Chapter 214: Chapter 214

Noctyn glided, and for a second, it looked like the monster was voluntarily smashing into them headfirst. Then . . . it stopped.

It simply wasn’t advancing anymore, suspended in the rising column as if the concept of momentum had been politely declined. There was no change in the sound nor the light around them, yet Fabrisse felt deeply troubled. Something didn’t seem right.

[Note: Anomalous field detected. FP restoration forcefully suspended.]

What? No restoration?

She flicked two fingers and let a fireball loose.

The fireball struck Noctyn square in the chest, and vanished.

She inhaled sharply. “It’s invoked an aetheric anti-ingress field,” she said. “Nothing crosses from outside in.”

[Environmental shift detected: Aetheric Anti-Ingress Field]

[EFFECT: External aether sources severed. Leylines, ambient fields, and siphoning effects blocked.

Aetheric manifestations originating within the field suffer 50% efficacy reduction.

FP regeneration suspended: Environmental restriction]

So she hadn’t intended for the spell to be that small. It just got 50% weaker.

But why was Noctyn doing this? What was the gameplan here? This must mean its skillset didn’t rely on aetheric skills, which made sense. It had perfect control of the wind, and Fabrisse didn’t think it had cast any thaumaturgical spell to bend the air to its will.

Which makes this such a disgustingly annoying boss to fight. You can’t fight it with Aural Magic. You can’t fight it with Thaumaturgy. What are you supposed to do?

[Quest Received: Closed-System Casting Trial]

Objective: While inside the Anti-Ingress Field, successfully cast 3 spells of the same element without completely draining your FP Pool.

Reward: +120 EXP (x2 – Dungeon Core Rewards)

+10 Mastery Points (Affinity registered upon casting spells) (x2 – Dungeon Core Rewards)

10 Mastery Points . . . He had never seen so many rewarded before. Also, Dungeon Core reward? Simply being in this dungeon was causing Eidralith to act up, or was this how naturally people progress exponentially? Was this the reason why people delve into dungeons?

Noctyn’s wings flexed once, and Fabrisse’s teeth clicked as the pressure differential deepened. His lungs worked harder for the same breath.

Then . . . Fabrisse dropped into the crystal shield below. His elbow slammed into the surface, and he groaned. New ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄhapters are published on novel⦿fire.net

Severa had just randomly decided to not support him anymore, and he was thrown into the floating bulwark like a ragdoll.

“My apology.” She flew in front of Fabrisse to shield him. “I have to conserve aether.”

She angled a leg back against the flow, palms open but not casting. Fabrisse knew it. Something big was about to happen.

Noctyn’s wings cupped. The creature’s body aligned perfectly with the column, chest angled just enough to let the airflow skim along its underside.

Fabrisse shielded his chest with his hand and braced for impact.

A pillar of fire tore at the creature from below.

Tommaso burst into view from a neighboring column, his entire body incandescent in Fireform. He was fighting the ascent—jets of flame blasting downward in stuttering bursts just to keep himself from being carried skyward. His trajectory was ugly, but he was in control. Somewhat.

At the same moment, the temperature dropped.

A second column erupted to Fabrisse’s right.

Zan Ruan rose on a disk of ice. A massive, translucent shield rotated beneath her feet, re-forming constantly as the wind tried to rip it apart. Frost streamed off its edges in vaporous banners.

She’s not using her Aural magic. Where’s the Grand Luminary?

She thrust her hand out. A continuous ice stream blasted at Noctyn, layer by layer.

That’s great. Their spells are outside of the field, which means they can cast them at full power.

Yet Noctyn did not veer.

The fire and ice raked across its flanks, but the creature didn’t break its line. Fabrisse realized the attacks had not even gone past its membranes, and a bat’s membrane was supposed to be thin! And THEN, he realized . . . barely any of the fire and ice had been allowed through. The flames didn’t strike Noctyn’s wings so much as they were peeled aside as the wind curved to redirect and absorb most of the damage.

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This creature has a ridiculous defensive mechanism.

Noctyn’s eyes never left Severa. The column bent around it, airflow tightening, compressing, until the wind itself seemed to lean forward with the bat.

Then Noctyn snapped its wings open. Not to glide. To clap.

Severa’s hands crossed, then tore apart. “Gilded Arbor: Blooming Bastion.”

Crystal erupted into a forest. Growths speared up and out until they stopped resembling a bulwark but prismatic fronds that unfolded faster than Fabrisse’s eyes could follow. Each limb forked into thinner spines, each spine splitting it again, until the air in front of Severa became a radiant thicket of hard angles and luminous veins.

That’s such a high-level technique. She really masters all elements she learns.

The kinetic surge hit.

