Overpowered Wizard-Chapter 279: B3: C69: Kill First, Ask Questions Later

Kill first. Ask questions later. We cannot be soft here, Zarian shared across the spider network. I can’t say how powerful the enslavers are. I don’t want to risk tipping them off by identifying them with my devourer trait. But they feel dangerous to my Wonder stat. Bianca, what are you sensing?

We’re up against some real baddies! Bianca shared on the spider network, her thoughts fuzzing a little because of the distance and obstacles.

Above their ambush point, black clouds covered the skies, raining oil and coals. Sludge-covered buildings with spherical rooftops stood burdened under the ceaseless foul weather.

Many structures, some bigger than even the Central Library Artillery Tower back at home, laid in desolate ruins, partially sunken into the sludge-covered streets of the sprawling mega city. Skeletons of dead Somnolites remained fossilized in muck that coated everything like a thick mucus film.

The wizard waited in the interior of one decrepit and fouled structure, hidden in the darkness with Hannah by his side. With his aura limited, he used his spectral spiders to watch a platoon of enslavers hurrying across the immense city-covered island.

The wizard shared his observations with the artificer and the others while his spiders did their best to stay hidden and out of the horrible weather from their high vantage points.

Their vision wasn’t crystal clear in the awful weather and low aura density environment. But he, Hannah, and the others on the spider network could make out the initial appearance of their oncoming enemy.

Most of the invading enslavers looked like something straight out of a cyberpunk genre convention, but enormous.

Twenty-nine of the cyberpunk-wearing enslavers stood twenty feet tall while wearing futuristic black helmets and thick body-suits with neon gold symbols engraved along the seams and curves.

Each fluid and powerful stride propelled the giant enslavers with more speed and grace than expected from humanoids who were taller than even Hoodah the Hulk Meister.

One enslaver, however, seemed human-sized. The smaller enslaver flew a few feet above the sludge-covered streets while surrounded by the giant enslavers.

The human-sized enslaver wore the inverse coloration of their cyberpunk outfit, a mostly gold helmet and bodysuit with neon gray runes on the edges. Despite the smaller size, Zarian sensed that one was the most dangerous.

The wizard noticed Hannah’s heart rate picking up with guilty intrigue on the spider network. She quickly schooled herself. Not an easy task. Zarian figured the enchanted gear from another universe piqued Hannah’s nearly insatiable curiosity.

He reached over and squeezed her forearm reassuringly. Hannah nodded back at him in the gloom.

As the enslavers drew closer to the ambush point, Zarian summoned all of his grimoires, Voidling, Black, Gator, and the returning Morph. The wizard signed with both hands and chanted quietly as his grimoires orbited, rattled, hovered, or scrambled around him.

Every intention, every movement, every breath, it all felt heavier while down this low to the surface. The gravity of the oily oceans wanted to drag everything down into their sludgy depths.

Even magic seemed to suffer the dragging effect from the Dying World of Gravity and Dreams. The lack of Strength and Agility made everything harder on Zarian especially, but at least he wasn’t suffering alone. He had his friends enduring the suck with him.

Give them hell, Zarian sent on the spider network, unsealing One Percent Darkness, grunting from the stress. Give them a taste of that good ol’ Floridian freedom.

He couldn’t go any further than One Percent Darkness right now. The low aura density made it harder to control the fearsome and calamitous power.

He needed to concentrate more to direct a single percent for a simple construction – a gigantic dome entrapping everyone inside. All the oil rain and coal hail cut off immediately.

The stress on Zarian didn’t last once he found his groove and recognized Hannah’s hand gripping his arm in return. She closed her eyes behind her Solid State Spectacles and directed her epic traits Aura Mechanic and Aura Generator to keep Zarian fueled.

They had thick Somnolite belts with crystal shards weaved into the material around their waists for extra aura. They had small but potent gravity arrays webbed onto their backs for pulling in more aura.

Zarian had everything he needed to play his role as Conquest Wizard while under cover and darkness. So, he quickly rolled into the next part of the ambush as the platoon of enslavers came to a hesitant stop.

