Low-Fantasy Occultist

The two Demonic Enforcers snapped toward Nick the moment he came into view, their fell flames flaring high and melting the surrounding snow, clearly recognizing him from their last encounter.

"Take the puppets," Nick told the siblings. "These are mine.”

Gaelen and Rhea broke away to intercept the charging line of Elite Homunculi. They’d both grown stronger since leaving Floria, if not as much as he had, and they’d been preparing for this battle for years. He could trust them to hold their own, especially with Rosmaria there to watch their backs.

Nick stepped forward to face the demons. During their last encounter, he’d been limited by his own foolishness and could only cast regular spells.

As demons, the magics of the lower realm tended to weaken in their presence, which meant he’d only managed to annoy them.

Things would be different now. With a dark grin, he opened his connection to the World.

The planet’s golden lifeblood rushed into him, filling him with an unknowable power that flooded his mana coils and sharpened his mind. He wove this energy into his reserves, refining it until it became one, then fed it into the Shard.

It felt eager, like an old battle-companion happy to be reunited, and he tried to echo the sentiment. If he could have, he would have done so before, but the past was the past, and now he had a chance to get even.

The first Enforcer, more limber than its fellow, lunged, closing the distance in a single bound. It brought a flaming fist down toward Nick’s skull, intending to stop him before he could get started.

To its surprise, he stepped into the strike. At level ninety-five, his physical attributes were razor-sharp, and he was free of the ritual backlash that had hindered him in their last fight.

He brought the Shard up, parrying the demon’s forearm with a kinetic shield that rang like a struck bell under the impact but held, allowing him to retaliate.

Driving his free hand forward, he unleashed a torrent of water infused with the World’s mana, creating a golden flood.

The demon fought back, trying to evaporate the moisture, but while some of the water boiled off, too much remained and soon smothered the black fire. Not one to let anything go to waste, Nick grabbed the scalding cloud with [Conceptual Steam], and the demon shrieked, stumbling backward as the vapor blistered its twisted flesh, inflicting far more damage than he had the last time.

Out of the corner of his eye, Nick saw one of the Homunculi abruptly veer away from Gaelen. The stone tile beneath its stitched feet had shifted upward by an inch—just enough to throw it off balance and send it stumbling into Nick’s periphery.

Normally, he would have dismissed it as part of the battlefield's chaos, but his senses were honed enough to notice the flicker of mana, and the homunculus's positioning was simply too favorable.

He watched it become engulfed in his steam, burning as it stumbled, until it proved too much.