The Runic Artist

Nate stared, mouth agape, as Kiri burst into flames. The heat she was giving off could be felt even from where he stood next to Null. If his own visage was one of shock, then Null’s was one of excitement as Kiri launched herself like a fireball across the arena. Her speed may not have rivalled that of Flash’s, but the fact that she didn’t seem to be slowing down at all as she launched herself into Coralie’s Frozen Domain was something no one had yet managed. Her extra four arms made of soul energy and mana grabbed onto the cage of ice and an explosion of steam was released. As it cleared it was obvious the cage was melting, though perhaps not fast enough.

He had no idea what Kiri’s skill was and therefore no clue how long she could keep it up. But he was guessing it wasn’t meant to last. Skills of that magnitude always came with an associated heavy cost, either in mana, materials or damage to the body. She was continuing to tear at the ice prison protecting Coralie, even as spears of ice launched at her, shredding her body. It wasn’t stopping her and with morbid curiosity he watched as she opened her mouth. Light seemed to gather within her open maw and a moment later she breathed a stream of fire that melted through the cage of ice, sending a spray of water and steam into the air. Out of the other side of the steam cloud came Coralie, dancing over the sand surprisingly deftly for a mage.

A wall of ice appeared behind her and Nate thought she was going to use it to redirect herself. That was exactly what happened, but not in the way he expected. Coralie vanished into the icy surface, stepping out of a similar wall of ice on the other side of the field.

“Reflections in Ice,” said Null quietly next to him.

“What?” he asked without thinking, unable to take his eyes off the battle. Kiri had appeared in front of Coralie in a burst of flame, clearly using Soul Shift. A burst of ice tried to separate them as Coralie tried to flee back into her reflection again, but she wasn’t quick enough as a flaming tethered arm cut the ice pillar in half.

“It’s the name of the skill Coralie used. One of her Epic Skills. Your teammate is amazing,” Null whispered back to him, his eyes as glued to the battle as Nate’s own.

Coralie was being cornered, pillars and spears of ice being launched at Kiri but nothing was slowing her down as Kiri either used Soul Shift to avoid the attacks or powered through them, trusting her ability to regenerate to carry her through. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that Prefect Allais had stood up. He supposed if Kiri won, it would be a major upset for the Prefect. That was unlikely to endear them to the woman, but then she’d already tried to harm him, so as far as he was concerned, she could fuck off anyway.

Null noticed his glance and smirked as he turned back to the field. “They even boosted the prizes for first and second place so that they could ‘gift’ Coralie and I some things on behalf of the Guild. She must be fuming right now. Ha!”

Nate imagined she was, as unless he was reading the flow of the battle wrong, Kiri was about to win. Coralie finally managed to step into another ice pillar, using her Reflections in Ice to cross the arena, only to have her arm severed by a flaming dagger the moment she stepped out. The other three limbs followed as Kiri sprung the trap. Her Soul Shift was clearly faster than the actual step Coralie had to take and the moment Coralie had touched her reflection, Kiri had guessed the destination out of the two options and been waiting for her on the other side.

Prefect Allais looked furious as the referee called an end to the match. Golden light suffused both Kiri and Coralie at the same time. Kiri must’ve been in worse shape than he thought for Evindal to not heal one of them at a time. With the crowd cheering in the background Kiri was escorted off the field in a daze, half-draped over Deverell. He didn’t get a chance to check on her as they quickly headed for the Guildhouse and he guessed she’d used up almost all of her soul energy. She would’ve said it was worth it.

Null smiled at him and clapped him on the shoulder, “Best of luck, Nate. I really hope you and Kiri decide to join up with our team though. You two are amazing.”

With those words Null stepped away to prepare for their match.

Turning back to the stage on the side where the Prefect’s sat, he could see the blonde-haired Prefect Allais glancing over at them as her daughter was helped off the field. Coralie looked shell-shocked. Not that he was surprised. Kiri had gone full-dragon on her, breathing fire in her face and literally burning off her limbs to win the fight. If she’d seemed like her normal haughty self he would’ve been shocked. He half expected her mother to come over to comfort her but when he glanced back at the Prefect’s the woman seemed more annoyed than concerned to him. Prefect Raoult walked up to the podium, sparing a glance for his peer who looked forward as though nothing had happened.

