“Oops,” Zhou said too casually as he saw his reflection in the shallow puddle. He grounded himself just in time, halting the stone panels rotating beneath his feet— trapdoors meant to crush him. Others snapped shut around him, managing only to snuff out the foxfires hovering nearby. Zhou drove both hands into the slabs ahead and dragged them upward, forcing the stone into a protective dome. Lightning crashed down immediately, skittering along the curved surface and grounding itself like it had struck a Faraday cage. Stone slabs surged up in response, toppling in sequence like dominoes toward the faceless fox, which leapt aside in a gold burst of air.
|| SKILL ACTIVATED || [? Flame Lance (A) | "piercing flame"]
Nico hurled the projectile in a line of fire toward the rift fox. Purple mana flared as a stone slab shot up in front of the rift fox, intercepting the lance, which burst into embers on impact.
|| SKILL ACTIVATED || [? Ember Recast (B) | "detonate lingering embers"]
The embers ignited again. Those scattered to the left detonated, blasting dust and stone debris outward, while the embers to the right—
|| STATUS ALERT || [Skill ? Ember Recast | HAS BEEN NULLIFIED]
—dissipated into nothing.
|| SKILL ACTIVATED || [? Gale Step (A)]
Twin bursts of wind launched both foxes away. The faceless fox dodged through the opening on the right, but as it landed, a pair of hands tore free from the stone beneath it, dragging it down into the aqueduct. Gold mana flared, then vanished in a splash as it was pulled into the waterway. At the same time, Nico launched himself toward the slab the faceless fox had just vacated—
|| SKILL ACTIVATED || [? Zephyr Veil (A) | "wind shield & sword"]
Dense slashes of wind erupted from all directions, converging on the slab that had shielded the false fox. The gale flared purple. Sharp stone spears tore out of the slab toward Nico, accelerated further by the redirected current. As material sheared away, it exposed the false Sage lurking behind the slab.
Nico kept up the pace. Both foxfires shot forward and detonated, knocking the projectiles just far enough off course for his wind veil to catch and redirect the rest. The stone beneath his feet began to rumble as he ran, mana gathering instinctively at his soles.
|| STATUS ALERT || [Skill ? Gale Step | HAS BEEN NULLIFIED ]
|| SKILL ACTIVATED || [火 Dragon's Breath | "pretty cool fireball"]
A fireball burst from Nico’s mouth, and he used the recoil to hurl himself backward, out of the way as stalagmites pierced the air before him. The fire broke against the stone spires, then twisted under manipulation.
Violet flame encircled the false Sage in seven small wisps, then scattered across the aqueduct floor. They detonated in unison, blasting debris and dust upward, creating a brief veil between the false Sage and Nico.
As Nico dodged the flying stone, he sensed heat swelling beneath his feet. Farther down the slope, a violent blast ripped through the aqueduct. The arch behind them collapsed in smoke and rubble, splitting the structure into two broken spans. Water surged from the rupture and spilled with gravity, waterfalling down the mountainside. Among the tumbling debris, a blackened fox fell, its body as scorched as the rubble surrounding it.
Wind wrapped around the rift fox, and it hurled the dense gusts back toward the bridge. A series of splashes followed below.
|| SKILL ACTIVATED || [?? Arc Lash (A) | "electric whip"]
As the aftershocks of the explosion shook the aqueduct, a whip of lightning cracked out in front of the false Sage.
|| STATUS ALERT || [Skill ?? Arc Lash | HAS BEEN NULLIFIED]
The whip of electricity severed near its origin, but the false Sage wasn’t fast enough. The current surged as Nico forced more mana into it, driving the lightning forward until it carved a hard line across the aqueduct. The false Sage leapt backward— directly into the gap created by the explosion.
The rift fox’s final gust caught the false Sage midair, snapping violet as he redirected it beneath himself to propel toward the far side of the broken aqueduct. Before he could land, the stone he aimed for cracked with purple mana and gave way. Dragged down by the waterfall’s spray, the false Sage reached out, trying to chain the falling stones together with his mana, searching for a hold—
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But the light blinked out, nullified before the skill could anchor.
A last series of splashes followed.
|| SKILL ACTIVATED || [火 Fire Flare (A) | "fire aoe"]
Fire surged outward from Nico, heat rolling across the stone until every pool of water along the pathway steamed away. He caught his breath and listened.
The sound of stone grinding against stone reverberated somewhere lower on the hill. He couldn’t look down; he wasn’t about to risk seeing his own reflection again.
Across the broken span, on the opposite segment of aqueduct, a slab shifted. From the opening, a mask slowly rose into view, step by step, as though a staircase were being assembled beneath the sage’s feet.
“…”
The sage reached the surface and brushed dust from his clothes, making a point of shaking them out. Wind carried the familiar scent of jasmine across the distance. With infuriating confidence, he lifted a hand and offered the same theatrical wave the false Zhou had given earlier when they first entered the rift.
Nico stared at him across the gap. The Sage dusted himself off, making a show of airing out his clothes. Wind carried the familiar scent of jasmine across the distance. Zhou lifted his hand and mimicked the same dumb wave the false one had greeted Nico with upon entering the rift. Nico couldn’t help but laugh, ears flicking back.
