Transmigrated as a Ghost

Chapter 1186: Chapter 1186 Pressed on All Sides

Marcus almost immediately regrated facing off against four of the most powerful Umbrashnuls on his own.

The king himself was already strong enough to push him, and the other three acted in perfect supporting roles.

Vashtalive was a powerful magic user, not only well versed in shadow but also nature and emotion magic.

Roots that Marcus could hardly perceive would often shoot out of the ground and entangle him or weird plants that were dark gray and mostly hollow would shake themselves and create a discordant noise that made his magic harder to cast and maintain.

And while they did not have much of an effect on him, the powerful caster Umbrashnul mage was constantly casting spells that played with Marcus’ emotions.

Still, it was distracting and he had a lot to deal with.

As for Folcalar, he wielded a giant crossbow that also seemed to serve as an axe judging by the blades attached to the limbs.

With it, he was constantly firing powerful shadow bolts at Marcus, and occasionally charging at him and taking a swing with the blades.

Gauld played his own role well, acting as a fast striker.

He moved swiftly and stealthily using his six legs, and the shadows that he wielded like arms took the form of blades that could extend and retract to an insane degree.

Often, he timed his own attacks with the others and nearly always struck from behind.

To counter this, Marcus had actually created extra eyes over his body despite how unnatural it felt.

Still the fact that he was able to do so at all was testament to how versatile Ascendant Existence was.

It allowed him to shape his form however he wanted, though the more wildly he shifted from his normal body, the more difficult it was for him to get used to it.

Luckily, the extra eyes were not too hard to accommodate. It was just a bit strange, suddenly having more perspectives to juggle.

Of course, while the three high-level Umbrashnul fighters were difficult to deal with, they were nothing compared to their kind.

He fought with an amethros spear that had a blade that was long enough to be a sword. The weapon was also almost black instead of the characteristic purple from how much shadow energy was inside of it.

His thrusts and slashes were blindingly quick, and had a great deal of power behind them.

Marcus was doing his best to fend the strikes off, but he was often distracted or had his reactions delayed by the other three.

Obviously he had tried reaching out to Lyra for assistance, but she was tied up protecting the fort from an invading army of Umbrashnuls.

She had created a wall of her special racial ability flames to prevent the shadow people from advancing, while Relia led the reaming troops to stop any that slipped through.

’F*ck!’

Tilting his head at an angle that would have broken a human’s neck, he just barely prevented himself from having his head decapitated by the Umbrashnul King’s spear.

He did not get away unscathed though.

There was now a large gash in his neck that was spewing gray mist. Thankfully his reaeration and healing magic were already working fixing the damage.

’I wanted to hold this in reserve for an offensive maneuver, but I might have to reveal my intangibility early to get into a better position.’ Marcus thought as he dodged or blocked several attacks coming for him all at once from several different angles.

He had yet to show off some of his ghostly abilities, so none of his opponents were yet infusing their attacks in spiritual energy.

Marcus did not doubt that at least the king would be able to do so, as it was too great of a deficiency for someone truly strong to not have access to the power.

As for the others, it was a possibility that they had not trained to utilize spiritual energy, but he would not be counting on being so lucky. Most high-level fighters did not want to find themselves losing simply because they ran into an adversary that could not harm. Even if intangibility abilities were somewhat rare.

’Shine Ring.’

To force his foes back, Marcus attempted to cast a wide area light magic spell that created an expanding burst of light all around him.

Yet at almost the same exact moment that the magic manifested, Vashtalive cast a spell of his own.

Shadows rose up out of the ground and wrapped around the light magic. Eating into it and appearing to drag it into the ground where the light disappeared.

The magic that Marcus had conjured was snuffed out before it even had a chance to spread.

An instant after, he locked his scythe with the Umbrashnul King’s spear and the two pushed against each other.

With his Embodiment of Eclipse going at full force and several enchantment spells enhancing his physical abilities, Marcus knew that he was stronger, but was not able to properly utilize this advantage as he was forced to block slashes aimed at his back with a hastily formed mana barrier.

After that he knew some crossbow bolts were coming his way, and he hastily grew a third arm to deal with them.

Still, he was not used to having more than four limbs, and the extra appendage was difficult to move as precisely as he would have liked.

This allowed three of Folcalor’s attacks to get past his defenses and sink into his body.

Each one of the bolts only breached his skin by a couple of centimeters, which was not really a problem.

What came next was though.

Each one exploded into shadowy blades that carved through him.

Had he been a being made of flesh and blood, this would have caused some serious injuries.

Being a ghost, it was not debilitating in the least as it would have been for a human. Though every injury he took drained a little bit of Marcus’ spiritual energy and mana. Eventually he was going to get worn down if things did not change soon.

’I guess I’m going for it. Next time Gauld tries to strike me from behind, I’ll go intangible to break out of this and try and kill him in one hit. That should make this a bit easier.’ Marcus thought, having decided on his course of action.

He wanted to save this trick to land a blow on the King instead, but he was under no illusion that he could defeat someone as powerful as him in one attack.

The pressure on him from the four high level Umbrashnuls needed to be eased. So at least one of them had to go.

Except, just as Marcus was preparing to enact his strategy, a blur of light slammed into Gauld just moments before he tried to attack Marcus again.

Immediately, Marcus smiled, knowing exactly who had just come to his aid.

With his back not being pressured for the moment, Marcus leapt backwards while casting a high tier spell for the first time during the battle. He had been forced to constantly cast quicker and easier spells just to keep himself alive, so it was not until now that he had the time he needed to channel enough mana for something bigger.

’Twin Pulsars.’

The moment that the tier nine light magic spell came into existence, it was as if a catastrophe had just been let loose.

Two giant spheres of light appeared a hundred meters apart from each other and released light that was even brighter than the sun.

Then, thick beams began firing out of the top and bottom of the spheres.

The rock in both the ceiling and the ground were blasted through, but Marcus had no intention of just allowing them to drill holes through the earth and light things up.

He had put a lot of mana into this spell, so he was going to get some worth out of it.

At his command, the spheres began rotating and he aimed the beams of light at the Umbrashnuls he was fighting.

The sudden manifestation of a tier nine spell had certainly caught them off guard and the intense light energy filling the chamber had staggered them.

Vashtalive tried to use his shadow magic to disrupt the twin pulsars spell, but it was in a completely different league compared to any other magic he had ever dealt with.

For all the effort he put in, the shadows barely grew any stronger, and the intense light was only dimmed by the slightest degree.

Of course, Marcus was not going to just let the man do as he wanted and aimed a beam directly at him.

Forcing the man to turn all of his attention into running away, less he be engulfed in light and reduced to ashes.

Unfortunately, Marcus’ sudden dominance of the battle only lasted for a few seconds.

The Umbrashnul King stepped in, shadows roiling around him despite the oppressive light coming from Marcus’s spell.

"Banish Wave!"