Meusel's act of standing tall and recklessly drawing runic energy into his body produced a pressure that was nearly tangible. Regular people or even junior knights (had they been present) would've felt a sense of fear and awe pressing upon them.
Unfortunately for him though, the elderly knight today faced a group of people who'd survived the unforgivable millstone that was the path to become an Adept. Their willpower was something he couldn't even fathom.
It's why after he declared his stance and issued the aura of challenge, the rest of the ambushers revealed themselves amidst cold and mocking cackles, stepping out of the shadows of the surrounding forest and surrounding him.
Mary, Hyde, and Marionette stood at three separate distanced points and formed a triangle with him in the center while Greem and Thunderbird floated above the clearing.
As for Phantom and Demon Shadows, their specialties were not suited for head on confrontations, so they remained hidden in the shadows, ever ready to cast their supportive spells.
Nothing signaled the start of the fight. The Adepts just attacked with the spells and techniques they'd been preparing since Meusel arrived, the reality of their target's Grade not at lost on them.
All sorts of attacks, chief of them bucket sized lightning bolts and multiple, sharp lines of red, slammed into Meusel and erupted together to produce an explosion of multicolored energy and dust that obscured him from the senses.
Regular human senses anyway.
With his special mask slipped on and his method granted vision powers, Greem paid rapt attention to the happenings inside the energy storm and dived towards it, blue tipped flames shooting out of the device on his upper back.
Due to the presence of the bioweapon wreaking havoc in his system, Meusel didn't wreath his entire body in runic energy and simply flooded his limbs and muscles, giving himself a potent boost to his strength and physique.
It caused him trouble, Greem observed, his organs taking a severe but manageable beating. They were no longer manageable when the impromptu attacks landed though, the knight tapping into more of the energy to defend himself from the worst of them.
The blowback on his body worsened even though he did it for that short instant, but his gamble paid off as he withstood the worst of the attacks successfully. Greem took advantage of this brief lapse in defense and concentration to engage him.
He dived down with the intent to punch the knight in the head, but right before he entered the dense cloud of elementium and dust, he twisted his body on its axis and spun to the right, a flame blade sailing a few millimeters in front of his body.
Undeterred by the sudden attack, he flared his wings upon entering the cloud and halted himself mid air and straightened as though to land, flapping the appendages once more while simultaneously increasing the output of the booster.
Making a motion of kicking on empty air, he threw his legs downward and shot up, dodging another flame blade and sailing above the knight in a flip that saw him turn upside down.
Sensing an opportunity, he rotated and flapped his wings again to send himself down quickly, snagging the knight's neck with his arm on the way down. He locked his bulging biceps around the man's throat, pulled his torso down and squeezed, his booted feet thumping against the ground.
Not one to waste an opportunity, Hyde, who was serving as the tank alongside him rushed forward to take advantage of the opening.
His fire extinguisher sized mechanical left arm trembled a bit and projected a dome-shaped energy shield in front of him.
As the sword to his shield, the fingers of his other arm, also bronze and mechanical, spun and receded into the limb. What rose back out was a long and thin piece of metal with a pointed tip spinning like a drill.
Apparently not done, the mechanical Adept's back opened like a bloodless version of a blood eagle to let out six round discs that spun at blurring speeds and shot towards the ribs of the flailing knight.
Even with his neck in the vice that was the enemy's arms, Meusel held on and waved his sword about, catching not one but two of the spinning discs and sending them flying, ruined.
The same reason his neck hadn't turned to dust under Greem's straining muscles also protected him from the spinning disks and Hyde's deadly needle; the runic energy.
He couldn't wreath himself in it, but reinforcing his muscles and bones? That he could do for the small price of a little blood leaking from his mouth.
All of Hyde's attacks went through the thick knight armor and dug into his flesh, but failed to go any deeper than that. Though even that was a matter of time, as he could sense the disks deposit some poisons into his body.
Aware that he wouldn't be able to hold on for long if things continued this way, he decided to go scorched earth.
He drew more runic energy into his body, mixed it with his life force, and flooded his sword with it to the limit, the blade turning into a rod of pure white light as it slashed towards the mechanical Adept drilling into him.
His sword hit the energy shield in its path and ripped through it, the explosion of energies blasting Hyde into the nearby woods. Riding upon that successful wave, he channeled more of the energy into his sword and stabbed it into the ground.
Greem, who'd been watching the knight's insides and actions, let go right at this moment and threw himself back like there was someone waiting to catch him. His wings and rocket pack did, the former flapping and the latter blasting him several meters away from the knight in an instant.
He didn't get far away fast enough, Meusel's next display showing exactly why the divides between the grades were not just for show.
Up became down and left became right when the runic energies he channeled into the ground detonated everything in a range of more than 100 meters.
Lines of cracks spread from his position as the ground pancaked and rippled, boulder sized chunks of rock shooting out in every direction.
