Abyssal Veil.

  I preemptively channeled the ability as the old mage scanned us with his cold gaze.

  Shadow Weave.

  I plucked a shadow over the vault, but the blinding sunlight reflecting off all the marble surfaces didn't allow a clear path to Barret's neck. Using Barret's own shadow would've been preferable, but for some reason he didn't have one. So, I dragged the shadow along a tight crevice where the wall met the glass ceiling, knowing when it came time to drive it out and into the light it'd rapidly drain my stamina.

  Barret clapped his hands together and Veigan, the Moonsewn Bandits, and the level eight captain walking back from his bathroom break lost consciousness.

  "You shouldn't be standing after Diffuse Mana," Barret said as he cocked his head to the side.

  Cold sweat broke out across my forehead as I ripped the shadow out from the corner and slammed it across the chamber. My heart raced as I fought against the sunlight, its warmth lighting my nerves ablaze, picking and fraying the thin shadow as it shot through the air. The shadow connected with the back of his neck. His body flickered, distorting like a dying CRT.

  Suddenly, it all made sense. I instinctively launched myself toward the mirage, rolling forward as a whistling razor sharp wind nicked my back, and sliced through my cloak.

  Target: Barret

  Level: 11

  Karma: -10,315

  Additional Data: Compulsively...

  Karma's Gaze caught his status mid-roll, upside down in the blur of motion. The information hung over an invisible figure, who seemed to be floating in the middle of the archway. The wind whistled once more and I leapt over it. The counter beneath me exploded, shooting splintered shrapnel in all directions. The near silent air attack lashed against the heavy, steel vault door, lacerating the metal and causing the entire chamber to shake.

  I turned myself around in mid-air, and launched three throwing knives at the invisible, floating entity. As the knives flew, I heard a loud clap and suddenly found myself upside down, stomach in my throat. Then I slammed against the ground, or a wall, or perhaps a ceiling.

  Gravity yanked me down, and I re-oriented myself, barely in time to land on all fours, minimizing the impact. Nausea hit me like I had just gotten off an eight loop roller coaster after participating in a chili dog eating contest. Then it dawned on me, I had been teleported.

  I crouched in the center of a vast atrium with glass walls, a glass floor, and ceiling. Bookshelves lined every wall, with plotted plants growing atop. Underneath me, I saw a warped view of the bubble-shaped chamber containing the vault five stories away, extended out in the sky.

  Barret appeared at the opposite end of the room, standing in front of an L-shaped silver desk, scratching his chin as he stared me down.

  I searched the obnoxiously well-lit atrium for an angle of attack. Dawn's light reflected off the desk, eliminating Barret's own shadow, except for a sliver that I knew would disintegrate before it could pierce a vital organ.

  He pointed up at a runic scrawling etched into the glass ceiling.

  His guard's down.

  I tried activating Abyssal Veil again only to discover it was on cooldown.

  "I've taken the liberty to bring you into my personal chambers. As a forewarning, if you use any spells underneath my glyph the mana in your blood will ignite," Barret said as he reached for a steaming kettle and poured himself a cup of tea. "I would've just killed you, but I have so many questions."

  I said nothing, waiting in a sprinter's stance, still trying to dispel the lingering dizziness from the non-consensual teleportation.

  "First, I'd like to inquire about the shadow maneuver you performed there. Was it a counter-illusion? Echo magic? A hallucinatory enchantment area of effect spell?" He hovered his hand over the teacup, but didn't pick it up. "Second, I'd like to know how you blocked Gale Severance. It should've cut you in half. Like how Diffuse Mana should've knocked you out. More importantly, how in the world are you hiding your mana signature? I detected the louts with you when they stepped out of the service corridor."

  I kept my mouth shut, my eyes glued to the teacup.

  Pick it up. Take a sip.

  "Truly, I'm astounded, but I recommend you start talking before I'm forced into the unpleasantries. Even those with a monolithic pain tolerance have been cracked by me in a mere afternoon."

  I forced a smile. "You wouldn't believe the truth."

  Barret reached for the teacup, then dropped his arms to his sides. "I have a deep appreciation for a good tale."

  "Sure, why not?" I shrugged. "My name's not really Cyprus. It's Derrick Hauser."

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  A whisper of delicate static tingled across the nape of my neck. Sweet relief from the ceaseless burden of lies I had been carrying since I got here cascaded over me.

  Pure euphoria.

  "A bastard named Chaos killed me in a different world. I don't know if he's a fallen god, a demon, or just the physical embodiment of an asshole. We tricked Justice, the goddess of this world, into believing I was someone else--that was after she reincarnated me." I took in a deep breath and exhaled, smiling. "She gifted me an incredible power, and tasked me with ridding this world of corruption before disappearing into the ether without so much as a strategy guide or an instructions manual."

  Barret drew his brow together, hanging onto my every word.

  "I think the stress from learning and surviving day in and day out has fractured my mind." I laughed, wrapping myself in a warm blanket of honesty.

  Speaking the truth, even to someone destined for death, lifted a weight from my shoulders. Carrying an ever-expanding web of lies, almost had me believing I was Cyprus, a noble adventurer–a hero of the people. Not Derrick Hauser, the Midnight Menace.

  "It's brave of you to spout such nonsensical lies in my presence," Barret said.

  He grabbed his teacup, blew at the pluming steam, and brought it to his lips.

  Shadow Weave.

  I seized command of the shadow the ceramic cup cast over his chin and sliced downward, aiming for his neck. The butt of Barret's chin fell from his face, along with the two fingers holding his cup. Daylight eradicated the shadow before it could curl down his throat.

