Fear Not The Elf Who Knows 10,000 Spells - Chapter 27

Perception illusion.

I've experienced it many times already at this point. It wasn't just about tricking me to confuse distance or direction.

It's also how the Einsam is able to make an illusion hit me emotionally even when I know it's not real.

I thought I'd get used to it. The feeling of guilt of killing my "friends" in an illusion usually goes away when I leave the Death Tunnel, only to return fresh the next time I experience it.

It turns out that wasn't all there was to it.

Looks like it can also affect things I never expected, or assumed it can't affect.

Like my belief in my own actual ability compared to my opponents.

How? I've already cut off all of its mental links ...right? Unless... there's something I'm not seeing.

It was time to look into myself once more. There has to be something I'm missing.

I needed space. Time to search and think.

Yet, I wouldn't be able to. I'm not fast enough. Or strong enough. Or—

The doubt started once more.

So I stopped thinking and fell back to the oldest strategy known to man.

Fuck it, we ball.

Literally. I made a magic barrier and added a new property to it.

Rubber.

I may not have got the feeling and mindset to cancel inertia, but I can make my magic barriers bounce.

Then I cast a Schnellwurf with one point being myself and the other being the Einsam.

I charged the mana rope to the max.

And let it pull.

I passed over the Einsam's head. A sonic boom followed.

I didn't miss. I hit an illusion. The Einsam was hit by the wind of my passing.

Because the Einsam had to dodge.

I had my full mana sight on. I noticed it.

I said before the Einsam's mana filling the tunnel like a sea "painting" the world. Within that painted sea was a slightly denser colors in the form of the Einsam. And within it an even denser still sphere. The monster's core.

I caught the monster off guard from how bullshit insanely fast my magnet slingshot spell was. That gave me the chance to see that disparity. That gave me the chance to start seeing its weaknesses.

The Defensive Magic slammed into the sealing barrier of the mountain and bounce back up into the middle of the tunnel.

Somehow my mind was working even faster with Jilwer, the faster I was moving under the effect of Schnellwurf.

I readied another Schnellwurf, one point always me, the other a wall angled to ping pong onto another enemy.

It was like those billiard games with the pool assist that shows you the path your ball would take. I will it for my eyes to see, less a spell and more a mana technique.

A path that I could take based on physics trajectory.

I waited till just as my barrier hit the wall to fire Schnellwurf again.

A path I made real.

My bouncing barrier sphere hit the ceiling. Then another wall.

Then the ground in front of the Phantom Mage before it could react.

None of the illusions-come-to-life phantoms could react sans the knight.

The Phantom Knight managed to get to us, me and the mage. Not to attack me, but to pull the mage back.

I grinned.

I targeted another Schnellwurf. This time at the warrior.

But not before firing another spell. Right here, in front of the two phantoms.

Literally arm's length away from me.

"Flammenbruch."

The ground glowed and I targeted only the surface so as not to activate the mountain's sealing barrier.

Explosion of fire blazed out, hitting the ceiling and filling the tunnel, right as I fired the Schnellwurf.

The force of the explosion and my magnet slingshot spell fired me at many times faster than sound.

I held Ewiglast at ready, moving at speeds that pushed my body to the brink of blacking out from the acceleration.

I pulled back my magic barrier from a sphere to a wall behind me.

I swing my sword.

The Phantom Warrior only had time to bring his axe up.

I sliced through the weapon and the Phantom Warrior's head, breaking the mana construct and sending the memory of this warrior back to death.

Barrier fully back up as a sphere again as I was still going forward.

Three phantoms destroyed. The fired was pushed from the Einsam by its energy. It's body looked different for a second. I only caught that it was singed before it reformed to its normal dark form.

Were those illusions, or was it putting an illusion over its injured form?

It had a snarl on its face as it let out a growl. Actual anger.

Heh. Regardless the tables are starting to turn.

I cast Schnellwurf.

Another illusion showed up in my path. Blass, one of the older kids in the orphanage.

"Wai—" 'He' shouted before splattering into gore over the barrier, from how fast I was moving.

I ignored him and every other kid that 'appeared' in my path. I focused only on the concentrated mass with in the Einsam's mana. I targeted its core.

The Einsam dodged, moving the core as swiftly as I do with my magnet slingshot spell, but with more control over it's body, as if inertia didn't apply to it.

Thank god. That meant that it didn't learn it from me. Hopefully.

Odds are this made it looked like it teleported to those lucky few adventurers that got close to killing it. Damn that must have sucked for them.

The Einsam roared in annoyance at me, its mana moving in waves now. The 'sea' that filled the tunnel was now turbulent.

And dozens upon dozens of phantoms of fallen adventurers formed between me and the Einsam. Even the ones I defeated returned!

Shit. Although I noticed that their mana concentration was much higher than the others. Guess they were elite units and these are just grunt meant to fill up numbers.

