Mana spills from me in an endless tide, my vessel steadily generating more at a pace the guard simply cannot match. He’s stronger than me, faster than me, more skilled than me… and yet, [Suppression] drags him down to my level. Whenever he threatens to outpace me, I make him stumble. Whenever he threatens to overpower me, I sap his strength.
And then, I land another little cut on him. Just a small one - I can’t even pierce his armor, so I go for openings. He doesn’t wear a helmet, because he was cocky and didn’t expect a proper fight, so I graze his cheeks and his neck. And with every strike, every cut my spear leaves, he gets a little more sluggish.
I see his face shift, as he grits his teeth. As he makes for the black walls again, but the box simply shifts with him. It’s disorientating, the dark space making it hard to see, but it’s just a shadow. The hail still falls in, for example. But he can’t properly maneuver out. I chase him, and the box moves with us.
A moment later he spins, pivots, and the spear flies at me in a blink. With a clumsy step, I just barely avoid it. I almost lost balance on the icy cobblestone, but Kuro helps keep me upright. A lance of light flies at me - only to evaporate in mid-air, falling apart into particles.
Mana pours into me from the broken spell, and then along my tether, right into the guard, turning him sluggish again. I apply my [Suppression] efficiently, targeting his joints, the weak points in his body, making it uneven across his left and right side. It’s difficult to manage so many things, but even as my eyes bleed I just smile.
“Come on,” I say quietly. “Show me some more.”
With a roar, his mana rises, dispelling some of the weakness inside him. Golden flames roll through his bones, and I tilt my head with curiosity. [Deconstruction] flares, but since the effect is internal, it’s weaker. There’s not even a proper external spell construct to target, it’s more like…
“Holy frick, you got runes on your skeleton?” I ask with surprise, already wanting to observe them.
Once again, he doesn’t grace me with a reply. Instead, he lunges, stabbing at me - and this time, I take the exchange.
His spear sinks into my thigh. It’s a brutal blow, tearing through muscles, sending a spiral of pain up my spine, but I don’t even flinch. Instead, as the surprise appears on his face, I watch him try to move his mana. Then I [Suppress] it.
For just a moment, he’s stuck. A torrent, a quarter of my pool, tears into him all at once, and he freezes up. With a slow, almost gentle movement, I shove my spear into his armor, making it crumple before the imbued edge. It takes a second and some pressure, but eventually, it sinks into his skin and he gasps.
Then we both stagger apart. Still, despite the exchange, a vicious grin spreads on his face as he pulls the spear from my leg. “Fucker,” he gasps viciously, holding his side. “Ye just signed yer death warrant.”
In a moment, golden light pours from the hand he holds over his wound. The golden light that indicates a healing spell. It sprawls over his runed bones, spilling through his body like a flood. And instantly, I smile. My gambit paid off.
[Deconstruction 23 > 24]
Mana. More and more and more mana pours into the skill, enough to go so deep into that spiraling toolbox that it goes from a simple knife to a chainsaw, serrated edges howling with force. Blue-grey tendrils reach across our connection.
My skill tears into his. For a moment, the healing holds. For a moment.
Then I see his face go ashen.
His magic breaks under mine. The skill comes apart, and I do it so inefficiently. I don’t target the weak spots, I destroy it all. The entire construct.
In a moment, my chainsaw of anti-magic carves deep into him. It shreds the flames, it reaches cold, grey fingers through his flesh and leeches the healing from his bones. Every single piece of the skill comes undone, unwoven in an instant. And every single piece of it flows into my archive.
I grin, wide and manic, as the essence pours into me. All at once, I memorize his ability. All at once, I follow my intuition. I pick out the best parts, I learn from them, I assimilate them into my own skillset. And I stop holding the levels back.
[Memorization 9 > 10]
[Intuition 9 > 10]
[Skills Fused!]
[Memorization 10 + Intuition 10 > Annexation 2]
His skill comes apart, and feeds mine. Annexation pulls every single piece I need from that archived construct with such beautiful efficiency, and it spills into my own healing.
