Magic Breaker Ch 31-33

Chapter 31: Stage Four

CW: Gore

The night grows deeper and I work on my spells. I cut my hand again, healing it. I take apart the bits of shadow I took from my once-parasite. Step by slow step, I build a knowledge base. 

It’s a lot. The patterns are intricate, granted by the system. My spells and understandings are crude imitations, like a caveman comparing an especially comfortable to hold rock to an industrial steam hammer.

They’re not the same, but they serve the same function. I understand the principles. Hit a thing, and hit it hard. That kind of logic lets me simplify the healing spell even more, until the horribly complex patterns slowly become manageable.

My mind becomes stronger as I practice, and I simplify the spell, boiling it down to its most essential ingredients. Slowly, but surely, I get closer to recreating it. Only a matter of time.

But before I can finally get there, I allocate my points from the recent level to vessel, bringing it to 37. It strengthens my mana, and the ease at which I sense it. The metaphysical world opens up even more to me. It’s thrilling. And I pour the magical power into my skills, learning, improving, practicing.

[Deconstruction 4 > 5]

With that, my newest skill overtakes [Solidification]. I should be doing more with that skill, really. I’ll get there, though. For now, I just focus, and practice as the hours drift by.

And then, midnight comes.

[Congratulations!]

[You have survived the third stage of descent. Fourth stage of descent imminent. Prepare.]

The world darkens. My senses are eclipsed by that nothingness that creeps in, blanketing everything in a thick, impassable veil. 

[Descent limitations lifted. Integration into floor structure. Armament supply granted.]

And things change. Like before. But by now, my senses were better. I can feel it. Mana pours in from the sky. I look up as the darkness slowly lifts, and there are more eyes now. I feel the ripples. The mana quivers in the changes of the world.

It’s terrifying. My heart beats in my chest. I smile, welcoming it. Descent limits lifted? Then people from higher floors will be coming here. Powerful people. Terrifying people. Armament system? That sounds like weapons and armor, maybe charms. I wonder what kind of magical items there will be.

Can I make more of them? Can I take them apart, and learn from them? I want to know.

Even as my heart beats and I feel like I might die, I want to know. Even as people descend who can kill me, I want to know. Maybe I’ll pick them apart, too. My thoughts get interrupted.

Footsteps.

My head whips around at the sound. I look in the direction of the footsteps. They’re heavy. This isn’t someone who’s trying to hide their presence. 

I grip my axe more tightly, readying myself. Gently, I [Suppress] my heartbeat. It quiets down, and I even out my breathing, making it seem like I’m asleep. Slowly, gently, I close my eyes, relying on what I can hear, smell, and feel.

Someone enters the clearing. It sounds like they have two legs, bipedal. I hear them walk in, stop, and then their gaze drifts over us. Nothing else. A shiver runs down my spine. I’m sure they analyzed me, but I can’t tell. I didn’t feel their mana, but I’m very sure they checked out my level and class.

But they are a void to me. No mana leaks from them, not a single drop. The mana in the air fluctuates around them like it always does. I want to know how they do it, but I don’t dare select them.

They step further in, and I hear them touch the water. It splashes, just slightly. They click their tongue. 

More footsteps, as they walk over to where Opal sleeps. A sound, metal faintly rustling against metal. Are they wearing gloves? Testing Opal’s sword? I hear them click their tongue again, disapproving.

Footsteps, a pause. Footsteps. Pause. Again, and again, until they’re in front of me. I know they’re there. I try not to breathe too loudly. Just hoping to not be noticed. They reach down. I can feel heat emanating from them. 

Their hand stops just before my face. It feels like a distant bonfire. Slowly, it gets hotter. After a few seconds, it feels like I’m close to a fire. I wait more. The heat increases. It goes from uncomfortable to painful, but I keep my eyes closed. Breathing a bit faster, simulating unruly sleep.

My skin begins to blister and bubble. It hurts.

“Open your eyes,” they say. The voice is melodic, calm, inviting. I keep them closed.

They move closer and my skin burns. Blisters crack. I think I can hear myself sizzle. It smells of cooking meat. I set my jaw, holding back a scream of pain. 

