The next few days came fairly monotonous to me—which was a strange thing to acknowledge given that my definition of "monotonous" had apparently evolved to include activities most sane people would categorize as "recklessly courting death through provocation of wealthy people who could afford to make me disappear."
Most of my time was spent back at the hot springs alone, my crew occupied with the theater's renovations while I prowled the steamy outdoor pools picking fights with nobles like some kind of deranged duelist.
Testing my new displacement ability had become something between obsession and entertainment, each successful scrambling of someone's magical flow feeding into my growing addiction.
There was something intoxicating about it, about watching years of training and entitlement collapse with a single touch, about witnessing power fail so completely it didn't even have the dignity to resist.
The nobles, to their credit, were nothing if not consistent. The pattern never changed. It always began with confidence—smug, relaxed, faintly bored—as they agreed to spar with what they assumed was just another slave looking looking for attention, followed by confusion when their first spell fizzled mid-cast after I made contact, escalating into panic as subsequent attempts produced identical failures, finally culminating in either furious accusations of cheating or stunned silence as they frantically tried to process what had just happened to them.
The slaves who frequented the springs as attendants or entertainment tracked my improbable winning streak with a fascinating spectrum of reactions. Some watched with open, barely concealed delight—the sharp pleasure of schadenfreude lighting their eyes as yet another self-important patron found himself publicly humbled.
Others looked on with far less comfort, their expressions tight with anxious calculation, as though tallying the odds of when—not if—this display would attract someone powerful enough to punch straight through whatever clever trick I was using with murder on their mind.
I'd just finished my latest victory—a portly merchant who'd challenged me to magical combat and ended up pinned beneath me on the smooth stone walkway, panting like an overheated dog while I sat astride his considerable stomach with my legs crossed in a pose of casual dominance—when the atmosphere in the hot springs shifted dramatically.
Whispers rippled through the gathered crowd like wind through grass, quick and contagious, heads turning toward the entrance in near-perfect synchronization.
The man who entered was tall—easily matching Brutus in sheer vertical presence—and imposing in ways that had nothing to do with physical bulk.
Wild dark blue hair erupted from his scalp in a tuft that seemed to defy both gravity and reasonable grooming standards alike, framing a face marked by an almost ethereal focus. His gaze slid across the springs without settling, eyes unfixed and distant, as though he were observing realities slightly adjacent to the one the rest of us occupied.
Unlike everyone else in the hot springs who'd embraced the traditional state of complete nudity—this man remained fully clothed, swathed head to toe in mage's robes—elaborate garments of deep indigo covered in silver stitching that formed arcane symbols, the kind of formal attire practitioners wore to announce their status and training to anyone who knew how to read the visual language.
He hadn't come here to relax. He was on a mission, purposeful and directed, with me clearly marked as the target.
The whispers intensified then, voices overlapping in excited speculation. "That's—" "No way, is that—" "A registered mage from The City of Secrets!" "From Greywatch itself!" "What would bring someone like that here?"
I perked up immediately at the mention of Greywatch, the third layer of Prismillya's elaborate underground structure. A place said to be simultaneously more civilized and far more dangerous than the Velvet Chambers. The City of Secrets, they called it, where knowledge was currency and mages trained in disciplines that made standard magical education look like children playing with sparklers.
The mage's ethereal gaze landed on me with visible disgust, his lip curling as he took in the scene—me sitting astride the pudgy noble who was clearly enjoying his new position far more than dignity should allow—naked, smug, and radiating the kind of confidence that came from winning too many fights in rapid succession.
The man beneath me panted like crazy, his hands twitching like he wanted to grab my thighs but didn't quite dare, his arousal obvious and entirely unbothered by the judgmental stare being directed our way.
"I am Kieran Whitmore, Third Circle Aquamancer of Greywatch Academy," the mage intoned, his voice carrying that particular quality of people accustomed to being listened to when they spoke. "I was passing through the Velvet Chambers on business when I started hearing the most peculiar rumors—a slave who somehow nullifies magic with a touch, who's been defeating practitioners without casting a single spell of their own. Naturally, my curiosity was piqued."
I hopped off my pudgy seat with a fluid, almost theatrical grace, landing barefoot on the smooth stone walkway with a soft, satisfied sound, still warm from the thermal waters flowing beneath. Steam curled lazily around my ankles as I straightened.
Then I flicked my wrist in a dismissive shooing motion, waving the man away like an overly affectionate pet. He scrambled back into the crowd with a breathless whimper, his face flushed and his arousal still prominently on display as he disappeared among the other spectators gathered around the various pools.
I stepped right up to Kieran, planting myself squarely in his personal space with a confident glare. I tilted my head back to maintain eye contact, the height difference between us doing absolutely nothing to dampen my enthusiasm.