  Barret howled in pain and whipped his uninjured hand at me, hurling a whistling wind disk in my direction.

  Dagger Step.

  I teleported above him, dagger in hand, but Barret reacted decades younger than his age, displacing himself away from me in an instant.

  "This is absurd!" Barret shouted, crimson staining his neck and hand as he clutched his exposed, severed chin bone. "Pure madness."

  He fired another razor wind blast and I re-activated Dagger Step, using its second charge to skip through his attack and meet him in mid-air instead. He turned himself invisible, and I blindly stuck the dagger into flesh.

  Warning Low Stamina

  He crashed into his desk, status information rolling with his invisible frame, screaming in pain and confusion. I landed a few yards away, eyes following his status information as he scurried along the perimeter, alongside a wall of bookshelves.

  Target: Barret

  Level: 11

  Karma: -10,315

  Additional Data: Compulsively collects his own earwax for candle making purposes. Head Overseer of Black Diamond's Southern Division. Known as the anti-mage mage. Played a pivotal role in Burtrip's rise to power.

  Bonus Data: Specializes in mana diffusion, glyph locks, and air manipulation spells.

  I grabbed my last throwing knives and chucked them below the floating status text. Barret let out a pained grunt and bumped into a bookshelf, sending tomes raining down atop him.

  "Diffuse Mana!" Barret shouted as his invisibility expired, revealing a wounded old man, scrambling backward, heels skidding against bloodied glass.

  Gripping the dagger's hilt tight, I lunged at him, preparing to deliver a fatal blow. But he swung both his arms up and my gravity inverted. "Gale Tomb."

  I flipped upside down and slammed into the glass ceiling. Spider web cracks rippled outward on impact, overcoming the atrium's roof.

  "Anomaly or not, you must die here." Barret stood up, channeling the invisible force, keeping me pressed tight against the glass.

  I stared up at the sky, unable to move as the force compressed against my flesh and bones. My lungs buckled in my chest, restricted from expansion. Blood rushed out of my nose, and flew upward, painting the glass red. A sharp pop was followed by a series of brittle pings, and the webbed cracks deepened.

  The sprawling ceiling ruptured before Barret's magic could finish crushing my spine. The oppressive force flung me high, driving me into the sky. I crested over a cloud, flipped myself over and plunged downward, wondering how bad the fall damage was about to be.

  As I plummeted six stories, I threw my cloak off and activated Shadow Weave, grabbing the shadow it cast over my skin, pulling it out like a rope that only served to briefly halt my terrifying momentum before the sunlight eviscerated it.

  I crashed into the roofless atrium, flattening a coffee table and leaving a crater in the glass floor, which was thankfully twice as thick as the ceiling. As I pushed myself off the ground, sharp pain shot up through my legs and into my back.

  "Fucking impossible," Barret muttered, his voice drifting in from the other side of his chambers.

  I locked onto my target, cracked my neck, and shook out my arms, relieved nothing seemed broken. Barret on the other hand, fared much worse. A dagger stuck out of the side of his abdomen, and several throwing knives lined up his back like a dartboard.

  "Damn, it really would've been way easier to kill you before it was daylight," I admitted, gauging the old mage, still reeling from the impact of my landing.

  Barret slowly swayed toward the steps of a spiral staircase in the room's corner, that descended from the tower's peak. But he tripped over a hefty tome, 'The 10 Absolute Laws of Mysticism' and dropped to his knees.

  I figured he was out of mana, judging by the drastic absence of his howling wind disks or crushing, "Gale Tombs."

  "Stop this, I believe you!" Barret threw up his hands. "The logic is as clear as the day's light. There's no mana in your blood because you were sent here by the gods!"

  I pinched the bridge of my nose, disappointed by his poor acting.

  "Don't do this. I'm in no mood for begging."

  "Beg?" Barret cocked his head. "In no realm would I ever dishonor my soul. This world is filled with cowards, Derrick Hauser. I'm not one of them."

  "Yet, you're still inching toward the stairs. Save the effort, there's no escape."

  Barret nodded and flicked blood onto the floor from his wounded hand, his colorless lips forming a thin smile. "I'm scared, and this aged body is acting out of experience. I focused too hard on sniffing out your mana signature and spell force, maintaining the assumption you were a master of suppression. When you listen too closely for certain frequencies, everything else is drowned out. Now I can hear it."

  Tears formed in the corner of his eyes. "I don't know how I missed it before. It's absolute and deafening."

  "What is?"

  "Your frequency. Once you hear it... I never should've acknowledged its existence. It's unwavering."

  If this was a ploy to save himself it was backfiring big time. "What the hell are you talking about?"

  Barret's gaze bore into me. "A void. Endless twisting terror. The screams are so goddamned loud--why did I acknowledge it? Now it knows, it's fucking looking right at me."

  Clouds rolled in, blotting out the harsh sun. Refreshing shade cascaded over my bruised body, soothing the soreness.

  "You're really pissing me off," I said.

  Barret covered his ears, solemnly shaking his head as tears streamed down his cheeks. Lightning flashed, and the mage's expression morphed into pure dread. He pointed past me as a light drizzle descended upon the atrium.

  "Dear Galdir—your shadow..."

  I quickly glanced over my shoulder, then back, half-expecting the mage to be making a run for it. "It's a normal shadow. Quit talking shit."

  Barret stayed silent, but his lips remained open. Then his head slid off shoulders, and his torso flopped to the ground.

  +1365 XP

  +360 Karma