More dancing phantoms formed, the assassin struggling to locate the real Percy amidst the chaos.
Unfortunately, even with the soul mana and his boosting art doing a lot of the work for him, there was a limit to the number of constructs Percy could maintain at once. His priority was to prevent his opponent from sneaking off to attack Micky, so he couldn't exactly move the ghosts to try and surround the assassin either.
Drawing even closer, the space user could now split his domain into eight concurrent lines, each guiding an arrow with enough power to punch a hole through Percy – Cloak and everything – should he be unlucky enough to get hit.
'I won't win this merely by hiding and blocking. I need to kill him, and I need to do it fast,' Percy reminded himself.
The problem was that his newest technique – the Fourth Parade – was purely defensive. Of course, he had plenty of other moves to rely on, but most of them had their own limitations. The Third Parade was better used as a counterattack, in case his opponent was dumb enough to approach, though Percy wasn't confident he'd even be able to use it without undergoing the ritual. The Second Parade was one of his deadliest attacks, but it needed time to prepare and couldn't easily be used against an agile opponent.
'That only leaves the Soul-crushing Needle and my First Parade...'
It wasn't much, but it would have to do. The clone had already filled up his spare channels with soul-freezing ice mana, so the Masterful Secret Art was definitely on the table. Still, landing the attack wouldn't be easy, and Percy wouldn't get more than a shot or two, so he wasn't in a rush to try it. Instead, he decided to try his luck with the Winding Corridor technique, thinking it had the best chance of working.
Leaving the safety of the dancing phantoms behind him, Percy jumped on a pair of nearby scythes, betraying his position. Leaping to the next platform, he rapidly built up momentum as the assassin instantly shifted his sight toward him, eight guiding lines clawing at him in a dense, zigzagging network of certain death.
The normally-black lines manifested as white obstacles in Percy's tunnel vision, each turning, folding and unfolding several times in response to his movements. With every pair of shafts he stepped on, he moved closer to his target, allowing the assassin to increase both the number of guiding lines and the frequency with which he fired the dangerous arrows along them.
The two sides fought a tug-of-war over space itself, one party trying to approach as the other attempted to punish him for it. Percy felt like a fly trying to navigate a cavern covered in ever-changing spiderwebs, knowing that his life would be forfeit as soon as he so much as touched one.
That said, the more Percy observed the assassin's attacks, the more his eyes adjusted to his opponent's style, allowing him to slowly close the gap, and to avoid the spells with more breathing room.
Every now and then, the space user tried an attack similar to Nesha's butterfly spell, forsaking the thin lines entirely in an attempt to teleport a construct directly inside Percy's body. The latter didn't panic, however, having already learned a lot about the rare affinity from his girlfriend.
Teleporting things took a lot more time, effort and mana than merely compressing or expanding space. Consequently, Percy's rapid movements made it a nightmare for his opponent to catch him off guard. If that wasn't enough, teleporting objects still left faint traces of willpower that Percy's mutated eyes could pick up on, and that was without even mentioning the fact that he could predict the assassin's intentions better with every passing second.
Eventually, the space user gave up on that entirely, focusing solely on the guiding lines and the far-cheaper arrows. Despite his efforts, Percy advanced at a steady pace, his prey already a couple jumps away.
'This is the most dangerous part, but I'll have to brave through it.'
Gritting his teeth, Percy leapt twice more, narrowly twisting his body through numerous gaps between the deadly obstacles, crossing the last stretch in an instant. Yet, just as he was about to finally sink his scythes into the man's torso, the silver flame bent like a rubber band, appearing dozens of metres away. Seeing his opponent slip through his fingers gave Percy the urge to swear, though part of him had expected it.
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Why wouldn't a seasoned assassin know a simple Refined spell like Nesha's Twisted Dance?
Regardless, the assassin didn't give him a chance to think about it too hard, already trying to leave him behind to attack Micky. Percy used his phantoms to block the new guiding lines, stepping on another pair of scythes to chase after the space user.
The same situation replayed itself time after time – with very minor permutations. Percy repeatedly made it within an arm's length of his slippery target, only for him to escape. At least, the pressure stopped the assassin from going after Micky, but Percy understood that he needed to hurry up.
Occasionally, he had a few cloaked phantoms separate from the group in an attempt to catch the space user off guard, but the man appeared to have excellent awareness of his surroundings, always dodging the clumsy sneak attacks with ease and blasting the constructs to shreds.
Every so often, he even came close to landing a blow on Percy, but the latter had more of his phantoms jump in to protect him, slowly filling the battlefield with tattered rags and dull shards.
"It's over," the man said at some point, once he managed to put some distance from Percy. "If we keep this back and forth for a few hours, I've no doubt you'll catch me. Sadly, your pet won't last that long."
Percy halted too, not in a rush to continue the pointless game of tag. Only now that they'd stopped moving did he get a better look at his opponent, though it was difficult to make the assassin's features out through the drifting pieces of torn silk. The space user was surprisingly short, standing on a pair of black discs barely wider than his soles. His dark hair glistened with sweat, a few stray strands glued to the sides of his face and neck. Evidently, he'd found their scuffle just as exhausting as Percy had.
Most notable were the assassin's eyes, each sporting a different colour. That could have easily been caused by some purely cosmetic birth defect, though Percy was confident it was the result of a bloodline. It would explain many things – such as how the space user and his henchmen had located him and Micky in the first place, how the man could attack his opponents from such vast distances, and how he could dodge Percy's sneak attacks without even scanning the phantoms with his domain.
Smirking, Percy responded to the man's lazy taunt with one of his own, his voice soft but confident.
"I've already caught you."
The assassin furrowed his brow in confusion, though it didn't take him long to understand what Percy meant. Ambient mana rushed to his body, flowing to certain spots scattered all over his clothes. Tiny pieces of grey fabric that he clearly hadn't even noticed greedily drank the substance, spreading like an infection to cover him from head to toe.
Panicking, the man tried to peel the expanding pieces of silk off. There were too many, however, the insidious constructs latching onto the assassin's robes like a demon's claws, wrapping themselves tightly around his limbs. In fact, they didn't stop there, phasing through the mundane clothes and even his skin to anchor themselves to his very soul!
Out of options, the space user released costly bursts of mana and willpower, blowing his own clothes off along with some of Percy's silk. Still, he failed to get rid of everything, the constructs continuing to encroach upon their unfortunate target.
Desperate, the assassin formed a wall of willpower around his body to block the flow of ambient mana altogether, probably thinking he could stop the Cloaks from growing. He was right about that, of course, but Percy had no intention of watching him do as he pleased.
Seizing the opportunity, he went after the assassin again, forcing him to withdraw the wall of willpower, allowing the enchantments to breathe again. Even as he stretched and twisted his body to escape through the aerial arena, the space mage found it impossible to shake the grey mana off, Percy's silk following him wherever he went.
As a last resort, the man attempted to teleport away, despite the cost. Percy saw vast quantities of mana disappear from the assassin's sternum as he emerged dozens of metres away.
This time, he did manage to rid himself of some of the magical cloth, leaving an empty husk behind and giving himself a chance to breathe again after freeing up his mouth and nose. Unfortunately for him, that didn't last long. The lingering pieces hiding beneath his skin soon expanded again, turning corporeal as they resumed their unwelcome embrace.
Not giving up, he teleported away a second and a third time – he had to know it wouldn't save him, but he was clearly scrambling to buy as much time as he could. By the fourth warp, his core was almost empty. Percy spotted a few dregs, but probably not enough for his opponent to risk teleporting a fifth time.
