The Runic Alchemist

Damian had failed twice in a row, the freak of a maid was just too agile for her baggy maid clothes.

He hoped that he wouldn't have to do this, but just like always he never got what he wished for.

Lucian was in a pretty bad situation too, the wound was not bleeding much which was a relief. Damian was glad to see her use a cloth to push it. She would be fine with a potion as long as he stopped any more harm coming her way.

Damian did not forgive her, but letting her die was also not good for his plans. Or his morals for that matter. The Baron would raise every single person from their graves to question if he lost his genius daughter and he didn't want Baron's people following him for the rest of his life.

He would not run away, he never was one to leave things un-ended. The Baron will get his daughter and Damian; his freedom.

"You of all people should understand why the goddam nobles deserve this...!! Why are you making this so difficult..!?"

"That's why you are doing it..? To spite them? For what? Mistreating you? Just like they do every other person?"

"I don't care about those uptight fools.. It's just a job.. for.. better life... So I can give them,.. a better life..."

Damian's calculating brain suddenly stopped for a second, Them? She was fighting for her people? Family? Did she even have a family? Damian never asked her before. He assumed she was just an assassin doing her job for few extra gold coins.

Was it wrong to kill a lord's daughter when the same lord can hang you for just laughing in his presence? What was justice when the value of life was so abysmal?

After activating the runic scroll that Damian was saving which was a mind bending application of space-time spell that made a wormhole connect another point in space; only limited by how much mana one was willing to spend. It was a real rune heavy spell, only high quality parchments could handle it. On hand it also cost him the fourth of his huge mana pool.

All his scrolls were in his storage tool, ignoring the mana cost for retrieving it, he had a suspicion that the scheming maid had seen all his scrolls and their effects. Nothing he could do would surprise her, and maybe she even thought out some counter measures against them, some way to use it against him or Lucian. Provided she would even give him enough time to set it up.

Damian had to deal with this one very carefully. Maybe she was not entirely at fault here but right now she was after their life, she was an enemy and that's all that mattered.

Ignoring her bleeding back, Rosie turned her head towards Damian while falling back to her 'Immortal River' basic movement set. Damian tightened his grip on the flaming spear. Not knowing spear techniques was a major disadvantage for him, but he was also much more powerful physically than her.

She was also at enlightened level but her class seemed mage or spellsword, she had yet to show any magical abilities.

And then the weaker one charged at Damian with her abnormal dagger movements and firm footwork, each of her strikes accompanied by 4-5 after images; making Damian's head hurt. Receiving attacks that he could with the long side of his spear, Damian was constantly pushed back. Some even came so close that almost cut him, but faster reflexes and smaller body came in clutch at the end time.

Then she suddenly pushed down her right foot and used the force to combine all after images into two ominous-looking purple projectiles one aiming at his heart, another his head. She also aimed it from an angle that Damian was having most trouble defending from.

Removing one hand from his spear Damian raised it up against the incoming purple daggers and opened his palm.

A circle containing various runes was etched upon his small hand which glowed red with his blood as Damian used his own mana as source to produce 8 air Blades one after another to thwart the trajectory of deadly daggers away from his heart, also sending some blades towards Rosie's head to divide her focus, the red glow dimmed down on his hand as the sweet smell of burning flesh and smoke raised out of his hand.

The toll of magic circles on materials was heavy, paper usually burned down, stone slabs broke and flesh? Well no one was dumb enough to try it on his own flesh till now.

Getting some precious seconds Damian jumped back and took out a spare sword, removing his spear. It wasn't something he could handle with one hand. His palm hurt like hell.

"Even 'Cascading Waterfall' didn't work..? What kind of monster are you..?"

"Nothing compared to you it seems... What class even are you? Spellsword? Those purple things hurts you know.."

"Why would I tell you..? So you can scheme against me..?"

Not sparring even a second Rosie changed her stance to some calming Buddha pose, Damian had enough of this weird technique. Using the last of his mana he moved around his hand in the air creating his most successful runic magic circle; the fire pillar.

Seeing through the transparent red magic circle floating in the air, Damian gave one last thought to the smiling face of a kind maid that was etched in his mind for three years and was now replaced by the expressions of pure hate and frustration surrounded by a background of huge gathering of ominous dark purple unknown energy.

Seeing how she was neither chanting or using any runic tools, plus not having any kind of magic circles around her despite releasing mana. Either she was a pugilist or an Esper and she clearly was not the buff kind, which makes her the most unknown entity - an Esper with weird powers.

"I'm sorry kid... Believe it or not I felt for you.. You would have made an excellent warrior..."

"You don't have to do this you know..? We can still find a way out..."

"Oh boy ! How sweet you are..."

However her words did not match her actions at all, with just a simple movement of her hand waving forward a huge wave of purple energy came dashing through the air in the form of a giant river serpent, rushing directly at Damian.

Damian breathed out and calmed his mind waiting for the perfect timing to activate his spell, this would be decided by who had more mana and he was running dangerously low. The fire pillar spell was not easily used spell, it needed plenty of mana to work.

Just as the purple snake was few meters away from Damian, he released his scorching pillar of flame. The purple snake got a heavy push back but Damian could still see it moving up and down through the fire, so he increased his mana output and intensified the flames even more.

Each second was like a living hell behind the scorching flames as Damian felt the mana slipping away from his body bit by bit. He couldn't see Rosie but from the push back, he imagined her giving her all into the damned snake as well. Even at the peak of his spell, the purple blob was still moving a bit forward with time.

Out of options and dangerously close to passing out due to extreme use of mana, Damian did one last ditch effort and put all his remaining 20 stat points into his INT, raising his mana with few extra digits and using it up immediately just as he received them.

At last Damian felt the resistance losing it's power, when he looked up Damian saw the purple blob fade into nothingness in the middle of the fire pillar. Damian tried to stop his spell but it stopped on it's own before he did anything as everything in Damian's field of view faded into darkness and the land beneath came closer and closer to his face.

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