Which was fortunate, because Nathan wanted to recruit Narime after this, not bury her.
The unfortunate part was that it meant the fifth rank spell in Narime’s hands was complete. Her tails finished gathering energy. For humans, casting a spell of this power so fast was impossible. But Narime wasn’t human.
Narime tilted her head to one side and twisted her wrists. The pentagons between her hands flared.
The entire world crashed down on Nathan’s shoulders. His vision wavered as every part of his body was struck by an immense pressure.
Narime had struck them with ascended magic. Manipulation of raw physical force.
Fei screamed as she was slammed into the stone floor by an invisible force. Her scimitar skittered away, but the catgirl was more concerned about the pressure trying to combine her ribcage with her breastplate.
Seraph remained on one knee and pulsed a wave of energy around herself. For a moment, she broke free. Then she grunted and was sent crashing back down. Narime’s tails continued to glow.
Like Nathan’s spell from earlier, this was a continuous spell. He could only imagine how much magic she was burning to cast this. Her gems glowed at the same time. Presumably she was using her other gem ability, which allowed her to penetrate barriers and magical protections.
Nathan couldn’t imagine why she bothered. He lacked the ability to actively block ascended magic. Was Narime that paranoid about him?
Through sheer force of will, he remained standing. His head felt like it was going to explode, and he grew concerned that his bones might shatter. But he needed to stay upright.
If he went down, it would become impossible to hit Narime with a spell and break her concentration.
He couldn’t raise his sword, so he summoned a spell in one hand.
A moment later, the spell frame shattered with a wail.
Narime didn’t say something or even smirk. Her entire being was focused on this spell.
A piercing screech erupted behind Narime. A blazing figure charged toward her, unarmed and furious. Narime turned, eyes wide.
Fei screamed and threw a desperate punch at the fox. Eyes wide, Narime stumbled backward. The punch barely missed her, but an ember caught her dress, and she began to burn.
Cursing, Narime slapped at the fire. Fei reared, preparing for a tackle.
“What the fuck are you?” Narime screech, reeling in terror.
The pressure on Nathan vanished. Narime’s hands glowed, triangles appearing over several of her fingers in an instant.
As Fei lunged, Narime’s tails puffed up to an impossible volume.
“Fei, don’t!” Nathan shouted. He recognized that defensive technique.
But Fei had already jumped. Narime spun, a high-pitched scream erupting from her mouth.
Six voluminous fox tails slammed into Fei. Each of them had been modified with a spell to be rock-solid, and Fei was knocked across the room. She slammed into a wall and slumped to the ground. Her flames went out.
Azure flames caught onto Narime’s tails and began to spread rapidly. Fox tails were gigantic balls of condensed magic. Perfect for Fei’s magic-consuming flames.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Narime said. She waved her tails around, eyes wide. After a few moments of panic, her gems flashed, and the fire disappeared.
Silence reigned.
Fei broke the silence with a groan and rolled over in the fetal position in the corner. Blood ran down her face. She didn’t look badly hurt. Nathan checked and confirmed that she had consumed every ounce of energy in her gem, however.
She was effectively out of the fight.
And it was a painful fight.
In his timeline, Narime’s two gem abilities had been relatively simple. Her first ability allowed her to empower her spells with the ability to penetrate magical barriers and wards. She could teleport through anti-teleportation wards and considered barriers a problem for lesser sorceresses. Only other ascended magic users posed a danger to her—namely Messengers. Hence why she had found Nathan’s spatial wards a nuisance.
Her other gem ability gave her the ability to counter any spell using the natural elements. It didn’t matter what it was or even if she understood it. If somebody was casting a spell within several hundred meters of her, she could dispel it or stop it from being cast at all.
Narime still had that ability. That was how she stopped Nathan from casting his spells.
But she also could somehow stop gem abilities. Fei’s gem ability wasn’t sorcery and didn’t involve a spell. It also involved ascended magic of some form. Despite that, Narime was canceling it out. It took her some level of concentration, but she could do it.
What else could Narime do now?
Better yet, why was her gem ability different?
“Seraph, did you know that Narime could cancel out gem abilities?” Nathan asked aloud.
“If I did, I would have told you,” Seraph replied. Her face was set in a scowl. As always, she looked none the worse for wear, thanks to her regeneration ability.
“Oh, you mean you don’t know everything about me?” Narime asked. She smirked.
“I’ve never heard of somebody with the ability to cancel gem abilities,” Nathan said. “Even a trigem Champion would kill for an ability of that power.”
“I can assure you that it is an ability of suitable power,” Narime said primly.
Nathan narrowed his eyes. That meant it needed to have a weakness. That was always the catch with lower gem abilities.
Fei’s was obscenely strong, but it burned through her power reserves ridiculously fast. It also struggled to consume very powerful magic and had a reduced effect on anything non-magical. Sunstorm still put Fei in the dirt nine times out of ten because Fei’s flames were less effective against a physically focused Champion who avoided getting hit too much.
But Nathan struggled to see the weakness here. Canceling a gem ability was outrageously powerful. Even when it only worked against sorcery, Narime had been viciously anti-sorcerer. Now she was anti-Champion.
