Bound After the Beheading
The knight denied it in a rush.
"No!"
What soured Perez was not that the Empire had tampered with the magic towers inside its own borders, but that it had reached into the towers of the Three Eastern Kingdoms.
"These bastards are begging to die."
"I told you, it isn't true!"
The knight denied it again. The desperation in the cry made it sound as if he might actually be innocent. Perez did not care whether the words were true or false. This seemed as good a chance as any to kill the Grand Master.
He hurled a glass bottle at the knight in the lead. It shattered, and black liquid surged upward.
"You people really—!"
They had said it wasn't them, and he had attacked anyway. Millicent's temper finally boiled over.
"You think I'm holding back because I'm afraid?"
The helmet that had sunk to her neck rose and sealed her face. Through the eye-slits, pupils poured out beams of light.
Perez quietly mouthed a release spell.
The curse-laden liquid splattered across the knight's armor and clung.
"A curse like this—the armor will handle—"
She was still shouting her confidence when the curse began to eat into the steel with a hiss. Perez threw two more bottles, drawing out still more of the cursed liquid.
"Every piece of magic armor you're wearing was made by a magic tower. Did you think we simply sold it? We built a failsafe into the armor for a day exactly like this."
In that instant yellow light burst from the magic armor and burned the curse away.
The knight shouted back.
"You think we didn't know? The magic you carved in secret was disabled long ago."
She swung her sword at the curse rushing in to smother her face, straight for the eye-slits. Red aura sheared it apart.
Chris had moved first, and still he was the one under attack. He had no means of striking faster than lightning.
As the bolt came, he built a shield around mana drawn from his second ring, and cried out inwardly.
Hold. Hold!
The lightning hammered the mana shield, failed to break it, and scattered in a crackling burst. Stan's brow tightened.
"You!"
"What?"
"You bound another ring!"
"Another?"
"When you fought me over the sea, you were a One-Ring."
"I wasn't."
"Every time this bastard opens his mouth, another lie. If you hadn't been a One-Ring, you couldn't have lasted then. And you're better now than you were."
On the sea he had failed to stop the lightning. Now he had stopped it.
Stan's eyes flared.
"You took Motaro!"
"No. I didn't."
"How does trash like you bind a ring without Motaro?"
"I already told you. The one I found, I gave to Daryl. I never used it."
"There's more, isn't there?"
"There isn't."
"Lying again."
"Shall I strip down to my underwear? Will that convince you?"
"You hid it somewhere. Or you handed it to whoever's backing you."
Only four people were actually fighting: Chris and Stan, Millicent and Perez. Everyone else was watching.
The moment Stan named a backer, the knights waved him off in a flurry.
Filder spoke.
"We have nothing to do with that man."
Stan fixed him with a glare.
"Wait. I'll break this bastard first. You're next."
He swept his staff, and dozens of lightning bolts tore loose.
They slammed into the mana shield one after another, spitting white flashes. Cracks raced across it; it was about to split. Chris formed a mana bomb, hurled it, and stamped. Soil at his feet packed itself together and plastered onto the back of the shield.
The bomb burst in front of Stan and did not so much as scratch him. The barrier he had raised swallowed the blast whole.
"You've improved."
Chris could feel the rise in his own skill. The last time they fought, he had only just stepped into the Ring Binding realm and was still raw, unable to bring its power properly to bear. Since then he had learned from the troll and drilled until the gap showed. He was no longer being driven one way, as before. The disadvantage remained, but he could fight.
Stan opened a spatial pouch and flung it into the air. White liquid sprayed from it, vaporized at once, and became a cloud—and the cloud began to spit lightning, thicker than before.
Bolts raged down from the sky. Chris threw both hands up and formed a mana shield overhead. His second ring poured mana like something gone mad. Used past its limit in so short a span, the ring heated until it glowed red.
Lightning smashed the shield and drove in. Chris raised another barrier and caught it.
The barrier broke.
He raised another.
That one broke as well. Shield and barrier shattered again and again, and the distance between the lightning and Chris closed at a frightening speed.
Damn it.
He sprayed mana bombs into the sky without aim or measure. Bomb and lightning met, and the shockwave that followed was enormous. Ruptured mana howled outward and tore the surroundings to shreds. The aftermath was so violent that even Perez and Millicent had to give ground.
When the roar died, Chris vomited blood. Scorch marks covered his upper body, and in places the flesh was charring black. The cloud overhead, by contrast, still had strength to spare. It rumbled as if ready to loose another volley.
A mid-grade Ring Binder is too much.
Chris clenched his teeth and straightened.
"Do we really need to fight? Let's make peace."
"You killed Sid and David, and now you want peace? Shameless. A liar, and brazen besides."
"Let's be honest. You don't even care about those two."
"I do."
"To you they were nothing but tools. Admit it."
Stan leveled his staff at Chris.
"I won't kill you cleanly."
