Sacrifice Mage

“Vandre,” I said. My eyes were glued to the Uralivanth. “Take care of Atholaine and Lujean. I’ll take care of this guy.”

Said guy scoffed loudly. “Take care of me?” He turned back to the surviving guard. “You’ve been fighting a lunatic all this while?”

For all of the scion’s bravado and bluster, the actual guard was still as tense as a tightrope. He had seen his comrades get killed pretty easily, after all. Pits, he had seen his dumb crossbow bolt leave not a scratch on me after a direct hit.

Seeing that he wasn’t getting the kind of response he was hoping for, the scion turned back to me. Like the crooks and the guards, he was dressed in maroon as well. His getup was louder with those epaulettes and silver buttons and boots polished to a shine no less reflective than whatever strange Aspect he was using. Even his well-groomed hair made me think he had just stepped out of a salon.

“Just because you’ve killed some lowly henchmen doesn’t mean you’ve got what it takes to win, you crook,” the scion said, finally stepping forward to meet me, like I was already doing. “You’re fighting the esteemed House Uralivanth. What kind of lunacy makes you think you’ll ever get out of the mess you’ve caused alive?”

His words had gone quiet with outrage at the end there. Hmm. Maybe he had only appeared to be lackadaisical earlier.

“You’re not worth the spit I use to shine my boots, you stupid asshole,” I said. “Stop wasting my time and die.”

To prove my point, I fired off another Gravity Orb. It would cause that dumb outrage of his to burst apart and wouldn’t that be satisfying?

It never hit him. Another mirrorlike wall appeared before my enemy. A reflection of my Gravity Orb appeared at the same time, emerging from the mirror well before my attack could reach its target. The two Gravity Orbs, real and reflected, collided together into a powerful detonation. One that left my opponent perfectly unharmed.

“That’s it?” the Uralivanth scion taunted. “That’s all you got?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” I said. “All you do is reflect people’s attacks back at them? That’s so lame. And you call yourself a Great House?”

He growled. Then attacked.

His Aspect broke from the mirror. Or maybe it was a different kind of Aspect in play here. Whatever the case, the mirror shattered, unleashing the flood that had trapped the Scarthralls. The difference was that they flew at me like tendrils instead of swamping the ground like an actual flood.

My body glowed with Illumination’s Imbuement. Two could play the Reflection game.

It worked to some extent. The strange Aspect wrapped around me like cold, slimy fingers. I felt them trying to compress in deeper, maybe carry out some other magical function, but Reflection was forcing them back just enough.

So even if I was wrapped in a powerful vice grip… that was it. I was just held in place and nothing else.

Judging by the scion’s reaction, there definitely should have been more. He growled, then charged me directly.

“I am high-Gold, you lowlife cur,” he growled. “You are nothing.”

It made me wonder, for a fraction of a second, if he already suspected who would have dared to attack the very estate of House Uralivanth so boldly.

But the rest of me was forced to pay attention to the actual fight. The scion was drawing near way too quickly. His Aspect was swirling around his hand, reforming the Gravity Orb that he no doubt intended to slam into me. Huh. An Aspect-copier.

I hadn’t even known people like that existed. If this was his family’s inherent power, then it made sense how they had elevated themselves to the position of Great House.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

Sacrifice activated, threads of radiant, burning white spearing out from my body in all directions. My opponent’s Aspect was consumed almost instantly.

[ Sacrifice

You have Sacrificed 1 [Moderate] Opposing Cast of 1 Gold-ranked Aspect. Windfall bonus activated.

Reward: Damage of next opposing cast is reduced by 1.5x. Essence of cast element now easily obtainable. ]

The scion’s eyes widened in surprise at his Aspect’s sudden disappearance. I swung my mace in with furious power, aiming for his skull just like I had done with the woman earlier. My timing had been perfect. He had gotten into position just as I had finished Sacrificing the opposing Aspect.

He had also stepped into Field Manipulation, which made him even more vulnerable to my counterblow. Plus, he couldn’t draw back since he was way too committed.

His arm shot up to block my strike. A mirrorlike barrier encased his entire forearm, an instant before my mace connected. When it did land, I heard a weird metallic clang for some reason.

And then I was being smacked in the face with my own Aspect.

Of course, I wasn’t hurt. Field Manipulation disappeared, Vital Mana taking it as payment to prevent the reflected Gravity Orb from even hitting Reverence Everlife’s armour. I wasn’t even paying full attention to it. The more interesting matter was how the scion’s Aspect had been able to manifest a reflection my mace at the exact location I had struck too.

A grin worked onto my face as we separated after I tried landing a kick, but the sudden lack of Field Manipulation allowed him to dodge backwards.

Crazy. This Aspect of his was powerful. Uniquely so.

“Alright,” I said. “Now I really need to smash you to bloody pulp. No hard feelings, whoever you are.”

