-Minerva Poppers-

To think that the Soldiers of Clay weren’t just attacking the intermediate hill of fantasy that System Assistant’s Caketopia was in, Rural Negapolises, but Blackentrail itself wasn’t something any of us were expecting. Then again, the Soldiers of Clay were considered a terrorist organization by most nations outside the Geomancers’ Armed Confederacy. Of course this meant Wes and I were currently stuck in the town to aid in its defenses.

Watching as the next wave of golem conjurations arrived on the edge of town, I released another volley of makeshift magic missile made from Moral Glyphs, courtesy of the Extra Moral Glyphs Class Specialty set of feature mandalas I received from Glyiria for becoming their part-time agent-slash-liaison for Historie Pastoria Sweets. With each series of sparkling rust-hued multi-coloured magic missiles pelting a conjuration into pieces, I readied myself for the next wave: there were easily over half a hundred Soldiers of Clay partaking in this assault cause Robby’s own version of Neo Draceld Z, Neo Draceld M, has a conquest near Sous’s own. And when each golem sentient could create an average four to a dozen golem conjurations that they could replace, the battle became one not just of attrition but of quantity.

“Recharging,” I called out, ducking down behind the barricade to draw a mana crystal with one hand and drink a coconut-and-cream flavored low-attribute mana soda-potion, one of Robert’s high quality ones, with my other hand. The fizz was a bit overwhelming for my taste, even with how strong the taste of energizing mana was, but I couldn’t deny Robert’s soda-potions were softer on toxicity buildup in comparison to normal mana potions.

“Got it,” replied Wes as he controlled his floating buckler to trip the golem conjurations. Ever since he got his Floral Buckler of Reactions attunement, his fine tune movement with his blue violet’s floating buckler has vastly improved despite still being only tier 2.3: it just goes to show how valuable experience was even in comparison to tiers and other metrics or even a person’s portfolio of mandalas. “You think you can open up with a magic barrage? We got a big wave inbound.”

“Only if I do it with low-attribute mana and using the artificial,” I replied, already tossing the spent mana crystal and pulling out the artificial Trascendation, the Saint’s Tesseract-Well. I didn’t like showing it in public because I was still two to three months out from getting the budget Grand Ascension and object-binding mandala or facsimile to permanently bond it to me but this fight wasn’t giving me the luxury to keep it stowed away.

“You better do that, the general is coming again.”

“The general? You can’t be kidding.”

“Just look for yourself.”

“Wes, why did you have to be right…” I muttered, getting up to the general golem conjuration was making its way down the road for the fourth time today. Compared to most of the other conjurations, this one had carved plate armour with a tower shield and thick long sword. I guess we are up to using a magic barrage now, I thought to myself as I readied the spell both through myself and my cake-eye-balls: we always made sure to focus fire the general when he appeared to be on the safe side and now it finally try to see if my trump card would be the one to take it out in a single blow.

Lining my spell up with the general, I noted the dozen other golem conjurations trailing behind: as much I wanted to take them out, I needed to focus all twenty bolts, each half the size of a mana javelin, at the general. Completing the last incantation in my head and my Sea of Phenomena and mandalas, I unleashed the entire magic barrage. It took only a second for them to soar past the farthest house and another second to connect: nothing was left behind for once.

But before any of us could get excited and focus on the rest of the golem conjurations, one of the townguard we were helping shouted and pointed out that there were two more generals coming from around the small hill at the fork in the road. Two more already? Did they receive reinforcements? I thought to myself as I tried to scan the hills that ran up and down the west side of town. It was hard to tell where the Soldiers of Clay were hiding, especially since one of their more common secondary specialties was terraforming.

“Please tell you have another magic barrage in you,” asked Wes in a loud panicked voice, already unloading his handgun into one of the nearing gole conjurations: each Hybrid System-infused bullet gouging holes into its clay flesh.

“No, not anywhere near the volume needed to kill,” I replied, already noticing how damaged my cake-eye-balls were: two of them were killed from that spellcast and the rest likely wouldn’t even survive through a repeat. Not to mention I would need to recover my mana first and that just meant escalerating the growth of the toxicity buildup in me on top of hitting my alchemical limit for mana potions even sooner. It doesn’t matter whether or not I have a 25 in my low-attribute colour attunement, my mandalas can only generate so much mana even with all my efficiencies, I mentally swore to myself, wishing I had started to look into ways to improve the limits of my mana generation sooner. Even one of the abilities to draw and refine mana with another piece of a being would be a godsend right now, regardless of their uncommonality or inefficiencies.

