Chrysalis

Overhead, the enormous chunk of stone looms like the hammer of a fat and drunken god. Millions of tons? Billions of tons?

Who can say? I’m certainly not busting out the scales, that’s for sure!

My brains burn inside my head as they are pushed beyond the limits which exist past the first set of limits. Every mind-construct screams with effort, getting double, or triple the amount of effort from each cell of my brains that they should be capable of.

The mana flows like a hurricane, and I mould it to my will, forcing it down, through the construct and out the other side, into my rapidly growing spell.

All the while, the great hunk of stone falls towards us.

My first spell fires off with an all too familiar howl. A gravity bomb, not even an especially large one, rockets upward from my mouth and flies directly into the face of the collapsing mountain.

All too soon, the size of the bomb is completely dwarfed by the city-sized hunk of rock, but I’m not worried. Well, I’m not worried about that. This was merely the first salvo, and I’m confident it will do its job.

It takes longer than I expect for the spell to hit; the stone is simply so huge, I’d assumed it was much closer than it actually was, not that it’s a relaxing thought. If anything, it helps to drive home just how much danger I’m actually in.

As expected, the moment the bomb comes into contact with the mountain, it expands, and begins to devour. However, it is hopelessly, laughably outclassed by what it faces. In an instant, the spell vanishes from sight, disappearing inside the stone as it remains in place, but the rock falls around it.

With my unique gravity sense, I know that my spell only managed to penetrate a little over a hundred metres into the enormous plate of stone, which must be three to four hundred metres thick at least. I suppose this is proof that there is only so much ‘suck’ in each gravity bomb I make, which is surely proportional to how much mana I put into the spell. The sheer volume of stone was too much for such a piddly bomb to consume, and it was quickly overwhelmed.

did its job perfectly, carving a tunnel to the interior of

of it into one, dark mass. Energy thunders through my body, pushing the gravity mana construct to its limit. I have to dedicate too many minds to just maintaining and controlling

this tale is not meant

Which is a problem.

is a ball of super-compressed mana, revolving and spinning within me as I focus inwards. Every spare mind, along with my main brain, is concentrating on this

peel minds away from gathering external mana and dedicate them

and churns violently, threatening to come undone, the sheer

Oh no you don’t!

I push. The spell firms, then wobbles, then firms again as I continue the unrelenting

Protectant, doubtlessly, but even I don’t have the brain power to focus on something like that right now. Every mind construct, every neuron, is dedicated to this spell. Increasingly, more and more of them are dedicated to simply containing

seamless black, and the spell itself sucks in the magic I push toward

I can summon. All minds are cut off from external mana gathering and instead dedicated to

is released, and

It thrashes and boils within as I force my will upon it, trying to hold the damn thing

just. Need. It. To. Stabilise. For.

aim as best I can,