"…If three of the Ten Great Swordsmen were sent, who and where are the other two, and why aren't they fighting?"
The man's question remained unanswered as the Emperor slowly turned his gaze back to projection, just in time for the intelligence officer recording to turn the device towards the battle between a certain gravity mage and a lesser lich king.
◇ ◇ ◇
'This damn Lich is planning something!'
Those were the thoughts of the green-eyed woman as she noticed that the Lesser Lich King had only been using spatial magic for the past minute.
As a mage herself, she was well aware that there was no way that a Lich of all undead beings, would only be versed in one aspect of the Arcane arts.
Even she, who despite having Gravity Magic as her forte, delved into other elemental paths like fire and light, and she was also capable of using basic spells of elements she did not possess affinities for.
As such, when she noticed that the Lich King who had been using strange ancient spells she had never even heard about, suddenly stop using elemental magic and stick to space alone, she knew something was fishy.
'The lich is capable of casting spells despite being under the influence of my grounded embrace, now way it's sticking to spatial magic simply for the reason of combating my gravity distortion barrier.'
"Purifying Javelin!
Wild Bursting Flame!
Flame Geyser!"
She cast three tier two spells of the light and fire elements, common weaknesses of undead creatures of all kinds, but the flame spells had less of an effect, indicating that this lich had taken measures against said weakness, most likely with its robes, as it never dodged any of her flame spells.
However, light spells were tricky to handle, and the lich usually countered them with darkness spells, but now it was just utilising spatial magic power to carve out both the spell and the area surrounding it.
'It's not using anything but spatial magic, and it's not calling out spell names. Adding to the fact that its jaw bone has been lowered for a while, it's definitely chanting a spell quietly.
And a Tier 3 spell at that.'
The moment she noticed what it was doing, she decided to up her game.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtShe could handle the effects of a Tier 3 spell, but her weaker allies on the battlefield would definitely get caught in it, as such, she could not let it cast such.
Tisha suspected that the Eighth Finger would not care about the deaths of grunt-level undead knights and mages since he had tens of thousands more in stock.
She was not just idly floating in the air while having these thoughts, using multiple reverse gravity spells to pull up random undead from the ground and fling them as projectiles towards the lich king.
The Lesser Lich king threw condensed spheres of spatial power at the massive undead and Tisha as he soared out of their paths.
"Multiple Magic: Gravity Cutting."
The woman cast another spell at the Lich, who was trying to fly away in an attempt to gain distance.
Dozens of projected gravity slashes cut through the air and the bone wyvern-riding death knight happened to fly into their path, splitting its body into three halves and leaving the adventurer and mage team facing it astonished.
"Gravitational Whip."
Purple magic formed a long whip from ambient gravitons around her wrist, which she lashed towards the fleeing Lesser Lich King.
The whip curled around one of its leg, subsequently breaking its bones.
She tugged on the whip and drew the lesser lich king towards her while releasing gravity slashes which sliced through all matter.
The lich tried to cut the whip with blades of spatial magic, but the sheer amount of condensed gravitons used to make it proved too much for it to sever in its current state.
Although it messed with the gravitational field surrounding her, the spell was great for detaining fleeing adversaries, particularly physically "weak" ones like the Lich, whose whole leg bones were cracked by the whip.
With a grunt of irritation, the lich paused its chant and cast multiple spatial magic spells to block the projected gravity slashes and "crunch" the space around Tisha, forcing her to instantly increase the effect of gravity on her body and decrease her altitude by over 100 metres.
She had to unwind the gravitational whip that was disrupting the surrounding gravity, inadvertently freeing the Lich's leg.
"Bring down the hammer of Justice upon the agents of karmic evil.
Light Magic: Empyreal Judge of Light!"
After chanting, magic power surged around Tisha's body, transforming into a massive half-body construct of dazzling golden light dressed in a judge's robe and wig.
The humanoid avatar of light was blindfolded and held a giant gavel that was large enough to match the construct's huge body.
Tisha, who was in the centre of the gigantic avatar, moved her right hand and indicated for it to attack, unaware that a certain hero was mimicking the large magic circle that slowly spun beneath the construct.
Another magic circle arose beneath the Lesser Lich king, followed by another light construct; this time a gigantic circular sound block that spanned hundreds of metres in diameter.
