Hundreds of Iron ranked Corrupt Dark Wraiths flew in the air, surrounding Rudolph and everyone else in a circle.
"Prepare yourselves, this will only hold them for a while," Aryn shouted as he put some distance between himself and the wraiths. He took out several thumb size seeds from his ring and sprayed them around the group. The seeds sprouted instantly forming a cacoon of golden vines around them, both defending and attacking the Wraiths that got near.
"How long?" The bearded man who had introduced himself by the name of Baron asked.
"30 seconds," Aryn replied, grim-faced.
"Damn! I got hit for a 10% reduction in overall stats." Baron stomped on the ground.
"You aren't the only one," Randy said.
"It's the miasma. We are trapped in some sort of domain filled with it." Aryn hypothesized. "Anyone not possessing affinity with darkness element will have their stats reduced."
He eyed Rudolph after saying that. He had guessed that the swordsman hadn't suffered from any debuff.
Rudolph ignored the gaze and peeked through the vine gaps to see Tyril and the others fending off the wraiths.
Tyril's armor and sword were covered in white flames that kept the wraiths at bay. Despite his heavy-looking armor, he was pretty nimble and his keen perception of his enemy allowed him to dodge the majority of the attacks, and the ones that did strike him didn't deal any significant damage to him. Every single strike of his flame-lit sword turned the wraiths into black smoke.
'Those white flames are making me uncomfortable.' Rudolph thought. There was something about those flames that filled him with hatred towards them and their owner. Rudolph was puzzled because he found no reason to hate them when he thought of one. The hatred seemed to be originating deep from within his blood.
To shake off his thoughts, he looked toward Killian.
While Tyril was at least making an effort to evade the enemy attacks, Killian's battle style was outright reckless. The battle had just started but he had already received several insidious claw marks on his arms and face but that didn't seem to impede the big guy who was going nuts with his war hammer. His every blow was fierce and full of earth-shattering might, taking out several wraiths with a strike each. The more damage he received, the more ferocious he became. Soon a red glow began emanating from his body and he jumped into the air, his war hammer raised above his head.
"Tectonic Smash!" he roared and smashed his hammer onto the grey cobblestone street, the strike demolishing the cobblestone street and pulverizing the encircling wraiths.
The woman on the other hand was the calmest of them all. Sparkling blue threads of aether surrounded her as she without a care in the world, strolled into the swarm of wraiths. A second later, an ice-cold explosion rocked the place and the surrounding wraiths were turned into ice statues, falling and shattering to their demise.
'So powerful.' Rudolph thought, staring at the ice-cold woman with his mouth wide open.
To his further surprise, the woman didn't stop and a blue magic circle appeared beneath her feet.
"Winter Drop," she said and the nearby ice shards started floating into the air and piece by piece broke into smaller shards. Soon the whole place was covered in hundreds of tiny ice crystals that shimmered in the moonlight.
"What in Lorcan's name is that skill?" Baron exclaimed.
"Descend," she said and annihilation followed with a point of her finger. The shards rained down upon the wraiths, penetrating and killing them on the spot. Blue flowers bloomed anywhere the ice shards struck.
Like the woman single-handedly had cleared 70% of the wraiths present in the area.
The building and the cobblestone streets were also covered in ice, lowering the temperature by several degrees.
"When can I perform such attacks?" Rudolph muttered.
"A high control over aether and deep understanding of ice element is the basic requirement to perform a spell of that caliber," Aryn said.
Rudolph nodded and tightened his grip on the katana. The 30 seconds passed and the roots automatically disintegrated into motes of light, allowing the wraiths to advance.
Randy was the first one to engage the wraiths. The tips of his knives turned eerie green as he flashed among the wraiths, the Argonian's speed surpassed everyone Rudolph had seen till now. He didn't engage the enemies head-on but utilized his speed to attack them from behind.
"Poison Requiem." he hissed and a green cloud of poison rose from his body, forming tens of ghastly skulls in the air that collided with the wraiths, making them shriek even louder. The poison cloud spread among the wraiths, harvesting their lives at a faster rate.
Rudolph also got into action. With Thought Acceleration on active, his thoughts spun rapidly and he ducked and dodged the ghastly claws and delivered several slashes to the nearby wraith, each slash taking around 30 to 40 points of health, dissolving it into smoke.
Ding! You have killed a Corrupt Dark Wraith (Basic IV). Gained 7 Origin Essence.
After killing the Rudolph didn't slow down and dashed towards the other one and a couple of moments later he had killed the second one as well.
Ding! You have killed a Corrupt Dark Wraith (Basic IV). Gained 8 Origin Essence.
Though the miasma had added a 5% increase to his stats, this wasn't the only benefit he had obtained. The miasma had formed a connection with him, he could perceive almost everything within the miasma, what others were doing, or from what angle he was going to be hit.
But it also had to be known that he had never fought against a group of monsters, not even once. Even with thought acceleration and high perception, he was unable to evade the attacks when several wraiths attacked him at the same time.
He lacked an armor like Tyril's nor did he have Killian's masochist tendencies so he had to express caution while defending against the enemies. This greatly compromised his offensive capabilities at a close range.
'Think Rudy think!' he said inwardly, looking around to see what he could use to his advantage. He had an idea but he needed to stay at a certain range from the friendlies to execute it.
