Every formation mage has something called as a kit. The kit is a set of formations that can run on our mana reserves. The kit is usually the only method in which we formation mages are able to fight. (formation mages are not able to cast spells, at least in the traditional sense.)
I don't have my kit today. My master was of the feeling that my kit might be enough to reveal my identity. That is why he banned me from bringing it here. Maybe I should not have listened to him. I already don't have my sword. This fight is going to be that much harder without a kit.
I am not exactly defenseless. After all, I had been working on a formation for this eventuality. I roll up the sleeves of my shirt as I look at the vines crisscrossing across my hand. It is supposed to be an armour, but It is closer to a frame of vines that protect my vitals. It will do well to stop an enemy strike or two but it won't be able to do much beyond that. Well, this armor is not meant to protect me. This thing is a weapon.
This is known as "Thalion's vine". It has a single spell inscribed in it known as "thorn growth". This spell allows me to grow thorns from anywhere on the armour. I can control the length and the thickness of the thorn, allowing me to create a thorn of any length and durability. Right now, these thorns are the only weapons that I have.
It is a good tool, but it won't be able to get me through the entire fight. That leaves me with only one option. I will have to steal a weapon today it looks like. Let's hope that at least a single person has a sword. I can use other weapons, but I am the best with a sword.
There is no use thinking about this until the battle starts. I won't even need to wait for long. The boarders have already started to attack the door.
I guess I should make use of this time to study the room. As I said it is the largest room on the ship, but that doesn't mean much with an airship. There is enough space here that I can fight maybe four or five people. It will be cramped, but I can manage. If more enemies than that enter here, then it will make things easier for me. They are more likely to hit each other than me if more than five people were to fight in in here.
The entire place is completely empty. There is nothing here that might act as a hindrance to my movement. That is a good thing, because my movement needs to be as free as possible. Getting stuck anywhere might lead to my death, you know.
Even as I keep studying the room the door breaks open with a snap. The enemy finally swarms into the room.
Even studying the way in which the enemy enters the room, I can tell many things about them. The first thing that stands out is that they are trained. (Better than any pirate I have seen.) There are four men and a woman. Three of them wield swords and two wield axes. (Well, I can work with axes.) There are three more people still in the room beyond.
They don't enter yet though. They are trained enough to recognise the size of the room and the appropriate number of people for fighting in it.
The ones that did enter the room are presently circling me. (I was hoping that they would have underestimated me a bit. They outnumber me quite a bit, after all.) I am not able to tell much about their cultivation, other than that the mana they emit is roughly equivalent to mine. (They follow the draconic path of cultivation, you see.) I would place them somewhere between the first and the third foundation stage.
"Who are you, my friends?" I speak. "Now, don't try to claim you are a pirate. I have killed enough of you "pirates" to tell you that is not the truth."
"Did you think there was not going to be any consequences for coming here," A man growls from the group. He has most mana in the group. (He is clearly the leader.)
"It was you people that invited us here, you realise," I reply, even as I try to take a step towards one of the sword wielders. They react appropriately to this, as they take a step towards me brandishing their weapons. I don't try to get any closer.
"You certainly speak confidently, guard," The leader sneers. "Do you think you will be able to fight all eight of us?"
"You brought this on yourself, my friend. Let the world know that I gave you a chance." I reply.
At the same time, I jump towards the lady who was using this conversation to get behind my back. I can see her eyes widen in shock even as the thorn appears in my hand. The shock turns into a grunt of pain as the thorn disappears into her throat. (She really thought she was being sneaky.)
The others don't move for a second. Clearly my actions have shocked them. Still, I don't have long, as I use the armour to block the lady's sword. (I can feel the material of the armour give a bit. Looks like I will need to work on its durability.) I use this chance to dig the thorn into her throat. I abandon the thorn even as I retreat.
I pass mana into the formation even as a couple of new thorns appear in my hands. These are not really durable, but they will do for a brawl. The other four people keep moving even as the lady clutches her throat. The thorn is still in there. Getting it out might kill her. (Sadly she still has a strong grasp on her sword.)
As one, two guys charge at me with their axes. I jump back, feeling the wall of the airship as I collide with it. A spike of pain erupts in my chest even as the first axe digs into me. (Nowhere vital, thankfully.) The other guy hit the wall beside me. (If he did not shift his axe, he would have hit his fellow.) I use this moment of indecision to knee the first man in his head. Even as my knee connects with his head, a thorn begins to pop out. The thorn travels through the man's cheek right into his head.
My kick is enough to send the other party flying across the room. (He didn't let go of his axe, sadly.) I duck to the side, feeling the other man retrieve his axe. He holds the axe ready to strike. We stare at each other until I charge towards him. That catches him off guard as he swings his axe at my face, impulsively.
I use the thorn in my right hand to block it. The axe is able to snap it like a twig, but it gets redirected in doing so. I use the other thorn to stab his stomach. The asshole ducks at the last moment as the thorn bounces on his ribs.
