Depressing the door handle and pulling, the cold night air began to creep inside. I boldly stepped outside, closing the door behind me. As my hand left the handle, I sent a signal to the array inside to once again activate. I wasn't about to make it easier for the antagonising party to invade my home.
"Oh, how bold." A sarcastic man's voice echoed from the street ahead of me.
I spotted a gaunt-faced, thin old man. He looked to be in his fifties and dressed in loose-fitting, tattered clothes that made him look like he hadn't eaten a proper meal in weeks.
"Says the man who probes at another practitioner's barrier." I counted, as I scanned the dark street to try and spot any hidden figures but couldn't spot any.
"Well, it appears that you have something of mine." His smirk seemed to crack as he spoke, it seemed like he wasn't used to being denied.
"Oh? I don't remember acquiring anything that could be considered someone else's." I could see him slowly losing his patience, so I started to prepare myself for a fight.
"Now, now, no point in lying." He said through gritted teeth. "My cute little tracker told me that a certain little chick had wandered here." A sickly grin spread across his face that sent a disgusting shiver down my spine.
"I wasn't aware that owning another person was illegal in this kingdom," I stated, knowing full well that slaves were outlawed centuries ago. However, there were still black markets that still ran trafficking rings for those who had the money to afford it.
A silence fell on the street, neither I nor my uninvited guest said anything more or made a move to act. Both of us seemed to be making calculations, playing out each step of an imaginable fight. It felt strange to think like a caster, I would usually just rush in and hit things until they stopped moving.
During my momentary lapse in focus, the gaunt man took the initiative, as fire wisps started to coalesce around him. Three shafts of fire shot out towards me, swirling as they flew.
Even though I was quick at casting, I was both a step behind and facing a caster who was on an Elementalist path. So, the shield I had hastily cast did block the three impacts, but the heat licked my skin and blinded me in the process.
However, I didn't need to see him to know where he was, after all, casters don't tend to move during combat and that would be something I could use against him.
Pushing the shield to the side, to move the residual heat and flames out of the way. I sent out a wide slashing arc of wind. However, a sallow hand rose up and conjured a slab of earth in between him and the wind arc.
'This man had little to no combat experience. Or he believes to be more powerful.' Breaking into a sprint, I planned to close the gap between us.
I ran forward with measured steps, slinging a condensed ball of water that impacted the earth's shield, splashing water in all directions. The second spell that I had in mind, I kept for the last second.
The earth shield began to crumble as the mage prepared to launch a counterattack. The air grew colder as spikes of glowing blue ice formed around the mage. However, his cocky smirk faded as he saw that I had moved and was now a few feet away from him with a finger pointing at him, energy crackling as I smiled and directed at him with a shit-eating grin.
Abandoning the ice spikes, the sallow man's face was visibly shaken and rushed to conjure another shield. The last thing he saw before earth once again covered his vision, was the crackling energy in my finger dissipating and crackling up my arm. 'Tricked ya.' My grin widened as I once again broke out into a run.
Circling to the side of this cocoon of mud, I halved the thrumming energy into two, one in each arm. In my calculations, I knew that it wouldn't be enough to puncture the shell, so I tried something that I might regret later.
Recalling a spell that I haven't used in a long while. The energy started to crackle with a high intensity that raised every hair on my arms and even made the air around me hum with power. My bones started to shake under the pressure of the combination of internal mana and external mana. The blue lightning was mixed with the purple colour of my mana, as the spell was amplified with forced bolt.
*Snap* 'Shit.' I heard something break inside me. Throwing both of my hands out, I hastily combined both arcs of lightning with the power of force bolt, and shot it forward towards the earth shell.
The power was so great that the night was made day for a brief second and the sound of an explosion deafened me and made my ears ring.
Blinking out the light from my eyes that had blinded me, I saw something that absolutely shocked me once my eyes had readjusted. Half of the shield had been blown to pieces, and the blast had been redirected slightly by the curve of the shell and flew into the clouds where it was crackling and rumbling, a few droplets of rain began to fall because of the sudden disturbance.
