Lucas channeled another spell and aimed a Firebolt at the ground in front of the pair as they started toward him. He knew that Valerie would likely dodge the spell if it were aimed at her, but the ground wouldn’t move—and that made it the perfect target for his area-of-effect spell. Lucas began readying a second spell the moment the first was cast, but Nick surprised him. The moment the second Firebolt left his staff, Nick created a Force Shield halfway between them. The flaming ball crashed into the barrier of holy magic and splashed back toward Lucas. The flames licked around him, singing the hair on his arms and stripping away 20% of his health.

“I was too careless,” Lucas grumbled.

The magic shield dropped, and the two players ran through the spot where it had been, meaning that they were already too close for him to effectively use another Firebolt. Zap would take too long to cast before they reached him, and Earth Spike would only hit one of them, so Lucas focused his Arcane Energy into the least-used spell in the game: Frost Breath.

Frost Breath was relatively useless due to its low damage, and it was rarely used since most groups had someone to tank and someone to heal, but when it came to fighting melee enemies, it did have one thing that gave it an incredible advantage: it could snare an opponent and drastically reduce his movement speed.

It only took a half-second to cast to the spell, and as soon as it was done, the energy coursed backward through his body, welled up from his stomach and streamed out of his mouth. His jaws opened as wide as he could stand, and a torrent of ice-cold air shot out of him right toward the enemies. He turned his head back and forth, trying to evenly distribute the attack into a conical shape in front of him, and he silently celebrated as both of his assailants' steps were snared by the spell’s chilling effect. They inched closer to him at a drastically-reduced pace, a little over half of their health bars left, and then, with only another second before they would be able to strike him down, Lucas bolted. He only had the basic amount of Stamina the game afforded every new player, so he would only be able to maintain a decent speed for a short time before slowing, but he knew that neither Nick nor Valerie was likely any better off. Plus, he didn’t have to go far.