"You're angry. So I was right."
The instant the cloud spat lightning, Chris wrung every scrap of strength from his body and charged. His concentration was spoken for elsewhere, so he did not waste magic on speed.
"Hmph."
Stan laughed in his face and shook the staff. The lightning bent and came after Chris. In that moment Chris gathered a portion of the concentration he had been hoarding, joined it to his will, and thrust the Mask's spear.
The roar traveled through the Mask's spear and into Stan's mask. It was the same trump card he had played against David.
But Stan was not David. The will of a Ring Binder held against the shout shaking his mask.
"A cheap little trick like—"
He never finished. Once, that had been the trump card. It was not anymore. Chris had already judged that a shout through a mask was something Stan could endure without trouble.
What he had actually prepared was an attack built on Mental Force, learned from the troll and then honed. To find an opponent, Mental Force was cast wide. To attack, it was narrowed, and narrowed again, before it was released. Chris had gone past narrowing. He compressed it, and compressed it once more, until the force was an awl—and that awl drove for the point between Stan's brows.
Stan had never met an attack like it. He had never been taught it, and he had never even heard of it. He took it with nothing to answer.
The awl of Mental Force pierced his mind. For an instant he went blank. The blank was only a flicker, but to Chris, already sprinting, it was a long time.
The edge of Chris's right hand struck Stan's neck. A defensive artifact shattered and saved him. Chris had expected the artifact, so his hand never stopped. The blade of the palm that had already passed came back around and struck again.
There was a second artifact. Chris swung once more. In the same breath, lightning scorched his back.
It punched through the barrier he had thrown up at the last instant and hit him between the shoulders. In that same instant, his hand met Stan's neck.
The sound was different this time. Stan's head left his body. Chris yanked himself aside at once. The lightning, still coming even after it had struck him, poured into the torso that remained standing with nothing above the neck.
Headless, Stan could not correct its course. Chris watched the cloud overhead break apart, then launched himself at the body. Stan was a mage of the Ring Binding realm. Stick the head back on, and he might yet return. The Klpandi had to be crushed beyond recovery.
Stan had been at his ease the whole time, driving his opponent without pause. The pursuers had seen no reason to step in. They watched the way one watches a fire from the far bank of a river. And then, to everyone's astonishment, that man beat Stan.
Tower Master Hal shouted, too late.
"Stop!"
Chris was not going to stop. Join the knights now, and he still might not win—but he would not lose.
He was a heartbeat from crushing the torso lightning had knocked down when grass sprouted under his feet and wound around his calves.
This much is nothing.
He smirked and lifted his foot. Or tried to. The foot did not move. The grass climbed, wrapped his thighs, took his waist, and rose to his chest.
Chris reached to tear it. The grass took his arms as well. In a breath he was sealed inside it, a cocoon, with nothing left outside but his head.
He knew this magic. Binding a foe in grass was a spell he had favored for a long time. Grass he grew and shaped himself was tough and clinging, not easily snapped. What held him now was another thing entirely. It was harder than steel. Steel, the harder it is, the more readily it breaks; this grass clung like spider silk and bent without ever breaking.
He thrashed with a Grand Master's strength, formed a blade of fire, and cut. Some of the grass parted and burned. More stems rose than he had destroyed, and closed around him again. In the end he could not get free.
Perez had halted the fight the moment Stan's neck was severed. The appearance of a mage who had subdued a Ring Binder so easily put him on edge, and he shouted.
"Who are you?"
Everyone waited for the answer.
A single thread of wind passed.
Chris stopped struggling.
"May I ask who you are?"
Earth burst upward like a volcano, and a person rose out of it. Chris looked at her and smiled.
"Mage Daryl! Where have you been all this time? I searched for you for ages."
The mages eased at the sight of Daryl. The knights did not. Six of Stan's disciples and subordinates were present. Felix stepped forward and spoke as if tattling.
"That bastard cut Lord Stan's neck."
Daryl answered as if it hardly concerned her.
"I know."
"He has to be treated."
Felix started for his master's head, and grass rose and bound him exactly as it had bound Chris.
"What is the meaning of this?"
"Stan lost. When you lose, it's over. Don't be so sordid about it."
"He can be saved."
"I'm sure he can. I won't allow it."
"Why?"
"Stan is the head of the Children of the Mask. His spying has done this tower a great deal of harm. I don't particularly mean to kill him myself. I also don't intend to stand by and watch a dead man brought back."
Felix shouted, voice rising.
"You're prepared to make an enemy of Hermann Magic Tower?"
"If we become enemies, we become enemies. What of it?"
"You—!"
Felix's eyes went wide.
"You've bound another ring."
Chris winked.
"Congratulations. Only one step left to Ultimate Mage."
Daryl came toward him.
"You broke your promise."
"Me? I don't believe I did."
"You agreed to help me for a year. Then you ran, without a word."