The Sage was so annoying.
***
“C’mon, I’m sure it’ll work!” Lani hovered near Nico, wings flapping, as he stared at the other side. Zhou was on the uphill segment of the aqueduct, so naturally they needed to cross to him. Nico watched as the sage strolled casually toward the moon, tossing things here and there— hopefully trying out theories to get them out of here.
“I’ve been practicing Gale Step really hard in this rift!!” Lani assured him.
He looked over the gap again. It would take about four Gale Steps to make it across. He wasn’t doing it because that was insane. His mana reserves were low after the reflections, and they hadn’t even reached the core yet. Gale Step was mana-intensive, lost effectiveness when cast in succession, and was far less reliable without a solid surface to push from.
But Lani— ever his fan— came flying back after the fight, beaming about how cool it was and asking who his partner was. She hadn’t expected Zhou to be such a skilled alchemist based on his modest self-description, and she found it amazing to watch him maneuver under the arch while Nico handled the reflections up top. When Nico told her to relay a message to Zhou, she suddenly got coy, saying Zhou was cooler than she expected and that talking to him made her nervous. Nico didn’t ask why she was still clearly having a great time talking to him.
“I don’t even think you need four!” she chirped brightly. “With how far you jumped just on two feet, I think three gales at most! I’ll support you with Gale Steps in between yours, and I’ll catch you if anything!!”
Nico was filled with doubt. First, she definitely couldn’t catch him. He probably weighed three times as much as she did. Second, she was a college student who had barely done fieldwork, having only ever cast skills inside practice environments. Third, her plan required him to leap across open air three to four fucking times. This was bird logic! And since she only had enough mana for two activations, she couldn’t even demonstrate before the jump.
Nico sent her to talk to Zhou while he considered not crossing at all and simply going back to the village. He watched Lani flutter excitedly around Zhou as they talked. Zhou removed his mask briefly just to show Nico he was laughing at him. Nico did not like that.
“He said that if you wanted a stone pathway across the gap, you shouldn’t have blown up the existing one,” Lani relayed.
Nico sighed, knowing that would be a no, but thought it’d be worth asking anyway.
Lani continued, “But he said my idea was really good and you should totally do it!!”
“I’m thinking about it.”
She nodded enthusiastically. “And he said yes— you have to be smiling the whole time you’re in fox form, since the mask doesn’t cover your snout!”
Cool. Nico tilted his ears back with an exasperated sigh, gazing toward the moon princess.
“Aw, that’s not hard at all! It’s sooo fun to use Gale Step. Think of it like laughing on a roller coaster!”
“Okay, I’ll do it.”
Why was he so easily convinced by insane rationale? But he agreed, Gale Step was fun to use. After some rough calculations, Lani flew to a spot just before the halfway point. The plan: his Gale Step, then hers, then his, then hers again, with one extra in reserve.
Nico thought about something funny— like trying to jump across a hundred-foot gap with nothing but blind faith in a 19 year old girl. The worst that could happen was he’d die. The thought kept him amused as he walked half the distance from the edge to get a running start.
|| SKILL ACTIVATED || [? Lycanthropy]
His mask, like his reflection’s, also sat stylishly at an angle on his head: covering one ear and none of his face. He got into position, crouching low, and launched into a sprint. Lani’s cheers carried through the night as he reached the edge—
|| SKILL ACTIVATED || [? Gale Step (A)]
He launched from the stones, air bursting diagonally beneath him. Lani dove under his path, mana flaring as she flipped upside down, which registered to him as confusing and to the bird as gleeful joy. She fired a gust diagonally upward as planned, just inverted and from her feet, successfully boosting him into a double jump before darting ahead to set up again.
At the peak of his arc, gold mana flared beneath his paws. Lani flew under him again, still upside down, which was somehow more confusing the second time.
|| SKILL ACTIVATED || [? Gale Step (A)]
She sent her second Gale Step opposite his own. The counter-current slammed into his burst and hurled him farther than expected. That helped with the maniacal laughing, since that hadn’t been the plan at all.
Zhou, who was laughing way more than Nico liked, extended a platform out from the aqueduct as they triggered what turned out to be the final Gale Steps. Nico cleared it with room to spare, carrying the excess momentum into several more bounds as Lani cheered overhead, tweeting that she knew he could do it.
|| Skill: ? Lycanthropy || [Deactivate? Y/N]
He shifted back before the adrenaline could break, even though he was still laughing, because he wasn’t sure when it would tip into crying. Lani flying overhead and loudly telling him how cool he was helped more than he wanted to admit.
The moment he came to a stop, he dropped to the stone. With closed eyes and ears flopped against the ground, he took in long, exhausted breaths. Lani fanned him with her wings.
“Good job~”
?????
Nico felt a hand pat his head and desperately hoped it was Lani’s, because at least that’d be cute. When he opened his eyes, he instead met hypebeast shoes shaped like long socks and a braid of silver hair with ribbons. The sage had squatted down to pat him.
??????????
Nico closed his eyes and rolled onto his other side in another challenge of object permanency.
He wasn’t ever doing that jump again. Their only option now was to unravel the rift. Lightning doesn’t strike three to four times.