Chapter 158: Thirty seconds.

Jaxir’s gaze remained dull as he watched Maelis struggle against the toxin spreading through her body. Her movements had slowed enough that he could follow them now. Not comfortably, but enough that she was no longer disappearing every time she took a step. The effect would last for sixty seconds.

Unmaking had torn deeply enough into her resistances that the neurotoxin had managed to take full hold, and the location Jaxir struck had only made the effect stronger. Once those sixty seconds passed, the toxin would weaken, and even with everything else Unmaking had done to her, Maelis would still be too fast for him to fight cleanly.

He gave himself thirty seconds instead.

If Maelis was still standing after thirty seconds, he would leave before the situation turned against him again. There was no pride involved in the decision, and no need to prove anything by staying longer than necessary. Thirty seconds was enough time to find out whether he could kill her.

Jaxir raised his staff and pulled another mana potion from his Inventory, biting the cork loose before draining it without letting his chanting stop. The ancient language had already begun spilling from his mouth beneath his breath, each word settling into the next while his eyes remained fixed on the damage Unmaking had left behind. Crimson lines still covered Maelis’s body, dozens of them marking the weaknesses the L3 Ability had torn open.

He didn’t need to find new ones.

Fracture answered his chant, and Jaxir drove the Hex directly into the lines that already existed. Mana threaded through each crimson wound, tracing them one after another before pressing deeper, widening what Unmaking had already damaged instead of wasting strength creating something new. The existing weaknesses became clearer beneath his senses as Fracture settled into them.

Maelis stumbled again.

Only once this time, but the reaction was enough to wipe the last trace of amusement from her face. Her jaw tightened as she caught herself, anger twisting together with the humiliation of being forced backward by someone she had dismissed only moments earlier. Then her boot slammed into the ground.

She shot forward.

Her body blurred as she accelerated, but Jaxir’s eyes followed the distortion this time instead of losing her completely. He couldn’t make out every movement of her arms or the exact placement of her spear, yet he could follow the path she had chosen and see where her next step would fall. That was enough.

His staff shifted toward an empty patch of ground in front of her.

Cast flashed from its tip and crossed the space just before Maelis reached it, forcing her to cut her stride short instead of planting her foot where she intended. She swept her spear down and smashed the projectile apart, but the movement interrupted the speed she had begun rebuilding.

For the first time, Jaxir was glad she’d knocked him so far away. The distance gave him room to work.

Bind came next, dark tendrils tearing upward around Maelis before she could accelerate again. They twisted along the weaknesses Fracture had reinforced, slipping into the damaged places Unmaking had already exposed rather than attempting to overpower her head-on. Mana had begun gathering around her spear, but the ability died before it could finish forming.

Maelis’ expression changed.

The interruption lasted less than a second, yet Jaxir was already moving into the next chant before she understood what had happened. Haunt followed Bind into the same damaged network, darkness crawling over the crimson fractures as the Hex took hold. Maelis threw herself sideways to escape it, but the toxin made the movement just slow enough.

Haunt caught her.

She landed several meters away and immediately began turning back toward him, already forcing her body through the sluggishness in her limbs. Jaxir pulled another mana potion from his Inventory while watching where her weight shifted, then drank it as though the action had been planned minutes ago. The empty vial left his fingers before her feet had fully settled.

Bind was waiting where she landed.

The tendrils rose the instant her knees bent, wrapping through the same weakened points before she could push away again. Maelis’s body stiffened as another ability forming inside her was smothered before it reached completion. Jaxir’s chant changed without pause.

Wither descended.

Crimson lightning split through the air while dry leaves spun through it, blackening and crumbling as they fell around Maelis. The curse followed the weaknesses already opened in her body, seeping through the same channels Fracture and Haunt had prepared. Once it reached her mana, the damage began.

[-67]

Maelis jerked as crimson lightning crawled over her armor.

[-63]

Another pulse followed before she could tear free.

[-69]

The third made her roar.

