Exam In The Arena (5)

The bandits had just launched themselves towards Cyrus and Imran, when they were immediately met with a large wave of sand that stole their vision immediately. Those that did not close their eyes in time were wailing in pain covering their faces while those that did were also wailing but instead in confusion.

The Legionnaire who was looking at the fight from up above saw that Imran was slowly turning the ground in front of the bandits to sand which was then launched upwards and forwards towards them by a gust of manufactured wind. Nodding approvingly of the feat, which was far above what a normal initiate should have been capable of, he focused back on the fight.

With their vision stolen and the bandits temporarily stalled, as the 'god' calmed them and ordered them to wait for the storm to pass, Cyrus was completely free to act. Of which he wasted not a single moment as he had already prepared a large amount of death essence in the center of the ring of corpses. Although creating and collecting such a vast amount of essence so far from him used more will than normal, he had already resolved himself to expend it all anyways. Slowly but surely, he snaked the mass of essence towards the corpse closest to the bandits hoping that their awakening would take enough time so that they did not prematurely die but not long enough that it would be too late.

As he converted them from corpses to undead, which was something he had done countless times to non-human entities in the place between one second and the next that Mundus had given him, he then began to do something which he had never done before… something rather insane even.

With one hand he was making use of his Mors domain but with the other he began to activate his Vita domain, something that he had tried before but stopped when he noticed the strain it put on him. This time however he decided to see if he could push himself enough to do it, if not then he could only surrender. As he strained himself more and more, so much that a splitting migraine erupted within his mind and he began to lose consciousness, he came within a hairs breadth of activating both at one time. Having already bit through his lip in an effort to maintain consciousness, he was about to cease in his attempt lest he risk some form of permanent damage when something inside him clicked. With this unknown change within him, the strain that was crushing him to pieces mere moments before was lifted and he easily put his Vita domain into action.

Not spending time to think about the nature of this change, Cyrus began the next step to his plan of madness. He began to congeal large amounts of life essence alongside the death essence, being careful to control both so they do not mutually destroy one another. As he created the undead, he would move the life essence towards where he believed the core of the undead was. His idea was simple, but a bold one based on many different assumptions. He knew that undead would consume essence, life included, in order to grow stronger. Thus, he naturally assumed that it might be possible to 'feed' the undead that he creates which would make them even stronger than before. How strong would depend on the amount and quality of the essence he could give them but he had never tried it before… For the obvious reason that creating a potentially super powerful undead that had a thirst for the living in close proximity to oneself was a downright suicidal idea in normal circumstances.

One by one he created an undead, then fed one equal portion to it the moment it was successfully created. The amount was not as even as he would have liked as the undead greedily devoured what they were given with some even taking from the main lump Cyrus had accumulated. Nevertheless, it had to do as it was all he had. After he finished with the last one, he removed his focus from the difficult manipulation of two domains at once and allowed himself to use his non magical senses once more.

Immediately he noticed a vast wave of fatigue rolling over him but this was not just the mental one, that he was prepared for after using quite literally all of his will, but there was also an intense physical fatigue that had overtaken him. This was most unusual to say the least, as casting spells has never once in the history of spellcasting ever used one's stamina to cast a spell. Otherwise all mages ever would work their bodies to perfection amidst their crazed pursuit of ever more powerful ways of bending the world's essences to their will. Collapsing to the ground, Cyrus quickly refocused himself and said to Imran:

"The trap has been set, they should awake soon."

Imran heard and understood, although he would have liked to question why Cyrus was on the ground panting and heaving like he had just run a marathon or two. Alas he could not, as he was in the midst of slowing the advance of the bandits. Their 'god' had finally gotten them under control and now they advanced once more, this time with their eyes closed.

Cursing inwardly, Imran stopped the sandstorm and instead began to cast another spell. The moment the sandstorm let up, the bandits noticed immediately and with happy(?) wails and screams they ran forward once more. Unfortunately for them, Imran had already prepared himself and immediately the ground shifted once more. This time the earth rose in two different rows, lifting into the air and forming a wall in front of the bandits that ran the entire width of the arena. Not only that, but the displaced earth in front of and behind the wall ended up creating two trenches in the ground. The wall itself was not that tall or wide, only about seven feet tall and 2 feet wide, but it was enough of an impediment to halt the bandits advance one more with the addition of the trenches to make the walls artificially taller.

With their deformed bodies and amputated hands, the bandits could not easily scale the wall no matter how much they struggled. Seeing this the 'god' spoke once more,

"FOOLS. It is but a weak demon wall, use the force of your own bodies to knock it down! My demigods! Assist them and led them your divine strength!" bellowed the 'god', most likely towards the seven strong men that had followed him closely from behind. With that said, the bandits spread out and began to smash themselves against the wall. After pointlessly smashing at it for awhile, the 'god' seemed to have found his lost divine wisdom and said

"Attack the wall at the same time my people, together as one!" cried the 'god'

Doing as their supposed god said, they began to smash against the wall at the same time which showed great effect at once. Crash after crash, eventually the wall showed signs of giving until it all crumbled down at once. Luckily for Cyrus and Imran, some of the debris fell onto the bandits now inside the trench and squished quite a few of them. Overall though, it did not cull more than a fifth if you added together the ones that already died to friendly fire. With yet another screech, or maybe war cry, the bandits resumed their advance as they jumped or climbed out of the second trench.

"Imran held them back even more than I expected, buying us more time that I could have hoped for. But why has not a single undead risen yet?" wondered Cyrus, who had stabilized enough to think coherently now. He wanted to extend his sense once more to at least see what was going on, alas, his magical capabilities were effectively zero right due to his massive overexertion. All he could do was tell Imran to wait until the last moment before giving up, just in case the trap actually worked instead of failing somehow.