The air and everything in its range shook, the thick and aged trees trembling like they were afraid of the large and bottomless fissures that opened up and swallowed them.
A large mushroom cloud erupted and obscured everything, the spherical shockwave of the attack blasting any and everything back. Critters, small plants, trees and even the Adepts, all of them sent careening uncontrollably.
Greem experienced a brief bout of dizziness and confusion as he spun and snapped and smashed through many trees, his body battered ravaged by the collisions, rippling shockwaves, and force shards of the indiscriminate attack.
When there were no more trees, he bounced onward and left several bloody craters in his wake, only stopping when the last "bounce" transitioned into a meters long furrow that ended with his torso buried in a small mound of dirt.
The others didn't fare much better, especially those who formed the triangle around Meusel, but of them all, he was the one closest to the blast, and he had the most healing to do.
While he did that and clawed himself out of the dirt, Meusel pulled his sword free from the ground and stood tall, his muscular upper body exposed and a never before seen smile on his face.
His sharp eyes and senses zeroed on his attackers and their current states, and he couldn't help but gloat. Imagine that, a Second Grade looking to make fun of First Grades because he finally managed to scratch them.
His voice boomed as he addressed them.
"Sneaky rats! Let's see you hide no—" Dark purple blood took the place of words and erupted from his mouth amidst violent coughs, his whole body racked with spasms and trembles with every wheeze.
In the far distance, where Hyde had been smacked into, his cold and metallic voice rang out with a laugh.
"I can't tell if you're brave or just plain stupid. You've been infected with the runic energy virus, and you know this. Yet you still drew so much of it into your body. What did you think was going to happen? Idiot! How many more times can you do that? Do it. Please. Or don't. Whatever happens today, your fate is sealed."
Hyde clawed his way out of some branches, dirt and rocks, his arms clanging as he swept every offending obstacle away. He stood up and began a slow stride back to the battle site and soon noticed Meusel, the knight leaning weakly on his sword.
The mechanical Adept's face morphed into a wide grin at that sight and that of his temporary allies joining him in a circle around the weakened prey.
With a calm voice and more subdued smile, he said, "Attack," and a wave of spells and techniques consumed the helpless knight.
☀☀☀
Far away from this, Charles led the paltry remains of his men and successfully escaped the encirclement, rushing at the fastest speed so they could obtain reinforcements and maybe help Meusel.
He was a Second Grade, those First Grade Adepts couldn't do much to him. And even if they did, he could hold on long enough for help to arrive.
This thought had just passed when he felt Meusel's familiar energy signature ballooning in the distance. He stopped and spun around, his features a color of worry.
"Meusel!"
His experience with his own powers told him all he needed to know about that attack. It was powerful and affected a large radius, but no self-respecting knight would use it over their less wasteful crescent slashes and other techniques.
…Unless they were backed into a corner.
"Continue without me. I'll go and bring Meusel back," Charles ordered his men and broke into a sprint, his tone and actions leaving no room for debate.
He didn't spend much time on the ground, directing most of his energy through the channels in his body and into his upper back, where they took the form of wings not dissimilar from Greem's.
Unlike Greem's pair though, these only allowed for travel over short distances, a few kilometers with every use. The forest blurred past him, branches and leaves slapping him in the face repeatedly.
Despite this, he forced his eyes to stay open and carefully navigated the dense vegetation to avoid any trees, his whole body defenseless due to the wings taking up most of all his available runic energy.
He covered the distance to where he sensed the energy eruption pretty quickly, the ruined battlefield and Meusel appearing in his sight. His friend was currently on one knee, all kinds of attacks flying at him and leaving wounds that would kill normal people ten times over.
Charles roared in anger and sucked in his wings, dropping beside Meusel and channeling the now available runic energy into his huge longsword.
He slashed outward, releasing a large white crescent that annihilated the blood arrows, lighting bolts, wooden spikes, and metal needless and went on to pressure and assault the attacking adepts.
"Meusel. Hang on," he said and grabbed his friend's shoulder, intending to drag him out of here.
Of the many ways he imagined this rescue going, he never imagined one possibility: Meusel attacking him.
So it wasn't surprising to see the immense shock that rippled through him when his friend coated his hands in dense runic energy and plunged them wrist deep into his side, piercing through the dense musculature into his stomach.
He turned around with a confused and pained expression, finding the maddened expression of his friend of over forty years staring back at him, lines of blood flowing from his eyes and lips, saliva dripping from the latter too amidst the wild growls.
Charles pressed his own hand against Meusel's heart, real tears streaking down his face as he sensed the weak heartbeat from his friend's chest. He could release a blast of energy and kill him right now, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.
Meusel, or whoever currently controlled him, didn't feel same, the knight's whole body ballooning at various points haphazardly.
The Adepts, who'd recovered from Charles' earlier attack, resumed their own and drowned the two knights with their bolts, arrows, and spells, contributing to the massive explosion that took place and the mushroom cloud that consumed both men.
BOOM!
****
Author's note:
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