Magus Reborn

366. A trek through the plane.

As the first spirit jumped, Elias reacted instantly, raising his hand and pulling up a thick wall of earth in front of him.

The creature crashed into it with full force, its claws digging into the surface and tearing chunks out of it as it pushed against the barrier. That was all it took for the rest of them to move.

They rushed in from the sides, their bodies weaving through the trees as they began circling the group. Within seconds, they were surrounded.

Kai’s eyes moved quickly, counting them and tracking their positions. He realised that there were at least two dozen of them closing in.

He glanced at Elder Caelith. “Do you know what they are?”

Elder Caelith nodded. “Yes, I think they are thraxens. They don’t have special abilities, but their bites can easily gouge out your flesh. They’re fast and strong, so be careful.”

That was all Kai needed to know. He could already tell that with the density of mana in the air that these creatures were easily at grade four, maybe even pushing higher in this environment.

Hence, he didn't waste a second. Spell structures formed in both of his hands as the spirits began their attack. One leapt straight toward his head.

Kai raised his hand and released a powerful gust of wind that blasted it away mid-air, sending it crashing back into the forest.

He turned around just in time to face another one. A flaming spear formed in his hand and he threw it straight into the creature’s chest. It brushed by it's side but the thraxen only growled.

It twisted away, jumping back as if the attack had barely affected it.

Kai frowned, but he didn’t waste time thinking about it. Instead, he planned a formation in his mind, seeing more and more appear from the trees.

“Elias, protect anyone who needs it!” he shouted out. “Veridia, go all out. Killian, stay with Claire! Kill as many as you can.”

After saying that, he pushed off the ground and rose into the air. Another thraxen leapt toward him, but he avoided it easily, letting it crash into the ground beneath him.

He took advantage of the opening.

[Infernal Chains] formed around his arms, burning with controlled heat as he sent them forward. They wrapped tightly around the creature’s paws before it could recover, binding it in place.

With a sharp pull, Kai flung it sideways.

Its body slammed into another charging thraxen, and both of them were sent crashing into a nearby tree with enough force to shake the massive trunk.

Then, he looked down, taking in the battle going on, knowing that the thraxens couldn’t leap high enough to reach him.

Veridia was launching spears of darkness one after another, pinning thraxens to the ground, while Elias stood at the centre, raising earth walls every time one of them leapt from behind.

Elder Caelith had formed a bow entirely out of wind and kept firing arrows that burst into gusts of air, knocking down groups of them.

Killian and Claire were both using lightning, with the knight holding off two thraxens with his sword and shield while Claire supported him with ranged attacks.

At a glance, it looked like they had the battle under control, but Kai could see more and more thraxens rushing through the trees, filling the gaps as quickly as they were made. If he had to guess, they had unfortunately walked straight into the middle of a spirit beast nest, and now they were paying the price for it.

He didn’t doubt his party, but he still wanted to end this without anyone getting injured.

Hence, he created more chains around his fingers and spread them out in every direction, using them like the tendrils Regina had once used. The chains lashed out, catching thraxens mid-charge and flinging them into each other.

Some of them even ended up clawing into one another before crashing to the ground, both bleeding from the impact.

Every few seconds, he created more chains, keeping a steady control over the flow of the battle and giving the others room to breathe.

Even then, the number of thraxens kept rising, easily reaching into the hundreds as they continued to pour in without slowing. As Kai watched them, he began to wonder if he should just use a fifth circle spell and end it at once, but just as that thought crossed his mind, his instincts suddenly screamed.

He caught something in the corner of his vision and immediately rose higher, just as a thraxen leapt from one of the trees.

Even with the distance, it still managed to reach him, its claws tearing through his wind armour and drawing blood from his leg before it dropped back down to the ground.

The worst part was that it had struck the same injury left by the voidlings, one that hadn’t fully healed yet.

Kai winced, but didn’t let his focus break.

His gaze locked onto the thraxen that had landed in the middle of his party, and it didn’t take more than a moment to notice that it was different.

It was larger than the rest, its body broader, and the stripes across its fur were far more pronounced than any of the others.

If he had to guess, it was the alpha.

The one leading them.