“You’re awake,” they whisper, cruelly. “Open. Your. Eyes.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, pressing my lips together, and enduring. No skills, nothing. My flesh melts, bit by agonizing bit. My eyeball begins boiling, I think. It hurts and I feel tears gather on my face, but I hold down the scream.

Then I can’t do it anymore. Against my will, I feel [Suppression] activate. A tiny, internal cast, just to reduce the pain, and it works. Thank fuck it works. The pain gets better. I keep my eyes shut. 

“Look at me,” they demand. “I need you to look at me!” they hiss.

Not a peep, not a noise, not a blink. My eyes stay shut, my mana doing tiny little circles inside to suppress the pain, even as the smell of burnt hair and cooking meat spreads. Not a noise. 

I hear them click their tongue, angrily this time. Then they pull their hand back. Footsteps, as they disappear. I wait, for a long, long while. Maybe the footsteps were just an illusion. I keep my eyes closed, only [Suppressing] the pain as my flesh slowly, horribly, begins to cool. 

That’s the worst part. When the heat is gone, that’s when the pain really sets in. But still, I don’t dare cast my healing spell. Someone might still be out there.

Only when Inu rushes to me in the morning, shaking me, asking me to wake up, do I finally let myself scream.

I try to open my eyes, and the left one is seared shut. It hurts, so, so bad, but I can finally [Suppress] it properly. I breathe, heavily, then I throw up on the ground. It’s miserable. I feel bad, worse than I ever have, but I also know who to get revenge against. Who to fuck up.

[You have caught the Eye of the Flametouched.] 

My newest sponsor sure has gone out of their way to make me hate them. Just they wait. I’ll frick them up.

Full of anger, I cast my first healing spell. My focus fails. The spell implodes. My left eye opens, and droves of blood pours out. I’m in agony, and the target’s notification hovers in front of the one eye I can still see out of.

Fucker.

Chapter 32: How to Hide

When the others wake up, they look at my face. At the upper left part of it, my skin is burnt. More than burnt. Bits of bone are showing, my blood having boiled away. My left eye was seared shut, then tore open when my healing spell failed. And it really, really hurts. 

But I defied that bastard. 

[Level Up! 13 > 14]

My higher heart stat helped me resist the damage a bit. I can already tell it’s trying to heal me, again. I put a point in it, but it barely speeds up the process, now. Which makes sense. There isn’t much a single point will do compared to the amount I already have in it. But I catch another glimpse of the mana structure, figuring out a few flaws of my healing spell.

It’ll come together, and then I’ll get my eye back. 

Two points go into vessel, since getting my eye to function again is personal, now. It’s mine to regenerate. And maybe walking about with a bit of bone showing will train up my heart stat. Hah. 

Bay can barely look at me. But I don’t mind too much. This is entirely fine. Maybe this way no one will ask me to smile more. “You look like shit,” Opal politely reminds me.

“Why thank you, I did sleep really rather poorly,” I tell them.

“Want me to princess carry you?” they ask, half genuine.

“Absolutely not,” I say, smiling just a bit. 

Jess uses [Freeze] to cool down the wound just a bit, even as she looks away. “What even happened?” she asks, shakily.

I take a moment to collect my breath. Luckily, my mouth is intact, so I can still have a resting deadpan expression. “Well,” I say. “People from higher floors can come down here, now. I think an avatar of one of the Eyes was trying to recruit me.”

[The Master of Suffering delights in your agony.]

“Shit,” Bay says. “That’s gotta be bad, right?”

Thatch nods. “Yeah. If they can do that to us in the best case…”

“I’m sure they have some restrictions,” Inu says. “Or Snow wouldn’t have a face at all, anymore.”

Norman holds his face in his hands. I can tell he wants to speak, but doesn’t dare. I look at him, and he makes contact with my one good eye. The other one is bloodshot and sticky with fluid. He flinches. But I’m fresh out of patience. “Say it, Norman,” I tell him.

He hesitates. Then he opens and closes his mouth, twice, like a fish. Finally, he takes a breath, then speaks. “They can’t kill us,” he said. “But that clearly doesn’t stop them from torturing us.” His words are slow and shaky.

“Yeah,” I say. “Seems it.” I cast another healing spell at my eye, and some of the blisters recede a bit. A little more skin covers the bone, though it’s not quite the right colour. Pink and raw. It hurts, and I keep [Suppression] active permanently, feeding it a trickle of mana just a little less than what I regenerate. The rest goes to healing, for now.

