The Nexus Games [Chp 31]

Hey peeps!

John and I are in Vegas. I still have more of this story ready, so here it is!

—Chapter 31—

—Mind Magic—

Kellan stepped closer to Xiang.

The red light of the sun through the Net created a burning hue throughout the office building. More shouts and gunshots echoed throughout the city, punctuated by periods of quiet.

“Listen, I have an idea,” Kellan said. “We’ll destroy the building. When it collapses, the creature will fall and die. And I’ve brought buildings down before. We used explosives to—”

Xiang held a hand up, and Kellan stopped speaking.

“It’s cute you want to solve everything like this was a mission back on your dimension, but we don’t have time to decimate a building.” Xiang touched Kellan’s upper arm. “We’re mages.” In a sarcastic tone, she added, “It means we can solve problems with magic.”

“So, we can blow up the building with magic?” Kellan quipped.

“As in, magic has other solutions. Explosions aren’t necessary.”

“With my magic… I can mold metal, shape it into a knife, make that knife glow like a flashlight, and then stab myself with it, all while feeling nothing because I can ignore pain.” Kellan held up a hand. “Oh, and I can step through shadows. None of those things compare to a good ol’ fashioned explosion, though.”

“Your poor choices in magical abilities can be fixed with enough arcana.” Xiang dragged her fingers up to his shoulder. When Kellan glanced to stare at her touch, she removed her hand. “Listen—you saw the yami, didn’t you? Its high fortitude and armor?”

“Yeah.”

“Physical attacks will be damn near useless, but magical attacks can easily deal with the monster. Fire, for example, has an interesting side effect. It can exhaust targets, causing them to lose fortitude, or destroying their armor completely.”

“Well, Mavis isn’t here. She’s the only magma mage I know.”

Xiang crossed her arms and sighed. “Fire was just an example. I’m a mind mage. We needn’t focus on physical attacks.”

“I don’t know what mind mages can do.” Kellan gestured to the world around him. “I don’t know what anything can do, really. I’m relying on my eyeballs to give me consistent information.”

“Sen didn’t explain more of the magics to you?” Xiang hardened her expression. Her voice practically became dull as she muttered, “I told him to instruct you before the games began.”

“He told me some vague things. Like how magics relate to personality, but nothing I could use to strategize with.”

Xiang glanced around, her intelligent eyes landing on a door with two squiggly kanji. “Perhaps I should just show you what mind mages are capable of.” She strode over to the door, her heels clicking the entire way. “Come. If you want to waste time on this yami, I’ll indulge your curiosity, but only so you can understand more of my abilities. After this, we must focus on acquiring the key… and nothing else.”

With another wave of her hand, the door opened, revealing a stairwell that led up. The office building wasn’t as tall as the one with the bird yami—it was just ten stories—and Kellan glanced upward, counting the many steps that went upward in a square, all along the wall.

He could see up the middle of the stairs, all the way to the ceiling.

Xiang didn’t head for the steps. Kellan didn’t blame her. Who wanted to climb ten stories in heels?

But it did make him wonder what was going to happen.

Cash, the inbred resident of the Nexus, followed into the stairwell and closed the door. He stood tall, though his tattered clothes practically fell apart as he moved. He left a trail of threads behind as he walked.

Everything echoed up the steps and against the plain gray walls, even a slight sigh. Kellan held his breath, waiting to hear someone—or something—lurking nearby. Cash and Xiang didn’t move. To Kellan’s surprise, he heard nothing.

Only the increased howl of the wind outside.

“Mind mages are capable of many feats,” Xiang said as she stepped into the middle of the stairwell. “Telekinesis is fairly common. It’s the ability to move objects with your mind.” She lifted her hand, and then her whole body lifted from the ground. She continued upward at a steady pace—not fast, though.

She had the speed of a lazy elevator.

Kellan ran up the first flight of stairs and beat her to the second story. Xiang didn’t seem to mind. She continued upward, riding her invisible elevator, her feet hanging, her toes pointed toward the ground.

“If you can fly, why aren’t you doing this all the time?” Kellan asked as he leaned onto the railing.

“The answer to your question is mana. It’s a finite resource, and unless we have a way to replenish it, I don’t want to waste any. It costs me mana to use more than five pounds worth of force with my telekinesis. Small objects, or doing minor tasks, like opening doors, requires no mana.”

“I see.”

