An Arcana Strike that had been given no time to charge was quite weak. At least, when compared to what it could achieve when left to cultivate for a little while. John had spent 2943 mana on the spell. What he got in return was less damage than he would have gotten if he had invested all of that mana into spamming Arcane Echo. To put things into perspective. For 3000 mana, assuming everything hit just one target, he could have dealt over 4000 damage with Arc Lance, about 2000 damage with 20 Arcane Echoes, and Arcana Strike, the thing he went with, dealt 1700 damage if fired immediately.

However, there were three important things about Arcana Strike that made it better in this situation. One, its radius of explosion, even triggered immediately, was bigger than that of Arcane Echo. Two, it didn’t just deal damage to enemies. Three, it was visually impressive. Particularly those last two parts were important right now.

John charged back at the enemies he had just escaped from. Much to Theron’s surprise, but the Interrupter mage clearly knew better than to stay when there was a beam of light shining down on the ground where John had stood earlier. Like always, the Arcana Strike announced its descent this way.

Turning to run, Theron conceded the ground to John, who just grinned as the weak energy mass descended on his position at supersonic speeds. Soon, John’s field of vision was consumed by purple and blue. While it did say 1700 damage on the box, an amount that would have killed John with the level of damage he had already taken, he actually took no damage. A courtesy of the Guild Perk that turned friendly fire off.

Under the cover of the explosion, John had a few seconds of protection, and that was all he needed to finally read through the Attributes on the Purgatory upgrade. Information was the basis of warfare, and although he lacked the time to properly think about them, knowing them was half the battle.

A better version of Spell Storage. Easy enough to understand. Better in all ways except that he could no longer prepare elemental infused Mana Blades with it.

Nothing to be said, nice to have.

This was the Echo of Destruction Attribute, but minus the fireball throwing at the end of it. However, it did provide other bonuses, so the question was whether those were worth losing the fireball. The answer was already yes, given the Arcane Ascension bonus.

And there was the answer to why equipping over Undine had worked and why he was currently holding an estoc made of ice. The splitting thing was quite interesting.

Nothing came to mind immediately here either, aside from the fact that this was useful. Particularly in combination with the previous Attribute.

And there was the replacement for the fireball. Was more immediately useful, so John appreciated it.

Sounded interesting, time would tell if it was useful.

The light around John faded, leaving him on his feet, visibly unharmed, in a field of burned grass and scorched earth. Standing straight, with his shoulders back, the sword lowered and Purgatory stemmed into his hips in a fist (he didn’t want to cut himself), he radiated as much certainty and confidence as was possible. The purple mist that hung around in the ten-metre area of the explosion added an imposing aura to all of it.

“Oh?” John taunted with a grin. “Where’s your confidence gone? Not so eager when you can’t surprise me, are you?” It was a bluff, there was nothing about this situation that made him any less attackable. All that mattered was that they believed it. Theron’s eyes darted to the right, looking at something, or likely someone, invisible to John.

That was all fine by him. All that mattered was to delay attacks from the Interrupter mage further. Just a little more and…

The fuzz between his and Undine’s consciousness was ripped away like a sheet. Their minds mingled, overlapped, laid together like long lost lovers. A rush of cold determination filled John’s mind as his sensitivity for the surrounding world suddenly spiked. Without the other elementals around, it wasn’t as potent. Still enough for him to feel that knife coming for the right side of his neck and catch it when the tip started cutting the skin.

Purgatory’s claws drew blood as he clamped down on the arm with all his force. The air next to him turned from translucent, into a wavy display of a human outline, until a shape peeled out of the invisibility. A guy with badly dyed green hair, lip and nose piercings, and brown eyes came into view. The denim vest and torn jeans only added to the punk image.

Their eyes met and the no-longer-invisible man’s went wide with fear while John’s grin showed his white teeth. “Leslek,” John recognized the face from an information briefing. “I had only marked you down as a teleporter, who knew you could go invisible?” Feeling the bones in the arm squish together under the force of his grasp, John leaned closer. “But now I see you.”