“Prepare to fall back!” yelled one of the townguard in charge. Looking around I could see how scared our allies were of the new pair of general golems and how frustrated they were for leaving the nearby buildings to potentially be ransacked and destroyed. I could understand their feelings: despite this town being a part of the Necromancers’ Imperium, almost everyone I have met here has been surprisingly nice and helpful. But we couldn’t risk our lives, not all of us had our real bodies stowed away in the towers on the other layer of reality and we weren’t able to confirm if any of the Soldiers of Clay had the forbidden magic to draw out said real bodies.

“Do not fall back! Reinforcements have arrived,” suddenly shouted a familiar voice as an arrow of insanely dense mana flew by and sunk into one of the general’s arms, tearing it off along with its tower shield. Turning around I saw our reinforcement, Ras’s older half-sister Jezebel in her valkyrie armour flanked by a handful of townguard members trying to keep up with the white marblesque Lion of Von Leoia she was riding on: in her hands was her Grand Ascension model of a Bow of Glyiria, empowered not only by the fact it was a 3rd generational synthesis anachronistic attunement but also possessed a true unique class specialty: valkyrie saintess’s mana.

As mana washed over us from the Glyirian noble, I could see everyone’s morale be improved. Jezebel may still only be tier 5 and double rank advanced, but she possessed sixteen advanced class specialties: all from anachronistic class specialty mandalas with four of them being derivative unique class specialties and another two being a hyper unique class specialty and a true unique class specialty. She really was the Glyirian pinnacle of mana compositionists along with generators as a whole.

“Thank god you’re here,” laughed Wes in a sigh of relief as he swapped out magazines of his handgun.

“It’s only natural I came here, it is my fault those generals are here. I cleared out a squad of them up north but their leader managed to escape.”

“Well, now that you are here, any advice on dealing with these generals?”

“I do but it doesn’t help you. The generals are resistant to mana from normal and advanced class specialties but weak to derivative unique class specialties and higher. Likely from the system slots possessing the cursed and self-altering tags,” explained Jezebel, looking at me with a knowing look: I still didn’t have an advanced class specialty in Advanced Moral Glyphs and even then it wouldn’t be much help from the sounds of it.

“We’ll just have to focus on the other golems then,” I replied as I drew in the mana from my Saint’s Tesseract-Well.

“That would be a smart plan of action. Now let me help you,” commented the Glyirian noble before she started to glow with unnaturally vibrant clear low-attribute mana. Before I could ask how she was helping, I started to feel my mandalas recover from their fatigue: their capacities for mana generation returning to their optimal states.

“Did you just?”

“It’s a trick you’ll be able to pick up when you become an excel ranked pure magus. Having advanced low-attribute helps.

“Hey Minerva, if you are topped off again, let’s go for another barrage. Clear the path for Jezebel!” interrupted Wes as he started to move the line up with the other townguard. Nodding in understanding, I faced the road and started to cast a low-attribute magic barrage, only four bolts this time as while the Glyirian noble recovered my ability to generate mana, she didn’t mend my cake-eye-balls.

Firing off my magic barrage, I watched as three of the four bolts made contact with the golem conjurations, leaving them either completely destroyed or ready to be destroyed by our advancing allies. Seeing that we were advancing, Jezebel went to lead the charge, leaving me in the rear: not that I minded, this meant I could take the chance to mend my still-alive cake-eye-balls.

Healing pieces of a being, even the body, wasn’t something I had experience in, the same with healing summons, but having a mandala dedicated to contracting and maintaining the cake-eye-balls helped me circumvent that to a degree. And ironically having a surplus of mana made it easier to mend them despite how quickly they expired under strenuous spellcasting. Four of them are still viable, but still won’t be able to handle another magic barrage unless I limit them to a bolt each, I noted as I dispelled two of the cake-eye-balls so that they could get a more thorough mending.

With Jezebel’s support, it didn’t take too long for us to press toward the point where the Soldiers of Clay were operating from. Most of them were captured alive but a free of them were killed in exchange. I didn’t like the fact but I couldn’t complain: what was happening right was tantamount and even though they were sentients there were ways to potentially revive them, especially here in Witch Synthia where nearly one half of the population were sentients.

“It looks like the leader escaped again…” noted Jezebel with a frown as we inspected the pilfered loot: nothing of importance which was fine to me and Wes as most of the loot would be turned over to the townguard anyway.

“Where do you think they went? Further south?” asked one of the townguard.

“No, they went to the hill of fantasy from the feel of the ambient mana. Wes, Minerva, will you give chase with me?”

“Of course,” replied Wes with a nod. Giving a faint smile, I also nodded and agreed: the sooner we could deal with the Soldiers of Clay the better. And hopefully we could be able to give others back up in dealing with the other anti-Vraglixian Blossom Rebellion group and protecting the ascension event.