A New World, an immersive game experience

Mind link, as Eldrian classified it, was difficult to explain in words, though the knowledge of mageia helped the explanation greatly. Up until now, he had relied simply on feel to communicate with the Alicorns, first having naturally relied on them forming the connection to get the feel.

As he learned more about it and tested, the more sense it made that it was absent to static mages. Unlike standard magic, the reliance was little on mana and mostly on willpower and state of mind.

It required the use of mageia as Eldrian would say, and if the distance wasn't great, little to no mana entered the equation. But this heavy reliance on the non-mana aspect of magic made it elusive to the static mages who placed near all their focus on mana and spell constructions.

Sure, Sofiera had mentioned some spells that worked similarly. But they were lacking in comparison. After all, they were spells. They required formation and mana, both of which could be detected and interrupted.

The method of the mind link was far harder to detect and near impossible to interfere with on the spot. At the minimum, you would first need to analyze the wavelength that the connection is compromised of.

And to interfere, you would need to alter your own mageia to a similar form to listen in, or a negative mirror to interfere. Neither of which would be easy unless you far surpassed the target. If you did not far surpass the target's level, you would need a great deal of time to analyze the link.

After some practice, Eldrian could now send single sentences to Sofiera. They couldn't form a stable connection as he had Ceph always did. Solvi could only receive single words.

But this would be enough to call for help, and with Sofiera, he could even maintain a flow of information. Only, she was limited to a hundred words within a minute. More than that brought on massive headaches to the centaurette.

Moving out, Eldrian approached the fort from the front. Walking on the faded road, he spread his mageia through the surroundings and noted all the thralls moving to surround him.

He pondered for a second why he could spread his mageia so far from his body, and why he could form a picture of the entire area it covered. He dropped these questions since he had to focus on the vampires.

'Can I get a recap on thralls?'

'Sure,' Two quickly replied. 'Like most undead, they are weak to fire and holy magic. Fire, as you know, burns the body and makes maintaining their form difficult, forming what you can consider cracks in the curse. The burn wounds also are harder to heal in the case of vampires, whose undeath is a vastly different to normal undead.'

'Holy instead burns the soul instead, directly attacking the curse binding them to undeath. For natural vampires, it is assumed that holy magic attacks the tainted soul. However, this is speculation.'

'We have a few Tier 5 non-divine holy spells in our arsenal.'

'That won't be needed. I think magma needles will work fine.' Eldrian was impressed that there were non-divine holy spells. He would have to look into them after, but he suspected the principal was similar to the magic circle he had installed in the mini-tower a few weeks ago.

'Alright. Am I targeting?'

'Yeah, I'll focus on the E-vampires.' Eldrian felt existential was simply too complicated and difficult to say, and he couldn't recall what the word meant. He assumed it had something to do with questioning your existence, but he cared little for that.

So he went and called them E-vampires instead. It had a nice ring to it, or so Eldrian and Two felt.

E-vampires fell in the unwilling rank and were limited to Tier 5 in strength. Though, unlike flaming reanimates, there were weaker ones too. In simple terms, all people can be turned into vampires, but not all people can become flaming reanimates. And when weaker people are turned, they don't suddenly become much stronger. Though, unlike the flaming reanimates, even when unwilling, they can grow in strength up to Tier 5.

Eldrian had expected the vampires would open with an attack instead of talking. So, when the thralls rushed him from all around and the E-vampires prepared their spells from the walls, he countered in force.

Two controlled the magma needled, summoning from the ground needles as thick and long as a finger, spewing flames as it came into contact with the air. As soon as it flew from the ground, the heat increased even more. The rock started melting, though their sharpened form was not lost.

These needles expertly flew through the thralls' heads. Killing them all on the spot. They fell to the ground like puppets who had their wires cut. Unlike most undead, vampire variants still had human weaknesses. The head and heart.

Two was relying all the information he had on vampires to Eldrian as they continued to walk. Not stopping for a moment for what was supposed to be a surprise attack.

As for the magic of the E-vampires, it was but Tier 4 and 5 spells. It took more than a handful of seconds to take form. To Eldrian, this was truly simple to dispel. All he had to do was overwhelm the area with mageia to cut the casters' will from their mana as it left their bodies.

'Their will is terribly weak. I guess that is due to them being unwilling vampires...' Eldrian noted.

He followed this up by pulling the half vampires from the walls. For the heavier centaur vampire and some type of ape demi-human vampire, he added a wind kick along with the ether pull.

Screams of surprise filled the air as they fell, though the damage was little.

Taking a modicum of control of all the mana in the surroundings. Eldrian formed a crude magic sealing barrier in the surrounding two hundred meters. Wishing to stop the E-vampires from trying to fight any further. After all, he came to talk.

"If you don't mind, I would like to talk." Eldrian said with a calm smile. Summoning six more magma needled and having them float around him. Each pointed at the E-vampires.

Seeing the same spell that had killed over thirty thralls, the E-vampires froze in fear. Especially when they realized they lost control of their mana as soon as it left their body to form a spell.

Despite their fear, they had been ordered to guard the gate and capture or kill all who tried to enter the fort. While shivering in fear, they did the only thing they could do with magic sealed from them.

They charged.

"Tsk!" Eldrian clicked his tongue, not having expected this development.

The distance between him and the E-vampire was too much for them to do anything, no matter how fast they ran. Eldrian almost felt he had enough time to enjoy some tea before reacting to their desperate last-ditch attempt.

As a warning, he let one magma needle fly. Then another. Killing one, two, three, four—

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