I trembled, shaking in fear as Haigha carried me behind the tents and into the woods, away from the carnage. Glancing over my shoulders as he carried me away, I winced as a blue and silver blur slammed into one of the tents. My heart sank as I realized the Knave of Hearts summoned horrific-looking, bearlike monstrosities out of a set of portals, and I shivered in disgust. The bear abominations twisted and cracked uncannily, like flesh or paper mache creatures used for gags in children's cartoons.

The entire landscape had turned into a reddish-black Czech cut-out animation board, and if I'd thought the greater hellspawn from before was creepy and uncanny - this was on an entirely different level.

I clutched Tarrant's coin counter tightly, and Haigha bounded away from the battle toward Halton.

When we got more than thirty yards away, however, we collided with an invisible force that felt like running into a brick wall. It was such a drastic recoil that Haigha grunted in pain and bounced off with a sickening crack from his shoulder before collapsing on the ground. I felt the recoil ripple through his arms, but the rabbitman took the brunt of the impact and turned into it.

He briefly regained his footing as we landed, then stumbled as I fell off him, curling up into a roll. Thankfully, he'd recovered his balance before he tumbled into an awkward fall.

Haigha groaned in response, standing upright and holding his side. Then he looked at me with wide, squiggly eyes and shook his head furiously. "Are...are you okay?"

Red mist swirled around my vision, and I blinked rapidly to try and clear it. I took a deep breath, trying to focus.

"Y-yes," I said weakly. "But it's not about me..."

I reached out to touch Haigha, but he shook his head, grabbing his shoulder.

I looked up where we'd collided with the wall and noticed a layer of coiling red mist swirling around a shimmer. Haigha hissed in pain as he slowly stood up.

He glanced at me apologetically, then limped toward the battle.

"Hey kid...stay out of trouble...you hear?"

I watched him wince and pop his dislocated shoulder back in one swift, stoic motion, and he began to limp in the general direction of the fighting. I watched him hobble away, feeling desperately conflicted.

In the distance, I heard screaming and shouting coming from the other end of the camp. Were Lori and the others okay?

Or worse, could they be already dead?!

That thought made me feel nauseous. The demon was horrific. The very sight and sound of it paralyzed me with fear.

But letting people die as I stayed here helpless was even more horrific.

I was such a coward. I was so selfish. I had focused entirely on utility spells for cooking and crafting, thinking I could run away from the reality of this world if I needed to. But now that I was here with a reality-bending demon in front of me, I was frozen in place like an idiot.

Because I'm too scared. Because I don't want to die. Because I'm greedy and selfish.

Why didn't I learn things that would help me fight sooner? Why did I wait until things were this dire? Wasn't it obvious that something would come to try and eat us eventually or kill us outright? Shouldn't I have prepared myself better for the possibility of death earlier?

I clenched my fists as I fought back the tears. Tears of frustration. Of anger. Of self-pity. I hated these emotions. They made no sense to me. How could I cry about being afraid to die with that thing right in front of me? That sounded stupid. And yet, there I was, doing precisely that.

What was wrong with me?

I wiped the tears away angrily, forcing myself to stand up straight. I couldn't afford to waste time crying. Not when people were fighting for their lives.

There was no turning back. It was do or die. There was nothing to do but move forwards. So, I did.

I ran after Haigha as quickly as my stubby little legs could take me.

"Haigha!" I shouted after him, hoping he would hear me. "Wait! Please..."

When I reached him, he turned to look at me expectantly with sharp eyes. I jolted back as his entire body suddenly art-shifted to match the Russian scrapbook landscape. A creepy chalk outline surrounded his body, turning him into a caricature of a brown rabbit, before he transformed back to the anime bunny man I knew.

I swallowed in fear, "Please take me...take me back to our tent. I have scrolls and I want to help."

His eyebrows rose slightly, but he nodded in understanding and scooped me up. He leaped into the air without hesitation, landing atop a nearby rock ledge.

My eyes widened in shock as I witnessed a massive cut-out stone prison wobble like it was jutting out of an animation board. Then, it burst apart as the Knave of Hearts whipped its tendrils about. The camp was in chaos, and people fell over each other left and right. Adventuring parties were either scrambling to loot the camp, rushing the Knave blindly, or trying and failing to battle five flesh-bear demons that tore the disorganized adventurers apart. The Knave cackled, floating through the air, cutting down adventurers left and right.

