BANG!
The hall cracked open beneath a single step.
"...I….m....."
The nobles gasped, hands shielding their faces from the dust. The movement of the battle to fast for them to even utter the full words.
The pianist moved.
GRAB!
Air snapped as his hand clamped around the Magi's throat.
SHHHHRRRK!
The mana shield shattered a second later, like the world remembering to react.
The Magi's eyes widened.
'This has never happened before.'
And yet-there was no fear. His eyes gleamed with fascination.
'How wonderful.'
Kuzan threw him upward.
The ceiling broke apart. Dust and light and broken stone spiraled into the air as the old man became a comet.
Kuzan was gone before the pieces hit the floor. He hit the earth, legs coiling like springs, stone cracking beneath his feet.
THUMP!
The Magi's body hit the sky, rising higher than any bell tower.
Then, the shadow caught up to him.
Kuzan appeared mid-air, leg already swinging.
A blade of compressed air followed his heel; chantless magic, mana guided by experience alone. Akin to a hand trying to stop a bullet.
It was equally as effective.
The spell's defense shattered under the force.
The kick landed.
The Magi shot across the city like a star falling in reverse - carving trenches through the outskirts, bouncing across fields and stone until everything stopped in silence and dust.
"…Heh."
From within the crater, the old man rose. His robes were in tatters, his skin glowing faintly green.
CRRCKK! CRRCKK!
Bones realigned. Flesh sealed. Mana swallowed each wound whole, manipulating the body to heal itself. By the time he stood, only fluttering rags marked his humiliation.
He brushed the dirt from his sleeve, not minding the tears, smiling wide.
KRRRSHHH!
Kuzan moved again.
The air split around him.
Less than a breath.
BANG!
A fist to the gut; yet something was wrong.
SPLAT!
The Magi exploded into clay.
A double.
Kuzan's head turned - no hesitation - as glyphs spiraled to life beside him.
The real Magi stepped through the light, staff raised-
But the boy was already there.
Another fist. Another impact.
The Magi folded in half, breath leaving him like a dying wind.
His body flew backward; but it stopped midair.
ZIIIIINGGGGG!
Hundreds of glowing circles spun around him like planetary rings, each pulsing with elemental force.
They ignited.
SHHHHHHKKKTT!
Blades of fire. Whips of water. Spears of black stone. Arrows of air.
All aimed.
All released.
FWOOOOOOOOOSHHHH!
A storm of pure mana descended.
BOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!!!
The outskirts of the capital vanished in light and shock. Waves of momentum tore outward, flattening trees, hurling earth into the sky like a volcanic eruption.
If it had landed within the city-tens of thousands would have died.
And amidst the chaos, realization struck the Magi cold.
'He threw me out here on purpose.'
His mind raced further, analyzing the battle just fought.
'He's fighting like a beast', the Magi's thoughts changed from the uselessness of processing to questioning, 'how did he track me? Mana? His mana? Why can't I sense-'
He exhaled slowly, comforting himself with the thought that he'd bought a few seconds to breathe.
It was a mistake.
He didn't have time to breathe, much less the luxury to think.
Fast. Too fast.
CRUNCH!
Stone exploded beneath Kuzan's heel as he surged forward, body moving at the edge of human possibility.
The Magi didn't blink. His fingers curled in the air, weaving his commands.
"No air."
The atmosphere folded.
Air vanished around the boy, an attack more effective than any poison.
Checkmate.
For anyone else.
But instinct answered faster than thought.
He jumped.
Kuzan's hand shot forward-
and clamped around the Magi's throat.
The cartilage folded.
It was the Magi who couldn't breathe.
The Magi's hands twitched, desperate, turning inward to repair what was broken.
The atmosphere returned.
The Magi forced air through a mangled windpipe.
A gasp. Weak, but enough.
Enough for Kuzan to draw a single breath.
That was all the Magi needed.
His smile returned.
His finger lifted.
