Despite never having actually seen the Ashen Arbiter in the flesh, Velvet knew it was him because he looked the same as depicted in history books, even though hundreds of years had passed since the Machia’s end.

There were several mages who became famous during the war, so much that even normal people knew of them. Most of them were dead, while some others were written as “disappeared”, like Erin Cardomos.

So it wasn’t like his appearance was much of a mystery to Velvet. Back in the orphanage, there was one picture book about the last Machia, gifted by Viroa; old, damaged, moldy and missing some pages, to which Velvet remembered joking that it was “Just like her”.

She got smacked for that. Not too much, since she was faster than the cranky old sailor, but still.

The other kids also wondered where Viroa got such an old book, but now she knew that, due to her past as a pirate hunter, it was probably part of some spoils she had pillaged from years ago and dumped on them, just to keep them entertained. And entertained were they, picture books were expensive, after all, so they didn’t have many.

So yeah, all in all, she recognized him, down to the pale grayish scar that ran through the left side of his face, obtained after his rebellion against Mirel.

And, below that scar, something had wormed its way in, slowly crawling upwards his neck, as if a tree had taken roots under his skin.

Velvet traced the serpentine lumps with her eyes, down until his robes started covering them.

So this is how you die.

…

Dianthus had to give it to him. As a firm follower of the ‘hit over and over and over until the result changes’, the amount of times he could say that someone was equal to him about using the stubbornness approach could be counted with the fingers of a single hand. Maybe even less.

If he had to describe the last hours since he entered the pocket dimension, they could be summarized in a back and forth between his Structuralization and the Archmage’s defense, or, immovable object meets unstoppable force.

His Structuralization, Solaris, was composed of light spheres made of pure, concentrated energy, where touching them guaranteed the loss of the handsy part. And, any sort of attack that was strong enough to not be swallowed by them made the spheres go nuclear, releasing all that energy like a bomb.

The only downsides of his Structuralization were that it didn’t make distinctions between friend and foe, making it impossible to use most of the time, that it encompassed a relatively big zone, which again, was dangerous for whoever roamed close, and that Dianthus didn’t control the spheres movements.

Yes, he created them, but once left the ground, they roamed slowly, usually with the wind, all in random directions, like jellyfishes in the sea, brainless and a danger to whoever or whatever crossed their path. When they collided with each other, though, they fused like melted metal, increasing in size.

But, none of those downsides were a worry in his current situation. With only an Archmage close, and inside a pocket dimension, Dianthus had the perfect environment to use Solaris.

Hell, in fact, there would hardly be a better situation to use it than this! He could spam Solaris endlessly, until either the pocket dimension got reduced to nothingness, or his kidnapper did.

Which only made the Archmage’s reaction weirder to him, even more when his thoughts didn’t reveal any sort of plan or goal, just reacting to his actions.

Even so, he had figured several things about his opponent’s Paradigm, since yes, using his Structuralization had obliged him to use magic to defend himself.

And, the Paradigm in question was made to counter spells. Every time that one of the spheres got too close to the pocket dimension’s edges, or the Archmage, a shadow moved from below him, its shape morphing into an array of colorful crystal panels, which shattered on impact, scattering the released energy.

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He had some idea about the magic used by Inquisitors, even when the names of their Paradigms eluded him. There were just too many, and he wasn’t an information mage to remember all that.

But, now, counterattacking magic was rather… eye rolling for most mages, because it wasn’t practical. Mages knew how their own spells worked, so when those got reflected, the damage was either null or minimal, while the magic expenditure of the counterattack was higher, due to them having to use a stronger spell to counter a weaker one.

Now, Inquisitors made that work by moving on pairs while confronting single mages, and, while one reflected the enemies attacks, another dished the damage.

But that wasn’t as effective during war, when mages rarely moved alone. And, even less effective in fights of one versus one, where it became a fight of attrition, which was the case now.

In fact, the number of Inquisitors who focused on counterattacking magic had diminished with the years, not until extinction, since it had its niche uses, like hunting witches, one of the Inquisition’s main jobs, but enough for that Paradigm to be have a reduced number of practitioners, becoming a stagnant magic which hardly changed or evolved.

So in the end, it’s just a resilience competition. Dianthus thought. He had been slightly worried, due to how the Archmage had sweeped in at the start, seamlessly killing his supervisor, but not anymore.

His final conclusion was that he was just another dumb but powerful mage, like the ones who tricked the Tarius (and the Tarius themselves) into unsealing Frenese, wasting too much power into harming another for petty reasons.

I will just keep Solaris active. It might take several hours or so for him to run out of magic, but it is what it is.

“Hey you.” He called his companion, to pass the time.

When it didn’t answer, he tugged at their connection.

A sigh sounded in his head, not bothered, and not disappointed. “Look out.”

Then, like the previous time, almost too quickly for him to catch on, the Archmage’s thoughts blinked, giving him just enough time to hear a ‘There’, before he was gone.

Immediately, Dianthus raised a shield, which didn’t last long, shattering when a shadow crashed against it the next instant, taking him down with it.

Paying no mind to the sound of bones breaking, he searched for the signal of the Archmage’s thoughts.

Left.

This time he wasn’t caught distracted, which gave him enough time to summon a ray of light, collisioning with the Archmage’s rapidly approaching frame, making him fall back.

“Objective possesses some sort of premonition skill or similar. Switching to engagement protocol pertinent.”

“Was he waiting for yo- No, wait. Did he sense you?” He asked, trying to decipher what the protocol was. He didn’t see the future, but the speed with which the Archmage had realized something was off was… a bit alarming, to say the least.

“Hate to admit it, but yes.”

“You could have warned me. Shit. If he knows, he needs to die.” Dianthus didn’t plan on killing the Archmage at first, since well, mages were very quick to run away, and there were spells that made tracking and chasing a pain in the ass, but now…

Left, back, top. Three simultaneous attacks appeared from thin air, shaped like the Archmage. Two fake copies, one real.

He didn’t target any, instead stopping Solaris, destabilizing the light spheres, detonating every single one of them at the same time.

For a moment, only white light could be seen, burning and erasing everything that came in close contact with it, including Dianthus.

“I know you don’t care, but there is no future where you win.”

“You’re right, I don’t care.”

Even if his fate was set in stone, even if his path was decided by someone else, even if…

“Hey, Archmage, I didn’t hear no bell, so get your ass back here.”