I barely had time to react, my body moving on pure instinct as I flipped over Mavus's tackle in a corkscrew twist that sent my dress flaring around my thighs and my hair whipping through the air.
For a single heartbeat—one perfect, crystalline moment of misplaced optimism—I genuinely believed this would go like our last sparring session—Mavus entering with an opening move, testing my reflexes, then waiting patiently for me to trade back another blow.
I was catastrophically wrong.
Mavus spun around with serpentine fluidity the instant his momentum carried him past me, his painted face tracking my movements with predatory precision, before launching his fist straight at my face with enough force that I could hear the air screaming around his knuckles.
I threw up my left arm—the bandaged stump-hand, because of course my body defaulted to using the damaged limb for blocking—and felt the impact reverberate through bones that weren't designed to withstand this kind of punishment.
Pain exploded up my forearm in white-hot starbursts but I gritted my teeth and pushed through it anyway, using the momentum to pivot sideways while my right fist came around in a hook aimed at Mavus's exposed ribs.
He twisted away with impossible grace, my knuckles just barely grazing his flesh, before immediately countering with a knee driving toward my stomach that I barely avoided by sucking in my gut and arching backward like some kind of desperate gymnast.
"You know," I gasped out between dodges, "most teachers start with theory before practical application! Maybe a lecture! Possibly a diagram!"
I enhanced my legs—felt the familiar surge of magical energy flooding my muscle fibers—before launching myself backward in a flip that cleared three meters of distance. I landed in a crouch with sand spraying around my boots in a golden fan, particles catching the spotlight and glittering like scattered diamonds.
For half a second, I had breathing room. Half a second to assess, to plan, to think about my next move.
Then Mavus was there.
He didn't respond verbally—just moved, closing the distance I'd created in two explosive steps, his fists becoming a blur of strikes that flew from angles I didn't know existed. High, low, center, each attack flowing into the next with a seamless brutality that made my defensive enhancements work overtime just to keep my internal organs well, you know... internal.
I ducked under a roundhouse kick that would've certainly decapitated me before enhancing my right arm to deliver a jab toward his solar plexus. I felt my fist connect with satisfying solidity...
Except it didn't. Not really.
My hand punched through Mavus's stomach like he was made of smoke, and I stared down in horror to see a hole where his intestines should've been.
His insides were composed entirely of sand—golden grains that trickled out in steady streams, cascading down in miniature waterfalls that whispered as they fell. His body dissolved before my eyes, his painted face maintaining that same smirk even as it broke apart into loose grains that scattered across the floor.
I heard the sharp whistle of displaced air behind me—half a second of warning, barely enough to register—before a chop connected with the side of my neck.
The world tilted violently sideways. My vision went spotty, black dots dancing across my field of view like someone had thrown a handful of pepper into my eyes. I stumbled forward on legs that suddenly forgot how coordination worked, before collapsing on one knee.
I glanced back—more instinct than conscious thought—just in time to see a massive elephant looming behind me. Gray skin wrinkled and ancient, like leather left in the sun for centuries. It's tusks gleamed like polished ivory, each one thick as my torso and curved in elegant arcs that ended in wicked points.
It's massive foot raised high in preparation to stomp directly on my fragile body and turn me into an extremely fashionable pancake.
I rolled away with enhanced desperation, pouring everything I had into my legs and core, sand flying everywhere as I tumbled in a graceless sprawl that was more survival than technique.
The elephant's foot slammed down where I'd been standing with a force that made the entire circus tent shudder in response, the impact so powerful it sent vibrations through the ground that I could feel in my bones. A crater formed in the sand, deep enough to bury me if I'd been caught under it.
I scrambled to my feet, breathing going sporadic and ragged, and spun to find Mavus standing alone again in the center of the pit with that infuriating smirk still painted across his face.
Right. Illusions. This is all an illusion, my brain reminded me frantically while my survival instincts screamed that the elephant had felt extremely real and would've certainly killed me regardless of its metaphysical status.
I took a moment to breathe. Just one. Centered myself as much as someone could while standing in an illusory circus tent and being attacked by a criminal mastermind with painted clown makeup.
