“He can see us through cloak?!” Yelled Saki after being forced to dodge a spear of pure magic energy.

“You human magicians are bathed in magical power. You’re as visible to me as if you were under torchlight.” The demon wore an iron mask on its face and spoke in a voice that brought discomfort to any ear unfortunate enough to hear it.

“So why did you let us kill your bodyguards, you psychopath?!”

“To assess your skill. I was… unimpressed.”

“You let your subordinates die just so you could test us? What’s wrong with you?!”

“Hierarchy is an idea of the collective. I feel no loyalty to those under my command.”

The demon fired three more magic spears at Saki, who slid underneath them and got in close, thrusting her own spear at the demon’s face.

He casually moved his head to the side, before kicking Saki away with a swift and effortless movement of the leg.

“Saki!” Nao called out as her girlfriend sailed through the air. She swooped in on her wings to catch Saki as she fell, the two of them coming to a halt some twenty metres away.

It was a weak kick with no effort behind it, and yet it likely would have incapacitated Saki were she alone. The power of this foe was greater than that of any we had fought thus far.

I de-casted concealment and quickly looked over the situation ahead of me. Mai and I had reconvened, while the twins and Kyouma were on the opposite side of the demon to me. Nao and Saki had just landed, Saki clutching the side that had been kicked as if in immense pain.

I also felt the same sensation as when I fought the Director: the overwhelming pressure of a being imbued with an insane amount of magic. But while the director’s power felt random and uncontrolled, like a pipe leaking due to structural damage, this demon’s power felt… refined. As if every ounce of magic being emitted from his body was under his direct command. It was like fighting someone who could control the atmosphere itself.

“Name thyself, villain, that we may decorate your tombstone after your defeat,” Said Kyouma, pointing her sword towards the demon.

“Ha! Your arrogance amuses me, but I respect your will. Very well. My name is Descartes, etch it into your soul, that it be the last name you hear.”

A small but extremely fast mass of magic was fired towards Kyouma, though with her untethered movement she easily slid out of the way, not giving a second thought to concepts like friction.

“Stop! Don’t!” Mai yelled at Kyouma, who stumbled slightly as she was taken by surprise. “He can read movements in magical energy, if you teleport to him he’ll catch you in the act!”

Kyouma’s eyes grew wide as she realised she had very nearly made a fatal error. If not for Mai’s 「Clairvoyant」powers, she may have lost her life.

“Tch. What an inconvenient power you have. I must seek to remove it.” Descartes turned his attention to Mai at my side, who dodged a moment before he attacked. Her prediction likely saved her life.

He continued to hurl attacks at her, which she barely dodged with her foresight. We were being forced on the defensive from the word go.

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

I attempted to relieve Mai of the barrage of attacks by approaching with my own, gripping my axes in either hand and running with my head low. I had little magic left, but I decided to use it here and now to trick Descartes and get a clean hit in. I concentrated on projecting a visual illusion at him, preparing to use his momentary confusion as a chance to strike him dead.

“Duck left!”

Saki’s telepathy caused me to panic momentarily, though I did follow her order by ducking my body down and moving off left. I was just in time to dodge a slash that would have killed me instantly otherwise. I staggered backwards, not taking my eyes off the demon for even the briefest moment.

“My illusion did nothing? How?”

I had never failed to delude someone’s perception with my power before. My overconfidence in that damn near cost my life.

“I get it! Underneath that mask he has no eyes! Magic detection is his substitute for sight!” Mai called out to me as I re-stanced, settling my nerves after the near death experience.

“Very impressive, girl. The other humans I’ve slaughtered in my time never worked out why blinding or deluding my eyesight was ineffective. You will die the most intelligent human I’ve ever fought. Take pride in that.”

“How flattering.”

Descartes immediately went back to firing off his magical spears at anyone in the vicinity, causing each and every one of us to frantically dodge, constantly a hair’s breadth from death.

Nao took to the skies as she rolled away from a shot aimed at her centre mass, and drew her bow in retaliation. She fired an arrow at Descartes’ head, which he batted away with the back of his hand. It was clear that his speed of movement and reaction would render attacks like that completely moot, but something about it surprised me.

“Saki, didn’t it seem like he reacted really late to that?”

“I thought so too. Mai said that it’s because the arrow is non-magical. His blindness meant he could only sense it by sound and the small amount of magical energy it displaced.”

“So magic won’t work, but conventional weapons might?”

“Ranged weapons, maybe, but to use a sword or axe you’d have to be close enough for him to detect you…”

It felt like we were on the verge of figuring out a strategy, but we were missing something. As it stood, we couldn’t effectively fight back.

Continuing to avoid the onslaught of magical attacks being levied at us all, I tried to clear my head and focus on everything I knew about the situation.

Our enemy was faster, stronger and more magically powerful than all of us, but had no sense of sight and perceived things purely through sound and the movement of magical energy. This was likely why he kept us at a distance and struggled more against non-magical ranged attacks: he couldn’t easily perceive ranged weaponry, but could perceive us from far away.

However, we were unable to close the gap because at close range we wouldn’t be able to dodge his fast and lethal attacks.

We would need some way to close the distance without him shooting us down immediately, but as long as he could perceive us we had no way to do so that wasn’t a death sentence.

“Wait… as long as he can perceive us…” I muttered to myself.

My concealment didn’t just turn someone invisible, I could also use it to fool the other senses too. So long as I honed in on the specific stimuli, I could hide from someone’s hearing and even smell too.

If he perceives us by magical energy, there must be a sense I can manipulate. But to do so, I’d have to pick up on the stimulus myself.

I dropped back from the fight, getting far enough away that the spears no longer posed a significant threat. I breathed in, cooled my nerves, and focused on the flow of magic out of my body. I couldn’t ‘see’ it, especially not the way Descartes could, but there was definitely something there. A tangible effect that I could just about perceive.

I switched my focus to Mai, the closest person to me. It took much effort, especially in the presence of the suffocating magical field around Descartes, but I could just about hone in on the trickle of magic leaving her body.

“Shin, what the hell are you doing?”

“Saki, I might be able to throw off his magical sight.”

“Are you serious? You can hide us from him?”

“No, I doubt I can do it well enough to stop him seeing all of us. One or two as most.”

“Better than nothing. We can work with it.” I watched Saki take a step back and overlook the battle as a whole, the same as I was doing. After a short while, she spoke to my mind again. “I have a plan. You’re not gonna like it.”

“I rarely do. Hit me with it.”