“What an unexpected upset! Our aspiring Ice Queen, defeated by the flames of a Dagger Dancer…though I think we’re all questioning that designation now. It’s been a long time since I saw such transformative magic and let me tell you all, I was impressed. Very impressed. Who knew that we had another genius at such a level in our beautiful country! I’ll be telling that story to my children!”

That last comment earned Raoult a glare from Prefect Allais but the boisterous man ignored it as he continued.

“Now, let's see who’ll be facing Kiri Beaufoy - the Flaming Blade - in the Finals! With only two competitors left, you know who they are, give it up for Null Raoult and Nathaniel Weber!”

With a deep breath Nate started his march out onto the field.

“Now?” asked Frick mentally.

“Not yet,” he replied. He didn’t care so much about whether it was cheating to have Frick start preparing before the match had begun. To him, as a ‘mage’ who prepared ahead of time for most of his battles, that was just good preparation. It was more out of concern that they might detect what he was doing before the match had begun and disqualify him.

Null squared up across from him, giving a pleasant nod of acknowledgement as he drew his sword. In response, Nate activated the barrier in his Legendary Bracer, flexing Imbue Intent to lock its position to him. He wanted it to move with him, because he intended to do a lot of moving. The crowd in the background grew quiet as the referee raised his arm. It was finally time. He wasn’t nervous anymore. He was eager. Eager to see if his preparations would pay dividends or if his theorycrafting had been completely wrong.

The referee’s arm came down and Null ran across the sand toward him. He was fast and had closed half the distance in the first second. Nate wasn’t risking anything though. The moment Frick had vanished into the earth beneath him he flowed mana into True Teleportation, altering the vector so he was facing Null as he appeared on the opposite side of the arena.

Null stopped dead, turning and spotting him he began laughing loudly, the sound full of joy as the crowd remained deathly silent and still.

“I knew it! Not a Barrier Mage at all. Spatial? Really? And to hold onto it for this long…I’m impressed Nate. Really. Let’s see how you handle this though!”

Null swung his sword three times where he stood. A second later Nate felt the slashes enter his sphere of awareness as voids that cut through the skill. Even his slashes carried the effect of his nullification. The three slashes crashed into his barrier, light shimmering over it as he felt the bracer’s mana begin to drain. He estimated he could take maybe another ten of those before it failed completely. Just how high was Null’s Magic Power anyway?!?!

Null used the moment of confusion to dart across the field towards him, faster than before as he was clearly boosting himself. In response, Nate used True Teleportation three times. The first two were to launch two rocks a couple of hundred metres into the air. The third was to relocate again to the opposite side of the field, altering his vector again so he appeared facing Null.

Null skidded to a stop on the opposite side of the arena, turning and shaking his head a bit.

“I appreciate that you’re making me work for it, but how is this going to do more than waste my time?” Null yelled.

A moment later the two rocks fell towards him and he used True Teleportation to alter their vectors, shooting them across the arena at Null. The rocks hadn’t had time to reach terminal velocity but it was enough to launch them across the arena at around fifty kilometres per hour. The first one dented Null’s breastplate, while he barely managed to dodge the second.

“Just takes me a moment to get set up is all,” Nate called back. Every second counted after all, and the longer Null spent talking the better as it meant less mana being used to teleport. Even now, the drain on his mana reserve was steady.

Null looked down at his armour, touching the dent in it before looking back up at Nate and grinning. “Okay, that one was free. The next one won’t be. Let’s see if you can do that again!”

