Book 11: Chapter 70: Interception (3)

After throwing out two Golden Skeletons, the Necromancer reached out and tore off a pale purple teardrop-shaped pendant from his bracelet, tossing it to the ground. A harsh magical chant, “Aue,” came from his mouth.

The purple crystal pendant on the ground erupted with intense light. Inside the teardrop-shaped crystal, countless elemental crystalline threads extended out. In an instant, they formed a small Pentagram Array on the castle’s garden lawn.

The magical array shimmered with a crystalline glow, covering an extremely small area. Like a half-egg shell, it barely enveloped the Necromancer and his two followers, while the two Golden Skeletons were left outside the array.

Although the Zhentarim’s assassination plan this time seemed flawless, and they had prepared two escape arrays for the executor, as a Legendary-level powerhouse, the Necromancer clearly preferred to keep his fate in his own hands. So, he secretly prepared a backup plan for himself, and now it seemed absolutely necessary.

“It’s a Teleportation Array, stop him!” Seeing the Pentagram Array, Great Sage Laini, who was floating in the air, frowned and shouted to the people on the ground. At the same time, she began a series of magical chants, trying to disrupt the magical frequency of the Teleportation Array.

The Toril World was a fantasy world with a highly developed magical civilization, boasting over ten complete magical systems. These included: Draconic Magic, Ancient Elven Magic, Mystra’s Magic Web, Faith-based Divine Magic, the Nether Scrolls magical system, Alchemy, Magical Potion-making, Soul-based Magic, as well as the rarer Abyssal Talents and Totem Spells.

Among these magical systems, users of Draconic Magic were extremely rare. Apart from a few ancient dragons in slumber, there were only a handful of Dragon-blooded Mages.

Ancient Elven Magicians were mostly the purest-blooded royal families and Elf Elders from various Elven Courts. Strictly speaking, Druidic spells also belonged to a branch of Ancient Elven Magic. They could be considered the most powerful casters in the current Toril World.

In the war history of the Vale Calendar, several catastrophic war Forbidden Spells all originated from these High Elves.

As for the magical systems formed by Mystra’s Magic Web and Faith-based Divine Magic, they were the most widely used spell systems today.

The former emerged because the excessive use of magic by vast numbers of mid to low-level Magicians on Faerûn in recent times caused magical elements to become disordered and chaotic. The Goddess of Magic Mystra created it to harmonize the chaos in the magical element pool and restrain Magicians from abusing magic.

The latter were protective spells granted by deities of various pantheons to their followers to spread faith and gain divine power.

The Nether Scrolls, whose true origins remained unknown and which led to the rise of an Arcane Empire, mostly vanished into the river of history with the fall of the Netheril Magic Empire, leaving behind only a few scattered pages.

Only in the fields of Alchemy and Magical Potion-making, which were related to the Nether Scrolls and developed later, could one glimpse the profundity and breadth of this magical system.

Soul-based Magic covered a wide range of knowledge, with its main branch being Necromancy. It originated in the late Netheril Arcane Era, when many High Rank and Legendary Magicians began researching this forbidden field in pursuit of extended lifespans.

Abyssal Talent spells were even rarer than Draconic Magic. These were innate talents passed down through the bloodline of powerful beings that invaded the Prime Material World from the Abyssal plane.

Totem Spells were another rather peculiar system. They were mostly circulated among socially primitive Sapient Races like Orcs and Trolls. They possessed characteristics of divine magic while also touching upon the soul system, as Orc and Troll tribes often worshipped their ancestors or some powerful ancient spirits.

The casters who could most skillfully use Totem Spells and demonstrate a complete system were usually the Shamans of large Orc tribes.

Because the Toril World had so many spell systems, a lot of magical elements were guided to leak from the Magic Web’s elemental pool. This made most High Rank magic, especially complex space-time magic, highly susceptible to interference from external stray magical energies.

For example, most of a Mage’s teleportation spells, disintegrate matter spells, magic shields, and time spells had extremely strict limitations.

The idea of teleporting while wildly throwing explosive fireballs, or snapping fingers to stop time, either belonged to fantasy worlds with extremely simple World Laws, or existed only in people’s imaginations, not in the complex multi-world of Toril with its intricate World Laws.

The offensive capabilities of the Mage profession went without saying, but close-range defense was always an irreparable weakness. Most instant-cast spells were low-level magic and had significant limitations.

Most High Rank Mages in the Toril World typically only fixed some auto-triggered mid to low-level elemental shields and detection spells on their robes and staffs. It wasn’t because they couldn’t fix High Rank magical shields, but because the elemental structure of High Rank magic was too complex. If the external environment didn’t meet the trigger conditions, it would be like installing a time bomb on themselves.

Low-level Protection spells combined with various detection spells were usually enough to ensure they weren’t instantly killed by stealth classes like Rogues and Assassins. The subsequent defense work would then be handed over to their followers or other warrior companions.

The higher the rank of the spell, the more stable the magical structure required. High Rank and Legendary Mages usually needed the help of Magical Arrays and long incantations to complete a High Rank spell. This way, they could form a magically stable structure and reduce the backlash from spell failure.

