Vivi watched as, for the second time, the assassin’s face went slack with shock.

The assassin whose Title she finally knew, based on the skill he’d activated. She couldn’t always remember what Rafael told her, but the Red Tithe had been on a short list of ‘most dangerous individuals in the world’. For Rafael to mention him at all meant she was surely dealing with the assassin equivalent of an archmage. And probably on the stronger side of that comparison.

“What kind of mage has physical stats like these?” Interestingly, the man sounded equal parts horrified and overjoyed, both without reservation. Maybe the first emotion feeding the second. Vivi could tell she wasn’t dealing with someone who could be considered fully sane. “You’re some kind of…mage-brawler? I would not have guessed that.”

She most definitely wasn’t. In Seven Cataclysms, she had specialized so deeply and solely in magic that it was kind of embarrassing how low her physical stats were. To the point she knew it wasn’t ideal from a general optimization standpoint. She had been a true purist in that regard. No compromises; magic was all she cared about.

But natural accumulation still put her strength and agility—which were clearly the only two the assassin had stolen, else his reaction would have been far more pronounced—at a standard that he had perhaps never seen. Or at the very least, within the highest echelons. Hence his astonishment. Because he’d deduced, in a general sense, how strong and fast she must be.

“That dagger ignores skills,” Vivi said. “Yet still interacts with them, selectively. You teleported it. How?”

Maybe a normal person would’ve focused on more important details, like how someone was trying to kill her. But she couldn’t wrench her attention away from the astounding material. Just remembering how it had cut through her shields had her shivering with excitement. She wanted to study it.

“Nifty little thing,” the Red Tithe agreed, watching her carefully—and with poorly restrained bloodthirst. “Never mind that, though. What kind of old monster are you? I’ve killed high-Titled warriors that gave me less of a strength boost.” He brought his free hand up to his face and repeatedly clenched and opened it, naked fascination on his features. “I underestimated you. My deepest apologies.”

Despite acknowledging that fact, he didn’t sound worried. Perhaps because her base strength and agility were obscenely high, but still within the realm of believability. He just saw her as an extremely potent threat—a higher-order Titled than he’d expected, but not some being of legend.

If he saw her magical stats, which were more than a hundred times higher than her strength, he would probably already be fleeing, no matter how bloodthirsty.

“I’ve been stuck running errands for weeks,” he went on. “I thought I’d go this entire Contract without my services being needed in earnest. Then you showed up.” He bowed at her. “My savior, truly. Don’t die too fast; I want to savor this.”

That was apparently all the discussion Vivi would be getting. The man lunged, a twisted grin on his lips.

“[Quick Reflexes],” Vivi incanted.

Spellcasting didn’t rely on her agility; she could cast, effectively, instantly—minus her base reaction time. Still, the Red Tithe was obscenely fast, and so he closed nearly a third of the distance, probably aided by some movement skill.

His blazing progress slowed, but not by much. Because in that same instant, red rivulets slammed from her into the man, confirming her suspicion.

She hadn’t cast a top-tier buff like [Perfect Form], her standard for when she wanted to truly boost her agility, for a reason. The Tithe’s siphoning effect was ongoing, and, by briefly inspecting it, she was fairly sure she couldn’t shatter the skill outright. She might be the world’s most powerful mage, but there were fundamental laws she couldn’t circumvent, like how long-range teleportation would always need a [Warp Anchor]. Skills and how they behaved were often included in those ‘fundamental laws,’ since they were granted by the System.

She could still cast [Perfect Form], and that would massively widen the gap in their reflexes—since the Red Tithe was only stealing a portion of them—thus giving her all the time in the world to react. The problem was how dangerous it would make the Red Tithe in return. She didn’t, in fact, want to empower the insane assassin with level 1800 or higher stats. It would make controlling the collateral damage difficult.

So she would allow a much smaller gap in their stats, simply to prevent the fight from tearing up the entire Institute.

She wasn’t worried anyway. Her back was hardly against the wall. This was a mildly trickier scenario than she’d have thought she would run into, but far from truly concerning. She had plenty of cards to play, should she need to.

The Red Tithe closed the distance, and they exchanged several blows too fast for any non-Titled to follow. Vivi barely paid attention, body responding reflexively. Her mind was elsewhere, thoughts rushing forward as she deliberated over what to do.

She didn’t want to end this fight as quickly as possible. That would be foolish. Because she had a sneaking suspicion that the dagger wasn’t the only piece of equipment she needed to worry about. It was not unique in the world. Even if she subdued the Red Tithe, the greatest threat—that of the material—wouldn’t be dealt with.

