Wild Mage
Wild Mage
The deformed giant charged, its tear-streaked, twisted face a mask of fury and hatred.
Still wearing that grimace, it hurled itself off balance and swung an arm in a wide, clumsy arc. Aslan watched the massive limb close in, then stretched out Kal to meet it.
CLANG!
The impact was staggering. He felt the monstrous strength behind it the instant they connected. Aslan let his body go slack and leaped back, dispersing the force.
BOOM!
Kal was knocked violently aside, sending Aslan reeling backward. Even as the world blurred past, he analyzed the situation with cold precision.
A giant was a giant, deformed or not.
Even one this broken kept its savage might. The brute strength was enough to twist a human body apart without effort. If he hadn't jumped to absorb the shock, his arms or legs would have shattered on the spot. And since most wild mages reinforced their bodies with magic continuously, this one was likely stronger than a typical giant. If a standard giant had Strength 10, the thing standing before him was easily an 11. Aslan flipped midair and landed on his feet.
The Lesser Deity lunged the moment he touched down, its eyes now weeping crimson as they rolled wildly in their sockets.
SWOOSH!
Two left arms struck at once. It was an attack that should have been nearly impossible to dodge. But Aslan leaped, twisting his body to slip through the narrow gap. The air screamed past him.
The giant arms crashed through several trees with a ground-shaking WHOOM before stopping. The moment Aslan's boots touched the earth, blue light bled from the hidden blades at his fingertips.
"D-die!"
Aslan's eyes sharpened, catching the glow of the arm blades. He threw himself backward, springing out of his low stance just as the spot he had occupied was erased with a bone-rattling rumble. Dark, blue-black mana saturated the air. It was viscous and heavy, not something anyone could simply withstand. Aslan watched the shimmering mana and knew retreat had been the right choice.
'Is that soul magic? Or another branch of wild magic?'
Everything the mana had passed over was now glowing with a phosphorescent heat. Aslan steadied his breathing, careful not to let any part of himself touch that lingering space.
'A troublesome opponent.'
A wild mage that manipulated souls would have been a handful on its own. A deformed giant possessed by a Lesser Deity, though? That was more than troublesome. It was arguably more dangerous than a priest. Its very unfamiliarity made it all the more unpredictable.
But nothing was unkillable.
It could be killed. It was just harder to fight. Aslan's gaze flicked sideways, catching a giant-like wraith moving to encircle him.
SLASH!
He spun, the single-edged blade wreathed in Purity carving cleanly through the wraith. As the creature recoiled, clutching its severed wrist, Aslan murmured a low command.
"Metal Heating."
He turned his body with the spell, channeling the centrifugal force from his sword swing into a full rotation. The axe, reversing direction in his other hand, glowed red-hot as it took the wraith's head clean off.
CRUNCH!
Wielding a two-handed weapon in one hand was generally impractical, but for Aslan it posed no real hindrance. It just demanded more wind-up and slightly restricted his reach—a poor tactic against humanoid opponents. These wraiths, however, were larger and far more ponderous. The strategy fit perfectly.
His axe carved a crimson arc, overlapped by a white one, and a serpentine wraith and a wolf-like wraith were cleaved apart in rapid succession.
"Did you not say we would talk?"
Ereta twisted away from another wraith's attack, hammering upward to split it before posing the question. She looked genuinely confused by the ferocity of the fight.
Aslan glanced at her. "We did."
The Lesser Deity was panting heavily now, dragging wraiths toward itself as though gathering materials. Aslan read its intent. "And we decided to kill it."
Ereta looked briefly bewildered. "You seemed so sympathetic... Is that really—"
A dog-shaped wraith lunged, cutting her off. Ereta drove her hammer straight down its throat. With a slight pivot she swung the creature into the dirt and followed with a crunching axe blow.
"—okay?"
Meanwhile, the Lesser Deity crushed the gathered wraiths together. Their shrieks filled the air as it panted and kneaded them into a colossal sphere.
"Uh, is that..." Ereta started.
"I did sympathize. I still do. I'd avoid this fight if I could," Aslan said. "But there's no choice. If I let it leave, people will die."
The being before him considered Aslan its mother, and yet it radiated pure killing intent. What would it do to ordinary strangers? The decision was already made. Aslan dropped into a fighting stance.
The shriek of the compressed wraiths reached a peak.
"D-DIE, ALL OF YOU!"
With the Lesser Deity's scream, the writhing mass shot forward. It took solid form as a pillar of overwhelming weight—a charge that would grind a man to pulp before he could blink. Even a giant would be reduced to a red smear.
Aslan saw the enormous wraith pillar hurtling toward them and shouted at the horrified Ereta.
"Watch my back!"
He darted forward before she could reply. The pillar was too wide to dodge, too fast to evade. The only way out was to cut a hole large enough to pass through.
Raising his Purity-wreathed sword, Aslan drew a sharp breath.
'Moon Splitting.'
The polearm special feat: Moon Splitting. A technique that enormously extended the slash's range and width—enough to split even the moon's reflection on a calm lake. As his Fighting Spirit blazed, a faint white crescent carved through the air, shaving the wraith pillar apart.
CRRACK—!
The sound was like glass being punctured and torn. The wraiths inside the shattered pillar shrieked.
Aslan leaped through the collapsing mass and rushed straight for the Lesser Deity.
"M-MOTHER, DIE!"
It lunged with blind hatred, trying to hammer down with the wild mage's fists. Aslan thrust Kal forward mid-charge.
THWACK!
The point stabbed precisely into the elbow, blocking the downswing. Aslan twisted the blade and cut, ducking low past the spraying pus.
"Hah..."
