First, thank you very much readers. Please continue to treat me well!

Also the notes... on my website, www.rpgheaven.com I will be releasing another chapter sometime before tomorrow for The Life Wizard. Please check it out. There's enough chapters there now for a good sized book. 

Also! The big news! I will release Book 2 of The Luck Mage series this month! I am targeting around the 15th for this release. Release date subject to change without notice if there's any hang ups, etc. Sometimes I've had cover art delays in the past. But usually, release dates are fairly stable. This will be an ebook on Amazon. 

Please treat me well and watch for this date with me! I'm also very excited about how fun the story is in the Luck Mage. The story is practically writing itself with how things are just fun and flowing. 

Thank you.

 

Chapter 214

 

Shun POV

 

I hear a huge roar filling the whole valley that sounds something like Niagara Falls.

(It’s coming at us again. Amazing…)

It almost distracted me but there’s still a fire salamander caster in front of me.

“Look out!” Sylvie calls next to me after she’d dispatched the other caster with the mana sword. I heard his pitiful screams when he discovered he was missing his hips and legs from her horizontal slash that went through him like butter.

(That’s why I think the mana sword ability poses too much risk to its user. If you are off on the timing you can cut your own limbs off.)

I think her mana is probably like 50 percent right now. And our enemies are almost full mana. Well there’s one left really. But if it weren’t for that huge water deluge that just started more would be coming. The enemy I think is starting to figure out how this defense system works.

But a lot of good that will do them; the water deluge is just too big and too much to stop.

With my hands drawing runic sigils in the air I renewed her runic shielding on Sylvie after the other enemy caster unleashed a fiery lance on her. Her trust in me is infinitely complete, and she didn’t even flinch.

Whew that was close. I was scared though. Sylvie is irreplaceable.

This guy is tough. His lance almost went through the runic shielding in one shot. The magic lance is still hanging there part way through the magic shielding still from where he tried to shoot it through.

“Dodge while I execute our next move,” I said to Sylvie.

“Got it,” she said.

Still there’s another caster now. Even though we’ve dispatched one in one shot, and the other is lower on mana than before, another one has arrived. He seems to be avoiding at us though and trying to scream at the other fire salamander to leave with him, all the while pointing at the water deluge.

That didn’t last long though. The bigger caster was the one already engaging us. And we don’t speak their language but I suspect he said something to the other one like, ‘help me kill them or I’ll kill you first.’

“You have to summon Mallory!” Sylvie said. She momentarily bounded around on all fours while running while both enemy casters are trying to concentrate fiery lances and fiery magic missiles at her. Still foxkin can’t entirely dodge spells, hell even dodging some of it is better than humans can do. Foxkin have this strange unnatural reflex ability that let them avoid some spell damage that’s unexplainable with just magic stats alone.

“I can’t. They’ll know if I summon her. The fae are watching,” I shouted back.

I threw magic missiles into one of the enemies. He then threw some b ack.

My runic shielding holds because my mental energy and concentration was so fierce when I threw that shield up. But even so I don’t like how the transparent glass like shield looks severely weakened.

I renewed the shield, while Sylvie is drawing their fire again.

And the water is getting closer again while we’re outside the barrier. The saving grace so far has been that this street is on higher ground than the two streets to the left and their ruined buildings.

“Now! We have only seconds, not minutes to get inside the barrier,” Syvlie yelled loudly as she’s trying to be heard through the torrent of water nearby.

And getting in a barrier is a slow process. If enemies are close and you try to go in, its check mate.

Carefully but quickly I began drawing runic sigils in the air. The magic flared and a summoning pentagram appeared on the ground near and in front of me but not too close to the enemies.

[Summon; Sunghee!]

“What? Where the frick am I?” Sunghee says as she’s summoned next to me. “Oh frick, what the hell is wrong with the sky?! Shun!” then I heard a stream of crazy profanity coming from Sunghee because to her this probably looks like, ‘the sky is falling’ or the end of the world.

“Help! No time to explain,” I said.

I’m a bit apologetic in my heart. Sunghee wasn’t entirely ready to fight. And she’s also already donated the most mana in sustaining the barrier the last few hours. She’s in civilian clothes, a tight low cut tank top and short shorts with sneakers like it was her day off. Even though I’d sapped mana from her recently, she’d been put back to sleep so it must be hard on the mind to suddenly be in another place, and then another after that while in her mind very little time has passed. She does always keep a weapon with her but still… her mind having to adjust into full combat so quickly always makes me nervous. I’m lucky she does have a sword with her and a crossbow.

This is why I hate on the spot summons. But I can’t use the non-human summons right now very well. Using Mallory or Doppel-chan would get the fae alerted to my presence and abilities, but using Sylvie and Sunghee shouldn’t.