Zarian cast Void Domain in a tight bubble around him for his buffs. As he worked on another series of spells, Hannah sent a simple signal to a spectral spider standing duty further away from the ambush point.

A moment later, something hurtled past the domed rooftops, rattling Zarian and Hannah’s hideout with a sonic boom. That something, a supersonic artillery round, had come from a small battery made of Zarian’s spiders and Hannah’s golems they’d planted further away along with other surprises around the mega city.

Zarian watched through his spectral spiders as the air-burst round erupted above the enslavers’ heads. Concussive magic that would’ve pulped most problems into gooey bits back in the World of Castles and Caverns forced the enslavers into a few stumbling steps and no more.

The same couldn’t be said for the ruins around the enslavers. The air-burst concussive blast shattered and scattered the ancient muck-covered structures, clearing the space with a destructive roar. Yet, the enslavers remained standing, whole, and alive.

Oh, so it’s like that, huh? Zarian thought. The enslavers are tougher than hell orcs, for sure. Fine then. Let’s bang ‘em up.

Zarian finished his preparations for the folktale magic that he reread speedily in his head. “Triple Quagmire Pit. Triple Dread Mire Bite. Triple Dread Mire Bellow.”

The Advanced Grimoire of the Hell Gator +3 worked differently compared to other grimoires. Zarian had to remember and mentally recite folktales to work the magic.

Every folktale spell in Gator’s grimoire grew longer, more complicated, more flowery as the quality rose, too. On top of that, the grimoire mostly worked in a sequence, starting with the first spell followed by the next until reaching the end.

Zarian had never reached the end of the sequence on a worthy enemy before, and he wasn’t sure if he’d get that chance here. But that was only the most straightforward function of Gator’s grimoire.

A trickier function that Zarian wanted to abuse against the first wave of enslavers was the triple cast power of the Gator.

Three Quagmire Pits appeared at the front, middle, and back of the enslaver platoon. Then three semi-invisible gator jaws lunged up from the pits and snapped their great teeth on the cyberpunk giants and their one cyberpunk humanoid.

The teeth barely cut through their outfits, drawing some blood, but not much. The large gator jaws released their hold and sank away before the hellish gators returned once again, their snouts rising and shoving aside the giants.

Each of the three jaws snapped open and released their powerful bellows. Having three of the same shocking, traumatic, and damaging guttural blasts going off shook the enslavers about and even knocked a few down from their lofty heights.

But that was about it.

Zarian and Hannah’s first opening attack damaged the enslavers’ enchanted gear, drew some blood, shook them up, but none of that would stick for long. Most enemies would’ve fallen outright to that display of power. But the enslavers proved much, much tougher.

Within a few seconds, the enslavers seemed to stabilize themselves with an extraordinary recovery speed. They didn’t get the time to return to tip-top shape, however, not when Hannah and Zarian had more to deliver.

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Two air-burst artillery rounds erupted above the enslavers’ heads. Another triple cast of Quagmire Pit, Dread Mire Bite, and Dread Mire Bellow happened on the edges of the enslavers, corralling them toward the center of the target box.

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The giants got knocked down some more. Their gear suffered more rips. More blood leaked.

Zarian repeated the same tactic with Hannah, but this time the artificer gave specific orders to the spider-golem arty battery through the network. They fired four artillery rounds for the next go around.

Three ended up as air-burst concussive rounds that struck above the enslavers’ heads. The last artillery round soared higher before exploding into a bright star midair, drifting near the ceiling, shining a solar light on the darkened and entrapped desolation under Zarian’s One Percent Dome.

With the place lit up, the other Floridians knew to prepare themselves to strike after the barrage of spells and artillery rounds calmed down. But things didn’t go exactly as planned when the human-sized enslaver launched upward while surrounded in a bubble of vibrant, thick, and bright golden energy.

She yelled out with a squeaky feminine voice while using a language Zarian knew from the old world. Zarian translated automatically for the others using his trait Devourer of Secrets and Stories.

“Min’na o sukuu no o tome sasenai! Yami o dorei ni shinakucha!”