Xiang continued her silent ascent. Kellan ran up the next set of stairs, keeping pace with her now, waiting for the next lesson on the strange magic.

Cash followed up the steps, his movement surprisingly quiet. He tried to stay out of sight, even going so far as to hug the walls and keep his hands from the railing. Perhaps he knew something about magic, but he didn’t say.

“Mages gain a focus at D rank, and then a specialist ability at S rank, and a mastery ability at M rank.” Xiang spoke without any strain in her voice. Her telekinesis didn’t seem to distract her in the least bit. “These extra abilities tend to reduce mana cost. For instance, my illusions are almost costless to manifest. I only need mana for illusions that are larger than multi-story building, and even then, my illusions are always cheaper.”

“Yeah, I can step into the darkness.” Kellan spoke the words as his gaze wandered to the next set of steps.

Instead of climbing them, he dove into the shadows. The inky void of cold power welcomed him. He traveled through the darkness, going up the steps of the stairwell in a matter of seconds. Kellan exited the darkness on the fourth floor and had to take a deep breath.

“Did you see that?” he called out over the railing.

“Y-Yes,” Cash replied. “Impressive.”

“The ability to step into the shadows is a very common ability among eclipse mages,” Xiang said as she lifted up beyond the fourth story and continued to the next. “What you need to do is focus on developing the laser ability. As an eclipse and metal mage, you have the perfect synergy already set up.”

“Oh, yeah?” Kellan slipped into the darkness another time. He exited on the fifth story, exhilarated by his power. He felt like a dolphin, diving into the void. “What if I just want to focus on eclipse magic?”

“Then I recommend invisibility and creating shadow shell armor. Eclipse magic can harden darkness and use it like a physical object. So long as the light is dim, you’ll have a great advantage.”

They went all the way to the ninth floor, Kellan practicing his shadow-stretching ability, Xiang casually floating to her destination with her telekinesis, and Cash following with silent determination. Once they were almost to the top, Xiang’s tone shifted to something of amusement.

“Laser damage can become powerful,” she said with a smile. “But phantasmal damage—the kind created by mind magic—is the most tricky.”

“Why is that?” Kellan stopped at the last set of stairs.

“Because instead of targeting a person’s fortitude to deal damage, phantasmal typing targets a person’s willpower.” She floated to the tenth story and then landed with the grace of a falling leaf. With a flick of her wrist, she pushed her dark hair over her shoulder. “The damage I deal with my mind blast is based on how much willpower I have over my target.”

Kellan stepped into the darkness, but instead of slipping over the steps like a quick shadow, he slithered across the wall. He exited the shadows on the tenth floor, stepping out of the wall and marveling at his ability.

“Wait,” he said, his thoughts returning to the conversation. “What do you mean?”

“If I have one or two willpower over my target, I deal one damage with my mind blast. And if I have three or four, I deal six damage… And if I have five or six higher, I deal fifteen… And finally, if I have seven or higher, I deal thirty. The target soaks only with their willpower—no armor rating.”

Kellan rotated his shoulders. “You can bypass the armor rating?”

“That’s right.” Xiang headed for the door to the roof. “Now you understand. Each magical typing has its advantages and disadvantages. Fire will reduce the armor and stats of the opponent. Lightning will stun. Ice will slow and freeze. Phantasmal will attack willpower only. Entropy will permanently maim. Phase typing will ignore all armor and shielding.”

“What about laser damage?” Kellan asked.

“You’ll have a lot of damage,” Xiang said, her hand hovering above the handle. “Since two magics share the typing. And it’s range is by far the greatest of all magical types.”

The door to the roof flew open. Xiang walked out, Kellan shadowed her steps, and Cash quickly ran up the last of the stairs to join them. A harsh wind rushed over the roof, and Xiang shielded her eyes as she strode to the edge of the building.

The disgusting bird was across the street and above them, perched atop the fifteen-story skyscraper. It howled and spread its diseased wings, losing more feathers. The fat blob of a bird moved its head around, but without any eyes, it obviously couldn’t see.

Eggs were pushed from its bloated body, slime-coated and sticky.

Kellan lifted his gun, ready to attack the fell beast, now that he was closer. Xiang placed a delicate hand on his elbow, and then gently pushed the weapon down.

“I told you—that’s not a sound tactic.” Xiang smiled. “Allow me to demonstrate my abilities.”