When the group of wraiths surrounded him, Rudolph used quick steps to put some distance between himself and the wraiths. He did get some claw marks on his back but he gritted his teeth and used a mass of rubble to propel himself into the air; out of the wraith's range and at a range he could avoid friendly fire. He conjured up several small-sized orbs of apocalypse fireball and threw them among the wraiths, flying to reach him.
BANG!
The Apocalypse fireballs exploded among the wraiths killing some of them on the spot while the stronger ones caught fire for a couple of seconds before they too died.
Ding! You have killed a Corrupt Dark Wraith (Basic IV). Gained 5 Essence Origin.
Ding! You have killed a Corrupt Dark Wraith (Basic IV). Gained 9 Essence Origin.
...
Ding! You have killed a Corrupt Dark Wraith (Basic IV). Gained 7 Essence Origin.
Essence origin requirement reached. Gained 5 stat points.
Ding! You gained experience. The skill [Apocalypse Fireball] (Iron) (Active) leveled up.
Level 2 >> Level 3.
Rudolph smiled as he heard the notifications. This was the perfect place for him to farm experience and essence origins.
Still mid-air, he felt the presence of wraiths behind him, coming in hot. He whirled around and shot a couple of more small-sized fireballs.
Ding! You have killed a Corrupt Dark Wraith (Basic IV). Gained 5 Essence Origin.
...
Ding! You have killed a Corrupt Dark Wraith (Basic IV). Gained 6 Essence Origin.
"This can't continue, I only have 31 points of aether left," he said, landing on the ground.
He looked around to see how many wraiths were left.
'Is it only me or does it look like the number of wraiths is increasing instead of decreasing?' he thought. The wraiths should have decreased after the woman's large-scale spell but he felt like that wasn't the case.
He was about to ask the others when he was enveloped by a light barrier.
-------------------------
Tyril was getting tired of killing wraith after wraith. The stream of these damnable creatures seemed to be never-ending. His 2nd tiered cleansing flames were the bane of these creatures but the expenditure of constantly manipulating them had put a strain on his aether reserves. He had already consumed two bottles of precious aether restoring potions but that still hadn't gotten the job done.
"Begone you, evil creatures," he yelled and stabbed the nearest two wraiths.
He killed another one who tried to sneak attack him when he heard several explosions nearby. He looked over and saw black flames wreaking havoc amongst the wraiths. The sight filled him with hatred because he had recognized the flames which were opposite to his cleansing flames, even more, so the flames belonged to the deplorable human who had the guts to betray his kind to befriend their mortal enemies, the elves.
"Truly a perfect match to a hateful element." Tyril sneered.
The black swordsman cast a couple of more fireballs before he got back to fighting with his sword.
"His aether reserves are running low," Tyril said, and then suddenly a devious plan formed in his mind. A plan that would possibly result in the demise of the hateful human who insulted him and got him slapped by his lady. They both manipulated opposite elements and light had always been a nemesis to the darkness. He had many ways to kill him but the attack from the wraiths gave him a perfect chance to kill the human without raising any doubts. Even if someone blamed him after the fight, he could just say that it was all done to eliminate the wraiths.
"Let's see how you can survive this," he said.
His lips curled into a smile as he chugged down another bottle of aether restoring potion. The skill he planned to use had some harsh effects on his aether reserves and drinking aether potions was never a good thing but he was willing to withstand the side-effects as long as the human died, and quite possibly the elf too.
"Purification Domain," Tyril said.
Two magic circles appeared under his feet and a large amount of light aether gathered around him to form a domain. The domain then expanded outward, enveloping the entire battlefield, including Rudolph who was struggling to fend off the swarm of wraiths.
------------------------
The white barrier of light enclosed Rudolph and he received several notifications.
Ding! You have been affected by the purification domain.
Aether assimilation rate decreased by 25% for 30 minutes,
Aether retention decreased by 25% minutes.
All Stats decreased by 10% minutes.
"What just happened?" Rudolph was shocked as he was overcome with a sudden bout of weakness. He looked towards the source of the domain and saw Tyril smiling at him.
"You did that on purpose," Rudolph shouted at him.
"You misunderstand, this was done to weaken the wraiths. I didn't know you shared the same element. I apologize." Tyril said, trying to look sincere but Rudolph knew he was just making up shit.
"Cancel it this instant," Rudolph said, evading and killing the wraiths. He was already struggling and his new status debuff had increased the difficulty to another level.
"It's not possible. You have to wait 30 minutes for the effects to wear off." Tyril said and went back to fighting the wraiths.
"Damn it," Rudolph said, gritting his teeth. He could only find solace that the wraiths were also affected by the spell.
"What happened, Rudy?" Aryn asked. He was surrounded by roots and vines that lashed at the wraiths.
"Nothing," Rudolph said. He could see that Aryn was also struggling against the wraiths, quite possibly due to the distance between him and the forest. It seemed like he couldn't properly exploit his powers to battle the wraiths while present inside the city. Rudolph didn't want him to divert his attention to something else.
This was his problem and he himself would get revenge for it. He had a nasty habit of holding grudges and he promised he would make Tyril regret doing that if he makes it out of here.