Aghanim's Rubick Chapter 11

Chapter 11:

Few people actually knew in this world that their ‘lightning magic’ was not actual lightning. It was a directed stream of electricity, true, but natural lightning was not actually a bolt of electricity. It had a charge, true, that consisted of a ton of voltage but the actual bolt itself was not electricity.

No, instead, it was a column of superheated particles that vaporises the very air surrounding it. That is what caused thunder, the displacement and resulting shock wave of the suddenly energetic air particles.

What is the difference? Magnitude. While my normal lightning magic could cook enemies, as well as traverse groups of armoured foes easily, it was not an instant kill unless wastefully overpowered. However, using that magic as a base, I could incorporate the control over heat that I gained from observing Ifrit to create something far more deadly, inspired by a Hero from Dota.

Plasma.

The spell I was taking inspiration from was called Laguna Blade, a sword of super hot plasma that was slammed into enemies for massive damage. True lighting, not the imitation that most in this world were happy to call lightning magic. After successfully creating the substance, I had to experiment on how to get it to act like how I wanted.

I managed to do it eventually through some vague understanding of how lightning is in nature. I don’t know how much of what I did was actually scientific and how much was me massaging the edges with magic, but the results spoke for themselves. Creating lightning, heating up the air around it while keeping it contained, until it roiled, bubbled and converted into the superheated plasma that was the base of my attack.

Then, reaching out, I linked two areas with a corridor and ‘shunted’ all the positive charge in the area near my target outside the containment field. I didn’t even have to launch the attack, it almost leapt out of my hands once the corridor was complete, slamming into the targets and blasting into pieces that which it did not vaporise.

This of course was all well and good for a single, contained bolt, but when it came time to kill an entire army… well. I was immune to heat, the change in temperature not affecting me in the slightest. So, theoretically, there was no need to contain myself to only a small amount of plasma like I experimented with for my Blades. I could create as much as I wanted to, limited only by my magic capacity and my ability to keep it contained and properly visualised.

So, with a small sphere of plasma able to demolish a reinforced dummy, what would a ball many metres across accomplish?

It accomplished the sight below me.

A smouldering, smoking crater, blasted deep into the earth. There was no trace of the thousands of sentient beings that had been standing there mere moments before, in ranks and bristling with arms and armour. Even the steel they held was absent, vaporised by the intense heat of the pillar of plasma I had slammed into them. Floating in the air above the site of my attack, I could even smell the aftermath of the blow.

It was not the smell of cooked meat, but rather burnt ozone that wafted from the steaming, molten hole I had rent into the swamp. The heat was so intense that the orcs had not even been cooked, merely evaporated neigh instantly, much like the water of the swamp. The water had boiled immediately, exploding into steam which was then rebuffed by the shields I had raised before my attack, enhancing the explosive destruction.

Of course, that was merely the epicentre of what I did. On the outskirts, it was not nearly so clean. There were piles of mulch, broken outcrops of steel and a sea of mangled corpses. Some were still moving, miraculous survivors of the attack, but the sight below me left me with absolutely no illusions.

In an instant, a flash of light, I had eradicated over one hundred thousand beings. Probably dozens of thousands more. I wonder if it would even be possible to calculate exactly how many had died in my opening move.

There was a narrative trope in my old world, that of a world made of cardboard. It basically posited how to Superman, everything was incredibly fragile because he could destroy it without even meaning to.

I know how he felt.

Looking at the sole standing beings within the field of death, I started to move down towards them. My eyes were locked onto the largest of the bunch, who was similarly staring at me intensely. They were on the outer edge of the shock-wave, visibly battered from the force, but remarkably still standing proud. It seems that I had found my main prey.

Whatever the outcome of the upcoming fight between me and this Orc Lord, I was certain of one thing.

I had broken the Orc Army. They simply lacked the numbers to overcome my town at this point. I could leave now, wash my hands of the business and only act if the Orc Lord decided to make himself my problem.

I would not do that, however.

Leaving a threat to fester or, perhaps even more importantly, leaving a job undone was simply not within my nature.

---RRR---

What was that?

Clayman stared at the orb in his hand, uncomprehending.

What was that?!

He had planned out everything, meticulously making sure that his scheme had the best possible chance of success. In all his scouting, in all the reports and testimonies he had received, not one had mentioned that Rubick held this level of power.

According to Gelmud, he was exceptionally skilled at magic and concealing his power, so of course Clayman thought that he might have been strong, but this… this was almost beyond comprehension.

He was aware, of course, that there existed true monsters within this world. Milim Nava, for instance, would have easily been able to match or even surpass this level of destruction. But to do it so cleanly

More importantly, Rubick was completely unknown. Clayman had never heard of him and neither had Frey. Where had he been hiding? Has he recently just evolved? It was possible, but the thought of a newly evolved monster being capable of this sort of army killing magic, it strained believability.

It was one thing if it was a last ditch effort, a technique that required everything this Rubick had to use, but that was obviously not the case. Not when he was calmly moving to fight with the Orc Lord after using it.

