I've Got A Mana Processor In A Magic World-Chapter 202: Void Phantom: Stragglers

Every time the creature blinks forward, it must momentarily stabilize its spatial field to avoid being torn apart. This stabilization causes a brief, visible spike of mana and light distortion around the edges. That spike is the weak point.

"But I don't see anything like that at all!" Zephyr's mind was racing. He glanced back in the heat of his haphazard dash across the room, trying to spot any sign of what Aegis described, but there wasn't any such seam in sight.

Look harder! Try to get it into the light.

Zephyr had his doubts, but he stuffed them down and did as Aegis suggested, trying to maneuver his way to a point where the dim light shining down from the ceiling would catch any 'seam' that there might be better.

He dodged again as the Void Phantom narrowly missed him.

It was close, but he was already getting the hang of the creature's movements.

The key was to time the final blink extremely well. It seemed the spatial magic the creature had in terms of attack potency was its only defining point. It sorely lacked in intelligence compared to even the Obsidian Stalkers from the previous level.

And speaking of the Obsidian Stalkers…

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At the honeycomb wall of Level 2…

The other champions were meeting an inevitable delay. The Obsidian Stalkers that fled from Zephyr obviously couldn't have gone all the way to the next level. Their designation restricted them from doing so.

Therefore, the only other place they could have escaped to were the other tunnels… And that was exactly where they all were. The same tunnels the champion party had split up into.

The Obsidian Stalkers, in the narrow space were now the exact equivalents of the phrase "beasts pushed against a wall" — desperate, territorial, and far more lethal in the narrow confines.

All the champions were locked in heated battles against the Obsidian Stalkers, facing the full brunt of the attack the Stalkers hadn't had the chance to fully display earlier with Zephyr.

In their cramped, dark tunnel, Riel was grunting as he exerted himself. He had his back pressed against the cold stone, shielding Elara behind him as they retreated.

"Stay back, Elara! This space is too tight for any major spells!" he yelled. A yell that didn't carry far, nearly fully muffled by the stone.

The tunnel was barely even wide enough for his shoulders at the depth they had reached. Another wave of four Obsidian Stalkers was barreling towards them, scraping against the rock frantically. It seemed even they had realized the new enemy was not like the one from before.

They could see these enemies, and could hear them too.

So they charged with a vengeance, as though releasing all their pent up fear and anger for being pushed this far back.

Riel roared and stomped his foot to stabilize himself as he chanted a flurry of words, weaving a spell model in the air which's effect was an earth shield.

A thick, rectangular slab of stone erupted from the floor, blocking the tunnel completely. It was thick and solid, giving the two elf variants a few seconds of respite to make their next steps.

The Stalkers slammed into the other side with the full momentum of their charge, eliciting a sharp cry as their hard black skin crunched against the stone, causing dust to fall from the edges.

One would think they would slow down after such a head spinning crash, but contrary to such expectations, they continued in their frantic state to claw at the stone, trying to tunnel through the obstacle.

"Mad beasts!" Riel cursed in surprise just as he was about to urge Elara to move.

"This is why finesse will always trump brute spells, Riel!" Elara's calm voice came from behind.

Before Riel could argue, a focused, high-frequency Sonic Pulse originated near Elara's hand from a spell model that she had already conjured.

Riel instinctively moved out of the way as she brought her hand up to the stone wall and triggered the sonic pulse to vibrate at a high frequency.

Elara closed her eyes in concentration, like she could feel the Obsidian Stalkers pressed against the other side of the stone wall, nearly bringing it down.

She looked like an expert at work, trying to tune her pulse to the right frequency — one that was resonant with the Stalkers' body frequency.

"Got you…" she whispered, opening her eyes and releasing a sharp sonic blast that while imperceivable to her or Riel's hearing, still made their hair and every other battle hardened sense stand at attention.

Riel could feel that something strong enough to at least injure him had passed through the wall.

A look of acknowledgement, and maybe perhaps respect, tinged with a trace of blasé expectation. This was most certainly not the first time he had seen her do this. But despite that he still looked impressed.

