A New World, an immersive game experience

Chapter 551 - What A Hero Can Do

"Miasma bombs," Ceph said and on queue, a large number of undead were launched over the city walls. Splattering on landing. Some strange miasma seeping from the splattered remains. Visible even without mana sense or any type of observation skill.

This miasma spread quickly and killed anyone it came into contact with. It didn't exist for long, but the damage it did was shocking.

[Death Miasma]

[Concentrated vile and putrid disease, altered and weaponized through vampiric necromancers.]

[Damage (Decay): 40 (30) {per second for 30 seconds}]

'That... Is dangerous.'

After a few seconds, the magic towers activated a barrier of sorts. This was the first time for Eldrian to witness this type of barrier. No, that was wrong. He had once witnessed a similar barrier, a long time ago.

'This, it appears similar to the one back then. Does this mean this is also now considered a dungeon?' Turning to his notifications Eldrian didn't receive any, 'I guess not, then what constitutes a dungeon?'

The barrier was transparent, almost like a glass barrier covering the entire city. It slightly distorted view, allowing you to make out where it was if you concentrated. Eldrian could just imagine that many people had run into it without understanding what they had hit.

With mana sense, shockingly, it appeared like solidified ether. The sight gave Eldrian insight into how much more ether could accomplish if handled creatively. First, he would still need to get a hang of handling etherial mana.

The undead miasma bombs launched after the barrier's creation splattered against the barrier harmlessly. Making it seem like this should be the obvious thing to use in all defenses.

"Why don't they?" Ceph repeated Eldrian's question with a hint of mockery. To everyone, it was common knowledge, Eldrian asking made it clear again that he had been absent. Of course, it wasn't his fault. In fact, Ceph was actually angry at himself, not Eldrian.

"It disables the towers' offensive abilities and drains an insane amount of mana, it also blocks movement in and out. Switching back to offensive spells also takes a couple of minutes. Enough for the enemy to close in and even scale the walls."

As if the explanation was their queue, the undead rushed forward upon the barrier's completion. Leaving just a few behind to maintain the catapults for when the barrier fell.

The undead was a mix match of an uncountable diverse number of monsters. Undead orcs, kobolds, ogres, and even trolls were in the mix along with humans, demi-humans, centaurs, and of course plenty of animals and beasts.

Thanks to the barrier, no arrows nor anything else could be launched at the oncoming horde who clashed against the barrier.

Allowing them to rain down their attacks on the barrier without resistance. It seemed like the barrier would be able to hold out forever, however, after a few hours, it started to become dimmer. The distortions in light became clearer.

"It's about time," Ceph said, having caught Eldrian up on the normal tactics of their enemies and all their failed countermeasures. Unfortunately, due to their lacking fighting numbers, they couldn't do much other than try to stall for time and pray that the kingdom would be able to spare a legion or two.

Contrary to the citizens of Kynigo, the undead did not care for their losses-- as long as it was not vampires who died. If the bodies of the other undead were not incinerated or cleansed by a priest it could simply be risen again.

This made their brutish tactic far too effective. Naturally, in the current situation, the army couldn't accomplish those things.

Half an hour later the barrier finally started to crack, and this quickly led to it shattering. What welcomed the undead this time was not just arrows and random spells from tired soldiers.

What welcomed them this time was Eldrian's Incinerate.

He had more than enough anger towards the undead, not for what they were or what they were trying to do. That certainly was something to be furious at; but his true anger was for what they had caused Vivian to go through. How they had taken her father from her.

For how they had robbed Ceph of his childlike innocence. How his friends were now almost unrecognizable.

He also had plenty of anger at himself and Miracle too. For that he was not there for them.

Eldrian looked at the masses of undead with absolute loathing, wishing to simply annihilate them all from the face of the planet.

'This might be dangerous, but so what? If they can use spirit magic then so can I!' Eldrian shouted as he screamed for them to die. Letting loose the largest ball of fire ever. His emotions were not purely concentrated on just his fireball either and influenced those close to him too.

As it flew, it grew. And as it grew, the spells of the other soldiers started going crazy. Growing in size and becoming highly unstable. It didn't matter what Tier or type of spells, they were all affected.

The charging undead who expected little resistance instead found hundreds of crazy unstable spells bearing down on them. Destroying everything, turning the very ground into lava.

Thousands of undead turned into nothing, thousands more caught aflame. Even the vampires had been unable to escape the attack.

Eldrian was flooded with thousands of messages, each costing 10XP. He ignored them as he fell to his knees and coughed out blood. No one, not even Ceph, realized what was going on with him.

They all stared at the destruction, equivalent, no... Far stronger than an attack from all eight magic towers. Shockingly, they found themselves also in a strange emotional state. One moment they had been overcome with anger, now...

They felt empty.

'Yeah, that was reckless...' Eldrian laughed midst coughing blood. Out of mana, stamina, and nearly out of health. 'Didn't think it would take more than the stipulated max...'

Of course, he knew that spirit magic wasn't as straightforward as normal spells. He couldn't really rely on the templates that the AI gave regarding them, since their power did not rely on things like control and mana quantity. Instead, it relied on emotions and their quality more than their quantity.

There had been plenty of both on this occasion.

Fighting to keep his consciousness, Eldrian tried to climb back to his feet. That was not going to happen, in his attempt, he lost his footing. Luckily, Ceph finally caught on to what was happening.

"What... Was that?" He asked as he started healing Eldrian, having tried and failed to make a telepathic connection with Eldrian.

"Spi-rit magi-c." Eldrian said midst coughs, "Like I said... You need to- catch up on- a lot- of things."

Ceph nodded, shocked that somehow Eldrian had also changed massively. He hadn't been in the war, but it seemed like he had changed just as much if not more than them.

...

That single attack had shocked the undead and they gave up on the night's assault. For their losses were too great and they feared another attack of this nature.

They launched a few more undead miasma bombs as the magic towers tried to repair the barrier. As a way of trying to weaken the enemy's morale, unsuccessfully. The soldiers kept cheering as the undead retreated. Unbothered by the normally fear-inducing miasma bombs.

The undead leaders were scrambling to try and make sense of it and come up with a plan against it.

AN: A big thank you to everyone who continues to read and support the story on WN.