Author Frank Morin
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Ch 123 - Non-Surgeons Should Not Try Open-Heart Surgery
🕑 Added 2025-01-27 17:00:03 +0000 UTCNo! I channeled more of the incoming power from my Tesla Coil bracelet into my mind to keep my thoughts alert. I had more power now. All I needed to do was figure out a way to use it. It wanted to run through my mana channels, but that would kill me. I couldn’t bottle it back up again, and leaving it to rampage unchecked was killing me too.
As my vision darkened, I focused all my will and gave the new power direction. I couldn’t let it run through my mana channels, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t use those channels to direct it.
Enormous waves of power rippled through my body, wrapped around my mana channels like icy sheaths. In the blink of an eye, every mana channel was sealed in a new outer layer of cool power that chilling overheated flesh and radiated out through my entire body.
Ashkaroth’s mana still tore through my channels like living fire, but it was now contained within a cooling, protective new layer that kept the demon from ripping my mana channels apart. The cooling relief helped me gain enough breath to hiss, “Those channels were new!”
The new energy might not be directly mixing, but its presence still had an effect. It seemed to catch Ashkaroth’s mana by surprise and the force of his attack faded like a tap being turned down. That gave me enough advantage to fill my channels with convergence mana and seal them off.
Ashkaroth hissed with rage, but I drove both of my pools of power against his mana beam still trying to tear through my heart. My two power sources might not mingle, but I could still braid them together, and that seemed to magnify my power tenfold.
The pressure from Ashkaroth eased and I gasped in a breath of charred air as my heart took a painful beat. Ow. My heart ached in a way that would usually have terrified me at a fundamental level. Hearts weren’t supposed to feel like that. Now it just made me angrier and I howled my fury at my attacker.
I had so many questions, but couldn’t pause to think. I had to fight, or I was dead. I’d bought a temporary reprieve, but I had to strike back, or Ashkaroth would slaughter me.
Ashkaroth’s burning eyes widened and his little clawed hands clenched into fists. He looked shocked that I could push back his attack, and that enraged his easily-affronted honor.
I doubled down, pushing as hard as I could, drawing deeper from my own anger. This literal devil thought he could drop down on my party and wreck everything just because he was bored?
Somehow, I held off his mana beam of fiery death and even pushed it back by increments. My newly-awakened second mana pool felt immensely deep and powerful, but also somehow different. It still did not mesh with my convergence mana, but twined together with it, the two could hold their own against Ashkaroth’s far more advanced mana manipulation and slowly push his power back. My chest burned where his power had speared into me, but I growled through the pain, my eyes locked on the Fire Lord, and again I pushed.
“Insult and dishonor!” He shrieked and shot toward me, clawed hands raking at my face.
That kind of threat, I could deal with, but first I had to counter his overwhelming magic and fire. Focusing my inent on Spell Weaver, I envisioned defensive elemental barrier that could withstand his assault. With that in mind, I triggered Energy Ward, combined with 3 ice immunity potions, and a scroll of ice blast for good measure.
My defensive aura exploded out of me with way more force than normal, fueled by the huge bonus charge my Magical Resistance had absorbed. And Yes! My odd new mana pool worked too, fueling it even more. My aura deflected Ashkaroth aside, his burning claws missing my face by half an inch.
“Congratulations, Lucas! New synergy discovered between the fire defense of Immolation, the ice defense of Energy Ward, and the intermingling of flames and ice. Spells combined to form the new spell: Convergence Chaos Vacuum.”
Both pools of my mana poured out of me to fuel the new synergized spell, draining a vast chunk of both pools. The flames of Immolation and the glowing protective dome of Energy Ward both flashed with bright blue light, then disappeared, replaced by a sphere of intense darkness swirling around me.
Even better than I’d imagined! Talk about combining spells to make something stronger. In the center of the sphere, all the pressure of Ashkaroth’s mana onslaught disappeared, and the abrupt cessation made me stumble away from the cliff wall. Through the sphere of darkness, I felt everything. All nearby attuned mana was getting sucked in and consumed, fueling the sphere and trickling back into my mana pool.
Even Ashkaroth’s mana beam snuffed out, dispersed by the Convergence Chaos Vacuum. Every bit of mana that touched the vacuum got sucked in to add an extra layer of woven mana, strengthening the sphere.
“No way,” I breathed. Cyrus had said few people ever unlocked higher-level mana. I sensed Ashkaroth’s fire mana was very dense and his control over it was perfect, yet, it was only attuned mana. Now that I’d resisted his initial assault, it looked like my convergence mana really could trump his.
Identify triggered again as I focused on Ashkaroth, who had rebounded from the new spell a few feet.
“Ashkaroth. Demon fire lord. Level 82 noble elite.”
“Furtwangler,” I cursed. Level 82? How was that possible? He was way above level 75, which was most likely the next big milestone level for monsters. No wonder he’d hit with such powerful mana. It was a miracle I’d survived his attack at all, let alone pushed it back.
“I will drink wine from your skull!” Ashkaroth shrieked, diving at me again.
Nasty mental image. Would he scoop out my brains first, sterilize my skull with fire, or just start in on the party?
Ashkaroth plunged through my vacuum, and the flames wreathing his entire body winked out, but he did not stop. Energy Ward was no longer active like normal, so I snatched the diving demon out of the air.
