Nate watched as Kiri, Deverell, and Britt charged the gigantic black Razorlash. Topaz’s shift had been disgusting to witness but insanely quick, and it left Nate wondering where all the extra mass came from. A problem for later, since he was focused on Amethyst, or at least, whatever Amethyst was doing. Beneath the ground, less than a metre deep, Nate could feel crystals growing in a complex formation. He could tell that the form was practised and could sense gaps within the structure. Gaps that were just the right size to hold gems. As the first affinity-laden gem appeared beneath Amethyst’s feet he realised how the Platinum woman used her Skills. The crystal structure was just the pipeline to circulate the mana necessary to activate the enchantments. But, like all the best Enchantments he had seen, it used gems with an affinity to empower the effects. Of course, Amethyst was multitasking. He wouldn’t have expected anything less, as she encased herself within purple crystal armour. There were Concepts at play in the armour and he identified two gems within its crystal structure. One was something akin to reinforcement, but the second was going to be an issue for him. A sense of pressure and force that could only be Gravity emanated from the armour. Thankfully, it was clear Amethyst wasn’t using the Concept offensively. Instead, it felt like something meant to counter him. A sense that gravity in the area was static and to alter it he’d first need to remove Amethyst’s contesting influence. Since she had an actual gem with the affinity, Nate knew it would be expensive to win over control of Gravity by using brute force. Thankfully, he wasn’t alone.
Null was rushing at Amethyst, just like they had planned. The anti-mage was a good counter to someone like her. Unfortunately, Topaz seemed to agree, one of her tails lashing out at the swordsman with blinding speed. A cracking sound reverberated over the area as the tail struck Null, launching him backwards. However, Nate had seen something happen at the point of impact. A layer of armour had appeared, projected around Null. Armour that matched Britt’s own and he had seen his ex-girlfriend brace at the same time. He knew that Britt and Null had both completed their second evolution and gained their Embodiments. He hadn’t fully considered what that might mean and he’d been too busy preparing to ask. It seemed like Britt had some way to share her defenses with others. He smiled slightly, acknowledging that she truly embodied the idea of being Stalwart.
Nate hadn’t been idle while everyone else acted. His barrier was in place and his first two runes were already spinning around him as he used Conceptual Runic Mastery. The first was a modular Elemental Control rune, meant to allow him to counter Amethyst and her enchantment. The second was a Soul Empowering Rune meant to improve Kiri. The latter was already showing its impact as the battle truly got under way. Deverell and Kiri were dancing around the transformed Topaz, their tethered arms lashing out at the blindingly quick, dark and scaled, cat-like form of the Shapeshifter. They had yet to break any of the woman's scales off, but Kiri was fast enough to be keeping most of Topaz’s attention, which had been their biggest concern. The Shapeshifter clearly wanted to focus on some of the weaker members of their group, but every time she tried to turn to attack Deverell or move on the cratered Null, Kiri would threaten going for something important. Null pulled himself out of the crater, seeming only a little worse for wear, and was clearly looking for an opportunity to get at Amethyst. Unfortunately, the Gem Mage had finished her preparations, and Nate sensed as the battlefield turned against them.
The ground roiled, moving under the impetus of the Concept of Earth as Amethyst tried to make the dirt beneath them unstable, while making it stronger for Topaz so the monstrous shapeshifter could push off with more force. Nate could feel how the wind around them would suddenly gust, trying to push them out of position. Even water had begun to bubble up from below. It was all Nate could do to constantly alter his own Elemental Control rune to try and suppress the actions of Amethyst. This was his first time facing someone else who focused on battlefield control, and he was realising very quickly what a pain in the ass he must be to fight. A chunk of earth dropped out from beneath Britt’s foot, letting Topaz slap Britt away with one of her two tails. The shapeshifter used the momentary gap in the group’s defenses to send her second tail at Null, the metal tip trying to sever the man's sword arm. Instead, Kiri appeared, shoulder-checking Null out of the way and losing an arm in the process. That same arm grew back at a visible rate, but Nate knew it took a toll on Kiri’s soul energy to do so. Topaz, sensing the moment of weakness, pounced on Deverell. Nate activated Conceptual Spatial Manipulation and teleported the Dagger Dancer out of the way and next to Amethyst.
