white meowscles

“Because death is too good for someone like me,” he hissed, finally reaching Phune. He grabbed the mage’s wrists, stopping his attack, and proceeded to headbutt him into submission. Phune soon collapsed, his face a bloody mess, and the ref raised his arm.

Should he do it? Just forfeit the match? To admit before the crowd that their prince was too weak to fight back? After everything that had happened to him, he had no pride left, nothing to lose. Maybe it was better to accept his failure and resign himself to his shame. Lying on the ground, he raised his arm, about to surrender, but stopped, thinking back to a conversation he had with Tarnas. It was during the year of training, the two of them sitting around the campfire on an autumn night. Seraph was staring deep into the flames, into the light and warmth, but all he felt inside was cold darkness.

This wasn’t simply water magic; it was water magic and alchemy combined. Normally, alchemy couldn’t be applied to living tissue, as the mana produced by organisms interfered with the magic, but this potent combination allowed Phune’s magic to overcome that restriction. Noah couldn’t help but wonder where Phune had acquired such magic. Since it was written in his grimoire rather than an intuitive ability, either he figured out the formula himself, or someone else did. Whoever it was, did they have any idea what kind of threshold they were on? The surface they had just scratched?