I keep myself over half mana. Just in case. 

“What now?” Amelie asks. “I believe we should find a place that is reasonably safe; where we will not be harmed by descenders from the higher floors.”

Slowly, I nod. “They were here for essence, I think.” Probably the pool. I take a breath. Getting up is hard, and my legs shake, but I manage to stand, bracing myself against a tree. “Let’s go clear a dungeon. Those can’t be interesting to them.”

Bay seems confused. “Why? Aren’t those landmarks?” 

“Yes,” I readily agree. “But they’re meant for lower levels. Essence has value, even if you’re at level one-hundred. But a dungeon like the Dreadburg? With a couple dozen pieces of shoddy armor?” I shake my head. “They won’t care, not really.”

Thatch nods. “Okay,” he says. “I wanna get out of here. Let’s go.”

And so we do.

- - -

Finding another dungeon isn’t too difficult. However, getting into it is an entirely different story.

“We were here first,” a wulven with greyish snarls at a human. 

The human woman, for her part, snarls back. “Fuck off with that. We scouted it out yesterday night and just now came back.”

My senses drift over them.

[Sleetstorm, lv. 12]

[Pugilist, lv. 12]

Same level. I tilt my head a little. “Sorry,” I say, not really feeling it, “we’d also like in on this dungeon.”

Both group leaders have their heads whirl to me. The wulven, classed as a sleetstorm, apparently, growls in amusement. “A scrawny, pathetic thing like you? Dream on. We’re not sharing a drop of experience with you.”

At that, the woman snorts in agreement. Then she turns to face me and sees my eye. “Yeah bitch, fuck o- holy shit. What the hell happened to your face?” she asks. She has the whole lumberjack vibe going on, button up shirt and thick leather gloves, tied back hair.

I smile. “Oh, not much trouble. I’m pretty good at taking hits, see,” I say, stepping forward. For some reason, I’m feeling a little bloodthirsty today. “Now,” I say, turning to the lady. “Do any of your group have a power bank? My phone’s battery is a little low.”

Her frown turns confused. “What are you on about?” She readies herself for combat, getting into a stance. 

[Select] snaps onto her. My smile widens. “You’re weaker than me,” I say. I have half my mana, my face is hurting like hell, my focus is split. But it doesn’t matter. I [Select] the wulven. “You, too.”

They frown. The wulven snarls. “How dare you…”

“Duel me,” I say. “I challenge you. On my win, I get the dungeon. Every enemy in it. On your win, you get it. Simple, right?” I tilt my head, giving a practiced, sympathetic smile. It looks like something from a horror show with the state my face is in.

“What about me?” the woman asks. 

I wave her off. “Sit with my group and watch,” I say.

“We have some food,” Sylves says, smiling happily. “This’ll be fun, trust me.”

Confused, the woman shakes her head. “What about the dungeon?” she asks.

“If I lose, fight the wulven. If I win, fight me or someone from my group. Simple, no?” I ask.

At that point, she shrugs. “Fine, I guess. Alright everyone, we’re sitting this one out. Grab a bite.”

Sylves opens up her backpack, full of granola and dried fruit and some canned stuff. They each grab a few bites. That devious little thing. I love it.

Ignoring her strategy, I focus on the wulven. “I’m telling you something,” I say. “Your class is sleetstorm.”

They flinch. I can’t tell if a wulven is a man or a woman yet, and I don’t bother asking. Surprise spreads across their features. “How do you know that?”

“Because I’m stronger than you,” I say calmly, stretching out my arm in front of me, holding the crappy goblin axe. 

At that, they snarl. “I’ll beat the notion out of you.”

“You’ll try,” I say, smiling. “And you’ll fail.”

When my comment lands, the anger finally gets to them. My heart speeds up, adrenaline courses through my veins. The wulven, just under seven feet of muscle, comes crashing at me, blazingly fast. The ground turns to ice around them. 

I [Select] them again, lazily stepping backward. They put their hands back for a swing. My will is faster, infinitely faster, and [Suppression] slams into them like a hammerblow. Their steps slow, and they stagger, just barely catching themselves from falling.