It didn’t even seem to be unique on the Red Tithe. While the carved shard of black glass most acutely made her skin itch, paying closer attention to the man, specifically his armor—every piece of it, and even the Tithe himself—provided a diffuse sense of confusion that closely mirrored how she felt about the dagger.

Confusion that she now knew stemmed from the material’s supernatural resistance to magic and skills. When Vivi’s keen passive perception slid uselessly off the immune objects, it invoked a sensation of overwhelming mundanity. Because she was so accustomed to always having some insight on objects from this world, thanks to her skills, not having any disoriented her.

And of course the man had similar defensive artifacts. Why else would he be so confident? He hadn’t even attempted to properly ambush her. He thought he was invulnerable, thanks to his weapon and armor.

What explained the material’s properties, anyway? Her thoughts went to the dimensional fracture. Did it relate? Perhaps this dagger didn’t belong in this world at all. Maybe its nature was truly alien—or rather, extra-dimensional, and thus somehow resistant to effects of this world? How had Duke Caldimore gotten his hands on such a thing? That was the more concerning part.

Sidestepping an attempted teleportation-backstab, she pointed her staff and incanted, “[Greater Telekinesis].”

It was her first spell targeted on the man. And it responded as she’d suspected. Sentient creatures were always more difficult to lift with telekinesis, scaling with their level and how much they struggled, but Vivi didn’t find resistance so much as her metaphorical fingers made contact against a slippery surface, then glided away. The sensation was less distinct than against the dagger, in which it had felt like she’d tried to grab air, but she had put her best effort in and still failed to hold him. A moderate failure compared to a total one, but still a failure.

She frowned. That meant even if she did want to, she couldn’t end this encounter instantly. Or, rather, not without risking his life by going overboard. She could always cast a truly ludicrous spell, but that would almost certainly kill him. Like slamming a giant hammer into an iron cage holding something fragile within. And as awful as this man was, Vivi didn’t want to murder him.

If she had to…well, she would deal with that when she got there.

Ending this instantly wasn’t in her best interest, anyway. Isabella’s fate concerned her, yes, but Vivi could only assume the Duke had more of this substance on hand, and perhaps deadlier and more potent versions of it. She simply didn’t know. She needed to study its effects and develop a counterstrategy. It didn’t seem impossible to force her spells to work against it—she could swear she had almost closed her hands around the Red Tithe with that previous attempt—but she just hadn’t figured out how, yet.

Taking a minute to decipher these secrets could be what allowed Vivi to save Isabella, should she assault the Duke’s estate and find the girl with a similar dagger at her throat.

Between several rapid slashes which Vivi intentionally dodged with fractions of a second to spare—though, truth told, she didn’t have nearly as much of a speed advantage as she usually did—she layered her shattered shields back onto herself and refreshed [Prismatic Barrier]. The Red Tithe’s frenzied grin was growing wider with every attack, though she barely paid attention to him. He was inconsequential in that moment. Her attention was fully on the wonderful, enrapturing way her magic fell apart wherever his glass-like blade slashed or pierced. It was so fascinating.

He’d drawn another weapon in his free hand, a dagger of blood-red metal, but that one scraped and bounced off even her weakest shields. The stats he had stolen couldn’t close the gap, not considering how massive the gulf truly was. Rather than being discouraged, the Red Tithe seemed energized by his inability to pierce even her outermost defenses without aid from his otherworldly weapon.

Vivi sympathized. She was also getting rather absorbed in the exchange, if not, for once, simply for the thrill of the combat itself.

Like when observing the dimensional anomaly, the principles on display were too foreign for her to make sense of instantly, and wondrous to behold. Over and over, the assassin slashed, lunged, evaded, and maneuvered, and she danced with him. The garden ripped apart all around them, but nothing like during her fight against Constance. The Red Tithe was a far more subtle fighter, and Vivi took pains to be careful too.

She made a show of seeming like she was being pressed. She wasn’t, not really, though with that said, she wasn’t able to completely disregard the flow of combat. He was quite fast. Still, she feigned weakness; she didn’t want the Red Tithe to flee. Every bit of information she gathered on how this void material worked might be the difference between saving Isabella or not, thwarting the Duke’s plans or not.

“You can’t keep this up forever,” the Red Tithe panted in glee, sweat slicking his forehead. “But I appreciate you trying. Very much so.”

She barely heard him. He probably didn’t realize only a fraction of her attention was on the fight itself. She was repeatedly casting dozens of [Greater Telekinesis] spells on him, one after the other, slowly tweaking and iterating on the design. However he had reinforced his armor with the alien material, the anti-magic effect was feeling less and less slippery to her mental grip. Similarly, with every shield or effect that fractured or melted when contacting the dagger, she gleaned a spark more insight on why—and how to work around it. The blade paused for a millionth of a second longer, then two millionths, ten, a hundred. Her shields, similar.

