"Good morning hun.” I felt Elendria shifting next to me. “Are you sure you don’t want to?”

“I’m sorry.” I said into her hair as she absentmindedly played with my tuft of chest hair. “I know you want to have sex, but.” I sighed. “I’m still not quite there yet.”

“Still worried about your wife?”

“Yes.” I said. “I’ve changed so much since coming here, would she even recognize me? I swore to her I would be faithful, and yet here I am with another that I love in my arms. I’ve killed countless monsters, and even some humans. If we survive this monster wave, I won’t even be human anymore. All the while, she has been living with what she assumes is me, but is simply a copy of my soul. Would she even recognize me? Would she believe me, if I brought her here? And what of Isabelle?”

“Shhhhh.” Elendria said. “It’s ok. Like I have said before, I am more than willing to wait for you. I’m more than happy with what you have finally opened up and shared with me.”

“Thank you.” I said, giving her crown a kiss. We sat there for a bit, just basking in each other’s presence. “As good as this feels, we should really get going.” I stretched for a second, only to freeze midway.

"What’s wrong?” Elendria asked, instantly on alert.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” She growled.

“No, that’s the problem.” I explained. “Those two lunar berserkers worked me ragged yesterday. I should be feeling all sorts of muscle pain right now.” At my explanation, Elendria relaxed and thumped a fist against my chest.

“Idiot. You didn’t read any of the signs, did you?”

“Signs?”

“Ugh. Yes, the signs. The signs that explain how the entire yard is covered in an energizing field. As you work out, your muscles passively absorb the energy. It is released over time afterward to help them regrow stronger. That’s why you were craving meat for dinner, and why you aren’t sore today.”

“Huh. Who knew?” I chuckled. “That’ll make today just a bit easier then.”

“Are you sure you are up for this? I’ve heard that turtle is highly resistant to magic.”

“They say that it’s shell is. I promise, I’ll do a few experiments from a safe distance first. If it doesn’t look like my plan will work, I’ll pull back and redo it.”

“Thanks.” She said. “But, what are we doing there then?”

“Backup.” I said. “Especially if I have to exhaust myself against the turtle. It would be prudent to prepare, right?”

“Alright.” She agreed, rising up from the bed and giving me a glorious view. A ray of sunlight had just managed to slip past the curtains, giving her body a golden aura.

“Beautiful.” I breathed softly, unable to help myself.

“Hmmmm?”

“Nothing.” I said, shaking myself out of my stupor. “Let’s get going. Hopefully we can be there and back before the end of the day. We also have to stop by the guild and pick up a storage ring.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

“Hold up.” Oleg said, just before noon. “We are close enough that we should leave the eagzards here. They won’t want to get any closer anyway. Sorry Stan, but you drew the short straw and get to be on mount watch.” We all dismounted, and headed out. The air was noticeably warmer, and the humidity was climbing rapidly.

“How close are we?” I asked, having never been here before.

“Not too much farther. Another two minutes of walking.” Alex said. All of the Silver Eagles had ditched their normal armor, going for cheaper and lighter leather. Not only did they blend in better, but they all had iron kite shields as well. They could likely withstand one blow, and it wouldn’t be too costly if they had to ditch them and run.

“Alright. Let’s pause a second, I’ll use mana to scout ahead and then we can avoid any surprises.” I sat down to make things easier, and pushed my mana forward. The trees thinned noticeably after about a hundred yards, and another two hundred yards beyond that was covered with tall grass. Luckily it was only up to our knees. That was my current limit, but I took extra time scouting the grass to make sure there were no surprises.

“Looks like we are fairly clear of monsters for the next three hundred yards. Plenty of bugs and birds though. Trees will cut out after a hundred. I’ll pull my mana back to a two-hundred-yard scan.” Plan set, we all headed forward, keeping an eye out for danger. I had gone with a compromise. My complete sphere of mana detection had roughly a seventy-five yard radius. Less with so much life around. Instead I extended it by keeping a cone of detection in front of me, I would guesstimate it at a hundred twenty degrees. This I kept swinging back and forth to avoid surprises.

