The Third Step: Chapter Forty-Eight

Eugene watched as the diminutive fox boy teleported into the ballroom, a storm of emotions on his face. Two of the Khet vampire guards raced in after him, using their legacy-empowered bodies to keep up, though not by much. He let out a sigh and stepped forward, even as the other, lesser servants began to scatter. They could sense the tension in the air, like rats fleeing a sinking ship. But he had a job to do. 

“I’m sorry sir, but Prince Dhruv rejected your request. You are not welcome here. I am going to have to ask you to leave.” 

The man gave him a wolfish grin, and Eugene noted that the man’s teeth were slightly too sharp. They weren’t proper vampiric teeth, but they were somewhat like what might be seen in the mouth of a dhampir or a hag. 

“No,” the boy said.

Eugene couldn’t help but smile. Did the child really not recognize that this was a losing proposition? Not only did he personally outclass the boy by two entire gates, but there were almost twenty vampires in the room, including two Sekhem, ranging from second gate to fourth. The fox might be peak third, and foxes were supposed to be tricky, but tricks only worked when the opponent didn’t have overwhelming advantage. Eugene let an amused smile spread over his face as he strolled forward, and he unleashed his mana senses, slamming them into the child with all the force he could muster. 

“I’m sorry, sir, but it was not really a request, you–” 

The child drew a staff, and a wave of mana senses that equaled – no, more than equalled, it completely overpowered Eugene’s own mana senses. The auric attack he had leveled against the child was blown apart, and a new force slammed through the entire room. Eugene stumbled back, and he wasn’t the only one. Throughout the room, the vampires also staggered in surprise. They regained their composure a moment later, and then a weight slammed into them again as the child kept walking forward. 

“I tried to play things nice and wait by your rules,” the fox said, his voice cold. “If you’d told me no, I would have pleaded my case. But you all ignore me, disrespect my partner, abuse your citizenry? I’m through playing games. Go get Dhruv.” 

The child’s mana was a strange amalgam of forces, like any beast, but it wasn’t knowledge or mental mana. Only a knowledge mage should be able to empower their mana senses this much, and only a mental mage should be able to infuse his intent into their sensory attacks without being an Arcanist. 

One of the second gate vampires fell to the ground with a cry of pain, and Eugene glanced around. With dawning horror, he realized that the weight of the boy’s presence was doing far more than he’d expected. With his own physical mana reinforcements, he’d only noted it as a slight weight, but he was the only one. The boy took another step toward him, and one of the glowstones on the wall exploded, crushed into powder under the weight and pressure. It was like the boy’s senses were a tangible thing, slamming against everyone.

Eugene took a breath and centered himself. This was a trick. Maybe it was an illusion, maybe the child had built his entire mana garden to pulling off stunts like this, maybe it was something else. But it was a trick. He straightened and stepped forward, the two Sekhem vampires flanking him. 

“You would dare to give us orders?” the one on his left spat. The fox stared at him, then smiled again. 

“Yes.”

Both of the Sekhem vampires launched forward, and Eugene relaxed. Perhaps he wouldn’t be needed after all. One of them swept a fist at the boy’s torso, glowing with Blood Claws so powerful it was painful to look at, while the other opened his mouth, revealing his fangs, and went for the throat. 

The boy was torn into dust, even as a lance of red and brown shattered one of the support pillars in the room. The fox was standing next to it, a cold stare on his face. 

“Careful there,” he said. “There are eight – well, now seven – support pillars in this ballroom. They’re under a lot of pressure. How many do you think I’ll need to destroy in order to bring the whole ceiling down? Your friends are all sucked dry, don’t think it won’t hurt them.”

Eugene’s eyes flicked to the vampires that had been pinned down by the boy’s freakish aura attack. Every single one of them was covered in ghostly blue mushrooms and threads of root-like substances, sucking away power and delivering it back to the boy. Several had passed out, and it looked like the aura attack had released them. 

“You wound’t dare!” Eugene snapped, stepping forward and flicking his hand out. His physical mana congealed into a swarm of sharp, forged darts of force, followed by strings of thread as sharp as garotte wire. Even if he wasn’t able to rip the boy apart with the darts, he’d be able to wrap him with the force wire and kill him that way. 

Purple fire filled the air, flung by the boy’s hands, and then the boy was gone. A foot slammed into the back of Eugene’s head, and one of the Sekhem sent a lance of blood, but the boy was behind him then. The other punched through it, only to reveal it as an illusion, and a bone spear slammed into his arm. The vampire was a peak third gate member of the most powerful court of vampires in the world, though, and the weak attacks barely left scratches, which healed immediately.