"Oh no..."I whispered.

I felt sickened by the motion of the vein-like tendrils; it was like cut-out paper on an animation flipbook had come to life.

Haigha silently paused for a second, staring intently at the battlefield. I felt him tense up, and then we flew away in another massive bound. Our tent was further to the edge toward the riverbank where we'd come from, about fifty meters away from the action.

The rabbit man jumped from tree to tree back away from the base and quickly landed at our tent at the edge of the camp. I immediately put Tarrant's coin counter back into the tent and scrambled to Alice's travel bag.

My bag.

Trembling in fear and anxiety, I opened it up and retrieved a familiar set of scrolls.

When I'd first set out on my journey, these scrolls had stuck out to me as I was on the road with Lori. I'd failed to understand what I saw, and they were more or less just gibberish to me. The only things I had even bothered to take and use during the trip to the Royal Capital were her staff and wand.

"This is...!" Haigha exclaimed, staring down at Alice's spell scrolls.

I furrowed my brow as I read the high-level spell formulae written in elegant script.

Now that I had just a bit of experience with magic, I could genuinely appreciate Alice's genius in creating these scrolls. She had actually made original spells during her time at the royal academy, but I'd deemed these a waste of time at my level. I'd struggle to even cast the spells she'd created with a staff, much less commit them to rote myself. I had to crawl before I could run, after all.

The basic spells in my household utility book could be cast with three to eight symbols. Each of Alice's recorded spells here were arrays that took forty or more runes held in mind at once or even twenty or more symbols that needed to be multi-cast simultaneously.

I was looking at a spell called 'Dark Star,' which required forty-one symbols. Learning to use magic here was like learning an instrument on earth - the ability to play any song came from practice. Most advanced songs and pieces on instruments used complex chord progressions, rhythmic changes, and key changes. The same principle applies to using magic in this world. Visualizing a spell formula, channeling mana through it just the right way, and firing it off was like playing a music piece. The spell formulae were like sheet music.

So many times during my two weeks of training, I wished for a cheat code to magically transform me into an expert mage overnight. Instead, I forced myself to practice each new spell individually until I mastered its intricacies. However, in two weeks, I had not just learned but also committed dozens of moderately complicated material extraction, levitation, and other utility spells to rote.

Alice had a decade of hard study and magic experience on me, and I wondered if I would ever be able to close the gap meaningfully in a short amount of time. It would probably take years, even, to catch up. There was no chance I could learn any of these spells properly to use them on a whim.

But now…

I had no choice but to give these scrolls a shot. Going back to the music analogy, I needed to find something I could sightread and fire off that could help.

I flipped through the pile, looking for something to turn the tide. Concentrating through the maddening static and dissonant string music backed by that demonic choir was hard.

I already hated avant-garde music as it was back home, but this type of 'music' was another level of ridiculous.

I scowled, clutching my head in pain, and screamed in frustration. It was so hard to concentrate with all this goddamned infernal noise! Then I guess that was the point after all.

I cursed my stupidity. I cursed my short-sightedness. I cursed that I hadn't even tried to flip through and learn these spells, that I was so single-mindedly focused on avoiding danger that I had never prepared for it.

Suddenly, I heard a single, beautiful, triumphant note rise above the cacophony of screeching strings and discordant voices from a woodwind instrument.

A melody unlike anything else I've ever heard slowly began and echoed softly throughout the area as it began to pick up in tempo and volume. It was upbeat and folky, and it seemed... oddly familiar. A golden light emanating from the combat area washed through the tents, and the static filling my ears suddenly diminished.

My mind cleared up instantly, and I took a deep breath and flipped through the scrolls in the bag. I spotted a scroll with a red seal on it, and for some reason, I was struck by a severe sense of déjà vu. It was a scroll I'd briefly flipped through, and passed over because it looked like too much for me.

I carefully pulled it free from the rest of the scrolls with shaking hands and unfolded it. It was an excessively long spell scroll, and my eyes widened as I popped it open. My eyes quickly ran down the length of the scroll, taking in a document that looked like it was Alice's senior thesis. Haigha leaned over me and let out a gasp.

"Haigha," I whispered, "How exactly does one 'triple cast'? Do you think you could use this spell?"

A few moments passed while I stared at the arcane formula below, trying desperately to comprehend everything I saw. I ran the first sequence over in my head over and over as the seconds ticked by.