Then Mavus lunged again—no warning, no mercy—and this time he came from three angles simultaneously, his body splitting into identical copies that attacked in perfect synchronization.
I enhanced everything I could reach at once, pouring energy into legs that carried me in a spinning leap over the leftmost Mavus, right arm snaking out to deliver an elbow strike to the center one's temple while my left stump-arm blocked a kick from the right.
All three dissolved on contact, sand and painted features scattering like disturbed pigeons, their forms breaking apart with that same whisper-soft sound.
The real Mavus—or what I hoped was the real Mavus—materialized behind me with a kick that I barely caught on my crossed forearms, the impact still sending me skidding backward several meters and leaving bruises that I'm certain would hurt for days.
I planted my feet, felt sand shift beneath my boots, then launched forward in a low tackle aimed at his midsection. My shoulder drove into his abs with enhanced force that should've folded him in half.
However, he merely sidestepped with a dancer's grace, grabbed my extended arm, and used my own momentum to flip me over his hip in a throw that sent me sailing through air in a graceless arc before I hit sand hard enough to see stars.
For a moment I just lay there, staring up at the striped canvas ceiling of the circus tent, trying to remember how breathing worked.
Then things got absurd.
The second I was on my feet again, circus performers began materializing from nowhere—acrobats in glittering costumes that caught the light and threw it back in dazzling patterns, jugglers with flaming torches, a strongman flexing muscles that looked carved from marble. A fire-breather stepped forward, his chest expanding as he took a deep breath, and then exhaled a column of flame directly at my face.
I rolled under it with millimeters to spare, feeling heat sear across my back and singe the ends of my hair. The flames licked overhead, so close I could feel individual tongues of fire trying to catch my clothes.
I came up running, enhanced legs carrying me in evasive patterns while Mavus reached up to his own throat with both hands and pulled, extracting a full-sized cutlass from his esophagus like some demented magic trick, the blade gleaming wickedly as he swung it in arcs that whistled through air and came close enough to my neck that I felt the breeze of near-decapitation.
"You've got to be kidding me!" I shouted, "What happened to teaching me Concarnic magic? This is just sadism with extra steps!"
Just then, because apparently the universe had reviewed my evening and decided it lacked sufficient escalation, a lion bounded into the pit—yes, a lion, with a mane like spun gold and teeth designed by evolution specifically for murder—lunging at me with its claws extended.
I dove under its pounce, rolled to my feet, and immediately had to duck a trapeze artist swinging past my head with enough velocity to knock me unconscious if they'd connected.
My heart hammered in my chest. My breath came in ragged gasps. Every muscle screamed for rest but I couldn't afford to stop, couldn't afford even a moment's hesitation because Mavus was relentless.
We exchanged blows for a while before, eventually, blessedly, I spotted an opening. Mavus had overextended slightly on a downward slash, his weight committed forward.
Enhanced strength flooded my right leg as I pivoted and delivered a spinning kick to his wrist, the impact jarring the cutlass from his grip and sending it spinning through the air before embedding itself in the sand with a solid thunk.
But the move cost me everything.
Mavus's knee came up into my stomach with bone-crushing force that I didn't see coming, too focused on disarming him to protect my core. The impact drove all air from my lungs in a painful whoosh.
I sailed backward across the pit like a ragdoll thrown by an angry child, my body slamming into the wooden barrier that ringed the sand with an impact that made my teeth rattle and my vision blur at the edges.
I blinked through the pain and disorientation to see Mavus already in front of me—his fist cocked back and driving forward to aim directly at my face with enough force behind it to paste my skull against the wood.
Time slowed. I could see every detail—the flex of his fingers, the determination in his painted eyes, the way light caught on his knuckles.
I cocked my head sideways at the last possible instant, my cheek grazing his knuckles as they destroyed half the barrier behind me. Wooden planks exploded outward in a spray of splinters that rained down like angry confetti.
