NOVGO.NET Chapter 1141: Surprise From Below
Chapter 1141: Surprise From Below
Every footfall above sent ripples through the soil. Every clash of steel pressed a different frequency into the stone. The earth was an instrument, and right now, thousands of soldiers were hammering out a bloody symphony on its surface.
He focused, narrowing his senses even further. He sensed too many signatures in too short a distance from one another to parse individually, but weight… that was measurable. He wanted to measure how much pressure they exerted on the ground. To do so, he honed his senses on exactly that.
A ripple from a lightly armored scout was different from the deep, stubborn stamp of a samurai in full kit.
Using this method, it didn’t take long for the Fujimori elites to stand out.
How could Quinlan tell that they were elites?
Their weight told them away. Each one pressed the earth harder, thicker, not just because of body mass, but because of the sheer weight of their equipment.
Yet that weight was no weakness. Quinlan knew enough of smithing to understand why.
Better armor meant more metal. More metal meant more pounds on your frame. For a lesser soldier, that could be a death sentence due to slowed movement, exhaustion, or clumsy footing. But the elites sported high Strength stats, letting them carry the extra weight.
No, that isn’t quite correct.
They wanted weight. The more they carried, the more they thrived in combat, being able to take more risks without losing their lives.
And behind that strength was craft. Fujimori blacksmiths were legendary among human smiths, turning iron and steel into masterwork defenses that balanced flexibility with durability, with the oriental flair many nobles and adventurers alike liked.
The added pounds weren’t just lumps of dead metal; they were carefully tuned layers of protection, scaled and jointed to deflect and absorb blows without hampering too much mobility.
Quinlan’s lips quirked in the dark. The same weight and craftsmanship that protected their lives also served as signals for his senses to hone in on, letting him select them as his primary targets.
He traced them with his senses, marking out where the heaviest concentrations of weight pressed into the battlefield. The ripples told him more than sight could. Tiny fractures in the soil hinted at where the heaviest of them broke into sprints. Minute tremors told him where halberdiers were shifting in formation. And there, those deep, steady pulses were captains in their plated armor, anchoring the line.
The underground was silent save for his breathing, but to Quinlan, it was alive with information. Knowledge married to instinct. Physics met battlefield pragmatism.
Finding what he was looking for, Quinlan opened both palms.
The underground dead silence was suddenly broken by the low hum of mana building in his veins.
Water shimmered into being across his skin, droplets swirling and condensing until they formed twin orbs of liquid light. He willed the earth above to soften, not collapse, but to allow passing through.
In this manner, tiny channels formed through compacted layers of soil and stone.
The water seeped upward, threading like roots through the battlefield. Inch by inch, he pushed more of it just beneath the surface, spreading it wide, spreading it thin, mapping the ground with rivers that he now controlled.
Each pulse of weight above became a target, and he made sure to saturate every single one of those pressure points.
When his mark was set, when he was done with preparations, Quinlan’s grin sharpened.
He was taking high risks, but he would be lying if he said he wasn’t having fun using his amazing classes to fight in such a strategic manner.
None of the poor mortals would expect what was coming for them.
He clenched his fists, then snapped them open.
The earth spat back his will.
Dozens of compressed water javelins exploded upward all at once, breaking through the soil with breakneck speed. Each spear rose to strike from an angle no one could predict.
“Between the legs, baby~” Quinlan snickered.
The first scream came sharp and strangled. Then another. Then a chorus. Fujimori elites who were always so polished, so perfectly armored, so steady in their samurai pride, stumbled and yelped while clutching at their groins as the water spears hammered them with bone-rattling precision. The defenses of their masterwork armor saved them from being skewered outright, but nothing in their steel plating could erase the agony of the impact.
Even the best defense had weaknesses. They were not immune to taking damage, simply resistant.
“What is this spell?!” one of the elites cried out while clutching at his groin.
“I studied Hydromancers! They don’t have anything like this in their arsenal!” another barked, stumbling back.
“This is too strange! Where are our mages?! They should be ready to counter! How did none of them react in time to enemy spells?!”
The truth was threefold.
First, they were busy running from the lethal battle going on in the back that was conducted by Kaede, Chizuru, and Black Fang.
Second, those who did pay attention to the battle were either already busy supporting their soldiers or defending against the barrage of the chaotic stronghold defenses that kept hammering at them.
Third, Quinlan did not use conventional spells. Where every other mage relied on formulas pre-etched into their class’s arsenal by the Soul Records, neatly packaged incantations that the Records had once deemed as spells fit to be cast by those with lesser affinity, Quinlan operated outside that. He wasn’t bound to preset diagrams or rigid casting structures. It was not the magic of “choose spell, release spell.”
He had freedom.
His “spells” were raw creation, born moment by moment from instinct, intellect, and sheer willpower. He shaped them how he pleased, molding mana into the elements with his own imagination as the only frame.
And because of that, to a mage trained to detect enemy interference, Quinlan’s magic felt wrong.
The water that seeped up through the earth, for example, didn’t trip the sensory alarms for an incoming spell. It didn’t carry the “signature” or the magical structure of a prepared Hydromancy attack. To their senses, it wasn’t even recognized as a spell at all.
Unless you knew Quinlan was there—unless you understood his brand of impossibly potent elemental manipulation—you would not have noticed his hand at work.
And by the time you realized it, it was already too late.
The only method that could easily detect him would be artifacts that sensed the presence of mana, not spells. But such artifacts weren’t simple nor omnipotent. You couldn’t just put it on the ground and tell it to look for mana coming from below. They had to be set up and calibrated properly, which was why they worked in the palace, for example. But here, in the chaos of the battlefield, where hundreds of spells were flung every second?
It wouldn’t work.
And because of that, Quinlan’s strike struck true.
Around the gasping elites, the common soldiers froze, startled out of their rhythm. Some faltered mid-swing. Others risked glances at their commanders, suddenly unsure whether to press the attack or retreat from the invisible tormentor beneath their feet. A wave of unease rippled through the Fujimori front as discipline buckled under confusion and pain.
Underground, Quinlan smirked. His hands pulsed with power again, brighter this time. Mana coalesced in his veins, rushing outward, begging to be unleashed.
This was only the beginning.
He let the silence stretch in that underground chamber of dirt and stone. Then, he opened his status window for the briefest of moments.
[Level: 40. XP 792,801/2,778,374]
[Health Points: 1913]
[Mana Points: 3319]
[Vitality: 128]
[Strength: 125]
[Agility: 133]
[Magic: 221]
He whispered to himself:
“I’m still level 40… I need nearly 3 million XP now to level up. What a horrible joke, Soul Records.”
But instead of feeling dejected, his lips curled upwards into a devilish grin. “It’s time I stepped up my game. The higher the XP requirement the more enemies I have to kill. I really want some more Elite Souls for my soul army as well, so my goals are aligned. I won’t stop until I get enough to rank my Necromancy up to the next tier.”
And with that, Quinlan commanded his mana, ready to unleash his next move on his enemies and victims.
…
Author: Has the pace been slow? It will pick up now.
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