The assassin plummeted toward the ocean, powerless to stop the silk that had already covered every square centimetre of his skin. More of the drifting pieces joined the ambient mana, enveloping the assassin in an airtight cocoon several times wider than his body by the time he splashed into a towering wave.
Percy's gaze followed his opponent's sinking frame for a while, his mutated eyes allowing him to peer rather deep into the dark waters. Eventually, the man's figure faded entirely from view, leaving only the faint feedback of his diminishing struggles against the soft – yet impregnable – prison.
Soon, even that came to a halt as the assassin met his end, Percy whispering the name of his second new technique today:
"Carnival of the Savage Gods, Fifth Parade, Dead Man's Shroud."
A few minutes earlier
The appearance of Micky's boosting art had changed greatly after replacing the common mana types with the equivalent flavours of ice mana.
The Circulation patterns on his plumage had remained almost identical because the liquid and gaseous variants of his composite affinity still flowed through the same channels as before. Only the colour of the glowing lines was different, having turned from green or aquamarine to white.
The external flows, however, were almost unrecognizable, due to the way the mana interacted with the environment. The bubbles of water seeping in and out of Micky's body had shrunk into a cloud of pale snowflakes. Their smaller size and even lazier movements could fool somebody into thinking that Micky was absorbing less mana than before, though that couldn't be further from the truth. Each snowflake contained more water mana than any of the previous bubbles, in addition to an equal amount of air mana.
The long, erratic ribbons had also changed outside of their hue. They had grown even longer, yet somewhat calmer. They drew huge volumes of ambient mana with each graceful loop, synergizing rather well with the other flavours of the spell by cooling the air around Micky and aiding the conversion. This allowed the snowflakes to form faster, guiding them towards his body.
Finally, a layer of frost coated his plumage – thin and brittle, shattering and reforming with every flap of Micky's wings so as to not impede his flight in the slightest. It gathered and stored a lot of solid ice mana – the original form of the affinity. A pale hexagonal grid pulsed faintly through the crystal as it exchanged mana with Micky's similarly-shaped channels. The coat didn't hinder the other flows at all – if anything, it bolstered them, both the snowflakes and the ribbons pouring into and out of his body more rapidly where the three networks intersected.
All the feathers except for those on Micky's underbelly glowed brightly thanks to his mutations, lighting up his plumage in white, with traces of blue, green and even silver as they fed the amber lines branching out from his heart. Much of his body was now made of ice, the artificial patches shining even more intensely than the rest of his flesh.
Suffice to say, Micky's boosting art was shaping up into an extremely complicated and potent spell – one that he would have never managed to develop so quickly without Percy's help. Every version of the Dance relied on the same underlying principles, so mastering a new variant was only a question of slowly uncovering each affinity's peculiarities and adjusting the spell accordingly.
Even so, it was still very much a work in progress. Micky didn't think he'd be registering the upgrade during this battle, though even incomplete as it was, his boosting art was admittedly the main reason he'd been able to last this long against three Blues. Flying inside their domains was already tough – let alone protecting himself while ensuring that none of them flew away to bother his partner.
The fact that they kept varying their tactics only made things worse.
Sometimes, they ganged up on Micky, forcing him to avoid their joint barrage by the skin of his beak. Other times, two of them teamed up to keep him busy, trying to give the third one a chance to sneak away to support the space mage. Whenever they changed their approach, Micky was forced to eat a lot of nasty blows to stop them.
Thankfully, his Consumption spell allowed him to fight without holding back for an extended period of time, using his Freezing Tornado to outspeed and outmanoeuvre all three of his opponents even while resisting the hostile domains. However, there was no doubt that he was quickly approaching his limit.
'Careful! Javelin incoming!' the clone warned, helping Micky bank to his left to avoid the worst of it.
The stone construct still stabbed into his chest, punching a fist-sized hole through Micky's left lung, though it luckily missed the core in his sternum by mere centimetres. Since the acquisition of his new mutations, his injuries hadn't hurt as much. Even when Micky's remaining flesh got mutilated, the pain was much duller than it should've been.
The effect hadn't been as pronounced right after Micky's promotion to Green, but it grew stronger every time he recovered. It was almost like his body understood at an instinctual level that losing a piece wasn't a big deal – that the damaged organs could easily be replaced.
More than half of Micky's body had already been made of ice by the start of the battle, the ratio only continuing to climb as his opponents' attacks kept finding their mark. Mana rushed to fill the holes, forming new organs – lungs, kidneys and even a stomach. Micky and the clone did everything they could to minimize the damage – as this still wasn't a pleasant experience even with the reduced pain – taking extra care to protect what they believed were their vitals.
'Losing your heart might not be an issue, since it's ultimately just a muscle, but we can't afford to risk your brain or cores,' Percy reminded him.
The former was a far more delicate and important organ than the rest – one that they weren't sure could be fixed. As for the latter, they were the very reason Micky could survive in this horrific state in the first place, and there was a good chance he would lose his ability to regenerate entirely if they got damaged. Furthermore, growing a new mana core was something that generally required one of the rarest and most powerful Decrees in the universe, so they had no intention of testing whether a lowly mutation could accomplish the same.
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'Easier said than done,' Micky replied, flying around a pillar of pressurized water wide enough for a fully grown bear to stand inside. 'Is your main body done with the space user?'
In theory, Micky could check the state of the other battle by himself, through the senses he shared with his partner, but he was too busy hanging on for dear life. The clone appeared to do just that, mentally shaking his head a second later, much to Micky's disappointment. 'It appears that I've found a way to prevent the assassin from coming after you, but it doesn't look like I'm any closer to killing him.'
In many ways, Micky was essentially held hostage by the trio of Blues, putting a mountain of pressure on Percy's main body to hurry the hell up. Then again, it could be argued that the opposite was also true. The space user had no choice but to stick around and fight Percy to the death. If he tried to escape, Percy could turn around and help Micky finish his opponents off.
'Alright then. We need to do better if we want to buy your main body enough time,' Micky said, getting a silent nod back from the clone.
The gap between where Micky was and where he needed to be was rather small. He was already fast enough to dodge most attacks, tough enough to endure the rest, and capable of reversing most of the accumulating damage. Just a couple of incremental improvements here and there should be plenty to solve the problem. Micky simply had to dig deep into his small arsenal of spells to find what he needed.
His boosting art aside, Micky's Freezing Tornado was the bread and butter of his fighting style. Having evolved from his original Acceleration spell, the Wild Art had always allowed him to fly faster than what an avian beast of his grade should've been capable of, leveraging his Wind Dancer mutation, his abundance of mana, and his outlandishly powerful body.
After reaching the Refined tier, the spell had allowed him to push himself even further – achieving immense but momentary spikes in speed at the cost of exhausting his reserves quickly. More recently, the improvements to his boosting art had helped him overcome most of the spell's drawbacks, letting him use it somewhat freely without worrying about his expenditure as much.
It was more than a mere movement spell too, as the violent gusts of freezing winds revolving along his body provided him with an extra layer of protection, and his immense physical strength allowed him to execute deadly attacks from up close.
If there was another downside that he had yet to fully overcome, it was the fact that he couldn't use his Wild Art from a distance. That was part of the reason why he had developed his Frozen Shards spell to compensate, giving himself a weaker and cheaper long-ranged option.