Around John, Gnome and Salamander appeared again. Leslek tried to pull back, but only succeeded at cutting himself more at the separating claws. “What the fuck, Theron?!” he screamed at his ally, standing still at the side lines. “WHY CAN HE ALREADY USE THEM AGAIN?!”

“Beats me,” Theron responded, standing there with his arms dangling and an overall disinterested look on his face. “Why couldn’t you kill him by slicing his throat open? Some things just don’t work exactly as expected.”

‘The wonders of having a high Endurance,’ John thought, as happy as always that he invested in sturdiness somewhat. Undine was rapidly filling up his health pool again. Even absorbed into Purgatory as she was right now, she could still ooze out her healing slime. It happened underneath the scales and was immediately used up by regenerating John’s health. To people not in his group, all those that didn’t have access to the interface, that whole process was almost invisible. Only that the one slit in his shirt also mended itself, Gamer’s Clothes doing its work as his HP topped off, could have given any indication.

Checking on those bars in the corner of his vision, John realized that Rave’s HP was slightly down and her mana was going up and down repeatedly. “So, you sent someone to attack my Guild Hall as well,” he stated while twisting Leslek’s arm away from his throat.

The green-haired punk stabbed at the arm holding him with a second knife, but it bounced off Purgatory’s scales, causing no harm to John. Quickly, Leslek recovered and tried to stab John’s stomach instead. Having already twisted the guy into a bad angle, John just rolled his eyes and kicked away his feet. At the same time, John ripped the guy up. It turned out John was quite a bit taller, making Leslek dangle by his bleeding arm.

“Look, you may be a more agile build than me in theory,” John stated, not having gotten a successful Observe yet, “but I got you gripped and we already found out that you can’t kill me by stabbing me with those things.” He didn’t mention the part where he got extra Agility and Strength from Rising Annihilation thanks to the bit of the floor that the Arcana Strike had ravaged. Sure, that was just a couple of points, but it was still noteworthy. Even more important were the All Stats he gained by having the World Ender set complete again. “Do yourself a favour and comply, before I remember what you two did to my Sylph…”

The Cleansing Mist of Purgatory intensified and the gripped arm turned pale as heat was sucked out of it at a steady rate. How long it would need to cause actual freezing was something John was willing to experiment on right now.

“Fuck off!” the punk declared, trying to stab John yet again. Something ended by another black gauntleted hand catching the arm.

“I can remember for you, John,” Salamander announced with an evil grin. The black lines on her face turned golden as the fire inside her grew hotter and hotter.

Stuck between heat and cold, Leslek screamed as multiple pain signals rushed through his body. “DON’T JUST FUCKING STAND THERE, THERON!”

“Well, what do you expect me to do?” the man asked with a wide shrug, face to face with Gnome. “There is a very cute boulder in my way.”

“C-cute?” she stammered, averting her eyes for a moment in embarrassment, her hands rising to hide her face. “N-no, you’re just trying to distract me to punch me or something!” she shouted and took a proper stance.

Theron sighed, “This is such a bother.” Then, suddenly, his eyes got sharp, the martial arts Aura flared up and, with two Shifts, he skipped behind Gnome. Raised fist, he closed in on John. A fireball coming in the interrupter mage’s direction interrupted his charge. He twisted out of the way, barely dodged a stab of the ice estoc, then had to jump back as a wall of stone rose between him and John. “There!” his voice echoed, “I tried, you happy?”

“Nnnno!” Leslek hissed in pain. John dropped him and so did Salamander. The daggers dropped out of his hands when he hit the floor. Attempts to pick them back up were unsuccessful. One hand was frozen to the point of complete numbness and the other had its sinews burned away. “Shit, fuck, shit!” he screamed, then teleported a couple of metres away.

John rolled his eyes and had Salamander fly after him and drag the struggling guy back before he could get on his feet. This was no longer a battle. His winning condition had been cleared, Leslek had been taken out, and it was quite clear that Theron wasn’t in it for a suicide charge. This was a clean-up.

