Another Stupid Isekai

The smell of the air changed after that, and a powerful heatwave got unleashed in the immediate vicinity of the area of impact, spreading fast from that point. I saw everything vibrating over there, and it wasn't due to the earthquake, since that stopped completely.

I kept moving, shadow walking from place to place, as I made a big circle around the mountain of sand, looking where that stupid mage was hiding, but I couldn't spot anything despite constantly changing my angle.

The whole battle was put on hold, as we were clearly looking for one another.

I used the time to try and analyze the situation. My opponent was very different compared to any that I faced previously among his kind. He clearly was taking his time, and his power seemed to be immense. He didn't show me anything but magical attacks, so I started thinking that in the worse situation, I will have to just let him keep attacking, so he can waste all his mana, and then I would be able to strike back.

After all, I had the access to the device and could replenish my energy or heal myself from wounds, if all my stuff also would get drained out completely. That wasn't optimal, though. I knew that my resources were pretty big, and magic was only a small part of my repertoire of skills, which meant that mister ghost had to have much more energy than me.

Then I got even an even better idea. I had a lot of void essences, and it was getting replenished quite fast thanks to my other skills, and this gave me an option to keep storming him with shadows. This way I could possibly discover more of his cards, and also waste quite a lot of his mana, while not losing that much myself.

I kept shadow walking, but also summoned a few more molochs. They tore the mountain of sand apart, creating a raging sandstorm, with how much of the dust they threw into the air, but also because the ghost used this material to squash them down.

Whirlwinds appeared around them almost immediately, surrounding them in prisons of sand, and squashing until they turned back to the essence, and were forced back to The Void. It didn't stop me at all. I kept summoning them. Over, and over, and over again.

I knew that the longer the fight will go on, the asshole would become smarter and more adjusted to what I could do, so I needed to seize the most as soon as possible, because the window would disappear eventually.

I kept repeating the quite mindless tactic, while still fishing for an angle that would allow me to spot the ghost. With all the sand exploding over and over, or being shifted by his powers, I expected to see him eventually.

I wasn't wrong in my assumption. He indeed was there, and I noticed him around an hour into the fight. My supply of essence was drained significantly by then, because of the tempo, but when I finally knew his location, the situation completely changed. Now I could change the approach again.

As I kept running around, I got a nice idea, but without knowing where my enemy was, I couldn't use it.

The first step was to switch from the massive molochs to smaller troops and swarm him, so he would use all that pile of dirt closer to himself. He did exactly that, as my shadow piled around him in numbers. He responded by burying them under tremendous amounts of sand, which just swallowed everything around, including himself.

That was exactly what I was aiming for. I shadow walked a bit closer, to have a better position, then began with a quick barrier, just for good measure, and then, once again, used unfamiliar magic.

Unfamiliar, because it was my first time casting the spell. Pushing all my mana into it, I summoned inferno.

It started relatively harmless, with the air around me moving, because of the heat. It was making my vision blurry. As everything became increasingly wobbly, the first fires started around in the vicinity.

The pockets of vegetation, decorating the city, just burst into flames, completely out of nowhere. That was just a prelude to what happened next. I saw a few of those ships, that poked once in a while from the clouds, falling down in clouds of smoke. As they dived, they also melted, turning bright orange, then white.

They were the first, because after that, more and more things made out of metal, were just slowly turning into puddles on the ground. Those buildings, the ones which were still standing after everything that happened, were suddenly crumbling under the heat that made them crack and collapse.

But the most important thing was the mountain of sand. The ghost used it to attack me soon after the spell took an effect, but it turned into liquid glass halfway and splashed on the ground. He was drowning in it. Still, I had no idea how effective it was as an attack, but I for sure the spell took away a very powerful weapon from him, since the element changed, and he no longer had control over it.

Turning it back also didn't have much sense, because the heat would malt it immediately.

Then I shadow walked back to Loistavadvaar, keeping the spell up, as it was burning all the mana dumped into it. I did it because my barrier was letting the heat pass through it, end it became unbearable for me. A truly double-edged blade.

I replenished my lost resources in the device, and then, after a quick meal break, I returned, covered in the much stronger barrier, and using ice magic, to survive the heat. That short window of time was enough for the spell to burn - literally - all the energy I provided, and the magic has ended, but the effects were still going on.

Everything around was white and wobbly because of the heat. In a painful blink of an eye, I noticed that I would have to use a lot to reach the ghost if he was still there, but I was kinda doubtful after a single glance around.

As I soon learned, I was right in my assumption. Under a lake of liquid glass, was just his crystal. Getting there was pricy too. I had to do a lot of weird shenanigans using void essence, 'Telekinesis', and ice magic, but after once again going through all my mana, I finally collected it, and got the hell out of there, before I too got burned alive.