The four Stalkers pressed on the other side of the barrier froze, before convulsing spasmodically as the vibrations amplified through their hard skin.

With a wordless understanding, Riel let the stone blockade down, just as he noticed Elara weaving another spell model with her words.

A thin, near-invisible wire of air — a blade of tightly compressed air — zipped past the open space and cleanly decapitated the two closest Stalkers before they could recover.

She had fully bypassed the one defining feature of the stalkers with her unique display of biological understanding — vibrating the Stalkers to a high enough frequency that such a simple spell was enough to cleave through the foremost two without resistance before dissipating.

"See, Riel? Blunt force is brutes," she remarked dryly, stepping around him with sass. "We need to move. This path is a dead end. Let's find the main tunnel."

Riel shook his head, pushing past her and straight to the remaining two stunned Stalkers spasming on the ground further behind their fallen comrades.

He finished them with a simple, brutal kick enhanced expertly by wind magic. "Your methods take too long, Elara. Every second we spend doing 'finesse' is a second that the team ahead of us gets further away."

Elara simply started walking back. "Well what are you waiting for then… There are now two tunnels left where I think the team escaped through…"

Riel narrowed his eyes, before stepping after her, intending to move to a leading position again.

"Two—? Oh… I should've known…" he smiled wryly, as though realizing a fact.

Elara continued, sure they were now of the same understanding, even without her being explicit, "Let us hope none of the others have come out and headed into the correct tunnel…"

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Elara didn't need to worry though. Because just like they had, the other champions were locked in heated battles with the Obsidian Stalkers in their own tunnels. And all alone too.

At least Elara had Kiel with her… though even otherwise, her earlier display showed that she could handle herself just fine.

For the other champions in their individual tunnels, the fight was more desperate.

One had to know that so far, Elara and Riel were the only two to have displayed a form of magic that was much closer to the final form — spell execution with mana nodes.

Compared to their spell models similar to that of Komi's world which had traces of spell logic, the others had much more varied forms of magic — not as versatile, and most probably not as powerful. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

They used their various magical expressions to fight their way out of the tunnels, backing out until one by one, they all began to emerge back into the main tunnel between the Level 2 and 3 chambers, covered in varying degrees of grime, blood, and monster residue.

As they came out, those who still had Obsidian Stalkers fighting against them were immediately supported by the others who had made it out. Though in reality, this support mostly came from Riel and Elara — in particular Riel.

They were the cleanest-looking by far, and had the most energy to help out others.

Riel made use of a basic enhancement magic, like the one he'd used fighting against the flame demon variant back in the sandy desert during his first encounter with Zephyr.

He conserved the use of elemental spells, and attacked the remaining Stalkers with raw, brute force.

"T—Thank you…" One of the elf variant girls muttered as Riel delivered a sickening blow to a Stalker that was just about to catch her exposed side as she stumbled out of her tunnel.

He grunted a response without any trace of smugness despite the elf girl being the same one that had been mumbling nasty words at Elara earlier.

Soon, every one of the champions were out. Fully accounted for, with no casualty.

There were injuries to varying extent, but at least none of them died.

They all converged at the center of the large tunnel, watching the honeycomb wall with wary eyes.

"Damn. The team ahead must pack a serious punch." The Orc huffed as he nursed the bruise on his knuckles. He'd punched his way out of his tunnel with superior strength. He was one of the two that had the least injuries besides Elara and Riel, the other being the demon variant.

"They must be at least in the top…" he paused to estimate, "two hundred for them to have cleared that level as fast as they did… The whole lot of them."

The taller of the two dwarfs snorted, "Two hundred? I reckon they are in the top one hundred!"

"That's too much for a whole team," the orc inputted with a shake of his head.

"Oh? You think?" The dwarf asked with a mirthless chuckle. "You speak as if we did not just fight the same monsters. Do you really think if we were all together we could kill as much as they had in that chamber," he pointed, "and within the same short time?!"