It could be argued that each of the spells represented one distinct side of Micky's abilities. The Freezing Tornado was his main trump card as a beast, making use of his bulk and mutations, while the Frozen Shards were a spell more typical of a normal mage, leaning heavily into his elemental mana and pre-casting.
'But I'm not a dumb beast, nor am I a regular mage…'
Perhaps, what he needed to do was to explore the untapped potential lying between those two extremes. To link the spells more seamlessly, and to search for a way of amplifying their effects.
The three Blues continued to harass Micky, hurling powerful projectiles at him from every direction. They must've realized by now that there was no way he would let them escape anytime soon, yet that didn't seem to bother them much. They appeared content to take their sweet time killing Micky before assisting their leader.
One of them wielded earth mana, the second water, while the third used mud. Micky had no idea whether his opponent had been born with his affinity or acquired it from a petal like him, but the resemblance to that bastard, Acton's, magic pissed him off to no end. He knew the shared mana type was probably just a coincidence, but every single blob of mud aimed at him reminded him of the sadistic brat that had enslaved him for years.
'We'll make sure to take them all down,' the clone consoled him.
Micky had drawn the short end of the stick today. Percy was in no less danger than him, as a single mistake against the veteran assassin would spell his doom just as easily, but at least he wouldn't have to suffer in victory too. Then again, they both understood this was necessary. They'd never rest easy until the space user was dead, and Percy was the only one who stood a chance of catching the slippery bastard. Micky had to do everything in his power to make that possible.
Focusing on his magic, he allowed his body to spin again, a powerful rush of cold wind helping him do so much faster. Even incomplete as it was, the boosting art provided him with an abundance of mana to work with, several layers of pale mist spiralling around his accelerating frame. The boost allowed him to barely avoid another round of projectiles as he headed toward his prey. With the clone's help, Micky prepared some rotating mana in his abdomen, adding it to the flow around his plumage.
But he didn't stop there.
As the Blue moved out of his path to avoid getting turned into a brittle pile of minced meat, Micky forced several chunks of solid mana to condense around him, leaving a spiral of frozen thorns in his wake. Micky's extended reach seemed to catch his opponent by surprise, biting into his domain and carving a deep, diagonal gash across his torso. It was nothing too debilitating for a Blue, though it proved that Micky's offensive spells could be merged.
The trio resumed their onslaught, this time remaining vigilant as Micky attempted to strike them with every chance they gave him. Using well-timed bursts of mana, he propelled himself forth even faster, while taking advantage of the extra layer of mana for both offense and defence.
In fact, it didn't take him long to discover that he could allow the spiralling thorns to keep flying even as he halted, passing the lost momentum to his constructs as they scattered through the battlefield. That way, he could increase the lethality of his ranged attacks as well, without risking his safety. Moreover, the clone pitched in with his own domain, giving the thorns an extra push whenever they were about to land, or increasing their toughness when Micky used them for protection.
Sadly, Micky and Percy failed to draw more blood, despite their valiant efforts.
Holding their own against three experienced Blues was already a monumental achievement, but their opponents never lowered their guard again. Having each other's back, they kept their distance from Micky at all times, intensifying their attacks whenever he tried to single one of them out.
Fortunately, it didn't really matter.
Winning had never been Micky's goal. All he'd wanted from the very start had been to buy Percy time. Enduring the pain of his crumbling body, he continued to hone his new spell with every metre of air that he crossed and with every drop of mana he expended, trusting in his friend's ability to win his own fight and support him. It didn't take long for his status to recognize his efforts either.
[Congratulations! Your spells have merged: Wild Art: Freezing Tornado – Refined + Frozen Shards – Refined -> Wild Art: Winter's Fang – Masterful!]
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'I'm sorry you had to go through all of that,' Percy said once he was back on his familiar's neck.
Dealing with the three Blues hadn't been that difficult after taking their leader out. Percy and Micky had already cleaned up the battlefield, feeding the four mana cores to the crow and looting about half a year's worth of unbrewed Aurora Dew from the fallen mages.
Had they been luckier, they could have collected even more, but Percy hadn't been able to locate the last amulet. Fishing out the space user's body had been relatively easy, since the corpse had still been wrapped inside a cocoon of Percy's mana, and the seabed wasn't very deep this close to the shore. That said, the man had clearly dropped his spatial device during his desperate efforts to rid himself of the enchanted fabric, and locating the small artifact had proven impossible.
Either way, Percy wasn't as concerned with their dead opponents or their possessions at the moment. He was busy examining his familiar's injuries and lamenting the dangerous situation he had been forced to place his friend in. There were few things he hated more than asking Micky to act as a target dummy for Blues, yet he understood that they wouldn't have won the battle without the crow's sacrifice.
No matter the reason, the fact remained that over three-quarters of Micky's body had been replaced by ice. Outside of a few scarce patches of flesh here and there, only the bird's head and cores had remained completely intact, due to Micky's deliberate efforts to protect those organs.
'Don't sweat it,' the crow replied with a shrug. 'This has always been a team effort – we're both just doing what we can. Not making the most of my mutations would have been a waste.'
Percy wasn't ready to let go, however. 'This is all happening because I picked a fight with all of Remior.'
The crow shook his head. 'No. Much of it is happening because you were forced to kill a Holy Child to save me. I'd be ungrateful to blame you for the consequences.'
'It's not your fault you got captured and enslaved by a psychopath,' Percy insisted.
'Nor is it yours. It's fine. Really. You know how little my injuries hurt nowadays, and I'm already used to my changing body. If anything, I'm starting to appreciate how convenient it is. Even without Consumption, it doesn't need nearly as much food as it used to, and I can't overstate how good it feels to be able to regenerate a missing limb in mere seconds. I'm not going to claim that it's perfect, but I'm not sure I'd even want to go back to a flesh body – no offense.'
Percy nodded, knowing that saying anything more on the topic was useless. Besides, Micky wasn't wrong. They were a team, having long resolved themselves to doing whatever it took to accomplish their shared goals. If anything, today was a time for celebration, since they'd just overcome one of their most dangerous challenges yet.
'What now?' the clone asked. 'Do we head straight for the Fungal Spire before more people come after us, pick a different route entirely, or stick with your previous plan of going through the ritual first?'
That was a great question.
Percy didn't think that the assassins had informed anyone of their location, or others would have already jumped at the opportunity to attack them. Staying put for a few more days would be risky, but delaying the magical bath wasn't a good idea either – it wasn't like Percy would get a better chance in the coming months, and he needed every advantage he could get.
'Micky, put more distance from the coast, just in case. I'll spend the rest of the day brewing some Green healing potions. Then, we'll stop at the first island we see, staying there for anywhere between two and four days – depending on how the ritual goes. As soon as I have the mutation, we'll fly straight to the Guild without pausing. Anyone who tries to get in our way dies.'
In theory, they could try approaching their destination more cautiously than that, but they knew that haste was their friend. As soon as their enemies figured out where they were headed, they'd be able to set up a proper ambush. Furthermore, Nephthys's pyramid wasn't going to last much longer.
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'Sounds good,' Micky said, turning away from the landmass and picking up the pace. 'Didn't you want to brew some trollsfury ink too?'
'I'll do that on the way to the Spire. Having a couple of tattoos might help, but it's not worth delaying our trip.'
Percy would have undergone the ritual on Micky's back too, had it been an option. Sadly, it would be inconvenient for the crow to carry a massive tank filled with water, and they'd both be completely defenceless if somebody attacked them halfway through the bath.
