Chapter 26: A long-distance chase
The most important part of Nathan’s build was his antimagic. He’d only done one or two things with his physical body during the big fight against the Questors. Most of his contribution had been the way his aura controlled the battlefield. He’d succeeded in denying them most of their magical arsenal, and that had probably won them the battle.
But he could have done more. Nathan had the skills to keep up with the Questors in melee combat, but he’d simply been too focused on countering their magical effects to get much done. Going in for close combat with Amoh had been the tipping point of the battle, giving Aarl the chance to kill the Questor and swinging the advantage distinctly towards the Heirs. But it had taken Nathan too long to go on the offensive like that, time in which there’d been several close calls while the Questors tried to work around his aura.
There were two primary reasons he’d delayed. The first was that he’d needed to keep track of everything that was happening to take full advantage of his antimagic. With eight combatants, it was impressive he’d achieved it at all, but he needed to do better. The second problem was that he’d been too slow to keep up with Amoh’s shadowdashing and Ogarius’ dream-based teleportation until they’d managed to mousetrap Amoh.
Once he’d identified those two areas, Nathan got to work training them up. He joined Khachi in meditation, practicing tracking every single thing within range of his senses. Every swing of Aarl’s weapons, every twitch of Stella’s wizardry, Eolinne’s minute adjustments to sail and weather, the occasional flicker of magical creatures far below, Nathan tracked it all. He held it all in his head through his magical senses, then opened his eyes and observed all of the details again. He burned Focus to absorb everything, then stopped and tried to hold on to the full glut of information.
He was trying to be fully aware of everything at once. All of the data was still there, but Nathan couldn’t process it all. But over time, and with practice, it became easier.
| Tranquility 5 achieved! |