The main reason why Archmages like Elastor were difficult to assassinate wasn’t because their defenses were exceptionally strong—after all, how could a Mage’s defense surpass that of a Knight or Warrior in full magic armor? It was because of various composite passive detection spells that ensured she couldn’t be ambushed.

The earlier assassination attempt in the Banquet Hall trapped Elastor in a desperate situation, not because she couldn’t detect the Assassin, but because the Assassin didn’t use stealth and attacked openly.

As for whether there were Legendary-like spells such as time stop, of course there were. But in the Toril World, you would absolutely never see the phenomenon of two Archmages frantically snapping fingers, pressing pocket watches, and then stabbing each other with daggers.

Archmages were still bound by World Laws. Even Elastor herself, as Mystra’s Chosen, received blessings from the Goddess of Magic that only included accelerated spellcasting, silent chanting, and chosen immunity.

The accelerated spellcasting and silent chanting only applied to the Magic Web system. It was as if the Goddess of Magic had left a backdoor in the Magic Web for Elastor, reducing her spellcasting communication time, but still unable to grant her the ability to instantly cast High Rank spells.

The most powerful chosen immunity could extend life, ward off diseases, and keep Elastor forever young, but the control spells from which she gained immunity all came from the Magic Web system.

For example, Elastor could magically resist an ordinary Mage’s Web Spell, but she couldn’t resist the Web Spell stored in Qin Lun’s Glove of Sacrifice, because its magical power and spell structure did not originate from the Magic Web.

What truly made Archmages troublesome was the Legendary Forbidden Spells they condensed after extensive preparation, using auxiliary arrays and long incantations. That was what truly set them apart from other Legendary Professions in terms of terror.

Laini, as a Great Sage of Candlekeep and one of the Eight Readers, although her combat experience couldn’t compare to other Archmages, her magical knowledge was extremely profound. She immediately recognized that the Necromancer’s simple array was the “Thomas Dimensional Passage,” which had the simplest and most stable spell structure but was very rare.

It was said that during the Arcane Era, an Archmage named Thomas Meyer invented this Teleportation Array.

Actually, in its initial stage, this array was just a short-range teleportation spell in array form. Its requirements for enchantment materials were very strict, and only some large organizations could gather them all. But since the spell effect was only short-range teleportation, it was not highly regarded.

However, as the spell gradually improved, High Rank Mages soon discovered its two advantages.

First, it wasn’t a simple teleportation array. Although the distance was short, its principle was to create a planar transmission channel between two points. Its structure was quite stable, and the array would come with a medium-strength isolation shield, almost unaffected by most external interferences.

In short, it could ignore the Mythal Barrier covering the Palace of the High!

Second, it could be engraved on very small pure magical crystals, making it not only easy to carry but also saving the time needed to draw the array temporarily. In some special situations, it could turn the tide unexpectedly.

Compared to these two advantages, the drawback of the array’s enchantment materials seemed completely tolerable.

Hearing Laini’s shout, Idria was the first to charge forward. The Female Knight had lost her family-heirloom Double-Bladed Axe in the Death Lands. Now, she held a huge Horse-Cutting Saber, which she had obtained from somewhere.

At her side, Iristin’s body rapidly enlarged with a roar, transforming into a giant magic bear that pounced towards the shimmering array. From the other two corners, Mastashia drew her bow and nocked an arrow, while Rand directly threw a Lava Sphere at the array.

“Bang, bang…” With several slightly different impact sounds, Idria was sent flying back faster than she had charged. In front of her, a Golden Skeleton maintained a flashy high-kicking pose.

Iristin also failed to break through the defense of the second Golden Skeleton. The giant bear and the disproportionately sized skeleton locked hands, engaged in a contest of strength. The transformed Iristin was actually pushed back step by step by the skeleton’s brute force, her hind legs plowing two deep grooves in the lawn.

As for Rand’s Lava Sphere, it collided with the eggshell-like shield generated by the array, bursting into flames that scattered everywhere. The magical shield trembled violently, its surface glow flickering, but it stubbornly held on.

Only Mastashia’s Piercing Arrow was the only effective method in this wave of attacks.

The Harper Master’s Piercing Arrow obviously belonged to the type that ignored elemental protection. It passed directly through the magical shield, shooting towards the Necromancer in the center of the array. But in the end, this arrow was blocked by one of the followers in front of the Mage.

“Giggle, these are two Legendary warriors I killed and turned into undead puppets. Let them stay and keep you company!” The Necromancer let out a creepy laugh with his hoarse voice.

His figure and those of his two followers slowly faded within the shimmering glow, while a vortex-shaped space-time channel appeared above the array.

“It’s too late!” Seeing this, Hill, who was at the rear, glanced at Laini and Linda, who were still chanting, and felt a slight sinking in his heart.

He could have acted; the Illithid’s Mind Blast might have affected the Necromancer, causing the teleportation to fail. But doing so risked the well-informed Laini seeing through his bloodline. Illithids were not welcome in the Outer World.

The Shepherd’s gaze flickered with unwillingness for a moment, but his clenched hands eventually relaxed.

At that moment, a violent magical fluctuation spread out in an arc from within the Palace of the High, sweeping across the entire castle area inside the Mythal Barrier.