In the realm of Vision art, circles were all the rage for measuring mastery. If you had 1-3 circles, congrats! You were a beginner. A charming 4-6 circles? Congratulations! You’re advanced. But if you strutted around with 7-9 circles, oh, you’ve reached the heights of a master.
And let’s not forget the mythical 10 circles—legendary status, if you will.
Now, not everyone blooming in this world possessed the willpower or intelligence to manifest their Vision. Understanding one’s soul was honestly an overachiever’s task.
And even when someone finally managed to manifest it, you’d better believe not everyone could achieve the dizzying heights of others.
After ten years, the average Joe might claw their way to 3 circle spells mastery. Then, twenty more years to edge into 4 circles, and another whopping forty years for 5 circles.
But if you throw in specialties, that’s another ballgame—boost that mastery by a staggering 1000%. Faster and stronger. Not to mention folks like Vlad, Bella, Yvain, or Merlin. Let's just say they’re not your standard overachievers.
Morgan often referred to her mastery as ‘average’—how humble of her. After all, her average spell mastery lingered at a mere 4 circles, despite her multitudes of millennia. But how could that be?
It was simple really: she knew every single spell known to humanity and more—all 118,144 of them, in fact. Most of them were her own creation.
From the charmingly mundane bug repellent spell to the grandiosity of the world illusion barrier spell; from a remarkably practical bladder-emptying spell to the earth-shattering world purification spell.
When one possesses such a staggering library of spells, it stands to reason that the average mastery of any individual spell might dip to the low end. In truth, a 4-circle average is nothing short of remarkable.
Yet, even the illustrious Morgan Le Fay could do little more than blink in astonishment when Burn, in a fit of sheer audacity, manifested a never-before-seen, never-created 9-circle spell—the mind-boggling creation of a black hole.
Oh, the irony! The one sorceress who thought she had witnessed everything was utterly speechless by this unexpected cosmic twist.
And now, sitting outside the illusion Bella made to interrogate the young fleet admiral, Morgan was in a daze.
“AAAAAAAAAH!”
Bella flinched. Gruesome wasn’t new to her, but this? This was a whole new category.
No, she wasn’t an innocent person who had never seen blood. She had tortured people before, and she thought she was excellent. but this…
Sure, she’d seen blood—hell, she’d been the one spilling it excellently often enough. She thought she had done the vilest thing to people she deemed worthy such. She considered herself a connoisseur of cruelty, an artist of punishment, but even she hadn’t dreamed up this.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Two… heads…” she muttered, watching Burn slice off a finger only for two to sprout in its place. Each part he lopped off grew back in duplicate, as if they were auditioning for the role of hydra.
The man’s wails ricocheted off the walls—a symphony of sheer terror and degeneracy. It was beyond deranged.
Bella hadn’t thought to add “grotesque body horror” to her interrogation toolkit. Transform a man’s body into a carnival of pain of disgusting shape, slice by slice and let him experience every moment with agonizing clarity? That was… devil’s work, she had to admit.
The man had a front-row seat to his own slow-motion breakdown, watching his ear, nose, lips regrow—only on one head, though, while letting the other head watch. Wouldn't want it to get too monotonous. It was a bordering mind break, a psychological wound beyond repair.
Yes, it was all an illusion. A little domain where reality could shape-shift to Burn’s liking. But it didn’t feel like an illusion. Every gruesome detail, all the flesh he took and the pain he inflicted went straight to the young admiral’s brain, embedding itself there like shrapnel, tearing at whatever threads of sanity he had left.
What had he done to deserve this? If you asked Burn, he’d say the man had doomed this world and everything in it—by making one stupid decision. Another timeline, another loop.
But, technicalities aside, it had happened. The world didn’t rewind; it looped. So while everything might look as though it never happened, it did, and Burn remembered every single thing.
Besides, what was one or two ears? A couple of fingers? Burn was kind enough to let them regrow. In duplicate, even—talk about generosity.
"Caliburn, wrap it up," Morgan said suddenly, rising to her feet. Bella glanced at her, noting how serene she looked—well, of course. Nothing seemed to rattle Her Holiness.
Burn turned, meeting her calm with his own. Grining, he said, "You caught me."
Clearly, he’d been milking this for all it was worth, buying time. Now he’d earned himself one of Morgan’s legendary all-night lectures, and he knew it.
Bella, watching the exchange, sensed there was something deeper going on—some unspoken tension. Morgan had been unusually quiet earlier, and Bella figured it was because she needed time to puzzle it out.
It had to be Burn’s vision manifestation! Bella’s curiosity flared. What sort of spell could that be? She’d felt its power earlier, something big and dangerous—no wonder they were both downplaying it, seeing how cocky Burn were and Morgan humoring it.
"You’ve gotten more than enough out of him," Morgan said. "Let him pass out already."
"Fine, fine," Burn replied, finally standing up. At that moment, Rudolf collapsed—consciousness shattered. Living as a human? No longer in the cards for him. But Burn simply waved his hand, and Bella dismissed the illusion. He nodded at her approvingly. "Good job."
"I—I'm honored, sir," Bella stammered, her spine tingling. This man was scarier than anything she'd faced. She was already pale, being a vampire, but somehow, she turned even paler. For someone to look this normal after that? What kind of life had he been living?
“Come on, feel free to unleash your best shouts at me on our way to Yvain. We both know that it's about time we returned there—then off to the Great Forest. And…” Burn tugged her toward the dungeon entrance, casually strolling past Dirk and Percival.
Dirk responded instantly to Burn’s unspoken request. “My family and the families of my merry band of men will arrive in three days. They’ve brought along those splendid ships you wanted.”
Burn chuckled, “I know it’s not quite Fall yet, but hey, who doesn’t love a little preemptive Fall cleanup? The leaves won’t sweep themselves.”