If I have two of them holding off the enemies outside while I get in the barrier, then I can de-summon them from within the barrier. But if they aren’t fast enough in evading and dodging while I’m getting inside then I wouldn’t have time to switch spells and do shield renewal magic. This is why Mallory would be a good choice, if not for it possibly alerting the fae to us. And I think while Asakura is stronger due to ghoul status, as well as Ayumi…both of them have less combat experience than Sunghee.

The two enemy casters are suddenly very wary of me. Before they thought it was a fluke, but not there can be no doubt that they will flag me as a summoner in whatever wanted books the enemy headquarters is keeping on our side to win. Those will become the wanted lists that their assassins will be going after during the war campaign in the next few weeks.

At once I can see the two enemy casters are also deciding whether or not it will still be worth it to try to face me or if I’m too big of a fish to try to fry.

“Sunghee, careful. Danger level is high,” I said.

“No problem. As long as you keep shielding on me we’re good. And don’t let me die OK,” she chanted.

Sunghee immediately starts laying down cover fire while I cover her with an elemental resistance buff and shielding spell quickly. Then I had to renew the shielding on myself and Sylvie because Sylvie’s been running distractions for us while I’d been also having to shield Sunghee with both casters shooting fire lances and fire missile spells everywhere.

“I knew you could do it. Hell its uncanny how your spells work so well. You have protection magic so effective it’s scary,” Sunghee said while somehow the three of us managed to force back the two enemy fire salamander lizard men.

But suddenly we noticed the streets around us are filling up with water even as we’re fighting on the rooftops.

“Um this much water is really bad,” Sunghee said while reloading her crossbow. I still have her slightly behind me and to the left using my own shield to gain bonus defense for her with my defensive magic field active.

(I just realized her crossbow…and any bow really will be vulnerable and take aiming penalties in a really bad rain deluge like this one. We have only a few seconds before one of her weapons becomes useless.)

“We can’t stay out here much longer, “Sylvie said.

Finally we got a lucky break and punctured the first enemy spellcasters shield. Then Sunghee lands a crossbow bolt right between his eyes killing him instantly.

The other one still fights back but the water just rose past the third floor of the building we’re on. In other words in a very short time this place has totally filled with water.

“Um, Shun help! What do we do about the water?!” Sylvie called out, realizing the true danger.

“Get us out of here Shun! This water is a death trap!” I heard Sunghee screaming.

A human mind would have to have a lot of discipline to not go nuts over what’s going on right now.

The remaining enemy fire salamander turned to flee finally. I can see the anguish on their faces that they aren’t sure if they’ll survive either. They’d foolishly been betting the duel on fighting us ONLY until they thought we couldn’t escape not realizing my skills are ultimately perfect for this situation. There’s still one fire drake still alive that’s hiding on the back side of the building behind part of the raised roof but it’s in bad shape.

(Oops? Was he still alive? How disappointing. He’d used a [Feign Death] skill.)

“Hurry, kill that other fire drake, but don’t worry about the casters themselves. They won’t be able to escape without it,” I said to Sylvie.

(The rain is almost so intense that we can barely move. But for the enemy it’s the same. There is also only a limited amount of time still for a fire drake to be able to fly in this, after which they also will be buried in the water pressure mixing with the air vapor.)

The enemy fire salamander kin got to the fire drake just in time to have the lightning bolt Sylvie fire off hit both his magic shield and kill the fire drake at the same time. Unfortunately the magic shielding on this guy is still mostly intact.

He screams in fury as his only way of escape dies in his arms.

Sylvie flits over to me easily with agility and precision that resembles defying gravity. She protects me easily like she often has using that agility interception combo of hers.

Then I activate my sphere type magic barrier this time to trap air inside.

Already the water is spilling over the edge of the roof onto us. It’s riding at a couple feet per second in the entire city all at once! And it’s reached our higher elevation now! We have seconds to get inside!

I managed to get all three of us inside faster than normal but with jittery scared hands and near panic. There was a small amount of water that got in with us that made the others inside unhappy. They continue to stare at us like we’re aliens or something. In particular, they are unhappy when they have to be near Sylvie but I don’t know why.

“Oh my gosh, what the hell is this?!” Sunghee exclaimed while staring at the flood. Again the water level has gone higher than the barrier’s ceiling in a very short time. She’s drenched even though she’s only been here a short time, now matching me and Sylvie.

“Scary huh?” I said.

“So uh…this isn’t Armageddon right?” Sunghee looks disturbed seeing it.

“Don’t worry it’s not like that,” I said. I put my arm around her to comfort her.

But it takes a while to have her convinced. “This is like Noah’s ark…hell,” Sunghee has anguish in her eyes.

“Its not that bad,” I tried to say.

“Yes it is!” she replied.

I held her tighter.

“I’m glad we could help you though,” Sylvie exclaimed.

The three of us huddle together in the sphere.

“The barrier will hold…I think,” I said.

The others stiffened hearing the last part. If I would have said anything like ‘oops’ they would probably all pee themselves because this is so crazy to watch this flood and water bomb we’re in.

