Chapter 215: Chapter 215

There was only one thing to do; Fabrisse hurled the coin-sigil upward.

The sigil stopped dead in the air as if skewered on an invisible pin. It flashed once. Runes he didn’t recognize unfolded across it in a rapid, mechanical sequence. Then the coin split.

The construct expanded into a hovering starburst of interlocking crystal frames, rotating silently against the screaming wind.

It fired. Volleys of crystal shards cut through the air, punching holes through the pressure field as if the wind itself had been perforated.

Noctyn flinched. The membranes at the edges tore as crystals punched through, embedding deep along the joints and veins. Blood misted.

Then Noctyn clapped its wings. Fragments shattered mid-flight as it reacted, one massive wing clap pulverizing the remaining volley, turning crystal into glittering dust that screamed past Fabrisse in sheets. The airflow reasserted itself as the column tightened around its body again—angrier now, more focused.

The construct was already destabilizing. Stress lines raced along the outer frames, crystal struts screaming as the wind gnawed at their tolerances. One more wing smash and it would fold like brittle glass.

It wasn’t strong enough.

But it didn’t have to be. The construct was noise. He had to add more noise into it.

Fabrisse reached into his Aetherrealm and pulled out as many insects as he could. One nymph, then another, then another.

The insects flung themselves at Noctyn, but . . . one smash, and they were gone. The pressure wave erased them.

Fabrisse’s thoughts raced, but not blindly. He’d seen out of the corner of his eye, through the chaos. Zan Ruan fired her ice not as a lance, but as platforms: flat, fast-growing discs that briefly interrupted the vertical flow, shaving the laminar column into stepped layers. Tommaso used them immediately, leaping the instant they formed, letting his Fireform stabilize him just long enough to land, then jump again.

Fabrisse’s eyes darted back to Tommaso.

The space around him was clear.

Where are the mini-Noctyns?

Fabrisse’s gaze dropped.

Below them, far beneath the bulwark and the screaming construct, the Grand Luminary was still fighting the column.

His aura burned dense and controlled, compressed tight around his frame. The vertical wind surged against it in relentless layers, but no longer carried him cleanly upward. Instead, the flow bent, skewed, dragged in hard-won angles. He wasn’t commanding the wind, but it seemed he’d managed to steal pieces of it.

Small vortices bloomed around him, and inside those vortices were dozens of miniature Noctyns jammed together. The Grand Luminary raised one hand in a grasp. The vortices dragged the entire hoard of mini-Noctyns along. They slammed together in a writhing mass of wings and claws, momentarily fused by pressure and momentum into something grotesque and flailing. The mass struck the chamber wall, and bodies shattered on impact. Blood splattered, carried by the vertical wind up to the ceiling above, vanishing into darkness.

Fabrisse needed to buy them time. He had nothing else, apart from his rocks. But what if he threw the stone at Noctyn and it pulverized it? He’d lose a Stupestone; non-retrievable.

Priorities, Fabrisse. Priorities.

He pulled a Stupenstone, channeled Resolve into it, and hurled it straight at the bat.

Did the rock just slow down?

Halfway through its flight, the airflow rejected the projectile with contemptuous force. The Stupenstone reversed direction so violently that Fabrisse had to throw himself sideways as the rock screamed past where his head had been a heartbeat earlier. It slammed into the crystal bulwark behind him and exploded, sending shards across the surface.

Ah, right. Don’t channel your emotion into anything.

Noctyn’s head turned to Fabrisse. He gulped.

A fresh disc of ice frosted over Noctyn, just outside the creature’s immediate wake. Tommaso landed on it in a burst of fire, bending his knees to bleed momentum. His Fireform burned brighter than Fabrisse had ever seen, warping the air around him into visible waves.

Another disc formed. Then another.

Higher and higher, each platform appearing only for an instant before being shredded by the column, each jump tighter, more vertical, more dangerous than the last. Tommaso stopped fighting the wind entirely now—he rode it, letting the laminar flow lift him while his fire corrected just enough to keep him balanced.

He’s going to dive at it.

From above, from within the flow—maximum kinetic transfer.

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The anti-ingress field was invisible. If he dove now, his thrust would halve. Fabrisse didn’t know if his Fireform would survive.

“Tom!” Fabrisse shouted. “There’s a—!”

The ice disc disintegrated beneath him as he plunged down. The flames licked gluttonously at his skin, but the vertical wind ripped them, tearing chunks away as if trying to pull the very fire from existence. Yet he clung to it.

He was a blazing figure riding the air itself, riding Noctyn like the ancient magi of legend astride dragons.

The bat twisted, shaking its body, but he held on. He growled a chant under his breath:

“Flame to fist, I bind, I twist;

Strike with wrath, none shall resist!”