He exhaled. Kal's white-hot edge carved a long deep line from the festering breast to the flank before he dodged the gushing filth and spun with the momentum.
CRACK.
The heavy axe, swung clean through the rotation, caught the Lesser Deity's ankle and severed it.
The Lesser Deity screamed, then stopped mid-cry and slammed its remaining fist at Aslan's head.
"M-MOTHER DIE TOO!"
It was a roar that bordered on a shriek. Aslan brought Kal up to meet it.
CLAAAANG!
The moment they collided, Aslan twisted, tilting Kal to redirect the force. The deflected arm threw the Lesser Deity off balance. Pain shot through Aslan's forearms, and his legs ached as if the bones were cracking. He gritted his teeth. He pulled his sword back and turned. Rotation was everything. Lacking raw strength, he relied on rotational force.
Using that momentum, he brought the axe down hard. A log-like thud sounded as the deformed giant's arm flew off and hit the dirt.
CRUNCH!
"GGRAAAH! AARRGH!"
The Lesser Deity's scream was pure agony, but a greater fury drowned the pain. Its mother had done this. Its mother had maimed it. Hatred washed over the agony. It grabbed the axe blade.
SSSSS—
Even as its palm sizzled and blackened against the red-hot metal, the Lesser Deity bit down and raised its remaining fist.
CLAAANG!
It held the axe fast and threw the punch. The blow was too close, too fast. All Aslan could do was block. He brought Kal up at the last possible instant and jumped, letting the force carry him.
It was not enough. His body flew through the air and slammed into a tree.
CRACK.
The tree shattered against his back. Blood surged up his throat. Aslan crumpled to the ground and lay still.
Seeing its motionless mother, the Lesser Deity felt only opportunity—a chance to kill her forever. A delicious sense of immorality flooded through it as it charged.
"DIE, DIE, DIE!"
It leaped high. Its immense mass hung in the air for a long moment. The currents it generated felt like a storm. Within that storm, the plan was simple: crush its mother's body into a flattened sheet of meat. A twisted smile was forming just as it began to descend.
"Equalization."
The whisper came from the fallen Aslan's lips. His body snapped to clarity, rewinding the damage. Blood was still in his throat, the bones still cracked, but now he could move. He rose and gripped his sword with both hands.
CRRRRASH!
He met the annihilating mass head-on with a single sword and a single technique. Blood sprayed from his legs as he held. The hem of his pants grew wet and sticky, pooling at his feet. But he held. Feeling the blood simmer in his throat, Aslan aligned Kal's edge.
SLASH!
Two more arms were severed. Only then did Aslan fully grasp another effect of Purity.
It held fast as long as his Fighting Spirit did.
As long as he chose to fight, the blade would not break. His knees screamed, but he pushed forward.
"D-DON'T COME ANY CLOSER!"
Three arms were gone now. Only one remained. Exactly what Aslan had been aiming for. Engaging a four-armed deformed giant in close quarters was a losing gamble—too many variables. But a giant with one arm, or even two? That was manageable. Fewer variables.
He had no reason to be outmatched now. Cold eyes read the battlefield, sketching the path to victory.
CLAANG!
The first strike was a diagonal chop. Aslan caught it on the base of Kal's blade, tilting the hilt to deflect. He slashed the instant the force was redirected. Blood erupted from the Lesser Deity's split knee. It pulled back to stab, but Aslan leaned aside, dodging while Kal's edge laid open its flank and spilled entrails.
An arm slammed down from above. He jumped sideways to evade.
"DIE, DIE, DIIIE!"
Every shrieked attack, every wild swing—Aslan received, deflected, and overwhelmed. He turned the momentum of his redirections into cuts, splits, and rending tears. Blood loss mounted. The Lesser Deity, now gripped by terror, tried to summon wraiths, but Ereta kept them pinned. Any that slipped past were anticipated by Aslan's Luck, and he killed them outright, sometimes using the Lesser Deity's own wild swings to do the job.
Even in the chaos, Aslan's teal eyes darted constantly, analyzing the Lesser Deity's muscles and limbs.
Wild magic was body-modification magic. It required understanding, but that understanding could be mimicked. With the right data, experiments, and verification, the understanding could be replicated. The muscle-strengthening wild magic he had used relentlessly until now was already changing his body. The reason he had risked such volatile magic and channeled mana without pause was manifesting now. His muscles hardened, shifted, and restructured into a more efficient form.
CLAAAANG!
At the end of that transformation, Aslan deflected the Lesser Deity's rising arm. As the giant's stance broke wide open, Aslan let out a soft murmur.
"Thanks."
[Wild Magic Acquired: Strength +1]
[Aslan]
[Strength 2] [Agility 1] [Health 1]
[Mana 6] [Fighting Spirit 7] [Luck 5]
He pulled the sword back to his flank. Inhaled. A normal slash would get caught on the giant's guts, muscles, and bones. To end this in one motion, he had to cleave through all of it. Fortunately, he had the right technique.
The sword special feat: Knight Slayer.
As the blade burning with pure white light began to stain black, the Lesser Deity's face contorted.
SLASH!
The blackened edge of Kal plunged into its abdomen. Ignoring guts, bone, and muscle, it precisely severed the spine. Only a grotesque bulge showed where the blade had exited, leaking a single trickle of blood.
The Lesser Deity stood frozen. Aslan stood beside it, blood dripping from Kal.
In the heavy silence between the man and the monster, the Lesser Deity's voice fumbled out.
"Why...?"
THUD!
The massive body crumpled to the forest floor, dead.
As the woods fell silent, a bitter expression settled on Aslan's face, and he quietly sheathed Kal.