Once we hit the grass line, we could see for nearly four hundred yards. Near the limits of our vision was a massive, moss covered hill. “Huh. Looks like about halfway to that hill we will start getting muddy.” I said as we kept moving forward. “There are small puddles, but the mud isn’t too deep. Just enough to be annoying.”

“Sounds about right.” Oleg chimed in. “Turtle drives off the monsters, but doesn’t bother with the animals.”

“What does he eat then?” I asked.

“Mana.” Alex said. “Has to be. Otherwise it would need to hunt, and it just isn’t fast enough for that.”

“Wait a minute.” I said, stopping. “Something’s up with that hill. I can’t feel my mana around it.” I looked around, but the only landmark was the hill. It was odd. As soon as a mana tendril got within about two feet of the hill, it would immediately thin and get sucked straight into it. “No fucking way.” I muttered, before sending a small fireball towards the hill. Sure enough, at two feet out it immediately was sucked into the hill and extinguished. Off to one side, I rapidly made a large earth spear erupt.

That got immediate retaliation, as a blast of energy shot out of the hill and reduced the spear to rubble. “What the?!” Half the party exclaimed, though I heard Oleg chuckling in the back.

“Looks like we found ‘im. Good luck friend.” As he was speaking, the hill shuddered and rose. A wave of mana burned the moss off the shell, revealing the opal shelled behemoth. Legs the size of tree trunks supported it, and from what I could tell the tail was at least ten feet long and covered with spikes. The shell though, that was absolutely gorgeous. The center of each scale of the shell had a massive opal, each one unique. A deep blue color was shot through with clouds and streaks of red, yellow and brown. These lines extended throughout the shell, interconnecting everything. As it cast about looking for whatever creature was foolish enough to attack it, I saw its head and nearly soiled myself.

“RRRROOOOOAAAARRRRR!!!!!” It screamed its frustration, and I was glad we weren’t closer. Sensing danger, the birds fled in droves and the insects went to ground. The head looked like it came from an alligator snapping turtle, a lot of wrinkles hiding the actual length of the neck. The mouth had a vicious hook to it, as well as an extended blade off the front. It was too large to be incredibly sharp, but it would ruin someone’s day if it connected. Inside the mouth was the traditional worm lure tongue of snappers. Its eyes seemed rather small for the head, and I decided we were close enough for some tests.

“Alright guys, why don’t you back off just a bit. I’m going to piss it off.” For my first experiment, I shot a fireball towards the gap in the shell by the neck. The blast got close, but again the effect from the shell was strong enough to prevent a direct impact. Nodding in confirmation of what I expected, I sent a spear of earth towards one of the legs. That impacted directly, but did absolutely no damage. An ice shard had the same result. Changing the target to the neck showed a mild deviation from where I was targeting. “Right, the more solid the element the less deviation.” I muttered to myself. The next attack was a small lightning bolt, and this actually struck the creature just below the lip of the shell.

“GRRRAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!” I swear I saw a bit of red flash through the eyes of the creature as that little bit of lightning actually got its attention.

“Right, let’s see his reaction time.” This time I created an image of a knight on a horse, lance extended. A small core of mana gave him a bit of realism, and off he charged. At almost a hundred yards distance, the turtle noticed the charge. At fifty yards, the attack came so quickly I almost missed it. The head snapped forward and slammed through the horseman and into the ground behind it in an instant, sending a spray of mud and water blowing backwards.

“By Shalora.” Alex muttered, and the other members of the Silver Eagles echoed his sentiment. “How the fuck do you attack such a creature?”

“Let’s check the sides.” I said, creating three knights this time. Again one took the central path, while the others split one to each side and were coming towards the creature’s front legs. Again a hundred yards seemed to be the limit of its sight, though it gave a contemptuous snort when it detected the other two horsemen. As they neared within striking distance, it opted for something different. Three sections of shell started glowing, two blue and one red. The two blue sections finished first, and sent incredibly powerful jets of water smashing through the side constructs. The central one was incinerated in a blast of searing heat.