‘I won’t let this stop me from saving everyone! I must enslave the darkness!’

Zarian sent a warning for everyone to brace themselves for retaliation when the Japanese woman made her body flash dynamically. One of the giant enslavers on the mucky ground jerked about, emitting a vaguely feminine roar before falling over and ending up twisted like a pretzel.

Then the bright golden light surrounding the Japanese enslaver flashed ever brighter before a destructive beam streaked between her and the arty battery location.

The following eruption weakened a corner of Zarian’s One Percent Dome and stressed him out. A dozen blocks of the decrepit and sludge-covered city went up in smoke, debris flying everywhere, Hannah’s crafts and golems lost in the noise and fury.

We should strike that enslaver down now! Gilbert sent through the network, still waiting in his hiding spot with Naomi and Bianca.

Wait for it! She’s goading us to come out. Endure a little longer. Trust me, Zarian ordered on the network.

The Japanese girl screamed out again. “Anata koso saidai no akudesu! Anata o tsukamaete, nidoto dare mo kizutsukenai yō ni shimasu!”

‘You are the greatest evil! I will enslave you and make sure you never hurt anyone ever again!’

She sacrificed another one of the giant enslavers – or slaves – for a big burst of power. She enshrined herself in a bright egg of golden light before casting down a barrage of golden bolts that splashed softly on the area around the ambush site and beyond.

She raised her arms. The gold-touched structures lifted with the motion of her arms. Tons and tons of building material, ancient city structures, and Somnolite graves went skyward. Some slammed into the ceiling of the dome.

She waved her arms down and sent everything crashing back to the floor.

Zarian and Hannah had the wondrous luck of not having their place picked up by the main enslaver’s magic. But they had to contend with falling buildings coming down near them or on them.

The wizard and artificer moved quickly down the ancient staircase of their hideout. They reached the bottom floor, muck slurping up to their shins, as their hideout’s rooftop collapsed along with a few floors above their heads.

Zarian grunted as tendrils of darkness reached up from around him and Hannah, catching the ceiling and keeping it from falling on top of them.

He didn’t dare use Void Parade just yet. Instead, he mundanely walked out through a crumbling hole in the wall with Hannah in tow.

He draped them both in the darkest shadows, keeping multiple newly redistributed structures and piles of debris between them and the psycho Japanese girl.

Zarian figured they could reach another undisturbed structure to use as cover. Unfortunately, their target found them first, despite his best efforts.

The Japanese girl teleported suddenly, hovering in her golden barrier in front of the wizard and the artificer. Her cyberpunk visor had neon rune lights that flickered about to emote with distinct characterized faces, such as an angry emote glaring down at Zarian and Hannah.

The enslaver even spoke her next words in English.

“Hello, my name is Keiko. Please come with me. I will take you back to the Enslavement System where you can be my slave forever.”

“That’s a hell to the fucking no!” Para/Naomi growled, flying across the demolished city like a heat-seeking missile.

She/they extended a foot aimed for the small of Keiko’s back.

Keiko didn’t even bother to look behind her. The angry emote on the enslaver’s visor stayed focused on Zarian as Keiko teleported the twenty-seven remaining cyberpunk giants into the scene at once.

Some giants crashed down directly onto their big boots and made roaring battle cries. Others fell in with limbs spread wide on Naomi like giant body-slamming wrestlers. Six of them tried to reach down for Zarian and Hannah directly.

Zarian wrapped his arm around Hannah’s waist before unleashing Void Parade as a surprise counterattack to Keiko’s surprise attack. He snatched up twelve of the cyberpunk giants along the way.

Void Parade took the wizard, the artificer, and the giants across the city before stopping near a pit close to the edge of the One Percent Dome. The giants fell into the pit, too slow to respond after suffering from exposure to the void.

Hannah quickly covered the pit with a thick layer of enchanted and nearly immovable cubes. Then Zarian used Void Parade again to transport him and the artificer to the dome roof of a distant tower that was two thousand feet tall.

A second later, Hannah blew the bombs she’d staged at the bottom of the pit.

