Turning from the paladin, he switched his attention to the armed Kruwals crossing the grassy stretch of land by the road. His MP was down to 75/160, but he had enough in the tank to buy Celia and the guards time to rush back to Holdenfor.

  The first fireball burst on the road ahead of the lead Kruwal. He jumped to the side and managed to roll with the explosion, but his momentum had stalled. The Kruwals behind him slowed and turned to him, weary, but Alex had already shot out another fireball and two fire arrows in quick succession. The fireball landed harmlessly behind them by some foliage, but one of the Kruwal got hit on the side by the fire arrows and fell with a pained growl.

  The guards that hadn’t been hit by the wave, perhaps braver than they should be, joined the fray. They charged at the distracted group of Kruwals, round shields couched and short swords held steady before them.

  Idiots, he wanted to scream. Celia too, foolishly, went to help her men instead of getting the wagons moving. He was sure that if he asked, she’d just say something about captains going down with their ships.

  Guards and Kruwals crashed like two sides of a mosh pit, the seven feet tall monsters nearly bowling through the humans who only barely held the line together. One guard fell to the ground and almost got a mace to the chest before Alex hit the offending Kruwal with a glancing fireball. Celia, stronger than she looked, pulled the man to safety by his collar before jumping in herself, and soon they were all too close together for him to be of much help without risking friendly fire.

  Another guard fell when he pushed too far away from the shield wall. The Kruwal feinted up then went low, and the longsword sheared straight through the guard’s leg at the knee. He screamed as he collapsed, dropping his shield. They tried to help him, but the Kruwals dialed up the aggression and kept them at bay long enough for one of the monsters to finish the felled guard with a stomp on the head.

  Alex flinched at the gory sight. The sound of the skull cracking echoing in his head. More traces formed on his hands to try and support them, but sudden movement ahead had his head on a swivel.

  The tendrils shifted, pulling Valerian off the ground toward the water wall, and before Alex could even shout, the tendrils shot off, launching the paladin some twenty meters in the air, over and above him across the road. His eyes widened as Valerian flew past him, tumbling head over heels in the air toward the forest, and crashed against what must have been a small tree, given the loud crack of wood followed by the trunk falling to the ground.

  The waters suddenly calmed ahead. The wall of water, as tall as the canopy and as wide as a car’s length, stopped swirling and crashing against itself. The water parted, and from the shadow of the trees, a man emerged onto the grass by the road.

  A human man.

  Alex stared, feeling stuck in place. A thousand questions ran through his mind. Not a Kruwal man. Not a Matriarch, like Valerian said. But a man. Just a human who for some reason had been helping the Kruwal against his fellow men this whole time. Why? He didn’t imagine the Kruwal were somehow model employers with a solid pay structure and dependable retirement packages.

  The man walked slowly toward him, completely unbothered by the watery destruction he’d caused on his surroundings, or the clashing of swords and shields not thirty feet away. Despite his power, he wasn’t particularly spectacular. Middling height, oily shoulder length black hair, a patchy beard. Unkempt would be an appropriate word to describe him.

  And yet, there was something unnerving about him. Small streams of water followed his footsteps like snakes slithering on the ground as he approached. Pets after their master. His hands constantly twitched by his side, fingers splaying and retracting, wrists rotating. The flow of water reflected every tiny movement. His control absolute.

  Alex’s soaked clothes suddenly felt heavier like they were pressing against him. He couldn’t tell if it was something the man was doing on purpose, or if his nerves were getting the better of him. All he knew was that he needed to act. He could think of nothing else to do. This was someone he could never defeat in a straight, fair fight.

  Breathing in, he pushed away the thoughts of clothes and traitorous humans, and the heat came easier than when he’d still been choking on dirty water. He didn’t manifest the fire on his hands. Not yet. Instead, he focused on manipulating his power in a similar way than when he first used raw mana to shrink and condense the fireball into a golf-ball sized explosive. Only rather than going on more power, he wanted more speed.

  When the man placed his first step onto the sodden earth of the road, he let go. A fire arrow, his fastest trace, shot off from each of his hands. Unlike any time before, a small snap preceded their flight, a tiny explosion on his hands the moment before he launched them forward. Fire cracked, and the arrows zipped through the air leaving a thin trail of orange flames behind them.

  The reaction was instantaneous, almost as if the man had foreseen what Alex would do. The trailing streams of water sprung from the ground like striking vipers. They surged ahead of him, splashing against each other and coalescing in front of the man in the shape of a shield.

  Despite the additional velocity, the fire arrows were like bee stings against the churning water shield in their path. They hit the swirling surface in a hiss and disappeared into plumes of vapor as if they never were.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  There goes that. Deflated, he still didn’t let go of the heat coursing through him. If defeat was inevitable, he was going out shooting.

  But before he could attack again, the water churned, almost as if angry. Then, like a laser beam, a spout exploded out of the shield. The water zoomed toward him and Alex reacted on instinct, jumping to the side just as the spout smashed against the wagon. Wood crunched and exploded all around him.

  Unlike the tidal wave from before, this concentrated jet of water punched a hole through the wooden siding of the wagon. Alex stared at it, eyes wide like saucers. That would’ve put a hole the size of his head through his chest.