Having settled on a plan, they put some distance from the continent as Percy resumed his alchemic ventures. This time, he used some of the Yellow healing potions he'd brewed earlier, along with the remaining gravity plants, trying to compress a few of the potions to Green.
To his great joy, registering the principle seemed to have made his life a lot easier. His eyes now picked up on even the faintest traces of Green mana forming inside the concoction, helping him home into the correct configuration for the pulses much faster, saving him countless ingredients and several days of trial and error.
Even better, the frequency of the pulses didn't seem to change from one grade to the next, meaning that Percy only needed to increase the pressure he exerted on the mixture.
'Makes sense, I suppose. I'll probably have to change the frequency when I move to a different potion or ink. Either way, my eyes should help with that too.'
Percy did run into a different problem that he hadn't expected, however, though he probably should have. Compressing Yellow potions to Green appeared to be the limit of his current cauldron. He was already using the enchantments at close to their maximum output, and faint cracks that he constantly had to repair kept forming on the tool during the brewing session.
In hindsight, it wasn't all that surprising – it would have been unreasonable to expect a Yellow alchemist with a cauldron crafted out of his own mana to compress potions all the way to Violet or White. If anything, it was a miracle Percy was even able to brew Green potions with his current setup.
Thankfully, his newest potions were already of a higher grade than him, so they were bound to be quite effective on his body. Anything better would have to wait until his next promotion, or until he improved his magiscript skills again.
Micky eventually landed on a small, rocky island, this one not visible from the mainland at all. The sky was dark, which was a welcome bonus. Percy liked the idea of beginning the ritual in the middle of the night – it would make it harder for any nearby enemies to spot him, giving him until daybreak to absorb a good chunk of the ingredients' effects into his body. Even if he got interrupted afterwards, he wouldn't be losing everything.
Not wasting time, he had Micky craft a person-sized container out of ice mana, filling it up with seawater. The construct looked rather crude, its surfaces uneven and its walls lopsided. Then again, the fact that the near-cylindrical structure didn't have any holes was already pretty impressive, given that it had been crafted by an oversized bird without hands or fingers.
Percy took a moment to casually carve a few concealment runes and structural integrity enchantments on it – just cause. The former might make it a little harder to spot from afar, while the latter were mostly there to prevent it from collapsing on itself. Realistically speaking, none of this would matter much if a hostile Blue flew nearby, but it was a cheap investment anyway.
'I've got over three thousand Yellow potions left, and a few hundred Greens. Good enough,' Percy thought, storing his Cloak into his spatial seal – so that it wouldn't mess with the ritual in any way – and jumping into the cold water.
It might have been more prudent to compress the rest of the Yellow potions before starting, but he figured he'd be okay. The Green potions should last him a few hours if he kept chugging them down, while the Yellow ones wouldn't run out before the end of the ritual.
Even if Percy was right about this being more dangerous to a human, soaking in the bath for a few hours should allow him to acquire some preliminary resistance to the cold and toxins, easing the strain on his body greatly. If not, then there wouldn't be any point in continuing anyway, because it would mean that the inheritance was entirely useless on him and all of his efforts on Thess'kala had been for nothing.
'If you end up turning into a snake, can I stay in Micky's body indefinitely?' the clone asked, mostly to lighten up the mood.
'If that happens, I might start looking for a way to join you,' Percy joked back.
Then, he pulled out the first set of vials from his seal, pinching the main ingredient's cork with his thumb. Only once he leaned back on the frigid wall of the crystalline container, ensuring that he was sitting in a secure position – submerged up to his chin, with little chance of falling over and drowning – did he dare to empty the vials into the seawater.
As soon as the first foreign sensation seeped into his skin, Percy felt immensely grateful for his paranoia. This was already looking like it was going to be far more unpleasant for him than it had been for Kassorith…
The Heartblood was naturally the first of the ingredients to take effect. It gave the saltwater a faint reddish hue, causing it to bubble violently. Entering Percy's body, it made his heart beat faster, the rapid throbs echoing in his ears reminding him of his trollsfury potion. Only, the ritual would last days, not minutes.
Things weren't as bad until the secondary ingredients kicked in. The Abyssal Moss caused the temperature of Percy's body to fall off a cliff, making him feel as if somebody had emptied a bucket of snow into his veins. Thankfully, it wasn't all that different from handling Micky's soul-freezing ice mana, so he could endure it – if barely.
The toxins were a hundred times more troublesome than Percy could have ever imagined, however. He had expected his body to go numb, much like Kassorith's had, but that wasn't at all what happened. Percy watched his arms and chest turn purple, his flesh swelling as dark lines branched through his circulatory system.
Some body parts had indeed gone numb, but waves of excruciating agony gripped others. It felt like a million needles were stabbing at him from inside out, trying to rip him to shreds. His skin dried and flaked off, dark blood spilling into the bath and changing its colour again. Percy instantly understood that this wasn't sustainable.
'Shit, I won't even last a minute like this!' he thought, gritting his teeth.
Knowing he couldn't afford to waste more time, he emptied the first of the Green healing potions from his spatial seal directly into his stomach. A wave of vitality spread out of the organ, washing over his mutating flesh, bringing him some relief.
This was Percy's first time ever drinking a potion of a higher grade than his own – he hadn't tried the Guild's potions until after reaching Orange – so it was quite a novel experience. On paper, the Green liquid contained as much life mana as nine doses of Orange potion, but it was a lot more effective in practice, because Percy's body was far more sensitive to the potent mana.
Even so, the brief healing failed to completely reverse the damage to his body. It merely slowed down the decay, though the itchy sensation it brought him was almost as unpleasant as the pain. That said, Percy didn't care how he felt – he was busy monitoring the effect of the potion, trying to calculate how long his stash would last.
'It's already about to fade. I'll need to drink two or even three doses per minute just to stabilize my condition. At this rate, I'll run out of Green potions in under two hours!'
His heart sank as he realized that the hundreds of twice-compressed doses he had painstakingly brewed wouldn't even last for five percent of the ritual's duration. The idea of enduring the dangerous bath for days with nothing but Yellow potions filled him with dread. Even though he'd prepared a lot of supplies in advance, it appeared that he had still underestimated how potent the demigod's blood was – especially to a Yellow specimen of a species the lineage had never been meant for.
'Do you want me to pull you out?' Micky asked, his voice tinged with worry.
'Don't,' Percy hurriedly said. 'It's too early to give up. I'm still in control.'
He forced himself to calm down, reminding himself that the ritual's effects were heavily front-loaded. If he wasn't mistaken, Kassorith had absorbed about eighty percent of the benefits during the first day. Percy had no idea how much the first two hours would do for him, but he hoped that the rest of the bath wouldn't be nearly as unpleasant.
Sure enough, Percy had to consume the Green potions much less frequently by the end of the first hour. Each now lingered inside his mutilated frame for close to a full minute before running out, which meant that his stash would easily last an additional hour over his earlier estimate – probably even more, if the trend continued.
Naturally, he was quite ecstatic about this development, and not only because he finally saw hope of surviving the ordeal. More importantly, the fact that his resistance to the ingredients had climbed so fast was definitive proof that his human body could actually inherit the Thess'kalan mutation – something he hadn't been sure of!
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'I wonder how much of a boost I'll receive…'
Well, there wasn't any point in guessing. He'd have his answers soon enough.
