Chrysalis

It’s not easy to create and conceal something like a gravity bomb. The raw mana I pour into the damn thing, and its generally unstructured form, don’t exactly lead to a stable, easily hidden spell.

The gravity bomb has always been a weird bit of magic. I first discovered this technique, and mana compression, when I blasted a croca beast directly in the face with a ball of pure mana. It’s probably possible to do something similar to a gravity bomb with any sort of mana, a fire bomb, a water bomb, a lava bomb, or whatever.

It’s not like I’m utilising some fancy, gravity only spell-form, all I’m doing is taking a huge chunk of mana and packing it into a dense ball before letting it rip.

But for some reason, I can’t imagine any other type of mana working nearly as well as my special, purple, crushing magic. Once I compact it, smush it together, the mana itself takes over, sucking in everything it can get, compacting by itself, just like a black hole.

And when I release it, the bomb emits that terrifying pull, consuming the air, stirring up the wind and eating even the light. I can’t possibly imagine any other mana type could come close to the devastation of this spell!

HOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWLLLLL!

The bomb screams through the air, creating a vortex of twisting wind as it goes. This one is dense, with a ton of mana packed into it and empowered by the Altar. I didn’t hold back even a little when preparing it, and now that this delectable dish has been served, I hope that these three demons manage to enjoy it.

By the by, am I shifting forward by any chance?

I shift my body to look down and, sure enough, my legs are being dragged forward, carving their own little furrows in the ground. In the distance, the bomb continues to fly away from me, and the more I look, the more I realise that I can’t really see it properly. The thing is sucking in so much light, I can’t even see the edges of it anymore, it’s more like a… dark blob, a void, that moves through the air, rocketing toward the target.

So… this thing is pulling me forward… even though it hasn’t expanded yet….

Oh… my… Gandalf….

for cover! Run! Dig! This is

saying, I spin myself around and throw my massive ant frame forward with all my strength. The moment I hit the deck, I start digging into it, face-hands flying as I rip through the rock, moulding

fingers, a look of cold determination on his face, for once. It wasn’t easy to impress on the big ape just how serious a code purple is, but I eventually explained that it would crush

you

[Yesssss.]

is better than leaving ourselves uncovered. I dumped as much gravity mana into this as I could while still concealing the spell. With Invidia helping to hide the mass of power, the bomb absorbed so much mana it had become a pure black sphere, rotating within me

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWLLLLLL!!!!!

hole we dug just in time to see the bomb zipping over the final metres. The wind has been whipped into an absolute frenzy, to the point the bomb appears to be the centre of a newly formed hurricane. The winds are so fast, I swear I see larvae being lifted up into the air by their force, carried away to goodness knows where, or, most unfortunately, thrown toward the centre

even know what the three demons have done in response to my opening gambit, the chaos caused by the bomb is so total, it’s impossible to pay attention to anything

its destination, the bomb flickers for a moment, and I dig my claws as deep

Here it comes….

manifesting itself as a slowly rotating void, like

Then it expands again.

almost boggle out of my head at the size of the thing. This is double the size of my previous biggest bomb….

for this! Every damn time, the thing that gets the closest to

size, the most terrifying pull I’ve ever experienced takes hold, and everything goes wrong. The ground cracks

gone,

vicinity of the spell, everything