Narime didn’t give him time to ponder her new ability any further. She surrounded herself in another barrier. This time, Fei wasn’t available to break through it.
Then she began to cast the same force spell from earlier.
Like hell he was dealing with another load of this nonsense. Nathan raised an arm in front of himself and desperately thought of a way out.
Instinctively, he dove into his binding stone. Time dilated, and he spent countless minutes pondering his problem.
Eventually, he formed a plan. There was one type of magic he hadn’t tried yet.
If the natural elements didn’t work and neither did gem abilities, that left only one option for him.
Nathan’s arm glowed gold as a pair of squares spun around it. Power from the binding stone flooded his body. A fifth rank spell would have been smarter here, but he didn’t have the time to cast it.
At the very least, he had some experience with this type of magic. He had cast countless wards using this branch of ascended magic.
Narime’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped. She maintained her focus but stared in amazement at Nathan’s spell.
Narime’s spell was nearly finished when Nathan finished his. His concentration nearly wavered, as the image he had in mind was weak. He had several memories to draw on, but the freshest memories were somewhat distracting.
Mostly because Kadria was distracting, and she featured in a lot of his recent memories of ascended magic.
Right as Narime’s spell activated, Nathan cast his spell. He darted over to Fei’s side, and Seraph joined him.
The entire room stretched out, like some sort of optical illusion. One moment, Narime was meters away. The next, she was dozens. If Nathan looked at the walls, they appeared to be the same length as before. The room hadn’t grown physically larger.
But the floor had been extended.
Nathan had spatially distorted the space between himself and Narime. That
meant he was outside the range of her spell. Kadria had performed a similar trick within her mental world, once. He had harnessed his image of that magic and cast it.
The drain was immense, however. He was burning binding stone power at an obscene rate. Using a fourth rank spell frame was a terrible mistake.
Or maybe using sorcery was the mistake. Was ascended magic even suitable for sorcery? Nathan had no idea what he was even doing right now. Messengers didn’t use spell frames for ascended magic, after all.
Narime stared at them from afar. After several moments, her hands fell to her sides and her spell vanished. The blue barrier around her dissipated.
Which was fortunate, as Nathan really didn’t want to maintain his spatial distortion spell for much longer.
“How?” Narime breathed out when they snapped back in place near her.
“I got some practice in recently,” Nathan said.
He had, in fact. Part of him wanted to say that it was all the wards he had created.
But he knew the truth.
That moment of rage with the Twins had been the true epiphany for him. Something had shifted when he fought them off. His mind had clicked with ascended magic when he had used mental magic as a weapon for the first time. And before that, he had cast a personal ward powerful enough to fend them off.
He had changed since arriving in this timeline.
“Practice,” Narime repeated flatly. “I’ve spent centuries working on my spatial manipulation and I can’t distort a room like that.”
“I’d suggest you become a Bastion, but I suspect you know the truth behind that,” Nathan said.
She nodded.
“I have a question,” Seraph said. “Why didn’t you counter that?”
Narime didn’t answer.
When Nathan smirked, the fox’s eyes widened.
“You knew?” Narime asked. “You knew I couldn’t counter that?”
“No, but I suspected it,” Nathan said. Or he suspected something. “That’s how fighting Champions works. You need to work out how their gems work, then defeat them. That’s the true power of somebody like Seraph. They don’t need to defeat you. They just need to survive long enough to let somebody else defeat you. This fight could have gone on for much longer because both of us could stay in the fight for much longer.”
“So, you don’t know how my gem works,” Narime said slowly. She grinned. “That means I can still win.”
“Of course. But now I at least know you struggle with some ascended magic. You’ve also never countered Seraph’s gem abilities, even though dispelling her regeneration would let you defeat her instantly,” Nathan said.
The fox glared at him. Her fingers twitched and her tails hung low behind her.
All it would take now is another push, and this fight was over.
“And why are you fighting us, anyway? I thought you opposed Torneus?” Nathan asked.
“And I thought you wanted peace,” Narime said. Her tone lacked heat.
“You were at the negotiations. You know Torneus won’t settle.”
“Is that it? Really? Does everything end after you remove Torneus from power?” Narime asked.
A pause. Then Nathan sighed. “No. Because that’s not how the world works. Without Torneus, the Federation won’t be able to hold itself together. The regents are already squabbling with each other. My aim as a Bastion is to prevent the demons from invading and destroying everything. Torneus is threatening that for now, but after he’s gone, the Federation will threaten it.”
“And then what? The Empire itself?” Narime pushed.
“No. But if I know somebody or something is a danger, I can’t exactly sit back and let it happen,” Nathan said. “If you could go back and stop the invasion of Kurai, would you? Would you topple the arrogant old power structures that let it happen?”
Seraph stared at Nathan, her mouth slowly opening. Below him, he felt Fei move as well, but Nathan’s focus was entirely on the fox in front of him.
When he had first met Narime in this timeline—when she had broken into his castle—he had told himself that he would be a failure if he couldn’t convince her to join him. That remained true.
“That’s going well beyond the role of a Champion,” Narime muttered.
