Back in the future, Ed managed to space hop out of both the root trap set by Balin and the ground which he had trapped himself in. As he did so, he encountered the knights that were now astounded by the fact that he was charging back.
"What-? Attack!!!" They hadn't expected the orc to be running inside the icy tunnel. But what they did know was that this was an opportunity. Most certainly not one they could let pass.
The ceiling of the icy cavern was lower than anywhere else, so the orc would not be at all able to escape their clutch-
"Huh?" The knight who yelled for the attack was left deeply confused after the orc disappeared into the ground as if it were not even there to begin with. What was that about?! To make matters worse, the orc's fist then popped back up from below him!
The knight suddenly sucked in a cold breath, and so did the other male knights around him. Ho- How fearsome! Just like that, the orc had eliminated a branch of the knights' family tree!
After the dirty punch that even Ed felt in passing, he popped right out of the ground behind the knights.
'I have a plan' He only told himself again knowing that his plan was much short of spectacular. It was essentially nothing more than collapsing the cavern in its entirety. That sounded impossible, but Ed knew that it wasn't.
To begin with, the large cavern never stuck out to him as stable. The main chamber was large and vast and the tunnel was quite wide and tall as well. It wasn't a boss room either so there was definitely no magic holding it in place.
'If I collapse the cavern I should be able to reap rewards' The rewards would be the souls, which he wasn't sure would actually reach him, as well as the dungeon who was bound to reward him for a job well done.
As Ed ran out of the icy cavern, he was met by the surprising sight of crumbling walls. The earth broke apart stumbled and scattered forming a long pile of debris.
The earth beneath his feet rumbled in waves and left Ed deeply perplexed. Who stole his plan? The cavern began to shake profusely as the debris settled Ed was finally able to see the origin of this chaos.
A group of mages was huddled together protected by intermittent barriers, this was to allow for them to attack of course. Though in this case there was one attack that did not need to wait for the barriers.
It was like an earthquake, but Ed knew it wasn't an earthquake. The earth rose like waves in the sea and came crashing against the cavern walls creating fierce tremors that rumbled the immediate vicinity.
"Ah!!!!" The orcs and anti-skeletons were being continuously swept up by the attack thanks to their lacking flexibility. Orcs weren't very agile so jumping above the waves with their heavy bodies already seemed out of the question. As for the skeletons…
Thanks to Ed's modification, particularly their strengthened consciousness, the skeletons were able to move more flexibly than regular skeletons but sometimes it was best not to test fate. The anti-skeletons instead tried to fire back at the earth as a means to save themselves and the orcs. Who also did their best by sinking their weapons into the soil and holding on tightly.
Ed who observed this happening quickly started to think up ways to approach the mages. There were many ways for Ed to target them but Ed's ultimate choice was… to engage in close combat! Ed rushed right out of the icy cavern and ran straight towards the mages jumping over the waves of earth.
Ed glared at the mage responsible for this attack as he lowered his body and leaped forward. His fist became encased in whatever was left of his mana illuminating it in a triad of varying colors.
Ed's soaring figure was not missed by the mages but by the time they could think to deal with it his fist already reached the barriers they formed.
Sparks flew as the cluster of elemental shields collided with the triad of shifting elements that was Ed's fist. The pushing and pulling of attracting or opposing elements that happened within this brief exchange was quite a wonder but what mattered most was power.
The shields cracked one after the other and eventually, all of Ed's momentum was lost and the elements that coated his attack faded.
The mages' combined mana pool was larger than Ed's own and their minds were more than one. While Ed could break through the shield of one, another could form a new one to replace it.
The exchange was bound to devolve into a battle of attrition which Ed knew he would lose. Still, his goal was merely to get the mages' attention. The anti-skeletons would know what to do from there since he had commanded them to evacuate the orcs, and the collapse threatening temblors came to a stop.
Plus, Ed also didn't have to break through in one punch. The shield wall was a wall, all Ed had to do was circumvent it.
Seeing him sidestep, the mages were alarmed but they acted quickly. By the time Ed made this short corner, spells were preemptively locked onto his position.