Finally, Haigha spoke quietly, almost timidly, "Erm, the idea behind multicasting is simple enough. Y-you umn, hold your hand over multiple points of your mindspace simultaneously, and project a mana link between those locations. Then you cast all the spells held in your mind at once. You can either cast the spells individually in sequence, or combine them at the center of the array for a new spell for something like this. That's easier said than done of course! Learning to weave two or three spells at once takes practice. And erm, I don't think I have the mana to use a spell like this. Sorry."

Great. That would only do us a little good here then because I was far from a level that would be ready for that. I sighed and got prepared to unfurl more scrolls. I had to act fast.

"But!" Haigha continued, "For a triple cast, you could also cheat and cast them one at a time by grasping etched gemstones in each hand. A gemstone is capable of holding a certain amount of spell formulae lines and short term mana depending on its size and properties. Just channel spells into them in sequence like you would a staff, and focus on the gemstone's spell weave alone once it's in your mindspace. I'd use sapphires for an abjuration spell like this."

Gemstones?!?

I quickly dug into Alice's bag again and fumbled my hands through her collection of gems and jewelry. It was more and more readily apparent that I was ignorant about far too much when it came to magical items and their uses.

Then, I thought back to the masked mage and his grimy fingers wrapped around me when he'd snuck up on me. The masked mage implied Alice had a 'Ring of the Honest Dreamer' in her possession, whatever that was. What else did she have here? I had to think about it another time.

I sifted through the bag as the music from the battlefield became a full-on orchestra. It became easier and easier to focus on the task in front of me as the static disappeared entirely.

Looking into the bag, I saw two large bracelets with a single large sapphire each, three loose sapphires, a pair of onyxes, and a large ruby. Other rings and bracelets were in the bag, but they were small and probably not fit for something like this. I drew the pair of bracelets from the pack with the large sapphires attached on them. Convenient. Alice must have had these already for the sake of using this spell.

They glowed slightly under the dim lighting inside the tent, and I noticed the faint glow from the gemstones gave off a trace of mana.

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...I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing.

Holding both stones together in front of me, I closed my eyes, concentrated, and began to cast the spell on the scroll. Alice's spell formula would require a triple cast. The individual spells involved weren't much more complex than the high-end material extraction spells I'd learned, but combining them would bring some challenges.

Clutching my staff, I closed my eyes and entered my mindscape. I traced out the first spell, two lines of runes, for eighteen runes in total. As soon as the first line appeared, I felt the power flowing through me and into the stone rings. My vision blurred, and I gasped loudly in surprise as I struggled to focus. The sensation of heat and cold grew stronger as the magic flowed from me into the stones. With a great deal of effort, I pulled the mana away from my body and funneled it into the sapphire. A single blue gem appeared with a magic circle in my mindscape, a reflection of its etchings, and I pinned the spell in place mentally.

That was easy enough. Now onto the next part—the tricky stuff I'd never tried before.

Using the technique taught to me by Haigha, I hastily traced through the second spell, a single-line spell formula with twelve runes, and linked it with the other sapphire. A surge of intense heat rushed through my veins when I finished. I maintained the presence of both magic circles in my mind's eye.

And now, for the third spell. This was going to take some concentration…

Holding the first two spells in my mind, I attempted to trace the final spell formula. Tracing the spell while focusing on the two sapphires simultaneously was proving difficult. It was like looking left and right simultaneously, and I felt myself starting to lose control over the flow of mana.

What happens if I mess up?!?!

I found the answer immediately as I made a mistake tracing a lambda-shaped rune, causing the mana accumulated in both sapphires to unleash and explode simultaneously. A loud 'BOOM' exploded upward, ripping our tent away from the ground. We flew backward and slammed against the tent's wall, and thunder filled every corner of the camp. I landed flat on my butt, and everything spun for a few seconds as I heard the fighting outside intensify, as well as the music the bards were playing.

As I regained my senses, I realized that a massive light dome had sprung up over the battlefield. Everything within ten yards of the edge of that protective barrier was illuminated by a white radiance.

This is absurd. This is stupid. I should have studied combat magic adequately instead of just ignoring them altogether!

I felt a firm, encouraging hand on my shoulder, "Try again," Haigha urged me.

It seemed that there was still hope after all. If nothing else, I knew that Alice had been able to cast similar spells before without incident.

"Just...give me a second..." I muttered.

