Her opponent drew a dagger, a strange weapon with a curved blade of a black metal that seemed to swallow the light that touched it. A dark stone was embedded at the end of its hilt, one that Kierra recognized as a null affinity stone. Something that should be beyond rare and far too precious to be in the hands of a hunter, no matter his affinity or skill.

“You should have taken my offer,” he said as the stone began to glow. “My orders aren’t to kill, but to cripple and bring you out of the city. Your death won’t be quick or painless.”

“That is not something you need to worry about. You fools are not worth the time it would take to inflict the pain you deserve. Instead, I will crush you quickly, swatting you aside like the pest you are.”

“You’re strong but strength means nothing before the vastness of space,” he said. Then he disappeared.

Kierra was tense, every sense primed as she waited for the slightest sign of his attack. When it came, she was just fast enough to dodge but not entirely, blood flowing from a shallow cut on her upper arm. She barely noticed the injury. More concerning was that her opponent was nowhere to be found.

She felt space warping and stepped backed, another small cut appearing on her thigh. But still no trace of him. Not a heartbeat nor a breath. Somehow, he was close enough to wound her but outside of her ability to detect him.

Her mind whirred. There was something about battle, about the looming presence of death, that focused the mind. Allowed for clear thoughts and faster deduction. There was no time for circular thinking or pointless pondering. She needed information that would help, a conclusion that would bring her closer to victory.

She arranged the facts as another cut appeared on her arm. He had to be close to wound her. Close enough that she should be able to hear his lungs expanding in his chest and his blood rushing through his veins, but she couldn’t. Something that should have been impossible, but it clearly wasn’t. She had to accept it and her thoughts moved on to how it could be possible.

His null affinity and the dagger that was either enchanted with a powerful spell or was boosting his own power were the obvious sources. Nulll affinity shenanigans could explain her situation. Teleporting, what the affinity was best known for, could be accomplished in many ways. The most common was to bend the space between two points, folding it in on itself. Using that method, a single step could allow the caster to cross a league of distance rather than a step.

The second most common method was swapping. It involved two spells. The first forged a connection between two objects. The second used that connection to swap their positions.

But perhaps the most uncommon way was a method she knew as slipping. It was the technique favored by her mother, who taught Kierra to inspire her own magic. Though she only understood a fraction of it. It was something that had to be felt to be truly understood. Kierra knew, intellectually, that space had layers, that were both separate and connected at the same time, but she couldn’t imagine what that meant, couldn’t sense or touch those layers the way someone with the null affinity could.

She also knew that in those layers, space worked differently. In some, it was easier to manipulate or could be wielded like a physical thing.

Despite being powerful and adaptable, slipping was rarely used. Its many benefits came with an equal number of dangers. Notably, null casters that wandered through the different layers of space often found themselves lost.

It wasn’t as simple ascending or descending a layer. Her mother described it as an elaborate puzzle, one whose answer changed each time someone tried to solve it. The foolish, the reckless, and the talentless often found themselves adrift, most winding up in strange places while the truly unfortunate could drift between pockets of space for an eternity.

To use it in combat took a level of mastery Kierra doubted the human master casters could so much as imagine, let alone achieve.

And yet, that was what she was witnessing. The only explanation for how he could be close but far, why he could cut her without her so much as seeing his blade.

It was possible that there was another trick, something far less impressive and extraordinary, but her mind couldn’t imagine it. She had to act off her best assumption given what she’d witnessed. Which presented a problem, as there was nothing she could do.

If he was hiding out in another layer of space, he was beyond her reach. She could dodge his attacks for the moment, but each one came faster, the wound it afflicted cutting a little deeper. She didn’t know how long he could remain there or what other tricks he had. That left her with one option.

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Kierra sprinted away.

It wasn’t a retreat. It was a calculation. The hunter she recalled from the night she helped rescue the halfling brewer, the start to their problems with the guilds, didn’t have the skill to use her mother’s technique. Battle reason said that the knife had to be helping him. No matter how powerful, a tool was just that. The null affinity required finesse to be mastered, something that couldn’t be compensated for with more power.

Perhaps the hunter’s knife allowed him to lurk between different layers of space. She didn’t believe it also granted him the skill to move between those layers with enough precision to both track and attack a being moving at speeds that made a charging horse look slow.

Better, it served to lower her opponent’s guard. Predators always pounced on frightened prey. They never realized they were at their most vulnerable when they attacked.

