Low-Fantasy Occultist Isekai

Xander let the silence linger, studying them with an inscrutable gaze, hands folded behind his back.

"You cannot win," he said, almost gently. "But winning isn't the goal here. To give you a fair chance, I won't use any skills, won't strengthen my body, and won't activate passive abilities. I will restrain myself," he shifted his gaze to Devon, "to your current level."

Devon glanced at Nick. He didn't smile, but nodded grimly. Technically, that should guarantee their victory, but neither brother was foolish enough to believe it.

"Take your positions."

From the garden beyond the low wall, Nick sensed Sonya's focus shift. Her mind lingered on the line of Devon's jaw, on the sweat beading at his temples and tracing down to his throat's notch. She lost herself for a moment, only to remember where she was and step behind a hedge.

Nick smothered a laugh. Now was not the time.

Xander chose a plain steel sword from the rack, one that was simple and non-magical. Somehow, that didn't give him any comfort.

Exhaling, Nick called on a breeze, sending his voice along it as a pressure change toward his brother. "Let's try to pincer him first. I'll try to seed the field, so harry him while I work. I'll watch your back while you do."

Devon's chin dipped.

"Begin," Xander called.

Devon moved, covering the distance in three strides, his blade rising into a downward cut that used his entire body weight. It was a blow that would have put Nick on the back foot, yet Xander merely tilted his head, letting the sword swing by, and laid his hand on Devon's midsection, halting him mid-blow.

Three [Jet Streams] screamed across the yard at chest level, corkscrewing in tight spirals as they tried to give Devon some breathing room.

Xander shifted subtly to let them pass, using his pommel to redirect the spells when they got too close.

"Get back," Nick called, loud this time, and Devon obeyed without complaint, using his footwork to put some distance between them.

Xander didn't chase, having set the tone with a single redirection, and seemingly content to let the boys decide what came next.

That's fine.

He moved quickly, circling left to form a triangle with Devon and the racks. He didn't go for the big spells yet, as that single show was enough to tell him he'd have to bring the big guns for this.

A flick of his fingers traced a water streak across the dirt, soaking the ground around Xander. A twist of his palm increased its pressure into a whistling blade, and a crackle followed, with [Lightning Bolt] reduced to thin, wire-like jabs, trying to trap him.

Xander didn't take the bait, rolling onto the edge of his foot and letting the first blade sail past him. He then turned the second one with the flat of his forearm toward the lightning, disrupting the trap before it could fully form.

It was beautiful. It was infuriating.

Devon returned, attempting to trace a path along Xander's hip and shoulder with his sword. He feinted low, snapped high, only to find his mentor's blade where he'd wanted to go, and was forced to abort.

"Your intent is still easy to read," Xander said mildly. Devon's sword dipped under the other's weight, but he recovered in the same beat, slashing for Xander's thigh, only to be met once more.

Nick maintained a steady, modest flow of spells. His goal wasn't to dominate but to prep the field around him, and to do this, he steadily discharged energy into the ground with every lightning bolt.

A [Windburst] howled down the sky, giving his brother time to retreat and creating pressure sinks. He kept pushing water into the soil until dark patches began to form.

"Left," he warned Devon, sending a quick burst of compressed air to push Xander a step into the angle Nick needed. Devon moved with it, turning his blade flat and slapping for Xander's ribs in a punch that should have hurt.

Xander placed his palm on the spine of Devon's sword and nudged it forward by an inch. It was such a slight movement, yet it threw everything off course. Devon's body followed the blade, and his stance widened, giving his master an opening to strike at his midsection again.

Nick used some of the water he had set aside to create a burst of mist, forcing a reset. Xander stepped back, and for the first time, his eyes met Nick's.

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Devon didn't let the attention slip by unpunished, attacking relentlessly. He stopped trying to surprise Xander and focused on being in the right position to give Nick an opening.

The hum that had blanketed the yard during their previous match returned as the wind blew from every direction, but this time, it favored Devon, letting him push his limits without fear of consequence.

Nick expanded his prepping by dedicating ten pathways to attract lightning. He embedded mana threads into the ground and wove them through damp spots, securing each with a rune carved by sneaky wind blades.

Gathering beads of water along the threads, he generated pressure differences at the edges to create downdrafts, shaping the environment.

Xander seemed to ignore it all, for now.

"Your shoulder gives you away," he said to Devon in the middle of a flurry, and stuck his thumb into a muscle to lock a joint. "And you," Xander let a turned [Jet Stream] gust past his ear without blinking, "still lean too heavily on your senses. You shouldn't aim for where people are, but for where they'll be.

Nick grunted because the advice stung and because he didn't have a good answer that didn't accept the point.

"Push him," he told Devon. "Give me ten seconds."

Devon didn't respond, but his stance showed he'd heard. He stepped forward, making things messy and close. His blade clashed against Xander's forearm, who let it land and shifted his angle.

Devon aimed a cut at the knee, and Xander tilted his sword so that the pommel stopped the strike.

