Chapter 60: A trap and all

When the blast ended and the dust settled, the scene around them was not a good one.

The group was scattered across the ground. Their tank had died on the spot, a massive gash running right through his body, his shield lying a few feet from his hand. Kira was knocked out cold, but she was still breathing. Mark was curled on his side with his hand ripped clean off, groaning through his teeth as blood soaked into the dirt.

Roger was the only one standing. His sword was in his hands, and his eyes were filled with hate as they locked on the undead marching toward them.

Sophia had thrown herself over Leon when the blast landed. She had taken serious wounds from it, but nothing that threatened her life. She pushed herself up slowly, her breath uneven.

Leon sat up under her arm and looked around. His heart rate began to climb fast.

’The tank... Mark’s hand... Kira...’

Dio Larek’s words started coming back to him. A walking body of calamity. The world itself is trying to get rid of you. He had laughed it off in that place. But now, looking at the bodies and the burning houses, he could not help asking himself if it was true.

Everything that had happened so far was telling him that it was.

The thought lingered, and the longer it did, the faster his heart raced, and the more his rage grew. His hands began to shake.

He saw his staff lying on the ground a few feet away. He grabbed it and stood.

"Leon, wait!" Sophia tried to stop him, but he was already running. He went past Roger without a word and charged straight toward the undead.

’Everything that is happening is because of me. I don’t deserve to stand by and watch it happen.’

The skeletons raised their rusted blades as he came close. Leon did not slow down. He leaped into the air and slammed the tip of his staff into the ground.

CRACK!

A massive wave of ice tore out across the earth. It rushed forward in a rolling line and swallowed the first rows of skeletons, freezing them from the feet up until they stood locked in place, their jaws still open.

Leon landed lightly and raised his staff into the air. His face was cold, empty of any expression.

Above the frozen skeletons, dozens of ice lances formed, glittering in the burning light. He brought the staff down.

SHING!

The lances shot down and punched through the skulls of the frozen ones, shattering them to pieces. Bones and ice rained across the ground.

More skeletons rushed in from the sides. Leon did not wait for them. He used his wind spell and the air wrapped around his legs, and he moved faster and cleaner than he ever had. A blade came swinging toward his neck. He bent backward until his back almost touched the ground and let it pass over him, then pushed off with his hand and flipped over the skeleton’s shoulder. He swung his staff around in a wide arc and cracked it right across the back of its skull.

CRACK!

The head broke open, and the skeleton collapsed.

Another one lunged. He sidestepped, spun on one foot, and slammed his staff into the jaw of the next. As it staggered, he pointed at its head and fired a burst of flame, the fire eating through the bone until it crumbled.

’Heads. All I have to do is destroy their heads.’

He kept moving. He leaped over a slash, used the wind to hang in the air for a second, and then came down on a skeleton with both his feet. The skull shattered under his boots. He rolled to his feet, and two more came at him from both sides. He raised one hand, and ice lances formed again and shot out, one through each skull.

CRACK! CRACK!

Roger watched from behind with his eyes wide. The kid was moving like a different person.

Then green flames roared across the ground.

The liches had finally started attacking. Green fire flew toward Leon in streaks, and the heat of it made the frozen ground steam. He used the wind to dash to the side as one blast slammed into the place where he had stood. He ran along the edge of the field, dodging two more, then planted his feet and raised his staff.

’These ones are stubborn. A normal spell will not be enough.’

He pulled out the lightning spell.

BZZZT!

A thick bolt ripped out of the sky and slammed into the closest lich. It lit up with electricity from the inside, and its robes burned to nothing as its skull cracked and burst apart. The bolt jumped from it to the next, and then the next, chaining through them, until three of them had collapsed.

But there were still more.

Leon was already moving to finish the rest when the ground under his feet lit up.

A magic circle spread out beneath him, glowing a sickly green. He looked down and his eyes widened.

’A trap?’

Flaming chains shot out of the circle and wrapped around his arms, his chest, and his legs, pulling him tight. The heat burned through his clothes. The remaining liches stood at the edge of the circle, their staffs raised, chanting in a low rumble.

"Leon!" Sophia screamed from behind.

Leon gritted his teeth. He could not move his arms, but he could feel the flow of the spell, every thread of it wrapped around him. He closed his eyes.

’Magic Dissect.’

The world went quiet inside his head. The spell opened up in front of him layer by layer, and he saw all of it, how it was cast, what was feeding it, where it was weak, and how it was held together.

His eyes snapped open.

"Found you."

He pushed his own mana into the circle, forcing his way into the spell. The liches stopped chanting. The chains trembled and then went still, and the green fire flickered and turned pale. He had taken control of it.

"Break."

He clenched his fist, and the spell shattered with a loud CRACK! The chains dissolved into sparks, and the circle burst apart in a ripple of energy that threw the liches off their feet.

Leon walked forward, rolling his shoulder. He raised his staff, and lightning gathered at the tip of it.

"Enough," he said coldly.

The bolt tore through the first lich, then the second, and the third, leaving nothing but ash and blackened bone. When the last one hit the ground, the silence returned.

Leon stood in the middle of the ruined field, his chest rising and falling, huffing and puffing, the staff trembling in his hand. Frozen bones and burnt robes lay scattered around him.