire swirling around him. It was a little unfortunate that he had to dispel the field of void magic since it was so useful. But Toz feared that it would only interfere with what he was going to do. And if he wanted to achieve maximum success, Toz would have to devote all of his concentration to the fire he was currently filling the air around him with.

Since he was only going to use one element and in a very simple way, he could afford to use mana vision at the same time.

Toz thought back to his experience in the prison cell and started raising the temperature of the flames around him.

He had to move around and dodge the magic coming from the mages at the same time, so he couldn't fully devote himself to the fire magic at first. But as the temperature rose and the flames grew, his magic gradually started hindering the death mages' attacks.

Toz didn't have to worry about losing the field of void magic's protection since his field of fire started doing something similar. But instead of merely interfering with the magic, his field of fire started burning everything it touched, whether it be stone, armor, or magic.

Unfortunately, it wasn't at a level where it could burn mana itself as his grey void flames could. But Toz wasn't sure those flames would be enough to defeat the armors' physical form. But if they were, they might even latch on to the Fountain and destroy it, which was something he desperately didn't want to happen.

And instead of thinking unnecessary thoughts about whether he should switch to an element he wasn't used to using, Toz just focused all his efforts on increasing the might of the raging inferno around him.