The Avatar then raised the massive gavel and slammed it down on the sound block, smashing the lich king's body and the hundreds of undead that were unable to move due to the block's restraining effects.
**BOOOOMMM!!!!
The gavel smashed all the undead knights to bits, burning them to ashes under the high concentration of light magic, while the shockwaves turned the nearby undead into chunks of rotten flesh.
Despite this spell's devastating effects, the lesser lich king took zero damage as it had surrounded its body with spatial magic power that carved a hole right through the centre of the gavel's head.
The Lich resumed chanting and flew out of the gavel's head, while cautiously observing as the Avatar's massive head slowly turned towards it.
The lich couldn't tell because of the Empyreal Judge of Light's non-transparent body, but Tisha was doing the same thing as it, chanting a Tier 3 spell that she had researched and shortened, a spell that made Dominik place her at the top of his hit list when he learned she had used it prior to this.
The avatar raised its large gavel again at her order given by a part of her consciousness, but the lesser Lich King had completed its spell in that time.
[Spatial Magic: Dainn's Heirloom Sword.]
The Lich's wooden staff was carved by ambient space-infused magic power, given a sharp point and a lengthy blade to somewhat resemble a sword, and coated with dense offensive spatial magic power.
The concentrated spatial magic power coiled around the sword-staff and expanded its length to almost five meters, yet the lich effortlessly gripped it with one hand like it had a feather's weight.
It turned its inferno sights towards the incoming giant gavel and carelessly swung the sword in the direction of the gavel.
From the sword, a gigantic slash of offensive spatial magic that increased in size the further it travelled, carved through space and 'erased' the head of the gavel entirely.
A second swing erased the giant light avatar's arm and half of the magic circle below it.
The slash cut through the random adventurers, knights, and undead on the ground, erasing their bodies completely.
Beads of sweat dripped down Tisha's face as she sped up the final phase of her chant, generating another giant gavel on the avatar's left hand and making it swing as fast as it could towards the lich king.
Unfortunately, the Lesser Lich King was faster, swinging the blade again and splitting the gigantic gavel in two.
The avatar let go of the fading gavel and reabsorbed the magic in the parts that weren't carved through, clenching its fist and punching forward, only to have its entire arm sliced into three by the sword's three-pronged slash of offensive spatial magic.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmOne of the three spatial ruptures reached the area where Dominik was fighting one of the unnamed S-rank adventurers, forcing them to dodge as the rupture carved up the ground between them, creating a depression in the ground about 200 metres in width and more than twice that in depth.
The avatar of light shattered into fragments as its constituting magic power dispersed into the surroundings.
Even so, the Lich King was wary since it couldn't locate Tisha's figure in the Empyreal Judge of Light's former location.
The lack of feedback it received made it completely sure that the Gravity Mage was not even grazed by the spatial slashes.
'Where is sh-!'
Its question was answered before it could even complete it, as Tisha appeared behind him waving her staff and deploying magic spells of different attributes and tiers.
[Quintuple Casting?!]
It was shocked just like the other lich she had faced in the day, but that did not slow its movements as it turned around and slashed through three of the five spells in an instant, erasing them entirely.
'Wait…those were all tier 0 and 1 spells!'
It reversed its grip on its blade and was about to send out another slash, only for the number of spells it had carved through to ring in its mind.
'I cut through three… where's the fourth and fifth?!'
**BOOMM!!
A huge arm-shaped golem of rocks and dirt burst out of the ground and grabbed the lich's leg, yanking it down and smashing it so hard that its body rebounded back up.
Its grasp on the blade loosened ever so slightly, but the lich quickly tightened it and spun around, slashing through the arm holding it.
But before it could do anything more, a large shadow was suddenly cast upon it, prompting the lich king to gaze up and see just what was causing this shadow.
Its inferno sights were met with the sight of a gigantic three-ringed purple magic circle, instantly identifying it as the fourth spell Tisha had cast earlier.
On a side note, the arm construct of earth was the work of another mage and not Tisha.
Looking up towards the sky, it watched a radiant purple magic circle with intricately intertwined lines and spell formulae shimmering into existence behind Tisha, with the three dark purple rings around it showing its tier.
'This…this was the reason why Master Velak said this woman had to go!'
Those were the Lich's thoughts right before five identical dark purple portals opened up around her, forming a hexagram of doom.
"Gravity Magic: Carnage of the Void."