My axe slams towards their face without hesitation. The wulven instantly ducks backwards, sliding on the ice, so my hit just slams into their cheek, splitting fur and flesh and spraying blood. As they go down on their knees, I [Deconstruct] their ice skill.

Suddenly, they stop sliding. Friction increases, making their upper body topple forward. They catch themselves with their arms, and My axe slams into their back, brutally.

But the wulven has a tough hide. I don’t manage to break their spine, all I do is disable one shoulder, I think. Still, they yowl and start flailing in pain, as I simply step back, releasing my [Suppression].

I landed two hits, without even being touched. “Hm. You just used one skill. Surely you have more.”

At that, they roar, and an icicle comes shooting at me. I sidestep it, and it impacts a tree behind me, instantly spreading frost from where it struck. It has at least one more skill, I’m sure. Just what?

A needle of mana has long since begun solidifying in my off-hand, concealed in a tightly held fist. This shouldn’t take much longer.

Chapter 33: Tricksters

The wulven roars, and something happens. Unlike before, this one makes me stop in place. I feel fear coursing through my veins. That’s its third skill, then. 

Quickly, I [Suppress] the effect, stepping back as soon as I can to create more distance. The wulven roars again… and I keep my face calm. I stop in my tracks, frozen, but I’ve already [Deconstructed] the skill.

When they come at me, I’m ready. The alien snarls at me, ready to tear into me, and at the last moment, I [Suppress] it again. It stumbles, but adjusts, catching themself. But they don’t expect me to move.

Without hesitation, I jam my mana-needle into one of their eyes. My mana detonates, and disables their skills. Then my axe slams into their other shoulder, digging deep into their hide. It breaks off, and I pull out one of the knives I keep on me, stabbing it into the alien’s thigh, then kicking the wounded leg.

They buckle with a roar that should freeze me, but falls apart as it touches my ears. I press a foot onto their chest, pushing them over and leaving them on the ground, holding out a knife. They wince, but don’t fight back.

“I told you,” I say, calmly. “I’m stronger than you.” Blood rushes in my ears. My face hurts. But it’s okay. I’m okay.

Slowly, I step back, getting some distance. The other wulven are staring at me with a mix of fear and respect. I take a deep breath, and [Suppress] it all. The noise, my heartbeat, the pain, the fury. All of it mellows out.

A few moments pass with the sleetstorm simply laying on the floor. “Damn,” they say. “What happened to me?”

Opal grins. “You got crushed, buddy,” they supply. “Absolutely demolished.”

The lumberjack-looking woman turns to me. “That was… wild,” she says. “What did you do?”

I tilt my head. “I won.”

She frowns just a bit. “Fine,” she says. “Me next.”

“Actually!” Sylves interjects, floating towards her. “You already lost.”

The woman furrows her brows. “What?”

Sylves’ smile turns sinister. “Fighting one’s host is quite disrespectful, don’t you think?” she asks. “You eat our food, mortal. Uninvited.”

“You literally handed it to us!” another group member protests.

Heartlessly, Sylves shrugs. “No matter. I didn’t ask if you wanted to eat it. I simply said we had food, placed it near you, and then you stole it. Now, wanna put to a test whether I can enforce this?”

The man flinches back a bit at the intensity of her words. I know she’s deadly serious, too. “You can’t do this!”

And then, Sylves activates her skill. She’s a fairy now, after all, and one should never eat fae food, right? Because it’s a breach of hospitality. And people who break hospitality… well, they get broken in turn. I watch, as the man’s stomach twists. He curls in on himself in pain, then starts throwing up. 

“Don’t kill him,” I tell Syvles.

She smiles, sweetly. “Don’t worry, I can’t. All I can do is make their stomachs twist a little. But it’s cheap, and if I do it for all of them… well. Hardly a fight, don’t you think?”

“Ice cold,” Thatch says. “Nice.”

One of them still stands up and charges at us, but Inu moved into his path. He crashes against the young woman - then bounces right back where he came from. Where he promptly twists in on himself, curling up in pain from Sylves’ skill.

“We’ll be taking the dungeon now,” Inu says. 

The news slowly sinks in. 

“Please try to stop us,” Opal says. “I’m itching to try out my class in a proper fight.”

Finally, this seems to stop them. “Fine,” the lumberjack woman says with a grimace. “Fine, take it. It’s all yours.”

