Upon hearing Kartal’s words, a chill ran through Velvet's, and everyone else’s spine. That wasn’t a fight they could win! It was a fight they had to survive!

Unanimously, and without exchanging a single word, nor a single gaze, they all used the five remaining seconds to get as far away as they could.

Well, Velvet thought, at least that would answer one of my questions. Kartal’s Paradigm.

Due to their cowardly reaction, they gifted Kartal the first move, who gladly took it once the five seconds passed.

With a swift movement, a paint brush appeared on his hand, and he started tracing shapes in front of him.

Paint appeared, following Kartal’s hand movements, not dropping on the ground, maintaining its position in the air.

A mouth, a face, and two eyes were progressively drawn, followed by the rest of the body.

“Bermu Coaltheno.” Velvet identified the mage. It had only taken Kartal a few seconds to draw, and he was already moving towards them, like a real enemy.

“Any details we can use?” Syon asked.

“Wrath Paradigm, close range attacker, the more he gets hurt, the harder he can hurt you.” She recited the most important bits, based on their situation. “The easiest way to deal with him is using movement restriction spells and beating him with long range spells.”

Just as she finished saying that, she saw Skugol grabbing and dragging Drifa backwards from her scarf, before she dashed against Bermu, a familiar long axe in her hands.

Correction, unfamiliar long axe.

And, just after seeing that, three shapes joined Bermu Coaltheno.

“Agorn Krischa, Vina Tarius and Peril Brahn. Sloth, delusion and knowledge.” Velvet explained. “Drifa, go take down Vina.”

Delusion was the type of Paradigm which, the longer it was around, the more annoying to deal with it was.

“Sure.” Not doubting Velvet’s order, she changed her target.

The drawing of Peril opened his mouth, speaking. “Agorn, cover Vina until she sets up an illusion. Bermu, the prince.”

Velvet flinched, the uncanny sensation of hearing a drawing speak affecting her. She understood those mages were fake, but the way they moved and behaved was exactly as their real counterparts.

She was confident their magic and spells would be the same too. Kartal had two Escas at least, which meant that using spells from mages with less than one open Esca barely had any downside or apparent loss, even when their Paradigms differed from his.

Rushing at Vina and Agorn, Drifa raised her axe before reaching them, ready to cut them down.

Several root-like plants, bigger and thicker than the ones used by Velvet, protruded from the ground, intending to halt her advance.

Drifa scoffed, with enough disdain for the roots, it aaalmost felt personal. Murmuring an enchantment in a low voice, the temperature suddenly dropped.

A frozen blizzard, containing sharp chunks of ice, crashed over the plants, destroying and chopping them out.

Unlike what it was usually believed, fire magic wasn’t the best thing to deal with plant magic.

Why? One may ask. Easy, smoke.

Smoke had no friends, and endangered everyone equally. If a mage was surrounded by plants and burned them, they had the big chance of choking to death with the smoke, not to mention the possible burns and the increased difficulty in visibility.

And plants could still whack you while burning to death, so there was also that.

Now, ice magic was ideal to get rid of plants. It made moving them difficult and destroying them easy.

It was clear that Drifa had been training against plant spells after the beating. Which, to Velvet, was great!

And, by the way she was fighting, her Paradigm was the same as Igern’s.

“Can you raise the dead?” Syon asked Skogul, who was lost in thought.

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“Is there dead to raise here? No. And…”

“And?” Velvet chimed in.

“I don’t want to waste the corpses I have stored in a simulation…” When both Syon and Velvet stared at him in silence, he quickly added. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to obtain good, useful corpses? Legally?”

“What about skeletons?” Velvet asked.

“Apart from looking creepy, human skeletons are extremely weak against mages… Now, if you got me a mage skeleton…”

Are you useless? You’re certainly doing a great job making me want to praise the Death Goddess! Velvet was sure the guy was trying to be mysterious on purpose, but was coming out as lazy instead.

Syon nodded, before waving his hand. From his fingertips, sand came out, which went towards Bermu, covering him and halting his charge.