“Will the sphere hold? What about water pressure?” Sunghee asked me.

“I think it’ll hold. Why wouldn’t it,” I said.

“How do you know?” Sunghee pressed again.

“You are just scared,” Sylvie told her. But I can see Sylvie is scared too.

“Jeez, we’re so lucky your skills are suited to survival,” Sunghee told me.

“Because the other one in the middle of the street with Lars and those other guys is still there and they are alive. That one is underwater already, so you can’t see it,” I said.

“Who the hell is Lars?” Sylvie asked me suspiciously.

“Uh that would be me,” the half ogre said. (Is he checking her out? This is why I hate mixing with other people.) Of course she’d be suspicious of him too, just like he’s suspicious of her, since she’s a foxkin.

But in the time they’ve chatted with me in small talk while we waited it out. The water level is nearly above the roof of both the sphere magic barrier we’re in and almost above all the buildings in the city.

“What is this?” Sunghee asked.

“I think it’s a failsafe the fae put in to keep the city from getting taken over right?” I said.

“Yeah pretty much,” Lars confirmed it. But he won’t tell us more than that and I can tell he knows something.

What other secrets is he hiding?

“Well I can see the lizard men all around us drowning. They aren’t compatible with water element it seems,” Sylvie said.

“I can’t see it,” I said.

“My eyes can see in water better than your human eyes can,” she said.

“What do you see?” I asked.

“Just thousands and thousands of fire salamander troops all drowning at once. It’s actually kind of pathetic. I’d have said sad but it’s not that sad since they are trying to kill us obviously,” Sylvie said sarcastically.

Soon we began seeing bodies drift past us in the current that’s flowing wildly all around us. With this much water pressure and flooding the current is actually even strong enough to crack parts of the roof that the magic sphere barrier is anchored into.

“Will that hold?” Sunghee asked.

“It should. I think so?” I guessed. But I sound stressed out.

“And it looks like this time the fae were successful. Hopefully they will shut it down after this,” Lars said.

But he declined to explain what that meant.

Does he know something we don’t?

“How high is the water level now?” I asked Sylvie.

She glanced up.

“Jeez…it’s not stopping and it’s even pulling in flying fire drakes now with tsunami waves!” she breathed in awe.

As we sit here on the roof we start to feel the coolness of the water vapor start to affect us. The temperature here had been mildly hot even before all this started because of all the fire based attacks going off all around the city.

But now it’s starting to get cold because of it.

We continue to watch all the fire salamanders, their fire drakes, and the hell hounds drown in droves and like flies. Everything and everyone except us is drowning all over. Many bodies hit the barrier ‘glass’ like every few seconds. It’s creepy as hell when they do, we can see sightless eyes in some of them. And on the ones still drowning they look like they are trying to scream for help.

“I-I can’t watch. It’s too awful,” Sylvie even said after awhile.

Lars has a peculiar fascination watching the drowning figures being swept with the current and hitting the glass though.

The others have a stunned fearful look on their faces. And I smell urine from one of the soldiers’ pants.

“I’m…c-c-cold,” Sunghee said after awhile. She’s now rubbing her arms.

“Actually me too,” Sylvie said.

“Liar! You’re bigger than us, you make more body heat. You just want to hug Shun more than me!” Sunghee accused hotly to Sylvie.

Sylvie has a guilty look on her face.

“S-so do you,” Sylvie stammered.

“Actually I really am cold. Can you hug me?” Sunghee said.

(The others look at me jealously. And Sunghee’s figure shows a lot more prominently in wet clothes.)

Somehow we have a scenic view of fire salamander lizardmen with demon blood all drowning and swimming with horrific expressions as Sylvie is hugging both of us from behind while Sunghee is against me in front. I feel Sylvie’s boobs touching the back of my head while Sunghee’s are pressed against my front while I’m stuck in a girl sandwich to stay warm.

This actually turned out pretty good. The stares of jealousy are getting uncomfortable though from those near us. I like this position. And it feels cozy with the two of them warming me up under the cold with their body heat.

“So later on tell me more about that Magenta report,” I said to Lars.

“Hmm….” Lars didn’t give me a real answer on that.

 "Um, this is the last of it right? They can't just keep cycling this forever?" I realized I should ask this to Lars and Detector and did so. 

"Yeah I was wondering about that too. How long will they do this?" Detector looked at him.

"As many times as it takes," Lars said while gritting his teeth.

"As many times as it takes to what exactly?" Sunghee said curiously.

"To drown everything and everyone. That's how much the fae hate demons. They are never going to let them have this city even if they have to destroy us and the world with it," Lars said with what sounded like malice in his tone.

That's scary. That's about the worst thing he could have said. 

It might mean...they might never stop this flushing thing, ever. And they might enjoy watching it happen like some little kid flushing action figures down the porcelain bowl.