Upon returning to the upper floor, Erik dashed out of the shelter, at which point the spheres of light extinguished and the water in the pond returned to its original position. As he exited, Erik found himself in a pandemonium where his group was fighting tooth and nail against more than a hundred golems, yet still losing ground.
With a serious expression, Erik unleashed giant spheres of fire and darkness at the golems while shouting with all his might as a bolt of electricity surged to his side, taking the form of a wolf.
"Everyone, get back to the platforms and conjure barriers!"
As a brutal explosion of black fire sent a good number of golems flying, Erik hurriedly pulled staff after staff from his storage pouch and sent them to the mages using hands made of solidified Myst.
With a smile that was a mix of relief, excitement, and pride on her pale face, Elara took the staff offered by the Myst hand. Then she raised it into the air while downing a mana potion before announcing with renewed strength.
"Mages, with me! Phoenix Veil!"
As a massive wave of flames created a new barrier, the other mages received their staves and began casting spells several times more powerful than before, even in their visibly weakened state. At that moment, the knights started returning to the Myst platform, and they too received new weapons from Erik, who announced with a grave tone.
"I'm going to use an experimental artifact of mine to turn the tides! Mages, don't hold back on mana—use everything for barriers!"
"""Understood!"""
They all quickly responded while hastily taking the weapons and other items handed to them by the Myst hands, all while eyeing the strange sphere in Erik's hand.
By the time Tomás and Zoe, the last ones on the ground, reached the platform, Erik swiftly conjured several runes that encircled the dark sphere in his hands as he channeled mana into it. Soon, the runes carved into the sphere began glowing with shifting colors, prompting Erik to hurl it with force toward the golems and start creating barriers of solidified Myst with everything he had.
"Brace for impact!"
Though curious about Erik's solemn demeanor, the mages quickly conjured barriers while the knights hurriedly donned their new armor or took defensive positions with their new weapons. Within a few seconds, a brutal explosion—so powerful that it obliterated nearly 90% of the barriers in an instant and almost destroyed the Myst platform they stood on—shook everything, wiping out the horde of golems.
"Is that a magic grenade…?" Christine, who had quietly approached Erik, asked in astonishment. Erik responded in a calm voice while replacing the machetes he had with new ones taken from the shelter.
"They're my own experimental implementation made with more common materials and rune arrays, capable of unleashing the power of an Illuminated-Peak level with just a bit of mana. But they're difficult to make, and once activated, they become uncontrollable, so they can only be triggered and thrown as you just saw."
"…"
Christine fell silent, staring at the devastation, while Zoe looked at Tomás with a smug smile, which made the young man laugh. For his part, Erik turned to look at Ethan and Chen to ask something, but before he could, he noticed something odd on the walls.
Parts of golems he had destroyed before entering the shelter, along with several others, remained stuck to the walls and in the surrounding area—no more golems were emerging. Curious, Erik analyzed the walls and began making mental calculations while asking.
"Did you start destroying the golems before exiting?"
"Yes, I noticed you did it, so I mimicked you with the others, and it was really effective. Once they're destroyed, the number of golems emerging from the walls decreases significantly, though as you saw, it wasn't enough."
Elara explained while creating several magic circles that formed fire barriers and launched projectiles, looking quite exhausted despite having just consumed a high-quality mana potion. Erik nodded and commented in a thoughtful tone.
"From what I see, when destroyed, the speed at which a golem emerges from the wall drops to about a third of the original rate, and it seems an area of about 9 square meters around the destroyed golem becomes unable to produce new golems… How interesting…"
"9 square meters…? I see, I'll keep that in mind from now on." Elara commented seriously, to which Erik nodded before turning to Chen and Ethan and finally asking.
"How much time do you need for the makeshift formations?"
"They're ready, but we couldn't deploy them!" Ethan replied while a hexagon of runes in front of him touched a plate of true copper etched with different runes drawn in ink. Chen added, holding a hand sign in front of him, his face somewhat pale.
"Let's take advantage and deploy them now!"
Along with Chen's announcement, Erik could feel the Myst slipping from his control and reorganizing into a hexagon interconnected by threads, though more slowly than before, and the structure seemed more 'fragile.'
"These formations are much weaker than the ones we set up earlier since we simplified many important calculations, and the combat has made the Myst in the area very erratic." Chen commented while crossing his index and middle fingers, performing another hand sign, as Erik studied the Myst.
"I see. I hope they at least buy us time to establish the definitive ones because my treatment will take at least 3 hours, and I'll be unable to use most of my mana during that time."
Erik nodded and spoke seriously, at which point Tomás stepped forward, now dressed in an elegant armor crafted by Erik, and spoke with a determined voice. The armor was primarily leather, with key areas covered by forged metal plates full of runes.
"With this gear and the potions, our strength has increased by at least 30%, so focus on your treatment. With good formations and the deactivation times, we can hold the fort while you recover."
"Do you need assistance with anything, Erik~?" Christine quickly approached Erik with a sensual stride and asked in a melodious voice. The young man with starry hair nodded and looked at Frank before speaking calmly.
"Yes, Frank, I need you to help me with something in the shelter."
"I'm at your service, boss!"
