Low-Fantasy Occultist

Nick took a breath, and this time, air filled his lungs, carrying the scent of blood. For a moment, it felt thin and insubstantial, as if he were breathing at the peak of a freezing mountain. Within his chest, his soul roared. His mana channels, once easily manageable streams, were now an abyssal ocean caught in a hurricane. The sheer volume of raw, unfiltered mana surging through him threatened to spill from his pores and ignite the World.

It took some effort to prevent that. He had more than enough to waste, but given how dire the situation still was, he didn’t want to risk it, especially since his body felt raw.

It would take some time to adjust to his new condition.

He stepped toward Gaelen, calling upon the wind to aid his passage, and crossed thirty feet in a fraction of a second.

He overshot his target, his boots skidding sharply across the stone, sending a spray of pulverized rock into the air. His new physical stats were high enough to make him a formidable warrior if he wanted, and after a lifetime and a half spent augmenting his body, he was now in the enviable position of not needing to do so any longer.

Still, he managed to correct and, within a moment, dropped to one knee beside the siblings. Rhea flinched violently, her eyes wide, shrinking back from the cloud of power rolling off his skin.

Nick ignored the reaction, focusing on the dark power eating into Gaelen's shoulder. He raised his hand and summoned a spark of holy fire.

A pillar of blinding white heat erupted from his palm, threatening to melt the grating beneath them and incinerate Gaelen. Nick gritted his teeth, wrestling with the torrential output. His new mana was eager, violently enthusiastic, and completely devoid of nuance.

His evolved Trait flared to life. The System had restructured his old one into [Sovereign’s Parsimony], allowing Nick to clamp down on the raging inferno and assert control over its output. The pillar of fire shuddered, condensing rapidly into a scalpel of white light hovering inches from his palm.

With the cosmological mirror shattered, the dark magic no longer had an infinite reservoir. It was a dying ember clinging to Gaelen’s flesh.

Nick pressed the condensed light directly over the wound, producing a high-pitched hiss. He cut and cauterized, careful not to let the fire get out of control, and slowly, the black veins receded from the torn flesh and dissolved into nothing.

Gaelen sucked in a breath, his back arching off the stone, but within seconds he slumped in relief, finally freed from the agony that had gripped him.

Nick withdrew his hand, letting the white light dissipate into the ether. “You can heal the rest now," he told Rhea.

He would have done it himself, but he didn’t trust his control for such fiddly work. His new Trait might have given him greater control, but every Prestige class had to spend time acclimating to their new condition, and he wasn’t an exception.

His friend stared at him for a long moment, swallowed hard, then pressed her glowing green hands back against her brother's cauterized shoulder.

That taken care of, Nick stood and turned his attention to the center of the room.

Alexander still stood amid the ruined blood circle, staring at the ceiling where the wound in reality had been sealed. His life's work, a year of meticulous planning, sacrifice, and zealotry, had been undone.

He slowly lowered his gaze and found Nick standing near the grating.

The quiet wistfulness in his expression evaporated, replaced by cold fury. His eyes blazed with a dark light, stripped of the calm superiority he had maintained throughout the ritual.

Well now. Here you are. I was starting to worry you weren’t human anymore, old friend.

It took him several moments to regain control of himself, and Nick waited patiently. He could afford him this much mercy, especially since he was still coming to know himself. Every passing second let him regain a little more control.

“You have no idea what you’ve done," Alexander whispered. “The injustice you did to humanity.”

That seemed to be the extent of his desire to talk, as he reached into his robes and crushed a small obsidian crystal in his fist. Black smoke poured from between his fingers, coalescing into a dozen dark chains that lashed out across the room.

At the same time, he activated a spatial-displacement artifact on his belt, his form blurring as he stepped through the ether to flank Nick.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

A ragged cackle echoed across the Forge. Still strapped to the altar, Ephor Ultimer threw his head back and laughed. "Look at him! An ant standing before a mountain, unable to grasp its fate! Kill him, kid!”

Nick didn’t exactly like agreeing with the man he’d come all this way to kill, but as he tracked Alexander’s spatial steps, he realized the truth in them. The [Eidolon of the Formless] class granted him an innate understanding of the ether's structure that went far beyond what he’d grasped before. When the space folded as Alexander prepared to strike, he simply reached out and grabbed the seam.

He poured a fraction of his raw mana into his fingertips, not even bothering to cast a spell. That much was enough to impose his will on the ether, and with a sharp gesture, he ripped the spatial fold open.

Alexander stumbled out, appearing directly in front of Nick rather than behind him.

To his credit, he recovered quickly. The abyssal chains struck Nick’s chest, aiming to bind his limbs and rot his heart, but whereas before he’d been wholly mortal and such a strike would have rent his flesh, his body was now merely a representation of his soul, so the chains hit him and shattered like brittle glass.

Alexander’s eyes widened in genuine shock, his momentum brought to a jarring halt. He raised his dark blade, attempting a desperate strike.

Nick raised a single finger.

He struggled to gauge the appropriate force as the vast ocean of his mana churned restlessly, so he focused on the concept of a blade, weaving wind and kinetic mana together. Only then did he release the nameless spell.

A glowing crescent of howling air erupted from his fingertip, and he knew at once it was far too much power.

The wind blade sheared through Alexander’s cursed dagger, cut cleanly through his defensive wards, passed through his torso, and continued across the room, carving a ten-foot-deep trench in the stone wall.

Alexander froze. A thin red line split his chest, bisecting his simple gray robes.

His upper body slid backward, falling to the stone with a wet thud, followed a second later by his legs.