Kierra abandoned the target she’d been stalking, instead running after the closest group of fleeing hunters. The last thing she needed was for her opponent to disappear and bother her at an inopportune time. So, she gave him a reason to act.

She pounced onto her first victim’s back with the speed and ferocity of a large cat, digging her blunt fingers into his throat before he finished crying out. She pulled away flesh. His companions stumbled and clumsily reached for their weapons, but she was already moving, the whole encounter only having lasted a moment.

She charged down the street before making a sudden right, crashing through the remains of a shattered building and leaping out of an intact window. She followed her ears to a group of panicked voices. They weren’t easily identifiable as hunters, lacking weapons, but it didn’t matter. Kierra wasn’t after revenge, she wanted horror. Anybody would do.

Claws sprouted at the end of the fingers and she ripped them apart, painting the shattered road with red. The savagery took three breaths. Long enough for her opponent to attack. Space rippled around her, Kierra moved, and a shallow cut tore the back of her shirt. Then she was gone.

Others noticed her killing spree. She could hear them, those who weren’t overcome with fear at the surrounding destruction, moving to encircle her. They realized her intention and filled the shattered city with projectiles, spells and arrows, to keep her away from those fleeing the city. Irrelevant actions. She wove through the storm of violence, spilling blood with unerring accuracy.

It wasn’t enough to make her prey reveal himself. So, she increased the pressure on him.

He broke when she rushed toward a mother running with a young child in her arms. Kierra wouldn’t have killed them. She could be cold when necessary, but a ruthless act was poison. It corroded the minds of enemies but also the one who committed it. There was a saying amongst her people. A cold heart eventually stopped beating. If someone didn’t revere life, they eventually stopped appreciating their own.

Besides that, she didn’t want a reputation as a childkiller. Kierra didn’t care for opinion much but there were limits to what she could endure.

Her prey knew nothing of this. All he knew of her were grossly distorted rumors and the corpses she left in her wake. It would take a man with a heart of stone not to intervene. Something he proved not to be.

A heartbeat. A deep breath. A sound between a roar and a scream filled with frustration.

Like the mental affinity, the null affinity shared the weakness of being comparatively weak in direct applications. Rather than being hampered by the mana of the target, mass was its biggest obstacle. The mana cost of a null spell grew exponentially alongside the size and density of whatever it was targeting.

A variable that was difficult to calculate, especially in the heat of battle. It was easier and faster to make the cost variable, letting the spell take what it needed.

That presented an opportunity, one Kierra had been waiting for.

When she the space around her ripple, she stopped her assault and called on her magic. A pure affinity was truly astounding. She’d become accustomed to its nature but never stopped being impressed by it. With a mere thought, and a not too insignificant drain on her magic, she was suddenly so heavy, she found it difficult to move. A vulnerable position to be in but the effect was worth it.

Her prey crumpled. Was it due to the pain of mana strain? Had his tool failed him? It didn’t matter. A thought reversed the effects of her spell and she was on him, a hand closing around the back of his neck while the other ripped the black blade from his hand. Dark eyes, finally containing the fear he should have always had, looked up at her as sweat beaded on his brow. “You—"

The rest of his words were cut off by a gasp as she drove the dagger through his heart. A hand weakly grabbed at her arm, but she was unmoved, holding his gaze until the light left his eyes. Then she threw away his corpse. The blade, she kept.

A quiet sob followed by frantic shushing drew her attention to the mother and the child she held in her arms. For some unfathomable reason, the woman had crumpled, shaking as she curled around her son. Her gaze was full of fear and a silent plea.

Kierra knelt before her and the woman flinched. The boy on the other hand, stared at her curiously despite the tears welling in the corner of his eyes. She smiled at him and the woman whimpered. “You should not be here,” she said, dark humor coloring her tone. “Perhaps next time, when a great beast roars, you will do the smart thing and run, hm?”

The woman nodded frantically, though Kierra doubted she understood a word through her fear. She yelped when Kierra grabbed her chin. “You will remember that we spared you. You and your child.”

“Y-yes! Thank you for your mercy…my lady.”

“Mm.” She rose from her crouch and walked away. Lou made her promise she would retreat if she had less than a fourth of her mana. The last fight required a bit of effort, but her core was still over halfway filled.

She had plenty of mana but was concerned about her prey. Focusing on her senses, she could feel them moving away from the city. They had finally realized the threat.

Her anger was far from being quenched but she’d have to be quick if she wanted to catch the fleeing pests.