Chapter 66: Comfy

Jaxir reached the bottom of the stairs without slowing, his eyes flicking toward the map while Nick’s marker glowed several corridors deeper beneath Glimmer Village. Red dots were already moving through the underground passages in response to the alarm above, but the Sparkling Third Eye laid the dungeon out clearly enough that he could weave between patrols rather than fight every person unfortunate enough to stand between him and the cage.

The first two approaching dots split at an intersection ahead, so Jaxir cut left before either guard could see him and used a narrow maintenance corridor to slip around them.

A third dot gave him no such option, appearing around the next corner with a sword half-drawn, forcing Jaxir to raise his staff and release the quick Cast he’d already been holding.

Silvery-blue mana snapped down the corridor and struck the guard across the chest before the man could finish drawing his weapon.

[-26]

Jaxir was already moving past him when the guard hit the wall, but something about the attack kept tugging at his attention. The damage hadn’t changed much from what he expected from an uncharged Cast against someone this much stronger than him, yet the projectile had crossed the corridor almost instantly and remained perfectly tight long after his mana normally would have begun spreading.

He glanced toward the fading trail behind him as another red dot approached from farther ahead. His Twinkle Mana was still there beneath everything, but the silvery-blue Light Mana mixed through it like an authority sitting above it, taking the scattered force Twinkle naturally preferred and ordering every piece into a cleaner, narrower stream.

Jaxir’s lips curled upward as the next guard rounded the corner.

Instead of allowing Cast to settle into its usual sphere, he spread the mana sideways while holding the center together with Light. The structure flattened without fighting him, becoming a curved blade wide enough to cover most of the passage before Jaxir swept his staff across the two guards who had emerged together.

The crescent tore through both of them.

[-39]

[-42]

His notifications pinged him about improvements to Cast, but he ignored them.

Neither man went down, but both were thrown aside hard enough to leave the center of the corridor open. Jaxir slipped between them and kept running, his attention less on the guards than on the realization settling into place.

Cast had never needed to be a mana bullet.

Jaxir had reshaped Cast plenty of times before, but usually by copying the structure of Vestigem Cards or using some outside example to teach his mana what he wanted. Light didn’t seem to need that crutch, and even a tiny amount of it forced Twinkle Mana to hold whatever shape Jaxir gave it with a precision he’d never managed before.

Another guard appeared alone several intersections later, bracing a shield as soon as Jaxir came into view. This time Jaxir narrowed the curved Cast until almost all of its mana sat along one thin edge, then angled the strike across the man’s exposed shoulder instead of trying to spread the force across his whole body.

[-74]

The guard spun into the wall, and Jaxir ducked beneath the shield as it slipped from numb fingers. He was several steps past the man before another possibility surfaced, one that made his grin widen as he saw the next red dot charging directly toward him.

’What if I don’t let Cast go?’

Jaxir planted his foot and gathered mana at the end of his staff, compressing the sphere smaller and smaller until it became little more than a bright point. He opened the flow through that point instead of releasing the whole spell, letting Light keep Twinkle compressed as a thin beam erupted down the corridor.

The advancing guard raised an arm too late.

[-24]

Jaxir kept feeding mana into the beam.

[-27]

The silvery-blue line remained connected between them, chewing into the man’s armor while Jaxir felt his MP draining in repeated bites rather than one clean cost. He tightened the stream another fraction, trading width for concentration until the beam became almost needle-thin.

[-34]

[-38]

The guard twisted aside, and Jaxir swept the beam across his torso before cutting the spell off and continuing forward. It was far more expensive than a normal Cast, especially if he kept it running, but the ability to sustain damage changed the spell from a projectile into something completely different.

"Okay, that’s fun."

Nick’s marker was getting closer, but so were considerably more red dots.

Jaxir could see the response changing through the map as guards stopped wandering toward the alarm and began converging on his route instead. Whatever confusion he’d bought by entering through the hidden entrance was disappearing, which meant there wasn’t time to stop and stack Wither or Fracture on everyone he met.

Cast was faster, and Bind filled the gaps whenever Cast wasn’t enough.

