Path to Transcendence

The curse mage didn't send out any more mana-draining curses at him. They seemed to realize that they didn't work anymore. But little did they know, it took Julius a lot of focus and mana to fend off the attack. Still, he was glad the enemy wasn't just spamming it at him. Instead, they went back to their original attack.

However, that was just as annoying too. The only way Julius could block the insidious black mana was to cover himself with [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal] before it hit. Although he was able to detect the attack before it reached him, the constant activation of the skill was taking a toll on his reserves. He was over half down on life and fire mana.

Julius was so focused on detecting any more curses heading his way that he almost missed the gathering of earth mana around his feet. Fortunately, he noticed it just in time and jumped as the ground split open and sharp stakes made of stone almost impaled him.

What?! Do they know earth magic as well?

Julius was already taken by surprise that one of the trolls knew curse magic but now it was throwing out earth magic as well. It did not bode well for Julius.

He needed to take out the mage. Julius was confident in fighting Tier 3 trolls, but he had zero confidence about taking on a Tier 3 mage on top of it. He just didn't have enough experience or knowledge of magic. He had learned basic exercises but he hadn't learned how mages fought, or how to defend against them. That was something he was hoping to learn at an academy. The other trolls were at least what he was used to, slow, strong, with extraordinary regeneration abilities.

He would like nothing better than to stop and launch a massive missile at the troll mage, but he didn't know exactly where this enemy was. Also, it would let the horde of regenerating rageful monsters catch up to him. He quickly healed himself again, curing his blindness and deafness, and then continued running.

To his immense relief, he finally made it to the base of the mountain. He planned to use the steepness of the cliff to give him a better line of sight for shooting the trolls. Also, he was hoping that it would prevent them from dodging as easily and he could easily lodge a spike into their heads. He had scouted out a path earlier and quickly scurried up the route, trying to get as high up the cliff as he could. It was a path that was large enough for Julius to scale quickly, but narrow enough that it impeded the trolls. The incline was also quite steep, but not enough that it was vertical.

Not long after, the first of the trolls had made it to the base of the mountain as well. Julius was praying that the trolls were lousy climbers. If they weren't then he was screwed.

Julius pulled himself over a particularly large boulder and made it to a large ledge then paused. He looked over the edge and could make out a wave of dark shapes at the base of the mountain all climbing their way up to Julius. Using [Spatial Perception] he estimated that there were still a hundred or so trolls left.

Using as little mana as possible, he created explosive needles and had them hover over his shoulder. He took a deep breath to center himself and then began to fire down the needles on the unsuspecting trolls. Julius emphasized his accuracy over speed, he couldn't afford to waste mana, especially when it was already too low for his comfort.

The trolls weren't exactly the smartest of opponents. When they saw their companion's faces getting pierced by an explosive needle, they continued making their way up with no sign of hesitation. It was easy, almost too easy.

Julius had not seen any of the troll leaders yet and only the regular trolls had been climbing. Even at the base of the mountain, he couldn't detect any stronger trolls or their supposed chieftain. It worried Julius, but at the same time, he had to focus on dealing with the trolls climbing up and trying to eat him.

Some time passed, and Julius was still laying down fire on incoming the trolls. He had taken down around several dozen but they were still coming and he still hadn't seen any signs of the others.

Suddenly, he felt movement above him and then a mass of earth mana behind his back. He reacted instinctually and quickly rolled out of the way. Right after he moved, he saw a pillar of stone jut out from directly where he was just a second ago. If he hadn't been fast enough, he would have been knocked off the cliff and fallen over a hundred feet down back to the floor.

At least he found his answer to where the other trolls had gone. It seemed like they had gone some other way and blocked off his route further up the mountain. It was his mistake to assume that they would not know their way around the mountains.

There were over twenty of them standing at the nearest flat ledge, most of them leaders. At the front was a unique troll, it was a little bit taller than the others but instead of a soft red aura, there was a dense bloody aura surrounding it that suffocated Julius even from down here. Yet, what surprised Julius was the troll chief's slimness. It was quite sleek around the shoulders and looked a lot more athletic than the other trolls.

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Honestly, that made the troll seem much more dangerous. The other trolls were like beefed-up roid junkies, with too much muscle to move around quickly. This one reminded him of a nine-foot-tall Lebron James. He was quite confident that this was their chieftain

He was so concentrated on the troll chieftain, that he had almost overlooked the other trolls. In the back of the group, he could barely sense a smaller troll holding a staff of some kind. Julius would have completely missed this troll if not for the dense waves of mana emanating from the creature. It was like the mana itself was interfering with the atmosphere. He could safely say that he had found his mage.

