Written on a scrap of paper stolen from the Vault of Denitros

It waits, lurking at the edge. I can feel it break through occasionally, spreading its tendrils into my doimain. What does it want with me? Why does the Overseer not protect me? It grows more ambitious by the year and I'm afraid I can't stop it from taking what is mine.

The flash of light ends, and my eyes widen as the reality of this new setting hits me. Gone are the grey walls and strangely organic material of the previous room, replaced with a frighteningly realistic urban setting. Houses of wood and brick surround me, and a faint breeze brings with it the sound of a busy market. The heat of the sun presses down on me from above and I’m honestly not sure if this is some battle environment or if I truly am in a city.

Of course, this worry becomes far less pressing as I spin around and spot my opponent a mere one hundred feet away. A sigh of relief escapes from me but it is quickly replaced with the faint hint of worry. The Asian man pulls the two swords from his back and holds them with obvious skill. He quickly inspects them, possibly looking for signs of tampering or damage, before nodding to himself and looking up to make eye contact with me.

His voice slices through the sound of the market as he yells toward me. “Good, I was hoping it would be you. You and that girl strike me as the only two capable combatants left but she seems more traditional, more boring. I must confess, I have no earthly clue where your Skills lie. I hope you don’t disappoint.”

As he speaks, I try to figure out as much as I can about him. His black clothing is made of fine materials, with gold filigree in the shape of a dragon ending on his left shoulder. The comfort with which he wears the clothes suggests he has been at that level of wealth for a decent period, easily before Genesis arrived. Despite this, there is something about him that suggests he didn’t always have the means or wealth that he does now. His hands are deeply callused and his skin is cracked slightly, suggesting that there was a time in his life where he may have worked in manual labor.

I respond. “You seem ready to fight but I’m willing to let this end without a single blow. If you surrender now, I swear that I’ll help you once I become Primus. If you’re looking for fights or for war, there is going to be more than enough to go around. It seems like this is only the first step in a battle that is going to go on for too long.”

He looks at me with a raised eyebrow, twirling his two swords around in a captivating pattern. They seem to capture the light and I’m able to get a good look at them for the first time. Engraved hilts with a loose red cloth attached at the end are connected to a long blade that gently curls upwards as it reaches the tip. He handles them with familiarity, spinning them end over end with ease.

“Now that is an interesting offer. But first I must ask, what would you intend to do as Primus?”

I’m slightly taken aback. “Excuse me?”

“What would you do as Primus? Would you try to raise up the weak? Cull them? Separate everyone into castes based on strength? Give your power up to democracy? What would you do?”

Pausing, I gather my thoughts. He props one of his swords into a small gap between bricks and leans on it, looking at me with a bemused expression. After a few moments, I respond. “I plan on protecting humanity. To give people an opportunity to grow in the manner of their own choice. If I can balance those two principles then I’ll consider myself a success.”

He clicks his tongue annoyingly, gathering the sword up. “Ah, see that is where our differences lie. The last thing I want is some world where the strong are kept shackled because of the incorrect idea that everyone is equal. Where on earth did that come from? Of course everyone isn’t equal, we are all different. It just so happens that certain people are better at what actually matters.”

He throws both of his swords up into the air and claps his hands together. As they come tumbling back down, they begin to slow until they stand perfectly upright in front of him. “And I happen to be very good at this.”

Without warning, the blades come flying forward and he dashes into an alley, disappearing from my sight. The blades move with an extreme speed and I reach out to them with Motion as they get closer, bringing my full Willpower to bear to rob them of their momentum. Strangely, they resist this by skirting alongside the edges of my sizable Field. It is almost as if they move with an intelligence of their own.

With the scimitars now skirting around the edge of my Field, I conjure some wind and rob it of its Motion, using the extra Dexterity to hop up onto the roof of a tall building. Unless he’s hiding some strange capability, which I’ve honestly almost come to expect at this point, my opponent lacks the ranged capability that could break through my defenses. I begin scattering sound particles in all directions, feeling the mental image of the landscape begin to form within my mind.

I’m not able to find him but a few other questions I’d had are answered.

It becomes very clear within moments that we aren’t in an actual city and are instead within some sort of testing area. The sound particles that I’d sent towards the sky come back within moments, painting the picture of a ceiling just two hundred feet above me. Particles sent in all other directions return in varying speeds and, gradually, the full picture of our surroundings becomes clearer. We are in a room that is nearly half a mile wide as well as tall, filled with a fake urban setting. There aren’t any people in this faux-city, but the room perfectly mimics the sensation of the breeze tussling my hair, the sounds of a lively market, and even the slight odor of unwashed bodies in cramped spaces. Whatever they use to create this area, it is extremely lifelike.

Just as I’m considering these aspects of the room, I feel a slight vibration through my Field. Just a second later, the building falls out from underneath me, collapsing in upon itself. I leap forward off the edge and begin pouring Mana into the air around me, creating massive gusts that keep me aloft as I slowly drift over to a much lower building.