[You've been dealt damage. -29 hp]
[You've been dealt damage. -24 hp]
They rained down on his body and continued to pelt at it, but Ed pushed through almost unflinchingly. The spells were all lined up rather half-assedly and were also mostly elementary as a way to speed up spell cast speed. Ed was able to get out of it mostly unscathed.
[You've been dealt damage. -43 hp]
He approached the group of mages and the first mage to see Ed's imposing figure, injured and bloodied, appear in front of them nearly peed themselves.
Ed kicked the mage who was shivering and their body tumbled backward colliding onto the body of the others. Only Abram and a couple of others had sufficient close quarter training as well as enough reflexes to jump aside.
"Su- Suction!" Abram shouted while aiming his empty hand towards Ed. This caused Ed to feel a strong sucking power. It was evident that Abram wanted him to ignore the others, but how could that do? He had to resist!
Ed's great physical prowess pulled through for him even while his mana was running on empty. But all he got was a short burst of movement as Abram simply increased the mana he put into his spell and the force was instantly doubled. Ed ended up rendering himself unable to move by resisting!
[You've been dealt damage. -49 hp]
One of the mages who was fast enough to react launched a more carefully cast spell dealing him a small yet, a significant chunk of damage for a single person.
'Fine!' Ed stopped resisting. The force of the suction spell instantly pulling him forward.
'Take this!' Ed yelled as he also charged towards Abram like a cannonball. Abram's direction was clear thanks to Ed's earlier throw which had tossed them aside. This was a blessing as they were unable to react to Ed's figure which had turned into a blur.
As for Abram, he was the scholarly research mage type, how could he fend against this attack? There was no way for him to accurately pinpoint where the attack would come from or how Ed would move so what could he do?!
Ed's body was suddenly assaulted by heavy pressure. The suction spell was canceled and its force was instead redirected towards the ground causing Ed's feet to sink into the ground and his figure to stumble.
'Is- Is this gravity?!' It was weird to have a suction spell as Ed wasn't sure how it worked but if it was gravity things could be more easily explained! The only intricate parts would then be how to exclude his allies from being affected by gravity, which evidently, the mage in front of him had somehow nailed.
Taking another glance, the person seemed to be at least middle-aged. His face at the moment however seemed to have the vigor of youth.
"HAHAHAHA!!! I did it!! I did it!!!" He seemed extremely jovial at the moment as he shouted words of celebration. Ed had learned the human language with the lich so he could infer this spell was something new to Abram.
"Urgh-!" Ed tried to resist by doing a push-up with the weight of gravity on his back, but in the end, his body pitifully slammed back onto the ground as his muscles lost the strength to resist.
"I've hit the A-class for sure!" Abram shouted causing Ed's thoughts to freeze for a second. He had hit the A-class? What!?! It certainly made sense to celebrate then but… To do so in front of him!
Ed decided to rain on Abram's parade. If that meant somehow rejuvenating his muscles then he would do it, and he knew the best way to do so.
Ed secretly flexed and pumped his muscles as he gathered whatever pittance of mana remained in his body. Once gathered, he directed this mana to his arm muscles for a quick jump up and...
Under the heavy gravity Ed's body suddenly rose and one of his arms seemed to break as it made a horizontal cutting motion. Ed's body then slammed back down kissing the ground but once he felt the drops of warm blood splatter on his face he knew he had succeeded.
The delighted expression of the aged mage remained ingrained on his face as his head dropped to the ground. He had certainly died happily. His body which had failed to catch up initially then fell over just as simply as his head had dropped.
A-class? Ed doubted a corpse could qualify for that. But he couldn't decide this alone, he had to ask others about their thoughts. But the surrounding skeletons were scared into a jolt. The hell was that!?! They seemed to scream with this small action.
Ed had summoned and unsummoned the axe in and out of his storeroom to increase speed by any margin making things seem like nothing more than a blur for the onlooking mages.
One moment Abram was celebrating, the next moment he had met his end… Freaky! But most of all it was something they were familiar with. The special skeletons… the strangely familiar abilities...
"F*ck that skeleton is also that orc!" One of the mages revealed in fright. F- Freaky? No, this was the really freaky thing! How the hell did that happen?!
As for Ed who heard them make this connection he only shrugged it off.. So what if they knew? It wasn't meant to be a secret, and if it was, since he would bury them all there it mattered little.