Frank quickly stepped forward, at which point Lirio, perched on his head, raised a hand and chirped adorably, as if volunteering for the job. Erik nodded, then turned to Chen and Ethan and commented in a serious tone.
"As soon as one of you is free, come find me at the shelter. Though several of the storage areas must be unusable by now, there should still be plenty of useful materials in more accessible spots that you can use. My masters filled the shelter's storage with so many things that even I don't really know what's in there, so I want you to go in and see what possibilities there are for creating attack and defense formations. We can't keep relying solely on concealment."
After exchanging glances, Ethan and Chen nodded, at which point Chen looked at Erik and said aloud.
"I'll go, Erik."
"Perfect. Then let's wait a few minutes to see how effective the formations are before splitting up." Erik nodded with a serious tone, then directed his gaze toward the golems as the others nodded solemnly.
At the same time, Erik, taking advantage of the empowered state granted by the potion, focused entirely on the Myst around him and his mana. With great care, Erik began a very precise blending of mana and Myst throughout his body in an intricate pattern that passed several times through his three mana gathering points.
This strange technique was something the Myst had transmitted to him while he was in the large hall, which, for some reason, offered two impressive benefits. First, the speed at which he could conjure runes or magic circles increased significantly, but even more impressive was that his already unusual instincts sharpened to an incredible degree. To the point that he could react to things even before rationalizing them.
But what truly allowed him to survive that predicament wasn't that, but the second benefit the strange technique brought. For a reason he still didn't understand, when using this technique, he could control all the Myst he could sense as if it were part of his own body. Without any difficulty or sense of burden. With the technique active, all the Myst within his senses was part of him, and he could move it as he wished with just a thought.
Though the technique didn't come without drawbacks, as it somehow felt like something he shouldn't be able to use at his current level. It was like putting rocket fuel in an old car and miraculously not having it explode while indeed making it faster. Though the effect was incredible, his body couldn't withstand the stress and suffered considerable damage just from using it.
But even though he was essentially worsening his already precarious condition, Erik decided to use the technique anyway, since without it, he could barely control the Myst a few meters around him even when the walls were activated.
As the repercussions of his grenade's explosion faded, Erik manipulated the Myst to reinforce the structure created by Chen and Ethan's formations. He used the framework of the previous formations as a base, along with his own ideas. But Erik's attempt didn't go unnoticed by the formation creators, who looked around, somewhat surprised by the changes they felt, before focusing on Erik with stunned expressions.
"Erik, did you do something to the Myst?" Chen asked, somewhat taken aback, which prompted Erik to explain while still gazing at the center of the explosion.
"A little. Since the formations use Myst as a central part of their structure, I thought that reinforcing it would make them more potent. Besides, I have a hypothesis that the golems use two different systems for detection. First, based on how they react when I move the Myst, I'm 90% sure they can detect it and use something akin to Mystic Awareness.
"But there's a problem with that. One of the concealment potions I gave you has the ability to make the Myst not react to you, yet it's still ineffective against the golems, so it's likely they have a secondary detection system. They might be using small mana pulses to map everything around them, like a radar.
"If I'm right about this, the reason the formations you created earlier were so effective at hiding us is because they're designed to evade a mana user's 'Mystic Awareness' and 'Ethereal Projection,' as Christine personally confirmed. In other words, to avoid detection by the golems, we need to counter this dual detection.
"That's why I want to manipulate the Myst to hide any unusual movements while reinforcing the formations to deflect incoming mana, preventing that radar I theorize from working. But don't worry—even if I'm wrong, I'm not directly touching the core structure of the formation, so it should function without issues despite what I'm doing."
Hearing Erik, everyone looked at each other, a mix of curiosity and confusion on their faces, as they didn't quite understand what Erik was doing. But Chen and Ethan understood perfectly—Erik was attempting something only an absolute expert in formations would dare to try. Directly manipulating the Myst to reinforce a formation in battle, one of the most complex techniques to master for a formation specialist.
But worse, he was succeeding, and they, as the creators and controllers of the formations, could feel it perfectly. The formations they had deployed in a rush were strengthening to the point that they were only slightly weaker than those properly set up. Something that practically no one below Sage level should be able to do, and yet, right before their eyes, a 'mere' Ascended-level—less than an ant in the grand scheme—was doing it.
"Seriously, Erik, dedicate yourself to formations… It's embarrassing to call myself a formation specialist every time you come up with an 'idea'…" Shocked, Chen couldn't help but comment with a slightly ironic smile, which led Ethan to look at him and ask with a strange expression.
"Is he always like this?"
"More or less… Once, he managed to double the efficiency of a pretty complex formation after just 'playing' with it for an afternoon, and I know he'd never seen it before because I personally brought him the blueprint that same day…" Chen replied helplessly, which prompted Ethan to comment in a somewhat defeated tone.
"How can you be friends with that monster?"
"I'm used to being the least impressive in the group, so it doesn't affect me as much as it does others, haha." Chen replied casually with a slightly amused voice, which made Ethan twist his lips. But at that moment, Elara let out a subtle huff and commented in a serious tone.
"Stop talking behind people's backs and focus on your work. It looks like the formations are working."
***
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