They had already taken off their shoes but there was no time to go back to look for them.

Daniel scanned around the room the best he could and heard the sound of bare feet on a stone floor.

He turned around but heard a pair of footsteps behind him. He narrowly turned around to see Tina. She had thrown her spear and he wasted no time stopping it.

He managed to stop it as she backed away but the footsteps from the other direction grew louder. He turned to look at her but she sidestepped. And continued moving along.

A bang was heard the moment he turned to her and she now had an idea of how this magic worked.

(“She already figured it out?”) He wondered as she moved closer with her blade.

(“I see. I can't see them but I assume he is firing off something physical to stop us. And based on earlier and how he left himself open, he also can't fire off this magic as much as he'd like.”) Elizabeth thought seeing the failed attack.

One assumption was right but the other…

He stopped her body.

(“Does she think I have a time limit on each one I fire? What luck.”)

He threw his blade forward and stopped it. It went from a chain weapon to a scythe.

He thrusted it at her but another spear appeared to stop it.

Tina slammed the stopped chain upwards. He undid the magic he used on the chain and brought it downwards in a swing. Tina had moved quickly enough to avoid the blade and only had the chain land on her shoulder.

And she was stopped. He pulled the chain back and managed to lodge his blade into her back through a gap in her armour.

He spent enough time on this action Elizabeth was freed and quickly ran to remove it, to prevent further damage.

But where was the third-

He turned around and caught a glimpse of Agatha jumping mid-air, with her blades pointed at his throat. He stopped her but Elizabeth was quick to capitalise. She was stopped as well.

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How did he do that? No bangs were heard and he didn't even look at her.

(“That's impossible, the possibilities for his magic were him firing off one and needing a cooldown or firing off multiple with one large cooldown. How can he-”)

She remembered something. Firing off. It was obvious he gained a new ability to fire off magic that stopped a person. But what about his old magic? How did he stop them all at once without being able to see all of them?

(“Just right now, he used the initial ability to stop things within a certain range to stop us, not the new form of it. Is that more efficient on his mana?”)

Daniel now had Tina to worry about, thankfully for Elizabeth and Agatha.

(“Too many enemies.”) Daniel thought as he defended himself.

He stopped Tina's spear but that proved to be a mistake. With no mana left for the woman herself, she began laying into him with hand-to-hand combat as he waited for his magic to replenish.

If not for his battle-trained body, he would have died after the eighth blow. She grabbed his robe and electrocuted him while using her other fist to drill blows into his torso.

From the outside, this seemed like a woman bullying a poor defenceless child but it couldn't be further from the truth.

He regained his magic and stopped her. He took a moment to cough up some blood and took a few seconds to breathe.

(“If it wasn't for the powder heightening my resistance to magic, she would have killed me during that.”)

He used her as a shield, keeping his back firmly pressed against her to discourage any sneak attacks from outside his vision.

He kept his eyes on Elizabeth, evening stopping her just before his magic had worn off just to ensure she'd be out of commission even a moment longer.

He turned around to see Agatha reach her around Tina to stab him. He mistakenly stopped her blade and foolishly used his other technique to stop her when she jumped out of his effective range for the regular version of the technique.

He just wanted a few seconds so he could kill someone but Tina ruined him once again. She regained her movement for a single punch that rocked his jaw and sent him to the floor. He stopped her once again and struggled to pick himself up.

The punch sent flying a few metres and left him without a shield. Agatha threw two more of her claw blades at him and he stopped both. She used them as a distraction, running alongside them and placing her claw in front of her, stopping it instead of herself. What he didn't notice was the fact she picked up Tina's spear.

She threw it at him but he stopped her mid-throw. Unfortunately, her hand was left open and the spear soared towards him.

He stopped it when it entered several centimetres into his torso.

And Tina regained her movement in time and ran at him. She planned to kick at the spear in him, giving him a larger and far more devastating penetration than Elizabeth's sword did.

Daniel couldn't take this anymore and threw himself into her, taking advantage of the range around him to stop her. He had to land on his side or risk doing her job for her.