Frostbound [LitRPG Apocalypse]-Chapter 195 - Stream of Essence

Rachel

[Field of Flames] sucked mana out of her at an astonishing rate but there was nothing she could do about it. As the Warriors died or fell, the pressure on the ones who remained constantly increased.

She couldn't afford to play the long game anymore with her mana. If the rest got overwhelmed the Demons would be free to charge the backline. Not that the mages were helpless, but they were not suited for front-line fighting.

Using fire against Demons wasn't the most effective but she found ways to lay waste to as many as possible. The Hellhounds were the hardest to kill as their resistance to fire was mighty.

The Demonlings were nearly trivial to burn to death, just some extra oomph and they would soon be ashes. The Lesser Demons were the next hardest behind Hellhounds but for a different reason.

Where Hellhounds were straight-up resistant to her skills, the Lesser Demons were smart enough and had the magical abilities to fight back. They would rip and tear at her spells and some could even shield against her.

Her ability was greater in this regard, but the distance made it difficult to leverage it. She stood over a hundred feet back, making everything she did or tried to manipulate harder. Plus, with the battle of manipulation taking place closer to the Demons than it was to her, everything was that much harder.

While the Lesser Demons had less skill and finesse, they didn't have to work nearly as hard to defend themselves as she did to attack them.

She watched how the other mages around her dealt with the problem she was facing but none seemed to make any better headway than she did.

Most relied on brute force and increased the strength of the spells they threw.

The ones who did that were chugging down mana potions like there was no tomorrow to compensate for the increased costs. Conner and the other Alchemists were great, but they weren't able to make an infinite amount of the potions to be as liberal with mana as some were acting like. Not even mentioning the fact the number of potions a person could use was finite.

Rachel herself had already used a few. Not that she was close to running out, but to supplement her diminishing mana pool. One of the potions was a new creation that Connor said would boost her Acumen and increase the rate her mana would regenerate. Taking that at the beginning of the battle was likely the reason she could still launch spells.

While it wasn't a doubling of regeneration, or anywhere near it, any extra mana coming in was good.

The resource she had to monitor much closer was her Bloodline energy. It had dwindled much faster than her mana pool. The reason for it was obvious.

After Chris charged in without stopping, she was the next strongest on the battlefield.

Before, it might have been a argument between her, Austin, or Jonathan, but without either of them here, it was undisputedly her. Not even the other City's warriors or mages on their side came close.

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Being the strongest meant she had to deal with the biggest threats. The combined Demonlings in their Giant amalgamations and the higher-leveled Lesser Demons were her biggest issue. The Giant constructs were easy enough to spot and prepare for, but high leveled Lesser Demons would just pop up anywhere along the front line. The Warriors were having a hard time dealing with the surprise difficulty.

Even using her stronger and more mana-intensive spells wasn't enough to take them down quickly. She could have burnt them to ash eventually, but she needed to kill them before they impacted the Warriors on the front line.

To do so, she had to lean on her Bloodline powers to boost her power. While the Bloodline Essence of the Fire Wyrm didn't sound all that powerful compared to its eventual evolution of Fire Dragon, it was more than the Demons could handle.

The 'Dragon Essence', as she was calling it, turned her fire into something even the Hellhounds, with their dark flames rolling off their bodies, recoiled away from.

Rachel wasn't sure what change her Bloodline caused her fires to undertake, but whatever it did made them insanely destructive.

She had heard a Dragon's Fire was different than regular fire and now she witnessed it first hand. Her Fire wasn't anywhere near as powerful as an actual Dragon's fire, or even a Fire Wyrm's her Bloodline was from, but they were more powerful than before she imbibed the Bloodline.

Even when she upgraded her Fire law to Lesser it didn't compare to what her bloodline did.

She spotted another powerful Lesser Demon coming into range and she had to pull on her Bloodline yet again. She felt the power rushing through her, like searing magma coursing through her veins.

She threw another [Field of Flames] into the fray and everyone could tell this one was different. While the area combusted like it had numerous times before, the flames were tinted blue at their base this time. The heat rolling off it was orders of magnitude hotter than before.

The Lesser Demon fought to protect itself but how could she let her precious mana and Bloodline energy go to waste? [Fire Manipulation] reached out and the field turned even deadlier. She even threw in a [Fire Lance] to take it down that much quicker.

She concentrated the flames all around the Lesser Demon leaving it no room to escape. With her Bloodline still active, it was nearly trivial to change the flames into whatever she desired.

The chime of the kill notification sounded in her head and she cut the mana feeding the flames and revealed what was left behind.

Ashes.

Flesh, muscle, and even the Demon's bones were burnt to ashes and dispersed in the wind.