Said Orc Lord was already dead. Clayman knew it. If Rubick could still fight after a spell of that magnitude, there is no way that a non-ascended Orc Lord would be able to defeat him. It irked him heavily, to see such effort wasted and about to be destroyed, but it is in the nature of plans for some of them to go awry.

Peering deeply at the feed from Gelmud’s transmission orb, Clayman determined that he would gather all the information he could from this failure. Rubick was a wild card, this self proclaimed ‘Grand Magus’ living up to the title in the worst possible way, but in order to defeat him the Puppet Lord would need all the information he could get.

Unfortunately, Gelmud did not share his practical mindset, flying off to confront the Grand Magus as he came to a stop in front of the Orc Lord.

Gelmud landed soon after Rubick, pointing a finger and shouting at him, “You! Who do you work for? You must be the servant of a Demon Lord, sent here to disrupt our plans!”

Clayamn’s grip tightened around the orb, inwardly cursing his foolish subordinate. Still, perhaps the interloper would let something slip?

Rubick blinked at him, before recognition lit up his eyes, “Ah! You’re Gelmud, right?”

“Indeed!” Gelmud propped himself up, “I am Gelmud, and I demand yo-”

With a bright flash, the Orb went dead as its counterpart was destroyed alongside Gelmud himself. It soon joined its twin when Claymen hurled it against a wall in frustration. It shattered into a million pieces, giving him brief satisfaction but no further answers.

Answers that he desperately sought.

---RRR---

I lowered my hand, idly noting that although his torso had disappeared, Gelmud’s legs were still there, at least until gravity tilted them over.

“Sorry about that.” I apologised to the massive Orc who showed little reaction to me blasting the other Mage, “Are you the Orc Lord?”

“How dare you.” Another large Orc stepped out from the shadow of the first one, “To approach our Lord like this, I will teach you hu-”

“Fodder should stay silent.” I advised, “This is your single warning, do not interfere.”

“Such arrogance. Who are you to demand so much, to act so high and mighty? Who gave you the right to impede us?” The Orc who had spoken rumbled, drawing his sword.

“I did.” I replied, matter of factly, “My actions are justified because I believe they are and I have the power to carry them out. Should you have a problem with that, you are free to try and stop me.”

“Hubris!” The Orc yelled, before charging towards me.

I sighed, tired of this already. The Orcs had few mages, seeming instead to focus on physical combat. Fair enough, but it meant that I was gaining nothing from this aside from the safety of my city. With that in mind, it’s time to end this farce.

I poured magic into my body, increasing my speed and strength dramatically. I slipped into the path of the charging Orc, who was likely another General. He stumbled slightly, not expecting me to be so fast, but he recovered admirably and shifted backwards, gaining enough space to attempt to swing his weapon at me.

Raising my left hand, I placed it on his arms, his two handed grip on his sword not bringing enough strength to overcome mine, stopping his swing short. His eyes had only just finished widening at my action before my right fist was through his chest, smashing through his rib cage and almost punching out his back.

“Ugh!” A gasp escaped his mouth, his heart and left lung completely destroyed by my strike.

Idly, I raised my leg and kicked him solidly in the stomach, causing him to fly back and rag doll to the feet of the still watching larger Orc. The general twitched and shuddered, his body still catching up to the catastrophic damage it had just received.

“Orc Lord, this is your single warning. Fall back, save what is left of your people.” I delivered my ultimatum, idly removing the blood from my arm with a brief burst of fire.

“Hungry…” The Orc murmured, too low for me to make out clearly.

“Pardon?” I tilted my head in response.

“So hungry.” The voice was louder now, before the Orc Lord knelt down and started to feast on the still warm corpse of his General.

“I see.” I spoke to myself, “Your mind has deteriorated. The only thing left for you is hunger and the march to the next meal.”

The Orc Lord ignored me, continuing to feast on the meal that I had inadvertently delivered to him. I considered the situation, wondering why he didn’t seem to recognise my presence in front of him. Was it because I was not flesh and blood? Did he just not pick me up as a tempting meal? It was likely that with Starved he could devour Magical beings as well, so my complete sealing of my own Magic from other’s senses likely also played a part.

Oh well, if the enemy is unaware of me I would just have to take advantage. This was no Lord, but rather a rabid dog that needed to be put down.

The Orc Lord raised up from his meal, the large General disappearing in a surprisingly short amount of time.

“Hungry…” The Orc Lord remarked again, taking a step forward.

With a piercing clash and rippling of thunder, a sword of light slammed into him, from my pointed finger. The impact blew a chunk out of his upper chest, almost decapitating him due to me aiming at his neck. He took a step back from the impact, before an inky blackness started to bubble out from his skin and over his wound.

Nope.

You do not get to have a power up in front of me, especially as I could sense what those inky tendrils could do. Considering how quickly they could siphon magic, I was not going to entertain this for a second.

Thankfully, I had managed to develop just the thing for this situation. I called the style of spell casting Macro casting, named after the input macros that some people used for PC games back home. I had managed to link up spells to start in a certain order, basically a memorised order of operations that I could recall and use almost as second nature.