Without a word, Kellan jerked his elbow out of her grip. She offered a frown at the gesture.

Kellan stepped in close and lowered his voice, making sure his back was turned to Cash. “Why did you assign me to search the city with you?” he whispered to Xiang. “Because I don’t have any interest in becoming Alex Kellan the Replacement. You can keep your love triangle. It doesn’t need to be a love square.”

A prolonged moment passed between them.

Xiang stepped away and rubbed at her temple. “I brought you with me so that you wouldn’t be ordered around by Sen. Isn’t that what you wanted? You were concerned about his Tyranny Worms, weren’t you?”

Kellan caught his breath, mulled over the comment, and then nodded.

“Next time I won’t take your desires into account.” Xiang turned on her heel, her beautiful hair flowing in the wind. “And trust me—looking at you doesn’t set butterflies free in my stomach. It sets them all on fire. I just… needed to make sure the Arbiter caught sight of me touching you once or twice.”

The mere mention of the Arbiter bothered Kellan. He glanced around, and within moments, spotted one of the creature’s freakish eyes. It was poking out of a billboard on the top of a nearby building. The electronic sign was blinking an advertisement for spaceship-shaped cola, but the Eye of the Arbiter was just sitting in the middle, staring at them from afar.

Watching.

Recording.

Why did she want the Arbiter to see? Kellan couldn’t even think of a reason.

Cash grunted and then pointed to the bird. “More! M-More!”

With his rifle still in hand, he glanced back at the monster. He figured more of the chicks would start attacking, but that wasn’t what Cash was pointing at.

Other people were attacking the gigantic bird.

They leapt around the roof of the building, the flash of their magic lighting up the sky and practically reflecting off the crimson Net overhead. They moved around the beast so quickly, Kellan didn’t get a good glimpse of them.

The crash of windows and the rattle of automatic gunfire drew the attention of the invisible birds. With swarm intensity, they flew for the roof, attacking everything around their mother.

Kellan counted over two dozen dog-sized ravens. They thrashed around their mother, fighting the other participants of the Nexus Games. A couple died—their bodies plummeting to the ground—but most were bloodthirsty and desperate.

“Aren’t we going to do something?” Kellan asked.

Cash rushed to the edge of the ten-story building. He leaned against the ledge, his bloodshot eyes wide. “It has to die… It has to.”

Wounds appeared across the yami and its blood splattered off the edge of the skyscraper and down to the streets below. Xiang smiled to herself as she watched the carnage from afar.

Who were the mages attacking the monster? And why? Kellan wished he could get some data on them. They continued their fight with the beast while drowning in enemy chicks.

“They’re going to kill it,” Kellan muttered through gritted teeth. “If we’re going to get the arcana, we need to do something.”

“Phantasmal damage doesn’t have the range of lasers,” Xiang said. She held up a hand, her fingers outstretched. “But now that we’re on this roof, the beast is within my grasp. And those fools have weakened the beast considerably. Stand back, and marvel at the power of phantasmal damage.”

Kellan stared at the bird, wondering what phantasmal damage would even look like. Gray fire? Or something ghostly?

But he saw nothing.

And then the head of the bird exploded.

Brains flew out in all directions, its last few cries a jumbled mess of sounds, like its body was releasing its own confused gurgle as the head was completely decimated. The phantasmal damage had been a straight attack to the brain—nothing more. No collateral damage. No area of effect. Just a one-one-one target.

And the monster only had one willpower.

What’s Xiang’s score? Kellan wondered. But he already knew she likely had seven over the monster.

The yami spasmed and twitched, its massive body flailing. Then it crashed to the roof of the skyscraper, the last of its eggs cracking under its dead weight.

Xiang flicked her wrist, and ten scarlet arcana crystals flew off the roof, carried by the invisible hands of telekinesis. They glittered as they sailed through the sky and straight over to Xiang.

“A flawless victory,” Xiang said with a smirk as the arcana then floated around her, orbiting like tiny moons.

“Hey!” someone yelled from the skyscraper. “That kill was ours.”

Cash scrambled over to the door of the office building. He could physically hide himself rather well, but his odor prevented any chance of him remaining fully incognito.

“You want that g-gold arcana, right?” Cash asked from the safety of the stairwell. “Bring the yami’s a-arcana. We should h-hurry.”

But Xiang didn’t listen to the man. She stood her ground and waited as two mages from the enemy team flew over on hawk-like wings.