He growled. “You are addressing Lord Kaham Uralivanth! Bow down before I make you bow, you mangy mongrel.”

Kaham attacked physically now. With how I was either Sacrificing his Aspects with Overclaim or sacrificing my own Aspects with Vital Mana to remain unaffected, he had realized he wasn’t going to reach me with anything his Aspect could summon. It wasn’t tremendously powerful offensively. At least, not so much that he could get through my defences.

Which was why his blade was swirling and slashing through the air to aim for my head and my heart. It whipped in with blurring speed. I was barely managing to ward off every stab and slice with my mace, falling back step by step. It was pretty obvious that he was way better with his rapier-thin blade than I was with my mace.

Even when I had used Field Manipulation to try and mess with his gait and weight, Kaham had just created a platform of his mirrorlike Aspect to prevent my artificial gravity from hitting him. His blows fell faster than I could ward off with Empowered Deflection.

Kaham’s expression shifted. His eyes were now afire as he apparently foresaw his victory, his grin widening madly with every nick and scratch on my golden armour he left. His high-Gold Power was definitely effective.

It wasn’t enough to be terribly damaging. But I was bleeding from a couple of wounds that had gotten through Reverence Everlife, though Mana Heal was already patching them up.

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“Die!” Kaham growled. “We should have done this from the very beginning. All those stupid indirect blows when I could just run you through on my ancient blade. Ha!”

He stabbed past my mace, the blade scoring a shallow, bleeding groove on the side of my head, right where the auric armour had already been cracked by the crossbow bolt.

I focused past it all. There was no point in paying attention to his strikes other than making sure I did just enough to ward them off. No point in heeding that he thought he was winning. Instead, I just kept using Sacrifice as subtly as I could. He was a moron.

As evidenced when a sudden burst of Illumination lit everything up. Kaham shrieked and backpedalled, one hand shielding his eyes.

My mace unfortunately didn’t get past his guard to crush his head or anything of the sort. When it made contact, his skin was already covered with that mirrorlike armour, so my mace only ended up hitting a reflection of it. I had infused some Gravity into it to increase the impact weight, but that just made Kaham stagger back.

It didn’t kill him like I was hoping for.

He recovered quickly, growling as his Aspect whirled around him. It was sparking with mirrorlike ice now, tiny flakes that looked sharp as broken glass. That didn’t look good.

“Tricks in place of actual power,” Kaham scoffed, his scowl deforming his face into something animalistic. “That’s all mongrels like you have.”

He waved his hand at me, and a tsunami of his Aspect came crashing in my direction. I tried using Flare, summoning up a tremendous amount of heat with Manifestation, but this was no regular ice I could just melt. With the reflective properties of his original Aspect, Kaham was able to ward off almost all the heat, chunks of his Aspect spearing through to reach me.

I was forced to dodge backwards. Hmph. This was getting annoying. He was swamping the entire battlefield with that icy, mirroring Aspect. So much so that I couldn’t take care of it with Sacrifice or Vital Mana. There was just too much.

Since Kaham’s aim was the biggest thing I was struggling against, I focused on Illumination once more. Manifestation flooded the whole area with light, which got magnified and prismed even stronger with the mirroring, sparkling Aspect covering the whole battlefield. I started feeling the shift. Kaham could barely keep his eyes open under the intense glare, much less target me as easily.

That said, the waves of ice followed me along. I didn’t bother with Multicast since they’d just reflect everything right back.

But I knew what would work. Kaham’s Aspect reflected my physical blows and my Aspects.

That didn’t mean it would be able to return my Ignition Charges too.

I figured I could put Compound Aspects in the same category. Like my Ignition Charges, shouldn’t they be too complicated for the mirrorlike Aspect to fling back?

Regardless, I was sure my Ignition Charge just wasn’t something Kaham even knew about, much less be capable of reflecting it back. To manifest it, though, I needed a tiny bit of space. That was why Illumination was beating down like I had brought the sun a little closer, turning the air itself into a sea of gleaming gold.

“Enough running!” Kaham roared.

The Aspect that had been trying to spear me through now rose high up. Oh. Alright, that was a good idea. Since I had used Illumination above us, Kaham was throwing his Aspect up too, creating a huge pavilion over us that shaded the whole battlefield against my summoned glare.

“Now,” he said with ferocious relish. “Now, you die!”

The mirrorlike Aspect rained down. I had to actually admire how he could manipulate his Aspect, making chunks of it spike down like stalactites while other bits turned into living serpents threading through the air in their hunt for me.

It was worsened by the fact that I was the only thing glowing now, so I was the easiest target in the world.

But I was done with this crap. Enough, just as Kaham had said.

[ Ignition Charge

Ignition Charge empowers Aspect of Entropy. Charges remaining: 31

Entropy: Framework]

White curls of compressed, swirling power spread out from me in the blink of an eye, spreading farther and farther. The very first spikes and snakes of the mirrorlike Aspects that touched the briar-like expression of Entropy simply dissolved into white motes.

