Chapter 783 Chapter 782: Tricky Cult (4)
"You done yet?!"
Hearing the strained voice of my mate, I grit my teeth and poured more mana into the portal, fighting hard against the operator of this Ritual Circle as I tried to overload it with my own mana, only to have to stand here for longer as they managed to match my output tit for tat.
Ever since the first portal went down, the rest of the monsters and Cultists had bunched up around the portals to defend them with their lives, and they were doing a damn good job with it too.
"Just... a few... more... moments..!"
Straining my Core to squeeze out just a few drops more of mana, I continued to empower the runes that I had determined to be of vital importance to this Ritual Circle that was standing between us and reaching that chanting Deacon above; yet, with each drop of mana I spent to target certain runes, an equal amount of mana was sent into the others to stabilize the spell and maintain it, which allowed the monsters and Cultists waiting to be transported through to our side attempt to break down the ice sheet I had set up for protection.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtIn other words, I had to divert my mana to two different things, and with someone with a seemingly equal amount of mana battling against me, this was slowly becoming a losing battle... if I didn't have any mana potions on hand to replenish my reserves and keep going.
Behind me, I could hear Anput swinging her Odachi around swiftly, the giant blade whistling through the air and easily culling the population of monsters around us, whilst the Cultists could only reluctantly reveal themselves as the numbers of their allies dwindled down, pushing them to the front and leaving them ripe for the taking as Anput targeted them first.
The sounds of battle and death behind me mixed with the scent of blood to create a concoction that tried its hardest to lure me out of my focus, the promise of the wonderful dance of death that was waiting for me to join in making me shiver slightly, but I focused on the portal with my everything.
To shake it up, I began to target new runes at random, taking them over and unbalancing the Ritual Circle as I moved from rune to rune, forcing the operator to retake those runes and balance the rest out, only to watch as a new rune was overloaded severely.
This strategy was far more draining for us both, but it yielded results instantly as I caught the operator by surprise, resulting in the portal dissipating and allowing me to retrieve the rest of my mana, or at the very least as much of it as I could.
Without missing a beat I retrieved my Khopesh again and began to aid my mate, cutting down the remaining monsters and Cultists around us and saying "Let's just regroup with some of the Demons first! Then we'll keep going!"
Getting a nod from her, I looked around before beginning to move in the direction of a few of the Demons, their leather coats and dark metal armor and weapons slick with blood as they formed islands of death within this sea of foes.
Multiple portals still spewed out these damnable Imps and some more Cultists, though I noted that the number of Cultists had slowly been reduced by a lot ever since a few of the portals had been taken down by me, meaning they were either running low or decided to cut their losses somewhat on this excursion.
That only made me wonder just how many people were making up this Cult, and how deeply rooted they were in either the Confederacy or the Empire.
Maybe the other Kingdoms as well?
Those were things that I hoped that Foxkin could answer for us, so I cast the thought from my mind and focused on cutting down the various Imps around me, both because I needed to but also... because I wanted to.
I enjoyed seeing their skulls be torn apart by a well timed blast from the simple shotgun spell I recast on my palm, or how wonderful they looked when they were cut into pieces as they tried to leap at Anput or I with those long legs of theirs... which always ended up back on the ground, twitching.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmBesides that, the knowledge that these simple, yet powerful monsters were worth somewhere from 15k to 20k a kill was even better, and I was itching to see how large of a number I would earn for myself at the end of this.
Especially when the experience for the Cultists was tacked on as well; that was something I really wanted to see as well.
And to get a higher number, I needed to kill more of these blue skinned monsters that leapt around us like frogs, or tried to stab at us with their talons or horns; a task that wasn't the most difficult to complete since they weren't the most intelligent with their movements.
They were quick, and really powerful if they managed to land a hit on you, but their patterns were far too easy to read and predictable, while their defenses were rather low; they died easy, but hit hard if they managed to land a hit...
Which they didn't.
Anput and I were more geared for dexterity and swift movements then power, and that made this really easy as we adopted a reactionary fighting style that used the movements of the Imps against them, allowing us to kill them during their moments of weakness.
We cut our way through towards the closest group of Demons from the Clans and joined them, informing them quickly of my plans to close as many of the portals as possible and bring this all to a close.
But, as I spoke to them, we all fell silent as we watched the portals flicker out of existence one by one, the mirror like coating on their front fading and allowing us to see the runes beneath, which pulsed as the Ritual Circles began to move towards one another, layering themselves and forming a larger, more powerful portal that we had already seen once before, back in Renacla County.