“Well, that went well.” Alex snorted.

“Better than you think.” I replied. “It likely can’t snap too fast side to side, and rather than allow itself to be hit went with a magical attack. If you can get in right next to the base of the neck, you should be invincible. The shell can’t attack too close, and the head can’t bend close enough. It’s too big to get a leg up there to dispatch you.”

“Yeah, and just how the hell are you going to get in close?” Oleg asked with a snort.

“Gimme a few minutes to get my mana back up to full and I’ll show you.” I said, sitting down and trying to relax. Sensing that it had achieved victory, the turtle settled back down into the depression it had already made and closed its eyes.

Back up to full, it was time to prepare. I was going with the assumption that taking an attack head on from the turtle would spell my instant doom, so I wasn’t going to give him any chance at retaliation. Roughly one and a half body width’s away from the turtle I created a half hill. The sloped backside would provide support, while the hardened vertical side would stop him in his tracks. Between the hill and the turtle, and even under the nearest two feet, I started changing the soil. It was originally a thick, reddish muddy clay. The kind that sticks to everything and is a pain in the ass to remove. I added a lot more water, and gentle agitation broke up those clay blocks into a reddish muddy soup. Soft enough that even a bit of pressure from walking would send you mid calf deep, but still solid enough that it was going to cling to it and add another ten pounds to your foot in mud. Plus the suction formed would further fight you if you tried to walk across. The turtle grunted at the magic, eyeing it, but didn’t bother to stir itself. It had grown lazy, and didn’t recognize the perils of my trap.

“Alright, here we go. Be on guard everyone, it’s probably going to panic and I don’t want you taken out by a stray magic attack.”

“Icy Rampart.” Elendria said, creating a small bunker for everyone to hide in. “We’ll be fine Sean. Go kill us a turtle.”

“If my lady insists.” I said with a grin, turning back to the turtle. I slowly crept closer, stopping at a hundred and twenty-five yards. I didn’t want to be targeted, and proximity would make this next move a lot easier. I used nearly a quarter of my mana to swiftly create several blunt earth spears that erupted from the far side of the turtle’s body.

“RRROOOOOAAAAARRRRR!!!!! The turtle immediately roared when it felt something pushing against the bottom of the shell, but it was far too late. My earth pillars were protected from retaliation from the upper shell’s magic, and it was far too slow to evade. As the shell started to lift in the air, the feet on the far side moved to immediately brace itself against the pressure. They sunk deep into the muck, and failed to gain purchase. I started curving the pillars, adding to the flipping motion. The roar of rage turned into one of panic, as the turtle seemed to flip over in slow motion. By the time it had reflexively charged the scales in the shell to try and overwhelm my spells, it had flipped completely over and slammed into the restraining hill. The spells discharged harmlessly into the muck, sending it spraying out in all directions.

“OOOAAAAAANNNNNGGGG!!!!” It cried out again in panic, but there was nothing it could do. The earth pillars redirected and prevented the shell from swaying side to side, and I used a bit of antigravity so that I could fly around to the side and use a pillar to protect myself as I landed on top of the shell. There I sat down again and waited for another ten minutes, as my last spell would require as much mana as I could pump into it.

Mana recharged once again, I carefully climbed down until I was on the lip of the shell of the turtle. I could feel the pull of the shell on my mana, but it was simple to resist as the inner lip of the shell wasn’t opal and provided a small barrier. The neck itself was nearly eight feet tall, and I could only imagine how long it would take Belor to actually tear through it with his skills. Luckily for me, I had magic, and hopefully a bit of help from the system itself. I took a deep, centering breath, and started channeling mana into a small, rapidly rotating sphere between my hands. For safety, I kept it off to one side of my body.

Spin.

Corpse of a forgotten star.

Spin.

Remnants left behind from an explosive death.

Spin.

Titanic forces clash, generating unimaginable power.

Spin.

Incredible stress builds, with only one escape.

Spin.

Overpower the weakest point of the magnetic pole,

Burst out into the vast void of space, freedom obtained at last.