Taking a deep breath, Nick got to work, transforming disjointed elements into a cohesive whole. He began by spreading the water threads into sheets just an inch above the ground, so thin they were nearly invisible. Next, he adjusted the pressure differences, causing turbulence. Finally, he seized every bit of charge he had seeded into the yard.

He raised his hands, and the world listened.

[Windburst] crashed down without warning, a sudden wall of air that scattered dust everywhere. It slammed into the thin water layers and turned them into mist that spread across the yard. [Lightning Bolt] moved, traveling through the paths he'd dragged across the ground and all the new ones the water created. It climbed from ground to air and back again, jumping along his sewn runes, flickering through the net he'd cast.

Nick yanked on all of it at once, and the sky responded.

A localized thunderstorm shouldn't have formed so quickly, but it did. The air grew heavy and metallic; his ears popped, and the hairs on his arms stood up. The cloud was small, about the size of a house, but it was dense, and its lightning struck specific targets.

"Down," Nick said, to no one in particular.

The first strike carved a groove where Xander had just been. The second hit the wet sheets, turning them into steam and noise. The third followed the runes, flowing into the ground without dispersing. The fourth flowed back into the sky, angrier for being denied, fueling the second trap he was setting up.

Devon dove through it, trusting Nick, who arched each bolt just before it could reach his brother. Xander danced through it all, yet he didn't break the rules to dodge, as [Empyrean Intuition] tracked the flow of all the mana in the yard and found none of it on the old man.

The lightning sought and found where Xander had been, striking just a beat after he left.

The storm burned through quickly because it wasn't built to last, and soon, the yard fell silent, except for the dwindling rain. Its packed dirt hardened into glass, and fulgurites curled like roots torn free.

When the light and noise faded, Xander was back where he started. His hair was damp, and his sleeve was darkened from a bolt that singed the fabric, yet he was smiling as if he'd just taken a walk.

Devon blurred, bringing his sword down on his mentor in a strike that mimicked all previous ones, but this time, something was different.

[Spirit Crush] wrapped around his blade, heavy with the emotions unleashed during the frustrating duel.

If it landed cleanly on Xander's blade, they would win. Nick knew that deep down.

Xander stepped forward, turned his wrist, and offered his sword. Steel clashed with spiritual intent and was defeated as expected; the sword's upper half was sheared off, but for the first time since the fight started, Xander's body responded to external force. His shoulders eased. His jaw tightened.

The broken half of his blade spun through the air as he released it, but the other half wasn't still. Xander moved past the moment of breakage, dodging the strike's aftermath with a slide under Devon's guard, and uncoiling into action.

Devon recoiled with an empty fist and a snarl, frustrated beyond words.

Nick's second trap fired.

[Spirit Crush] had been the face, the blade serving as the mask for the pressure wave that followed. Nick had not directly linked it to the sword; instead, he connected it to a rune pressed under his left heel five exchanges earlier.

The air on either side of Xander parted as two gouges tore through the glassy ground, twin cuts that would have taken the legs of anyone less capable. Nick felt the moment of impact as a beautiful, clean thing.

Unfortunately, the spell's coherence broke against Xander's skin.

It parted like a river split by a stone. The halves roared past, carving trenches into the wall and sending stone chips into the garden. Sonya yelped and ducked as leaves fell.

Xander looked down at the clean strip of untouched dirt at his feet, where the two lines should have been one.

"Clever," he said, finally showing a hint of approval in his voice.

Devon threw himself back in a refusal to give up, but the fight was already over. All their efforts had resulted in Xander's sword breaking, yet in his hands, it was as good as new.

He blocked Devon's wrist, deflected his blade, and pressed the broken tip against his neck, ending the fight.

"Stay down," Xander told him, not unkindly.

Then he turned to Nick.

The feeling across the yard was neither killing intent nor mana but the weight of a monster's regard, and Nick stacked as many shields as he could summon to protect himself from it.

He then gathered the remaining storm charge, which had seemingly dispersed back into the sky, forming a cage with six vertical bars and a ring, each loop feeding power back into the construct instead of grounding.

Xander kept walking.

"Don't," Nick warned, more because it felt like the right thing to say than because he believed the old man would choose to listen. "It will hurt."

"I'll be careful," Xander said, amused.

He entered the cage without hesitation. When a bar of electricity reached out to him, he didn't flinch but responded with his broken steel, redirecting the charge.

The bars flickered as one connection failed, then another. The cage broke apart silently and suddenly.

Xander's hand reached for Nick's shields and pressed. Pressure rolled along the curve of the dome and concentrated where his palm told it to. [Force Shield] absorbed the first of it and broke, [Wind Armor] caught the rest and tried to turn it into something harmless, only to fail.

Nick's feet left the ground, and he hit the dirt, bounced, and slid across a patch of half-melted glass until his shoulder clipped the low wall.

The world echoed like a struck bell. His spells lasted just long enough to keep him safe and then released swiftly, having done all they could.

He looked up at the pale sky. The thunderhead had spent itself and disappeared. Steam rose from several spots where the yard had been hit by the elemental fury he'd unleashed.

Devon lay on his back with his hands over his face, laughing once like a cough, because there was nothing else to do when someone reminded you of what real power looked like.