Rampage

A rumbling echo resounded from the woods surrounding the farm and with it, a shower of jade arrows rained from the skies once again.

It had been the 7th time in a single day.

"STOP! STOP! STOP THIS MADNESS!!!"

The mage, seemingly fading through space, was trying his best to avoid the relentless attacks his assailant was throwing around without. He had tried everything he could.

Directly injecting lotus wine in the cyclop's blood.

Soothing words of flattery.

Locking his movements with his space affinity artefact, but since this last piece was still holding the space around the island locked, the cyclop's brute force was enough to dispel its effects.

With all his ideas trumped, only one thing was left.

"I think it's beginning, Hali it's our turn now."

Odysseus looked my way, clearly telling me to catch my breath.

Although I had reduced the strength put on the incantations to barely existence, casting 7 of them in quick succession did take a toll on my reserves.

Thankfully, the next step was completely reliant on Odysseus and Hali.

Without wasting anymore time, the former Queen sat down in front of me and began circulating her aura vehemently throughout her body.

Slowly but surely, her usual waterways were webbing around us all and one at a time, guided by Odysseus gentle wind, they were creating a beautiful net hovering just above our heads but still covered by the woods.

"Are we sure that mage won't be able to detect us?"

Eurylochus was getting skeptical at our plan, and rightfully so.

The level of aura and Archana being used and morphed around us were not as neglegible as before, but I trusted Odysseus.

It turned out, the book of arrays he had gotten in that dungeon contained a mana and aura hiding form. The only restriction being "complete stillness".

Whoever was using any form of magical energy could move or speak, but since in our case both Odysseus and Hali were barely manipulating their elements, they were able to achieve these results while sitting with their eyes closed.

"Don't worry Eurylochus, but in the off chance that we are indeed discovered before we are ready, that's when you and the others will jump in."

That was enough for everyone to calm.

Rarely if ever, a plan crafted by Odysseus had gone awry and they knew this firsthand.

"Also, consider this: Polyphemus is clearly on a maddened rampage, even if that mage discovers us he'll need to first defeat the big boy or he might get crushed to death."

"Yeah, that cyclops is clearly stronger than any of us, at least on aura alone."

I smirked at his answer. None of us had any kind of appraisal skill or spell. Merlin, the only one who could actually get a read on our opponents had gently abandoned us saying shit like "I'm still a constellation, can't really mingle in your challenges between mortals."

He just wanted to sleep and eat with the kids.

But we all knew.

Polyphemus was at least comparable to a B rank warrior, if not stronger; while that mage felt like a 5th circle, but he wasn't using any form of territory creation, so we weren't sure.

Time continued to pass. The sound of battle between the monster and the mage never stopped and in just fifteen minutes the web of waterways was completed.

It was big enough to cover the entire farm.

Odysseus and Hali opened their eyes at the same time. We were ready.

Taking out my bident I scraped the array Odysseus had created and immediately, the masked aura and Archana surrounding us was exposed.

A voice and a war cry came on to us, but it was already too late.

"WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!"

"AAAAARGGGGGHHHH!!!"

The moment the monster and mage duo sensed our trap, they were already ensnared.

Like a fisherman throwing a net, Hali was ready to make a big catch, and so she did.

Waterways fell upon the unexpected duo, further fuelling the monster's madness and the mage's fury.

Their rampage continued, augmented and with little effort the waterways begun to crumble drenching the now allied enemies, and all hell broke.

_______________________

"It'll be useless to try and catch them with my waterway Odysseus. They are clearly too strong."

"That was never my intention."

"Then what? Drench them and then have Dimitris electroshock them?"

"No Hali, this is much more effective. Do you know what my territory creation was before regressing to the 2nd circle?"

"How would I know?"

"Hahaha, my territory was [Frozen Kingdom]."

_______________________

The moment the first waterway was destroyed by Polyphemus, the first wind trapped inside of them started to run wild creating a chain reaction.

One after the other, the waterways were breaking up, drenching everything in their wake and releasing furious winds every where.

A club was thrown at the mage deftly managed to cast a shield type spell, but lost footing either way and flew off.

"POLYPHEMUS! THERE ARE INTRUDERS FOR FUCK SAKE! SNAP OUT OF IT!!!"

For a second, lucidity seemed to get a hold of the monster, but at than moment…

RUMBLE

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!"

All clarity was lost once again.

The infuriated monster didn't even notice the absence of those jaded arrows, after all, their strength had been reducing time and time again.

But the mental trauma was everlasting.

His rampage uncontrollable and the mage was left with only two options.

Kill or be killed.

"You leave me no choice Polyphemus. We were so close too bringing back Khaos."

The wind now was almost blinding. Clearly the effect of those unknown enemies. It was cold, extremely so.

The chilling wind, paired with the previous dousing was bringing new levels of discomfort and almost unnoticeably, water started to freeze here and there.

Unbothered by the cold, Polyphemus finally erupted with magical energy and launched himself at the mage.

His club swinging in wide arcs, but each and every hit was parried or deflected by weird black vortexes acting as shields around the mage.

"It's useless, just die Polyphemus."

"AAAAARRRRRHHHH!!!"

"[Territory cre-"

Just as the spell started being casted, salted water shot from Polyphemus body, it covered him in an armor shape and it was clear: protection was not its purpose.