As soon as the dust settles, my opponent, his two scimitars trailing behind him, saunters onto the pile of rubble and looks at me with a raised eyebrow. His voice cuts through all the ambient sound, carrying despite his relaxed tone. “You know, you are the only other person I’ve met who figured out a way to use Mana. The idiot in my first match imagined our whole fight was going to be us swinging weapons at each other until one of us died.”

A gentle flick of his wrist causes the sword to fall to his feet, going flat. He steps upon the first blade and then the second comes up to catch his foot. I watch incredulously as the blades raise him in the air until he’s at my level just a short forty feet away. Annoyingly, it’s just right outside my Field. Now that I know that he’s using Mana, it makes a lot more sense.

His finger, glowing with sickly green light, reaches out and gently drags through the edge of my Field. A grating sensation, like nails screeching down a blackboard, radiates in my mind, accompanied with a high pitched whining noise, and I have to fight to stop myself from falling onto my knees.

“It wasn’t until my beauties came up against this thing that I finally realized what it was. You’ve somehow spread your Mana all around yourself like a blanket, haven’t you? What a fascinating idea. Quite risky though. It looks as if you’ve never had to experience what Mana Disruption feels like”, he continues, pushing my Field further back with his finger. It rips through my Mana and seems to dissipate it, removing it from my control and letting it sink into the air around us.

Trying to ignore the pain and noise, I glance at my Well and notice that it seems to be decreasing more than it should be. Wincing, I look up at him as his entire hand begins to glow with the green light.

“I was worried I was never going to find a use for this Skill, but you’ve proven that the Way Points were worth it. Thank you for that.” He raises his hand into the sky and then brings it down like a guillotine. A thin wave of the green energy bursts out of his hand and rushes toward me, cutting through my Field and dissipating the defenses I’d put into place.

With barely any time to react, I throw myself to the side and dodge off the side of the building. My body becomes a tumbling mess of barely controlled limbs as I fall off the three-story building and onto the ground with a heavy thump. Immense pain washes through me but I’ve become friendly with pain at this point. There’s nothing like getting your hand cut off when it comes to familiarizing yourself with pain.

For the first time since I unlocked the Skill, I willfully contract my Field until it rests just an inch above my skin. The sensation leaves me feeling strangely … naked. Without realizing, I’d become accustomed to the feeling of awareness around myself. The ability to perceive and manipulate the world around me had become an everyday part of my life.

The man drifts down from the building on his two swords as I get onto my feet. Without the green energy of his ‘Mana Disruption’ within my Field, I feel my mental acuity beginning to return and I consider the new circumstances.

The man’s moves from the beginning of the battle until now have been strange. He started the fight cautious, using his scimitars to test me while hiding. Once he knew I was using Mana, however, he became extremely straightforward in his assault. All sense of subterfuge disappeared in an instant. My mind races as he gently descends.

Does … is there a possibility that he considers this fight already over? He had mentioned the fact that he’d never been able to use his Mana Disruption Skill before. Perhaps he believes that it all but guarantees his victory. If that’s the case, then all I have to do is catch him off guard. His earlier subtlety suggests that he lacks the ability to take extreme punishment so maybe all I need is one good hit.

His feet touch the ground and he begins to walk forward to me as I slowly back up, trying to make myself appear more afraid than I am. He chuckles at my expression and raises his hand up to his eyes as he walks, peering into the green energy that fills me with nausea. “You were so confident that you would win this battle and I’ve managed to take you down with a single Skill. In a way, it is poetic. A hero of the people brought down by his own arrogance.”

As he gets closer and closer, passing twenty feet and approaching ten feet away, I gather as much Mana within my body as possible. Unable to bring it into the world or use my Field to slowly build it up, I bottle it within myself, letting the pressure increase. Pain ravages through me but I keep it off of my face.

He closes the distance, almost within arms distance. His Mana Disruption hand reaches out toward me and, just as it is one foot away, I make my strike.

A blast of Earth Mana through my foot causes huge walls to rise up around us and into the fall, blocking us off from all light except for the green energy. The man hesitates for a split second as the walls rise and I capitalize on that moment. Closing my eyes, I open the floodgates of Mana within me. Focusing exclusively on electricity and plasma, I pray that my Conductive Body is enough to survive this attack.

Even behind closed eyelids, I’m able to see the bright flash of light as every bit of my Mana erupts in an assault of lightning. Screams fill the tiny closed off space and the air around us becomes extremely ionized as the lightning seems endless.

It finally ends and I collapse onto the ground, absolutely exhausted and completely drained of Mana. The makeshift lean to that I created with the Earth Mana blocks off all light and I’m unable to see what happened to my opponent. My only indicator that he didn’t live is the smell of charred flesh that seems to swirl around me, trapped along with me.

After a few moments, a flash of light begins to surround me, briefly illuminating the aftermath of my attack. The man is completely burnt to a crisp with his arms raised up by his face, probably in one last attempt to use his Disruption to stop the attack.

The light envelops me and I feel myself fade away from the battlefield.