32. A Bitter Fight, Part II

A Bitter Fight, Part II

Aside from a raised bulge at the point of impact, and perhaps a quarter-centimeter of displacement, the tower was almost completely intact.

Then again, a solid steel pillar thick enough to let a large monster sit on top of it was bound to be tough.

The demon on top roared threateningly.

But since Chi Li had trapped its magic and I was flying beyond its reach, it had no way to retaliate.

I gave it the middle finger—and since it was not wearing pants, it was very obviously male, which was disgusting—then punched the tower with all my strength.

The tower rang like a gong, but barely moved at all.

The force of my punch was nowhere near the impact created by a twenty-ton projectile accelerating for several seconds before collision.

I shook out my arm, trying to get rid of the tingling numbness.

It felt like trying to punch a perfectly ordinary person with no powers at all. Do it wrong, and you were more likely to break your own fingers. Apparently knocking these towers over would not be easy.

Chi Li let the last wand fall from her hand.

The once-enchanted metal rod still radiated rolling heat, the fire spell within it having fallen short of its intended effect.

Later, she would carefully examine the flaw in the enchantment.

For the moment, after using every remaining wand to deal with the ironbeaks I had kicked aside and then forgotten, she had to improvise.

Fortunately, her best friend had not neglected defense in the slightest.

Several new skeleton archers arrived on the battlefield, but every attempt they made to kill Chi Li failed to pierce the force dome that shimmered silver in her mage’s sight.

The field was simple, direct, and effective—very much in keeping with my personality and talents.

That people showed such similar patterns when using magic and ordinary skills was genuinely worth pondering.

It was also reassuring, especially considering what she was about to do.

Chi Li had always lacked my athleticism and decisiveness. She did not have Cheng Rui’s academic talent or his courage to break convention.

She preferred caution, thinking things through, then choosing the course of action that would bring the greatest possible result.

Now she acted not out of recklessness or overconfidence, but from clear recognition of the severity of the current situation and deep concern for what might happen next.

She reached into the traces the enemy had left in the structure of the world, found two faint lines of power far weaker than human will, and successfully replaced them.

The two emerald fireballs hanging overhead stopped struggling against her magic and became utterly still.

Then threads of flame spiraled out from the carriage-wheel-sized spheres and wound downward, connecting firmly to her palms.

Energy like a hundred cups of espresso surged up her arms and through her exhausted body, feeding every part of her with stolen power. It restored her, strengthened her, and replenished her.

Her source of power was neither empty nor full, yet her will might have been strained by overuse. Even so, stealing the enemy’s magic did restore some of what she had spent in battle and earlier while making so many wands.

The two great demons atop the towers no longer needed to maintain the previous spells. They were already casting new magic, hurling it toward me.

Before they could blast me out of the sky, Chi Li deftly overturned their magic again and drew in its energy.

This time, her body did not merely feel as if it had been revived by a giant bottle of coffee.

It felt light and vital, as if she had just spent a week at the finest spa imaginable.

She did not only feel refreshed. She even sensed a slight increase in her own power, which was only natural after absorbing energy from the pursuing fireballs.

That was the drawback of splitting one’s will into cheap fragments to grant magic a semblance of autonomy: once someone understood what you and your spells were doing, that magic could be absorbed.

Dozens of imps converged on Chi Li from every direction of the park. Soon, a small swarm of the malicious creatures gathered above her head.

Then fireballs rained down.

Dozens of small explosions slammed uselessly against the shield I had built.

Since those fireballs were little more than almost weightless magical spheres and overheated air, they had no chance of penetrating the forcefield.

The imps might have been simple-minded, but even they realized that ranged attacks were getting them nowhere.

So they tried close combat instead.

Unfortunately for them, they had given Chi Li too much time and far too much fire to use.

These winged nuisances did not even possess the basic senses of their larger, uglier kin. They were little more than flexible, animated shards of obsidian given life by magic.

And that magic was precisely what the young mage had spent the past week learning to master.

Because they had no will that could contend with Chi Li’s, all she needed to break the magic animating them was a pulse of interference along the same theme and scope.

A simple dispelling spell.

Dozens of imps lost their life in an instant and fell to the ground, their rigid bodies shattering on impact.

An explosion suddenly sounded beside the tower, throwing a suit-clad “missile” backward. The figure slowed, revealing herself as she hovered on Chi Li’s left side.

“The enemy just keeps coming, and these towers are way too hard to break,” I complained, folding my arms across my chest. “Any ideas?”

Power manifested brilliantly around me, more dazzling than in any newly empowered person Chi Li had seen so far.

Then again, I had always been extremely beautiful, enough to make plenty of girls feel inadequate.

Alas, Chi Li could only console herself with her own supermodel-like appearance and immense cosmic power.

“I have a few ideas, but I don’t think we’ll need them,” Chi Li told me.

She had sharply sensed a familiar, but far more powerful, concentration of heat and magic approaching the park at high speed.

“Oh, good,” I said with a frown. “Because I’ve had more than enough of fighting endless enemies today. Also, I desperately need a bath. A long, comfortable bath with pine-scented soap.”

“Why not ask for ice cream while you’re complaining? At least you can have fresh, clean clothes whenever you want,” the red-haired girl shot back.

“The rest of us have to make do with clothes scavenged from bombed-out abandoned houses.”

She glanced at the enemy formation, knowing they were still hesitating over whether to attack.

In less than a minute, it would be too late.

“What, you haven’t invented cleaning magic yet?” I asked, genuinely puzzled. Then I tilted my head, as if listening to something. “Wait, I think I can feel Cheng Rui coming. Wow. Look at those armor upgrades.”

“I’m a fire mage. Clothes are kind of flammable. How am I supposed to clean them with my magic?”

She did not turn to look at Cheng Rui’s somewhat comical dynamic entrance as he crashed through several parked cars.