The Lone Wanderer

As it turned out, the people Percy had previously faced weren’t exactly the best the Yellow grade had to offer. Neither the guy he had killed in the hunting grounds, nor the bandits seemed to hold a candle to the nobles from House Tantalus.

One of them had the earth affinity, but he used it much more skilfully than that other guy. Rather than wasting a ton of mana to form long stone javelins, he instead concentrated it into smaller projectiles like knives and needles. Percy initially thought they’d be weaker at least, but he couldn’t have been more wrong. It was much easier to accelerate them to a high speed, so they packed as much of a punch, if not more. The only difference was that his opponent could launch way more of them, and each was much harder to evade.

‘Better put some distance between us.’ he groaned as he leapt back, narrowly dodging another sharp stone whizzing by his ear.

He’d already nearly been hit a couple of times, despite having his attention glued to the guy. So focused was he, in fact, that he barely had the chance to observe what his second opponent was doing. His mana was transparent, causing faint distortions wherever it passed. At first, Percy had thought it was an air affinity, but it lacked the characteristic green tint that Micky’s mana had.

‘Is it a rare or composite affinity?’

Apparently, today was the day Percy would finally find out how it felt to be on the receiving end of a rare mana type. At least, the guy didn’t seem to be targeting him directly. Instead, he formed a strange structure in the air in front of him. It looked a bit like a lens, though it was rotating clockwise, picking speed with each revolution. Once the construct was fully formed, its master moved it in front of the earth mage, who began to launch his own projectiles through it.

Every time one of them passed through the transparent screen, a deafening explosion sounded, the stone daggers instantly appearing where Percy had stood a moment before. Each stabbed a deep, wide crater into the ground, with several cracks branching out of its centre.

The young man had no idea how this affinity worked, but it made the projectiles impossible to dodge. The only reason he was still in one piece was because he could glimpse his opponent’s intentions, guessing the spells’ trajectories before they were unleashed.

‘What the fuck is that?! A time affinity?!’

His only other guess was space, but it looked nothing like Nesha’s mana. Either way, he was forced to put more distance from them again, making it even harder to launch his own counterattack. It was lucky Micky was keeping the third guy – the one with the bloodline – busy, or Percy would have lost already. As for Nesha, she was sitting this one out. Perhaps one day she’d grow into a decent fighter but, right now, her clumsy spells would only get in the way.

‘Here goes nothing.’ Percy thought as he used all the fused mana he’d accumulated since the start of the battle, forming a teal sheet.

Swinging it towards the earth mage, he turned the outer half of the Mantle into a wave of visible, corporeal projectiles to capture his enemies’ attention. Secretly, however, he had turned the second half of the sheet invisible, still holding it in his hand. A second later, he discreetly swiped it one more time in a wider arc, releasing another wave of projectiles – these ones invisible and immaterial. They branched outwards more than the rest, travelling a few metres behind them.

A couple seconds later, the tangible batch reached the mage, though he had already sidestepped them. But Percy grinned, having expected this. He watched the second layer of throwing stars head straight towards his oblivious opponent’s location, about to stab his soul full of holes. Though it wasn’t meant to be.

‘What the hell?!’ Percy’s eyes widened as he saw the projectiles slow down to a snail’s pace about a metre before reaching their mark.

“Get out of the way you idiot!” the suspected time mage yelled.

It was only now that the others realized what had happened. The earth mage clumsily dodged out of the way of Percy’s attack, the colour draining from his face as he must’ve finally activated Mana Sense, realizing how close he’d come to dying. As for Percy, he noticed the time mage had moved his construct at some point, forcing the invisible projectiles to go through it. Though it had the opposite effect on his own magic, decelerating the spell rather than speeding it up.

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‘Troublesome…’ Percy clicked his tongue.

His opponents weren’t complete idiots this time. At least one of them had been on-guard for his sneak attack, and now both of them would be. As for the time affinity, it was annoyingly good at supporting them both offensively and defensively.

‘A battle of attrition then.’ he decided, starting to accumulate fused mana again.

Percy could see the earth mage was pacing himself well, so it would take him a long time to run out of mana. His only hope was that the time spells were more costly to maintain. And so, the two sides continued like that for several more minutes, unleashing a barrage on each other whenever they could, to keep up the pressure, both waiting for the other to exhaust their reserves first.

