My new cape was a wonderful creation. While it was hard to judge just how well I was hidden, I felt a lot more comfortable with it wrapped around me, the magical formation I had embroidered into it taking just a bit of Astral Power to maintain. It felt a lot more efficient and easier compared to repeated castings of my Cloak of Shadows and took a lot less Astral Power or concentration. Silva was a little suspicious of my new gear, often moving next to me and occasionally sniffing my body, as if trying to make sure I was still there, which just added to my confidence.

Getting to the area where we had seen the racoons was quite easy, even if the Shattered had gained in strength once more, almost all of them were now level three or higher, with some outliers even reaching level seven. That I had killed a level seven two days ago only added to my worries. Sure, that one had been an incredible outlier, but if I compared the rate that one had gained strength at and extrapolated, I estimated their strength to be around level thirteen or fourteen. Higher than my own strength, something I wasn’t willing to simply accept. And thus, the answer was genocide.

To make sure there would be no Shattered that attacked while I focused on my spellcasting, I disabled all Shattered I could find in the area, before dragging them near the drainage and starting a drain of my own. The Blood Magic slowly ripped their life out of them, turning it into magical power I could use while attracting any additional Shattered in the area. Hopefully, the racoons weren’t aware of what the keening wails of the Shattered meant, other than that it was bad news and to be avoided.

Only one additional Shattered was drawn from the surrounding buildings, making me assume that the Racoons had killed all the other Shattered in the area, with only a few more having wandered in during the last few hours, those few that I was now killing. The vitality of the Shattered as funnelled into the construction of a simple dome of Ice, a small shelter that would hopefully help Silva in keeping me safe, while I focused on my magic later. It was far from the Throne I had used on Mundus but given that I was far from the power I had wielded there, I felt it would be hubris to use it. Not yet, I was no Queen yet.

A part of me wondered if there was a way to negotiate or work with the racoons, but really, without the Universal Translation ability I once had been given by my pact with Lenore, I doubted that would work. And even with it, I wasn’t sure but I felt it was more likely, given that the one group that hadn’t intensely disliked me on Mundus had been the pack of the Winter Wolves in the Windswept Plains.

Maybe I should consider diplomacy some more, even if I would have to find some way to communicate.

Just as I was thinking how to go about communicating with a band of bandana rats, Silva let out a harsh growl and bounded forward, rounding a corner and disappearing from sight. When I followed after her, I only heard an angry growl from her, before a notification told me I had gained EXP for killing a racoon. A racoon that I saw moments later, hanging crumbled from Silva’s maw.

Well, that put the idea of racoon diplomacy down, I had my doubts that anything of that sort would work if you showed up to their doorstep dripping the blood of their kin. Shrugging, I returned to the initial entrance I had found, where a pair of Shattered was still waiting with broken limbs.

Sacrifices for my Blood Magic.

Settling down, I carved the necessary formations into both Shattered, pushing away one of the spasmodically flailing arms so I could actually work. Once everything was done, I ordered Silva to guard my back before starting to channel my Astral Power. The formation I created was relatively simple when compared to the formations I had used on Mundus but for this plane, it was remarkably complex, with my two new runes incorporated into it.

For once, I didn’t use a simple pentagon, with all five runes the same size, instead, I used a huge square, with four runes at the corner points and a single, larger, rune filling the centre, connected to the other four. Two triangles, connected at a central point. I wasn’t sure if my idea would actually improve the power, but I thought it would. The upper triangle was composed of the runes for Confusion and Darkness, with the Mist-rune in the centre while the lower triangle used that same Mist-rune but was connected to Devour below the Darkness-Rune and Blood below the Confusion-Rune. It felt curiously symmetrical, the two triangles connected and connecting, to the point that I even felt a faint connection between the two triangles along the vertical lines of the square.

Creating it had taken a lot longer than any normal formation would, each move of my hand careful and considered, filled with Astral Power and an image of what I had in mind until finally, the glowing formation was floating before me.

Putting my hands on the sacrifices, I began drawing the vitality from their bodies, turning it into Astral Power for me to use. The power immediately went into the formation, causing the cold, dark mist to billow forth. The moment I didn’t need to concentrate on the two sacrifices, because their usefulness, and life, had expired, I focused back on the formation. There was quite a bit of power inside and I began to slowly channel my own power into it, while letting the mist seep down, into the drainage.

Mist automatically spread out, trying to fill as much space as it could, so initially, my entire focus was on the upper portion of the formation, just spreading out a confusing mist. It would sink and seep into everything down there, filling as much of the system as possible. At the same time, I was barely aware of my body, my focus constantly switching between the formation and the Astral River, a meditative state in which nothing mattered but those two. Feed the formation and draw power from the Astral River, nothing else mattered.

After what might have been an hour of focused channelling, I switched my intentions. No longer did I want the mist to be primarily confusing, now I focused on the other half of the formation. To devour the vitality of all those caught up in the mist.

Little changed about what I actually did, I still channelled Astral Power from the Astral River into the formation, but what the formation did with it, that was completely different. It might have been my imagination, but the previously dense, somewhat dark, mist that made me think of thunderclouds changed. Now, there was a faint tinge of blood in the air, and I thought there were traces of red running through the mist, almost like bloody veins or strands of red lightning. But the visuals were merely an outward expression of a fundamental change, from a spell of confusion and disorientation to a spell of death. All that were within the spell would be affected and soon, they would all be dead.

It was a great spell - It was a horrible spell. Or it might just be the spell that I needed.

Again, time started to blur as seconds turned into minutes and finally hours. Slowly but surely, I could feel a headache starting up, the toll of my constant magical channelling mounting. All magic had a small physical component to it, put a bit of strain on your body, but to have the body be the limiting factor on a spell, it required what I was doing. Slow, constant channelling of vast amounts of power.

Finally, I let my connection to the spell die off, no longer supporting it with that constant stream of power that had allowed it to grow and, finally, drain all that were trapped within. The mist would linger for a little longer, simply because such huge amounts of Astral Power didn’t immediately fade, but soon, it would disappear.

For a few minutes, I simply sat there, meditating and breathing, recovering myself as much as possible. I wasn’t sure how long I had channelled my spell, three, maybe four hours was my best estimation but I wasn’t sure. I was quite confident that everything down there was dead, I didn’t feel that faint, lingering unease of combat but that might simply be because everything I had affected was running away.

Letting out a long, drawn-out breath, I looked at the notifications I had gained, curious just how much power the one, massive spell had given me.