It came due to a rather insane idea I had, that thankfully worked out. My body in this world was made completely out of magic, yet I had muscle memory. I could copy Musashi’s forms and styles perfectly, and despite not using them before, my body was completely familiar with them as if I had trained for years in the style. So if my body could have physical muscle memory while being made up of my magic, would my magic be able to copy a sort of ‘magical muscle memory’?

To that end, I used my ability to copy and obtain spells on my own Laguna Blade, before casting it again and using the ability on it again. Over and over and over. Eventually, my magic seemed to ‘click’, allowing me to use the Laguna Blade neigh on instantly, each and every part of the spell copied exactly from my own perfect castings of it. The containment field, the creation of the plasma, the increasing of the charge, the shunting of the positive charge from the target area and the creation of the pathway between the two.

All done in split seconds.

So I could use the Laguna Blade quickly, what was the big deal? It’s not that I could cast it quickly. The upside of turning my spell into a Macro like this is that I could cast multiple instances simultaneously.

Like stars in the night sky, brilliant motes of light appeared out of thin air around me. The small amounts of plasma flickers erratically, the force of nature bent and contained by my will. Two, four, six, eight. Dozens of the brilliant points formed, one after the other, before the first one fired. Even as it did, a streak of light slamming into the recovering Orc Lord, more formed to replace it.

Another soon followed, then another. Quickly, the area between us was lit up with a strobe effect, lightning barely having time to dissipate before the next brilliant sword shone forward and blew another chunk out of the Orc Lord. Again and again, entire parts of the beast were blasted off from the whole, as the ground started to shake from the repeated and compounding sounds of thunder filling the area.

A significant portion was vaporised with each Laguna, but still I could see it would not be enough. The inky tendrils were eating up the magic that was starting to permeate the area, offsetting the damage I was doing as they converted the gained energy into flesh for the Orc. Annoyingly, the very thing I developed the Laguna Blade for was what was causing the Plasma to be so ineffective in this situation.

The impact was tremendous, enough to easily shatter even the hardiest of magical and physical defences. However, much of the energy of the bolt was converted to kinetic energy to deliver that impact ,causing the temperature of the bolt itself to dissipate rather quickly. It appeared my Macro for the Laguna Blade would not be enough to carry the day here.

While idly continuing the assault, I formulated a custom cast of the Spell, a large orb of plasma forming between my hands. Bigger. Bigger. I could start to feel the strain on my being, casting so many simultaneous spells while pouring so much magic into containing the miniature nova in my grip taking its toll.

As the ball of sun-like heat grew larger, the number of Laguna Blades flying decreased, the limits of my Core forcing the trade off. The Orc Lord started to regenerate faster than I could damage him, but it would not be quick enough. The light of the last brilliant lance had barely faded before I was rushing the Orc Lord, who’s roaring could be heard over the diminishing rumble of thunder.

Said roar increased in pitch as I slammed the orb of plasma into his massive body, the Intense heat washing over the both of us. We were within the containment area of the material, a sea of heat and roiling electricity surrounding us.

The Orc Lord’s durability was nothing to scoff at. Despite being immersed in something comparable to the sun, he did not immediately vaporise. His very being fought back, I was able to watch as his magic struggled to stop him from boiling and evaporating.

A second passed.

He glared at me, struggling to reach for my body.

Two seconds.

His mouth gritted, light entering his eyes for the first time as determination filled his very being.

Three seconds.

His arm arrived into my personal space, causing me to slap it away as I stepped backwards.

Four seconds.

He lunged, a desperate attempt to grab me that would have succeeded, except…

Five seconds.

The Orc Lord’s magic dwindled, and instantaneously his body evaporated from the superheated plasma that had turned into our world for these brief moments.

I sighed in relief, before reclaiming the Magic around me, the plasma ceasing it’s roiling and disappearing back whence it came, leaving nothing but the faint taste of ozone as the only indication that it had even existed.

Still, although his durability had been an issue, I was able to overwhelm the Orc Lord. I was victorious. With him dead, the remaining Orcs should be freed from the Mental effects of Starved, allowing them to surrender. From then, I could only hope that the Dryads held up thie-

NOTICE: THE INDIVIDUAL RUBICK MAELSTROM HAS RECEIVED A DEMON LORD SEED

For the first time since I had arrived in this world, I once again heard the Voice of the World. It surprised me, causing me to stiffen in alarm. Demon Lord Seed? What the hell was that about?

I don’t remember taking anything fro-

REPORT. CHECKING THE NUMBER OF SOULS REQUIRED FOR EVOLUTION… CONFIRMED.

THE REQUIRED CONDITIONS HAVE BEEN MET. THE HARVEST FESTIVAL WILL NOW BEGIN.

Like a hammer, I was slammed by a soul deep fatigue, causing me to collapse, my form bubbling and distorting as my control completely disappeared. Harvest Festival? What the hell was that.. more importantly…

I was on a battlefield…

The fatigue was washing over me trying to drag me to unconsciousness, but I refuse…

I needed to…

 I still…

I…

CONFIRMED. EVOLUTION TO TRUE DEMON LORD BEGINNING.