Marching through the forest Marquess Jay Night’s expedition forces culls crazed monster, after crazed monster eliminating all opposition in their path, till they reach the rock face of a mountain and stop.

“REIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Everyone but Jay covered their ears from the sheer volume of the roar, Jay’s eardrums the only ones strong enough to resist the sound.

Some of the mage knights touched their ears as blood dripped from them, the blood now covering their fingertips.

Suddenly there was a rockslide coming down the mountain as a fire dragon covered in patches of black scales and red glowing eyes burst out the side of the mountain. The odd fire dragon scrambling on the rockface as it paws and scratches at it face repeatedly shrieking then roaring in anger. A smaller black feminine figure with bat wings, horns, and four red eyes flies out the new cave. She pours red energy onto the odd fire dragon, the dragon claws and snaps at jaws at the figure as she kites the non-sentient beast.

As the red energy touches the dragon the black scale spread and red crystals begin to jut out of its spine and head before two more red glowing eyes open above its other set of eyes. The black scales spread even quicker now covering the whole dragon in mere seconds before it let’s out a roar and spews blood-red flames into the sky.

The strange female figure points at Jay and his troops below the mountain and the dragon lets go of the rock face flying towards them.

The dragon indiscriminately breathes fire onto the area below it, setting both the forest and the humans ablaze. Everything touched by the blood-red flames, human, animal or plant quickly blackens as red veins spread across them before crumbling to ashes in the wind.

Knights and mages let out screams, even their mana shields quickly failing as they turn into miasma, the magic users struggling to maintain their control over their corrupted mana.

Shields fumble and fall as swaths of Jay’s forces are consumed by the blood flames. Each attack of mana quickly becoming miasma before it even reaches the corrupted dragon.

Jay quickly orders a retreat and picks up a spear from a fallen mage knight before throwing it at the corrupted dragon impaling its wings, then another spear throw and another then another before finally the corrupted dragon flies towards Jay to attack.

The dragon breathes its blood flames at Jay the heat and red energy of the flames dispersing into ambient energy on contact.

Jay jumps up swinging his ax down onto the head of the corrupted dragon when the ax cracks on the skull on the corrupted dragon, cutting only skin deep above the beasts eye.

The dragon swings its claws swatting him like a fly, sending him crashing down into the ground creating a crater.
The corrupted dragon slams down into the crater pinning jay’s arm under its claws. The beast bears its teeth, flames spewing forth from its mouth once again dispersing on contact, as the beast bites down on Jay’s face. A single tooth digs into Jay’s face creating a deep gash across his eye before he hears a roar like thunder.

The corrupted dragon lifts its head to see where the roar came from and snarls, creating room for Jay to see an old dragon flying straight at the corrupted fire dragon. The old dragon tackles the corrupted dragon with its jaws being the first thing to touch the beast. The old dragon snaps it’s jaws around the corrupted dragon’s neck before tackling it into the ground creating a massive crater.
The old dragon’s jaws instantly snap the corrupted dragon's neck, and the old dragon spews forth cobalt flames from it’s still closed jaws the dead corrupted dragon pinned under its feet. The cobalt flames consume the corrupted dragon's corpse.

Jay shifts his eyes towards the female figure from before flying away into the distance before another old dragon snaps its jaws around her swallowing her whole then belches cobalt flames.

I send a message to Fucius and tell him to dispatch old dragons to cleanse the miasma affected areas with mystic fire.

Another old dragon swoops down landing into the forest and begins to burn it all down with cobalt fire breathe.

Jay is stunned and awed into silence before realizing he is in a burning forest and chases after his troops already long gone.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………….

After a month of clean up, orders, resting and travel Jay is once again sitting in his study in his castle, Midnight Castle, in his fief’s central city, Night City.

With a knock on the door, Rune Master Gerald again enters Jay’s study.

Gerald inquires, “You called for me, my lord?”

Jay answers, “Yes, I’d like to hear your report on the research I assigned to you.”

Gerald, “Yes my lord, I was able to draw runes on subjects with my finger using mana.
For knights I wrote the runes for absorb on their back, this allows them to constantly cultivate mana by automatically absorbing the mana around them.
On their chest I wrote the runes for strengthen body on their chest, this constantly uses their mana pool to further strengthen their body.
Hence with constant automatic mana cultivation constantly strengthening their body and growing their mana pool, plus their mana pool constantly being used to further strengthen their body, you end up with knights who have extremely high physical power that are always growing but have no mana to cast spells.

I call them runic Knights.

For mages, I wrote the absorb runes on their back only allowing constant mana cultivation and thus constant growth as mages.

The problem is because the runes are made only using mana they glow constantly and can give away troops position in the dark, hence rendering stealth operations difficult. A correlating problem is because the runes are written with a finger there is less room on the body for more runes. Hence more complex enchantment are not currently possible.

The final problem is the absorb runes are too basic and general, hence any ambient energy or energy in general, is absorbed into the body, this would include miasma theoretically.

However, it should be solved by simply writing the runes absorb aether.”

Jay responds, “Very well, refine the process and come back to me with the result, but first.

I have ordered the military including the reserves to start construction on a northern border wall, I need you to arrange the appropriate supplies and schematics.

Also, send this message to the capital via raven.”

Gerald, “My lord, might I inquire as to the content of the message?”

Jay, “It’s a request for an audience with the king.”