Published at 16th of February 2024 2:21 pm

Chapter 34. Inheritor Against The Disinherited

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“You’re a terrifying opponent, Brother,” Nox said, meeting Louis in the middle of the terrace. “I reckon I’ll need to pull out all my tricks against you.” He grabbed the flask from his hip and took a swig. When he continued, Nox spoke loud enough for everyone watching to hear. “Sniper’s Eye to see you better. Feline Grace to avoid your blade. Sprinter’s High, so I don’t tire out.”

“You never stop, do you?” Louis asked. “Every duel is an opportunity to advertise.”

“Mummy isn’t paying my way through life. Some of us have to work for a living, and I believe in sharing my gifts. Why shouldn’t our classmates have the opportunity to share my advantages?”

“Quit the nonsense. I’m going to prove today that Mother’s concerns are baseless. I need no help dealing with you.”

The banter gave the brews enough time to take effect. Sniper’s Eye kicked in first. It didn’t just increase Nox’s field of vision. Colors grew more vivid, and whenever something moved, it momentarily gained luminosity. Nox was counting on it to help him track his half-brother’s illusions.

Feline Grace only further sharpened his senses. Nox felt his muscles loosen and twitch. Finally, Sprinter’s High kicked in. Nox’s lungs expanded, and his vitality swelled. He stretched, enjoying the feeling of unstoppability.

“I don’t get it, Louis,” Nox said, cracking his neck. “Why are you so obsessed with me? I get Eddie to some extent. Mother never gave him any attention, and your father never did him favors. The man is still jealous of a person that’s been dead for almost two decades and still sees the disinherited son as a liability. But you got everything you could’ve ever wanted, Louie. Why don’t you think for yourself and be better?”

“Unlike you, I have the honor to stand by family,” Louis answered. “And you’re a blight on our name.”

“Family.” Nox sighed. “The idiot’s excuse. I thought you were supposed to be a prodigy, little brother. My family is the aunt who raised me when our dear mother dropped me for the Gedges. My family is the lovely woman that just kicked your pathetic father’s first spawn. You forget, Louie, Mother took the Mercer name from me. I’m just a humble Ratra.”

“I know what you’re trying to do, Nox. It’s not going to work. I’m not as quick to anger as Edward.”

“Are you lads done posturing?” Professor Wolfhammer asked, sounding tired and frustrated. “We don’t have all day.”

Nox and Louis retreated to opposite ends of the terrace. The latter already had his weapon ready, and it took Nox half a second to activate his bow. The composite bow felt more solid and powerful in Nox’s hand. It hummed for a couple of heartbeats after manifesting. Louis frowned from across the terrace, his eyes focusing on the bow. More eyes on the terrace focused on the weapon, but Nox failed to see any changes from his point of view.

Then the duel began.

Unwilling to give Louis a chance to swarm the field with illusions, Nox fired instantly. The mana arrow appeared clearer and better defined than any arrow he had fired before. It felt as if the increased energy in his star improved the projectile’s purity and strength. Louis made no attempt at dodging. Instead, he exploded in a cloud of pink fire.

“Was he an illusion all along?” Someone in the audience asked.

“Has anyone seen him get hit or have a close call?”

“Not since the beginner course,” a woman answered.

“Oh, my!” Nox feigned concern. He pulled a marble-sized pellet out of his pocket, feeling glad about carrying his utility pouch. “Little Louie disappeared. Whatever will I do?”

A pained yelp escaped Nox before he could shatter the smoke bomb. It fell from his hand, and a narrow blade struck the pellet mid-air and knocked it across the terrace. It landed on the opposite of the terrace, and a blue cloud formed a couple of heartbeats later. Nox heard a soft chuckle to his left as a hair-thick line of blood blossomed on the back of his right hand.

"I know all your tricks, Nox," Louis said. His voice now came from the opposite direction. "Alchemy is a charlatan's substitute for true magecraft. Stick to what you're good at. Move to the production department. You might just excel there and save our family the shame of calling you a relative."

The taunts had no effect on Nox. He had grown up with worse and identified his half-brother's attempt to beat him at his own game. Mages relied on their minds a lot more than Aether Warriors. They needed to remain calm during the heat of battle for the sake of spellform control, visualization for script modifications, and mana control. Angry mages made mistakes and resulted in accidents, if not death.

The second smoke pellet exploded in Nox's hand. He didn't attempt shattering it on the ground. A hard squeeze between the thumb, middle, and index finger did the job. Nox dropped it as the concentrated acrid smoke stained his hands and stung his nasal passages. If not for the Sigil of Immunity, he'd keel over coughing and spewing colorful mucus.

When Professor Wolfhammer announced the class's contents, and Louis declared his intent to duel Nox, he retrieved a few key items from Lillin's storage. Besides Trap Foam and Choke 'Em Blue, Nox had also claimed a pair of enchanted goggles. It was originally standard alchemical equipment, but Nox had modified them to improve the smoke-penetrative powers.

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Sniper's Eye had a side effect of drying out the eyes and making them more sensitive to irritants. Unfortunately, his sigils did little to alleviate the discomfort. He had made a pair of them for himself and Lillin—hers came with a nose, mouth covering, and a spellform for filtering air. The modifications swiftly drained the device's mana stores, making the effects last only five minutes, but Nox considered the time sufficient for his purposes. It had mana recovery runes, too, but they took over a day to restore the goggles to full.

Nox injected a mote of mana into the goggles as he pulled them on. His guidance pushed open a gate in the script, activating the modifications. The smoke around him appeared to thin. Moderate translucence did little to improve visibility.