Kai’s eyes narrowed as the thought settled in, and almost immediately, he knew what he had to do.

Without wasting a second, he formed a lance of flames and hurled it straight toward the alpha. The creature reacted instantly, dodging to the left with ease. It growled, its attention still fixed on him, but instead of pressing forward, it turned and bolted toward the trees, clearly intending to retreat into cover and strike again from above.

Kai didn’t give it that chance.

He created more lances in quick succession, but instead of aiming directly at the thraxen, he drove them into the ground around it. One after another, they struck, forming a burning perimeter that cut off its escape. Each impact narrowed the space it could move through until the creature found itself boxed in.

When it tried to leap over them, Kai shifted his spell again, weaving mana into a different structure. A wide net formed above the ring of fire and dropped down, trapping the thraxen within it.

It struggled immediately.

Its claws lashed out, tearing through parts of the net, but Kai reinforced it at once, pushing more mana into it. Wherever the threads were cut, new ones formed instantly, tightening around the creature and keeping it contained.

The entire scene didn’t go unnoticed by the rest of the thraxens. They let out low, angry growls the moment they saw their leader trapped, and without hesitation, several of them lunged toward the net, clearly intent on tearing it apart.

“Don’t let those bastards get near!” Elias shouted.

At once, he slammed his hand down, and spikes of earth shot out from the ground, piercing upward toward the charging thraxens and forcing them back.

Killian and Claire moved immediately as well, taking positions on either side of the net. Lightning crackled around them as they intercepted any creature that tried to push through, keeping them at bay.

Veridia and Elder Caelith didn’t hold back either. Both of them turned toward the ones still pouring out from the forest, conjuring spheres of molten magma and wind before hurling them forward.

The projectiles exploded on impact, scattering the thraxens and slowing their advance.

For a brief moment, Kai found himself impressed. All of them were working together seamlessly.

But it did make sense.

Three of them had a lot of experience in battles, and Claire had already proven she could keep up. Elder Caelith, with his centuries of experience, adapted just as naturally.

Still, Kai didn’t keep watching. The alpha wouldn’t stay contained for long.

He focused back on the net and immediately created more wind constructs, shaping them into large hands. They moved to grip the net from both sides, tightening around it before lifting.

The thraxen thrashed violently.

Even bound, it was relentless, and heavier than Kai had expected.

He pushed more mana into the constructs, reinforcing them as he forced the massive creature upward into the air. For a brief second, a thought crossed his mind to kill it right there.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he shifted his control.

The wind hands began to spin, turning the net rapidly in the air as the thraxen let out furious cry. The motion disoriented it, its movements growing less controlled with each rotation.

Then Kai took aim and released.

The net shot forward, carrying the trapped alpha with it, flinging it far into the distance toward the larger trees. Its cries echoed through the forest as it was sent flying, vanishing among the towering trunks.

Kai lowered his gaze.

Below him, the remaining thraxens had paused.

Most of them stood still. The earlier aggression was replaced by visible confusion as they heard their leader's screams.

Taking advantage of the moment, Killian moved first. Lightning surged through his shield as he stepped forward and slammed one of the rhraxens straight into a tree.

The impact echoed through the forest, and for a second, it looked like he was about to move in for the kill on the next one.

But before he could, the creature growled.

It turned and bolted into the forest without hesitation.

The same thing happened with the others.

One by one, the thraxens abandoned the fight, retreating into the trees and disappearing into the tall grass. Within seconds, the entire clearing was empty, as if the battle had never happened.

Kai hovered in place for a moment, watching the direction they had fled.

Then, after a brief glance into the forest, he descended and landed on the ground. A faint smile formed on his face.

“That went better than I expected,” he said. “I don’t see any injuries.”

Elder Caelith gave a small snort. “Of course there aren’t,” he said. “They might be strong, but they lack a lot compared to the beasts of Sylvastra.” He paused for a moment before looking at Kai again. “Why didn’t you kill the alpha spirit?”

“Because I didn’t know how they would react,” he said. “They could have scattered if their leader died... or they could have gotten even more aggressive and tried to take revenge.”

He glanced toward the direction where the alpha had been thrown. “Sending it away so they’d focus on finding it was a better option.”