She watched the essence transfer from where the Demon once stood and make its way toward her. Her skills related to sensing and manipulating mana were her pride, but it opened up her mind to something else.

Essence.

She wasn't nearly as well versed in sensing essence, let alone seeing it, compared to mana but she was able to pick up the stream coming toward her. Following the transfer from her kills back to her was much easier than sensing unclaimed essence.

Her focus was distracted for the brief second it took the essence to get to her and enter her body and before she could look up from watching the spectacle, a resounding shattering sound echoed through the entire valley.

CRACK

The wave of sound hit her multiple times as the initial soundwave washed over her followed by what echoed back from the Valley walls. It replicated the sound of a massive pickaxe hitting metal perfectly. A sharp and short clang that carried into the distance.

The way the Valley was shaped made it so everyone heard it. Even the Rogues stationed at either end or up on the opposing Valley wall heard the sound.

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After the startling sound carried past her, Rachel's head shot up and pointed toward the Winter Storm. It wasn't hard to guess who was responsible but as she peered into the distance, something stood out.

Her mana sensing at the distance she was looking was minimal, at best, but no matter how hard she looked, she only saw one mana type.

There were supposed to be two.

A familiar Ice mana dominated the landscape, well, Arctic now but she still mistook it occasionally based on the fact she had spent months in its vicinity.

The Arctic mana was the only thing she could see, sense, or otherwise detect without a hint of the other leader's Light mana. And she was decent at sensing that, too, as Austin's Solar mana felt similar.

Somehow, Christopher was fighting in there alone.

Her worry shot up and she couldn't help but sneak a glance at Christopher's mother. She was close by where Rachel stood sending gales of sharp Winds down on the Demons. Giant cutting blades of Razor Wind shot down into the crowd as she spent what had to be the last of her mana.

Wind and Fire mixed well and weren't at risk of conflict, which put the Wind Mage close to where she stood. Christopher's brother, on the other hand, was on the complete other side of the battle line.

Rachel's worry only got worse as she recalled the last thing Christopher said to her.

"If something happens," Chris said deadly serious, "I want you to take them and run."

She fought being told to run but ultimately agreed under pressure. Anything that could kill the walking tank would be something she couldn't contend with.

Rachel shifted most of her focus to finding out what was happening at the center of the Valley but she still absentmindedly launched spells of her own.

She let out a breath when she noticed more Arctic mana being used.

That thought immediately died when she saw what happened next. Her eyes already trained on the area was the only warning she had.

First was the flash of light. Like a bomb going off, white light shot out and covered everything in a split-second flash.

Then came the Wind.

Air vacated the space closest to where the flash of light originated in tremendous force. It nearly blew her off her feet before she braced herself better. Some of the Warriors closer to the source weren't as lucky and did get pushed off their feet.

Luckily for them, the Demons didn't fare much better.

Worse, following the wave of forceful Wind, the tide of Demons tried to follow behind it. They all pushed and shoved, trying to get away from whatever was taking place at the center.

While the flash of light was instant and the Wind was quick, the Demons weren't.

Before they could so much as run 10 feet, it happened.

Rachel knew, instinctually, what was happening, but her mind denied coming to conclusions. If she did... then... then... no! He could've survived! Somehow...

The explosion she refused to label as an explosion rocked the ground. Tremors spread through the area and loose dirt rattled free and tumbled down the Valley walls.

The roaring sound of everything that happened came next. She couldn't pick up what it sounded like because not a moment after the sound came, her eardrums ruptured.

All she heard was ringing.

Following the Wind and tremors, a wall of force sent everybody off their feet. Some were sent flying back, having not prepared for the sudden wall of force, while others crumpled where they stood.

The copper taste of blood filled her mouth and the ringing in her ears continued to drown out the noise of everything else. Screams or cries of pain went unheard.

As she lay on the ground trying to get her spinning vision under control, clumps of dirt began to rain from the air. Little specs of earth or clumps of sod thumped into the ground around her and showered her in brown.

As soon as her mind cleared enough to function, a comforting warmth spread through her body courtesy of [Mending Hearth]. Her only self-healing skill tried its best to get her wounds under control. The warming fire of the skill worked its way through her pleasantly as the skill did what it could.

Blood flowed from her ears and nose with those only being the most visible injuries. After [Mending Hearth] started to right what was wrong, her mind flashed to where, or who, was at the center of the explosion.

No matter how much denial she could conjure up, there was no surviving that at literal ground zero. As much as she equated Christopher's resistance and fortitude to that of a walking tank, even tanks wouldn't survive that explosion.

