It was already too late; even seeing the flood’s black mouth, the soldiers on the Eroded Plains stood helpless, like ants on a sinking leaf.
Even the rear rank could turn and run, yet flesh can’t outrun a galloping tide; they tried to flee, but the water hunted them.
Most of Carl Margrave’s men were packed tight in the phalanx or stranded at the tip, scales on a rigid fish.
They wanted to fall back, but the formation dragged like wet nets.
The front turned to retreat, and crashed into the rear that couldn’t stop in time.
Men toppled in panic; before they could rise, boots hammered them into the mud.
The mighty phalanx, a monument to numbers, broke like a sandbank in a storm.
The swollen water swallowed them, and the rapid current swept them like driftwood.
And George’s line?
Carl had thought them mad, wind in their heads.
When the flood struck, they didn’t drown with the rise; they bobbed up like corks.
It was wrong, like stones turning to lotus leaves.
Carl jolted, his voice a snapped bowstring. “Angus! What’s happening? Did they use a Light Boat spell?”
High Mage Angus shook his head, worry clouding his face.
He had already seen with Far-Gaze what lay under their boots.
“No magic. They’re on rafts, each tied with hemp rope—a raft-bridge, laid down in advance.”
“How’s that possible?!” Carl caught the meaning and reeled, like a rider thrown by a spooked horse.
Half the ten‑thousand phalanx was already gone, carved away like a shoreline.
Those not yet swept ran for the rear, as leaves flee a gutter.
Those who couldn’t return climbed the low hills of the Eroded Plains, islands in a brown sea.
They waited there, honest as stones, to strike back when the waters fell.
It had always worked, by the old scars of war.
But this flood was wrong, a monster with no storm to birth it.
The level had risen five meters, and it kept climbing like a greedy snake.
The rush filled every hollow of the Eroded Plains, as if water sought every bruise.
The rear of Carl’s host was one such hollow, once a road in retreat.
Now the high water cut that road like a blade across a map.
Supplies vanished down the flood, grain like chaff in a millrace.
The waters showed no ebb, no breath; keep this up, and annihilation was only a clock’s slow tick.
Carl Margrave had never dreamed a flood could strike like an army.
He blurted, breath tight. “Angus, can’t you think of something?!”
“I’m working on it. Don’t jostle my spell!”
Angus braced on his staff, vexation dark as rainclouds.
As he said, the High Mage had been chanting since moments ago, breath like bellows.
Mana surged and showed as ripples, pale blue rings spreading like pond circles.
A hidden field pressed the water back, slow as a glacier.
Seven heartbeats passed; Angus finished the chant.
Azure light burned on his staff, and he slashed it forward.
It was a Tier‑6 elemental art: Water Elemental Vortex.
“A high‑tier Water Elemental Vortex!”
Carl cried out as the torrent took a tether.
It began to spin and climb, circling the army’s position like a storm eye.
It wasn’t done.
The vortex drank water from within and without, a whirlpool harvesting every incoming surge.
It swelled higher and wider, a great ring raised by invisible hands.
After a minute, it stood as a water-wall, a vortex crown 800 meters wide and 20 meters tall.
The massive vortex covered near half the Eroded Plains, a scythe big enough to reap cities.
Yet Angus raised it to shield, not to strike.
Inside the ring, the water lay low, basin‑deep beneath the outer flood.
In truth, there was hardly any water inside; the marsh lay naked, ribs in the mud.
The liquid had been hauled up into that colossal wall, beads strung on a spinning wire.
Angus had forced the flood to ebb within the ring, a man carving a tide with a blade.
The sight was a sorcery wonder, a comet over a battlefield.
Everyone stood mute, breath caught like fish in a net.
But Angus paid for it; he leaned on his staff, sweat like dew on stone.
“This draw keeps the vortex for three minutes.”
“After that I’ll pull a new tide of mana and cast another high spell.”
“Give the order. Have the troops fall back and reform while the door is open.”
Carl followed the mage’s glance to the rear and saw it.
The water-wall had a thin place, a veil men could shoulder through.
He drew a sharp breath, ice in his lungs.
He hadn’t thought this ambitious High Mage had such depth, carving a backdoor into a storm.
Fear pricked Carl’s heart, but his hands didn’t stall.
“Form up! Form up!”
He waved the banner‑men toward the thin place, like shepherds driving a flock to a gap.
He shouted to the ranks within the wall. “If you want to live, push out there!”
The soldiers obeyed, strung into files and drifted toward the outlet.
The flood kept slamming the wall, but the vortex swallowed it like a throat.
The water‑wall rose higher, heavier, a hammer head being forged.
It looked ready to drink the oncoming flood and hurl it at George’s line across the water.
Unease flickered through Fulin, a spark under rain.
She hadn’t thought magic here could twist rivers like this.
But worry was just weather; she wasn’t out of roads, so she didn’t panic.
That wall was a marvel, yet not free of weight and law.
It didn’t stand from nothing; centrifugal spin kept its height and thickness, like a drum washer whirling.
It still kissed the ground as it turned; no washer gets lighter for washing.
In truth, that wall pressed the plain with a focused, crushing hand.
The Eroded Plains took that pressure like a cracked bowl.
It’s swamp to begin with, soft earth over wide, hollow river veins.
Under such strain, what would the land choose but to fall?
Collapse was the only answer, signed in mud.
Fulin would turn that collapse into a key, and unlock their Water Elemental Vortex.
But earth won’t cave on command, no matter how you plead.
The pressure was at its limit, yet the enemy could slip away before the break.
She couldn’t wait; she had to trigger the delayed magic she’d planted in the under‑river, her last card.
Strange thing, though.
Her Dual Incarnation and her true self didn’t share a panel or skills, like piloting two different bodies.
Delayed magic born of Esoteric Magic should have followed that rule.
But delay works oddly; it has a setting and a trigger, two separate beats.
Setting is the cast itself, and only Fulin can lay it down.
Once set, the trigger answers no matter her state, even if she wears the face of Lance Morrison.
In other words, the Lance she wore now held the remote to a nest of timed bombs.
With the remote in hand, Lance had one task—press the button.
He detonated every Dust‑to‑Dust: Flameburst seeded in the riverbed beneath the Eroded Plains.
Let savage fire pry up this fragile land and turn it belly‑up.
Boom!
The earth heaved in labor, a titan bringing forth ruin.
Pillars of mud rose everywhere, tall as towers, one after another.
The ground bucked hard; the world around them began to sink at a speed the eye could taste.
The violent shaking stole the soldiers’ balance, men tilting like reeds in a gust.
The impact jolted Carl so hard he nearly spilled from his horse.
He clutched his pounding heart and shouted, voice white with panic. “Mage, what now?!”
Angus, solid a moment ago, had turned ashen, like ash on an altar.
He watched the water‑wall unravel as leaks and height shifts chewed it apart.
He sighed. “The earth is breaking.
This comes from some unknown, ancient, and powerful magic.
Perhaps we’re finished.”
“Unknown magic? What do you mean? Floods and quakes—are all of these born of sorcery?!”
Carl stared, as if the sky had turned copper.
“I didn’t believe at first, but now I’m sure.”
Angus lifted a limp arm and pointed at the world splitting like dry clay.
His voice came quick and thin. “Can’t you see the sky’s cry and the earth’s roll?”
Without doubt, they have a deep‑rooted archmage.
He stayed hidden, masked his mana, and excels at shaping terrain.
He used flood to digest your host, and quake to crack my Water Elemental Vortex.
We all let the Flame of Chaos knight steal our eyes.
We were baited from the very start.”
