Though Changer had generally appeared interested in maintaining politeness and civility, even with a human sacrifice awaiting death behind him, he was very quick to become aggressive once the situation escalated.

Nick found himself darting around the ritual chamber, constantly moving to dodge the wickedly sharp blade aiming for his head.

At first, [Crest of the Thunderbird] easily brushed aside the skills Changer repeatedly added, letting him entomb Anthony inside the stone altar to keep him from becoming a casualty.

However, his opponent quickly adapted and began coating his sword with a slick, oily mana that allowed him to resist the magic-disruption aspect of his shield, meaning their spells would now counter each other.

While Nick was confident in his own skill, he didn’t want to turn this into a contest of who could last longer, especially since his opponent had more raw mana and greater output.

If that had been all, he wouldn’t have been so worried, but as the fight dragged on, with him dodging sharp jabs and thrusts and responding with [Jet Streams] and [Spirit Blasts] that made Changer abort his charge and reset, the tattoos on his face glowed more ominously, and [Empyrean Intuition] told him he didn’t want them to reach full power, even if he couldn’t divine their exact purpose.

“The heights of foolishness that the arrogance of youth can reach shall always impress me,” Changer grunted as he deflected a [Wind Blast] with his bare hand before lunging again, causing a pained screech to echo off the walls as his blade made direct contact with [Crest of the Thunderbird].

His initial burst of rage had long since subsided, especially as the fight dragged on, but that didn’t particularly reassure Nick. No, he liked his enemies to be irrationally angry, and a calm opponent, especially one with quite a few levels on him, didn’t fit his preference.

Still, he wasn’t without his own tricks, and he believed he had done enough to lull the other into a sense of false confidence. His fighting retreat wasn’t fake, but he definitely played it up to guide Changer to a specific spot.

“Arrogance is the purview of youth. Especially when it’s warranted,” he muttered, noticing the sneer on his opponent’s face deepen.

Another jump back brought him toward the entrance of the chamber, and he saw the realization dawn on Changer that he was trying to lead him toward the narrower corridor, where they would both be more limited, and he’d have the chance to use his more destructive magic without fearing it would go to waste.

“No, you don’t!” The man shouted, and glitched.

There was truly no other way to describe it. It wasn’t a classic teleportation spell, since Nick had become quite familiar with those over the past few weeks. Really, it wasn’t any kind of spatial magic he recognized.

The only thing he managed to sense was that it required a lot of mana and was extremely complex. Not in the sense of ritual magic needing many sacrifices to achieve a balance, but in the way he’d seen Archmages cast, as they generated denser, heavier mana to sustain spells that otherwise couldn't manifest because their conceptual complexity was too great for the World to support.

Changer’s tattoos had flared, and he’d simply stopped existing in one spot and started existing at the chamber’s entrance, where he brandished his sword with a smug sneer.

Summoning magic? No, there was no buildup in the ether, so it was probably internal… It had to come from his tattoos, and some of them are dimmer now. Does that mean they can hold a spell of that level and release it at any time without affecting their overall mana reserves? Damn, that’s a big advantage. That single spell was on par with what I saw Lasazar use when he was showing off.

If he could cast such complex magic through his tattoos, it was no wonder he felt confident enough to pretend to be a Prestige class. Especially considering the sheer amount of unique designs on his skin. If each one represented a spell, he had at least a dozen more Prestige-tier spells ready to unleash at any moment.

Probably not at any time, or he would have used that strange transportation spell much earlier and ended the fight. Yet, even a basic time requirement would be disastrous, since I doubt I can defeat him with a single hit.

Nonetheless, things had proceeded as he expected, and Changer was now in the ideal position to execute his plan, needing only to make the smallest adjustment to his original strategy.

Changer’s physical abilities were a danger, there was no doubt about that, but if he was allowed to cast the tattooed spells without consequence, there’d be nothing he could do to defeat him. So, Nick slightly altered the target of the bindings in an admittedly desperate attempt to deprive his enemy of a trump card he saw no other way to overcome.

Without further hesitation, Nick stomped his foot, releasing a pulse of mana and activating the hidden ofudas he had placed before entering the chamber.

Dark green light crackled to life all around them, revealing hundreds of symbols, and Nick saw Changer realize he had been tricked.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Then, the binding glyphs took, and he started screaming.

It wasn’t anger or frustration, but rather pain. Pain so intense that it transcended everything else. Blood started pouring from his eyes and ears, and as more shadowy tendrils reached out to bind him, he shook harder, seemingly tortured by darker magics.

For Nick, who knew perfectly well that his binding spells shouldn’t have caused anything like that, it was surreal, but [Empyrean Intuition] quickly revealed the truth.

The tattoos he’d feared so much, as it turned out, were grafted onto Changer’s soul rather than just his skin, and they acted as a kind of symbiote, giving him immense power for short bursts, at the risk of his soul being stretched thin in some very dangerous directions.