Clenching my numb hands, I tore myself away from the sight and instead looked for the gaunt mage. And then, I spotted them, legs lying across the floor, the rest of the body was obscured by the remains of the earth wall.
Slowly approaching, while keeping my guard up. I discovered that the legs were still attached to the body, however, the right arm wasn't. In fact, the entire shoulder was missing, and a dark pool had started to form where the flesh was missing, filling my nostrils with the strong smell of iron.
'Tough bastard is still alive.' It was shallow, but I could spot his chest rising and falling. 'But this is going to be tough to explain.' I thought as I imagined the city guards that must have been making their way here. It'll be difficult to explain what exactly happened.
'What am I worried about? It was self-defence.' I concluded as I began to rifle through his pockets, I couldn't just leave them unpilfered, could I? Call it reparations for attacking me.
After finding only, an iron key and a handful of coppers, I took a step back from the now-dead man. 'There is something satisfying about nipping someone in the bud.' I stood there looking at him for a moment, recalling how powerful he would become after he had harvested a few more lives and turned into a demon.
It was a little sad to kill him when he was still so weak, I would have liked to test myself against a demon. I sighed as I turned and walked back towards my front door. 'But he crossed the line in trying to invade my space.' A sudden downpour of rain began to fall, and each raindrop that landed on the skin of my arms stung and felt like needles stabbing into me.
Deactivating my array once more, I entered my home for hopefully the last time today. And saw the two faces that had entered my living room to watch the show. One looked at me in awe, the other had a look of fear.
"That was so cool!" Oswin yelled, his eyes practically shined stars. I just offered him a quick smile and looked at Ula, who refused to look into my eyes.
"It should be safe for you to return home now." These were the only words that I offered as I walked past them and sat into one of the living room chairs. My arms both pulsing with pain and were slightly red and discoloured.
*Ping*
[Force bolt: level 3]
[Energy control: level 3]
The pain I was feeling seemed to justify the skill level-ups. But before I could think any more, Ula stepped in front of me. She still looked full of fear, but I could tell now that it wasn't fear of me, she was just fearful of the whole situation.
"Have you got any bandages or any salves?" She asked as she looked at the purple bruises that had started to form on my arms.
I smiled to myself as I found her motherly attitude to be adorable. "It's quite alright, my dear," I replied as I conjured a healing light to cover both of my arms, and a sudden prickly warmth ran through them.
She looked surprised as she took a step back from the sudden light, but then looked a little disappointed, I couldn't help but smile.
After that, we had a little chat, Oswin kept asking me question after question about magic and fighting. I gave him a simple response as I doubted a child could completely understand how magic worked, and I didn't want to fill his head with violent fantasies.
Ula sat patiently listening and seemed to be enjoying Oswin's enthusiasm. We spoke late into the night until both of the children yawned and struggled to keep their eyes open. I offered the spare room that I had offered before, at first Ula declined, saying that it was silly as they only lived next door. However, as she looked towards the front door, her face began to fill with worry and the young, sleepy boy on her lap convinced her to accept.
After a brief good night, the two went upstairs, towards the spare bedroom, following my directions. I sat in my chair, looking deeply into the fire and let my mind wander, as I healed my arms slowly.
On closer inspection, I found that I broke both of my arms, and the unrestricted flow of energy actually burnt a lot of internal tissue. If I didn't conduct emergency treatment when I did, I might have lost both of my arms.
'I've been craving a challenging fight. But so far, everything has fallen like dominoes.' My eyes started to become heavy as I mused about every past encounter so far. 'I hoped that following a new path and combat style, I would feel the excitement I did when I was young.'
Closing my eyes to the soundtrack of the crackling fire. 'But even in this weak body, there is no challenge. I guess, even a tiger cub is still a tiger.' I fell asleep with a somewhat arrogant thought.
I didn't have anything to do in the real world, so I passed time with scrolling the internet and then went back into the game.