Deverell wasted no time, slamming six daggers into the Platinum’s purple crystalline armour. Small fractures appeared on its surface, but Deverell was forced to disengage before he could follow up with more attacks, Topaz’s tails snapping out to try and pierce the man. The momentary reprieve was enough for the Gem Mage to smooth over her armour, the cracks solidifying into an unmarked pale purple veneer, just in time to crack again as an arrow launched out of the darkness and crashed into the crystal covering the woman's face. With Jorge’s shot thwarted, Nate, using his farsight sphere of awareness, sensed the man moving and looking for a new angle of attack. Britt was charging back into the fray and Kiri had almost recovered her arm as Nate felt Null activate his self-enhancement Skill and rush Amethyst, trying to capitalize on the break in the woman's defenses. A hail of crystal knives launched at Null, turning to dust as the man's aura flared. The detritus, however, obscured their vision long enough for Topaz to lash out, striking Null again, as projected armour flared around the man and Britt fell to her knees in pain, clearly absorbing some of the attack through whatever Skill she was using.
Nate maintained his two runes, keeping the battle from worsening, but it was easy to see that they were losing. Amethyst had spent far less mana than Nate had so far and Topaz had yet to take a hit. By contrast, Nate was constantly losing mana as he tried to contest Amethyst’s battlefield control, Kiri had lost an arm and been forced to regenerate it, and Deverell, Null and Britt were all injured. The injuries, besides Kiri’s, hadn’t been too bad, but they were still slowly losing to the pair of Platinums. The problem, Nate decided, was Amethyst. With Nate’s help, Topaz would be easy enough to suppress and take down, but to focus on her, Nate had to cede control of the battlefield to Amethyst, which would likely result in at least one death on their side, if not more. Topaz was more than fast enough to take advantage of any slip up. She’d proven that already, the Razorlash form she had taken on was a match for Kiri in speed and likely outperforming her in strength and durability. So, taking down Amethyst had to be the goal. The problem was, Amethyst had neutered Nate’s most offensive Sigil. Gravity was exactly what he wanted to reach for and he couldn’t. Well, he could, but it wasn’t going to do anything so long as Amethyst was contesting him.
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The battle continued to rage as Nate put one part of his mind on working through the problem. The other three parts maintained the two runes with the last monitoring the rest of the battlefield. The Slummers were winning. Slowly, and at great cost of life, they were winning, folding the line of Royal Guards who had chosen loyalty to Bordain. Nearby, Baroness Olithia and Marquess Leclair, along with their own forces, were in a stalemate with a similar number of nobles and their retainers. Far to the side, fire and ice clashed as the woman called Garnet tried to kill the one known as Sapphire. Nate ignored that battle. In the sky, Aisling, Evindal and Luc had Verian on the defensive to the point where Luc had been interfering in the fight with Bordain. Bordain, however, was like a monolith, dismantling everyone and everything thrown against him. Only Morgane’s strange Illusions, that could temporarily become real, seemed to be keeping that side of the battlefield from collapsing.
“He’s getting stronger, Boss,” Frick sent mentally. “Not sure how much longer this can hold. Dunno what it is but I can tell that his Aura has been steadily getting stronger the longer he fights.”
Frick had been too busy maintaining the runic array that connected to the palace’s mana pipeline to help, but Nate was thankful his Familiar had been monitoring the battle. Now that he was looking for it, he could feel what Frick meant. There was something going on Conceptually, as Nate could feel Bordain’s presence growing and expanding. His mind served up the answer for him as it found the source of the connection. The palace itself was empowering Bordain slowly, and Nate recalled the lesson on Domains from the University. Places of Power that could strengthen the one that controlled them. Conceptually, the palace was Bordain’s, a place steeped in mana, power and leadership for generations of the man's family. The belief, coupled with the Bordain’s weakened Embodiment of Supremacy, was slowly growing Bordain’s Aura, influencing his ability to suppress those around him. Nate had a plan for that, but it would have to wait a little longer. Just not too long, else Bordain might rip through everyone and cement his rule.