"Third Circle Aquamancer," I repeated, letting amusement color my tone. "That sounds impressively official. Tell me, do they give you a fancy certificate with that title, or is it more of an honor system thing? Because I've been calling myself 'Supreme Chaos Gremlin of the Hot Springs' for the past seventy-two hours and nobody's stopped me yet."
Kieran's eye twitched—just slightly, barely perceptible, but I caught it and filed the reaction away as a minor victory. "Your flippancy is noted and disregarded. I'm here to determine if these rumors have any basis in reality or if you've simply been exploiting weak-willed practitioners who fold under psychological pressure. Shall we test this supposed ability of yours, or do you need time to prepare yourself mentally for facing someone with actual training?"
I sighed with theatrical weariness, holding out my hand palm-up and giving my fingers a lazy little wiggle motion—the gesture polished to near perfection over the past few days. "Before we start with the posturing and eventual combat, there's a small administrative matter we need to address."
Kieran raised his brow with aristocratic precision. "Administrative matter?"
"There's a hundred crown fee to challenge me," I explained, "Standard rate, non-negotiable, payable in advance. You can think of it as an admission charge to the 'Get Your Ass Kicked by Someone Half Your Size' experience. Very exclusive. Highly sought after. I've been making bank."
His jaw actually dropped, the ethereal composure cracking to reveal genuine shock beneath. "You're charging people to fight you? That's—you greedy bastard!"
"Entrepreneur," I corrected sweetly. "The word you're looking for is entrepreneur. And before you ask what you get in return if you somehow manage to win—" I stuck out my tongue with an exaggerated wink that made several spectators giggle in response, "—you'd get to fuck me silly. Right here, right now, in front of everyone. Very motivating prize, really drives home the competitive spirit."
Kieran stared at me for several long seconds, his expression cycling through emotions too quickly to track before settling on resigned acceptance.
With a sigh that carried the weight of someone who knew they were being manipulated but couldn't see an alternative, he fished out a leather pouch from within his robes and extended it toward me.
"You're insufferable. I want that noted for the record."
I opened the pouch with greedy fingers, flicking through the contents—gold crowns, precisely counted, exactly what I'd demanded—then tossed it back without even looking.
"Someone hold onto that for me!" I called out cheerfully, rewarded a heartbeat later by the satisfying sound of fumbling and a startled yelp as someone barely managed to catch it. I turned my attention back to Kieran with a grin too wide to be sane. "Pleasure doing business with you. Now let's see if your magic holds up better than everyone else's has."
"We'll see who's left standing," Kieran replied, his tone steady but his lips betraying him as they curved into something that hovered just shy of a smile. He began rolling up his sleeves with unhurried confidence, the gesture practiced, almost ritualistic. "I've been a practitioner for fifteen years. Whatever trick you're using won't work on someone with proper mastery."
We stepped back several paces, the crowd parting to create a circular arena on the stone pathways between the steaming pools, spectators pressing against wooden railings and decorative rocks with the kind of eager anticipation usually reserved for gladiatorial matches.
The air grew heavy. Not metaphorically—physically. Steam curled thicker, slower, clinging to skin and fabric as ambient magic began to bleed into the space, warping light and sound in subtle, unsettling ways.
I could feel it humming against my ribs, that familiar, almost intimate pressure just beneath the skin—an insistent vibration that wasn't pain or fear but the quiet, predatory promise of violence waiting to be given purpose.
Across from me, Kieran stood unnervingly still, all the restless confidence he'd worn earlier bleeding away as his focus narrowed, posture locking into something practiced and deliberate.
Then he moved.
His hands rose with unhurried precision, weaving complex gestures that pulled water directly from the hot springs on either side of him until two massive columns erupted upward with explosive force, the sudden displacement sending waves crashing against stone edges and spraying the front rows of spectators.
The liquid didn't splash or scatter as it should have. Instead it obeyed. It coiled and lifted, thick volumes of liquid hanging obediently in the air as though gravity had been downgraded from law to suggestion, every drop held in perfect suspension by his will alone. The control was exquisite—terrifyingly so.
Nobles screamed in genuine terror as gallons upon gallons of water climbed higher overhead, twisting into vast, impossible shapes that no natural force would ever tolerate, let alone sustain. The sheer mass of it loomed like a sky made liquid, a hanging catastrophe waiting for permission to fall.
I didn't even blink.
Kieran drew the suspended water inward, guiding it around his body in vast, shifting arcs that moved with hypnotic precision. The streams folded and unfurled through the air like living calligraphy—layers of motion intersecting and separating, each movement calculated and purposeful.
Then he struck.
His hands snapped outward—sharp, decisive—and the water answered instantly. The massive streams hardened mid-motion, coherence locking them into shape as they lashed forward like whips forged from liquid steel. They screamed through the air, velocity compressing them into lethal lines that promised shattered bone and torn flesh if they found their mark.