"Dance."
The air Kuzan inhaled was no longer air. It was the Magi's will, threaded through every mote of mana.
An invasion.
The spell reached deeper-into veins, into his blood; forcing the victim's own mana to betray them.
It should have ended there.
But Kuzan didn't fall.
He just stood.
Still.
Unmoving.
The Magi began to sweat, understanding the implications of the current moment.
Realization creeped in.
"You're giving me time," he said slowly, staring at the boy. "To think. To understand you."
Silence.
The Magi laughed once, hollow. "What are you? A demon?"
Still nothing.
"If I were younger, I might have enjoyed this," he said, voice softening. "But you…"
He lifted a trembling finger. "…You are far too dangerous."
The air shifted.
The ground pulsed with distant light.
Magic Seals.
Intricate sigils buried deep beneath the land, designed to channel ambient mana from across the continent. Mana was infinite, yes, but the mind could only command so much without tearing itself apart. The Labyrinths bypassed that limit. They gave form to what no mortal mind could bear.
After countless years of work, the Magi had designed them to do the impossible; to think with him. Each seal acted as an auxiliary mind, a processor of equations no human consciousness could balance in time.
The world's first calculator: thousands of runic circuits performing in harmony, bearing the brunt of the computation required to cast this spell.
The Magi reached a threshold of control beyond mortals.
He raised his staff. His voice dropped to a whisper.
"I have lived for one hundred and thirty-three years," he said. "And every year has taught me one thing, boy-"
He slammed the staff into the ground.
"-never attack a sorcerer in his own domain."
It materialised from nowhere, three hundred feet in every direction around him.
A golden sphere, as bright as a second sun.
This was no spell.
It was pure mana, compressed to a solid state.
Its walls shimmered with molten symbols, folding and refolding like living script.
Kuzan looked up.
There was no escape.
The cage was sealed.
From every direction, mana began to compress on itself.
Runes ignited across the surface of the sphere, each one a self-contained world of power, each one launching the highest condensed stream of mana possible.
It was a red hearing.
This was not elemental magic. No elegant symphony of the four cores.
It was the purest form of attack.
An attack of mana.
The golden walls were not merely there to trap Kuzan; they existed to contain the fallout.
Even the barrier wouldn't survive its own birth.
Kuzan did not move.
"Will you leave if I win?" the boy mouthed the words, his voice trapped within the sphere.
The walls pulsed once.
"No." Magi replied.
Then detonated.
A violet radiance surged outward, flooding the sky.
Villagers stirred from sleep.
Children pressed faces to windows.
Night was torn away-replaced by a fleeting morning that lasted only a second.
For a moment, the entire continent thought morning had come early.
—and in that instant, as the world drowned in brilliance, something looked back.
Not at the brilliance.
She looked at the mana.
It was an attack that should never have existed-
One hundred thirty-three years of obsession, utilizing the sum totality of mana he could possibly command.
The Magi's magnum opus.
And it was over.
The world returned to darkness.
His body fell from the sky. Limp. Mana gone. Mind hollow. Levitation failed.
A mind could only handle so much.
He fell.
But Kuzan caught him.
A princess carry.
The boy held him easily, voice quiet.
"Well fought, old man," he said. "You told me all I needed to know."
"Thank you." The boy spoke his due, placing the Magi's body on the ground to let his mind recover.
A weightless presence brushed against his senses, soft yet immense, like the hush that falls before a storm remembers how to breathe.
The moment had come.
Kuzan turned and saw her.
An old woman, upside-down, hanging in the sky.
Blue dress drifting. Silver hair hanging toward the earth.
She wasn't flying.
She was walking - on nothing.
As if walking down some invisible stairs.
She descended slowly, still inverted, until her face was level with Kuzan's.
Her eyes bore deeply into his.
For a long moment, she simply stared at him. Then, with a faint smile, she reached out both hands and cupped his cheeks.
"What a cutie."