~ CHAPTER 301

[Wager] activated once the die in front of me stopped rolling. Five. I pulled up the spell and quickly skimmed to the relevant part.

...If you roll a five, the mana is spent and any spells that cost less than the wagered mana have twice the effect for a day...

A good result, but not one that will help me right now. I'm going to be taking this fight while completely out of mana. That was okay though. I wasn't alone, and all of us were used to fighting in a group now.

"Lilith! Mana potion!" Mimi called out.

I turned to her as she shoved the spout of one of the vials into my mouth before I could react. Luckily, I quickly realized what she was doing and swallowed down the bitter tasting potion down in two gulps. An odd cold sensation came over me and I felt my mana reserves quickly refilling. The sensation felt strange since I hadn't refilled my mana this way before. I had only ever let my mana regenerate naturally, so the mana potions had slipped my mind until now.

The first thing I did was activate my new [Light Domain] ability. I wasn't entirely sure how it worked, but it said it would make my light magic and Torien's and Lori's shadow magic stronger. Even if my light magic wasn't strong against them, the improvement to their shadow magic and the slow field would still be helpful. A bright glow surrounded our group as it spread out. The new domain field felt about as large as [Fireflies] had, but now I'm able to spread it out farther and change its shape if I need to with just a bit of extra mana. For now, the default size of the field was large enough.

I cast [Light Burst] into the crowd of banshees that were now dive bombing us, hoping to distract them a little. Like a large white flare, the spell detonated in the crowd, but I hadn't expected it to be nearly as effective as it had been. The [Light Burst] spell always read like it was a flashbang, explicitly saying that it didn't directly damage anything other than shadow or dark enemies, but it appears that [Light Domain] combined with [Wager] must have changed that.

Burning husks of banshee corpses fell near the point where the spell had exploded. Remaining illumination from the spell continued to light the sky. I was a bit shocked by how effective the spell had been. [Light Domain] had made the spell actually damaging, and [Wager] had doubled its effect, which made the burst of mana devastating in the large group of enemies.

"Lilith, my arrows seem stronger! Did you do something?" Torien asked.

"New spell, I'll tell you later," I replied.

The sky was saturated with enemies, but our ranged attacks had become so effective that it took a while for the first wave of enemies to hit our front lines. The flying bat-like demons tried to swoop down at us, but they stuttered once they hit the [Light Domain]'s area of effect. Several of them crashed into the cliff face before they even got to us. The ones that had recovered in time to avoid that were still cut down easily by our frontline fighters. Since Mimi wasn't struggling with the dungeon screaming in this fight, she was able to help and joined the frontline. She shifted her body to have the equivalent of a polearm and used her dense body to bat the banshees down, where she could eat them in two bites. Her fighting style was a bit gruesome, but it was very effective.

I shot out three more [Light Burst]s above us, careful to limit the power to capitalize on [Wager]'s effect. The mana potion Mimi had given me had topped me off, but I needed to be careful not to drain myself too quickly. While the combination of spells made [Light Burst] incredibly powerful, I still needed to moderate my mana use.

"We need to keep moving to the other side. Can you bring this spell with us?" Silva loudly asked over the sound of screeching banshees.

"I can move it, no problem!" I quickly replied.

As we started heading toward the other side of the bridge while fighting off the swarm of banshees, I had a realization. I had two light enhancement spells I didn't frequently use since there were often better options. I wonder if [Light Domain] would increase their effects too. I cast [Light Imbue] and [Armor of Light] on everyone around me. Another benefit I quickly learned was that I could target any of my friends with these spells while we were both standing in [Light Domain], a benefit that hadn't been listed in its effects.

The banshees being pelted with shadow arrows were now also being set on fire whenever a light-wreathed shadow arrow hit one of them. Each hit caused a small explosion of light magic that hit nearby enemies as well, turning their shots into explosive arrows. Torien and Lori quickly adapted to the change and began targeting larger groups to take advantage of the area damage without skipping a beat.

"We're almost across. Just a bit longer!" Silva called out.

I took the opportunity to glance in that direction, and sure enough, we were near the other end of the bridge. My mana was nearing its limit again so I was now mainly focused on keeping my support spells up. Unfortunately, that put more pressure on our frontline fighters, but the [Light Imbue] spell combined with the slow from [Light Domain] made all of them much more effective than they would ordinarily be. Even though we were grossly outnumbered by the swarm of banshees flying through the sky, we finally made it to the other side of the bridge. We didn't need to worry about falling off the edge anymore, but we still needed to make it back to the tree line to escape the endless demons divebombing us. ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ NoveIꜰire.net

"Lilith, I'm not going to be able to use my illusions with [Light Domain] up!" Raya called out.

"I'll drop it when we make it to the trees!" I replied.

A dead banshee looked like it was about to fall on Bella from behind, so I threw up a [Light Ward] to block it, angled for it to be thrown away from our group. Like my other light spells, [Light Ward] seemed stronger and more dense with mana. The heavy corpse had been successfully deflected and the barrier hadn't even received a scratch. Moments after the body had been deflected, it turned to ash like all of the other dungeon creatures. I suddenly felt vindicated in my pursuit of light magic. It was turning out to be a strong choice now that I had taken it this far. But there was still something that I wanted to try.

