The slimes quickened their approach, starving for his and Yuri's energy. The Frontier Fantasy games Nico played throughout his whole life made the slimes look cute and bouncy and adorable. Nothing about the real things suggested they were worthy of a cuddle. These were more like little amorphous vampiric sewer rats.

A few of the smaller slime lagged behind, reminding Nico of the pack-hierarchy among wolves. The blond Russian couldn't protect himself now that he was out cold. Nico positioned himself between the slimes and Yuri.

His stamina bar flickered at five percent. It should have drained by now. Had he been pushed to his physical limits so many times today that his body was used to it? It was something to look into if he survived this, plus a million other things.

His MP bar did not look much better. Slimes on their own weren't a huge threat, but they never travelled alone. Nico had never faced this many at once. He didn't have enough magic to cast a full spell, even a cantrip. That left only injecting power into his spell formations.

Nico flexed his fingers, shifted his weight to the balls of his feet for quick movement, and grunted, “Come on you little rats.”

The slimes inched closer, smearing the floor with the remains of their wet ectoplasm.

Luckily, Nico's Auto-Scan revealed their estimated ETA down to a tenth of a second, highlighted as numbers above each of the slimes. Measure grouped together the times of the incoming slime if they weren't far from each other, giving a rougher estimate. Nico would need to use every little bit of time.

Measure allowed his body to move with inhuman efficiency.

Nico withdrew his last black marker and uncapped it with the lightning-speed of an old western gunslinger. Acting without thought, he drew the ectoplasmic binding formation he'd created earlier. The lines came out smooth and graceful, varying in thickness to accommodate the unique flow of energy for the spell array.

He had drawn it so fast, he could barely believe it was his own hand that drafted the array. The array was almost as clean as the vector-based images he created in Adobe Illustrator.

The first group of the largest slimes squirmed straight into the formation. Nico activated it with the smallest touch of his power and will. The slimes' bodies twisted inward to the array as if sucked in by a black hole.

Triumph trickled into Nicos heart like fresh rain in the desert. But it dried right up at the sight of the other slime. There was no time for celebration, just action.

Nico was worried for a second if he made the wrong choice for which spell formation to draw. Did it scare off the other slime?

For a moment, he allowed himself to hope. When they marched forward straight toward Yuri once again, he realized how terrible it would be if the slimes became self aware enough to run away from a threat. The only reason Nico had a sliver of a chance of surviving this encounter was the fact slimes operated on a single word: hunger.

There was no time to triumph over the success of his own spell formation. More slimes came from down both ends of the hall as if multiplying. Was there an end to them?

He couldn’t help but notice that the slimes were aiming more toward Yuri than to Nico. Slimes were attracted to magical power. That meant Yuri’s unconscious state held more magical power than Nico had while awake.

It was just another reminder of how extremely out of league he was in terms of raw magical power to other magicians.

Nico steadied his breathing. Measure calmed his nerves with the cold calculation of a simple computer, but his fear bubbled underneath the surface. That was okay. He didn't need to push the fear down like Measure wanted him to. He could use it.

The fear made him move faster and sharpened his focus.

More slimes slid into Nico’s spell arrays, sucked into the ectoplasmic binding formation.

[Ectoplasmic Binding Formation filled]

[Ectoplasmic Binding Formation filled]

“Yikes.” Nico hurriedly began drawing another formation.

The arrays filled up faster than Nico calculated. That didn’t make any sense. The number of slimes didn’t equate to...Of course. He was an idiot.

It wasn’t just their numbers that mattered for filling up the binding formation. Nico didn’t account for their size. The slimes’ magic power was probably directly proportionate to their physical size. He felt as if he made the connection a half-second longer than usual.

His hands shook a little and looked at them confused. Why did his focus waver now?

He looked down at his feet and realized that a few of the slime had made it past the filled spell arrays. Why didn’t he notice them right away?

The green stamina bar in his vision flickered in opacity, answering his question. His mind was directly tied to his body. If he was tired, it didn’t just mean physically. It meant mentality too.

Looks like Gallahad was right about his Three Aspect theory.

The slimes were sucking his magic dry.

In a flare of panic, he kicked them away as hard as he could. A few were thrown back, only to move forward again relentlessly. A couple clung to his ankles, sticking to him like some gelatinous glue.

The cool calculation brought to him by Measure wavered. He bent down and peeled them off, having to drop his marker to make sure they didn't absorb any more magic.

He braved a quick glance at the stamina bar which was down now to three percent. If that went down to zero, he'd be unconscious again, and easy pickings for the vulturous slime.

A part of him thought it would be nice if he surrendered. Ever since the insanity of his birthday started, he had given it his all. He tracked and found Pullman. He survived several encounters with forces magnitudes more powerful than him.

Nico had done his best.

But in the corner of his eye lay Yuri, defenseless. Slimes crawled up the Russian’s pants, and Yuri’s face grew pale.

A red hot swell of anger that bubbling at the bottom of his stomach spewed to the surface of his thoughts like violent magma. It was fury, indignation, and the desire for vindication all at once.

His own death was fine. He’d made peace with that the moment he escaped from the Sentinels at his apartment. But Yuri’s death?

Heck no.

Nico couldn't let someone else die because of him. Somehow Pullman had used Nico's magic to sacrifice four innocent souls. Nico would not add another to that list.

He stamped his feet against his own ankle squishing the slimes.

To his surprise, they broke apart and burst easily. He could feel his stamina not draining as quickly.