“What?” Kaham yelled. “What is that?”

I thought about answering, but Kaham had other ideas. If a few spikes and tendrils weren’t working, then he had a whole lake of the Aspect hovering over. A whole lake he could crush down on my head.

Which he did.

It slammed down. Not all of it came at me at first. A huge swathe crashed down around me, cracking and crushing the Uralivanth grounds with the sound of an avalanche.

And within that mirroring maelstrom, I saw my own reflection. It wasn’t surprising. Kaham had reflected my Aspects and my weapons, so then my own self was hardly off the table. It was still something Kaham was aware of as something that existed. Something that could be reflected.

My reflected self rushed at me through the waterfall of icy, mirroring power. The reflected mace was raised, Gravity Orbs and Illumination forming behind the reflected Ross Moreland.

“This is the true power of my Aspect of Mirror!” Kaham shouted, his voice somehow piercing through the chaos. “You’ll be destroyed, utterly torn apart, by your own Pits-cursed ref—”

“Vandre, Lujean, Atholaine!” I shouted, cutting over my enemy’s stupid spiel. “Get away, now!”

Framework surged outwards like my own little sea. The curling horns of radiation stabbed through everything around me. Not just the mirroring Aspect that Kaham employed, but the air and the ground itself as well. They punched through with no regard for the hardness of the substance they interacted with.

And then my boosted Entropy fired out Atomized Oblivion. Everything broke apart in a storm of cancerous rays.

I had already called on the services of Entropy’s other Affix, Intake, as well as Absorption from Flare. Entropy’s effect on the ground and the air had released way too much energy, which now erupted around me in a series of sparking gouts and detonations.

The whole battlefield glowed with the amount of vaporizing energy that I had unleashed. Even with all the defensive use of my Aspects, even with Reverence Everlife, I was cooking myself.

That was fine. I just used Sacrifice to focus on the extra energy radiating at me that my Affixes couldn’t capture. It recognized the energy as a cast of my Aspect, and rewarded me with an appropriate boost. I really should have figured out this shortcut of defending myself against my own powers sooner. Then I wouldn’t have had to hesitate in other instances.

Too bad I couldn’t say the same for Kaham. His reaction was instantaneous. It looked like his instincts had clearly been forged well. With just the slightest touch of radiation, he had figured out that this wasn’t something he could block.

Not when the spiralling horns of Framework had pierced into his mirrorlike Aspected armour, dissolving it as well.

So, he had leaped straight up. There was nowhere else to go. I had blanketed the whole field in Framework, reducing the air itself to base components as I unleashed all the energy pent up in every atom and molecule that my Framework touched, turning the entire field into a miniature nuclear wasteland actively destroying all matter in its area of effect.

Kaham was staring down with his eyes squinted like everything was too bright. Which it was. I just had a harder time noticing specific light levels since I was shining like a beacon too, my eyes shaded with Reflection.

He had probably been planning for another attack, another use of his Aspects, but I was done here.

All the energy I had gathered between my palms via Absorption and Intake started condensing just as I had practiced. Light sparked in-between my palms. Light came to life.

I had been using Illumination throughout the battle to keep it in the forefront of my mind. To make sure Thauma knew that the breakthrough I’d need was coming, one way or another.

It finally worked. Right when I needed it to.

[ Affix Unlocked!

You have acquired a new Affix for your Illumination Aspect.

Affix: Photonic Compression ]

The burst of light that emerged from my hand had a natural weight, force, and heat to it, without me needing to use Multicast. I had debated just using Starburst, since there was a greater chance that he wouldn’t be able to reflect Compound Aspects in the same way reflecting Ignition Charges was out of the question.

But screw it. This guy was a symptom of Uralivanth’s stupid arrogance. I was done tiptoeing around it. I was done needing to plot a course that wouldn’t upset whatever strange balance of legality and propriety we were supposed to maintain.

“Reflect this, you stupid asshole,” I shouted.

I aimed the same way I’d have fired Starburst. The difference was that this was orders of magnitude faster. Made sense. This was literally light, after all.

One instant, I had my arm raised and pointed at Kaham Uralivanth. The next, a beam came into being between us, a lance of pure radiance linking me to my enemy in a chain of pure annihilation, shading everything with blinding light like a lightning bolt had descended from the heavens.

Kaham cried out. Then he fell.

Light had burst out from the point of impact with his mirrorlike armour, but it had failed to stand up against the sheer intensity of Photonic Compression.

Not one to let an opportunity slip by, I channelled Infusion and Field Manipulation while driving as much mana as I could into them. Not that I really needed to. Kaham hadn’t moved at all since he had gotten hit by the beam of light. But I wanted to be sure.

Plus, the bloody, dusty splatter his accelerating body made when he hit the ground was viscerally satisfying.

The blue screens arrived next, signalling the end of the battle.