Velvet looked to the remaining free mage, Peril, who looked back at her. Peril’s eyes became lines, and started flipping, like book pages turning at extreme speed.

An immense train of information flooded Velvet’s brain, producing her a piercing headache. He was trying to collapse her brain by overfilling it!

Velvet maintained her gaze with him, grabbing the sides of her head, and responded by sending the full dream formation. Not the thousands of tiny fragments she had sealed in her memory, but the whole thing.

Peril screamed, his eye’s veins exploding and blurring his vision with blood. Collapsing on the floor, his skin parted in pages, starting to lose control.

“Drifa!” Velvet screamed.

Not needing to be called twice, the taiga hunter turned instantly, her body becoming an afterimage, axe raised.

Slash!

Pieces of blood, bone and brain crashed far away from the body, the headless corpse falling to the floor, the signs of losing control stopping.

One down. Three to go.

Syon and Skogul (who had decided to use several beast skeletons) were dealing with Bermu, who had to be handled with care so as to not become a literal monster.

That left Vina and Agorn for them two.

Vina had set up a formation, so now there were several Vinas and several Agorns around. Five of each.

So at her level, she can only maintain ten illusions, just like I can control ten paper figurines.

There was no way to discern real from fake, not from a mage from the Delusion Paradigm. Those looked, felt, smelled and behaved exactly like the real thing.

Luckily, neither sloth nor delusion were combat focused Paradigms, so, unlike with Bermu, Velvet could get closer to help Drifa.

She looked at the illusions, searching. Each Vina carried a glass ball, while the Agorns moved along, humming a soft melody that was making them sleepy.

Using one of the dream awakening charms on her, and another on Drifa, she said. “Get the Vinas, I get the Agorns.”

Drifa charged against the closest Vina, who reacted by sending the roots. Those weren’t illusions, Vina and Agorn had simply buried seeds around all of them, creating a trap inside a trap.

If Vina wasn’t so worried about survival, she would’ve made less human illusions, and more plant illusions, but, as a support Paradigm, she prioritized her survival over potential offense.

The opposite of Velvet, who had traded her paper figurine's ability to recollect information for explosive capabilities.

And exploding was what five figurines were doing, close to three Agorns and two Vinas, allowing one Vina to be dispatched by Drifa. A fake one.

“Drifa, that one!” Velvet pointed to one Vina, who looked shocked.

And, once Drifa was almost on top of her…

Stab.

A wet noise surrounded them, followed by a thud, the illusions disappearing.

Which included the one Drifa almost got.

One Agorn fell to the ground, a deep wound crossing his back. Velvet, knife in hand, was behind.

Noticing Drifa’s stare, she explained. “There were only ten of them. Not twelve. And none of the roots were fake.”

Slowly, the illusion over the fake Agorn lifted, the ‘real’ Vina under it.

Meeting gazes with the remaining Agorn, who was no longer posing as Vina, Velvet smiled. “And, Agorn, you’re left-handed.”

Agorn flinched when something touched his feet. Four paper figurines were under him.

Boom!

“Why didn’t you point me to the real Agorn?” Drifa asked, once the smoke disappeared. Velvet had sent her to the Vina furthest away from Agorn, after all.

“Oh, I wanted you far away from the explosion. No use blowing you too.”

Drifa tilted her head, still a bit bothered.

She doesn’t like being used or lied to. I’ll keep that in mind.

Once Bermu was also out of the picture, they looked at Kartal, who had been chilling back there all the time.

“Good, now do eight.” With a wave of brush, eight mages were created.

Velvet looked horrified.

At least let me recover my figurines!

…

Three hours later.

“Velvet! There’s twenty Vinas! What hand did you say she used?!” Drifa screamed at her.

“Uh… Right? Wait, where is the right side?” Velvet said, her brain mush from all the fighting.

“The one you write with.” Skogul said.

Looking at her hands, the right side unrecognizable, Velvet got even more confused.

“The right side is a concept… everything is right if you go left enough.” Syon said, filled with philosophy and bruises.

“True…” Velvet said, finding logic with whatever Syon was saying.