Chapter 343: A Strong Foundation (1/2)
Kuyana awoke in agony.
A searing heat seemed to have burned her throat and lungs, while choking smoke and dust blinded her and made it impossible to breathe. She tried to claw at her face out of instinct, but quickly found that her limbs were trapped in rubble.
Doing her best to calm herself, she forced her eyes open and looked around. A flickering light that emanated from somewhere nearby allowed her to see a little of her surroundings. She was more or less buried from the middle of the chest down. From the feel of it, her arms and legs were still attached, and she could even wiggle her left foot a bit, but she was unable to move.
The air was filled with a dusty haze, the source of her breathing problems. Nevertheless, she could vaguely see some shapes moving through the smoke nearby, and tried to call out for help. Unfortunately, the best she could manage was a quiet croak which probably couldn't be heard over the screams of the other survivors which were now filling her ears.
Distantly, she heard the voice of Griselda issuing orders. It seemed like the court advisor had survived, and from the sounds of it, was attempting to lead a group to safety. The mere thought of them leaving her behind was enough to send a spike of fear through Kuyana's mind, but she did her best to control it.
Just when it seemed her situation couldn't get any worse, another rumbling explosion shook the ruins, which caused the debris around her to shift and start to painfully crush her ribs. At first it was merely annoying, but then she quickly realized she could no longer breathe at all.
Panic set in. Raw animal panic that demanded action, even if it was fruitless. Every muscle in her body seemed to spasm all at once as her lungs expelled what little air they had left in a primal scream of rage and terror. One that she immediately regretted as the rubble shifted again, crushing down on her more intensely than before.
[I didn't deserve this!] She had time to think before the darkness of her narrowing vision closed in on her and she knew no more.
----------------------------------------------
Mike took a deep breath of fresh air for the first time in what felt like weeks, savoring the slight chill of the night that seeped into his lungs. A small part of him recognized this as entirely psychological. The quality of air he'd been breathing had been maintained by one of his titles for the duration of his sojourn underground, which he chose to ignore in favor of enjoying the moment.
He glanced at the two people he'd had to essentially drag with him on the escape. They seemed to be a little worse for wear, but should survive. Nevertheless, he surreptitiously passed a little Life Magic to them to restore their stamina and heal the few injuries they'd sustained.
That taken care of, he turned his attention to the much more pressing issue of the burgeoning collapse of the city. He sent his will into the earth below his feet and tried to get a sense for what was happening.
It quickly became apparent that the explosion had done an immense amount of damage. The cliffside that Gildusi was built into was in danger of falling off into the ocean, and only the continued endurance of a few load bearing formations in the city's bedrock had prevented the worst from happening. However, those would only hold out for a little while longer.
[Hmm, what to do?]
”Um, sir mage? What's going on?” The female member of the pair that had gotten tangled up with him asked. Her friend/partner/lover was still gasping for breath on the ground.
He glanced at her, taking note of the way she flinched as his gaze moved in her direction. Clearly, the experience of tailing him through the ruins had left a strong impression. A part of him sympathized, since it would have been difficult for even stalwart veterans to keep their cool in the presence of an overwhelmingly powerful person who was slowly losing their mind, let alone a civilian.
Another part of him found it annoying and tedious.
[I didn't force them to follow me. Hell, I even saved their lives in the first place. If anything, they should be quietly grateful for my presence. Without it, they would have been dead a long time ago. Maybe I should remind them-]
Mike sent another wave of Life Magic through his body, and felt the creeping presence of the entity within him recede back into the depths of his mind. Disturbingly, he noticed that it seemed to be a bit closer to the surface than it was just a few minutes previously. He could almost hear the entity's triumphant laughter even as it was being driven back again.
[Going to need to deal with that sooner rather than later.]
Putting his possession problems aside, he focused on the woman, who was called Julia he recalled, and tried to explain gently. ”That's a bit complicated, but I suppose the short answer is that I disrupted the ghoul's ritual prior to its completion, which minimized the resulting explosions, so rather than vaporizing the city, it merely damaged the bedrock that supports it.”
”Um...isn't that still pretty bad? Do we need to start evacuating?” She asked while looking around. Their immediate vicinity didn't appear to be in danger of imminent collapse, but there were still a few corpses lying where they'd been slain by the horde of ghoul thralls. A reminder that there were still other deadly problems to be worried about.
”Nah...well, probably not...look, I'm going to try to do something about it for the time being.” He replied, not exactly confident in his answer. ”You two should just sit tight for a moment. If everything goes well with this, I'll even escort you both to a safe location. It's the least I can do for the help down there.”
Julia blinked, a bit taken aback, but didn't say anything further.
[Well, that's alright I suppose. I'm not trying to win any popularity contests here.] He thought to himself before once more turning his attention to the collapsing city. A brief surge of Earth Magic served to reinforce the key structural points, but he could tell that this was only a temporary fix. He would need to more comprehensively repair the cliff in order to avoid the worst.
[The problem is that there is now a big hole where the ruins used to be. Even if I reinforce what's left, it would still collapse in time. Replacing the lost rock might work, but I'm not sure if I have enough mana to do that with free casting. I suppose I could try coming up with a spell on the fly, but where to start…]
For the first time in what felt like ages, Mike pulled out one of his notebooks with information he'd copied from library books back at the University. In it was a list of Tier 1 and 2 Earth Magic spell chants as well as a description of what they were meant to do. He took a moment to flip through the contents before frowning in thought.
While a few of the entries did something similar to what he was looking for, most were intended for a much smaller scale than he wanted. So, he would need to piece a few of them together, modify some of the resulting chant's syntax, and hope for the best.
Mike began to unconsciously mutter under his breath as he worked through the issue. ”Let's see...if I use the word for huge here, it should increase the area of effect...I think. Maybe something like enormous would fit better? How am I supposed to determine the objective values created by applying subjective adjectives? Ugh, I feel like I'm in philosophy class again.”