Still though, Murphy can you lay off my ass and not take everything I say as a challenge?!

I cast Schnellwurf once more, bouncing off the walls, the ground, up to the ceiling—

The Phantom Knight appeared upside down, materializing from the ceiling and slashed down, or rather upward at me.

I was bounce right to the Phantom Warrior who used his axe to try and stop me in place, slamming and pushing my barrier ball into the ground.

Then the ground rose up under the command of the revived Phantom Mage to capture my barrier and started to form earth spikes to pierce it from multiple directions.

My mana levels are now at 50% from all the crazy shit I was doing and all the Schnellwurf I cast back to back.

I can't fight forever and I still need energy for the trip back

"Minus, any chance you can refill my mana again?" I just shamelessly asked.

"Hahahahahaha!" Minus laughed back. "No." She said plainly. I should have expected it. I did expected it and yet hoped... "You have entered this situation willingly, young Trenn. It should be within your capability to get out." She said. "Although, you still need the moss to cure your mentor's poison."

I grimaced at the reminder. I didn't even have time to think about the moss. I'm not even sure if I grab one it would be real.

"I'll be waiting for you in Ackerheim." She said with her tone some bit of finality. Like anything I ask her after this will be ignored.

I grunted in thanks. There were no other words needed, I guess.

Beat the monster, get the plant, get back. I focused on the present situation.

The first revived Phantom Knight was an illusion, and the Einsam can form the phantoms at any location in the tunnel.

Motherfucker! I really, really fucking hate fighting illusionists.

And how the hell did he sneak a mental thread at me?! No. Wait, he didn't. That was an external illusion.

I fired Schnellwurf empowering the barrier on one side more, and shatter the earth hold and spikes. A question still in my mind as I thought of a different strategy.

But how did he make me think the phantom was real—

The Phantom Knight at the ceiling disappeared. Broken into mana particles and immediately reformed in front of me and slammed me back to the warrior whose axe had magical winds empowering and sharpening it, courtesy of the mage.

I enforced the barrier at where the axe will hit.

Crack.

Me and my barrier were stopped in place. The axe embedded in it and not moving further. The Phantom Warrior struggled to dislodge the axe, then held it in place. And the mage raised the earth again and grabbed my barrier, trying to crush it.

Some phantom soldier, adventures and even peasants jumped on the barrier banging on it with whatever weapon they had.

Dammit, how did this happen!? I growled before realization hit me.

The first Phantom Knight was real, yes, but the moment I wasn't paying attention to it, the Einsam dispelled it and reformed it at the ceiling, while keeping an illusion of it on the ground.

Making me think the Phantom Knight was still there by manipulating perception.

Again. I fucking. Hate. Illusionist.

Screw this. Flammenbruch seems to work, I'll just blow the shit outta this whole place.

I began casting the fire spell.

Only for the Phantom Mage to cast some kind of counterspell. A rippled of energy went throughout the ground equal to my Flammenbruch, disrupting it and destroying it. The spell broke before it could take effect.

And the mana of the spell was also wasted. Gone.

The Ancient Einsam laughed. The phantoms laughed with it. A choir of mocking ghosts.

Anger pulsed hotly in my chest. More than I remember feeling before. Part of it is probably another push by the perception illusion, making the situation seem like something I should be more pissed off at.

For a moment I thought about saying fuck it and just give Reelseiden a shot here and now.

...No. Mentally I'm in the worst place to try and create the spell. I don't want to make it nerfed to hell and back, since I'm fighting something that can literally fuck up how I see the world.

What if the spell worked as intended and I only saw it doing a very weak effect? That belief will fuck up the spell.

Yet, thinking about Reelseiden immediately made me think about it's original user from the anime.

Übel.

The psychopathic hot chick for the armpit fetishists.

And while her character is something many would go shout 'WAIFU' for, it another trait of hers that is now ringing in my mind.

Empathic mimicking.

Or whatever the formal term for it was. Übel had the ability to learn other people's spells by understanding the caster's character and personality.

She did it by instinct.

I wondered if I can do it intentionally.

I didn't pause or give the Einsam or his phantom army the chance to do something more.

I draw the spell shape for the basic fireball spell I knew, modified it's shape and cast it.

The spell worked by igniting the air. So I ignited the air around the barrier and burst it outward.

It blasted the phantoms back sans the Phantom Warrior, and the Phantom Mages spikes. The spikes were weakened by got reinforced immediately.

Then I dropped the barrier.

The axe continued its swing. the spikes elongated.

I trained with an Elf Archer. With my enhancements, body strengthening, Jilwer and other spells I could dodge those attacked with my eyes closed.

Instead as I dashed forward, the axe missing me, jumping and moving through the spike in half-parkour and half-flight, I focused on the mana sea around me.

