Daylight was still shining on DC when John entered the barrier. It was a nice day, with a temperature neither too warm nor too cold. A terribly nice day for what had conspired and continued to rip its fangs into anything related. Weather had very little care for the affairs of humans, it seemed.

A singular cloud drifted past the sun and put the world into a thin shadow. John looked at the scenery, realizing quickly why this particular place had been chosen by the generals. The island was covered in trees, a light forest with few paths running around, as good a place to hide and stall for time as anywhere else. That the entire island seemed to be under this barrier was thanks to it being the place for another fort for the generals, namely Terkal.

“This is fucking perfect,” Salamander grinned, looking at their battlefield. Sure, trees were normally quite fire resistant, but when blasted with Tier 4 endflame elemental heat, even they would catch fire.

Which was exactly what John didn’t want. Standing at the edge of the island, he gave everyone instructions. “Salamander, you are staying with me – in item form. I don’t want you to put the entire island on fire and fry our allies and enemies.”

“Gah! Fucking bore!” She threw her hands into the air, but obeyed (with some more curses). The red and black plate-scale gauntlet soon covered John’s right arm from the elbow to the fingertips.

“Alright… first things first, we have to find Chemilia and everyone.” He heard fighting noises from everywhere, occasionally saw the flickering of magic between the trees. That could have been anything between two middle class fighters sizing each other up to two random soldiers fighting. If this was the full force of the governmental forces versus the remaining military, then they were looking at somewhere between 500 and 1000 people fighting here. Exact numbers were hard to come by. “To that end, we should separate. Beatrice, you go with Nia. Metra, with Gnome. Jane, you are with Aclysia. Sylph, you’ll be our eyes in the sky. This way, we can best coordinate.”

While the tactics discussion was going on, John heard shouts including his title and name. He hadn’t expected to go longer than a minute without being seen, so he just ignored that. Not like they had taken a particularly stealthy route either, walking over the bridge that crossed the river on the westside. The ‘loyalists’ could know that their worst enemy had arrived, he didn’t mind. Hopefully, Abraham was getting this message by some telepath, shitting his pants in response.

“Alrighty,” Rave rolled her neck and did some stretches. “We gonna do a scene. Aclysia, you ready?”

“Whenever you are, Mistress,” the weaponized maid agreed, and the two of them stormed into the forest.

John looked over to Metra, who was standing there with Qiada resting against her shoulder, eyes closed. “I honestly expected you to be the first one to storm off.”

“I am enjoying the smell,” the tanned blonde told him. Taking a deep breath through the nose, John had no idea what she meant. All he smelled was tree sap, with a light undertone of cold from some ice attack unleashed elsewhere and crystals of snow tumbling through the air. “But you are right; Gnome, come now,” Metra’s grin was as wide as it was threatening, the almost naked berserker babe whirling her weapon around, dragging a trail through the dirt as she stepped forwards. “Let’s see what counts for war.”

“Uhm… okay?” Gnome was a bit sheepish as she trotted after Metra, both of them moving with normal steps into the northside of the forest.

“Guess this is where I leave, leave to up above, leave and throw thunderbolts like Zeus! Zeusia! Zeusphrodite! Audible Gasp! Can we legally change my name to Zeusphrodite? No, wait, Zeusphrodithor! Double the thunder, all the sexiness, all the thighs! Do I have nice thighs, John?” It was pretty obvious who was currently forgetting their actual job.

‘You are mostly wasting EVERYBODY’S time!’ Salamander scolded mentally, John feeling his right hand lighting up in (to him harmless) flames in response. ‘And if I don’t get to light things on fire, neither do you, so keep your lightning to yourself!’

“B-b-but… throwing lightning… that’s my favourite thing to do!”

John knew how to solve this rather quickly, “I will allow you to eat an entire bag of marshmallows if you do good in this battle.”

“WHOA, REALLY?” Sylph suddenly saluted in the middle of the air. “Okay, I am off, for the marshmallows!” Her body was encapsulated by electricity, and then she was already far above them.

In comparison to all of those shows, Nia and Beatrice leaving quietly, running at a moderate pace, was somehow boring. It was also completely expected, given those two and their personalities.