It had only taken a second for Julius to observe the new group and immediately realize that he was trapped on the side of the mountain. The way back down was blocked by several dozen trolls and above him was a group entirely composed of elite trolls. Not to mention, he was stuck on the side of a mountain with an earth mage. Julius loved his luck.

If that wasn't bad enough, the trolls above began to grab large random stones and started to chuck them over the edge right at Julius. He was still firing needles at the trolls that were climbing up, so he had to decide what to focus on.

A particularly large rock sped toward him faster than the others and smashed next to his feet several feet away, leaving a crater in its wake. He didn't have much time left.

So Julius did the only thing that he could think of. He began creating a bomb.

Not worrying about the trolls climbing up anymore, Julius stopped shooting needles and hid beneath a small shelf, protecting himself from the raining rocks. Several spikes of stone shot out of the cliff randomly in Julius's general location, luckily it seemed like the mage needed some sort of line of sight for his earth magic.

Then he focused on gathering almost the rest of the fire mana he had in his core into a dense orb. Then he fed it his kinetic mana, which was still halfway full, into the core of the orb. He could feel the other mage doing something weird with its mana, it was trying to disrupt Julius's mana control by sending out short bursts of its mana. Julius had no idea how it was doing it but it was like trying to build a piece of Ikea furniture while a cat was running away with all the screws. It was very frustrating.

However, thanks to his highly-ranked skills and sheer will, he was able to fend off the mage's interference and managed to form the first part of the construct. He barely had any fire mana left, only enough for a small construct or two. But he did have enough kinetic mana left in his core.

Julius hadn't been planning to use this technique again, for fear of it killing him by accident, but he didn't have another option.

Gently, he began on the second part of the construct. He stopped filling the core of the orb with kinetic energy and started to infuse the fire itself with kinetic energy. He could still feel the other mage's attempts at disrupting what he was doing, but Julius was so in the zone that he barely felt the interference.

The kinetic energy and fire mana were synergizing, creating a much hotter flame. He could feel the heat coming off the orb rapidly increasing as the color started to change into a gorgeous blue. It had become so hot that the heat was searing off his skin even though it was several feet away. He could feel it melting away, burning off his flesh. He didn't have [Firebolt] to contain the energy this time. Only [Arcane Construct] was helping it not explode in his face. He loved his new skill, but the rigid structure of his old skill would have been greatly appreciated at the moment.

Once, he had put a third of his kinetic mana into it the orb was done. However, Julius could feel the construct trying to rip away from his control. It was swiftly unraveling and was about to blow up in his face.

No longer thinking, just acting on pure instinct, Julius blasted kinetic energy through his legs and jumped off the cliff into the open air. Then as he was falling he fired the pulsing blue orb at the ledge of the chieftain was standing on.

Julius saw the mage panic and try to put up some sort of defensive measure. But the orb still slammed into the mountain and detonated with an enormous blast. The light from the explosion blinded Julius and the resulting shockwave shattered his eardrums, blowing him even further away from the mountainside.

Discombobulated and disoriented, Julius was rapidly tumbling through the air and toward the ground at a ridiculous speed. He was frantically trying to absorb as much kinetic energy from his fall as he could, but it wasn't going to be enough. So using the last of his fire mana and some of the kinetic energy he absorbed he created a construct with his feet. It was hard to tell which way was up and what way was down as he was spinning head over tail, but by some miracle, he was able to release the payload before he hit the ground. The counteracting explosion had just enough force to blow him upward and it slowed him down before he fell back to the surface with a hard crash.

Julius broke both of his legs, but he lived, and [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal] was already working on his legs. He had managed to blow himself a lot further away from the mountain than he originally thought. However, he was glad because the result of him shooting that orb at the mountain had resulted in a landslide of epic proportions.

The entire ground was rumbling as thousands and thousands of tons of rock fell away from the mountain. The entire side of the mountain was getting swept down. Boulders the size of cars were toppling down and collapsing on top of the trolls beneath it.

He had no idea what became of the troll chief or the mage, the dust from the catastrophe was making it hard to see through and [Spatial Perception] couldn't pick up anything from that far away. However, he wouldn't be surprised if many trolls survived the landslide, nothing short of being completely crushed would kill them.

Ironically, it seemed like the gods had heard his wishes because as he thought it, the very top of the mountain, whose support had eroded by the landslide, collapsed. The entire peak of the mountain tipped over and dropped directly on the rubble where the trolls had been buried.

Huh… that might work.