Soft coughing pulled Nox's attention to the right. It didn't echo all around him like Louis's speech. He nocked a mana arrow and launched it in the general direction. The projectile hit nothing, but a section of smoke shifted laterally instead of rising. Nox fired another quick arrow in the smoke's path.

It made impact.

Fae fire burst from where the arrow struck, and Louis emerged from the flames. He stumbled to his knees with an arrow in his hip.

"Sorry, Louie," Nox said, firing the most basic mana arrows in quick succession. "I'll do better next time. Who am I to deprive you of a prick in the ass?"

The second arrow hit Louis in the butt, drawing a short scream, and the third bounced off his side, shattering the first dueling ward. Before Nox could fire a third, a tongue of golden flames burst from Louis's right palm and assaulted Nox. He didn't dodge, thinking it was illusory fire, but scalding heat caressed his cheek, and he lost a ward, too. If that weren't bad enough, Ratra's bow flickered, and the translucent blue limbs of mana flickered. They disappeared a second later, leaving nothing but the inscribed rod in his hands.

For the first in a long time, Nox's heart threatened to pound out of his chest, and his temples throbbed. He and Lillin had been cornered before by hulking magic beasts. He had faced stalker lizards with only an inexperienced support mage at his side. However, it was the first time he was against an arcanically superior foe with no weapon in hand. Worst of all, he didn't have his Artisan's Arm. Nox felt vulnerable, and his image was at risk. Salesmen valued reputation and buyer perception of all. If he lost and let Louis humiliate him, no one in class would want to buy concoctions from him.

The second dueling ward shattered before he successfully conjured his layered defense. Golden flames slowed to a crawl approximately ten inches from him and solidified into glass on contact with the second disc. The essence carried pink and fiery orange hues. Louis cut off the flames and retreated immediately, leaving crimson droplets in his wake. No mana arrows stuck out of the prince. He multiplied, and the illusory doubles spread across the terrace.

Louis Mercer had disruption magic. Nox was sure it wasn't antimagic or spell nullification since Slow and Crystallize Essence had still worked as intended. The two spells stabilized essence, while disruption effects had the opposite effect. It made sense that Louis and Edward had worked together to devise magic with similar functions. They likely shared tutors.

The tournament had told Nox that Louis used Fae Fire as his primary cantrip, and Illusory Forgery served as his first planet’s focus. Nox knew little about his other two cantrips. He guessed Louis used Silent Step to compliment his invisibility spell. The fire spell, on the other hand, made no sense. Nox only knew of the long-ranged Fire Dart cantrip. Flame Tongue was a tier-two spell limited to journeymen specializing in fire magic. Either Queen Mercer had supplied her prized son with a rare cantrip, or he had an artifact for the purpose. It was likely Louis was close to ascending his star or had already achieved the evolution, which meant he probably had a second planet, which made spell disruption possible.

Nox racked his brain, looking for solutions. He had a few more varieties of smoke bombs. However, his Sigil of Immunity would struggle against several different toxins. He was not guaranteed to find his opponent or get the correct Louis through the Illusory Doubles spell. The flame attack had blown the last smoke screen away. It was likely the same would happen again.

When Louis and his clones charged at Nox, he indiscriminately threw pellets and electrified poison essence glass at them. A couple of them dodged, and others burst into puffs of pink flame. There were too many of them, and Nox had no choice but to go on the defensive. He constructed a pyramid-shaped mana cage. Unlike his previous conjurations, the construct stood taller than Nox and significantly drained his mana. Nox infused all four sides with Crystallize Essence, willing Ratra’s Bow to recover.

“C’mon!” Nox hissed at the weapon, throwing mental images of ranged weapons at it. “Doesn’t have to be a big bow. Anything will do.”

Ratra’s Bow finally reacted but didn’t adopt any of its usual shapes. Instead, two branching lengths of mana extended from the rod, and a flopping band connected them. Nox tested the conjuration and realized it was a slingshot. Memories of Annabelle’s favored weapon were still fresh on his mind.

Four copies of Louis lunged at Nox simultaneously, driving their rapiers at his torso. Three solidified into countless fragments of pink essence glass while the third burst through the defensive spell. Nox spun with the attack, and the rapier’s edge sliced deep into his side. Fortunately, the damage wasn’t enough to shatter the final dueling ward.

Galvanising Touch electrified a piece of essence glass just as he launched it from his sling. It was a remnant of Mistress Maraka’s acidic attack. The projectile turned into luminous purple fluid midflight and splashed all over Louis’ clothes, hands, and face. He screamed, dropping his rapier and falling to his knees. Nox wasted no time and grabbed his brother’s sword arm, twisted it around his back, and drove a knee into the back of Louis’ legs.

The screaming didn’t stop when the second dueling ward shattered. Louis desperately clutched and scratched at his face as the acid burned him. Then the third ward shattered. Nox released him, and the screaming intensified. A fourth glass triangle appeared above Louis’s head, and cracks spread across it rapidly. It would’ve been easy to let the last layer of protective magic fail. The healers would save Louis’ life, but the scars would remain for life without an expert or archmage’s work—healing specialists of the rank were few and far between.

Nox hated Edward and severely disliked Louis. While he had given up on the former, he thought the younger of the pair redeemable. Instead of letting the eighteen-year-old suffer, Nox emptied a vial of alkaline salve on his brother’s face. It took another before the purple splotches lost their luminosity. Then he divided a third vial between Louis’ hands. The cracks spreading across the final ward ceased growing, and the screaming ceased.

Even though a healer was already sprinting towards them, Nox infused two healing pellets with Galvanising Touch. When he forced them into Louis’ mouth, they turned into jelly, and the younger man looked up at him with shocked eyes. His cheeks were red and raw, but the skin looked unharmed. Unfortunately, his hands had suffered damage and would need a skilled healer’s touch.

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