Inflame (The Completionist Chronicles Book 6) by Dakota Krout (best romantic novels in english TXT) 📕

see, but as you have a quest to gain Divine Energy for your deity, you have been granted access.

“Got experience as a Reductionist for making and activating the ritual, as a Rituarchitect for taking down the wall.” Joe read the message and realized that he had not looked at his quest to help out Tatum in months. Still, there was only one actionable piece of information he could take away from it. “I think that notification proved that doubling was correct. Going in the notes!”

Chapter Twenty-Four

The Dwarves had made a tactical retreat in preparation of charging, and the Elven defenders were frantically attempting to destroy whatever was obliterating their walls. Since the ritual diagram had literally been buried inside the very walls that it was destroying, they were having no luck disrupting the source. Every few minutes, another ten feet of wall was returned to its component state, forming neat stacks of stone and metal outside of the fortress so that the Elves couldn’t even use the material as projectiles.

Ten minutes, half an hour, an hour later… and the call to charge went up. In just a few minutes, the ritual diagram would be exposed, and the Elves would likely destroy it immediately. A stream of silver-clad soldiers charged forward. As soon as they started moving, Joe swore he saw a Dwarf slap a fireball to the side with a Warhammer, once more making Joe wonder what sort of enchantments they had access to.

The human was in the center of the formation, yet even so, he stuck out like a sore thumb due to his height. Joe was at least a feet taller than even the tallest Dwarf, and that fact made him an easy target for Elven aggression. Every inch of ground he trod on was bombarded with concentrated arrows and spells filled with both mana and deadly intent.

With their enemy’s fire focused on him—literally, in some cases—another platoon of Dwarves was able to flank the defenders that had lost the height advantage in every way that mattered. Bursts of light came from every Elf in their path as repeated melee strikes popped their shields like soap bubbles. By the time Joe reached the much-diminished wall, the initial path was clear. Joe felt overwhelming relief that this was going so well. “Stage one complete. Gotta get halfway-”

It was then that Joe noticed that the fortress was retreating into the distance. He, along with all the other Dwarves, were sprinting straight at it, but their target never seemed to get any closer. As soon as his conscious mind made that realization, he blinked and felt his eyes clear. Whatever had been overlaying his vision vanished, and he saw that roughly half of the Dwarves that had been running with him were now on the ground, ‘running’ as if they were in a dream. Their legs were twitching, but they were being trampled by the other members of the Legion that had not been caught by the illusion.

The interior of the Fortress was heavily trapped, showcased by the front ranks of Dwarves tumbling right through the ‘ground’ and into a spiked pit where they were torn apart by animated plants clearly controlled by Elven magic. One of the platoon leaders pulled out a small compact mirror and crushed it in his hand. He threw the resulting glass powder into the space where the Dwarves had fallen, and the pit became clearly visible. “Mental illusions and soft light illusions… watch your step! Make sure you know the ally next to you; the cheeky brats like to use personal glamour while we are watching the environment!”

Half of the Dwarves were punched in the face by their brethren, and were punched back in kind. Anyone who didn't bleed, but instead had stopped the fist with a magical barrier, was immediately beaten into the ground and sent to respawn. Every time, an Elven body was revealed as soon as their health hit zero. Joe was only spared this treatment reluctantly, when he reminded them that he was a human mage.

Every few steps forward set off another attack of some kind; whether it was getting shot at, spells flying toward them, glamoured assassins… but finally, they were almost to the inner walls of the keep. Joe motioned and shouted to the platoon leader to get his attention, “We’re already closer than we need to be! Set up a defensive perimeter, and I’ll activate the ritual immediately!”

The Dwarves cleared a space directly in front of Joe, and with a simple hip thrust, a huge stone disc slammed onto the ground out of his spatial codpiece. Joe placed a hand on the ritual he had laid out and allowed his mana to flow into it, activating a single glowing ring at a time. It exhausted his mana supply, but soon the ritual was spinning up. Joe had been concerned that he would not be able to catch enough Elves in the area actively casting spells, but he had underestimated the Elves’ dedication to protecting their new fortress.

Class experience gained (Reductionist): 100.

The shields that were raised in order to protect him were deflecting fire, snakes of liquid darkness, and beams of light that often managed to go right through the shield and damage the Dwarf holding it. The ground around them began to writhe as the plants in their encirclement were targeted for spells such as Control Roots, Overgrowth, and Plant Detonation. The sapping aspect of the ritual came into full effect, latching onto anyone casting a spell and beginning to drain them. It wasn't powerful enough to take everything they had, but the draw was enough to deplete their mana regeneration capabilities. Most of the Elves didn't even notice… at least not fast enough to do anything about it.

The spells came thick and fast, boiling the air and sending Dwarf after Dwarf to respawn. Then, a strange shift occurred as the spells began to just… peter off. There was a strange lull in the battle as the