“You won the duel,” the wulven says through winces of pain. “It is yours to take.”

They do not need to say it twice. Without any more trouble, we head inside.

- - -

[Dungeon: Clockwork Grove. Level: 18]

It’s just a little higher than the dreadburg, and we have five people with classes now. By the end of this, everyone should be over level ten. 

Unlike the Dreadburg, though, the atmosphere is entirely different. There’s no miasma, no darkness or fear, just a gentle ambient ticking noise. Tick, tack, tick, tack. The air sounds of moving gears, and occasionally, there is a hiss of steam.

The grove is, as it promised, made from clockwork. Not entirely, but enough of it is. The floor has little panels of glass in the grass, letting me look down into layers of moving gears, pipes and vents. It’s very coppery, though little of it has oxidized. There is a hedge maze inside, and as we look at it, one of the walls pulls aside, revealing an opening.

Bay runs a finger along the walls. The plants seem thorny, but she somehow manages to avoid them all. “Whoa,” she says. “That’s awesome.” 

I feel mana ripple out from her fingers, creating a short pulse. The wall fizzles, then spins, smacking into her and sending her tumbling onto her butt. And she laughs. “Hahahaha!” for the first time, she looks genuinely happy. “That’s so awesome!”

Oh. She’s a tech nerd. The kind that loves tinkering with stuff. “Do you wanna take the maze apart?” I ask, politely.

“Huh?” her eyes widen. “Oh, no, I don’t think that’s feasible haha. I don’t have any tools or anything. I’d love to know how those parts work, though.”

Now I’m curious. I look at my phone. “Your skill, [Pulse], creates electricity, right?” I ask.

Confused, Bay nods. “Yeah,” she says. “It’s not really correct to say that, but in a way, yeah. Why?”

Slowly, I nod. “My phone is almost out of battery.”

“Right,” she says, hesitating. “And?”

I blink. What’s not clear? 

Thatch gives a soft sigh. “Snow wants you to charge the phone. Maybe even teach how to do it. In exchange, I think Snow’d be willing to take down parts of the maze, maybe scrap them for parts.”

Bay’s eyes widen even more. “You can do that?!”

I nod.

“Yeah, absolutely! I can figure out how to charge your phone, sure, yeah. Uh. Maybe I can even make you a better battery with some of the maze scrap. Dunno how it works yet, y’know?”

I nod, again. “Deal.” And then, I take the mana in my vessel, pour it into [Deconstruction], and slam it into the maze’s wall. It’s clumsy, working poorly, and I let the skill do a lot of the heavy lifting, but I have a lot of mana for my level, so it does a decent bit of damage. Some of the thorny vines unravel and open up to reveal mechanical insides. Bolts and nuts and screws pop off.

With a horrible screeching noise, the mechanism to spin the wall comes undone, and the whole thing falls over, breaking at its seams. I smile, just a little, at Bay’s wide eyes as things unmake themselves.

And then, like a rabid hound, she descends on the once-wall. “It’s a treasure trove!” she yelps, picking things apart. She pulls out wires, metal pieces, connectors, pistons, cogs and gears, looking ecstatic. 

Yeah. A tech nerd, for sure. 

A moment passes and she tosses a glowing crystal behind her. This one actually catches my eye. I slowly pick it up from the ground.

My mana is at about an eighth of my total, but [Selecting] the piece of crystal doesn’t take a whole lot of effort. “Huh,” I say, sitting down.

“What now?” Opal asks. “I wanna start killing monsters.”

I wave them off, not even looking over. The crystal is charged with mana. It’s been prepped and stored by someone. And, unlike when I solidify mine, it’s not dissipating - or, well, it is. Just very, very slowly. 

While Bay still laughs and rips into the mechanical components, I slowly trace my finger across the crystal. It’s crude, but there is something on there. Inscriptions? Runes? I can barely see them.

“Thatch,” I say. “Come take a look.”

“Hm?” he hums, then steps to my side, looking at what I’m holding. “What?”

“Look.”

“Huh?”

“Look,” I repeat, tracing the tiny lines with my finger. His eyes begin to glow, then widen, then bleed a little. 

And still, he doesn’t look away. “Holy hell,” he says. “Enchantments.”