Elias nodded slowly, resting a finger against his chin as he looked into the bushes.

“That makes sense,” he said, looking at the others. “But we should move quickly now. I can make an earthen platform for us to travel. We shouldn’t stay here any longer.”

Kai nodded in agreement and Elias didn’t waste time.

A spell structure formed in front of him, and moments later, the ground shifted as earth rose upward, shaping itself into a wide, stable platform.

Elias stepped onto it first.

Claire followed right after him, then the others including him joined.

Standing at the back of the platform, Kai looked toward the part of the forest the thraxens had come from.

This was only their first day here. And he couldn’t help but wonder how many more spirits they would have to face before they were done.

***

As it turned out, they had to fight quite a few spirits, and it quickly became clear that the inhabitants of the plane did not like outsiders at all.

The worst of them were flying spirits called irexals. They were fast—far too fast—and constantly stayed just out of reach. Worse, they could shoot poisonous darts from their mouths, striking from above before darting away again. It made it incredibly difficult to land any proper attacks on them. In the end, Kai had to resort to overwhelming them, creating hundreds of flaming arrows and filling the sky until he finally managed to bring them down.

Other than them, there were also vorns—spirits that burrowed through the ground. They would drill silently beneath the surface and only reveal themselves when the group slowed down or stopped to rest. One of them had even broken through the ground right beneath Killian, and if he hadn’t reacted in time, the man would have been dragged under and severely injured. Fortunately, they were far easier to deal with than the flying spirits.

There were others as well.

But most of them were wandering spirits rather than large groups. Even so, whenever they encountered the party, they reacted the same way—hostile, unwilling to tolerate humans and elves in their plane.

Because of that, they barely made any progress.

Every step forward seemed to be met with resistance, and finding the Elder Tree seed felt farther away than Kai had expected.

Still, there was one thing he could be relieved about.

No one had sustained any major injuries. But that was the only good thing about their day.

A few times, they had come across spirits that didn’t attack immediately. In those moments, Kai had hoped they might finally be able to communicate. But before Elder Caelith could even summon his spirit and attempt a conversation, those spirits would retreat, disappearing into the forest without a trace.

It made everything far more difficult.

In the records Kai had read—accounts left behind by Mages who had visited the Earth Plane before—spirits had been dangerous, yes, but they had also been willing to communicate.

Here that didn’t seem to be the case at all. Those records were the reason why Kai had been hopeful.

But in the end, they were from the future. Maybe, over time, the spirits would grow used to Mages coming here. Maybe they would become more willing to communicate.

For now, that clearly wasn’t the case.

At the very least, Elias’s spell allowed them to move deeper into the forest, where the mana grew even more concentrated. The air itself felt different here. It brushed against Kai’s skin like a fine layer of static, almost like a soft current of electricity running over him. It was a strange sensation, but not unpleasant.

In fact, he liked it.

And more than that, he recognized what it meant. This was the perfect place and the perfect conditions to break through to the fifth circle.

So when Elias finally spoke up and said he needed a rest, Kai agreed without hesitation.

They found a small clearing surrounded by trees on three sides, giving them a natural layer of protection. Elias moved immediately, shaping the damp earth and weaving vines together to create small, enclosed spaces for each of them. The structures were simple, but they provided enough privacy and shelter.

There was no need for a fire.

The Earth Plane didn’t truly have darkness. There was no real day or night cycle. The sky’s light would dim occasionally for a few hours, then brighten again, but it never went completely dark.

Still, Kai insisted that everyone rest and eat.

Only after making sure of that did he move into his own makeshift tent.

He sat down on the soft bed of vines, adjusting himself into a meditative position. Then he took a slow breath, letting the mana around him flow inward. If he were still in his own world, he wouldn’t have attempted this yet. He would have needed more time and more preparation.

But here, everything was different. The mana in the air was so dense, so pure, that he could already feel how close he was.

The fifth circle was within reach, maybe just a few hours away. So he didn’t waste a second. He closed his eyes, drew in the surrounding mana, and began the process.

Step by step, he pushed forward to the breakthrough to become a true Magus once again, just like in his previous life.

***

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