A Mage at the end of the next corridor raised both hands and began forming a spell before Jaxir could close the distance, forcing Jaxir to snap Bind toward him while continuing to run. Silvery-blue restraints tightened around the Mage’s mana before the spell could finish, choking the forming Ability apart long enough for Jaxir to shape another narrow crescent.

He angled it across the Mage alone instead of widening the attack.

[-69]

The man folded against the stone while Jaxir passed him, and from that point forward the fighting became part of the route itself. He avoided every dot he reasonably could, blasted aside anyone blocking the passages he needed, and only stopped long enough to kill when leaving someone alive behind him would mean getting trapped between two groups a few seconds later.

The new flexibility of Cast made that much easier than it should have been. Broad scythes traded power for coverage when several guards filled a corridor, narrow ones concentrated enough force to carve one target out of his path, while quick spheres remained useful when all Jaxir needed was twenty-something damage and enough impact to make somebody stumble.

The sustained beam was the most expensive option, but also the one he immediately liked most.

One Tank tried to plant himself in the middle of the passage with his shield covering almost everything Jaxir could hit, so Jaxir compressed Cast into another narrow stream and held it against the same point instead of wasting time trying to break through with repeated shots.

[-21]

[-24]

[-29]

The shield began to buckle under the continuous pressure, allowing Jaxir to shift the beam toward the Tank’s exposed leg and drive him sideways.

[-35]

Jaxir cut the spell and sprinted past before the man could stand again, already watching the next intersection on his map.

That was where his progress finally slowed.

Two red dots waited ahead instead of rushing toward him, and when Jaxir rounded the corner he understood why. A Level 18 melee guard stood with a longsword held across his body while a robed healer behind him poured one layer of mana after another into his back.

―

Name: Garran Holt

Level: 18

Class: Melee

―

One buff reinforced Garran’s legs, another swelled the muscles beneath his armor, while a third crawled across his weapon and made the blade hum with gathered mana. The healer kept going until the pressure coming from the man felt completely different from every other guard Jaxir had fought, enough that even his instincts warned him not to meet that charge head-on.

Garran launched forward.

His first step cracked against the stone as every enhancement worked together, turning a Level 18 Melee fighter into something that crossed the corridor faster than Jaxir wanted to deal with. Jaxir almost reached for Bind before another option surfaced instead, one he’d read several times during those forty boring minutes outside the village.

His grin returned as he raised his staff.

"Unravel."

Silvery-blue mana washed across Garran just as the melee fighter entered striking distance, and every buff wrapped around him twisted at once. The enhancement on his legs collapsed inward first, followed by the strength around his arms, the reinforcement through his torso and the mana coating his weapon, each beneficial effect suddenly becoming damage directed into the body it had been empowering.

[-87]

[-113]

Garran’s charge broke apart as one leg buckled beneath him.

[-126]

[-102]

The sword slipped from his hands before the last stacked effects unraveled together.

[-149]

Garran hit the floor and didn’t move again.

The healer stood frozen behind him, staring at the corpse while Jaxir looked down at the Level 18 guard with considerably more appreciation for his newest Ability than he’d had a second earlier. The more buffs someone carried, the worse Unravel became for them, which meant the healer had spent all that mana building Jaxir a better weapon.

"That’s just mean."

Jaxir stepped around Garran and continued toward Nick as the Healer turned tail and ran.

Across Glimmer Village, every player currently inside its boundaries received a notification at the same time.

―

[WARNING]

[A murderer is currently rampaging within Glimmer Village.]

[Multiple lawful servants of Glimmer Village have been slain.]

[Assist village authorities in apprehending the criminal for additional rewards.]

―

Jaxir never saw it.

Nick’s marker sat only one corridor away now, and Jaxir followed it around the final bend until the dungeon opened into a line of iron-barred cells. His eyes moved from one cage to the next before landing on a familiar figure sitting against the back wall, looking considerably less pleased with his day than Jaxir had been hoping.

Nick lifted his head as footsteps approached.

Jaxir stopped in front of the cage with his staff resting over one shoulder, his grin stretching from ear to ear.

"Hey there bud, you look comfy."