The Green potions ran out about half an hour after daybreak, making Percy's situation a whole lot more dangerous again. The Yellow potions weren't nearly as effective, even when he consumed three or four of them at a time, and the odds of him and Micky getting discovered by an enemy had also risen together with the sun. Percy would have prayed to Phoebe to watch over him, but he was worried the titaness might actually hear the prayer, and he still wasn't sure she could be trusted.
Thankfully, the damage the alien ritual inflicted on his body had lessened enough by now that the weaker potions could keep him alive, though the process hadn't grown any less painful. Every second brought with it more agony than any other physical injury Percy had incurred over the years. At least, it still paled in comparison to the soul pain his bloodline and traits had regularly caused him, allowing him to endure it relatively easily.
Micky and the clone stood next to the container the whole time, carefully scanning their surroundings for any sign of an enemy. In theory, flying high would have given them a better vantage point, but it would have also raised the odds of somebody noticing them. Percy's companions hadn't said anything, though he knew they were both paying him close attention, their barely concealed anxiety gushing through the cords.
Everyone relaxed when the sun set for the second time, knowing that the worst of it was behind them. The dark blanket of night had enveloped them once more, shielding them from detection. Even the ritual was less dangerous by now. Percy's body was still a mess, but he felt like he could endure the rest of the bath even without the potions.
'I must have surpassed Kassorith's starting point already,' Percy guessed.
Opening his Status, he checked his mutations to see if anything new had appeared, though there was nothing but his Sovereign's Eye there. Shrugging, he drank a few more healing potions – mostly to relieve some of his lingering pain from earlier – as he continued to wait for the ritual to end.
The second day was as uneventful as the first one. Percy and Micky were less concerned, because they knew he had already absorbed most of the benefits. The water in the makeshift vat was nearly black, due to the toxins' effect on his previously unmutated blood, the stench of rot and decay filling the small island. Micky was forced to construct a thin dome around Percy to contain the scent, venting the air into the sea and funnelling some clean oxygen into the dome every few minutes.
During the afternoon, Percy started getting quite worried again. There was a lot to be happy about, including the fact that his life was no longer in danger, that it didn't matter as much if he got interrupted this late into the ritual, and that the bath had clearly enhanced his body a lot. However, it was looking increasingly unlikely that he would reach Kassorith's level. It had taken him most of the first day just to attain a body on par with the average Thess'kalan, and the second day hadn't imparted him with nearly as many benefits.
'Good thing I managed to bring an extra set of ingredients back…'
As the sun approached the horizon for the third time, Percy's Status finally spoke.
[Congratulations! You have acquired a new mutation: Lesser Thess'kalan Physique!]
Reading the notification, Percy couldn't help but frown, feeling relieved and confused in equal parts. It wasn't that strange that he'd only inherited an inferior version of Kassorith's mutation, considering how much less effective the ritual had been on him so far.
However, he was somewhat surprised to see his Status notify him about the new mutation. Phoebe's Decree had admittedly been more active since its latest evolution, having announced the upgrade of his Sorcerer's Eye and the acquisition of the Scribing trait, but that didn't explain why it had remained silent when Kassorith had earned his version of the mutation on Thess'kala.
'Does it only care about things I can bring back to my main body?' Percy wondered, harbouring a random guess that he felt was close to the truth.
Granted, the clones' Status had registered spells that he couldn't use with his own body in the past – such as his recently acquired Instantaneous Formation – but that was different. The spells themselves had always followed him back to Remior, waiting for some breakthrough that would allow him to use them. Foreign mutations and bloodlines, on the other hand, were typically useless for him, and it appeared that Phoebe's Decree was smart enough to recognize that.
Regardless, the Status's whims weren't important right now. Not even waiting for the sun to fully set, Percy pulled up his page, reading the new entry.
___
Mutations:
[Sovereign's Eye] – Draws from the cumulative knowledge listed in the Status to enhance one's vision, allowing them to discern details previously unseen.
[Lesser Thess'kalan Physique] – Enhances one's physical strength and the toughness of their body. Enhances one's resistance to high or low temperatures and sharpens their thermal sense. Enhances one's resistance to toxins.
Percy wanted to study the new entry some more, but he could do that after commencing the second ritual, to save time. Getting out of the vat, he crafted a new container with Micky's help, filling it with fresh seawater.
He wasn't above dumping the contents of the last one in the ocean, since the toxins inside the liquid had been consumed by him already, leaving only blood and dried flakes of skin to feed the fishes. Still, releasing the stinky fluid in the sea was an unnecessary risk that could wait until Percy was fully done with the island.
Jumping into the new container, he repeated his previous actions, emptying the ingredients into the bath. Percy hadn't bothered to brew new Green potions, thinking that even the Yellow ones were unnecessary at this point. Sure enough, the second round of purification began, this one already looking a great deal more manageable. There was no pain, swollen flesh or sickly colours – just the familiar cold and numbness that Kassorith had experienced, indicating that Percy's body was better equipped to handle the transformation.
'Hopefully that means that I'll absorb more of the benefits this time,' he thought.
Only once he had settled into what was going to be his seat for the next couple of days did Percy read the new entry again, focusing on the differences from his treacherous host's.
___
[Lesser Thess'kalan Physique] – Enhances one's physical strength and the toughness of their body. Enhances one's resistance to high or low temperatures and sharpens their thermal sense. Enhances one's resistance to toxins.
___
The description was similar, except for a few missing "greatly"s before the verbs, suggesting that the effects of this lesser physique were modest – nothing too surprising.
'Fingers crossed that I'll get the full version by the time this is over.'
The second major change was the sentence pertaining to his resistance to toxins. If Percy wasn't mistaken, Kassorith's version had included a second part – something along the lines of "…and the potency of their venom." Obviously, that wasn't applicable to Percy at all, so his Status hadn't included it.
However, what he found strange was the mention of a sharpened thermal sense – something that should have also not found its way into his body or his Status. Thinking about that, Percy's heart skipped a beat. He couldn't help but move his tongue around, trying to determine whether it still had the same shape as before – the last thing he needed was to end up with a forked tongue like a snake's.
He relaxed upon failing to notice any obvious changes, sticking his tongue out of his mouth in an attempt to feel the temperature of his surroundings. Yet, he experienced nothing of the sort, other than a faint numbness caused by either the ritual or the cold air a few centimetres above the surface of the frigid water.
'Weird… I wonder what that's all about.' Coming up with a different theory, he shifted his attention to his familiar. 'Micky, can you move closer? I want to check something.'
Percy would rather not move around too much during the early parts of the ritual, to avoid diminishing his gains by mistake. The bird heeded his instructions, walking next to the side of the vat facing him. Thankfully, the container was shorter than a person since Percy had designed it with the expectation of remaining seated through the bath. Meanwhile, the crow stood at twice a man's height – tall enough for Percy to scan much of the bird's body.
Sure enough, he spotted a couple of things that he hadn't noticed in the past. Outside of the silver and grey flames corresponding to Micky and the clone's souls, the dense Green and Yellow mana permeating their cores and channels, the colourful plumage visible in Percy's regular sight, and the ink-coloured threads of willpower coursing through the mana, there was something else that stood out.
Micky's entire frame appeared darker than his surroundings, though a few spots were even darker than that. Namely, this applied to the patches of his body made of ice rather than flesh, the channels containing the three flavours of his ice mana, and the core in the bird's abdomen, but not the one in his sternum. In other words, everything even tangentially related to Micky's ice affinity was pitch black in some new part of Percy's vision.
Unable to resist the temptation, Percy glanced down at his own body, noticing that his flesh sported a dark blue hue in this same new sense. It was a couple shades brighter than his familiar's, but still rather dim. And he had the ritual to thank for that, no doubt.