He clenched his fist. The fire around it coalesced like the molten heart of a forge, a fist-sized inferno.

The moment his fist met Noctyn’s wing joint, the impact detonated with a shockwave that hammered the vertical winds into chaos. At that exact moment, Severa’s construct fired another volley of crystal. Assaulted both from the front and the back, surely Noctyn must’ve taken some damage.

Tommaso’s fist had struck, but the bat’s sheer bulk and reflexes were relentless. With a twist of its neck, it snapped its jaws toward him. Teeth the size of daggers clamped down where his shoulder had been a heartbeat ago, but Tommaso’d propelled himself back just in time.

“Kestovar,” came a voice from behind him. He whipped his head around. She had risen to her feet, one hand raised forward, fingers splayed.

“I’m to employ this skill,” she said, voice measured, precise, yet threaded with tension, “but it will destabilize us considerably. Do you possess any means of anchoring us?”

He glanced down at his options. He didn’t, but he could.

[Quest Completed: Closed-System Casting Trial]

+20 Earth Thaumaturgy Mastery Points

Available Earth Thaumaturgy Mastery Points: 41

With this many points he’d accumulated, he could unlock a spell exactly for that.

Effect: Anchors a single creature’s foot or object (max 15 kg) to stone or packed dirt surfaces using localized aetheric compression.

Anchor Duration: 2.5 seconds (or until forcibly broken)

Casting Requirement: SYN ≥ 6

This was the Rank III version.

Effect: Anchors a single creature or object (max 50 kg) to stone or packed dirt surfaces using localized aetheric compression.

Anchor Duration: 10 seconds (or until forcibly broken)

Additional Enhancement: +1% Max Weight & +1% Duration for each SYN over 10, max 30

+1% Max Weight & +1% Duration for each RES over 10, max 30

+1% Max Weight & +1% Duration for each EMO over 10, max 20

+1% Sustainability in low-density environment for each RES over 10, max 50

He’d spend a total of 40 points to level it up. And it would only work if . . . Severa was lighter than 50kg.

He glanced at Severa, brow furrowed. “How heavy are you?”

Severa blinked, incredulous. “What?!”

“Your weight,” he said, voice tight. “I need to know what I’m anchoring.”

“I don’t know. I don’t weigh myself.”

He redeemed every point he had anyway.

Stonebind (Rank III) — Unlocked

Aetheric Equation: 50% Earthen Surface + 25% Mastery Sequencing + 15% Mnemonic ‘Root to rock, bind and stay; Hold thy form, never give way.’ + 10% Emotional Stability

I don’t have an earthen surface. Unless . . .

He dumped everything he could spare—rocks, chunks of ore, bits of stone—from his satchel and every pocket of his robe, twenty or more small stones clattering atop Severa’s boots. Everything, apart from the three Trinav quartz and the Lodestone which he kept in his robe.

Effect: +1 RES per quartz (Stone Resonance Carry)

Effect: Boosts EMO, SYN by 25%. Boosts DEX, INT, STR, RES by 12%.

“I’m not sure if this is going to work . . .” he muttered.

Severa raised an eyebrow, lips twitching in the faintest exasperation. “I trust your judgment. But do try not to collapse us both into rubble.”

Above them, Tommaso was diving again, but this time it was different. The bat sensed him early, twisting with a predatory grace. Tommaso adjusted in midair, tracking the chest, planning the strike, but the creature veered, soaring upward with astonishing speed. He misjudged the moment. Instead of crashing into its chest, he landed squarely on its legs.

For a bat-like creature, that was an unholy grip. Its talon clamped down like forged steel. He threw a fiery punch at it, but the creature barely budged.

“I must fire now,” Severa barked.

No, wait. He wasn’t prepared.

Fabrisse’s fingers shook as he hastily traced the aetheric lines and chanted,

“Root to rock, bind and stay; Hold thy form, never give way.”

Aetheric Equation (Practice): 28% Earthen Surface + 21% Mastery Sequencing + 15% Mnemonic ‘Root to rock, bind and stay; Hold thy form, never give way.’ + 0% Emotional Stability = 64% + 2% (RES sustainability) / 2 (Ingress Field) = 33%

Weight Check: 50kg + 9% (EMO) + 3% (SYN) = 56kg > 51kg (Pass!)

She’s only 51kg? She needs to eat more . . .

The small rocks ground together, and for an instant, the scattered heap fused into something approximating a solid slab. The edges melded, forming a temporary ‘earthen surface’ the spell could latch onto.

Severa’s feet slid immediately. One boot dug in and held just a fraction of her mass, while the other, caught at a poor angle on the uneven fused stones, popped free as if the anchor had never existed. She skidded sideways across the platform. The anchor held enough to slow her fall, enough to prevent her from being swept away entirely.