After a brief pause to collect myself, I forced my legs to move and went outside to the edge of the camp to peek over the battlefield, scroll in hand. Close by, the sound of steel and rending flesh rang across the encampment, and I could see the adventurers grouping together to push back the Knave of Hearts. Two of the bear demons had been killed, but four were still harassing the formation at its flanks. Haigha kept his distance as I powered through with my attempt at casting the complex spell.

Two human swordsmen screamed in a fury as one of the demons extended its jaws, instantly devouring an elf mage whole. Another orc wearing robes took advantage of the distraction to swing his axe down hard on the demon's neck. Its head squelched with a sickening thud, sending blood spraying everywhere as the monster turned around. With one vicious, uncaring thrust, the demon gored the robed orc, impaling him with one razor-sharp claw. It wrenched the axe out of its head and threw it uncaringly at one of the human swordsmen, who narrowly evaded the axe. Tarrant was flying everywhere, barking commands at individual adventurers. It was dark and chaotic, and I couldn't see any of my other companions in the crowd.

While moving in the battlefield's general direction, I began to retrace the first two spells.

After a second, I managed to complete the process successfully. I opened my mind's eye and stared intently at the active magic circles floating around the stones in my head.

Now comes the hard part. Concentrate harder than ever before, and remember, concentrate only on the sapphires themselves. Don't worry about anything else! Focus solely on the spells contained in these stones, and leave your own thoughts aside!

My heart raced faster as I tried to maintain the mental connection between the stones. But somehow, I couldn't help feeling distracted by the events happening around me. The screams and cries of pain coming from were distracting me.

Damn it, I'll fail again if I let my emotions get the better of me!

I focused on the sapphires. The mana in each of them swirled about my consciousness, and I tried desperately to ignore the sounds from beyond. But I couldn't. The image of the elf who was devoured whole distracted me, and I let the spell slip. I was knocked off my feet once again by the dispersing mana's recoil.

Haigha helped me as he watched the field from our position above the fighting. "You're doing fine." He said confidently. His confidence boosted mine somewhat, despite my failure. "But you need to do it faster! With less hesitation! You're overthinking, Alice."

"How?" I asked nervously. "What if I don't succeed? Or what if something goes wrong?!"

He grinned slightly at my response. "If you manage to hit the spell, then we won't know, eh?"

"...Yeah…" I murmured quietly, trying to calm myself.

I opened my eyes again, shocked, as I saw Lori stand in front of a massive wall of tendrils heading for the adventurers' formation.

Without thinking, I began to trace the first spell, locking it in one swoop. Then, I closed the second spell in the sequence.

She swung her sword, and a second later, a veritable wall of energy overwhelmed the tendrils and the Knave. A wave of blue light overtook the Knave and his floating, disembodied head, visibly evaporating into ash from my perspective. It looked like he'd been disintegrated into dust.

I stared at the sight in shock for several moments before turning to Haigha and saying, "D-did she do it?!"

I felt the mana in my bracelets surge again, and I panicked, throwing it into a blast at the trees.

Huffing in exhaustion, I leaned forward, bending over for a second. My chest ached, and my muscles trembled with fatigue. How long did I keep that half-finished spell up for?!

"Stay sharp, kid. This might not be over yet! Champions don't go down that easily," Haigha hissed loudly, startling me from my daze.

A moment passed before I remembered to breathe, and another before I started to panic. Without warning, Haigha charged into the formation as the screaming began. In the blink of an eye, he vanished from view. At the same time, Lori suddenly jumped from her spot in the formation with a massive burst of strength.

"Haigha!!" I shouted, running after him. "Wait! Where are you going?!"

He didn't answer, jumping side to side as he rushed into the middle of the formation. I stared on in horror as hundreds of Knave's tendrils suddenly burst forth from the ground beneath us, snaking toward everyone below. Lori twisted in the air, narrowly avoiding the tendrils, but they wrapped around the legs of three plated warriors near her. They screamed as their bodies jerked and convulsed under the force of the blood-red tendrils. One of them was instantly cut into pieces by the tendrils, while the two others yelled in agony as they cut into them like a storm of knives cutting into a lovely holiday ham.

Lori landed nearby, kicking off the nearest tree trunk, and then she jumped straight into one of the bear demons. She was wielding a large, two-handed cleaver sword and looked absolutely furious. Mocking laughter filled the air again as one of the bear demons morphed into the Knave of Hearts, robe and tendrils and all.

