Chapter 98 - No Mana Left

Chapter 98: 98 - No Mana Left

Lucien continued anyway.

For the next several minutes, he kept moving through the chamber with the same stubborn focus, even as the signs of exhaustion became harder to ignore. His breathing had turned rough, his steps were heavier, and the bow in his hand no longer looked completely stable. The manifested weapon flickered at the edges whenever his mana dipped, reminding Adrien that keeping an Item present was a cost by itself.

Absolute Mana Sense made Lucien’s condition impossible to miss. His reserve was almost empty.

The Ancient Tree seemed to understand it too.

Its attacks had shifted almost entirely toward him. Thick roots no longer struck at random across the chamber. They bent around frozen sections, crawled over broken stone and converged on the Ranger whenever he stopped long enough to fire. Lucien kept escaping by moving between ruined columns and elevated slabs, but each dodge was slower than the last.

"Two above you," Adrien warned.

Lucien moved before the roots descended, sliding from a fractured ledge and landing below. He drew immediately, but instead of reaching for the ordinary arrows on his back, he opened his Inventory.

A penetration arrow manifested between his fingers.

Then another.

"Don’t do it—you have hardly any mana left!" Amelia shouted to him from farther behind.

Lucien didn’t elaborate. He nocked the first arrow and aimed toward a massive connection running from the ceiling into the Ancient Tree’s upper back. Adrien had already marked the weak point where two sections of bark overlapped.

"Three fingers lower," Adrien said.

Lucien adjusted and fired.

The arrow punched deep into the joint. Before the Ancient Tree could redirect mana through another route, Lucien manifested his final explosive arrow and sent it into the same wound.

The blast split the root apart.

A violent tremor passed through the chamber. The Ancient Tree twisted, and several of the yellow-brown Heartroot Crystals buried inside its torso dimmed for an instant as another major supply route disappeared.

Lucien exhaled sharply.

His bow flickered again.

This time it didn’t recover.

"Lucien, pull back now."

He took one step toward them.

The bow lost cohesion in his hand and dissolved into loose motes of mana.

Adrien felt Lucien’s reserve hit almost nothing at the same moment.

Then the floor behind him erupted.

A root thicker than a man’s torso tore free from the stone and swung toward Lucien’s exposed side. Adrien reacted instantly, driving Umbral Root forward as [Ice Wall] surged between them.

The wall formed in time, but it wasn’t enough.

A second root struck the barrier from the opposite side. Ice fractured with a deafening crack, deep lines spreading across the entire wall before it burst apart under the combined force.

Lucien turned.

Too late.

The first root hit him directly across the ribs.

His body folded around the impact. Adrien heard the dull crack of bone even through the noise of the chamber, and Lucien was lifted completely from the ground. He flew several meters before striking a ruined stone structure with his back and shoulder.

His head snapped against the edge.

Then he dropped.

He didn’t move.

"Lucien!"

Amelia abandoned her position immediately.

She ran across the frozen stone while Adrien tracked every root around her. Her mace and shield were still manifested, draining mana she now needed for something far more important. Amelia dismissed both before reaching Lucien, and the two Items vanished back into mana.

She dropped beside him.

Blood was already spreading beneath his clothes. One side of his chest had sunk unnaturally, his shoulder sat wrong, and a thin line of red ran from his temple where his head had struck the stone. His breathing came in shallow, uneven pulls.

Amelia placed both hands against his torso.

Her face changed.

"His ribs are broken. Several of them." Healing mana gathered around her palms. "There’s internal bleeding too. I need to stop it now."

"Can you?"

"Yes, but I can’t move him. And I can’t stop healing."

That was all Adrien needed to hear.

The party was gone.

Lucien was unconscious. Amelia was locked in place keeping him alive. Every Root Crawler, Barkling and moving root in the chamber now had only one person left to stop them.

Adrien turned toward the Ancient Tree.

Several roots were already changing direction.

Toward Amelia.

"No."

He raised Umbral Root and cast [Ice Wall] three times in rapid succession. Thick barriers erupted around Amelia and Lucien, overlapping instead of forming a perfect enclosure. Adrien left narrow gaps between them so Amelia could breathe, see outside and move if absolutely necessary.

The first root crashed into the outer wall.

Cracks appeared instantly.

Adrien formed another behind it before the first one failed.

"Focus on Lucien," he said without looking back. "Nothing gets through."

Amelia kept both hands over Lucien’s chest. "Adrien—"

"I’ve got it."

Adrien tightened his grip on Umbral Root and looked across the chamber.

Until now, he’d been fighting while adapting to Lucien and Amelia, controlling the battlefield around what the three of them could do together. That was no longer possible. If he wanted to keep them alive and bring down the Ancient Tree, he needed to find out exactly how far he could push himself.

’Let’s see where my limit actually is.’

He expanded [Winter’s Reach].

Not gradually this time. The domain flooded outward from Adrien until cold seized the entire chamber. Water froze solid. Frost raced up ruined buildings, spread over the ceiling roots and buried old stone beneath white. Barklings locked in place as ice climbed their bodies. Smaller roots became rigid and snapped when they tried to move.

Even the Ancient Tree slowed.

Amelia looked up through one of the gaps between the Ice Walls.

Adrien stood alone in the frozen chamber.

Then mana began gathering around him.

[Frost Lance].

Ten formed.

Then dozens.

Then hundreds.

Adrien kept going.

The air filled with ice until Amelia could no longer count them. Every lance remained suspended, perfectly stable, each one held in place by Adrien while Absolute Mana Sense tracked every root, every creature and every vulnerable section of the Ancient Tree at once.

Five hundred.

Seven hundred.

More.

Amelia’s healing didn’t stop, but for one brief second everything else in her mind did.

Adrien was Two Stars.

She knew that.

She also knew what a Mage at Two Stars was supposed to be capable of.

This wasn’t it.

More than a thousand [Frost Lance] spells now hovered throughout the chamber, their points aimed toward the Ancient Tree and the network surrounding it.

Adrien raised Umbral Root.

And Amelia could only stare.