Once again, Zarian struggled to keep his One Percent Dome from breaking at the corner. Hannah’s bombing trap rocked the ruined island city and pressurized the air inside of the dome.

The air pressure alone forced Zarian to create a few gaps in his dome for release before sealing the dome again.

The dome needed to stay as perfect as possible to avoid the attention of the entropic titans, because one attack from those behemoths could ruin everything.

The battle waged onward.

Para/Naomi tried to take on Keiko and her giants. Gilbert and Bianca joined to help the furious phantom psychic duo, which wasn’t exactly to plan. The Floridians had to adapt to the situation now, and from what Zarian could tell, the situation wasn’t favorable.

“No defeat notifications,” Hannah said. “I don’t know if we can’t get those because they’re from an entirely different universe or if they are still alive.”

“Let’s check,” Zarian grunted, using Void Parade again sooner than he’d prefer.

He felt his aura dipping down fast, but not too fast. The crystal belts and the gravity array on his back were helping tremendously.

Everything they could do for aura was worth more gold than the royal family could pay back in the fragmented Eternal Garden Kingdom. Hannah by herself was worth more gold than all the kingdoms, including Carrowmore, back in the Walled Continent.

Nah, Hannah’s priceless. And so are the others, Zarian thought, exiting the void.

The wizard and the artificer landed on the edge of the blast zone. Flakes of dried muck crunched under their feet. Burning debris and smog surrounded them. Everything seemed dead or destroyed to their six senses and limited aura perception, at least at first.

The sudden eruption of massive movement to their left triggered Zarian’s fight and flight response. He chose to fight, and so did Hannah.

The artificer moved in front of him.

The wizard took one step back and raised his hand.

Zarian used Aura Mastery to cast his first Blazing Blood Blast. He sacrificed some of his own blood within his body, his palm ripping open to spray out the crimson liquid.

He sent flying a golf-ball sized blood orb into the naked chest of a bronze-skinned woman who was twenty feet tall and covered in horrific runes carved into her flesh.

The white and frenzied eyes of the giant amazonian woman had no spark of intelligence in them, no humanity, only the trained focus of an attack dog throwing herself at her target.

Seeing that, Zarian knew for sure that the giant enslavers weren’t enslavers, they were the enslaved. Yet, he couldn’t hold back.

His Blazing Blood Blast struck the slave’s chest. The spell erupted with force and fury that he added using Aura Mastery, forcing the giant woman to stumble a little, slowing her charge, even if not by much.

A crimson inferno fanned out from the impact spot with the giant slave at the center. The slave’s bleeding wounds turned bright crimson as the blazing flames wrapped around Zarian and Hannah, feeding them life energy directly.

Zarian felt high off the extra life energy without losing himself. Hannah gasped, never having the same pleasure before until now.

To her credit, the artificer didn’t let the highness of extra life energy distract her from the danger of a twenty-foot giant with no sense of self-preservation running them down.

Hannah pulled out her latest creation from the spatial pocket inside of her bodysuit as neon green runes scrolled around her like a magical matrix.

The Bulwark-Busting Blunderbuss Mark 1 looked like a medieval shotgun that was too large for Hannah’s five-foot tall frame.

The thick wooden handle didn’t even have a trigger, only some dwarven enchantments that Hannah had learned from her rigorous studies and experiments. The heavy barrel flared out like a bell at the end while covered in more dwarven enchantments that glowed red hot, ready to fire.

Armed and loaded, Hannah charged forward with seemingly reckless abandon.

She wasn’t being reckless, Zarian noted.

She was making great use of her Mystic Rush Tank +3 and the buffs from some of her traits: the rare Armor Wrecker, the rare Impotence Seeker, the mythical Mass Destruction Designer, and the mythical Savant of Runes and Crafts.

All of those buffs, plus Hannah’s rush forward, turned her into a charging tank fighting on the front lines for Zarian. She entered the same league of toughness as the others with a weapon crafted from the love and madness of a mythical artificer, the 123rd Master Ranked Crafter of the entire Infinita Star System.