That meant that as soon as the connection with his tattoos was forcibly cut off, his soul snapped back into its original shape, with the only issue being that it was still attached to the damn things.

Basically, Nick had forced Changer to rip off a piece of his soul without realizing it was even an option, let alone aiming for it.

Not one to let such a golden opportunity go to waste, he took a moment to focus all the wild emotions swirling around them, shaping them into a coherent force and giving them a new purpose.

There was nothing the still-writhing Changer could do to defend against the [Spirit Crunch] coming his way, and with the path to his soul wide open, the spell obliterated it all in one shot, causing the man to let out one last shriek of desperation before he fell limp, an empty husk.

Nick breathed heavily, watching his opponent cautiously, still unsure of what exactly had happened.

From the start of the fight, he’d been aiming for this moment, hoping that the binding glyphs would be enough to let him land at least one good hit, but he hadn't anticipated what happened.

Soul magic, he knew, was dangerous, but witnessing its effects firsthand was something he wouldn't forget anytime soon.

CONGRATULATIONS!

You have defeated [Louis Herthoux ‘Changer’ - Lv. 87]

+517.000 Exp

Level up!

Level up!

You have overcome [Bindings of the Pure Souls]

You have overcome [Bindings of the Pure Souls]

You have overcome [Bindings of the Pure Souls]

…

..

.

+840.000 Exp

Level up!

Level up!

NICK CROWLEY

LEVEL

MANA

STR

DEX

CON

INT

WIS

CHA

Occultist/Human

60

208

76

80

79

150

210

149

The overwhelming flood of experience that flowed into him was quickly overshadowed by the changes the extra attributes brought. Nick wasn’t new to sudden bursts of progress, but this time, it caught him completely off guard.

Not only did he not expect to win so easily and decisively, but he also had no idea it would lead to such valuable gains.

Really, the only thing he could compare this to was when the System granted extra exp for fighting demons, but he was absolutely sure Changer hadn’t been one.

If anything, he’d felt completely grounded in the World, rather than alien to it.

The implications of this would need to be considered over time and with a clearer mind, but even a preliminary assessment told him a lot.

Surpassing two hundred in Mana alone was enough to make him feel close to bursting with power, despite having just used a significant portion of his reserves in the previous fight. Then came the points in Wis and Int, which gave him better control over that same energy and more depth to it, until he felt like he could do it all over again.

He knew that was false confidence coming from the high he was feeling, but he couldn’t stop the slightly hysterical, happy giggle that escaped his lips.

He’d prepared for a tough fight and had even admitted to himself that he might have to run and leave poor Anthony to his fate if things went wrong. And here he was, standing victorious over the remains of a man who had managed to pull the wool over an entire city.

It felt both terribly anticlimactic and somehow right in a way he couldn’t quite explain. Changer was a sort of final boss, someone who managed to manipulate, coerce, and cajole all of Alluria’s underworld into a suicidal plan, and that clearly had managed to infiltrate the Tower too, or he wouldn’t have known what he knew about his dabbling in the darker magics.

Killing him should have taken a herculean effort, the kind that required an entire team of skilled companions, just like crushing the dungeon had been.

And yet, Nick had been enough on his own. He’d killed the boogeyman, even if it was just through a loophole he hadn’t known existed.

But recalling how callous Changer had been in offering Anthony’s life as a sacrifice, and his complete disregard for the plan’s impact on the city, it also seemed like a fitting end.

This was a man who considered himself a mastermind and, above all, a superior being who had the right to cause untold death and destruction for his own obscure reasons.

That he died here, in the depths of the earth, with only a teenage occultist as a witness… It felt right.

With a sigh, Nick stepped away from the corpse and turned back to the altar, waving his hand and turning it liquid for a brief moment, allowing him to pull Anthony out of its cold embrace.

“For all that you are a very unlucky guy, you always manage to survive the roughest situations,” he muttered, to no reply, as the teen was still passed out from the shock of the ritual backlash.

A few quick spells restored the chamber to more or less its original state, hiding the signs of the battle, and at last, Nick turned his attention to Changer’s corpse, which he vanished into his ring.

He wasn’t a fan of collecting bodies he couldn’t sell, but this time, he thought he might learn quite a bit from it. The tattoos, especially, should prove to be very instructive, given that they had been protected from Changer’s soul’s collapse by his bindings.

It was unlikely he’d ever get such a fresh and well-preserved sample, even if he repeated the same process with the other tattooed people on the floors above him. Changer had clearly been a few ranks above them, and his tattoos were much more intricate and resistant than those worn by those guys.

Just as he was about to turn around and head for the surface, with Anthony floating behind him, a spatial disturbance rippled nearby, and a familiar figure waved him through the gaping crack.

“Good job, my dear apprentice. Very good job,” Tholm said with a proud smile, “Come, we have much to discuss.”