Monsters kept coming, bodies crashing through dead roots, claws scraping barkless trunks, the ground shaking under too many feet. I stayed still; if I abandoned my position, the others would get surrounded and slaughtered.

  I heard Rhea shout, sharp and urgent.

  “Let that eldir pass!”

  I didn’t turn.

  My arcane sense had stretched wide, a second skin laid over the battlefield. I felt everything. The barriers are flaring and flexing behind me. Jerome’s shouts as he swung his staff. Melissa’s steady, disciplined output as she shaped mana into the perfect impediments against our enemies. Mary’s focus was tight and controlled.

  And I felt the eldir Rhea was talking about.

  It slipped through an opening in the line, fast. I felt it accelerate, a sharp signal cutting through the chaos, heading straight for Rhea’s position.

  I shifted my attention just enough to keep the eldir in my awareness, ready to intervene. I’d give her space, but I wasn’t letting her die for nothing if her plan failed.

  The others in the back were busy, too. I felt monsters breaking off, trying to overwhelm the girls and Jerome, probing for weakness. Still, the bulk of the swarm was on me.

  Another wave surged from the front.

  My mana was low. Not empty, but definitely below a fifth. I didn’t need a number to know that, even if it would have been nice to have.

  So I reached out again, not for mana, but for their life.

  I latched onto the roots threaded through the monsters, the parasitic networks feeding them, and pulled hard. The life force came tearing free, raw and violent, nothing like the clean flow of mana. It burned as I forced it into shape.

  Golden barriers snapped into existence around me, overlapping, flaring bright as claws and horns struck them. I detonated the stored energy outward in a series of Arcane Blasts, bodies flying, and roots snapping like rotten wood.

  I could do that? Who knew?

  Darts followed, one after another, each one formed from compressed life force and will. They punched through skulls, cores, and knots of writhing growth. Monsters fell mid-charge, collapsing into heaps before they could even scream.

  I drove another Arcane Blast forward, wide again, shoving a cluster of beasts back into each other, buying myself half a second. Half a second was enough.

  My head throbbed viciously.

  Using life force like this wasn’t clean. The strain built fast, an enormous pressure behind my eyes, a vice around my temples as the spell structures protested. It was like mana was made to be shaped. Life force instead had to be dominated.

  The clearing filled with golden light and rupturing bodies. Monsters died left and right, the ground slick with ichor and splintered roots. Those that didn’t die were driven back, momentum reversed by blasts fuelled by their comrades’ deaths.

  Through it all, I kept part of my focus locked on Rhea. I could feel dings from the system messages, both from kills and from level-ups of skills; maybe I’m going to get some new achievement after the fight.

  I raised my hand and summoned another dart, infused it with as much stolen energy as I could and primed it with an Arcane Blast. My head was killing me; I was doing something that was barely possible with mana apparently, only I used the wrong type of energy.

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  The once forearm-sized dart was now more than two metres long, shining brightly like the sun. There was a kind of hypnotic quality to it; the swirls of energy into its matrix were beautiful and scary at the same time. I grabbed it with my right hand and took aim.

  This battle wasn’t going on for long, but the sheer amount of spells I cast was taking a toll on me; I was going to end it.

  With all my might, both physical and magical, I threw my giant spike-like creation towards the tree-root core, into the maroon light coming out of its twisted nucleus.

  All the monsters between me and it threw themselves into the path of the spell; at least twenty got obliterated before the spell exploded in a beautiful conflagration of golden light that took with it even more monsters and the two humans controlled by the roots.

  When the light vanished, in front of me stood a corridor of destruction that ended in a blast zone at least twenty feet in diameter; the roots, unfortunately, were still alive and kicking, given that the monsters didn’t stop coming after us.

  But I hurt it, and not a little; the tree roots had been basically blasted open, and the maroon light was spilling from some kind of heart-like organ, pumping a black sludge slowly out on the ground.

  A screeching sound started to be heard from the enemy, and the tree started moving about, doing god knows what, but I didn’t have the luxury of focusing on that; more monsters were coming towards us from all around.

  I took a breath; I was sweating and panting lightly now. That spell took a toll on me.

  But I was grinning at the power I now wielded; with a laugh, I strengthened up and cast more Drain the Accursed. There were only three monsters in range, a range that was still expanding since I found the way to use the skill without direct contact.

  The monsters went to the ground screaming, adding to the chaos around us. I felt the eldir behind me, the one Rhea was targeting, die, and she was still alive, so I supposed she succeeded in whatever ritual she prepared. Good girl. I knew she was someone worthy of being nurtured.

  Later, I told myself. This wasn’t over; more energy was flowing into me, and all around of the initial monster, not more than twenty were still around us, but more were constantly coming from the forest. How many could this guy control?

  I started shooting more darts, smaller this time, more the size of knitting needles than the previous darts, but I infused them with Arcane Blast. If Marco fucking Turetta could shoot exploding arrows, I don’t see why I couldn’t do the same. Mine were much more vicious, though.

  I let loose six of the small needles, all finding their marks. I felt the monster die after the spell penetrated their bodies and the explosion destroyed their insides. I wasn’t even watching where I shot them; I was watching the tree root unroot itself from the ground. That couldn’t be good.

  But I kept firing the golden needles while starting to drain the monsters behind me, the one the others were attacking. There were no more monsters coming directly at me; all were amassing around the now-standing tree. It reformed around the core, roots twisting and coiling until it started to resemble a headless giant made out of the meanest root that ever existed; an opening in its chest, if it could be called a chest, spilt its maroon light, and let out a sound that made me want to tear off my ears.

  The monster roared and stood tall; it was probably more than thirty feet tall now, and it was clearly absorbing the other monsters somehow. The corpses of the one it parasitised before fell dead, husks deprived of any life, grey like the soil we stood upon. While the seeds it planted in them crawled inside its chest and made the light coming from inside the thing get stronger and stronger. We dispatched the last of the monsters around us. I told the others to not kill the last four I was using as batteries, and then I refocused on what to do.

  The root finished absorbing all the monsters still alive; they weren’t few, but nowhere near the number there was at the beginning. Its body looked engorged now, bulging and trying to reform around all the spawn it absorbed. The last monsters I was absorbing died, and so I started walking forward; the energy inside me was intoxicatingly powerful, like always, and demanded release.

  So I shaped a hex, made with pure stolen life and all my bad intentions. I didn’t have to focus on my surroundings anymore; there were no more monsters except for the one standing in front of me, so I poured the entirety of my focus and willpower into casting the spell. It was prepared, and it was beautiful. I could see it with my senses in the palm of my hand. Never before had I created something like this; it looked alive.

  I stood transfixed for a moment, a chime sounding in the back of my head, then I looked up at the monster with a smile. “You know, now it will be a good time to start begging…”

  And released the spell.

  20 chapters ahead!