Chapter 46: Spell Creation
He could already feel each blow slamming into his body with greater stinging force. It felt as though the projectiles were passing along not just their kinetic impact, but also, very slowly, their sharp edge as well.
Think, Uhtred, think!
Within the span of the few seconds since the barrage had started, he had urged his Earth magic to try and latch onto some of the incoming projectiles, but they were simply too fast and too many for him to make any rhyme or reason of them.
If it were only one, he could have at least tried to divert it, but the unending stream made it impossible.
He also couldn’t simply begin to form another wall of earth either. Earth magic was out of the picture and Uhtred needed to do something fast.
At the last moment of dire need, the solution came to his mind.
Heat.
Using his Earth magic as an example, even though it was derived from his ability to sense metal magic, Uhtred had still just learned it on the fly...
What then was stopping him from doing the same for another element?
It was just like the System had said right at the start, his core was formless, and he could use every aspect of cosmic essence equally. At the very least, he was supposed to be able to use some basic version of any element he understood to an extent.
The key here was understanding. Aside from the metal aspects which he had learned to sense using the Epicyon wolf cores as an aid, his ability to use Earth magic had come simply by watching the Neanderthal warrior use it live in front of him.
But what if he didn’t need to watch anyone do it? What if he could use his own understanding of the other elements, coupled with the deeper insights he had gained by learning to use earth magic on the fly?
Uhtred didn’t waste time to ponder about it.
The moment the thought flitted across his mind, he kicked into action immediately, spreading his sense outward and latching onto the raw, unattuned cosmic essence he could feel in the air.
Unlike with his use of earth magic, where he was following directly after the Neanderthal warrior, this time he pictured the molecules in the air, visualizing how they would interact with the cosmic essence he could feel.
He had chosen heat as the magic he wanted to cast right now. And heat was created by the movement of particles, atoms moving and colliding at violent speeds to create friction.
Intuitively, he began to jog the particles in the air by using his ability to sense and interact with cosmic essence as a whole. He wasn’t looking for any particular heat or fire aspect, instead he was fully focused on his own interpretation of how the effect he wanted was supposed to be achieved.
And very slowly, he began to feel the air around him emanate with heat in response.
It built up progressively, growing from a mild heat, to a scalding heat, and finally to a burning heat.
The barrage of sharp stone bullets continued to slam into him furiously. But despite the pain his body was going through, it was as if he couldn’t feel any of it, somewhat like there was a disconnect between what his body felt and where the focus of his mind was.
As the heat climbed to burning levels, Uhtred realized he needed to begin manipulating it.
He attempted just that, using his knowledge from the previous earth spell. However, he found that he couldn’t project the magic far from his body at all. It seemed he didn’t have the deep, cultivated understanding for that yet.
So instead, he forced the energy to compress tightly around his body, creating a dense, volatile perimeter that extended no further than a mere hand-span width from his skin.
IGNITE.
In an instant, the air around Uhtred’s body began to glow with a blinding, red-hot intensity. All matter within that narrow hand-span boundary instantly superheated, warping into a distorted shimmer.
The relentless volley of stone bullets continued to rain down, their impacts already beginning to weaken and fray the high-grade threads of his black attire.
But the exact second the projectiles breached his new heat barrier, a sudden change occurred.
The sheer, localized temperature of the barrier acted like a melting pot. The stone bullets were moving far too fast to be melted into nothingness within such a short distance, but the extreme thermal shock still affected them.
Right before Uhtred’s eyes, the razor-sharp tips of the incoming spikes began to warp, liquefying into dull, blunt stubs the moment they entered the glowing field.
They still slammed into his body, but they had lost their penetrating edge. Instead of weakening the fabric with their piercing tips like before, the blunted projectiles flattened against the tough material, striking him with nothing more than raw, concussive force.
Uhtred gritted his teeth through the blinding heat and the rhythmic, bone-deep bruising of the impact, completely locking his mind onto maintaining the thermal field.
He was entirely spent, his core crying out as it emptied its reserves, but he refused to let the new localized heat field collapse.
It wasn’t until he felt the last of the stone barrage hit his body bluntly that he allowed the now-sputtering stream of cosmic energy fueling the spell to cut off entirely.
The cold night hissed violently against the heat emanating from Uhtred, sending thick plumes of white steam billowing into the surroundings.
The intense radiation from his air around his skin had completely scorched the earth beneath him, even creating areas that had turned red-hot.
Uhtred’s knees buckled. He dropped heavily to the ground, the star-metal battle-axe slipping from his unfeeling fingers to clatter against the boiling earth.
Across from him, the devastation of the exchange was even more ghastly. The entire area looked as though an entire military battalion had relentlessly rained down an air strike on his position.
Craters upon craters pockmarked the terrain, covered in black char marks left behind by the sheer kinetic friction of the spells.
The entire exchange had felt like an agonizing eternity, but in reality, from the moment the Neanderthal released his barrage spell, to the final creation of Uhtred’s heat aura, barely ten seconds had ticked by.
Ten seconds of catastrophic, high-density cultivation warfare.
But now it was finally over...