I stepped aside from the first without effort, my body moving before conscious thought had time to interfere. The second strike came faster—angled, adjusted, learning. I felt the intent behind it as much as I saw the motion, and this time evasion demanded commitment.
My legs coiled and released with explosive force, launching me into a backflip that carried me cleanly over the snapping arc, stretching the distance between us. Steam rushed past my face as I rotated, the crowd blurring into color and sound beneath me.
I landed in a low crouch, momentum folding smoothly through my frame, already shifting position as Kieran pressed the advantage. Both whips came at once now, crossing paths in a coordinated assault that demonstrated tactical thinking beyond simple brute force.
He was herding me, narrowing angles, testing reactions—fighting not to impress, but to end this efficiently. Stone cracked where the strikes missed me, sharp fissures spiderwebbing across the pavement with each impact.
Kieran's face was set, jaw tight, eyes locked on me with a focused intensity that stripped away his earlier arrogance.
I danced around him with enhanced speed and agility, resisting the urge to rush, letting the exchange breathe. My smaller size worked in my favor as I slipped between attacks that would have obliterated anyone foolish enough to stand still, each near-miss close enough to feel the displacement of force brush past my skin.
Stone warmed by the springs whispered under my bare feet as I moved, and with every evasion I drifted a little closer, eroding the space between us despite his best efforts to keep me at bay.
Each time I crossed into touching range, Kieran responded with disciplined precision. The massive streams of water he commanded drew together around him, folding inward into a swirling barrier that wrapped his body in constant motion.
I tested it once, briefly—long enough to feel the current snap at my fingers and shove me back, hands unable to penetrate without being seized and swept away. Smart. Tactically sound. Exactly what someone with his training should do when facing an opponent whose abilities seemed to require physical contact.
Eventually, I abandoned the pretense of restraint. Somewhere between the third evasive twist and the fourth near miss, my thoughts crossed a quiet but decisive threshold—the point continued dodging became pointless showboating.
I slipped around another stray whip, letting the motion carry me through one final, fluid evasion, then made my decision. I activated my disappearing ability, feeling reality buckle and peel back around me in the span of five measured heartbeats. The world thinned, lost its weight, and I dissolved cleanly into that alternate realm of smoke and shadow, leaving solidity behind like an abandoned stage set as I vanished from view.
I watched Kieran's smoky outline pivot sharply, his head snapping from side to side as confusion finally cracked through his control. The water streams he'd been manipulating wavered, their once-pristine arcs stuttering and fraying at the edges, motion losing its surgical precision as his focus was lost trying to locate an opponent who'd simply vanished from perceptible reality.
I used that split second of hesitation to spin around behind him with movements he couldn't track, positioning myself perfectly before snapping back into reality with my hand pressed flat against the exposed skin of his neck.
Kieran reacted instantly, his training kicking in with impressive speed as he crossed his arms and directed both water streams to converge on his position in a defensive maneuver that should've swept me away before I could do whatever he feared I was planning.
Too late.
I activated my displacement ability, feeling my Astral Nexus extend outward through my palm and into his body, sending disruptive signals directly into his magical core that scrambled his organized energy flow into chaotic static.
Kieran's eyes went wide, shock stealing the breath from his lungs as his magic simply… refused to respond. The control he'd spent fifteen years cultivating fractured all at once, splintering like glass struck by a hammer.
Both he and his spell collapsed together. The water lost cohesion mid-motion, crashing down onto the stone walkway in heavy, uncontrolled waves, splashing outward in every direction.
Kieran followed a heartbeat later, dropping hard to his hands and knees with a sharp, disbelieving gasp, staring at his own fingers as though they'd betrayed him, confronted for the first time with the terrifying reality that his magic was no longer under his command.
For half a second, there was silence.
Then the crowd erupted.
Cheers and shouts of approval rolled across the hot springs in waves that made the air vibrate, spectators jumping, clapping, and calling out congratulations with an enthusiasm that suggested they'd been genuinely invested in watching me win.
"He did it again!"
"That's fifteen in a row!"
"Undefeated!"
"How does he keep doing that?!"
"Someone pay me, I bet on the slave!"
I basked in the glory for a beat, arms raised above my head in victory pose that acknowledged their appreciation, when movement at the edge of my vision made several spectators begin pointing with increasing insistence and disbelief toward the second floor balcony of the bathhouse overlooking the outdoor pools.
I whipped around to glance up at whatever commotion had captured their attention, that satisfied grin still plastered across my face, squinting slightly against steam that obscured the upper level's details.
"Oh," I said then, my brain temporarily abandoning language in favor of panicked static. "Fuck me."