He stepped out from behind the separating wall, the estoc and Purgatory ready. If it came to it, John would give this Arcane Ascension a test and blast the guys arm off. “Do you surrender?” the Gamer asked. Although he was feeling a dark urge to hurt the guy for destroying Sylph’s body, there was no need to unnecessarily strain things. Theron didn’t seem cruel or even antagonistic, just pragmatic about his situation.

“Sure,” he therefore answered in the expected way, shrugging. “I vow by the Great Lakes that I won’t do anything else in this battle.” With those words, he plopped down into the charred grass, sparks of energy scattering with the rising ash that caused. Raising one hand to his ear, he took off the communication device he was wearing and offered it to John.

He had Gnome take it, so he could maintain the distance between the two of them. There was no way he was getting close to the interrupter mage without further insurance. John held the piece against his ear, while Gnome was cementing both Theron’s and Leslek’s hands in the floor. It took quite a bit of effort and was unlikely to hold them back for long, but it was the best John had against fleeing attempts.

He turned the earpiece in his hands, then put it into his inventory. While he couldn’t tap into the communication network with it, he had already tried with those of a few normal soldiers and found them to be aura locked, Scarlett would likely have an interest in looking at them.

‘Alright, roll call.’ John went around to test his mental connections. ‘Gnome, check; Undine, check; Salamander, check; Siena…?’

‘Right here,’ the moonshade elemental stated, her sexy voice a nice, momentary distraction of the cruelties and blood of the day. ‘I was just about to return to you, when this displeasing interference hit me. The rest of the island is clean.’

‘Great. Aclysia, Beatrice?’

‘Present,’ the former answered for both of them, they stepped in front of Jack’s vision to underline things. ‘Consciousness recovered; this was a deeply troubling experience.’

‘M-maybe,’ Gnome suggested, ‘we should do some group cuddling later to get over it? J-j-j-just if you want to!’

‘Sure,’ John gave her an amused answer and then inspected the last two mental connections he had. Sylph’s was silent like a grave. It was still there, but her consciousness was dormant until he had the mana to restore her. Which would be a little while longer. More for completion’s sake, he turned to the connection with Metra. All he got through it was a distant feeling of boredom.

Taking out his phone, he then moved to get an update on the overall situation. Immediately upon gaining a connection, numerous text messages rolled in. Only one of which his eyes stuck to.

Scarlett: Jeremiah is fighting his way up my tower.

“Shit,” John cursed. Metra fighting Jeremiah was exactly the scenario he had wanted to avoid. He looked at the two elites he had just beaten. If he left them alone, there was a chance they would escape. Theron didn’t strike John as the type that would cause trouble, while Leslek’s arms were officially out of commission for the moment. It wasn’t without risks, but he cared more about protecting Metra than he did about the guaranteed capture of these two.

‘Gnome, Salamander, Undine, Siena, I need you to combine and fly over to the IBMA.’ Those four combined into Saladina, an elemental that could fly. The steam elemental wasn’t a quick flyer, but that was the best they had without the option to mix Sylph in. ‘I will follow with the jet ski.’

‘Alright…’ Gnome hesitatingly answered for all of them. John only ripped the communication device off Leslek’s ear before starting to run towards the location where he had left the boat. It was a straight and eventless sprint, past some beaten groups of enemies. Nobody had gone against their word.

The jet ski was unharmed and sitting where John had gone ashore. Reversing Purgatory to its armguard shape, he pushed the thing back into the water and jumped on top. He wouldn’t get there before the Combination ran out, but he would get there.

At the same time, he had moved Jack to drive back to the Guild Hall and support Rave. According to the reports, she was at the Silicate Island right now. His worried eyes were directed at Liberty Island. ‘Jane held her own so far, I don’t need to help her as urgently as I need to protect Metra. Wait, what the…’ Blinking a few times, he realized something that Jack would have to investigate immediately.