'Holy shit!' the clone exclaimed, clearly having paid attention to the original throughout his investigation. 'Is that what I think it is?'
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'It has to be,' Percy replied, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.
His eyes had clearly inherited a form of thermal vision from the new mutation!
Percy wasn't sure whether the bath had directly affected his eyes, or whether they had simply acquired this ability by interacting with the other mutation registered in his Status – as they usually did – but nothing else could explain this phenomenon.
'Come to think of it, mutations seem to synergize a lot more with one another than spectral traits or blessings do.'
Granted, this was Percy's first time having multiple mutations – having just acquired his second one – but his familiar had possessed several of them for years now, and this was something they had noticed a while ago. The four mutations in the crow's body were deeply interwoven, with the crystalline feathers created by Ice Sculpture being even more compatible with the Wind Dancer mutation than the regular ones, and the Soul Predator mutation having already spread to nearly every corner of Micky's body. In fact, Percy was confident that Ice Sculpture wouldn't have even been possible without Thin Blood and Soul Predator.
Compared to that, spectral traits didn't seem to tolerate each other nearly as well, with each absorbed fiend bringing Percy to the verge of death. If it hadn't been for the blessing, he wouldn't have even been able to acquire a second trait. As for the blessings themselves, there wasn't any way for two of them to coexist in a mortal's core – at least according to Zoris.
'I wonder what will happen if I keep gaining new mutations…'
There didn't seem to be an upper limit to the number he could have at once. And it appeared that the more he obtained, the stronger they would all become. Perhaps, they might all merge eventually, giving rise to something special. Of course, Percy would have tried to get his hands on more mutations anyway, since each of them was useful by itself, but now he had another reason to seek them out.
His future goals aside, he was extremely happy with his new thermal sense. His Status clearly didn't think much of it, having not even bothered to change the name of Percy's eyes this time. It wasn't that strange, since thermal vision was arguably less useful than Mana Sense, Soul Vision, or the ability to perceive willpower. It wouldn't necessarily help him much in a high-level battle, as it wasn't easy to lay his eyes on an opponent's body directly, and there were often many elements obscuring one's temperature.
Alchemy was a different story, however. While Percy's ability to see willpower had been useless while brewing, the ability to scan the temperature of a concoction would aid him greatly when dissolving the solid lumps, accelerating the reactions and improving his yield.
'I can't wait to put all of my recent gains into practice and see how much I can improve,' he thought, though he immediately quashed the rising enthusiasm with a deep sigh. Alchemy would have to wait until after the mission to the Fungal Spire.
Other than his mutated eyes, Percy guessed his body had grown far stronger and hopefully more flexible, and that he could now handle Micky's ice mana a little better. Sadly, he couldn't test any of those things until the ritual ended, since he could hardly feel his limbs right now.
With nothing else to do, he waited for another two days to pass, occasionally tossing some food and healing potions into his stomach to undo the damage from the first bath. By the end of the final day, Percy received the notification he'd been waiting for.
[Congratulations! Your mutation has evolved: Lesser Thess'kalan Physique -> Greater Thess'kalan Physique!]
As soon as the stinky bathwater stopped bubbling entirely, Percy stretched his limbs inside the vat, realizing he could move again. Getting out of the container, he carefully peeled the outer layer of dead skin off – the slimy, purple remnants of the first ritual that he hadn't bothered to remove two days prior – revealing the healthy skin beneath. Percy had tanned a lot after spending months under the sun, but the new skin was a couple shades paler – unmarred and unblemished, like a newborn's.
Throwing a couple of punches in the air, he noticed to his great joy that he was faster than before, his fists causing booming shockwaves that no Yellow human should've been capable of. Percy's joints felt like they could bend and twist a little farther, filling him with confidence that he could handle his Third Parade now.
'With the Carnival and a Yellow trollsfury tattoo, there shouldn't be a problem…'
Asking his clone to pump some soul-freezing ice into his channels, Percy soon discovered that the exotic resource didn't bother him nearly as much as it used to. He'd likely be able to unleash multiple Needles in a row without any additional downtime. Finally, even his new thermal sense felt a bit sharper than it had before the second bath.
Summoning and wearing his Cloak, he hopped on Micky's neck, asking his familiar to dump the vats and the pieces of the crystalline dome into the ocean before taking off. At the same time, Percy pulled up his Status, reading the modified entry.
___
[Greater Thess'kalan Physique] – Greatly enhances one's physical strength and the toughness of their body. Greatly enhances one's resistance to high or low temperatures and sharpens their thermal sense. Greatly enhances one's resistance to toxins.
___
The three "greatly"s were back with a vengeance, the entry now reading almost the same as his former host's – save for the missing part about his venom. Perhaps, one of his future mutations might unlock that facet of his physique as well, though Percy didn't care about it too strongly.
Shrugging, he had the crow turn westward again, flying straight toward the Fungal Spire.
Taking his cauldron out, Percy set it on the bird's head, tossing a few doses of trollsfury ink and some gravity ingredients in. He hoped to get himself some new tattoos by the time they neared their destination, certain that he possessed the means to both brew them and handle them far better than ever before.
The past couple of years had been tough, but he and his familiar had achieved everything they'd set out to do. They were finally ready to commence one of their most important missions, the sleeping remnants of an entire civilization resting on their shoulders. There was no doubt in Percy's mind that many powerful mages would try to stop them, but he welcomed the challenge with open arms.
Percy didn't even flinch as the grey needle pierced his skin for the thousandth time that day, injecting the green fluid into his body. Only when he was done drawing the fifteenth leaf on his lower forearm did he take a short break to catch his breath, carefully examining the tattoo. It was shaped like a vine, coiling around his left arm, all the way from his shoulder down to near his wrist. Each leaf represented a single dose of ink that would last for a while before degrading – unless he was forced to use it sooner, of course.
Compressing the healing ink wasn't very different from the potions. It required about the same amount of pressure, and only the slightest variations in the frequency of the pulses. The tattoos were more effective than the potions too, due to the nature of the mushrooms Percy had brewed them out of, so having a few Green-grade variants to fall back to in a pinch gave him some peace of mind.
On one hand, this was the most potent source of healing he could currently prepare for himself. On the other, he knew the marginal improvement from potions to tattoos wasn't worth the time or the resources when he needed to consume hundreds of doses in short order.
This was why he hadn't bothered to prepare any for the ritual, sticking with regular potions. However, he wasn't going to skimp on his safety when it came to a dangerous fight. In that case, quality generally beat quantity, as it would allow him to mend much nastier wounds, and to do so faster.
'I should still be careful. The tattoos may be potent, but I doubt I'll be able to regrow a missing limb or recover from a serious injury,' he reminded himself, suddenly feeling a little envious of his friend's mutation.
Storing the empty vials into his seal, he summoned a few filled with a brown liquid into his hands. This was naturally Yellow-grade trollsfury ink that he had also compressed. The recipe for it differed a little more, since it required an entirely different base ingredient from the healing ink. Even so, Percy hadn't had much trouble figuring out the correct setup, thanks to his eyes and the newly registered principle.
His yield was still abysmal – and would likely remain so until he got more practice – but he didn't care about it too much, because he only used the trollsfury tattoos in an emergency and didn't require too many doses. Taking the time to improve his efficiency only made sense for products that he needed lots of.