With his newly found strength, a simple punch was enough to shatter the black vortex and a following swing threw the mage reeling.

With blood pouring out of his mouth, eyes unfocused and a shocked expression the mage tried to stabilise himself to no avail, but in those few seconds Polyphemus was already on the move.

Until the wind became unbearable.

The cold biting at everything and everyone.

And all the water was frozen solid.

But the wind didn't stop, Polyphemus, now encased in his frozen armor, was thrashing around trying to break free and the mage tried to protect himself with his black vortexes, but he couldn't cover his every angle.

His mind was growing numb from the cold, even coating his entire body with mana didn't help.

"Fuck! I need to get out!"

In a desperate attempt to fly from the scene, the mage took out his space artefact.

A black dagger that seemed to constantly swirl with energy appeared on his hand, but just as the mage was ready to cut open space and retreat, his mind grew hazy.

That single instance of clarity lapse was enough to make the dagger slip from his shaking with frostbites hands into a bed of flowers.

"Flowers? What the fuck?"

But his shock was quickly replaced with terror and at that same moment, he noticed it.

The wind had stopped blowing like a tempest and was now a gentle breeze, at the same time, Polyphemus had stopped thrashing around and was now staying still in his ice prison with a blissful expression.

White spectral butterflies were swarming around and lifting the dagger the slowly brought it to the edges of the woods where a man with strange clothes, beautiful black hair reflecting hues of blue and piercing green eyes gently picked it up.

"Well, thank you little friends."

Those were the last words the mage heard before losing consciousness in front of the beautiful yet terrifying enemy.

_______________________

"Polites, give me the seeds."

After rescuing the lotus eaters we were able to retrieve some fruits as well, and those fruits were the cornerstone of our plan.

However we needed both Polyphemus and that unknown mage to exhaust themselves.

The pollen from the lotus flowers held the same capabilities of the fruit albeit in a lesser version, but at the same time, being weaker was also a strength in our case.

Without realising that they were inhaling mind poison, the monster and mage wouldn't put up defences against it and would succumb easily to it.

And that's exactly what happened.

Lotus seeds were scattered into the wind imbued with my [minor blessing of growth] and upon touching the ground I sent my [fire lilies of destruction] to melt the ice on the ground as subtly as possible. Just like that the seeds had both eart and water to bloom, it was only a matter of time now, but the pollen would undoubtedly scatter everywhere with strong winds.

At first that was a good thing since we needed the enemies to not realise what was happening, that's when my familiar and Odysseus winds laid complete waste to the minds of our opponents.

I can't believe Odysseus planned all this in less then a couple of hours.

"Thank the gods I'm not your enemy Odysseus."

He smiled gently and took my hand.

"Let's finish things up, yes? We still need to get that artefact."

This is one motherfucking scary bastard.

We were all exhausted, but the battle wasn't finished yet. Hali, Odysseus and I were on the verge of exhaustion from all the magic we'd used, but with the help from Eurylochus and the others we were somewhat able to recuperate, I also realised that my [Ruby Rouge Rose] was not as busted of a spell as I thought it was, it wasn't exactly a battery, more so than a mana transfer.

All in all, it was still useful to support other better suited at a specific job then me.

Our plans continued without much of a hiccup, it took a little more time than I wished for it to, but at the end of the day we had succeeded.

Polyphemus was a blissful fool, unaware of anything happening around him and the enemy mage was unconscious with a frozen body.

Eurylochus came to me and Odysseus with a questioning look.

"How do we proceed?"

And Odysseus, as cold as the frozen kingdom he had just recreated, answered without much of a thought.

"Kill the cyclops. Be sure to do it in one strike, we don't want him to wake up from the pain. Dimitris and I will take care of the mage."

He turned to me with an expectant look.

"Are you sure about its effectiveness?"

But it was Hali and everyone else that answered.

"Captain, don't let that bastard deceive you. He's the only monster able to move and fight like nothing with those spikes into his body, but even he can't use mana in that state."

He looked at me confused.

"It's just… forget it, he won't be able to use mana or move."

With that issue settled, I took out iron thorns I had brought back from the Damocles household and got to work, at the same time, Hali, Eurylochus and Polites climbed on Polyphemus body, their swords erupting with ultraviolent aura ready to strike down the monster that could have easily swatted us all down with a slap.

Who said that recklessly jumping into battle and heroically being down the enemies was the best way to act.

"We sure are some crazy lunatics."

"That we are, but now show me where the mana channels are, if what you said its true, I might need to train like you as well."

I nodded and continued to close the mage's mana channels one after the other and at the same time, three swords fell on the dreaming monster's neck.

One hit, well… three hits, were enough to bring him down.

The huge head fell to the ground and a shower of blood rained from the beheaded monster.

The three warriors jumped down from the corpse and were ready to leave.

"Where do you think you are going?"

They stopped at my call with confused looks.

"We killed the monster, there's nothing much for us to do, isn't there?"

I smirked.

"You fools. It's time to loot."

It was time for us to rampage on this farm, get all the meat and goodies left for nobody.

"Or did you forget that we are low on food?"

With renewed sparkles in their eyes, the three blood drenched warriors started laughing maniacally and run towards the farm.