The boy appeared in the middle of the room, and shook his head, sweeping his hand out and attacking another pillar. A shield of blood appeared, but to Eugene’s shock, the bar of brown and red sent cracks through the shield. It had stopped the attack, but that barely mattered. No fox should have the offensive power to crack magic supported by a Sekhem legacy. 

Eugene and the two Sekhem vampires leapt into action, unleashing a fury of attacks, only for the fox boy to slash his hands out, and chaos erupted. Moss coated in sharp spikes of force, spikes of ice, waves of acid, the same purple flame that had weakened his force constructs, bone shards, a single bone spear, threads of briars, and ghostly echoes of the same attacks all opened up, slamming into them and driving them back. When the barrage ended, the child clapped a hand on Eugene’s shoulder.

Eugene spun and wove a net of razors. Each one was the size of a single pinkie nail, but deadly sharp, and it ripped through the child, only to reveal yet another illusion. Eugene heard a snarl as a blood crystal was shattered by one of those magma-like blasts of power, and winced. Forming a new blood crystal could take days, even for the Sekhem. How was this child so… frustrating?! He wasn’t strong, except in short bursts with the one attack. But he was irritating. No wonder the ninetailed were so despised by so many. 

“You will die for your disrespect!" one of the Sekhem shouted, and then the boy stood before the vampire. Swirls of blood formed into a spine that lanced right at the boy’s neck, but the boy countered with a sweep of the strange moss from one hand and a bar of lava from the other, and Eugene’s spirit screamed of danger. Those attacks were both far, far too powerful for a mere third gate to manage. 

It clicked into place, then. The strange sensory attack had possessed far too much power and intent for anyone but a dual knowledge and mental mage to pull off. But it wasn’t too much for a true Arcanist. The ability to fight two Sekhem Court members alongside himself, to crack Sekhem blood magic, to cut through pillars of stone, and to unleash that impossibly potent moss and magma attack. 

The child was no child. Foxes could change their shape. He might look to be twenty, but he had to be a mature man, an Arcanist in the fullness of his power, hiding as a third gate child. 

The Sekhem that the child – no, the man – was counterattacking must have reached a similar conclusion to Eugene, because his eyes widened in fear. The magma tore apart the vampiric spike, and the moss struck. The vampire's armor wasn’t just cracked, but shattered, and the moss slammed into him. Even Sekhem regeneration had limits on how much damage it could repair, and Eugene feared that one of the young masters of the Court would die here and now. How would he ever explain this to his master? For that matter, how would Eugene survive? 

Then it stopped, leaving the vampire covered in thick cuts and injured, but alive. The man twitched his fingers, and the storage ring on the vampire’s hand vanished, exchanged with a potion radiating fourth gate healing magic. Apparently, the other still-standing vampire could feel it as well, as he stepped forward. 

“At least you have some restraint. I am the third son of Prince Khang,” the Sekhem vampire said, his voice calmer than Eugene felt. “I am the wielder of the bloodtide, winner of seven combat tournaments, killer of Hagilath, and second strongest Spellbinder of the Sekhem Court. Who are you?” 

Once again, the presence of the man seemed to fill the room, though the fox didn’t seem to be trying to do it. It almost seemed to be subconscious, though, which only further reinforced Eugene’s belief that this man was an Arcanist, hiding his fourth and fifth gates for some obscure reason.

“I am Malachi, the second son of a baker. I have saved smallfolk and villages from threats. I survived the destruction of the Idyll-Flume, and battled a fourth gate revenant, all as a second gate mage. I slew Arcanist desolant queens in the attack on Crysite, and reinforced the defense with my allies until the Terminach could arrive. And I am a participant in the Elysian Mastery Tournament’s spellbinder division.” 

That seemed to shock the son of Khang, and Eugene couldn’t blame him. He was numb himself. He’d been sure the man was an Arcanist, but… 

“You were denied an audience with Prince Dhruv. If this was your attempt to join…” 

“No,” the fox said, his tail lashing in irritation. “I don’t want to join the Sekhem court. I’m here for your ritual. I am going to build a soul.”

Eugene stared at the man-boy-fox again. Eugene knew that he’d said something of that sort, but he’d dismissed it as babble. He–

A new presence flowed into the room, humming with seventh gate power. Prince Dhruv strode down the stairs and into the ballroom, a wide smile on his face. 

“I must apologize, my friend. Please, come with me. Eugene, please, prepare us some tea.”  

Eugene stared as the mushrooms around the room dissolved away into nothing, and the fox walked away with the most powerful member of the Sekhem Court, all without even offering the Prince a bow.