Even as I dodge the man's axe, I see the other two men moving in. Well, this is going to be a problem. Even now, the the three of them have begun surrounding me. Focusing on any one of them will expose me to an attack from the other two.
Well, I have a contingency planned for this. The only problem is that it is going to drain me of quite a bit of my mana. (There is also the little problem that it might not work. I have never actually used this armour in battle before.) Screw it, I think as I charge at the leader. Even as I do so, I begin to stuff as much mana as I can into the armour. The leader raises his sword, blocking the needle in my left hand.
Even as I do so, the others have gone to my left and my right respectively. They have formed a circle around me. Good, this is what I wanted them to do. It increases the chances of them getting hit. The formation finally activates as thorns begin to grow in random locations. (What, you try to stuff half your mana reserve into a formation. This little bit of control is my limit.)
Even as the thorns grow out of me, catching the three of them off guard, I feel a stabbing pain in my left leg. I peer down to see the lady (who had a thorn in her throat, by the way.) She is trying to dig the sword in deeper, as the life drains out of her. She is only a few moments from dying. Good. I retreat back pulling the lady's sword out of her hands. Now this battle will get easier.
Even as I study the damage that my most recent move has done, I bend down plucking the sword from my body. A fresh pang of pain appears in my left leg, as I pass my vital mana to it. I won't be able to put much of my weight on it for a while. It is worth it, though. Of the three, only the leader is still a threat. Four thorns hit the one to right, with one entering his eyes. The one to the left has seven thorns in him, with one passing through his heart. Both of them are on the verge of dying.
The leader himself is a bit better off. There are wounds on the man's chest and arms, but he is still able to move. Even now, the man is hacking at the thorns with his sword, though he is wincing in pain in the process. Meanwhile, the three people in the room beyond have finally entered into this room.
Well, with a sword in my hand I can manage them easily. (Though, I have to take care not to get overconfident.) Fuc... Wh... Is th... thin.. Fai.... Ag...
(After about ten minutes.)
....m going to break this stupid thing. Oh, it's on again.
I am surprised that I managed to get the thought logger working. I half expected that it would take me another month to get it working. At the very least I am now getting a hang of how to activate it.
To summarise the fight I was just in. Once I got my hands on a sword, things were over pretty quickly. The leader who was already injured, fell in a couple of minutes. Once the leader died, it did not take me long to get rid of the other three. The main factor that assisted me is that that they began to panic. If they had been a bit calmer about it, then I was nearing the end of my vital mana by the end of that fight. It would have been a more equal fight. (I would still have gotten rid of them, just with more injuries.)
Well, maybe I shouldn't have played around that much. There are a bunch of injuries on my body even at this moment. There is the hole in my left leg. Then the couple of stab wounds on my chest. (Not to forget the axe wound, though that has begun to fill up.) There is a stab wound on my back, that stings pretty nastily. Other than that, there is a dull ache in various parts of my arms and my chest.
I guess that I should first explain about why I am so calm with my injuries. Well, you could say that my body is a bit unique. My body is particularly receptive to healing. While the list of wounds must seem pretty large, I usually tend to get this injured on the battlefield. Even now, the injuries that I have are stitching themselves back. I will mostly be fine by tomorrow. (Even my present state is because I ran out of vital mana in the fight.)
Well, if I am being honest, I wouldn't have gotten these injuries if I were fighting a bit more seriously. I was testing "Thalion's Vine" and had gotten lost in the process. After all, a battle like this is the quickest way to find the flaws in your work. Without my sword, Thalion's vine is the only real weapon that I have here.
I have tested it out on the basic things, such as how much mana it requires to make one thorn? How the mana provided effects the durability of the thorn? How it affects the maximum length? (and other such questions.)
The main realisation I have is that I will have to increase the efficiency of the formation. Making a thorn is too costly for the benefit it gives. It is going to be a long process to do so, one that will require me to get used to the armour's structure and modify it to a certain degree. I already have quite a few ideas popping into my head. For now, though, I have to shelve all of those thoughts. Experimentation takes energy and time. Right now I have to devote both to keep the ship flying. There is no use of a hidden weapon if I die of crashing the ship.
My injuries are why I am not already going to the formation room. After all, the two sworn already look down on me a bit. (I am a formation mage. Combat shouldn't normally be my speciality.) Looking too injured in front of them will only make it that much more unlikely that they will listen to me later on.
I really should return, though. I have already taken a risk by leaving the ship unmanned like this. I am hoping that the destruction of the third ship will spook the other two ships. The best scenario would be that they run away. For now, I will settle for them not attacking my ship.
The room stinks of blood. it is going to be a pain to clean up this place. This is something I would not need to worry about with my sword, you know. (I really don't know why I didn't bring it. It seems so stupid now that I have to fight without it.)
Well, I have complained enough. It is time to return to the formation room.