"Martin, what are you doing," the first one asked when he arrived, his panic apparent. "You know the risks of pushing yourself —"

"Shut up and help me, Carl," my opponent, whose name I had finally learned, shouted in anger, cutting off his argument. Pity, I would have loved to learn the implications of pushing oneself as ascended. While I had equated it to meditation, it was merely a theory, and even an offhand comment could be revolutionary. "The sooner we kill him, the sooner we can go back."

"Maybe you should call your heretic buddies as well?" I quipped even as I started pulling back from his hold, hoping that Carl would react one way or another.

Unfortunately, he didn't jump on it, treating it as an equivalent of a bear-at-his-back prank as he ignored it. I retreated to a distance, not letting them flank me, but it was a difficult call. The combined attacks were difficult to handle.

Luckily, their fighting styles were quite different. Martin had a domineering style that relied on his strength, more similar to my hammer attacks than a sword style — albeit still very effective, and Carl had a more classical sword-and-shield style.

A familiar one, I noted once he attacked a few times. Blade of Bulwark. Or, some variant of that, considering it took a few seconds for me to recognize it. I had been tricked by the aura it radiated. It might be the ascension interfering with it, or the fact that it was adapted as a class skill, but either way, the similarities were enough to give me a tactical edge.

Not enough to neutralize the fact that I was desperately trying to duel two ascended at once, but enough that I was able to pull Carl between me and an attack from Martin, ruining their rhythm, and turning what was supposed to be a devastating advantage on their side into a minor one.

That was enough of a shift that I changed my mind about retreating. I decided to stay and fight.

"Keep away from my way, you moron," Martin shouted when I pulled the same trick once again, which surprised me. If wasn't that the trick I was pulling was hard to recognize. They must have been even more reliant on their skills to fight than I expected. "Just circle around and keep him in place."

His response, while simplistic, was quite effective. Carl stopped trying to pin me down together with Martin, and focused on circling around me. He wasn't as fast as me, but he didn't need to be, not with Martin intercepting my movement.

I wished that the ground was still covered with metal. That would have allowed me to pull some tricks to interfere with them. Unfortunately, at this point, I was almost ten miles away from the main dungeon entrance, and covering all that area with metal was something not possible even with our production capabilities.

We were speaking of a continuous metal floor covering about four hundred square miles … which would require material in the region of a million tons.

Not a simple matter.

Luckily, that was not my only way of acquiring disposable metal. At a momentary break, I shifted to a one-handed grip, and used my empty hand to send a stream of mana, making my opponents tense.

"Was that supposed to do something," Martin growled as he continued to attack, relaxing at the lack of immediate reaction.

"Not directly," I responded, and a moment later, shells started to rain all over us. Not the Radiant Flame ones, as they could never penetrate through their armor, but simple decay ones, just as I requested in my short message, which consisted of four simple words. Decay. Bombardment. Here. Unlimited.

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As the metal shells exploded all around us, ineffective other than raising a cloud of dust, I stopped running away.

"Was that supposed to do something —" Martin growled, only to gasp in shock when I waved my hand once more, and the metal turned into a wall. Shaper was even better than Forge when it came to immediate reshaping, especially when I was already so familiar with decay-alloys, a momentary focus through Wisdom enough to embody some durability. Chapter source: My Virtual Library Empire (M|V|L4EMPYR).

The wall still shattered after two blows, but it was enough for me to pull all the decay radiated around, empower it with my mana, and turn it into a spell.

[-4000 Mana]

Ten symbols that I practiced appeared around the bolt of decay, helping me to focus on it as I blasted toward Carl, who relied on his shield to block it. The attack wasn't as strong as my blade attacks, but it had one important advantage.

It stuck

"Why can he cast spells as well?" Carl asked even as Martin appeared. "You told me that he's just a blacksmith who faked being a mana fighter."

"Look at it. No harm has occurred. He's using mere parlor tricks, they are useless," Martin shouted and closed the distance once more. "Let's kill him before he can run back to his dungeon."

He was not as correct as he would have liked to believe. Decay wasn't the best ability when it came to damage dealing, but it was perfect for slowly weakening their Health aura, especially if they chose to dismiss it.

The bombardment continued, providing me enough metal fragments to pull many different tricks. Walls, chains, domes ... I used every trick, none lasting more than three seconds under their attacks, but that was all I needed to slowly weaken them.

The damage my armor accumulated was an acceptable exchange.

Just like that, five minutes had passed. It didn't sound like much, but that was an intensely long time to be locked in a duel with no break, especially since I was trying to keep two ascended warriors away at once.

But, one thing encouraged me. Since I had shattered the mana dome, there had been no further magical attacks. Either Rosie had dealt with them, or the mages decided they didn't want to fight me in a mana-dead location.

As for them moving toward the town to pull a more dangerous attack, I had no choice but to hope that it wasn't the case. Not just because I trusted their cowardice, but because I trusted Rosie's competency.

I had no choice. The fight I was locked in didn't allow second-guessing.

The fight continued, the rain of shells piling more and more metal around us, while I continued to channel the decay on Carl's shield. He had been occasionally eating some pills from inside his armor, no doubt to replenish his depleted Health, slowly being destroyed by decay, but that wasn't enough to hide the signs of exhaustion.

Just like how Martin was showing it as well.

No wonder Carl had warned him about it when he first arrived. The performance of an ascended might be far above their class, but its drawbacks were obvious as well. Maybe it was their limited soul strength, or maybe it was something more fundamental in the process of ascension, but either way, their limitations were showing.

Too bad they were merely exhausted, and not at the edge of collapse. Whatever limit they had, they were not close to it, but considering the situation, no advantage was too small. I continued to fight, wondering how the rest of the battle was going. The dust had long covered the area, enough to isolate us from the rest of the battle.

But, I didn't try to disperse it. I had done everything to give a decisive advantage to our side, and I had to trust them to handle the rest while I kept the biggest threats tied down.

And, speaking of advantages, it was time to activate another one, because just as I parried another attack from Martin, I saw a welcome presence behind them: Rosie.

She wasn't immediately behind them, but about a hundred yards away, appearing from the cloud of dust in a way that allowed her to stay at the blindside of the both.

I let a glancing blow from Martin hit me, and used the momentum to grab Carl's shield. A shield that had been covered with a thick, lingering aura of decay.

With my touch, I pushed the strongest Radiant Flame aura through my finger to punch a small hole, which then I used to channel the decay aura. The contact without the Health to protect it gave me a glimpse of the shield.

It was a beautiful weapon, far better than other stuff I had dealt with. The metal was high quality but relatively ordinary, a steel-silver mixture alloy. The truly complicated part was the layers of enchantments, which soon turned worthless as the metal turned into a darkened, useless mess.

And, along with it, ruining the strongest aspect of Carl's fighting strategy. He didn't suddenly turn helpless, but it was the biggest advantage I had been able to score since his arrival.

Now, all I needed was to create a proper opening for Rosie.