Percy hadn't even attempted to compress this flavour of ink a second time. Not that he couldn't, but he was more cautious when it came to these tattoos than the others. While he felt confident that his strengthened body could now handle the strain of tattoos matching his grade in tandem with his boosting art, he'd rather test that in battle before going a step farther.
About an hour later, Percy finished drawing the troll king's face on his chest. The tattoo generally looked better on his back, but it was harder to reach there by himself, and optics weren't a priority right now.
'The sun is about to set,' he noticed.
The past few days had felt a little longer for him and Micky, as they'd been flying westward at full speed, thus stretching both daytime and nighttime slightly. Regardless, their extended trip over the ocean was about to come to an end, as the coast was already within view. Tapping into his familiar's senses, Percy immersed himself in his surroundings, appreciating his final sunset out at sea.
Micky was flying pretty low to delay detection by their enemies for as long as possible. He was gliding as quietly as he could above the surface, the force of the frigid tornado swirling around his body propelling him forward more than the infrequent flapping of his wings did.
He allowed his talons to sink into the water, the liquid feeling as hard as stone at this speed. The crow's sharp claws still carved into the blue sheet with ease, spilling a trail of foam in his wake. Objectively speaking, the seawater was rather cold this far north, though to Percy and his familiar it might as well have been tea. A salty breeze assaulted their nostrils as they enjoyed the sun's gradual descent, the sky slowly shifting from one vibrant hue to the next as the star disappeared behind the mountains in the distance.
Every now and then, Micky flapped his powerful wings, planting a short-lived lotus in the water, its white petals sprinkled with icy powder that glittered beneath the fading sunlight.
Before long, the sea was replaced by sand, though that barely lasted a moment before they flew past the beach and into the vast stretches of grasslands that Percy knew would paint most of the ensuing journey. Hills and plains alike were covered in washed-up yellows and golds, the chirping insects having long gone silent as a few trees stood half-naked here and there, slowly shedding what remained of their withering coats.
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Every now and then, a brown leaf drifted toward Percy, though it never got a chance to plaster itself onto his body, shredded into brittle powder by the violent gusts spiralling around his familiar. Still, the mana-rich wind didn't stop Percy from smelling the nostalgic scent of decaying plantmatter and wet dirt, or hearing the faint flaps of migrating birds flying in intricate formations in the horizon.
'I guess it should be late autumn…' Percy thought, having long lost track of the seasons. In his defence, there weren't many ways to tell in the ocean – other than counting days, of course.
Percy sure hoped that they wouldn't be discovered immediately, although he understood that it was only a matter of time. He was confident that he and Micky could outspeed most Blues with ease, so he wasn't as worried about being chased, but there were several bloodlines out there that could facilitate fast communication. If the wrong family caught wind of their movements, the information could easily reach House Asclepius or the Divine Root. From there, the rest of Remior would find out soon enough, and all the hunting parties would start converging towards them.
'Are you afraid they'll start sending more than four or five people after us at a time?' Micky asked.
'Hard to know, but that isn't a huge problem by itself,' Percy replied with a shrug.
'How so?'
'Well, on paper, a group of five Blues can hold their own against a Violet, but that assumes that the Violet sticks around to face them head on. In practice, battle power doesn't scale as neatly with numbers. A Violet can just escape from any group of Blues with relative ease, and the same applies to us, so gathering too many in the same location only makes them less effective.'
'Their stacked domains would still slow us down,' Micky protested.
'They would, but only if they remain close to one another which, again, would lead to the same problem,' Percy patiently explained. 'Basically, unless they have more veteran assassins with space affinities to send, they'll struggle to contain us.'
Micky tilted his head in confusion. 'If that's the case, then why are you stressing over being spotted?'
Percy sighed. 'I'm not as worried about an ambush in a random location that we can easily avoid. However, it'll be a huge problem if they figure out that we're heading toward the Fungal Spire and fortify the place before we get there.'
Micky nodded in understanding, not saying anything else. Bringing a couple of Starry Commanders to the verge of death and planting soul clones in their bodies should be easy enough, but it would inevitably take some time. Not much time, but more than Percy would have while being chased by over a dozen Blues.
Thankfully, he didn't think his previous movements had given his enemies any clues as to his goal, and he was confident that he and Micky could make the trip before their pursuers got the chance to organize.
'Let's prepare for the worse-case scenario though.'
Percy didn't have any personal projects that would yield meaningful results in the little time he had left, but Micky's boosting art could still use some work. The crow had already figured out all four of the spell's patterns, so it was just a question of scaling the technique up to its limits – maximizing the flow and conversion of ambient mana and using it to fuel his fighting style as seamlessly as Percy had done with his own version.
Micky's battle against the trio of Blues had been quite unpleasant, but it had provided him and the clone with valuable insight on how to iron out the last few kinks from the spell. Sharing his senses with the crow, Percy assisted his companions, thinking that a third mind might help them complete the looming upgrade that much sooner.
All of the bird's spells already used the snowstorm spiralling around him as fuel – be it to empower his body, protect him from harm, accelerate his flight, feed his beast core, or deliver devastating attacks to his enemies from near and afar. The only thing left was to maximize the efficiency of all of those tasks and elevate the spell to the next level.
Over the following few days, Percy and Micky passed over multiple lakes, forests and even a couple of small mountains, though it was still plains and hills for the most part. They saw a few towns and villages too, but they opted to circle around those, to minimize the odds of getting spotted.
Sadly, their luck ran out at some point.
Despite their efforts to delay the inevitable, they eventually caught the attention of several passersby – be they merchants, messengers or even bandits. Had this been a few years ago, Percy might have hoped that they wouldn't recognize him, but he understood that was no longer a realistic possibility, given how infamous he and his familiar had gotten.
Somebody else in his shoes might have considered the unthinkable – to eliminate all the witnesses on sight before they got the chance to rat him out to the Great Houses. For better or for worse, Percy wasn't the type of person who'd stoop that low, however.
Not only did the idea of murdering a bunch of innocents to maybe prevent a fraction of them from inconveniencing him sicken him to his stomach, he knew it wouldn't even solve the problem. He didn't think he'd be able to kill everyone anyway, so the news of his return would leak sooner or later.
'Our best chance is to keep going,' he said, three waves of determination gushing through the cords.
Micky rose higher, since there was no longer a point to sticking close to the ground now that the cat was out of the bag. If anything, the cover would only make it easier for their enemies to sneak up on them. Without any further need for stealth, Percy also had his familiar fly even faster. That way, they could cover more ground, and pushing the boosting art to its boundaries was conveniently the quickest way to complete its upgrade.
Things remained peaceful for a couple more days, though everyone was aware that it wasn't going to last. Sure enough, the first group of hostile Blues appeared about a week into their journey on the mainland, blocking their path…
Do we fight or ignore them?' Micky asked as the quartet of Blues loomed ahead.
Even from hundreds of metres away, the enemy mages' faces appeared solemn – the poor bastards clearly understood the level of danger they were in, but their superiors had probably left them no choice but to try and get in Percy's way. Of course, Micky was more than fast enough to circle around them and skip the fight entirely if necessary, but Percy was still trying to decide whether that was the best course of action.
'I don't want to kill more people than we have to, and I would rather not waste time on them. Still…'
The problem was that the groups Percy left standing might not give up. There was a good chance they'd chase after him and Micky, following them all the way to the Fungal Spire and drawing even more attention in the process. That would lead to everyone figuring out Percy's goal even sooner. If that wasn't bad enough, they would also constitute a hidden danger – should Percy and Micky face trouble at their destination, they'd have to worry about the additional Blues catching up from behind and placing them in an even tougher spot.
