Five months later.
Adrian glanced up from his Excel at the mana gun pointed at his face.
"If you point that at me, you should be ready to fight me." A rare smile crossed his lips as his aura surged forward like a raging ocean, shearing the roof clean off the voiture.
_ _ _
Earlier that day.
"Since your birthday is tomorrow, we could stay in Martindale to celebrate," Maria suggested.
Tomorrow was the 22nd of the 7th month. Adrian's birthday. It was also the day the Wilbert family was due to visit the O'hara family of Martindale, roughly six hours from Uthean. They wanted to arrive on time.
Twenty voitures sat prepared outside the manor, some loaded with gifts for the O'haras, others carrying materials for the celebration. Kairos, the matriarch, wouldn't be joining them. Maria and Hillan would represent the house.
Adrian stood in the courtyard watching the arrangements, Olga's last words drifting back to him unbidden.
"Even mortals bleed when they don't understand themselves. Don't act foolish. Remember who you are."
"I know what I'm made of," he said quietly. His gaze moved past the manor walls and across the Wilbert domain. "I hate being controlled. I want something interesting, but I don't want to be the one standing in the middle of it."
He looked up at the two burning suns and said nothing more.
The convoy set off. Adrian took a voiture to himself, save for the driver. He pulled out his Excel and switched from novels to a game.
"Finally, real opponents," he muttered.
He beat the tenth player without breaking focus, then set the device down and looked out the window.
"Old Fool. What exactly is my power?"
He had wondered it for years and refused to ask until now. He knew his power let him master abilities faster than any normal mage — but it wasn't simple copying. He had near-infinite mana, enough to summon beings stronger than himself. The Characters Grimoire came from a forbidden tome he found half-complete in the Middle Belt's grand library. None of it fully explained the halos. They had appeared the day the earth cracked and the sky bled rain — barely visible, flickering above his head and below his elbows. The same thing happened on his last day at the academy, the day he fought the principal. Whatever his power was, the halos were part of it.
<
Adrian turned back to his Excel without a word.
Time moved quickly. The convoy was halfway to Martindale when the road ahead erupted.
Boom.
The lead voiture caught the blast. Guards shouted. Maids screamed. Magic cracked against metal, shots rang sharp and fast, and then came the thuds of bodies hitting the ground.
The door to Adrian's voiture was wrenched open.
A condensed mana gun swung up and shot the driver clean through the seat. The barrel turned to Adrian's face.
He looked at it with mild interest.
"If you point that at me, you should be ready to fight me."
His aura detonated outward. The roof peeled off like paper.
Three shots fired in rapid succession. All three stopped inches from his face, suspended in the air.
"Even my mother's dog is more of a threat," Adrian said, studying the frozen bullets. He flicked his finger.
The mana compressed, stretched into a thin thread, and looped itself around the shooter's neck. One clean pull. The head left the shoulders without ceremony. The blood didn't touch him. He brushed his shirt, placed one foot on the front seat, and stepped out onto the road.
Around him, the bandits held their positions. He looked them over slowly.
"You barely warrant a response," he said. Then he grinned. "Still, the principal was the only one who ever really entertained me."
He phased.
Heads dropped. One. Another. Another. Adrian moved through the ambush like he was finishing a chapter he'd already read, that same dark grin sitting on his face as the disinterested boy gave way to something older.
"Kill one more of my people and you all lose your heads."
He turned.
Maria and Hillan were on their knees, pressed down by the bandit leader. Adrian's expression flattened. He had sparred with his father dozens of times, managed to put him down once — if this man had taken Hillan off his feet this easily, he might actually be worth something.
"I'll shoot," the bandit said. "I'm not bluffing. Move and they both die."
"You poor excuse for an obstacle, didn't you know; talking during a fight," Adrian said, grabbing a bandit by the collar. "Is a waste of energy?"
"We're both wasting it then."
"Yeah, but that's exactly it. I have it in abundance."
He smashed the bandit's head against the road.
The leader lunged for Maria and Hillan. They weren't there.
"My apologies." Valhalla set them down gently off to the side. "Master says he'll handle this."
Adrian's aura climbed. Obsidian bled across the sky above him. The ground fractured beneath his feet as he phased, his voice carrying from everywhere and nowhere.
"For laying hands on my parents, you'll die... But entertain me a bit, would you?"
The leader — Vax — took his stance alone now. Every bandit behind him was already gone.
_The Thief's Sword_
Adrian phased directly in front of him. Vax drew in the same motion. The blade caught Adrian's collar and sliced through before he phased back.
He held the torn fabric and looked at it.
'Reading novels doesn't give you battle experience.'
"You moved first," Adrian said. "No law covers what happens to you now."
He rolled up his sleeves and opened the Characters Grimoire.
"Character Form: Talon * four."
Four eagle-lions materialized around him, wings spread, waiting.
"Character Form: Devil's Blade."
Golden smoke curled and solidified into a sleek black blade in his hand.
"Go."
The eagle-lions descended on Vax in a coordinated press. He fought them off, took them apart one by one, and stood breathing hard in the aftermath.
"Hiding behind birds," Vax spat. "Coward."
"Meteorite," Adrian said, pointing the blade upward.
Earth tore free from the ground. Flames folded inward. A mass of burning rock climbed into the sky above Vax's head.
"Fall."
"For my brothers!" Vax swung his sword upward and split the meteorite in two.
"I said fall," Adrian murmured.
The sky cracked.
Vax looked up, to the rumbling sky. "Just know, once my sisters find you –"
Lightning dropped directly onto Vax.
Adrian walked over to the charred body and stood beside it. The smell didn't bother him. He tapped the ground once with his foot and the earth opened, pulling the remains down quietly.
"I really did think you'd entertain me more." Adrian squinted his eyes, something about Vax unnerved him. He was similar to the Thornes, all the bandits were… maybe, just maybe –
A pause.
Then he phased away without looking back.