The mana of the Einsam saturating the Death Tunnel. It was trying to grab at me, to affect me. It constantly did while I'm in the tunnel.

I let my mana burst out of me like a continuous wave. Like I was a determined blot of ink ruining the painting.

And made my mana grab at the sea around me, and pull it in me.

The Einsam shrieked in confusion. startled by the action, as it seemed like I was letting it into me. Making its illusions easier to inject.

But no. I was the one injecting the Einsam's mana I grabbed. I imagined a filter and sifted its mana through it.

It was a long shot. Maybe Übel doesn't do it like this. Maybe this way isn't correct.

But I didn't stop. I didn't hesitate. I didn't think.

I grinded and sifted the Einsam's mana making the filter discard everything about the mana other than information. Intention.

The phantoms attacked, headed by the Phantom Knight. I focused on the knight while grabbing the Einsam's mana.

And then...

Deja vu.

That was the only feeling for what I experienced next.

Deja vu mixed with out of body experience.

I swerved out of the diagonally upward slash. I spun replicating the upward slash taking off the knight's head.

Before the body could crumble, I was onto the next phantom.

Direct thrust, wind gathered onto Ewiglast. The phantom was pierced through like paper. Upward slash to finish it, spin take out the next three phantoms lunging at me.

The Phantom Warrior reached me, axe swinging from the side.

I reverse gripped, holding my sword with both hands pointing it down.

CLANK!

I never noticed how my body strengthen changed. Denser mana yet moving more fluid, faster through my body.

I stopped his slash dead, a shockwave rippled out. I spun moving forward into the warrior's personal space, pushing the axe away, while drawing him in, from his committed stance.

My mana moved instinctively, surging minutely, as I stepped forward. I punched and it was like my mana went off like a bomb on impact.

My fist, my arm burst through the Phantom warrior's torso.

I felt my fist make contact with bone. His spine.

I grabbed it and ripped it out. The mana construct shattered.

Plasma fired like a beam was coming at me.

I formed a spinning pyramid shield in front of me. The beam hit it dead center and the beams flew in different directions hitting tens upon tens of phantoms nearby.

I felt the phantoms coming from behind. I pointed back and fired a cloud of lightning. Once the lightning hit one phantom, it jump from one to the next.

There wasn't really knowledge in my head. More like... the dream of information. A feeling of what I knew could be done, as if I did it before to the point of instinct.

Yet I didn't know the mechanics of what I was doing. Felt like, that even thinking about it, would erase this erase this trance and ability I was going through.

I only had feelings, and I wanted to add my own signature into what's happening.

A spear of earth fired from ground next to me at the Phantom Mage.

It made the spinning pyramid shield. I coated the earth spike with Zoltraak. My spear broke through the pyramid barrier, spiking through the mage and break its mana construct body.

I summoned some of the rock from the ground, transformed them into a clear crystals, then spun them around me. The crystals gathered light and fired them as they spun.

Once the spell ended I dashed at the nearest of the phantoms left, slashing and cutting without pause or mercy.

An elation in the flow I was going through swam through my body.

The Einsam came at me. It's core body was so clear now. As if those flow state showed me what I was too busy being serious and strung up to notice, while semi-relaxed like this.

Or maybe it's because I was drawing in and breaking its mana it couldn't hide itself efficiently as it did before.

The Ancient Einsam slashed at me with it's claws. I swung Ewiglast and cut off it's arm. It's real arm, given it's scream.

The Phantom Mage was back and my full mana sight showed me it was formed behind the Einsam to hide it as it readied its spell.

I jumped back, a Zoltraak at ready as I extended and arm forward—

The Einsam lunged with its other arm.

Its other arm grew and elongated, bulking up as it reaching out to me.

It was nothing but another illusion so I would focus on evading and not firing my spell.

I fired the Zoltraak.

The Einsam hand engulfed my head and everything turned dark.

Ḭ̸̴̸̶̵͝ ̸̴̸̸̸̰͑s̵̷̵̷̸͎̏u̴̶̷̴̸̧͒ñ̶̸̸̷̸̠k̶̷̷̷̴̥̕ ̸̷̶̸̷̗̊í̴̶̶̷̸̞ṋ̸̶̴̸̵͗t̵̴̸̵̵̐͜o̷̴̶̴̸̞͌ ̴̴̸̵̵̲̀m̷̶̴̸̴͙̉ý̸̴̷̸̷̡ ̴̸̶̷̴̯́m̴̴̶̸̷̧͒i̴̵̷̸̶̳̇ǹ̶̴̶̷̵͈d̵̵̶̵̵̬́.̴̷̵̴̷̫̃ ̴̶̸̴̶̪̈

Then sight returned as the Einsam was breaking up into mana particles. My last magic attack hit.