I heard a bloodcurdling screech in the air, and my heart sank as I saw Dinah get dragged along the floor, blood visibly pouring from cuts on her ankles and wrists. The tendrils lifted her in the air, then slammed her on the ground, causing her to cough out a spurt of blood. She was still alive, but most of the expedition wasn't so lucky. All over the battlefield, dozens of men and women were cut down by the tendrils in seconds while others flailed and shouted in agony. I began to tear up at the sight, and then I sank to my knees when I saw Friar Dodgson crawl on the ground, missing a wing and bleeding profusely from his leg, which had been severed below the knee.

But suddenly, each and every tendril holding down and slicing apart our expedition was severed at once. A storm of sharp, jagged earth constructs burst from the earth and cut through them in tandem. A pair of twin male dwarves stood on a stone pillar, surrounded by a light barrier. I squinted and realized it was one of the first dwarves that had bought rope from my booth.

Lori clashed with the Knave of Hearts, parrying and twisting between barrage after barrage of tendrils. I heard a mighty roar, and then Balthasar, the expedition's leader, suddenly blurred in out of nowhere to assist Lori against the Knave of Hearts. The armored bear-man cracked the ground beneath him as he closed the gap in a blink, and started swinging his war hammer and axe wildly at the Knave's torso.

The Knave's tendrils extended from its head and arms and moved to stab Balthasar, and I winced as it looked like they would be unavoidable for him.

But a flash of blue swept by, and Lori slashed through all of them in one elegant jumping arc to create an opening. As soon as she landed, she kicked off the closest tree stump and ran right past Balthasar, moving so fast I barely noticed her. Her next swing was aimed directly at the cackling, disembodied head itself. Lori's sword glowed with two runes ablaze in a brilliant azure hue.

And just like that, she struck true. The impact sent a shockwave throughout the entire forest, shattering every branch and twig within ten yards of where she stood. Trees exploded outward in a massive shower of leaves and branches, while the ones immediately surrounding the campsite shook violently enough to topple over completely. Balthasar continued his assault, smashing his Warhammer and axe on the body of the Knave of Hearts faster than my eyes could follow. He let out a grizzly bear's roar as he pounded the creature repeatedly, cutting deep gashes across its flesh. Then finally, he slammed his hammer over it with a resounding crack, unleashing a bright explosion of purple lightning as he smashed the Knave of Hearts' body into a bloody pulp.

But once again, another bear demon twisted and morphed and turned into the Knave of Hearts.

Haigha appeared out of nowhere behind it, and my heart swelled with hope...but he was instantly speared into a tree behind him by four tendrils from the Knave's back. He yelled in pain and began to flail as it slowly drilled and sank into his flash. Then, he quickly drew a dagger and slashed it up, freeing himself from his pinned position and coughing up blood. He vanished again in a blink.

The Knave cackled and floated up into the air.

Every eye on the battlefield turned to him as he raised his hands in the air, and twenty portals opened.

The remaining adventurers clustered together to form a tight formation in the center of the camp, and prepared themselves for battle. Each portal opened up to reveal more horrific, uncanny valley CGI monsters. Four of the large humanoid flesh bears, four gorilla-like demons. Six things that looked like masses of twisting paper mache tentacle rock monsters, and six of the bat-snake monsters that nearly killed me before. The bards scrambled to start their music again, but the horrible cacophony was overpowering once again.

We had lost too many bards in that slaughter just now, and they could diminish but not eliminate the effect caused by the portal. Only a couple dozen adventurers remained of our expedition.

The Knave laughed maniacally once more before summoning a screen in the air like a projector on a movie screen. Two montages played in the horrific Czech-Russian animation style that had become our reality. One by one, the maimed and bloodied caricatures of each and every one of the surviving members were shown in a reel. On the other, the civilians of Halton were slaughtered by the demons around us. An image flashed by - a caricature of me in my robes getting her throat slowly chewed out by two of the snake-bat monsters.

I began to tremor as I moved my hands to my throat. I could feel the phantom pain of my throat being torn out once more. I wanted to move from my spot on my knees, but I couldn't. This was it. I was going to die.

Did I deserve to live? What kind of person was I?

I was the type to talk my sister out of finding a missing child because I was lonely and scared and didn't feel safe alone. A person who.. isn't even really my sister in the end. I was a fraud. I didn't deserve to live.

