The Runic Alchemist

"Ready?" Damian asked, his tone calm yet resolute.

"Do we really have to go with everyone?" Simean murmured, unease etched on his face.

"The more, the better. It's not like it matters if someone stays behind—the traps and barriers will handle them. This is our chance to snatch some points," Gregory replied, cutting in before Damian could answer.

Damian simply nodded, relieved they understood the stakes. The group was ready, heading straight toward the civilian zone. Even if others from the two sections tried to halt their charge, those two would have to deal with their own massive monsters first. And even if anyone managed to reach them, they'd have to get through him. Damian had no intention of letting his investment go unprotected—he needed their mana to operate the spatial storage cubes, which was a significant tax on his own reserves.

A bell chimed, breaking his thoughts, and they sprang into action. Damian quickly set up additional traps with the group's help, laying newly acquired parchments to reinforce their strategy. Activating the barrier, they moved swiftly into the dense forest. They had 30 minutes before the barrier depleted, to make it back.

Through his mana sense, Damian detected the Spellborne Legion guys moving nearby, this time with more cohesion in their formation. After dispatching some random monsters, Damian leaped into a tree for a better view. From above, he spotted familiar faces: Einar, Evrin, Lucian, and Prince Maelor himself, accompanied by small groups of princess and prince's loyal followers. Meanwhile, Alex and Kamisen had reformed their reduced group, working with the cautious precision of past experience.

Sam stood near the Spellborne Legion house, seemingly on protection duty. The pugilists had left half their number behind, watching from a distance. Though separated by a stretch teeming with monsters, it was clear they could close the gap if they chose to. Their attention, however, seemed divided—they were also keeping a sharp eye on Damian's house, as if waiting for any sign of movement.

Lucian and Evrin confronted the giant lizard alongside half of their own forces and the prince's followers. Meanwhile, Alex and Kamisen's group had also divided their efforts—one team engaging the monster, while the other focused on rescuing the civilians. It seemed they had strategized after gaining firsthand experience with the task.

The pugilists, on the other hand, operated with greater cohesion. Half of them remained stationed, while the other half—led by their elites—worked to subdue the monster and push past it.

Experience more on empire

Damian pressed on with his group, carefully skirting the giant monsters and the battles raging around them, always keeping just enough distance to avoid getting drawn in. Yet, to add a little chaos, he unleashed large spheres of water from his runic scrolls, targeting both monster-fighting parties as they passed.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

For the pugilists, the water turned the ground into a muddy quagmire, throwing off their balance and disrupting their rhythm. The Spellborne team fared better—Lucian quickly froze the water mid-air, creating a crystalline barricade upon landing. Both Evrin and Lucian shot him sharp glares, but Damian responded with nothing more than a sweet smile, following it up with a few well-placed aura slashes to keep them busy.

The monster, unfazed by Damian's antics, took full advantage of the disruption, continuing its assault on the distracted fighters.

Curses of his name echoed from both groups, yet none were in any position to retaliate.

Using his mana sense, Damian skillfully guided his group to avoid most of the monsters, engaging only those encounters that were unavoidable—and dispatching them quickly. Meanwhile, the other groups battled their way toward the civilian zone, struggling against relentless opposition.

There was another massive monster just near the civilian zone where both sections had lost their people last time.

This creature was a massive, hairy, muscular ape nestled within the moat. It never ventured out, instead striking at anyone who dared to cross the bridge leading to the civilian zone. Damian had briefly witnessed the chaos earlier—people sprinting across the bridge at full speed, desperately trying to evade the ape's grasping hands. He'd also seen it roar and pound its powerful chest in a display of dominance.

Whoever had crafted this illusion certainly had a thing for muscular, dramatic monsters.

Damian's group finally reached the edge of the clearing before the bridge. He detected Einar and Maelor not far behind them, with Alex and Kamisen trailing nearby at some distance. While he couldn't locate the pugilists' elite team, he knew they had to be close. The ape, perched ominously by the moat, was watching them intently, waiting for anyone to step into its range.

Crossing the bridge with other groups at their backs was a risk Damian wasn't willing to take. Sandwiched between an aggressive ape and rival students, they would face countless problems afterwards.

After slaughtering numerous monsters along the way, Damian's group had amassed a substantial amount of loot. While waiting for the others to arrive, he used the time to draw a few more parchments, carefully depleting the last of their mana ink.

Finally, all the groups converged, standing at a tense standoff, their gazes locked as they sized each other up.

"Are we doing this or not?" Damian shouted, stepping out of the woods to ensure everyone could see him.

"Why don't you go ahead and show us the way?" Karl responded with a smile—one laced with unmistakable malice.

"We're wasting time," Maelor interjected, his regal presence in shiny armor commanding attention. "Let's go together and grab as many civilians as we can."

"Yo, low-level guy!" Einar called out to Damian.

"Hey, zero-pointer," Damian shot back with a grin. Then added, "The prince has a point. Let's all go together, like the nice classmates we all are."

The others cast suspicious glances at him, but one by one, they all nodded—Kamisen, a pugilist boy who appeared to be the pugilist's leader, and even Alex. With slow, cautious steps, they moved closer, gathering together while keeping a wary eye on each other—and on the looming ape ahead of them.

The ape watched them intently, but occasionally its gaze shifted as it let out a roar and began pounding its chest. When its eyes drifted away once more, the groups sprang into action. They sprinted across the 6-7 ft wide bridge in a tangle, no one ahead or behind as all the groups merged together in the chaos.

Damian, a few pugilists, Einar, and Alex found themselves at the front, while the prince trailed just slightly behind. The rest of the group followed closely, forming a chaotic, hastily assembled line.