Left behind were John, wearing Salamander, and Undine. There was a second reason that he favoured wielding the endflame elemental over her blue sister today. All the wounded that came about during these fights, John doubted he had the luxury to stop for all of them. The ocean elemental had to be mobile to achieve this.

Meanwhile, John could use the extra firepower and, when joined, he and Salamander had a far greater control over fire than she had alone. He was a focus for her often erratic mind. In return, she wasn’t quite as destructive as when she was an extra body on the battlefield. It was like exchanging a napalm missile for a sniper round.

‘Speaking of round…’ John thought and reached into his inventory, ‘…it’s finally time to give this thing a spin.’ His hand returned from his inventory window with a basketball sized sphere of a bronze colour. The surface, while shiningly smooth, was covered in trenches thinner than the stroke of a finely sharpened pencil. Through it, he was looking back at himself, Extension working like a charm. With an easy move of his arm, he tossed the item up a metre, where it reached the zenith of its rise and then stopped.

A flick of his thought activated an internal mechanism, enchantments that he had paid good money for working in tandem. A sound not unlike a starting computer reached his ears. The sphere expanded slightly, arcane light shining between the furthered gabs as the plates that made up the hull drifted apart, each of them shaped like a thick L. John was still unfamiliar with the process, so it took him a bit to stretch the plates even further away. He was using an entirely new limb, for all intents and purposes.

A second layer appeared under the outside hull as the sphere expanded further, then a third. The dimensions of the thing became impossible to explain logically; the further the plates extended from the centre, a second, solid orb, the larger they got. At the same time, more rows of metal than should have fit into the original sphere unfolded, each of them turning to their own speed and direction. It was a hypnotic sight, one John could take control over but chose not to, just like he seldom regulated his own breathing. Viewed from the right angle, the entire thing had the feeling of a mandala, which was why John had named it after that very same art style.

The Mandala Sphere hovered on its own, guided by John’s will and propelled by its enchantments. Through the use of Extension and further Possession Slots, John had given it the ability to use a total of five of his spells, the total number of useful spells he had by himself. Mana Protection, Shardbound, Arcane Echo, Mana Blade and Arcana Strike, the first of which became active and put a blue hue around the sphere, extending slightly past the outermost circle.

Testing, John hovered his newest tool around, feeling its increased size. It was closer to the kind of ball used for gymnastics now, the bouncy kind kids liked to play with – except consisting of rotating, sharp edges and magical power, of course. Creating this thing had been a test of the skills of almost three dozen people. In an ideal world, Create could have supplied all the necessary forging, hardening, puzzling and enchanting, but John didn’t even have the options for most of the enchantments and the more finely forged parts took up to several weeks to form with Create. Put simply, this was a work of crafting far above what he would be able to do without investing in some sort of crafting class.

While he had no intention to do that, this was one of the things where he could instead pay to win, so it was all fine. All of that money had to go somewhere. “Alright then.” John was almost hesitant to send ahead the sphere as he walked into the forest. If it got destroyed, that was pretty direct monetary damage. It was, however, also made as a tool of battle. “Warfare is such a bad use of economic power,” he grumbled. “You are basically burning money and resources.”

He had barely finished the sentence when a spell came for his head. A massive block of metal ground against Mana Protection, sending blue sparks flying as the arcane energy maintained its defensive tension. John raised his right hand and laid it on the smooth surface of the square, pushing against it.

To his surprise, it didn’t budge with just that. At a Strength of over 100, taking all the buffs into account, he expected to be able to physically contest the metal control of a lot of mages. Was there someone of Lydia’s powerlevel around here? That would have made this situation a bit more difficult, since it called into question what John thought he knew about his opponents.

‘Now, let’s not make hasty assumptions, there is another way to explain this,’ he thought and sent the Mandala Sphere out to scan the perimeter, while he continued to fend off the continuously pushing block of metal through a combination of brawn and mana regeneration. Since the Extension had a high level True Sight, it was uniquely outfitted for this task, better than John anyway.

John felt the magic under his feet a moment before the ground ruptured under him. Mana Protection was a shield against many things, including attacks from the dirt under his feet, but it didn’t protect him from falling if the ground was suddenly torn away. He fell two metres, before the Mandala Sphere finally revealed his assailants.

