Chapter 70: Expunged

Nick’s eyes snapped toward him the moment Jaxir, not liking the sound of his reaction at all.

"What does that mean?"

Jaxir cleared his throat and took one long look at the health bar that had already returned to full.

"Nothing, nothing, nothing at all," he replied before turning and racing down the road, putting as much distance between himself and Grimm as the Weightless Boots could give him.

Despite the retreat, Jaxir wasn’t panicking yet. One solution had already come to mind the moment he saw Grimm’s ridiculous regeneration. The problem was that using it would eat enough mana that maintaining anything else alongside it would become difficult, even with the Staff of the Light cutting his costs down.

That still beat spending the next several hours doing a hundred damage at a time against something that healed it before he could blink.

Grimm lunged after him, Glimmer Mana scattering around the spear before collapsing into a dense golden point several meters ahead of Jaxir. Jaxir kicked off the ground, changed direction with Double Jump and slid past the resulting explosion, letting its edge carry him into a roll that brought him behind Grimm.

He came up with the Staff of the Light already raised overhead, his chant beginning low before deepening until the words seemed to vibrate through his chest. As he lowered the staff toward Grimm’s back, silvery-blue Light Mana twisted around its tip and thickened into a dense whirlpool that looked less like light than some luminous plague consuming everything around it.

―

Drain

[Attach a draining curse to a target, continuously consuming HP and restoring an equal amount to the caster.]

[Multiple applications may coexist upon the same target.]

―

Jaxir grinned as the whirlpool shot forward.

If Grimm could recover his health from the village, Jaxir simply had to take it faster than the village could give it back. A single Drain probably wouldn’t manage much, but if he stacked enough of them and kept Grimm occupied with Cast in between, the Region Boss’ greatest advantage would slowly become irrelevant.

The silvery-blue curse struck Grimm squarely in the back.

Then it shattered.

Jaxir’s grin faltered as the mana broke apart without ever sinking into Grimm’s body, leaving nothing behind except a notification that appeared directly in front of his face.

―

[Drain has failed.]

[Target Level exceeds the effective range of Drain.]

―

"Oh, you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me." Jaxir stared at the message for half a heartbeat before another golden point formed beneath his feet, forcing him to throw himself sideways as the street erupted behind him.

He landed running and dismissed the notification with considerably more aggression than necessary. "Oh, fuck you."

His only clean answer had just vanished, which left Jaxir racing through the village with a Level-20 Region Boss close enough behind him that every missed attack demolished another section of road. Nick followed from farther out whenever he could, but even he seemed to understand that getting close enough to trade blows with Grimm was asking to be launched through somebody’s house.

Jaxir fired over his shoulder while he ran, throwing narrow crescents of Light before switching into simple mana bullets whenever Grimm raised his shield. Some struck armor and others disappeared beneath bursts of Glimmer Mana, but none stayed relevant for more than a few seconds before Grimm’s health climbed back to full.

[-31]

[-47]

[-26]

Jaxir mixed Bind into the barrage the first time Grimm began gathering enough Glimmer Mana to make half the street shimmer gold. Crimson-black mana caught around the Region Boss and locked his abilities down, but Grimm had barely taken another step before the curse buckled under the pressure gathering inside him.

For perhaps half a second, it worked.

Then Grimm’s Glimmer Mana ripped through it and the spear came around anyway, forcing Jaxir to Double Jump above a golden explosion that tore apart the wall beside him.

Jaxir’s eyes narrowed as he landed.

Bind had failed almost as badly as Drain, but unlike Drain, it had still done something.

That tiny distinction lodged itself in his thoughts while he kept moving, and Jaxir stopped casting every Hex he had almost immediately. Wither would run into the same problem as Drain even if it landed, while Fracture and Bind lacked the raw level needed to remain effective against something carrying this much power behind it.

So he stopped using them. Instead, he kept using Cast.

Mana bullets peppered Grimm’s shield as Jaxir ran backward, then widened into silvery-blue scythes that curved around its edges and clipped his shoulders. When Grimm adapted to those, Jaxir changed the shape again and poured Light into a narrow beam that struck his helmet over and over, each pulse forcing his head back just enough to interrupt the rhythm of his pursuit.

[-19]

[-24]

[-28]

The damage didn’t matter. He was watching how Grimm resisted each form, how much mana had to gather before the attacks began losing effectiveness, and most importantly, how Cast itself responded every time he forced another shape out of it.

His feet barely touched the road now.

The Weightless Boots carried him in long, shallow bounds while Double Jump let him break away whenever Grimm predicted where he would land, turning the fight into one continuous movement through the village. Jaxir kept Channel active through all of it, gathering power without releasing it while still feeding smaller Casts through the Staff of the Light.

That was harder than anything he’d done with Channel before.

Holding one growing mass of mana while continuously shaping and firing another forced him to separate processes in his mind that had always overlapped. The +250 Mind from Reflection of the Light made it possible, but even with that absurd advantage, Jaxir could feel the strain every time the stored Cast threatened to unravel.

―

Channel Lv39 > Channel Lv40

―

Jaxir’s eyes flashed.

Grimm’s spear struck the ground beside him before he could enjoy it, and this time Jaxir escaped the weapon but not the Glimmer explosion that followed. Golden force slammed into his side and hurled him across the street, tearing a chunk from his HP before he hit the ground shoulder-first and rolled several times.

He planted the Staff of the Light against the road and forced himself back to his feet without releasing Channel.

The gathered mana was still there.

More importantly, holding it through the impact had forced every stray thread back into place almost on instinct, and Jaxir felt his control tighten around the spell just as another notification appeared.

―

Attune Lv39 > Attune Lv40

―

Jaxir grinned as Grimm charged again.

He jumped before the Region Boss reached him, rising high enough for the spear to pass beneath his feet before kicking against empty air with Double Jump. Instead of changing direction, Jaxir used the second jump to launch himself even higher, climbing above the surrounding rooftops while the mass of mana he had been Channeling finally came forward.

Silvery-blue Light swelled above his staff until it looked like a rotating sun.

Jaxir felt every layer of the spell at once, from the gathered power Channel had held together to the minute adjustments Attune made as he compressed it tighter. Cast sat at the center of everything, no longer a simple ball of raw mana but the foundation that let every other piece exist.

Grimm looked up.

Jaxir brought the staff down.

The rotating mass of Light descended with it, ripping through the air before crashing toward the Region Boss in a flood of silvery blue.

―

Cast Lv39 > Cast Lv40

―

Another notification followed before the attack had even finished falling.

―

[Your Root Abilities have exceeded your Level by three entire Tiers. You have been awarded the Title "Archmage"]

―

Title: Archmage

Type: Contingent

Description: Three levels of comprehension beyond your peers. Your understanding of your Root Abilities has surpassed the limits expected of your Level to such an extent that ordinary standards of magical practice can no longer contain it. You are now an Archmage amongst a world of magic practitioners.

[+50 Mind. +10 Levels to L1 Branch Abilities. +5 Levels to L2 Branch Abilities.]

―

[Your Title "Mage" has been expunged by a greater Title]

―

Jaxir dropped back toward the street as the explosion below washed silvery-blue light across the surrounding buildings, then hit the ground and skidded several meters with his robes snapping around him. His staff rotated once through his hand before he caught it, and the grin spreading across his face only widened as he looked through the fading light toward Grimm.

"Let’s dance, Glimmer Boy."