Sighing, he stood on his familiar's back, knowing that dealing with the Blues here was the safest option. Four were a lot. It was on par with the previous group – the most he and Micky had ever faced at once. Thankfully, they would probably be much weaker without the dangerous assassin in their ranks. The sheer number of hostile domains would certainly be an issue, but both Percy and Micky had grown stronger over the past few days.
Summoning a pair of scythes from his spatial seal, he rolled his shoulders, taking a deep breath after another to push the Carnival to its limits. Grey flares of phantom mana danced erratically around him, painting a stark contrast against the pale backdrop of snow spinning around the crow.
'Three minutes. That's all the time we can afford to spend here. Any more and we'd be better off just escaping,' Percy said, getting a round of mental nods back from his companions.
Peering ahead, he scanned his opponents carefully, trying to spot any clues that might help, though he came up empty-handed. The group appeared to contain mages from two different Houses – allied ones, most likely – but Percy failed to identify them. Hopefully, they wouldn't have any troublesome bloodlines.
Two women were dressed in cyan robes, the badge pinned to the left side of their chests depicting either a stag or a tree, though it was hard to tell what exactly it was from that distance, the screen of icy mist partially obscuring Percy's vision not making things any easier. The other two – a lanky man and a woman dressed in yellow clothes – had insignias depicting the sun. Sadly, contacting Nesha wasn't an option at the moment, so Percy would have to go in blind.
There was no way to tell whether these people had been part of the previous manhunt from a few months ago, or if they'd recently been asked to join due to him and Micky roaming close to their families' lands. Either way, this was Percy's first time seeing any of them.
It was also clearly their first time seeing him – the famous criminal they had likely heard so much about. Despite their apparent advantage in numbers and information, the lanky man floating in the centre-left of the group swallowed visibly after meeting Percy's scrutinizing gaze. Evidently, he had hoped that the encounter wouldn't have devolved into a fight to the death. Sadly for him, that hope was quickly dashed as Percy chose to call their bluff.
Regardless, the enemy Blues didn't wait passively for Percy and Micky to attack. Instead, they seized the initiative when they were still about a hundred metres away. Two attacked from either side, violent torrents of water shooting at the crow and his rider. The others didn't sit idly either, launching a colossal boulder and a massive fireball that rolled together into a red-hot meteor, flying straight toward Percy's face, leaving a long, smoking trail in its passing.
Micky dove to avoid the powerful spells – something that the stacked domains made extremely difficult. The thick willpower felt like an ocean of honey, making even the slightest movement a monumental struggle.
'The sooner we bring one of them down, the sooner we'll have some breathing room,' Percy noted.
The crow spun, using the rotating sheet of ice mana imbued with his own willpower as a knife to shave off part of the hostile domains, Percy grabbing against his familiar's plumage firmly to remain glued to his back. Micky barely managed to fly beneath the oversized blasts in time, but Percy didn't care about that. He grinned, seeing an opportunity in the chaos.
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The enemy group fired a second round of attacks, but Percy and Micky had an easier time dodging this one, knowing what affinities to expect at least.
Scattering broken shafts in his surroundings, Percy gathered as much soul-freezing ice mana as the clone had already provided him into his hand. Pointing his palm at a weakness he spotted in the walls of mana and willpower visible in his mutated eyes, he aimed at one of the silver silhouettes hiding behind the obstructions.
Then, he fired.
The Soul-crushing Needle phased through the aquamarine river shooting from his right side, drilling soundlessly through the inky-black lines permeating the magical liquid. The woman he was targeting appeared to realize the danger she was in at the very last second, her silhouette flaring with horror as she tried to dodge.
Percy never saw the attack land, having been forced by the apocalyptic explosion just over his head to duck on Micky's back. Still, it must've found its mark, judging by the woman's lifeless body plummeting toward the ground a moment later, her eyes glazed over. Just like that, the first of their four opponents had been dealt with, a quarter of the suffocating pressure vanishing right with her!
Percy didn't allow himself to relax, however, knowing that this was the best time to follow-up with a second blow to his opponents' morale. Leaping off Micky's back, he jumped from one pair of crossed shafts to the next, heading toward the lanky Blue – the fire affinity user.
The enemy mages looked shocked by their companions' sudden death, but that barely lasted an instant. Regaining his composure, the earth user tried to assist her male teammate in stopping Percy, while the surviving water mage was forced to attack Micky instead.
Percy found it difficult to build up momentum inside so many domains, though he managed to dodge most of the attacks flying toward him by slipping through narrow gaps in the willpower. Splitting their domains between two moving targets clearly wasn't easy for the Blues. Hovering a few dozen metres away from his target, Percy put as much pressure on him as possible to give Micky a chance to take another one down.
The crow spun faster and faster, the howling blizzard hugging his frame intensifying with each revolution. The pale winds connected with his oversized beak, increasing its penetrating power and range greatly as they propelled him forward.
Another river of compressed water shot toward the bird, but Micky didn't bother to dodge this one, meeting it head on. A grinding screech permeated the aerial battlefield, the magical liquid freezing and shattering into a cloud of fine powder that sparkled under the dim sunlight. The spell barely slowed the oversized bird, Micky's beak snapping shut around the woman's core a second later, ripping her body apart in the process.
[Congratulations! Your familiar's spells have merged: Dance of the Savage Gods – Masterful + Wild Art: Consumption – Masterful + Wild Art: Winter's Fang – Masterful -> Wild Art: Symbel of the Savage Gods – Masterful!]
Under different circumstances, Percy might have cracked a smile. His friend had finally completed his boosting art after decades of relentless efforts, merging all of his spells into a top-tier Masterful spell on par with the Carnival.
Unfortunately, he was somewhat busy with his own side of the fight at the moment – though he was about to get markedly less so. Tiptoeing around and through a barrage of stone javelins as thick as tree trunks, he rapidly approached his prey. The disappearance of another domain finally allowed him to pick up speed, rendering his opponents powerless to keep him at bay.
The lanky man tried to dodge, of course, but he was no match for Percy's speed. Clearly realizing that he was done for, he unleashed what was left of his reserves as Percy's scythes sank into his torso, probably trying to take his killer down with him. A tsunami of flames burst out of every pore in the Blue's body, incinerating his clothes in an instant before slamming onto Percy.
Percy didn't panic, however, believing in his own means to protect him. He pulled his hood down to shield his face, pouring mana into his Cloak's runes. The reinforced silk and the structural integrity enchantments negated most of the force. At the same time, he fed what little ice mana he'd been able to recover into the heating runes, relying on them and his freshly tempered body to resist the scorching flames.
The blast still sent him flying back of course. He took a moment or two to regain his balance, feeling like he'd been struck by a charging ram. Thankfully, his injuries were rather light, and his familiar had already attacked the fourth Blue to defend him.
The rest of the battle didn't hold much suspense.
The water mage appeared to realize that she didn't stand a chance, though she still fought to her last breath to delay Percy and Micky – if only by a few more seconds. Whether she was acting out of stubbornness, hatred over her relative's demise, a misguided sense of duty, or something else entirely, Percy didn't know nor care.
He and Micky cleaned up the battlefield as soon as she was dead, storing any elixirs they could find into his spatial seal while feeding the cores to the crow. Climbing onto his familiar's back, Percy instructed the bird to resume his flight, leaving Remior poorer by four more Blues.
It hadn't even been a full three minutes.