Pulsar Blast!

As I was chanting the complex incantation, nearly all of my concentration was spent in keeping everything contained within the rapidly rotating sphere between my palms. The central line of rotation was pointed directly at the middle of the neck of the turtle. I could tell where the magnetic poles lined up, a few degrees off the rotational axis. My mana drained at a phenomenal rate, and I was sweating bullets by the end of the thirty second cast time. As I finished the words, Twin blasts of energy shot out from the sides of the sphere from the magnetic poles. The end result was a phenomenally powerful blast that made several rotations in the nearly second and a half I was able to hold the spell before it ran out of mana.

“AAAARRRHHHHLLL!” The pained cry of the turtle was cut off abruptly, as the devastation of my spell became apparent. The beams of energy had lanced through the creature with ease, and the angle resulted in a circle nearly four feet in diameter being cut straight through the middle of the neck. The flesh inside the circle fell apart, though there was no blood as everything was cauterized. I could feel panic flowing through the turtle, and had to fight the pull of air being sucked into the inadvertent tracheotomy by the bellowing lungs. The panic rapidly slowed, as it’s brain was starved of oxygen. My blast had cut through some rather important blood vessels it seemed. Nearly a minute later, and the movements had finally stopped.

“Gah.” I managed to utter as I dropped to the ground, completely exhausted. I had burned through damn near all of my mana, leaving me with less than a hundred left.

“Sean!” I heard Elendria cry as everyone came running up.

“Sss okay.” I managed to slur. “Just out of ma. Ma. Mana.” I managed to stammer out.

“What the fuck was that?” Alex asked, and I could hear fear lacing his voice.

“New. Ssspell.” I slurred. “Bit more powerful than I thought.”

“Seriously? Have you even seen what it did?”

“Huh?” I asked, and turned in the direction he was pointing. To one side, it had cut through the retaining hill I had created, and still had the energy to cut a swath of destruction through the jungle for nearly a quarter mile. “Oh.” I said. Turning to look the other way, and the devastation was similar.

“’Oh’ he says. Oh. As if blasting through the neck of a guardian creature and a half mile of jungle just happens every day!” As he was ranting, I looked at the others. Elendria was smiling and stroking my forehead, while the others all looked a bit pale.

“If it makes you feel any better, I can’t use it very much.” I said weakly. “I would have to be alone, with nothing behind me.”

“It’s not just that!” Alex cried out. “What if you managed to find a way to launch that attack in one direction only? Or someone else figures out that spell? Huh? That’s devastation that some second tier speices would have trouble duplicating!”

“Relax.” I said. “Aside from the system and the gods, I’m probably the only person on Vitae who knows what a pulsar even is, let alone has the knowledge to recreate a small one with a spell. Even with all my knowledge, that second and a half blast took over 13 thousand mana. Do you think anyone could manage that?” That little bit seemed to calm him a bit more, though I noticed that Amelia had gone quite pale.

“Thir. Thir. Thirteen thousand?” She stammered. “That’s. That’s absurd! I barely have three thousand!”

“Serious?” Alex asked. “I thought you were considered fairly strong?”

“I AM!” She screamed. “Sure, I might not have a lot of advanced elements, but still. I can hold my own in battle, and I have a rather wide variety of spells. How the hell do you have that much mana?”

“Don’t you get bonuses from advanced elements?” I asked.

“Of course I do! But one can only master a few of them!” I decided not to tell her that I was getting 500 mana for each of the 17 advanced elements I had mastered.

“Look, whatever. It’s done, and nobody can copy it. I can’t use it to defend the city without destroying the city, so let’s not mention it to anyone but the guildmaster. Elendria, could you use this ring to store the corpse? I don’t think I could manage it.”

“Sure Sean. You’ll ride double with me on the way back as well. Can’t have you falling asleep in the saddle and falling off.”

“Yes maam.” I said, yawning in exhaustion. Elendria stored the corpse, and we made our way back to the eagzards. I didn’t remember much of the ride back, but I was more than glad that I had decided to bring backup.