  He didn’t have time for what ifs. Using his new trick, a fireball bursted out of his hand, crossing the distance almost twice as fast as it would before. The trace looked like a mini meteor as it flew, spitting and crackling in air, but before it could explode against the shield, water bulged out from the shield like the fingers of a hand and closed down over the fireball.

  There was a small, almost soundless explosion inside the swell of water sticking out from the shield, but nothing else. Alex’s hopes dimmed. It had snuffed out the fireball like it was a stubborn candle still after blowing on it. As if burping after a meal, a bit of steam escaped out of the water.

  Before he could think of anything else, the swell retreated and the shield shifted again. Thick drops of water pulled away from the surface and floated in front of the shield. Then, the dozens of water drops thinned out until they became long and sharp like needles.

  Shit!

  He did the only thing that came to mind. The water spout had not only punched a hole through the wood but also dislodged the siding planks from the wagon’s frame. Alex finished the job. Reaching for the closest one, he wrenched it out and pulled it in front of him. The impact came a second later, water needles striking like bb gun pellets against the plank.

  The cracking was loud and unending. He winced behind the makeshift shield, hunching on himself to hide as much of his body as he could. But he’d been careless in his haste, that or the plank was simply too small, and a needle slammed him in the upper arm. A lance of razor-sharp pain exploded from his shoulder and he cried out. All strength fled his left arm and the side of the plank it had been holding up fell to the mud.

  Luckily, the man had stopped the barrage of water needles, otherwise Alex would have been made into pin-cushion. Horrified, he looked to his throbbing shoulder and the tiny hole that it now sported on both sides. The sight of it made him feel sick, his stomach quaking. Blood leaked from both ends, and every little movement felt like another spike being driven into his shoulder. A whimper escaped him.

  Splashing footsteps approached. Gritting his teeth, Alex looked up at the mage. Mud cracked into dry soil wherever the man’s feet touched, and the water being sapped out from the ground flowed up to join the streams that obediently followed on his side.

  He lifted a hand up and the streams zipped forward, each acting like a length of rope that wrapped around Alex’s ankles, his stomach, then finally arms. His shoulder screamed in agony when the streams pulled him up to hover in the air, and he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from crying out.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  The man blinked at him, as if seeing him for the first time. His voice was low and soft. This close, Alex could see the man had a faint golden sheen to his blood-shot eyes, pupils dilated and twitchy.

  “I recognize you,” the man said. “I saw you at the bridge. Through the smoke and the mist. I didn’t know if that was real or not. I can’t tell, lately.” He tilted his head. “Are you?”

  “What?”

  “Real.” The man didn’t look him in the eyes, but rather seemed to look straight through him. “Are you real?”

  Alex didn’t answer for a moment, confused. Then the water streams tightened around him, one of them right against his bleeding shoulder.

  “Yes,” he gasped, blinking away tears. “Yes, I’m real.”

  The man gave him a shaky smile. “You were with Cedric there, weren’t you? I saw him too. I think he saw me. Tell him—” The man winced, one hand going to his head.

  The water slackened for a moment and Alex let out a sigh of relief. Only for the man to suddenly lift up his hand and clench his fingers. More water surged up like a torrent from the streams around him. They splashed against Alex’s legs from all sides, moulding themselves around him, covering his feet, then legs and thighs.

  Panic bubbled within him as he realized what was about to happen. He fought the water however he could as it slowly began to whirl around him, rising up from his legs to his waist, to his chest.

  He pulled with his working arm, kicked out with his legs, shook every inch of his body to try and get rid of it. Even the power that raged red-hot inside him couldn’t even materialize the tiniest lick of fire no matter how hard he tried. The water snuffed it out before it even formed into a trace.

  He took a final deep breath before water filled his world entirely. He couldn’t see anything within the churning cocoon constantly swirling around him. The dirty water felt much like slime against his skin, thick and syrupy. He tried to swim against it as the streams no longer held him like ropes, but it was useless. The current pushed him to the center of his water prison from every direction.

  Terror grew. His movements grew desperate as realization that his life was about to end settled like a boulder in his mind, twisting his stomach into knots. He didn’t want to die. Not now. Not like this.

  Then, distantly, through the frothing water and his own dread, he heard the man speak again.

  “Tell him I did it,” he said. “I did it like he asked. Please. I don’t think I can hold for much longer. I don’t think you can either. I don’t want to kill you.” His words came in a crazed rush. “But I remembered our promise. Brought the horde to the village like he asked. The festival. At the festival. I did. Please”

  Alex didn’t know what to think. The man was talking about Cedric. Knew him. A friend. Had he been right all along? Not about the overflowing dungeon, but the man himself. Was Cedric working with the Kruwal? Him and the water mage? Why? He couldn’t think straight. Mind foggy. His chest seized up. Water up his mouth. Drowning. His whole body shook. Spasmed.

  Barely keeping himself from passing out, the only thing he could do was try. Try until I can’t anymore. With a thought, he slotted a skill point into a new proficiency.

  Then ,with the last of his strength, even as he felt himself fading, he lifted his good arm, pointed a finger toward the man’s voice, and put all his remaining mana into a burst of Lightning.