A few minutes earlier

The appearance of Micky’s boosting art had changed greatly after replacing the common mana types with the equivalent flavours of ice mana.

The Circulation patterns on his plumage had remained almost identical because the liquid and gaseous variants of his composite affinity still flowed through the same channels as before. Only the colour of the glowing lines was different, having turned from green or aquamarine to white.

The external flows, however, were almost unrecognizable, due to the way the mana interacted with the environment. The bubbles of water seeping in and out of Micky’s body had shrunk into a cloud of pale snowflakes. Their smaller size and even lazier movements could fool somebody into thinking that Micky was absorbing less mana than before, though that couldn’t be further from the truth. Each snowflake contained more water mana than any of the previous bubbles, in addition to an equal amount of air mana.

The long, erratic ribbons had also changed outside of their hue. They had grown even longer, yet somewhat calmer. They drew huge volumes of ambient mana with each graceful loop, synergizing rather well with the other flavours of the spell by cooling the air around Micky and aiding the conversion. This allowed the snowflakes to form faster, guiding them towards his body.

Finally, a layer of frost coated his plumage – thin and brittle, shattering and reforming with every flap of Micky’s wings so as to not impede his flight in the slightest. It gathered and stored a lot of solid ice mana – the original form of the affinity. A pale hexagonal grid pulsed faintly through the crystal as it exchanged mana with Micky’s similarly-shaped channels. The coat didn’t hinder the other flows at all – if anything, it bolstered them, both the snowflakes and the ribbons pouring into and out of his body more rapidly where the three networks intersected.

All the feathers except for those on Micky’s underbelly glowed brightly thanks to his mutations, lighting up his plumage in white, with traces of blue, green and even silver as they fed the amber lines branching out from his heart. Much of his body was now made of ice, the artificial patches shining even more intensely than the rest of his flesh.

Suffice to say, Micky’s boosting art was shaping up into an extremely complicated and potent spell – one that he would have never managed to develop so quickly without Percy’s help. Every version of the Dance relied on the same underlying principles, so mastering a new variant was only a question of slowly uncovering each affinity’s peculiarities and adjusting the spell accordingly.

Even so, it was still very much a work in progress. Micky didn’t think he’d be registering the upgrade during this battle, though even incomplete as it was, his boosting art was admittedly the main reason he’d been able to last this long against three Blues. Flying inside their domains was already tough – let alone protecting himself while ensuring that none of them flew away to bother his partner.

The fact that they kept varying their tactics only made things worse.

Sometimes, they ganged up on Micky, forcing him to avoid their joint barrage by the skin of his beak. Other times, two of them teamed up to keep him busy, trying to give the third one a chance to sneak away to support the space mage. Whenever they changed their approach, Micky was forced to eat a lot of nasty blows to stop them.

Thankfully, his Consumption spell allowed him to fight without holding back for an extended period of time, using his Freezing Tornado to outspeed and outmanoeuvre all three of his opponents even while resisting the hostile domains. However, there was no doubt that he was quickly approaching his limit.

‘Careful! Javelin incoming!’ the clone warned, helping Micky bank to his left to avoid the worst of it.

The stone construct still stabbed into his chest, punching a fist-sized hole through Micky’s left lung, though it luckily missed the core in his sternum by mere centimetres. Since the acquisition of his new mutations, his injuries hadn’t hurt as much. Even when Micky’s remaining flesh got mutilated, the pain was much duller than it should’ve been.

The effect hadn’t been as pronounced right after Micky’s promotion to Green, but it grew stronger every time he recovered. It was almost like his body understood at an instinctual level that losing a piece wasn’t a big deal – that the damaged organs could easily be replaced.

More than half of Micky’s body had already been made of ice by the start of the battle, the ratio only continuing to climb as his opponents’ attacks kept finding their mark. Mana rushed to fill the holes, forming new organs – lungs, kidneys and even a stomach. Micky and the clone did everything they could to minimize the damage – as this still wasn’t a pleasant experience even with the reduced pain – taking extra care to protect what they believed were their vitals.

‘Losing your heart might not be an issue, since it’s ultimately just a muscle, but we can’t afford to risk your brain or cores,’ Percy reminded him.

The former was a far more delicate and important organ than the rest – one that they weren’t sure could be fixed. As for the latter, they were the very reason Micky could survive in this horrific state in the first place, and there was a good chance he would lose his ability to regenerate entirely if they got damaged. Furthermore, growing a new mana core was something that generally required one of the rarest and most powerful Decrees in the universe, so they had no intention of testing whether a lowly mutation could accomplish the same.

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‘Easier said than done,’ Micky replied, flying around a pillar of pressurized water wide enough for a fully grown bear to stand inside. ‘Is your main body done with the space user?’

In theory, Micky could check the state of the other battle by himself, through the senses he shared with his partner, but he was too busy hanging on for dear life. The clone appeared to do just that, mentally shaking his head a second later, much to Micky’s disappointment. ‘It appears that I’ve found a way to prevent the assassin from coming after you, but it doesn’t look like I’m any closer to killing him.’

In many ways, Micky was essentially held hostage by the trio of Blues, putting a mountain of pressure on Percy’s main body to hurry the hell up. Then again, it could be argued that the opposite was also true. The space user had no choice but to stick around and fight Percy to the death. If he tried to escape, Percy could turn around and help Micky finish his opponents off.