Branches shattered. Every break redistributed force, each fracture shedding momentum sideways into the forest. New growths bloomed in the gaps instantly, grabbing at Noctyn’s wings with hooked crystal shrapnels, puncturing a few visible holes into the membrane and anchoring it for a fraction too long.

I need to cast a spell at Noctyn. Is there anything I can do?

Fabrisse checked the wording of the quest again.

I don’t have to cast AT Noctyn. I can just cast something while standing here and call it a day.

Fabrisse fumbled into his pouch with numb fingers and pulled out a Stupenstone. He threw it . . . at nothing.

[Spell Cast: Stupenstone Fling]

Then he raised his hand.

The stone flew back at him.

It counted! He felt an odd sort of pride having been able to crack the system somehow. This quest would be so easy to complete, for great reward.

Severa’s voice cut across the chaos, sharp and incredulous. “What are you even doing?”

“Just focus on your spell!” He shouted back.

As beautiful as it was, Severa’s defense didn’t hold. The remaining fronds bent past their tolerances. Then Noctyn’s clap broke through them.

The force punched through what remained of the Blooming Bastion like a tidal wave through scaffolding.

Severa was hurled backward. She caught herself only at the last instant as a single slab formed beneath her heel, heaving like she’d just climbed up a mountain. The bulwark behind her shook, and Fabrisse got smashed against the side by inertia. He would’ve dropped off the bulwark had Severa not erected a stubby wall around it to catch him. But the impact hurt.

[Damage Taken: Shoulder Bruise]

Ah. So this was the hard part. Being in the air was so draining that simply being slapped around would cost him FP.

He tried to stand up, but Noctyn clapped again. Wind blew at him, and he immediately got thrown to the other side, slamming into Severa like a clapper striking a bell.

Fabrisse barely had time to register the sudden heat and pressure of her before gravity—or whatever passed for it in this madness—asserted itself again. His back struck crystal. Pain flared white along his spine.

[Damage Taken: Back Bruise – Recurring Injury]

[Effect: – 10 FP until pain is gone]

Rolling on the bulwark, he realized the surface was starting to crack beneath him. From the corner of his eyes, he saw the giant shadow of Noctyn looming over him, reading to clap its wings once more. If Severa wouldn’t get up . . .

But Severa did not let go of him.

“I can’t feel my legs,” she said.

Her fingers dug into his collar and her forehead pressed against his shoulder. Her breath was ragged, and as he caught a glimpse of her, sweat was pouring from her forehead. She had always been sickly white, but that was the palest he’d seen from her yet.

“That’s an idiotic question, Kestovar. My body—” she forced out. “It’s . . . at its limit.”

That, more than anything, terrified him.

Then he heard a sweeping sound. He could feel Noctyn closing down.

Then fire pierced through the wind.

“Get off my friends!” Tommaso roared as he forced himself forward. He stopped fighting the column and leaned into it. His path wasn’t straight—it corkscrewed, jagged—but every correction was deliberate.

He punched his fist forward. The fire followed his arm like a spear.

It didn’t burn through the wind-wall. The flames flattened, smeared, bled away—

Enough to force a correction.

Noctyn’s eyes flashed as it redirected its attention to Tommaso, wings flexing as the airflow around its chest destabilized for a fraction of a second. The column wavered. The perfect alignment broke.

That was all it needed.

With a powerful downward sweep, Noctyn twisted sideways, banking hard. The creature folded its wings partially, letting the column carry it back, upward and away, retreating into the turbulent veil above before diving back down, this time straight at Tommaso.

Zan Ruan leapt from one air column to the next like a trapeze artist cutting loose, committing to empty space with nothing but timing and momentum. The wind caught her late, violently, wrenching her off-balance, but she twisted with it, threw herself again, skating the collapse of her own constructs, and came up behind Noctyn.

A lance of ice screamed from her hand, raking the creature’s wings from behind. It still hadn’t broken the wind.

The last time I checked, Zan hadn’t learned Air spells. She might fall to death performing risky jumps from columns to columns.

Nonetheless, their intervention had given Fabrisse time to breathe.

Severa’s grip loosened just enough for her to reach into the inner fold of her robe. She pulled out a sigil no larger than a coin. Her hand shook as she pressed it into his palm.

“Emergency construct,” she said, every word measured, controlled, thin. “Single-use. Please throw it in the air. I need ten seconds . . . When it comes to offense, Noctyn only has one move. Just keep it from lunging at us.”

“Noctyn is yours. Deflect it or we die.” Then she corked open a vial and gulped it down hungrily.

Fabrisse turned back to see Tommaso hounded by a pack of mini-Noctyns swarming at him like a band of bees, and Zan Ruan desperately trying to get the big boss’ attention. But no.