A group of five people, all in the same, black uniform, probably enchanted with a low level of invisibility, had the shroud ripped away from them. John didn’t pay attention to their individual features, trying to get into the same mindset as he had at the battle of Warsaw. As long as he only saw the uniforms and not the people behind them, his punches would not be pulled. They would treat him much the same way.

Three of them moved in well-trained unison, the massive block of grey metal falling down on John like a hammer. Then the other two made the ravine as tight as possible, giving John only the reach of his shield to move in.

‘Clever,’ he had to admit, unable to dodge anywhere inside this cavity. ‘They are using gravity to keep their own mana costs down while exhausting my protection.’ A central core of metal controllers, moving what would be impossible for each of them individually, supported by two earth mages. If John had been a typical arcane user, all he could have done was try his best to snipe them with his spells and then hastily free himself, all in the hopes of getting away from under the metal block before it broke through the barrier.

Well, John wasn’t even the typical arcane user and even he was somewhat threatened by this development. The consistent pressure applied was actually eating at Mana Protection something fierce. This could have become a problem, since his defensives being tied to his mana pool made him reluctant to throw out Shardbound in return. It was a good strategy for a unit of less powerful Abyssals to tackle a single, more powerful enemy. Immobilization and exhaustion, two easy and effective steps.

Too bad John wasn’t alone by any stretch.

Tendrils of darkness wrapped around one of the metal mages, pulling him into the shade of a tree, where sharp claws and a seductive smile were already waiting for him. “Don’t you deny my embrace,” Siena beckoned sweetly when the man managed to stand his ground for just a moment. As a group formation, they were pretty good, but individually, they had little to raise in the way of resistance. The forest floor, covered in decaying bark and other plant matter, crunched under his feet and then the soldier lost his standing entirely.

His comrades were unable help him. One of them was quickly hit by a whip of slimy water that threw him backwards, a second attack of the same kind hitting another in the side. Undine’s attacks weren’t damaging enough to take either of them out, but they were disruptive, and that was all John needed. The Gamer’s own mind was occupied not only with heaving this metal block and throwing it away from himself but also, and mostly, with the guiding of the Mandala Sphere.

It flew a curve through the trees, pulling tighter together to fit between two narrowly grown trunks. By sacrificing some of the power stored inside, the sphere accelerated for a short burst. A light blue blade, bordering on purple, appeared on one of the plates, quickly turning into a blur as the plates accelerated in their spinning. The high-speed rotation turned the Mana Blade more into a mana chainsaw, cutting deep into their torsos.

Two lifeless, half-cut corpses fell to the floor, and John felt enough of the pressure vanish that he only had the giant weight to struggle with. With a small shout, he threw the heavy square to the side and pushed himself out of the hole. “Do yourself the favour and keep lying there,” John shouted at the two survivors. “I am not out to kill you, but I will respond if you attack me again.”

With that, he turned away from the fight, hoping that they would accept the warning. He had to will his gaze to only gloss over the red that was soaking into the dirt nearby. He had gotten five steps away, Siena and Undine both following him, when a flying rock hit Mana Protection. “INVADER! TRAITOR!” the man shouted after him.

John wished he could afford to spare them, could just walk away and let their attacks wash over his shield. However, doing that with every assailant he encountered would soon mean that he had no protection left. Another thing he wished for was some sort of non-lethal takedown, like Nia had with her soul cutting. The best thing he had was the Mana Blade water variant that harmed a person’s magic system, and that still came along with heavy arcane burns.

Purgatory ignited, reaching full stacks, whirling around, he flung the fireball right at his assailant, who was hit in the chest and thrown backwards. As he rolled in the dirt, trying to get the fire out, his sole remaining comrade came to help him. At least that one wasn’t looking for a useless death, even though his eyes said he would continue fighting if he saw any use.

Neither of them was fighting now. John couldn’t bring it past him to just execute those because that was the convenient thing to do. “Do not follow me… please,” he requested and turned again. “Just accept that you lost and leave. We are all too young to die.”

Quietly, he went deeper into the island, following the sounds of battle. His mind was steadily gathering information from everyone else.