I didn't waste the opening. In that very instant, I dropped low and rolled between his spread legs with acrobatic flexibility, coming up on the other side and bouncing back to my feet with sand clinging to my sweat-soaked clothes.
For a moment—just one precious moment—I had space to think.
My brain raced through everything Mavus had said earlier, that whole philosophical rambling about flipping disadvantages into advantages, treating limitations as tools rather than weaknesses, and an idea crystallized with the kind of desperate clarity that only comes when you're this close to getting your ass comprehensively kicked.
I began unwrapping my bandaged left hand. Slowly. Deliberately, working the fabric loose enough that it started to unwind with each movement.
Mavus cocked a brow beneath his painted features, his stance shifting slightly as he tracked my movements with renewed interest.
I charged before he could fully process what I was doing, before he could counter whatever he thought my plan was. With a flourish that would've made Julius weep with pride, I flicked my wrist and sent the bandage unwrapping completely, the white fabric streaming behind me like a victory banner catching phantom wind.
Then I flung my arm in a wide arc.
A spray of fresh blood—from wounds that had barely started scabbing over, now torn open again by the motion—flew through air in a crimson arc that caught the spotlight and glittered like rubies before splashing across his eyes.
His features were struck with genuine surprise, the first crack in his composed facade I'd seen all fight, his hands coming up instinctively to wipe at his face.
I crouched low, enhanced every muscle in my legs and core, and delivered a mean uppercut to his jaw that connected with a satisfying crack of knuckle against bone.
Blood sprayed—his this time, painting his white clown makeup in crimson streaks. I allowed myself a smile of pure, vindictive satisfaction because I'd finally landed a clean hit on this monster of a man.
Mavus began to laugh—actual laughter—rich, genuine, and tinged with something that might've been approval. His head came back down, blood dripping from his split lip, and he looked at me with eyes that sparkled beneath the paint.
Then a sword impaled him from behind.
The same cutlass I'd disarmed earlier—somehow retrieved, somehow wielded—drove straight through his chest with a wet thunk of metal piercing flesh. The tip emerged from his sternum in a bloom of red that erupted from him with arterial enthusiasm.
I gasped, my smile dying as Mavus's body crumpled to the sand, blood pooling beneath him in spreading darkness, only to find that the figure who'd stabbed him was Mavus himself.
Another Mavus, completely uninjured, his painted face split in that same knowing smirk as he glanced down at his own corpse dissolving into sand and theatrical blood.
"Magnificent," he purred, genuine praise coloring his tone in ways I hadn't heard before. "Weaponizing your injury, using blood as a blinding agent, turning a disadvantage into offensive capability—that's exactly the kind of lateral thinking that separates survivors from corpses in our profession. I'm genuinely impressed."
He twirled the cutlass once more before bringing it to his lips, and I watched with a mixture of horror and morbid fascination as he opened his mouth impossibly wide and began swallowing the blade. The metal disappeared down his throat inch by inch, his painted face showing no discomfort whatsoever, until the entire weapon had vanished back into whatever impossible space it had emerged from.
I sighed, long and theatrical, my entire body trembling with exhaustion and adrenaline. "Are you ever going to show me the actual Concarnic magic you've been promising? Or is this entire exercise just you having fun watching me flail around while you demonstrate why illusion magic is terrifying?"
Mavus laughed again, the sound carrying across the circus tent that was slowly fading at the edges as he presumably let the illusion lapse, before he gestured with a little wiggle of his fingers.
"No more tricks," he promised, his painted eyes gleaming. "Come at me with your full force on this last attack. Everything you have, every enhancement you can muster, all your strength focused into a single strike."
I stared at him, trying to gauge if this was another elaborate setup for humiliation. "Full force?" I confirmed, already feeling enhancements flood through my body in preparation. "No holding back? No 'oh but I was testing you' reveals after I commit?"
"Full force," Mavus repeated, settling into a relaxed stance that somehow felt more dangerous than any fighting position he'd taken all night. "Show me what you've become."
I took a breath. Centered myself. Let every enhancement I could channel flood through muscle and bone in a cascade of power that made my entire body hum with barely-contained violence.
And then I moved.