Chapter 16 – A Meeting with Destiny

The Spectral Harbinger that loomed over Jordan while the Paladin was asleep in his bed seemingly unaware of the world around him, looked like it had been draining him for quite a while. Jordan’s Health Points had dropped from their lofty heights of one hundred and nine down to eighty-five. Although this meant many Health Points were still intact for him, Titus knew all too well that Spectral Harbingers were not the easiest creatures to defeat.

But then he remembered what had happened the last time they had encountered one of these beings - accidentally or not. It had ultimately been destroyed by a fireball spell, something Titus was particularly skilled at, if he did say so himself.

However, there were now three harbingers in the room, and all of them were significantly higher levels than the three Contestants.

After the last fight, they had all received a good chunk of experience points, though it hadn’t been enough to elevate them to level eight. Titus was just shy of seventy points away, and he was certain that a level up was imminent. If only it had already happened, then perhaps this fight would have been a little easier than he anticipated.

Spectral Harbinger: Level 15

HP: 800/800

Fortunately, the creatures’ Health Points weren’t colossal. At only eight hundred it seemed like they were on the weaker side, though this could have been partly because they didn’t possess physical bodies and he already knew they were resistant to physical attacks.

“Jordan!” Titus shouted as loudly as he could. Petra had also risen from her bed, having apparently sensed the danger as Titus had.

“Seriously, why does this stuff always happen around you?” Petra moaned. “I mean, I could join another team and not have to worry about any of this!”

“We can talk about this later!” Titus replied through gritted teeth. “We need to kill them!”

“Well, go on then,” Petra ordered, her voice more an annoyed groan than anything else. “Because you’re the only one who can hurt them, aren’t you?” It was more a statement than a question.

Titus nodded, steeling himself as he began channelling his Mana into the fireball spell. He wanted to help Jordan, of course, but the two additional harbingers that had entered the room were now floating ominously towards both Petra and himself. Jordan had enough HP to wait, even if it did feel to Titus like he was letting down his friend.

“Now would be a really good time for anyone guarding the HALLWAYS to come and SAVE US!” Petra shouted, clearly hoping that Darius was nearby as he had been before. Though as the harbingers had come through the door, presumably Darius wasn’t there standing guard.

As one of the ghostly figures closed in on Titus he quickly decided on a smaller, ten-Mana fireball to start things off. He quickly willed the magical fuel into the spell and released it from his open hands, sending it straight into the encroaching spectral harbinger.

The spell, only the size of a melon, dissipated into the body of the ethereal being without any grand explosion. If the creature’s Health Points hadn’t dropped by fifty, Titus wouldn’t have noticed any effect from his attack.

The harbinger, seemingly unfazed, continued floating casually towards Titus.

Titus could almost see through the darkness that resided beneath the creature’s hood as it bore down on him and deep down, he began to feel a definite sense of impending doom and helplessness.

Fifty points hadn’t been enough. It was a good chunk, sure, but the harbinger would begin its attack any second and Titus had no idea what state that would leave him in. So he pushed a full thirty points into another spell and released it directly at the creature still bearing down on him.

And the fireball, the size of a dog, sailed right through the harbinger and impacted the far stone wall. The attack did nothing. And Titus didn’t even get a chance to be worried.

The harbinger was now upon Titus, and the soul-crushing weight of his own despair became everything within Titus’ world.

He’d let his friends down and they were all going to die, and it was all because of him. The harbingers were there for him, his friends were there because of him, and he couldn’t save them because he was simply too weak.

The harbingers were just so powerful. Not because they could cause huge amounts of damage, but because of their ability to somehow resist not just physical attacks, but now this more powerful fireball. It was like they somehow resonated with the Mana…

And then Titus had an epiphany. He hadn’t realised it before because it had become so normal for him to see in his everyday life, but the harbingers were ethereal beings, constructed almost entirely out of Mana.

Titus forced his eyes open to peer into the darkness that was the endless black face of the harbinger, which had begun feeding on his very Health Pool, and there he saw it. The creature glowed a bright white from deep within, like its translucent body contained the embers of a dying sun.

Titus couldn’t just see it. He could feel it.

The draw of the Mana within the creature was palpable. He could almost feel it calling out to him and as he did, he beckoned it to his side. He called upon the Spectral Harbinger’s Mana to flow freely within the creature and to circulate freely, to ebb and flow until it was released into his welcoming embrace.

The Mana obeyed.

Titus watched his stats as firstly his Mana pool was replenished to its full seventy points, and then he watched as a further one hundred and forty points filled the air around him in two great orbs.