I couldn't muster up the courage or the willpower to move. The image of the gnashing teeth of the snake-bat monster tearing out my throat played in my head over and over again.

I've failed. Again. And now, more people will die because of my inaction. Because I can't think clearly…because I'm weak.

Tears rolled down my cheeks. I sobbed silently as I stared at the scene before me.

What are you doing?!

My inner thoughts berated me.

Why are you on your fucking knees, just watching this?

What is wrong with you? Get up! Do something! Stop feeling bad for yourself.

But...

THIS is who I am? Pathetic. Weak. Coward. Foolish. Stupid.

Look around you. Look at these brave souls fighting to protect the rest of us. If we fail, there's no telling how much suffering will come after this. Think about all those lives you could have helped instead of staying stuck on your knees crying like a real coward.

Think about the consequences here.

Now, thousands of innocent people will pay for that mistake. Dozens of innocents died alone in the last few minutes, and you watched it happen.

Think about who you are. Who I really am.

Who am I, really? Who are YOU?!

I stood up.

I had no aspirations to be a hero.

I'm just an average person who wants nothing more than to go home to my world. I... I didn't even want that, really. I just wanted to be warm, to be safe, to live a happy life. But, I couldn't just let this happen in front of me.

Lori ran over to Dinah, who was bleeding profusely, helping her onto her feet and slinging her across her shoulders. Both looked terrible and scuffed, and Friar Dodgson stood at the front of the formation. He'd somehow glued his leg back on with a ring of light, but he was on shaky ground.

I observed all of it, but my mind didn't process it. The horrific noise was back in full too, but my mind had somehow entered a flow state. The spell suddenly made complete sense to me, and both of my bracelets began to glow as I ran through the first spell in the sequence again. I traced the first spell, a spacetime modifier, then the second spell, a severance modifier, in a heartbeat. I'd already practiced it several times, and this time it came quickly.

Holding both spells in my mindscape, I immediately traced through the third spell. A stasis modifier.

The earth shook as most of my remaining mana poured into the spells simultaneously. My aura flared bright yellow as the magic took hold of the world. Each and every eye on the battlefield turned to me as I held up three fingers and combined the three spells in my mindscape.

It was clear that the Knave sensed something wrong because, at that moment, every single monster on the battlefield charged at me. They were blindingly fast, and as I finished combining the spells, a snake-bat had closed the gap, and its claws were inches away from my face. Thousands of tendrils closed around me, not too far behind the snake-bat.

But that didn't matter. I'd been so afraid that, at this point, I was numb.

A wave of golden radiance shot out from me. On each and every point it touched, the texture of the world shifted away from the surreal scrapbook page and returned to the original anime style it originally was.

As the wave washed over the demons, they halted in midair, then froze. There was a distinct wrongness as they fell to the ground, and they began to twitch and glitch out as if they were corrupted models in a video game. The tendrils crumbled away into paper as the wave burst forth, and the Knave began to twitch as if he were panicking. All his tendrils disintegrated into frayed clumps of pixels as the wave passed through them.

In a few seconds, the demons stopped moving altogether. Their bodies glitched like a staticy television with a poor connection and twisted until they disintegrated into pixels floating off into the sky.

The wave washed over the Knave, and he seemed to struggle to maintain control over his own form. His tendrils writhed and thrashed against the air as his body contorted wildly, and suddenly he became solid. He returned to the form he'd been in before he had turned the entire world into an Eastern European scrapbook. An elf with dark skin and red eyes stared at me in horror and panic.

With that same sense of numbness, I began to walk at him. I had been about fifty meters away from the action proper, and now I was fully confident as I approached. The air smelled of death, and I could still hear the wails of the dying. But the sound of combat had ceased, and everyone had fallen silent to stare at me.

With a horrific, demonic roar, he shouted to the skies, and that distortion burst forth from his body again. It extended for about a single meter from his body before vanishing into thin air.

"You're done." I said coldly as I approached. Everything felt so surreal, so unreal, so numb. I felt nothing but tranquil fury, and dropped my scroll as I approached him and held my staff up with both hands.

Then I stopped and stared blankly as he gestured at me, clearly trying to summon his tendrils.

I simply looked behind him with a blank gaze, and then I put on a small smile, relaxing my pose.

There was a blur of motion behind him. Then, his head went sailing through the air.

This time, the head remained still, its face locked into an expression of shock and terror.