The young magis then lowered his wooden staff toward the earth, chanting a supplementary incantation.
"Atramentum!"
[Splat!]
A viscous, ink-black oil spewed from the tip of his staff. In that heartbeat, the wooden staff was transformed into a brush, and the high grasslands became a colossal canvas. Seraph sprinted through the wilds as if painting a grand mageia composition, while the frenzied swarm of goblins pursued him with mindless tenacity.
A barrage of bone-knives and concealed weapons whistled toward his back.
"Ventus Loricus!"
[Clang!]
His white cloak shimmered with a pale jade light, the soft fabric instantly tempering into the rigidity of plate armour. A jagged bone-knife slammed into the small of the young magis's back, only to skitter harmlessly into the grass. The impact against the enchanted cloak rang out like steel striking steel. Save for a brief shower of sparks, the human magis continued his stride, seemingly oblivious to the assault.
The goblins roared in a mixture of shock and burgeoning frustration. They gnashed their teeth and lashed their jagged clubs through the empty air, desperate to vent their mounting agitation. In their primitive minds, they couldn't fathom how their razor-sharp blades had failed to pierce human flesh—a substance they'd always known to be as frail as thistledown.
The young magis didn't linger. He trod upon the crests of the stalks, vaulting into the depths of the high grasslands until he was swallowed by the verdant sea.
The goblin swarm took up a rhythmic howling, mimicking a true wolf pack. To the uninitiated, the sound might have deceived the ear, yet not a single hound stalked these fields. They pursued the human's silhouette with relentless tenacity, refusing to yield an inch.
Seraph glanced back. With the augmentation of his spells, he remained elusive; though the goblins attempted to broaden their formation to hem him in, the towering grass rendered him a ghost in their midst.
"I could vanish now, of that I'm certain," Seraph hissed through clenched teeth, his words laced with a simmering fury. "But these vermin have butchered my kin with such depravity that they deserve no quarter. Today, every last one of them is being purged! I won't allow the seeds of this calamity to endure!"
The young magis leapt atop a low-hanging branch. His eyes flared with sudden brilliance as his mageia power surged toward its zenith.
"Ventus Slash!"
[Shring!]
Crescents of razor-keen wind swept outward, scything through the goblins seeking to encircle him. The wretched wails of the demons erupted almost in unison with the whistling air. The spell lacked the potency for a clean kill, yet it tore through their stunted legs, causing the vanguard to tumble over one another in a pathetic, tangled heap.
The cutting winds weren't enough to cleave through their hide entirely, but several were maimed, their limbs severed or left with jagged, gaping wounds.
Dull, viridian blood erupted, saturating the earth as it mingled with the viscous, ink-black oils. The grassland floor began to vanish beneath a spreading mire of dark fluid. Yet, the goblins noticed nothing; they remained blissfully ignorant that they were being herded, driven into the very snare they believed they'd set.
To the swarm, the human's mageia was a visceral insult to the honour of the Demon Legion. They bared their fangs, spraying bilious green saliva into the air. Every throat let out a guttural roar or a vengeful howl, a hundred pairs of emerald eyes gleaming like baleful stars in the dead of night.
Seraph gave them no reprieve. He vaulted forward, resuming his retreat while the tip of his staff continued to seep black oil into the undergrowth with silent precision.
The stalks of grass reached nearly above a man's head, their roots anchored in shallow, treacherous mires. The sodden, filth-laden ground did little to alert the frenzied demons to the anomaly beneath their feet. In truth, demons weren't inherently witless; however, Seraph maintained a constant barrage of provocative strikes, employing hit-and-run tactics to lead them in a maddening, circular dance.
"The upwind current has shifted again… No matter," Seraph murmured, his mind a cold engine of analysis. "Even so, the stratagem should reach its fruition."
The young man abruptly altered his course. With a sudden burst of speed, he pivoted and charged directly back toward the heart of the goblin formation, ghosting through their ranks with an unnerving lack of fear.
The swarm was blind to his intent. The vanguard watched the white silhouette hurtling toward them; some shrieked with sadistic delight, convinced the human had finally surrendered to their mercy. Most, however, were gripped by a jarring confusion, their reflexes failing to adapt. A few even mistook the pale blur for one of their own kin amidst the chaos.
In the lightless depths of the battlefield, chaos reigned supreme. Even the disciplined phalanxes of men required war-banners to maintain cohesion; the demons, however, possessed no such sophistication for tactical redirection.
"Ventus Nova!" Seraph unleashed the incantation with savage intent.
[Whirr-Boom!]
A concussive ring of wind rippled outward from the heart of the swarm. A Nova class spell held little killing power, yet its capacity to shatter an enemy's footing and repel the encroaching tide was unparalleled.
Scores of goblins were hurled into the marshy grass with bone-jarring force. They snarled in a manic fury, incensed at being toyed with like common curs. To hunt and humiliate was their own perverse pleasure; to find themselves the quarry of such sport was an intolerable affront.
The creatures scrambled to their feet, but the world they rose into had fundamentally altered. The shallow pools of the grassland had been transformed; the sludge was now a deep, viscous black, emitting a pungent, alien stench. Their claws were slick with an inky residue that defied all attempts to be wiped away.
The goblins stood drenched in the lightless fluid, looking like soot-stained warthogs rising from a pit of tar. They peered at one another, finding their kin equally defiled by the inky stain. As they scanned the gloom for the source of this mageia, they caught only a glimpse of a white silhouette vaulting into the canopy of a Greatwood tree.
Seraph had completed the circuit. The snare was closed.
He struck the trunk with a forceful stride, ascending to the highest bough at the upwind precipice. The young magis came to a halt, standing firm upon the swaying timber. He gazed down upon the two-hundred-strong swarm, his expression congealed into a terrifying, frigid mask. Those luminous eyes—one cobalt, the other gold—blazing with a predatory fire through the dark, were the final sights the legion would ever behold.
"Flamus Gustblasz!"
"Flamus Blade!"
"Flamus Sphera!"
The young magis thrust his wooden staff toward the firmament, chanting a triple-cadence of fire. Streaks of crimson mageia surged into the heavens above the high grasslands, and as the spells engaged, the stagnant air began a slow, ominous rotation.
[Crack-boom!]
A chorus of detonating embers met the roar of a maddened sky. It was as though a monstrous engine had been coaxed into a sluggish, grinding start; the clouds bled into a bruised scarlet. A whistling gale swept across the plains, churning parched stalks and ash into a blinding haze. Dust bit into the eyes of the goblins, forcing them to claw at their faces with guttural snarls of mounting resentment.