Overpowered Wizard-Chapter Ch58: Facing Enemy Waves

“Fifty Percent Darkness,” Zarian intoned, the area rippling to the sound of his voice.

As he unleashed more of his power, he quickly rewrote a patch of the local system and combatted the fallout of destroying half a Paragon World. It was practically a dying world on its way to being dead, but the way its many suns and moons flashed dangerously wasn’t to his liking.

Ah, it’s booby trapped.

Ariana was truly the devil.

The suns exploded along with the moons. All of that aura that each of them contained thundered across space and fell upon Zarian and his group’s heads.

Fifty Percent Darkness tagged with sorcery and enhanced by aura manipulation ate most of the force. He redirected a stream into Bianca and used her to bleed away some of the solar damage. The rest of his mental faculties were trained on salvaging the Paragon World as spare material while Hannah unpacked the highest quality of material she had stored.

Together, they built themselves a special ship with the same volume of a small world. It was decked out with all the necessities, and its appearance was so fast, the dragons weren’t prepared for it.

Zarian and Hannah had waited for this to give no forewarning, reducing chances of countermeasures against what was possibly the greatest universe-crossing vessel Infinita had ever seen. It was dark, crimson, and armed with sharp edges, so the aesthetics were on point.

Hannah and Gilbert entered the command center. Zarian stayed on the surface, with Foodie, Bianca, and Naomi backing him. The planet-sized ship sliced through the remaining dragons that had welcomed them to the High Realm. The Floridians carved a course away from the trap as the fallout continued to spread its fury.

“So, we’re in an interesting scenario,” Zarian said, his voice reaching all his people through their personal system-supported comms. “We’re caught in a gauntlet of all things. It’s a straight shot upward if we follow it. I can’t say what the consequences of trying to break out of the borders are, but I will say this.” Zarian grinned. “They’re going to rush everything they have at us. And what does that mean?”

“Power leveling!” The others said together.

“So, do we break the trap and lose the fastest way to run ourselves up to the top? Or do we continue the course and–”

Para and Slim teleported in, the cloak fluttering, the boy moving like the universe’s deadliest little assassin. Zarian stopped his speech, froze them with wards and system spells. He made their combined profile glitch and suffer the short-term equivalent of a crash. They couldn’t even breathe a breath while Zarian’s wards froze them, so the System Archwizard helped with that with a small darkness boop.

He blasted Para and Slim off his ship.

“Nice try. But we’ve all gotten too strong for you now. You need us more than we need you,” Zarian scolded, turning his back on them as Para and Slim tumbled behind.

Looking ahead, he saw the next wave of enemies coming down, and they were stronger than the last. They had new tricks, too. There wasn’t any point asking for a vote about continuing the course – Zarian sensed they all wanted to run this latest gauntlet and reach God Land as fast as possible.

They just had to suffer the consequences of placing themselves where Ariana wanted them.

Let’s go, Zarian thought as they drew closer to the second wave.

Interestingly enough, the wave hovered around two Paragon Worlds. Each world was loaded with enemies on the side of the Dragoness.

Zarian’s eyes widened as he watched the collective might of spell casts coming from two Paragon Worlds. The suns dimmed, and so did the moons, as the casters drained them for energy and unleashed their spells upon Zarian and Hannah’s vessel. Along the way, the barrage combined into one annihilation beam with no one theme but countless many.

Zarian flipped into Half Ignition, dropped the fancy magic, and piled on a redundant but thorough network of wards. Hannah helped with the mind of an obsessive engineer and together they reinforced the bow before expanding their defense into a hardcore shield covering the front and sides.

As Zarian’s brain burned, Hannah spotted as many weak-points as her mind could feasibly find and helped direct her Ultra God to fill those spots. Then the power of two Paragon Worlds and all of their casters struck them, and for a split second, Zarian thought their shield was going to break.

Instead, the beam deflected into smaller beams, some reflecting and slicing through the worlds and the second dragon wave. It soon broke apart, ripping a few pieces off their vessel, and burning the hell out of them before the Floridians punched through and were amid the dismantled second wave.

“FARM! FARM! FARM!!!” Zarian roared, spurning the others on.

Bianca struck the fastest and covered the space with blades that ripped into reality and her enemies. She’d been charging that up for a while and had dragons exploding into chunks. Naomi and Foodie had a shorter reach, so they let the tougher dragons crash into the vessel and brawled them from there.

Gilbert’s power pumped through the veins of the vessel, providing buffs to friends and debuffs to enemies. And Hannah kept them on course while commanding the ship to unleash its countermeasures via cannons. She picked off the easier prey, such as the casters on the dead worlds they were driving past.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Zarian enacted his revenge by opening the abyss and unleashing a portion of his legion. Out came Loner and his abyssal skeletons. Out came the spiders, the gators, the greatest nightmares he could spawn from the abyss. The genocide they left behind once they broke past the second wave was by far the biggest he’d ever seen outside of being the all-consuming darkness.

“Levels?” Zarian asked. “I’m 324 now.”

Foodie, Level 315.

Naomi, Level 309.

Hannah, Level 316.

Gilbert, Level 312.

Bianca, Level 318.

I know we’re going up the levels blistering fast compared to most. We’re also acquiring and opening up achievements as quickly as we can get them. But it feels like this is still going to be a slog.

The third wave placed four Paragon Worlds in their way. Zarian’s eye twitched. He reconsidered their approach before shaking his head and deciding to stay the course. They were just going to have to reveal more of their cards earlier than expected.

“Hannah, it’s godmode time,” Zarian said.

“Your First Disciple is ready.” Hannah was drooling, ready for a taste of real power.