[Biological Restoration 23 > 25]
One moment to another, I break through the threshold on my healing skill. Golden light trails along my bones, not like fire, but with purpose. It lingers, courses through me, stealing the most powerful aspect of his skill and boosting mine.
His wounds keep bleeding, and mine close up.
A look of horror finally dawns on the guard. “Wh-what…?” he asks quietly. His voice cracks.
“Thank you,” I say with a smile, “for teaching me.” With my mended leg, I approach his bleeding form, and he steps back. My mana is low, but it’s already refilling, and breaking his skill gave me a good chunk to work with, thanks to my epitaph.
Another roar leaves his lips, but the flames die out before he ever reaches me. He’s still strong and fast, but the lingering touch of my [Suppression] is on him. And I can feel Kuro, too. Shadows pull at his legs, slowing him like a quagmire. Some skill of theirs also seems to be enhancing his blood loss, because vital fluid leaks from the wound I left at an unprecedented pace, splashing into the shadows below.
“Fucking… fuck!” he curses, panting heavily as his face goes paler. Again, he casts those golden flames, and charges at me, but I disrupt his movement skill before it even activates, courtesy of what being a nullmage taught me.
“Hey,” I say quietly. “Do you have any more skills to show me? Come on, surely this isn’t it, right?” I ask.
“What?!” his eyes, staring at me, start to quiver a little. His wings shake. “I- what in the fallin Tower’s Wrath is wrong with you?!”
I tilt my head, then hum. “Is that a no?” I ask. There’s disappointment in my voice, and I can feel him get even more afraid as he stumbles back.
Once more, he tries to heal, and I break it. The skill activated even slower now. It looks pretty mana intense, and he must be getting low by now. We’ve been fighting for a while, after all. And he staggers back from me, clearly afraid.
“You fuckin’ monster!” he curses me, and I tilt my head the other way.
“A no then,” I sigh, and step forward. They always get pathetic at the end. With a swift movement, I stab his throat. And then, he lands on the ground. “You can finish him, Kuro,” I tell the critter, and, at my command, the entire shadow box collapses inwards, turning into a cocoon of spikes that shreds his body, killing him.
[Class Up! Vesselsmith 5 > 6]
[Level Up! 79 > 82]
The levels come at the right time, more mana filling my vessel as the points go into it, filling me up to around a third of my maximum. Which is, most likely, more than anyone else in this fight has right now. With the box receding, everyone can see me standing over the corpse, holding a malignant, dark spear, wearing my dark mask and my cloak of shadows.
I look upon the guard for a moment longer as Kuro devours the corpse, waiting until lightning splits the sky. A roar of thunder washes over us as I face the rest of the fighters, many of them seeming real quiet after feeling their strongest authority wink out.
“So,” I ask quietly. “Anyone else want to go?”
Raven, of course, is the first to run. The coward, covered in red lines left by Opal’s sword, turns into a puff of feathers and disappears into the night sky. Hail falls heavily on their fleeing form, as our echo knight erupts into roaring laughter.
There’s a small pause until Bloodstain notices, but when she feels the way that the pressure of authorities shift, she clicks her tongue and slinks backwards. Both her and Thatch are covered in blood, the wounds on their bodies moving as if trying to rejoin. She gives him a bright smile, before quickly dashing into the night, shortly followed by her gang.
None of us follow. Instead, we look at the bodies on the ground. Thatch’s rage pulls away. Sylves floats down from the sky. Richard spits out a piece of metal armor she was chewing. And for a moment, we all just sit.
“We won,” I announce.
Thatch gives a weak smile at that and nods, exhausted by the flashflood of his anger. Inu lays a steadying hand on his shoulder, using [Empathy] to keep him fueled. “We did,” she says with a small smile. “We did.”
“We’ll have one hell of a story to tell Zinc,” Opla says with a snicker. With another weak smile, we get up, and start making our way back to base. We won tonight. Now it’s time to get a proper reputation.
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