The harbinger still had more to give, but Titus could pull no more. He was at his maximum capacity.

The harbinger was undeterred by Titus’ action, though the loss of some of its Mana did something to break at least a part of the spell and Titus didn’t waste his one opportunity to retaliate again.

He pushed ten Mana into his fireball spell and let it go at point-blank range, this time the fireball entering the creature and relieving it of another fifty points of health. Then again and again, Titus let the lowly infused spells go until there was nothing left of the harbinger’s Health Pool and it burst into a ball of flames that lasted no longer than a fraction of a second.

It had cost him one hundred and fifty points of Mana, leaving him with only twenty inside his body, but as he looked across the room at the two other harbingers that stood over Petra and Jordan he saw them for what they truly were to him: Mana batteries.

Titus moved to Petra first as the Rogue had overtaken Jordan on her road to zero health. Perhaps it was the Paladin’s increased defences that were keeping him alive for longer, but Titus didn’t have the time to figure out what the reason was.

Focusing on the harbinger currently pulling the very life from Petra’s body as she lay on the ground, Titus forcibly removed the Mana from his opponent for the second time.

The harbinger didn’t even seem to notice as it feasted unendingly on Titus’ friend, and seeing that just made him furious.

He didn’t dare increase the power of his fireballs, knowing now that he had a tactic that worked and he peppered the harbinger with sixteen of them, having to replenish some of his Mana when he’d run out. It wasn’t a worry though, because the harbinger had far more Mana within it than Titus could ever need.

The second harbinger fell just like the first, and Titus turned his attention to the third with a grunt but he didn’t let up in his tirade.

Jordan was still hanging in there with thirty HP remaining, and Titus knew that he could take this creature in no time at all.

So Titus refocused his attention on the Mana within the last harbinger and once again forced everything he could from it, adding it to his available pool. By the time he’d taken everything he could, he had two hundred and ten points of Mana – which was far more than he had ever experienced before.

The Mana danced around Titus as if it was just waiting for him to call upon it and he did so a second later, pushing another ten Mana into one of his smaller fireballs and launching it at the final opponent.

It was just as effective as every other fireball had been, save for the larger one. Titus wondered as he began casting the spell over and over again why the larger fireball hadn’t been effective against the monster, but it was a question that he simply couldn’t answer right now so he focused on his one and only task: taking out this monster that sought to end his friend’s life.

But the harbinger wasn’t as dense as the others had been; this one, after a few fireballs had impacted it turned its attention away from Jordan and faced Titus as if it knew exactly what was happening.

And Titus was again terrified.

“Titus?” Petra called weakly from her place on the ground as she returned to consciousness. And then Jordan stirred too, as he was no longer under attack.

But Titus was the new target, and knowing that he was the only one who could do anything to harm this creature he redoubled his efforts to send fireball after fireball into the centre mass of the ethereal being.

Over and over, Titus did what he could to push his Mana into his spells, but soon he realised that the sounds of the room around him were fading away and had finally reached a calm nothingness. The light in the room and that of his fireballs too had dimmed and dimmed until there was nothing but blackness all around him.

And then he realised that he’d stopped casting his spell because he was nowhere, and had nothing to aim at. Silence and blackness was all that he knew.

But then there was something. Away in the distant darkness, Titus could see the slightest pinprick of light. He willed himself to move closer to it but found he was entirely unable to move. However, he didn’t have to because the light was growing, and it was coming closer to him with every passing second.

A few moments passed with the light increasing in size and intensity before Titus realised what it was.

The light was a person, kneeling with his hands clasped together in prayer, and it didn’t take a genius to realise that the person praying was Jordan.

The light that emanated from his friend was warming and purifying as it washed over Titus like it had some physical component and as it did so, Titus felt himself being pulled back through the darkness and silence, and back into the real world.

The sounds of Petra screaming for Titus to get himself together rang in Titus’ ears like he’d just been pulled from some unseen water, and the moment he snapped back into focus with the spectral harbinger just inches from his face he immediately began pushing Mana into his fireballs again, over and over until he had nothing left to give.

But by that time, the creature had been vanquished already. Titus had managed to kill them all, though he still wasn’t sure how.

But then he didn’t have time to ask the question because a block of text was blinking in his vision.

Titus had gained a good chunk of experience for felling the three harbingers, and that meant that he’d finally levelled up to level eight. And there was finally something different there.

Congratulations, You have reached Level 8.

XP to next level: 392.

You have 5 stat points to distribute.

You have 5 Ability points to use.

Skills Available to learn:

Improved Mana Resonance: 5AP

Health Resonance: 1AP