He sacrificed twenty percent of his darkness. Hannah didn’t need much more than that. The entire vessel shuddered. A feeling like being placed under a lens while getting pulled apart piece by piece rolled over them. The creep factor was high, and for a split second, there was a real concern that the power would go to her head, then Hannah’s attention turned toward their actual enemies.

She dusted all four worlds and their suns and moons. Pulled them apart at the atomic level. The vessel engorged on the material, but instead of growing bigger, it grew denser. There was a shift inside the vessel that was spatial and temporal, giving Zarian a sense that the interior was far, far larger and contained far more than what its outer dimensions would suggest.

Once Zarian felt that Hannah was satisfied with her devouring of four Paragon Worlds, he cut off godmode and kept her soul secured until he could hand its protection back to her. She was a Senior Systemizer after all, similar to his System Archwizard class, but with different focuses.

In this regard, their little world-sized ride was far fiercer and came with more barriers and defenses that repelled the myriad attacks of the third wave. It even used selective gravity guns that yanked in prey for Foodie and Naomi to farm easier.

Bianca and Zarian attacked from a distance and picked out the strongest targets they could get. Frustratingly enough, the enemy’s levels and what they could offer weren’t all that high, so the level ups were slower than Zarian liked, but they were making their way up.

“Para’s trailing close,” Bianca said while they were on their way to the fourth wave. “She’s picking off our leftovers and rapidly evolving.”

Zarian looked back. “Picking off? No, she’s eating everything we leave behind.” Squinting, Zarian looked far, far back, and saw that Para had shaped herself into a titanic snake with multiple heads. She was slithering fast to stick to their tail.

For a moment, Zarian thought about ending her once and for all. Maybe there was no saving Para or waiting out her rebellious phase. Then he glanced at Bianca and saw the smile on her face.

“You still believe in her?” Zarian asked.

“She’s one of us. She may be lost right now, but she’ll find her way back.”

“Maybe I need to just do something to help with that,” he mumbled. He hated waiting.

When they hit the fourth wave, the challenge was different. There were eight Paragon Worlds. And each of them was on fire, their suns and moons gone, all of that power jammed into the worlds themselves. They came hurtling straight at the Floridians like suicide bombs, and Zarian would’ve found that worrying if they didn’t have an easy response for that.

“UNLEASH! THE SUPER GOBBO!” Zarian roared

Foodie slipped away into a panel on top of the ship before getting shot out of a cannon. When she reached the first explosive world, she flipped it on: Fourth Ignition.

Like all aura igniters, the basis behind Aura Ignition was to burn up your profile for power and gradually shift reality to your unreasonable demands. Zarian and everybody watched the orange-red bonfire that was Foodie expand around the first world.

And eat it.

Whatever explosive energy that was going to release all hell became a part of Foodie’s indomitable digestion. Then she struck the next world and ate that too, but a tad bit slower. As she ate explosive world after explosive world, her consumption speed slowed down. She soon became too stuffed to eat anymore.

There were still two more suicide Paragon Worlds left, which was fine. Foodie did the one other thing that made her unfair in her own way. She transferred a portion of her power down the discipleship pipeline and stopped short of flipping on godmode for Naomi.

They’d tested it. Naomi couldn’t handle godmode. It would destroy her more mortal soul.

Instead, she expanded her demonic prowess, pushed to the peak of Third Ignition, and then a little further than that. Naomi broke into Fourth Ignition for the first time and shifted reality to serve her whim. She stopped the last two worlds with a look before tilting her head and sending them careening off to the side.

Huh, funny. Her voice transmitted through all of their minds. Fourth Ignition makes me more of a psionic. That’s unexpected.

“Jedi bullshit,” Gilbert muttered from the bar area inside the ship.

Zarian looked back as the worlds exploded far behind them. Para barely avoided the eruptions before continuing her slithering pursuit.

Once Foodie returned, the two hardy fighters kept their Fourth Ignition going and faced each other. Naomi stood with arms folded. Foodie reached out with a hand, and a psionic force smacked it away.

In the next second, they exchanged blows, with Naomi using her mind while Foodie crashed forward physically until the stalemate was broken and Foodie had her teeth on Naomi’s neck. After that, they downshifted back to normal and took a small break.

Zarian walked over to Naomi as she caught her breath.

“I can hold my own against Foodie a lot better than before,” she said. “It feels like I’m fighting with my mind. It’s not bad. But I prefer my usual style. Maybe I can correct that with Fifth Ignition.”

“I’ve been trying for Fifth Ignition, and I’ve gotten nowhere close,” Foodie grouched.

“Yeah, well, that’s because you don’t have the build for it.” Naomi smiled. “I do.”

Foodie cast her gaze down at her feet. “Huh. If that’s true, you’ll be able to beat me.”

Naomi opened and closed her mouth. The implications were staggering if Naomi could achieve Fifth Ignition. Nobody had accomplished it before. She would be the strongest of the group, second only to Zarian.

Can she get it done before God Land? Zarian wondered.

Before he could ask, Foodie piped up. “I’ll help as much as I can. If we can make it happen soon…”

“I’ll appreciate it.”

Zarian smiled as the two became even more determined to get Naomi to Fifth Ignition. Leaving them to it, Zarian wandered over to Bianca, who stood closer to the tip of the ship. There was nothing but darkness above, below, and to the sides. Pinpricks of light and a new wave of challenges grew closer from the front as Para chased from behind.

“I predict we’re going to suffer a little,” Bianca said.

Zarian shrugged at hearing that. Because of Bianca’s new class, her ability to predict and see the future was sharper than ever. She was a full-on seer now, and those powers along with the others were still growing. Without having to say much, he waited beside Bianca as they reached the next wave.