He jumped back awkwardly, and felt Measure taking a hold of him once again.

Nico exhaled slowly and realized he had dropped his marker.

Slimes crowded around Yuri.

There weren’t that many of them, but it would only take a few to suck out the last of the Russian’s magic. Apparently, Yuri had more magical power in his reserves when he was unconscious than Nico did standing and awake. Nico pushed the old envy aside and jumped forward even without a marker to draw spell formations.

He was fueled by shame for even leaving his companion’s side for just a second. Running straight into the slimes to step on them wouldn't do any good. They would just latch onto him and eat his magic. Nico was so dangerously on the edge of his own collapse, that he couldn't risk death.

No, he needed to do something that wouldn't require touching them.

He kicked a few away with his shoe. Luckily, he wasn’t wearing shorts. So when they did try to latch onto him, they latched onto his pants instead. He tried to reach for the marker, but it was covered by one of the slimes.

The last thing he wanted to do was touch the slime, but he needed that marker or else he had no way to draw anymore formations.

He bent down and squished the small slime holding from his marker. It took more strength than he anticipated, and he slipped. He caught himself halfway from the fall with his hand, his palm smacking on the cold stone floor.

One slime crawled up his wrist, and Nico could feel his power dwindling as soon as he touched the slime. He threw it one far as he could, and grabbed his marker.

A notification appeared.

[Calculation abilities tempered due to loss of equilibrium.]

Nico could feel his brain becoming sluggish. The cold calculation of his ability that suppressed his fear like a damn to a river began to crack. Measure was eroding, something he didn’t think was possible until this very moment. His body shook, and he couldn't tell if it was from fear or from exhaustion or both.

The old, frightened Nico was coming back and he didn't like it. The fear and doubt and panic was no longer muted by Measure.

Nico shook his head, and roared. Fear wasn’t his enemy. He had lived with it his whole life. The fear of losing another loved one, the fear of not being enough, and the fear of regret had haunted him like wicked shadows his whole life. He embraced the fear as more slimes crawled up his leg.

The slime scenes covered Yuri as well.

Nico’s stamina and MP bar flickered in unison at once percent.

The magical computer in the back of Nico’s mind stopped calculating. It was no longer a pillar he could lean on to keep himself up.

This was the end. No more calculations. No more hard numbers. He couldn't even divine the distance between him and Yurit.

Nico could only rely on his instincts as a hedge mage. His hand moved the marker as if on its own, fueled by his years of tracing Gallahad’s formulas in his basement countless times.

He blinked, and a rough estimate of Gallahad’s control formation appeared in black lines on the wall Nico leaned on. It was crude and could barely keep magical power inside of it. The formation had no modifications or variations in line quality. It was as if he were a child again, tracing his mother’s drawings of the formation in her spellbook.

Nico tried to breathe, but it was hard. Why was that?

Past the haze of his vision, he noticed the slimes had reached his throat, constricting around it like some amorphous snake. He teetered as if a tower struck by lightning, the weight of the slime threatening to knock over.

The only thing keeping him up was the wall he leaned on, his hand pressed next to the crude control formation he had drawn on instinct. The marker fell from his hand, plopping to the floor.

Nico gasped for air, and let out a strangled chuckle.

This was ridiculous. He was going to die from slimes, the lowest rung of the ladder of the gray dead. He had to do something. But what could he do? He had no more magic in reserve to cast spells. His measurability was attached to every part of him, and couldn't divine a single thing.

All he had left was the control formation without any modifications. All it could do was channel energy with whatever was left of his fading will.

Despite the oncoming doom, the sight of one of Gallahad’s formations comforted him. His mother had made sure to teach him that the basics of all magic were all he needed. If she saw how his day had gone, she might have changed her lessons to be more accommodating to his circumstances.

But she was gone. All he had left was Gallahad.

Nico was not a religious person. The closest thing he had to religion was his trust in his magic, not even his own magic, but Gallahad.

He shifted the weight of his entire body that was covered in slime so that his hand slid over the control formation.

In his mind, he recited the first words of Gallahad’s principles.

The nature of magic is Change.

His magic was empty. His stamina was empty. His vision was near black.

And yet, there was sliver of him still awake, still holding on to this side of life. What was that thin line his consciousness clung to? It felt almost insubstantial, but opaque as silvery moonlight.

It was the first Nico could feel the emptiness of magical power in his own body. Without stamina to uphold his mind and body, he couldn’t summon any proper emotions, even fear.

He was just a vessel, an empty husk ready to be filled. Nico was empty of his hate of Pullman, his fear of not being a real magician to validate his mother’s magic, his hopes of finding his own place in the world.

Nico surrendered.

Outside his body, something stirred, vibrating like a shimmering hum. It felt weak and multiple and grey.

The hum was power, but not his own. And it ran into him.

No, not into. He was not the destination.

It ran through his body, empty of all magic.

The darkness of sleep took him, but not completely. Instead he felt something like motes of muddy light twisting from the warmth of his hand pressed against the stone wall, and blooming back into his body.

Pressure released from every inch of his body. Air rushed into his lungs.

Nico opened his eyes, his face leaning against the cold stone wall of the tower. He blink wearily.

His MP and stamina were not only at one percent again, but steadily rising. A new grey bar appeared next to the other bars in his heads up display. The slimes had disappeared, leaving only their ectoplasmic goo behind.

Nico lifted his hand from the wall in confusion, not understanding what happened. Then he paused, staring at the wall until his mind could comprehend what he was seeing.

The crude Gallahad control formation was gone.