Nate was about to return his focus to Amethyst when he sensed Cutter stumble. First Sword Joran swept his sword down to take advantage, only for Cutter’s grandson to throw himself into harm's way. Nate sensed it all happen in slow motion and was preparing to teleport the boy out of the way, when Kiri appeared in between them, driving First Sword Joran backwards with eight tethered arms wielding daggers, flicking in and out in a chaotic web. Topaz took advantage of the change in numbers and Britt was sliced, the razorlash tail passing through her projected armour, then the Champion’s armour underneath, before being lodged in the Stalwart Defender’s bone. Topaz looked surprised when she failed to cut Britt’s arm off, and Nate watched as the short, blonde Defender dropped her hammer and grabbed onto the tail. Deverell and Null used the moment, both attacking Topaz and leaving cuts across her scaled form as Kiri returned to the fight. Topaz finally managed to extricate herself and roared in fury as she bled freely, though the wounds were slowly closing.
Nate stopped monitoring other battles as he spun up a Life Drain rune and targeted Topaz. The Monstrous Shapeshifter managed to resist most of the effects, but the closing wounds slowed slightly, and Nate funneled the excess Life energy into Britt, beginning to heal her shoulder. Though, for now, Britt was clearly out of the fight. She stood back, maintaining her Projected Armour and likely the defensive Skill she was using on Null, but she couldn’t do much else while she healed.
The whole time Nate had been letting that last part of his mind focus on Amethyst and how to break her defenses, and had come up with an idea. While he couldn’t use the Sigil for Gravity itself without being contested, he could potentially use something else that might be able to subvert it using other Sigils. When he had combined Soul and Body, he had found the Concept of Life in the middle. Gravity, like everything present in reality, did not exist in isolation. He had been no physicist, but he did know that gravity was capable of warping space and time. Could the reverse be true, then? Could altering space and time warp gravity? The decision to go down this path was partially driven by the fact that Conceptual Spatial Authority made any runes utilising Space significantly more powerful. As Nate used Conceptual Runic Mastery to design a new rune he focused his Intent on the idea of creating a condensed pocket of space and time that would draw gravity towards it to fill the gap that the natural laws demanded it fill. The rune spun around in front of him in a complicated mandala as he tied the mana distribution fields together into a coherent whole that resembled a galaxy. As he did so, his Grandmaster Space Sigil was too powerful, overshadowing the Apprentice-tier Time Sigil. Nate was forced to use Conceptual Insight, expending most of the stored mana to raise the Time Sigil to Journeyman and then Master tier. Everything around him slowed as the newly minted Master-tier Time Sigil formed before him and he incorporated it back into the rune, finally managing a balance between Space and Time. As he did so, he saw what he had hoped for. No Gravity Sigil was present, and yet the Concept leaked through regardless, drawn by its related Concepts. Divine Energy flooded into Nate, fueled by his latest discovery, and he directed the little he could towards his Conceptual Runic Mastery Skill, activating the Divine Effect that multiplied the bonus Magic Power by four. The resulting rune had a Magic Power over a thousand, with the mana affinity perfectly aspected to Spacetime. He then directed the rune at its target. The inner layer of Amethyst’s armour shone for a moment with mana as the woman scrambled to release her control over her enchantments and focus on her defenses. Defenses, which turned against her, as the Gravity enchantment, fed off her own Skills, and then drew itself inwards, collapsing on the pocket of spacetime. The gem armour turned red as Amethyst was instantly crushed, before toppling backwards like some horrific sculpture of a purple and red sunset.
Processed mana rushed out and Nate directed it into a processed mana gem in his Runic Gallery as Topaz roared in fury, flesh warping and shifting as the woman changed shape. Humanoid now, coated in black scales, dark wings and four horns, she strode toward Nate, venom dripping from fangs. Around her, the soul energy shifted and Nate felt Kiri come to his defense as the clearly demonic energy tried to erode his will to fight.
His Divine Energy hadn’t gone unnoticed and Nate saw Bordain staring at him, first in anger, then confusion, before a smile bloomed on the titanic man's face. Bordain muttered to the air, and his voice carried across the battlefield.
“Supremacy is authority and I reign supreme.”
Nate felt Reality answer and ground his teeth as he prepared to try and stop Bordain from ascending.
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