Mana exploded from Maelis’s body as she ripped Bind apart, and Wither shattered a moment later beneath the same surge. Fracture remained buried inside the weaknesses Unmaking had created, however, and Haunt still clung to those openings with it. Jaxir watched both survive and continued chanting.

His staff pulsed.

Unravel washed over Maelis just as a fresh layer of power began spreading through her body. Whatever buff she had activated vanished almost the instant it appeared, stripped apart before it could finish strengthening her. Jaxir was already opening another mana potion.

BANG.

Blood burst from beneath Maelis’s armor.

[-536]

Unravel had not only removed the enhancement, it had turned the collapsing mana against her. Maelis reeled from the sudden damage, one shoulder twisting backward as her spear dropped several inches. Jaxir used the stumble immediately.

Bind rose again.

Wither followed before the first Hex had even finished tightening, crimson lightning pouring down into the same battered openings. There was no pause between them, but there was no rush either. Jaxir simply moved from one action into the next as though each one had already decided what came after it.

BANG.

Another Hex struck.

BANG.

Maelis tried to move and Bind dragged at her abilities again.

BANG.

Wither answered with another pulse of crimson lightning.

Jaxir’s mana continued falling and then filling again, each potion replacing what he spent before the loss could become a problem. He never waited until he was close to empty. There was no reason to allow his reserve to become a weakness when he had enough potions to prevent it. Though, the speed with which he drank now seemed to suggest that he was chasing something else entirely.

One effect ended, and yet another vial appeared in his hand.

Jaxir could have been dual casting. He could probably have even triple cast now as well, especially with how much easier his L1 and L2 Hex Abilities had become to use. Yet Jaxir continued placing them one at a time, each Hex entering exactly where he wanted it and leaving Maelis only enough room to believe she was still keeping pace.

Drain took shape.

The ability sank into the openings running through Maelis, and power began tearing free from her in heavy pieces. Unlike Wither’s steady damage, Drain ripped away large chunks at once, each pulse dragging something from her before returning it toward Jaxir. Her HP began dropping much faster, and Jaxir’s own topped back up to its maximum.

[-218]

Maelis forced herself upright.

[-226]

Her grip tightened around her spear.

[-239]

Then she looked at Jaxir.

There was nothing in her eyes now except the promise that she would kill him the instant she managed to reach him. Jaxir stared back without smiling, his expression still carrying the same dull coldness it had since he stood from the first strike.

Silvery-blue light flickered deep in his eyes, and for an instant, something else flickered with it.

The vague image of a crowned jester seemed to stand somewhere behind Jaxir’s gaze, visible for little more than the space between one breath and the next. Maelis’s eyes narrowed as though she had seen it too.

Jaxir took one step forward and another mana potion appeared in his hand.

He uncorked it and drank while his chanting continued, but the cadence had begun to change. The ancient words came faster now, no longer preparing the Hexes he had been throwing at Maelis one after another. This chant had been running beneath all of them, never pausing, never waiting.

Jaxir raised his staff.

Drain descended again, taking another violent pull from Maelis at the same moment Haunt surged through the fractures it had refused to release. Bind followed behind them, its shadowy tendrils arriving before either of the first two abilities had finished taking hold. All three landed together.

Maelis froze.

Her eyes widened as she finally understood what had been wrong with the fight. Jaxir hadn’t been avoiding dual and triple casting because he couldn’t do it. He had been using everything else to build toward something larger.

"No!"

Maelis ripped against Bind as mana surged wildly through her body, and her spear began rising despite the Hex choking the ability she was attempting to form. She had finally seen the spell coming, but the realization had arrived less than half a second too late. Jaxir’s chanting reached its end.

Pa. Pa. Pa. Pa. Pa.

The syllables rang through the space between them while every weakness inside Maelis seemed to answer. Fracture, Haunt, Drain and Bind all remained connected to the same damage Unmaking had created at the beginning, layer after layer of Hexes tied into one another across her body. Jaxir lowered the end of his staff toward her.

His voice came out cold, the image of a man standing above the gates of hell and staring at their frigid bars piercing through the minds of every one of the spectators... and especially that of Maelis herself.

"Entropy."

BOOM.