There was one thing about light magic that had eluded me all this time, something I had known the potential of from the very first time I started using light magic. Lasers. Inspired by how effective [Light Burst] had been within my [Light Domain], I decided to try using [Light Beam]. I manipulated the spell before even casting it to focus the beam as tightly as I could and pushed as much mana into it as I could manage.

A white line that left afterimages in its wake sliced through the banshees as if they were made from paper. Wings, torsos, clawed limbs, it didn't matter. The laser completely sliced through all of them. Individually, the banshees weren't that strong, but the strength of the improved [Light Beam] was ruinous. I had only been able to use it for a few seconds before I had to cut it off from using the last of my mana, but it had been incredibly potent in that very short amount of time.

We reached the trees and I dispelled my [Light Domain], [Armor of Light], and [Light Imbue]. As soon as my spells were cut, dozens of illusory doubles of our group ran into the forest in different directions while a blanket of illusion above us covered our path through the trees. The relatively dumb banshees followed the clones away and we were able to stop and catch our breath.

I quickly glanced at my notifications and was a bit awed at the most recent one.

[Your party have defeated 631 Banshees]

That was a fucking lot of demons. I knew there had been a lot, but together we killed over six hundred, and that hadn't even been all of them. That meant that there must have been thousands in the skies still. Likely the only reason Traehall hadn't already been overwhelmed was merely because these banshees weren't focused enough to attack the city relentlessly. There had been a lot of them attacking Traehall, but not in these numbers.

("We're getting close to where they're coming from. The groups are getting denser,") Lori told us through the bond.

("Let's take a break here for a little while. I'm tired after that last fight,") I said back. I turned to Raya. ("Will you be able to hold the illusion for a while? Or should we look for somewhere to hide?") I asked her.

("I'll be fine. I'll just take a mana potion if I get low. I would rather rest here with the illusion up than keep running,") Raya said while panting.

I nodded and took a seat against one of the trees. That fight had been intense. I'm just glad we managed to find relative safety so quickly.

("What was that magic you used, Lilith?") Morrigan asked excitedly.

("A new spell called [Light Domain]. It evolved from my fireflies spell.") I copied the description of the spell on a light ward pane and held it out for her to read.

[Light Domain - Light Magic Spell]

Create an area illuminated by magic light in an area equal to Magic Force x 1 foot. Magic Control improves the ability to move and manipulate the shape of the domain while it is active. Light Domain slows anyone targeted as an enemy and anyone standing inside of Light Domain can use improved versions of light magic and shadow magic spells. The magnitude of these effects is improved by Magic Force. The strength of these effects are doubled when used against shadow and dark aligned enemies.

("Its effects seem understated from this description by quite a bit,") she noted.

I nodded. ("I agree.")

("It powers up shadow magic too?") Torien asked with surprise while looking over the description.

("How noticeable was the effect?") I asked.

Torien shook her head. ("In that chaos, it was hard for me to really pay attention to that. As soon as I confirmed a hit, I was looking for another shot. I was surprised how many I was able to knock out in one hit once the arrows started exploding, but that was the extent of the attention I was able to give that.")

I nodded. ("That makes sense.")

Bella handed me a wooden mug with a warm liquid inside. ("Drink this, it'll help you recover.")

I smelled it and took a sip. It was warm tea sweetened with something that tasted like honey. ("What is this?") I asked.

("An application of nature magic is to cultivate tea effective at revitalizing the body and calming the mind. This has been a small project that I've been working on in my spare time. It seemed like a good opportunity to share it with everyone,") Bella replied with a kind smile.

("How did you warm it up?") I asked.

("I used a bit of water and fire magic to help her prepare it,") Morrigan replied. ("No need for an open flame or a canteen when you have magic,") she said with a quiet laugh.

I took another sip of the tea and sighed. ("Magic sure is convenient.")

Morrigan giggled. ("This is frankly a much more common use of magic than using light to cut the monsters apart from a distance. That was amazing. How did you make light magic do that?")

("Light can do that without magic's help. It just takes a lot of energy and focusing to get light to be that powerful. I knew that it was possible from the beginning, I just didn't have enough power to get it there until now,") I replied with a grin.

Morrigan scratched the back of her head. ("I'll admit that I kind of found it silly how invested in light magic you were, early on. Over time, you've shown me that most people were underestimating it a lot. Your [Fireflies] spell alone has been really useful against the demons and shadow monsters we've fought, and your new [Light Domain] was an amazing upgrade for it.")

I smiled. ("Yeah. I was really impressed by its effectiveness too.")

I took another sip of Bella's tea and closed my eyes for a moment. I knew there were other notifications after that last fight, but I was a bit mentally drained still. That fight had been brutal and I was enjoying the relative peace as we hid from the demons below the canopy of trees. We were about to wade into the dungeon they were all coming from... I was a bit scared to see what that would be like. I let out a breath and took another sip of tea while trying to force myself to relax.

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