Nate had no intention of doing it again. Teleporting was expensive and since it was based on distance, even the small rocks he’d teleported were costly. He scooped up a rock and made it vanish, putting it in his spatial storage so that Null would think he’d teleported it into the sky again. Null didn’t bother to close again, starting to swing his sword as blades of his nullifying mana crossed the field. Nate tried to shrink his barrier with Imbue Intent to avoid the worst of them, but the mana blades moved faster than he could and he only managed to avoid one out of the eight. His physical speed was just too slow. It wasn’t an issue of reaction. His mind could detect the mana blades and their trajectories the moment they entered his Awareness of the Runic Artist sphere. But his body just couldn’t step fast enough to avoid the nullifying mana.

Another three blades came afterwards and he felt his Legendary bracer completely deplete, the barrier around him vanishing. The amount of mana Null was wielding was shocking. Or was it the sword? He wasn’t sure but maybe he’d find out one day. Another three blades of mana entered his sphere of awareness and he resigned himself to expending his own mana to defend.

When he’d been testing the new evolution of True Teleportation, he’d found something interesting about it. It was a spatial skill, in the truest sense of the word. He was no longer drawing two points together to make a tunnel, or doing anything crass like Luc, who tore holes in space. His skill simply altered space to accommodate what he was moving. With the change in vector added to the mix, it meant that he could even bend space in weird and wonderful ways, if only for a moment. Space wanted to return to normal after all.

As the mana blades approached, he activated True Teleportation, using it to alter his positioning. He appeared to contort as his left leg was suddenly lifted, his head tilted to the left at an impossible angle and his right arm was suddenly behind his back. The mana blades passed by, slamming into the barrier behind him. His position snapped back to normal as space reverted and he glanced behind him at the barrier. Null’s attack had failed to crack the barrier around the arena. The nullifying mana trying to cancel the wall out, vanishing after a few seconds of effort. No surprises there. The barrier had more than twenty mana batteries powering it.

“Much longer?” he sent to Frick.

“Almost ready, Boss!” replied his Familiar, sounding far too excited.

“That was a neat trick. So you really are a Spatial Mage. It does make me wonder where you learned all of this? Are you really an Enchanter?” asked Null, still sounding far too casual considering they were fighting.

“Kind of,” he replied. He didn’t need to buy much more time and he still had more than half his Mana Reserve remaining. Now seemed like a good time to test a theory he’d had. Activating his Gravity Control runic array, he brought the rock he’d stored out of his spatial storage. Sending a quarter of his remaining mana into his runic array, he set the direction of Null as ‘down’ for the rock. It launched away from him, the rock grazing his hand as Null blurred, faster than he’d ever done so before. The barrier behind him rippled and he thought it was showing cracks as the rock expended its energy, smashing into it.

Null was standing about ten metres off to the side and he looked surprised, “Okay. I guess I can’t afford to hold back anymore. Sorry about this Nate. It’s been a good match.”

Null vanished again in an explosion of dirt and sand as Nate sensed a void enter his sphere of awareness. True Teleportation saved him from the first two sword swipes as he used it internally, repositioning his body. The third swipe took his left arm off just below the elbow. The fourth went wide as he managed to use True Teleportation internally again, flexing it repeatedly to try and give himself some space as he ‘repositioned’ himself backwards five times before he’d gained enough space to teleport himself across the arena again.

Mentally, he was screaming in pain as blood poured from his arm, but he held back the tears. He was so close. He couldn’t give up now. He knew he didn’t have long before he would pass out from blood loss and his Life Drain rune, while available, wouldn’t be able to find purchase on Null. Not yet anyway. He had to finish this, and soon.

Fortunately, Null looked to be in the worst shape of any fight he’d seen. Sweat covered him as Null panted, standing next to the fallen piece of Nate’s arm. A second boosting skill. Null had been hiding it this entire time. With that speed, Nate suspected that Null might’ve been able to keep up with Flash.

“Good showing, Nate,” Null called, sounding tired for the first time. “But let's end this!”

Null took two steps towards him, then paused as the arena began to rumble.

“It’s ready, Boss!” yelled Frick in his mind as the Familiar appeared next to him.

Finally, he thought, as hope bloomed in his heart.