‘Joke’s on you if you think you can outlast Synchronization.’ Percy smirked.

Sure enough, the time construct crumbled at some point. Its owner fell to his knees, breathing heavily. Seizing his chance, Percy ran towards him, aiming to execute him before he had the chance to recover. Of course, the stone daggers were still difficult to dodge, but it wasn’t as bad without the time spell supporting them.

Yet, as Percy reached the halfway point, he realized something was wrong. The time mage had wrapped the last traces of his mana around his body, coating himself in a translucent halo. He looked very odd, as he breathed three or four times faster than normal, a lot of mana accumulating in his lungs.

‘Shit, it’s a trap!’

Percy frantically retreated, but not before unleashing another barrage of invisible blades. Sadly, the time mage raised another screen to slow them down before they reached him, looking at Percy with a savage glint in his eye. As for Percy, his features twisted into a grimace as he narrowly dodged more of the sharp stones. This was his first time running into somebody who could match his regeneration!

‘In fact… he might even be faster than me…’

Realizing he wasn’t getting anywhere like this, Percy tried something different. Upon manifesting another Mantle, he began dashing towards the time mage again, as the earth mage began to shoot the deafening blasts at him.

Percy zigged and zagged to avoid them, timing his steps against his opponent’s moves, as he closed part of the distance separating them. Upon nearing as much as he dared too, he unleashed all his mana into a single set of incorporeal throwing stars, aiming straight towards the time mage. The latter frowned at the predictable attack. He merely moved the screen in front of him to slow the projectiles down, before sidestepping them with ease, letting them fly away harmlessly.

But Percy didn’t stop running. Instead, he turned, circling around the time mage, making it more difficult for the earth mage to target him. The two men had to pivot around too, so that they could continue shooting at Percy. As for the latter, he gathered more fused mana, trying to form his Mantle again.

“Uuugghh!!!”

Playing dangerously as he was, Percy was eventually hit by one of the stone daggers. Not directly – fortunately – as that would have probably torn a limb off, but even getting glanced by one was enough to carve a nasty gash on his thigh, sending him tumbling on the ground. Though he pushed himself immediately, rolling out of that spot, knowing he couldn’t afford to stop for a single moment. Sure enough, another blow landed right where he previously was.

Out of options, Percy swung the half-formed Mantle once more, aiming towards the time mage. But he didn’t even stop to check whether his attack landed, as he continued running away towards a certain direction.

“I don’t know if you’re really an Orange core or some kind of monster, but it’s impressive you’ve lasted this long.” the man sneered as he casually negated the invisible daggers again. “But it ends now.”

The time mage’s smile froze on his face, however, when he saw his partner fall limp on the ground, his eyes glazed over.

“W-What?! How?!” he exclaimed in disbelief. “You sent all the daggers my way! I made sure of that!”

Percy cracked his neck, looking at the time mage with a cold smile. He slowly walked towards him, manifesting a set of silver knives in each hand. Yet, he didn’t speak. Why bother explaining himself to a dead man?

Indeed, he had thrown the last of his fused mana towards the time mage, but that wasn’t what he had killed the other guy with. Instead, he had retrieved the daggers he had launched during his previous attack, recycling the mana into a new Mantle after circling around the entire battlefield!

Of course, Percy could have never done this on his own. It was impossible to outrun his own spell – not even with Synchronization. That was why he had relied on the time screen to slow the projectiles down for him, allowing him to catch them on the other side!

The man panicked as Percy approached. Clearly, he didn’t have a single offensive spell in his arsenal, his kit limited to support magic. He looked like he was about to beg for his life, but Percy never gave him the chance.

Tossing the knives at him, Percy forced him to defend with the screen. Though he didn’t stop after the first wave. The man might be able to regenerate mana faster with his time magic, but he spent it more quickly too. Knife after knife, minute after minute, Percy continued until the man was lying on the ground breathing heavily.

Finally, he manifested a sickle in his hand, throwing it at the mage, watching it cleave his soul apart as if it were a sheet of paper.

And just like that, the second guy died too.