‘Alright then. We need to do better if we want to buy your main body enough time,’ Micky said, getting a silent nod back from the clone.

The gap between where Micky was and where he needed to be was rather small. He was already fast enough to dodge most attacks, tough enough to endure the rest, and capable of reversing most of the accumulating damage. Just a couple of incremental improvements here and there should be plenty to solve the problem. Micky simply had to dig deep into his small arsenal of spells to find what he needed.

His boosting art aside, Micky’s Freezing Tornado was the bread and butter of his fighting style. Having evolved from his original Acceleration spell, the Wild Art had always allowed him to fly faster than what an avian beast of his grade should’ve been capable of, leveraging his Wind Dancer mutation, his abundance of mana, and his outlandishly powerful body.

After reaching the Refined tier, the spell had allowed him to push himself even further – achieving immense but momentary spikes in speed at the cost of exhausting his reserves quickly. More recently, the improvements to his boosting art had helped him overcome most of the spell’s drawbacks, letting him use it somewhat freely without worrying about his expenditure as much.

It was more than a mere movement spell too, as the violent gusts of freezing winds revolving along his body provided him with an extra layer of protection, and his immense physical strength allowed him to execute deadly attacks from up close.

If there was another downside that he had yet to fully overcome, it was the fact that he couldn’t use his Wild Art from a distance. That was part of the reason why he had developed his Frozen Shards spell to compensate, giving himself a weaker and cheaper long-ranged option.

It could be argued that each of the spells represented one distinct side of Micky’s abilities. The Freezing Tornado was his main trump card as a beast, making use of his bulk and mutations, while the Frozen Shards were a spell more typical of a normal mage, leaning heavily into his elemental mana and pre-casting.

‘But I’m not a dumb beast, nor am I a regular mage…’

Perhaps, what he needed to do was to explore the untapped potential lying between those two extremes. To link the spells more seamlessly, and to search for a way of amplifying their effects.

The three Blues continued to harass Micky, hurling powerful projectiles at him from every direction. They must’ve realized by now that there was no way he would let them escape anytime soon, yet that didn’t seem to bother them much. They appeared content to take their sweet time killing Micky before assisting their leader.

One of them wielded earth mana, the second water, while the third used mud. Micky had no idea whether his opponent had been born with his affinity or acquired it from a petal like him, but the resemblance to that bastard, Acton’s, magic pissed him off to no end. He knew the shared mana type was probably just a coincidence, but every single blob of mud aimed at him reminded him of the sadistic brat that had enslaved him for years.

‘We’ll make sure to take them all down,’ the clone consoled him.

Micky had drawn the short end of the stick today. Percy was in no less danger than him, as a single mistake against the veteran assassin would spell his doom just as easily, but at least he wouldn’t have to suffer in victory too. Then again, they both understood this was necessary. They’d never rest easy until the space user was dead, and Percy was the only one who stood a chance of catching the slippery bastard. Micky had to do everything in his power to make that possible.

Focusing on his magic, he allowed his body to spin again, a powerful rush of cold wind helping him do so much faster. Even incomplete as it was, the boosting art provided him with an abundance of mana to work with, several layers of pale mist spiralling around his accelerating frame. The boost allowed him to barely avoid another round of projectiles as he headed toward his prey. With the clone’s help, Micky prepared some rotating mana in his abdomen, adding it to the flow around his plumage.

But he didn’t stop there.

As the Blue moved out of his path to avoid getting turned into a brittle pile of minced meat, Micky forced several chunks of solid mana to condense around him, leaving a spiral of frozen thorns in his wake. Micky’s extended reach seemed to catch his opponent by surprise, biting into his domain and carving a deep, diagonal gash across his torso. It was nothing too debilitating for a Blue, though it proved that Micky’s offensive spells could be merged.

The trio resumed their onslaught, this time remaining vigilant as Micky attempted to strike them with every chance they gave him. Using well-timed bursts of mana, he propelled himself forth even faster, while taking advantage of the extra layer of mana for both offense and defence.

In fact, it didn’t take him long to discover that he could allow the spiralling thorns to keep flying even as he halted, passing the lost momentum to his constructs as they scattered through the battlefield. That way, he could increase the lethality of his ranged attacks as well, without risking his safety. Moreover, the clone pitched in with his own domain, giving the thorns an extra push whenever they were about to land, or increasing their toughness when Micky used them for protection.

Sadly, Micky and Percy failed to draw more blood, despite their valiant efforts.

Holding their own against three experienced Blues was already a monumental achievement, but their opponents never lowered their guard again. Having each other’s back, they kept their distance from Micky at all times, intensifying their attacks whenever he tried to single one of them out.

Fortunately, it didn’t really matter.

Winning had never been Micky’s goal. All he’d wanted from the very start had been to buy Percy time. Enduring the pain of his crumbling body, he continued to hone his new spell with every metre of air that he crossed and with every drop of mana he expended, trusting in his friend’s ability to win his own fight and support him. It didn’t take long for his status to recognize his efforts either.

[Congratulations! Your spells have merged: Wild Art: Freezing Tornado – Refined + Frozen Shards – Refined - Wild Art: Winter’s Fang – Masterful!]