The Fourth Gate: Chapter Twenty-One

Thanks to the fact that there's a lot of content packed into this next bit, and that I can only write one week ahead due to the way voting works, Monday, Tues, and Wed chapters are going up today. But hey! You get an extra chapter, as I'm publishing four, instead of three.

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I rolled the drop around in the vial, then held it to my lips and drank it. It flowed into my spirit, where it trembled, then split into three wisps of power. I spun them around and then sank each of them into Fungal Armor. Within my spirit, the spell crunched, shriveling up on itself as the mushrooms for the various spells it had developed across the fight crunched together, the now-empty ones falling to the floor. The spell’s adaptive nature shifted, growing stronger, while the spell grew larger, denser, and more under my control. Each of the spell-mushrooms glowed for a moment, then it settled, leaving Fungal Armor feeling much more powerful within me. Sure, compared to the full effects of a headstone, the one drop wasn’t overwhelming, but it was a substantial upgrade, and it empowered it on a different level than normal growth. I flexed my fingers and cast Burn Future, restoring my soul mana and some bodily energy, biting my lip in worry as the debt formed. I opened my eyes and turned to Dusk. 

“Alright, let’s talk strategy.” 

The fifteen minutes blitzed by, just like they had last round, and this time when I strode out onto the field, I was holding nothing back. My crown of mushrooms was out, my nails were blue gemstones, and my veins were black. My tail was thrashing, and I expanded my senses through the entire dome until I had filled it entirely. 

Across from me, Corra looked deadly serious. She wore a circlet with a strange bloodstone set into it, and her gun had a strange attachment to its top. She was apparently also pulling out all of the stops for the final round. She pushed back against my senses, though without a spell like Impel Senses, that was difficult. 

The River Lord looked between the two of us, then slashed down with his hand. 

“Begin!” 

Once again, I ripped the necklace over to me, and was reaching to put it into Dusk’s realm when it detonated. It had been worth a shot, even though I’d expected that to fail. She only had to cast one spell, while I had to cast a spell then place it in Dusk’s realm. I leapt back as spikes were thrown at me, only to embed in the ground. Then Corra lifted her hand, there was a flicker of fourth gate mana, and all of her spikes formed a sphere, before exploding out in different directions. 

As an attack, it was terrible. The spikes were fast, but nothing I couldn’t dodge. But its real value shone as the spikes embedded into the dome, into the walls, into the ground, and all across the arena. The dozens of yet-unused spikes flared to life, and practically the entire arena lit up with teleportation locking magic, robbing me of one of my most effective abilities. 

I really needed a way to deal with that, since it was only going to become more of a problem as I advanced, but that was a thought for another time. Dusk and I hadn’t exactly been idle while she’d been attacking, and I used Spriggan’s Step to launch myself forward, catching myself with an Immovable Lock, and then landing behind her. As I did, I left small little lacerations of blademoss, and conjured flickering balls of purple foxfyre, letting them putter out in an instant. The attacks did nothing, but it was their Captures Moments that I was leaving behind for Hannah that really mattered. Well, that, and cycling Mantle Dragonfyre.

I slammed my hand into Corra’s back, and though the shield didn’t even crack, the ripples caught her attention, as she spun and cut at me with her hand. I slipped aside from the blow, while Dusk continued her work, her form blitzing around the arena at breakneck pace. Corra leapt forward, slashing down, then fired off a shot from her gun, aiming right for my head. I poured a touch of power into Cwn Anwnn’s Hunt at Arthur’s request, and his dominion roared through my armor. Briarthreads spun, the Ivy cloak swirled, Enhance Forging pumped, and then the bullet struck. 

Before, the bullet’s nullsteel had allowed it to penetrate through the Fungal Armor, but after two fights, my armor had developed a partial resistance. With that further strengthened by the drop, it was enough. The bullet dug through a quarter inch of fungal plate, before falling to the ground. 

I used the moment of shock to my advantage, raising an arm and unleashing a Mantle Dragonfyre at point-blank range. Red and brown thundered from my hand and crashed into the shield. I poured soul mana in, not as a thin thread, but as a true stream, and the power rippled through my spirit, cracks spreading across Corra’s dome. 

Her instant of distraction didn’t last, though. She was already laying down suppressing fire, her gun popping rapidly, and it became apparent that the module she’d added had some sort of aiming effect, as the bullets curved slightly to strike in the thinner sections of armor around my head. I used my free arm to try and cover my face, to block them, but then Corra was unleashing her beam attack, pushing back Mantle Dragonfyre to try and give her shield time to repair itself. 

Dusk reached out through our link and called she’d done her work. I nodded, removed my staff to begin infusing my senses, downed a sensory enhancement potion, then tapped into Burn Future. I drew mental and knowledge energy into me in a torrent, and fueled Impel Senses like never before. I ran magic, and even more soul mana, into it alongside all of my sensory suite, then drew my senses in. I pushed them out in an explosion, and with raw force, I overwhelmed her cat’s eye effect. The cat’s eye fought me like a bucking horse, but I was able to keep it up, at least for a little bit. 