He seized my arm, the grip of his little hands like vices. Uh oh.
My mana might be evolved, but he outranked me by over 60 levels. If my tier-1 stats had reached 100% efficiency, I might have held my own, but they weren’t and his strength was off the charts. With a heave, he snapped my forearm. A spear of pure pain drove into my mind and I staggered long enough for Ashkaroth to lunge at me, colliding with my chest like a battering ram.
My battered Crash Test Dummy jacket chose to speak again as it absorbed most of the brutal impact and dispersed it across my entire torso. “Severe frontal impact. Hope you weren’t heading for the prom.”
The jacket kept my ribs from breaking, but I still fell back, flat on my back on the hard stone shelf. Ashkaroth scampered up my torso, clawed limbs plunging into my body. He might be tiny, but his strength eclipsed Alpha’s and he drove his entire hands into my chest and heaved.
With a sharp cracking sound and a soul-shattering blast of absolute agony, my sternum split, blood sprayed, and the little devil ripped my ribcage wide open.
For a second I lost consciousness, my mind stomped flat by the pain. But a fresh jolt of intense agony, coupled with a primal fear snapped me awake again. Ashkaroth was sitting in my chest cavity, gripping my heart with both of his clawed hands, nightmare face studying it closely as it beat against the restraints.
“I will know your secrets, puny slave. My queen will reward me for learning such vital information. Then I will eat your heart. Then and only then will the torture really begin.”
“Like Handel you will,” I growled, spitting blood. I could barely breathe. Had he punctured my lungs too? I was suffocating, and panic flicked at the edges of my mind, but I pushed it aside. I could not lose focus or I was dead. I hurt too much to think, despite everything my Tesla Coil bracelet could pump into me.
“I sense your incredibly evolved mana, but not the second force you used to overwhelm my own. Where is it?” Ashkaroth muttered to himself, completely ignoring my weak protest.
So I triggered Soul Feed’s direct contact drain, and an avalanche of energy thundered into me from the demon, helping to wash away a bit of the pain.
“Be still, slave!” Ashkaroth snarled and lunged forward, his fanged maw gaping wide enough to swallow my entire head.
With my good hand, I pulled out the Tidal Nexus cube. I could barely move with no chest muscles, but thankfully my bicep still worked and I managed to make the little metal cube appear right in front of my face just in time for him to bite down on it. Demonic teeth sank into the metal with a screech, but he did not shear all the way through.
“Suck on this, pal,” I growled and activated the cube.
Torrents of water blasted into the little devil, right down his throat. And since he was a Fire Lord, all that water flashed to steam.
Of course, his claws reflexively tensed, ripping into my heart, while his feet tore through my lungs. I tried to scream, but couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything more than convulsively tense every muscle.
One happy side effect of Ashkaroth gripping my organs so tight was that he also held himself in place for a couple critical seconds as an insane amount of water blasted into him.
The pressure should have just rocketed him off, but he stayed locked in place. Despite his tiny size, somehow hundreds of gallons poured down his throat. He swelled like a balloon, though, and the internal pressure blasted steam out through every possible orifice. It came whistling out of his ears, melting the sides of his face, blasted out his nose and even his eyes.
Those burning crimson jewel-like eyes widened in shock as the inner pressure swelled his head to triple its normal size, threatening to blast his eyeballs into my face. He let go of me and reared back, scrabbling at the cube, trying to tear it out of his mouth, but his fangs were stuck in the metal.
Water gushed around the edges, spraying into my open chest cavity and across the mountain, creating a dense cloud of steam even as more poured in and got vaporized, adding to the pressure. I couldn’t use my arms with no peck muscles, but summoning all my flagging strength, I heaved with my legs and rolled my entire body over, pinning him inside my torso with my weight.
One second later, he exploded in a pressure wave of superheated steam.
My still-active spell gave me immunity to fire, not steam, and not pure force.
The blast catapulted me into the air, splintering ribs, shredding organs, and tearing my chest apart, nearly bisecting me like the drake had, only higher. As I tumbled away, barely conscious under the new onslaught as my health dropped like a stone, I triggered Phantom Step.
That turned out to be a really bad idea. The blast contained intense levels of pure spiritual damage that seared into my spirit like a hot poker driven through my face.
I snapped off Phantom Step, tumbling and screaming in both body and soul. The steam melted my innards and burned through the protective barrier around my head. My eyes melted from the fervent heat, which was a particularly disgusting thing to experience. I didn’t even see the mountain before smashing into it hard enough to splatter myself almost as bad as I’d splattered that werewolf with my big club.
The cloud of steam was so intense, it pressed me against the stones for several more seconds even as the stones turned blistering hot. It was like getting dropped into a pressure cooker. The steam melted through clothes, skin, and muscle.
I was dying. I coudn’t move, but I wouldn’t just lie there and take it. I snapped off my still-running spell since it wasn’t any help against steam, then re-cast Energy Ward with a focus on Spellweaver and Elemental Harmony, throwing in 2 scrolls of Ice Blast and even that burn cream I’d gotten from that stupid duck all the way back on day one.
I couldn’t even feel the defensive barrier form around me. Hopefully it would help. Blackness was crushing down on my mind. I barely managed to slam down on several hotlist items, including 2 full regeneration potions and 1 scroll of Earth Armor. Then the singularly horrific experience of my face melting off finally dunked my mind into sweet oblivion.
