The Simurgh was incredibly fast and it could fly. I needed projectile weapons like plasma bullets to keep the Simurgh at bay. I had watched its fight with Madness, so I knew we would end up in a close quarters battle eventually, so I needed to prepare for that too.

Watching Madness’ martial arts had given me an idea. I might not have been trained in martial arts, but I did do some light boxing in the gym from time to time. It wouldn’t give me great technique, but with a little bit of magic, perhaps I could make it work.

First, I had to upgrade my magic hands. So far, magic hands worked based on motion magic. Now, I needed to make those hands faster, stronger, and more versatile. The Simurgh’s superior reach came from its wings, so I had to make my hands longer than the Simurgh’s wings too. The Simurgh’s wings could also create great gusts of wind and cast powerful spells. I needed to be able to do the same with my magic hands, which meant my magic hands had to become true extensions of my own body.

It wasn’t too hard to make that happen. All I had to do was imagine that I had extra limbs. I could supplement the sensory information that I collected through motion detection and air magic and use that to take my ‘phantom limbs’ magic to the next level. With a little bit of practice, I was able to come up with a spell that would let me cast spells and take action from any direction and at any angle. I could even use a bit more energy to create a net of spells all around my target and pummel them with it.

Then, I had to make my magic hands faster. Right now, they required conscious effort to create and use. I wanted to be able to use them as if they truly were extra limbs. If I could use them unconsciously as needed, I would have the flexibility to pull off all kinds of maneuvers during our fight. The problem was, there was only one way to make this happen. Taking a leaf out of my boxing practice, I would have to keep using this spell in a variety of ways until I got so used to it that using it would come to me as easily as breathing. I spent many years going back and forth in the past, working on casting spells from all angles and in quick succession, while trying to reduce and eliminate the need for thinking in between. I wanted to be able to block a projectile with a magic hand as quickly as I would have done with my real hand. My phantom reflexes needed work, but thankfully, time was on my side.

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The Evil Eye loved long range spells. His red beams of energy could incinerate anything in its wake, and they were incredibly versatile too. He could make them turn at an angle, curve around corners, and even zero in on targets like a homing missile. It wasn’t safe to dodge them and the only surefire way to neutralize this attack was to block it with a physical object. Unless the object was incredibly resistant to heat and energy, the red beam could pierce right through it. Usually, the only reason the beam would stop at all would be because the Evil Eye realized it was not worth spending the energy to keep the spell going through the obstacle.

There were two kinds of counters that I came up with for this spell. I could either make a perfect shield or come up with a way to reflect the spell.

The idea behind a perfect shield wasn’t too complicated. If a bunch of rocks and earth could stop the beam, a lump of lead or other metals should do the trick too. I could prepare how to extract the necessary materials from the earth, quickly, and use them to shield myself as much as possible. And even if it wasn’t possible to find the materials, I could always bring up a thick wall of dirt and make it too energy intensive for the Evil Eye to pierce through. This solution wasn’t as elegant and it would be a lot harder to dig up enough earth to block the spell completely, but it would work in a pinch.

But the idea behind a reflective counter caught my attention. What was this spell anyway? It wasn’t light, that was for sure, because it was not nearly as quick. It wasn’t a kind of laser and it didn’t seem like plasma either. Was it some sort of special energy that came from the red star? I was pretty sure the red star wasn’t a real star, anyway, so perhaps it was some kind of energy that only the Evil Eye could use. A kind of evil energy, a concentration of malice? I wasn’t sure.

As long as it was energy, I could probably reflect it. And if I couldn’t reflect it, I could come up with a similarly versatile beam of energy that I could use to perfectly counter it. That spell would be useful against the other Immortals, too, since it was clear the Evil Eye got a lot of use out of his long range superiority.

Directed energy weapons were still mostly theoretical in my world when I left it, which meant things like laser and particle beams weren’t possible for me. Sonic weapons, on the other hand, were fair game, as were some rudimentary forms of plasma weapons. Sonic spells wouldn’t be lethal, but I figured they would be useful at some range, especially if I could figure out a way to get them to counter the Evil Eye’s energy. But plasma beams were much more promising, so I began attempting to come up with a plasma beam spell while traveling through time.

The science behind it was a little annoying and I ran into all sorts of problems, especially while trying to keep the electrons free, but after a long time, I managed to come up with a spell that would let me fire my attacks at long range. The plasma beam spell wasn’t as versatile as the Evil Eye’s energy beam, since my spell couldn’t bend at an angle or anything, but I felt like it was a good start. It would be able to crash into any long range beams the Evil Eye shot at me, effectively countering the spell. That would be good enough for now, since my real plan for dealing with the Evil Eye had always been getting close enough to it that I could beat up the annoying little eye with my bare hands.

After all, the easiest way to deal with an eye, was to poke it.

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I did not know what spells to come up with to counter Madness. Madness could fight at close quarters with his martial arts and at long range with his silver scythes. I figured I would just have to deal with those two with the other spells I had invented. Phantom limbs for the close range combat, plasma beams for the silver scythes. I would also come up with a few more spells to use for different circumstances, such as spell nets, rapid fire bullets, temperature manipulation, and maybe some form of geological magic in case I needed to take pot shots at the moon.

The real trouble was trying to deal with the more abstract spells at his disposal. I didn’t want to be dancing to his tunes again, but I had a feeling that putting my fingers in my ears wouldn’t be enough to stop that spell. It wasn’t a kind of mind control and it wasn’t a kind of emotional manipulation. It really was pure music and dance, and I had a feeling the only way I could respond to that was with some music and dance of my own.

And so, I had to make some instruments, and prepare a playlist for the final battle.