I vanished, leaving behind a Material Echo, as well as a Magical Echo of the beam, weaving Mold Aura to make it seem like I was still there, before appearing in the air next to Dusk. She was panting, having moved faster than she’d ever gone, in part thanks to getting those rewards from her own competition.

“Good work,” I said, starting to cycle a new Mantle Dragonfyre. I hadn’t known for sure that Corra had a spell to distribute the spikes, but given that she’d only thrown a handful, despite having so many, I had suspected something of the sort was coming. Dusk had spent the entire fight this far zipping around, pulling the spikes into herself, and stopping Corra from locking down the arena. 

A bullet impacted my chest as Corra began firing again, and I cursed, having wished that Combat Echo would buy me more time. I cast Kludde’s Weight, bearing immense pressure, gravity, and other, slightly more esoteric things down on her, but she countered with a ring of gravity magic. It wasn’t perfect, but it let her continue moving. Dusk swooped in, releasing blasts of sand at Corra, and I teleported to the side, leaving behind an illusion, while I sent my spiritual presence to the other side of the arena. Dusk drew on Mold Aura and sent a spiritual presence of her elsewhere, even as she slipped underneath one of Corra’s crackling, lightning-infused strikes. I teleported again, firing off a frostbristle succulent at Corra, then threw a potion at her, which exploded and obscured her vision. I teleported away again, and shifted my position, leaving a material echo, then teleported on top of her to pour acid from my frozen pitcher plants at the dome, left a Combat Echo, and teleported away again. 

As the smoke cleared, and Corra’s bullets shredded into my plants, I snapped, giving the signal to Hannah, and to Dusk, who immediately flew backwards. All across the battlefield, my Captured Moments moved, forming a sphere around Corra, before activating with Magical Echo. My mana dropped, but I simply drew more mana. I knew I’d need it. 

The dome exploded, and the attacks and echoes were all wiped out in a wave, just as I’d expected, so I fired my arrow and my spear, right at Corra, while Dusk flew in. I used Transport Item to skip the spear and arrow ahead, then Foxswapped Dusk with the spear. In an instant, they were right in front of the vulnerable Corra, whose spirit-crystal thing began to glow. From the size of a fist, it shrunk until it was nothing more than the size of a pea, and my arrow slammed into another tiny hexagonal shield. The shield and arrow both vanished. 

Pretty much exactly what I’d expected. Dusk unleashed a Sandstorm Lance at Corra point blank, but Corra’s entire body turned to metal and she punched through the lance. Her arm formed into a blade and stabbed into Dusk’s body, lighting errupting down its length, and causing Dusk to gasp in pain. My spear arrived an instant later, having been delayed due to being Foxswapped, and though it slammed into Corra’s skin, the wound it left was minimal. Dusk was drawing on Burn Future to take the mana to reforge her body, and I couldn’t help but worry about that. Between pushing back so much against a detonation, keeping my soul mana flowing, restoring my temporal mana, constantly rebuilding my armor, and Dusk rebuilding herself from the injury, we were spending a lot. Maybe more than we could pay off. 

There wasn’t time to linger on the fear for long, though. I teleported in and unleashed Mantle Dragonfyre, fueled with soul mana. Corra tried to dodge, and mostly did, but it still caught her in the shoulder. The beam melted through the metal around her, but her circlet began to glow, the sensation of blood and life flowing from it. The metal drops froze, then reversed course, pulling back into her as the bloodstone reversed the injury. Her sword arm was thrusting toward my face, and she was firing into my chest. The blade gave me a sense of real danger, so I teleported to the side and threw a kick at Corra’s head, sweeping the beam up to strike her. She was running to the side, keeping just ahead of the dragon’s breath, when Dusk struck. 

Hands of earth, larger than I was tall, exploded upward and rammed into Corra, catching her and pinning her in place, and I aimed the beam down. Corra threw something, and there was a flare of mana and danger. Trusting my senses and instincts, I cut the beam off and teleported away just in the nick of time. A massive explosion went off where I’d been standing – she must have thrown her entire sunsteel clip at my feet and set all the bullets off at once. Dusk’s form evaporated under the pressure, too much damage for her to fix in a single instant. 

I began cycling Mantle Dragonfyre, then I spun my staff, forming purple fireballs at the end and launching them down at Corra from above. She fired shots up at me, each shot tearing through an orb, then impacting my armor. I slashed out, using Reposition Anchor to cut at her with blademoss from so far above, overcharging my mana and using a bit of soul mana to power my Arcanist level blademoss. It tore a gouge into her metal form, but she thrust a hand out, and it formed into the canon. I thrust my own hand down, and unleashed another wave of echoes. My spirit was beginning to groan under the pressure from the Burn Future debt, and I’d definitely reached past the three-day mark, but I just needed to hold out a bit longer. 

An echo of my earlier Mantle Dragonfyre burst to life, dozens of orbs of Foxfyre flickered into existence and shot down towards her, spikes of ice materialized and rained down on her, and a dozen cuts formed across her body. For a moment, the bloodstone glowed, her form melting back together, but as it did, I teleported down, drawing strength into my body, and slammed a punch into her gut. She staggered back as the force of the blow shoved her, more than hurt her, and I stepped forward, placing the tip of my staff onto her forehead.

I unleashed Mantle Dragonfyre.