Horrible as this situation was, Vivi felt very, very alive as she danced with the frenzied assassin.

His dagger slashed just in front of her eyes, wind rustling her bangs as she craned her neck back to avoid it. Some spell covering her face dissolved, though dozens if not hundreds of shields and other magic had done the same during the previous minute, so she didn’t pay it a second thought.

But immediately, the Red Tithe’s eyes widened, and he disengaged, fully throwing himself back for the first time in the chaotic fight.

Vivi paused, her mind still on the analysis she had been running, but the man’s reaction was so jarring that it startled her out of her trance.

As a matter of habit, she glanced over at Saffra to check on her. The enclosed garden meant the furthest the girl could get away was a few dozen feet, but she’d stayed in sight, as Vivi had told her to. On their eyes meeting, the girl reacted even more dramatically than the Red Tithe. She jerked a step back, face going white.

Vivi racked her brain, confused. The Red Tithe had disengaged immediately after slashing at her face. Some spell had shattered under contact with the voidglass, but that was normal. So why…?

Vivi’s stomach dropped.

Ah.

The [Illusion].

The one she wore around so constantly she sometimes forgot about it. That was what the Red Tithe had cut. The alien dagger had shredded the disguise, and she’d even looked over to Saffra to give her a good look.

Her very distinguishing red tear trails were on full display for both her apprentice and the assassin trying to kill her.

“Oh,” Vivi said.

She wasn’t sure what else to say. Worse, she couldn’t properly focus on Saffra’s reaction, or formulate a response to the extremely poorly timed reveal, because she had a psychopathic high-Titled, semi-magic-immune assassin to worry about.

“I’ll explain, I promise,” she told Saffra.

“You have got to be kidding me,” the man breathed. “Vivisari? That explains so much.”

This development was unfortunate for more reasons than just Saffra seeing her face. Would he even be willing to fight her, now that he knew who she was? She’d been learning a lot. She didn’t want him to stop.

“You were toying with me, weren’t you?” the man asked with fascination. “Of course you were. I thought I had you on the back foot. That you were just barely keeping up.” He wiped his forehead of sweat and flicked the liquid off his fingers, then laughed. There was a full-belly, unhinged quality to the noise. “Gods above. This is a first, even for me. I’ve killed dukes, bishops, and even a prince, once. But savior of the world?” He shivered. “Never. The honor is mine, my lady. Truly.”

She tilted her head slightly. He still intended to fight? That was…a silver lining, she supposed. She was getting close to bypassing the material’s effect.

The man looked at the blade of violet and black glass, and a wry expression crossed his face. “I suppose this is the sort of thing you would show up for, after a century of silence. It’s a rather monumental artifact. I shouldn’t be surprised.” He gripped the hilt tightly and faced her again. “Time to take this seriously, then.”

Either he was a great actor, or he really did have another trick up his sleeve. Considering the caliber of his previous trick—a dagger and armor near-immune to all skills and spells—she watched him warily. A slight tensing of his muscles promised that something was coming, and Vivi’s attention sharpened.

He disappeared, and Vivi twisted, expecting him to teleport behind her. Unfortunately, her senses registered him appearing in a different location. A fair distance away.

Right next to Saffra.

Vivi panicked. The shields on her apprentice could probably survive a direct blow from the dagger, but she couldn’t say that for certain—it had pierced her own, after all, if just barely. And thanks to the Red Tithe’s stat siphon, she didn’t have all the time in the world to consider her response. Logic dictated he would try to hold her hostage, not kill her, but she couldn’t confidently determine what this psychopath had planned.

If his blade cut into the shield and so much as scratched Saffra, who knew what skills or effects or poisons he could apply? Or did he have some means of laying hands on her and teleporting them both away, without even Vivi being able to track him down?

More than with any rational train of thought, Vivi responded how anyone would to an unstable killer ambushing someone she cared about. She finally took the fight seriously.

And returned instinctual and absolute prejudice.

“[Carve The Firmament].”

Once again, she borrowed magic taken from the grimoire of a cautionary tale. She hacked and sawed at that fundamental fabric surrounding the Red Tithe, then, before she collapsed the entirety of Meridian with the insanity of what she’d done, tore and threw the bleeding handfuls of voidstuff into the ether, sealing off what she could.

Some magic, as she’d suspected from the start, was beyond even the Red Tithe’s alien armor.

The assassin disappeared. A jagged, gaping wound in reality, a black-but-not-black spatial rift, replaced him.

She [Blinked] next to Saffra, grabbed her, and [Blinked] away. Then immediately returned next to the horrifying mistake she’d just made.

It…was stable.

She hadn’t accidentally erased an entire city.

She was, however, pretty sure she’d just killed a man.