Rachel and the rest of the Mages and Rangers took a second to pick themselves back up with groans and grunts. Those best off afterward restarted what they had been doing before.

The explosion impacted everyone equally and while they got back on their feet, so did the Demons.

The Demons, and the Warriors, were noticeably slower to their feet than those farther away, but they did stir.

Being in better shape than their opponents, arrows and spells rained down and killed any of the Demons that moved or attempted to rise. There were still plenty that were still alive but they either couldn't get up or were unconscious.

Even as Rachel observed the field of staggered humans and Demons alike, she couldn't help but keep picturing the moment of the explosion. The Arctic mana that flared right before it was overcome by what happened.

For some reason, her mind remembered a chill among the Winds before the explosion hit but she couldn't recall feeling it the first time.

"Healer!"

"I need a Healer!"

"Does anyone have a Health Potion?!"

Cries for Healing or potions rang out as [Mending Hearth] fixed her burst ear drums but that didn't shock her. Her eyes had picked up on the frantic way they moved their mouths and guessed the reason behind it.

Overlooking the swath of destruction, she was shell-shocked.

It was hard to function, let alone move, yet people ran this way and that carrying people away. Healers, with their red cross armbands, ran throughout the field using their various skills on the fallen.

Rachel stood and did nothing.

She had no Healing capabilities. She had no potions either. As one of the few with a self-healing skill, their limited supply was given to others. She only had Mana potions adorning her belt.

Almost unconsciously, she turned to where she last saw Elizabeth, Christopher's mother. She had already lost a husband, and now she had just lost a son. Rachel knew the pain that came with that.

Kyle had been her love and joy. Her youngest and her baby.

Seeing his lifeless body had nearly broken her and now she was about to watch it happen to another. Her heart ached at the idea.

Elizabeth was standing much the same as Rachel was. Completely still, she looked deeper into the Valley, where there once was snow falling from the sky like a vengeful Winter Storm, but now all she saw was a field of brown.

The white wall from before the battle was gone. The only thing left was the dull brown of dirt with specks of black.

Rachel was about to turn away and help how she could with recovery when her skills picked up on... something.

The field of black and brown, while nearly desolate, was full of what used to be Demons. The force mangled their bodies, but that didn't mean they disappeared.

And from those bodies, Rachel saw a river of essence arise.

Rachel usually couldn't detect the essence of other people's kills as she wasn't skilled enough to sense it, but with an entire Valley of dead bodies, it was nearly impossible to miss.

Others less skilled than her even turned to see what was happening.

As more and more essence rose into the air, it all began to concentrate. The essence from all the dead Demons was all going in the same direction.

Up.

The stream of essence from one Demon combined with the one next to it, which combined with more and all rushed high into the air.

Even without her practiced sensing skills, it was impossible to miss the spectacle of what was happening. Hell, the concentration was so high it was nearly visible to the naked eye!

"What's happening?"

"What is that?"

People questioned what they were seeing. But no one had the answers.

As the rush of essence went up, it began to change course. From nearly straight up, it started to come toward where they stood. Its angle still carried the river of power over their heads put everyone's heads tracked its arc.

It was when the deluge of essence began to come down that those with the best eyesight saw it.

Hal was with the rest of the Wind affinities bunch, which made her son's sudden sprint noticeable to her. His form blurred as he rushed to follow the line of essence, even though she still didn't have a clue what was going on. Seeing her son sprint off into the distance spurred her mind into action.

All she knew said that essence only transferred upon death to those responsible for killing whatever it was. That was what she was told, that was what she had witnessed.

Yet now, it was streaming through the air for some reason.

The only logical reason she could come up with was the essence was transferring to something, but that didn't make any sense.

Why would it arc through the air?

Not unless...

No.

That was impossible.

He was at the center of the explosion. There was no way he survived it!

Similar to Hal, she took off in a run. She kicked herself for taking so long to figure it out. Behind her, Elizabeth followed. She wasn't sure if she knew what was going on or just following her and Hal, but she was a step behind Rachel.

She wasn't sure Elizabeth would want to see what laid at the end of where they were going, but she wasn't going to stop the woman.

From the other side of the line, Rachel saw Gabriel break into a sprint as well. His new legs carrying him in the same direction as she.

Mitchell, Alice, Allison, and all of the Zalenski family followed behind her. The only Healer of the family who came was on their heels as well, thankfully.

If what her mind came up with was true, they would need a healer soon.

During their sprint, it wasn't long until even those without high perception noticed.

The stream of essence rushing through the air was following something and it didn't take a genius to figure out what.

Essence only went to the ones responsible for the kill.

And she could only think of one person the essence would be streaming toward.