I took a large gulp of air. My breathing was the loudest thing I could hear followed by the distant sound of waves from the sea.

I placed a hand on my chest, my heart was beating insanely fast. I looked around, focused with mana detection to see the monster was still around. If this was a trick.

Nothing.

So far at least. Another minute and still nothing, even with all my focused searching.

I didn't let down my guard, but I finally went and grabbed my bag that fell at some point, plucked a handful of Shineglow Moss and slammed them into the bag.

I floated up, readied Schnellwurf, and blasted out of the tunnel.

I had cast Phaitagurd and flew up to the sky.

Nothing happened.

"Okay." I nodded to myself. "Hahahaha, okay, okay, okay then." I started laughing, relief pouring through my veins like a drug. "WOOOOW!" I shouted in pure joy. "I WOOON!"

I coughed from crying out for so long.

"Time to get back." I said, angled myself in the correct direction and blasted off.

I don't remember how long it took to make it back to Ackerheim. It almost felt like no time at all.

I quickly went to the inn Schroff was at. Minus was there, congratulating me and all. I felt happy? at the praise, before she took the moss to make the antidote.

Schroff woke up fine and thanked me.

We talked for a long while. About what happened, about the losses in Schwanz. About the future and what we should do.

Eventually my mentor felt tired and I left him so he can get some rest.

I looked around in the inn for Minus but she was nowhere to be seen. I thought to look for her with mana detection but let it go for now.

I left the inn to just find some place to sit and calm down from everything.

"Trenn?" A... familiar voice I hadn't expected called out. I looked behind me to see the matron of the Calm Orphanage.

"Ms. Gütig?" I blinked unable to believe my eyes. She looked... honestly she looked like shit. Like someone whose been through hell.

She was alive. Alive and... maybe that was enough.

"I knew it. I knew it, at least you, you..." She broke down, fell to her knees and started crying. I immediately was by her side.

"Hey, hey! Ms. Gütig. You're okay, you're okay." I said, rubbing her back and helping her up.

"You're alive. You're alive, at least one of them lived. One of the children," she sobbed some more.

I helped her to a bench and got her some water.

"T-Thank you." She said after drinking it and drying her eyes with her sleeves. "I'm sorry, I must seem to terrible. Just breaking down like that."

"It's understandable, Ms. Gütig, given everything." I said, slowly moving and sitting next to her. I placed a hand on her back, moving it in circles to comfort the old matron.

At first I couldn't believe my eyes, but much to my guilt I felt glad someone survived.

"You, you don't understand, Trenn. It was, it was horrible." She started to say, but I felt she might spiral into crying again if she continued.

"There was nothing you could have done," I said. "It was all the Anti-Elf Coalition's fault. They are the monsters in this."

"Those monsters were slain. From what the townspeople told me." Ms. Gütig said as she looked forward.

I looked and blinked in surprise as I just noticed people were moving about in a celebratory manner. Joking, cheering and merriment. There was quiet cheerful laughing echoing in the streets.

I never noticed as I didn't pay attention to it. I guess it was always there in the background.

"Yeah..." I said, not really sure what to say.

"If only I could have done something. I couldn't even avenge them, someone else had to do it." Ms. Gütig lamented, looking down hauntingly.

"...I did it." I felt myself push the words out. Just somehow wanting to comfort her. "I destroyed that army. Slayed it down to the last man."

Ms. Gütig looked at me shocked. An look of understanding came to her for a moment, before sadness took over once more.

"...I see." She said.

"You... don't seem glad." I said.

"It doesn't change what I did." Ms. Gütig said, making me frown.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"...How do you think I'm alive, Trenn?" She asked looking at me, and before I could answer she continued. "I left them." Ms. Gütig cried again, quieter this time and looked down. "I only cared about saving myself and ran away."

Anger rose up in me. I wanted to shout at her. Even punch her for acting like that...

But what good would it do? Everyone was already dead.

"It was an army." I finally said after a long quiet moment. "There was nothing you could have done. You being alive is miracle enough. The only repentance you can do is remembering them and doing better."

"...Is that what you will tell yourself from now on?" Ms. Gütig asked, and I felt a pit of ice in my stomach.

"What?"

"You said you destroyed that army. You have all that power," she turned to me, her face full of anguish and hatred. "So why didn't arrive earlier?"

I leaned away from her, as I half turned to face her while seated on the bench.

"Ms. Gütig, I didn't know, there was nothing I could have done!" I said, for some reason I felt too defensive.

"But if you care you'd have been there earlier." She said, and before I could interrupt, her next words stopped my reply in my throat. "You always hated being in the orphanage surrounded by others. You hated helping out even while you did it as fast as possible." Ms. Gütig spoke, tone losing it's intensity, almost crying. "Why did you want to leave so badly?"

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AN: Next chapter should be the climax. *Fingers crossed* Hopefully.