“Yes, because Champions invade the fortresses of Bastions from enemy nations in order to convince them to negotiate. Has Arriet known anything about what you’ve been up to recently?” Nathan asked.
Narime remained silent, refusing to meet his eyes.
“You understand what I’m doing, don’t you? This isn’t about loyalty to our nation, or our people. It’s about what we want to do. My personal oath as a Bastion isn’t about protecting the Empire, it’s about protecting the world from invasion,” Nathan said. “And you’ve been doing that as a Champion. Can you accept going back to being just another Champion after this, Narime?”
A sharp intake of breath came from Nathan’s side, and he glanced over to see Seraph looking at him. When he turned back to Narime, he saw her staring at him with wide eyes.
“Are you… inviting me to join you, Nathan?” Narime asked. Her voice was faint and tinged with notes of hope.
“That’s, uh, kind of what I’ve been building up to, yes. You skipped a few paragraphs of the spiel,” Nathan said, scratching the back of his head.
“Oh.” Narime flushed. “Um, you can keep going if you want? You were doing rather well.”
“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Seraph said drily. “For one thing, I imagine you just killed all the passion by admitting you’re interested.”
“I didn’t admit anything,” Narime said.
“We all heard your little squeaky ‘Are you inviting me, oh great amazing Nathan?’ so don’t play dumb,” Seraph said.
Narime narrowed her eyes. “I will hit you.”
“That won’t make my words any less true,” Seraph said.
Nathan rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Okay, let’s move on. Narime, are you interested in joining me?”
“I bet you said something much nicer to Seraph to get her to join,” Narime muttered, pouting.
“He did. It was a big spiel about how I could atone for my sins, and how the Watcher Omria would judge me if I turned on him. He even threatened to kill me if I betrayed him. Very impactful,” Seraph said.
Narime stared at the other duogem Champion. Then she turned back to Nathan. “Yes, I’m interested in becoming your Champion. Preferably without the death threats.”
“But that was the best part,” Seraph said.
Fei sat up, grumbling. After a few moments, she spotted Narime and squawked. Her finger wavered as she pointed at the fox. “She’s here! Nathan!”
“It’s fine. She’s with us now.” Nathan paused. “Almost. I’ll claim the binding stone and then transfer her gems to me.”
“Oh,” Fei said. She pouted. “Does this mean I have to share your bed with her?”
Narime flushed but didn’t say anything. Her tails lay almost flat on the ground, and she kept her blue eyes fixed on Nathan.
“We’ll see,” Nathan said. He had a feeling the answer would be yes.
For now, the binding stone in this room called to him.
Chapter 33
Narime apologized to Fei as she applied what little healing magic she had. Foxes couldn’t use the natural elements, which included healing magic spells, so Narime improvised.
From what little Nathan understood, Narime’s healing magic involved directly manipulating the magic within the body. It accelerated regeneration and canceled out curses and magical effects. The downside was that it didn’t actively heal wounds or bruises. Given Champions already had enhanced regeneration, it was the equivalent of applying a bandaid to Fei.
“It’s only a few bruises. You will be fine,” Seraph said to Fei. She ruffled the hair of the younger Champion.
Fei hissed in response. “It feels like a lot more. Every muscle in my body aches.”
“That’s the force manipulation. I applied raw downward force across as much of your flesh and bone as possible,” Narime explained.
While the three women talked, Nathan approached the binding stone. It continued to glow, completely unaware of their presence.
Theus could use the binding stone as a weapon, but Nathan doubted that his counterpart knew how. Using a binding stone remotely was exceptionally difficult. It involved relying entirely on the sensory perception of the binding stone, and a Bastion needed to be very careful when modifying anything in a fortress. When Nathan had been new, he had been taught to never alter a fortress’s structure unless he was present.
There were horror stories of people being crushed when a Bastion decided to redecorate while on a trip somewhere else. The Bastion failed to check whether a wing of a castle was empty and every person inside was killed. Even if a Bastion did check, it was easy to make a mistake when using magic remotely.
Nathan had years of experience and he was still careful. While he had never killed anybody through such mistakes, he had come too close for comfort a few times.
Theus lacked that experience. If he tried to protect his binding stone, who knew what he might do to the fortress?
As such, Nathan remained alert. Once he tapped into the binding stone, he could lock Theus out, but death hung above him every second before then.
“Then why don’t my eyes hurt? Or my ears?” Fei asked. “Wouldn’t that be a good idea? Use magic to target the ears or other vulnerable parts?”
“Smaller targets mean smaller chance to hit,” Seraph explained. “That applies magically and physically. That force spell applies to your whole body, so your muscles hurt. But the smaller parts of your body got off pretty well. Which I guess means a very particular part of you hurts a lot.”
Fei stuck her tongue out, but she did rub the front of her breastplate. “Right. Now that you say it, it did feel like something was crushing my armor into my body.”
“If I could easily apply magic to your organs or individual body parts, victory would be simplicity. The bodies of ordinary people are strongly resistance to magical interference, and you’re a Champion. Only powerful ascended magic can modify somebody’s body without their permission,” Narime explained. “Otherwise, the most effective spells would be those that crush hearts and eyes, or that boil somebody’s blood.”
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