The ground and walls shifted like clockwork, marble slabs fading beneath metal sheets while in a swirl of mechanical constructs, the mass of once flat surfaces erupted from the ground to crush her in a spiralling motion.

  The horizontal column of plasma tore a hole through it all, melting metals dripping aside with violence. She saw runic-like constructs all be melted away under the pressure and temperature of her attack.

  At the same time, the spell from the high priestess rushed to her, but instead of being assaulted by a magic attack that she’d come to expect and was prepared to defend against, Vic grimaced like she’d been zapped and nearly puked as it went through her shadow armour. She felt it before the game window opened to show her the effect.

  What the hell was that debuff?

  Vic retched, feeling like a mace had hit her in the head, seeing an eighth of her mana’s bar drop like nothing while a third of it became yellow, slowly dropping down little by little.

  Oh, she hated debuffs. That was cheating.

  Vic seethed. And stopped the roaring plasma beam, to leap in the hole that had been left by it. In one jump, she crossed the eight metres that separated her from her self-made exit. The edges of her shadow clawed feet simmered and weakened as she landed on melting iron. She didn’t wait for her shadow armour to falter and leapt away from the mound of slowly cooling red remnants of what had been layers of protected walls upon which had been inscribed runes that were now warped by the heat.

  Vic hissed quietly as she finally checked the hand that she used to double the output of the deadly sun laser beam. Blisters had formed over the palm of her hand. Shit. She shouldn’t have done that. Something felt incredibly raw in that arm too. She should have only started using the beam with the shadow armour on. Mistakes, mistakes, they happened. Checking briefly the open windows, she saw that there was now a cooldown on that attack.

  That was a bad situation to be in, darn it. She needed to hide to heal up, or find another solution. Obstruction of sight was a must. She had to disappear in the streets. She forced her mind to rush to find a solution.

  Nothing came up.

  Fuck fuck fuck.

  Overdoing the beam might have been a mistake, shit crap shit, and-

  She ducked out of the way as shining yet very physical chains impacted on where she’d just been crouching on, deep in thought, half a second ago.

  The priestess did a weird thing with her staff and she warped through the air, leaving after-images behind. Vic blinked, and barely dodged the strike by dropping herself to the ground. The blade of magic wind cut nothing above her, but hit the wall of the opposing building to the Hall, cracks erupting through it with the strength of the blow.

  Wait, did the priestess think that she could survive that kind of stuff? Oh well it was true, but- had she misjudged them? From what the priestess had told her before, they wanted her to surrender. Or maybe that had only been a possibility when she hadn’t shown too much hostility back.

  Vic saw the elf stop and open her hand barely a metre away from her.

  Wait, why was she letting herself go so close? Did she forget that she could blast plasma lasers? Was she stupid? Was she old enough to have Alzheimer?

  The air’s temperature froze at first. No way. No way was she incanting a frozen glacier at this distance.

  Vic swore.

  Did they really want her dead?

  But she saw the shimmering chains shifting towards where she would have jumped upwards to escape the freezing blast.

  Oh. So that was it.

  Vic grinned like a devil and leapt in the only direction that the priestess wouldn’t expect.

  Vic leapt at the priestess, who made a gargling sound and barely had the time to panic as her magic glacier burst outwards.

  And Vic simply rolled on the ground, phasing through the burgeoning glacier that would have caught her head and then phasing through the priestess to reach the ground behind her.

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  There was a chaotic clinking of chains as above her and on the sides they confusingly clashed against each other, undoubtedly because of the unexpected action done by her.

  Vic put herself back on her feet in a swift motion and ran without looking back, using the shadow armour to boost each of her leaps easily. All while racing away, she took those precious seconds to take out one of her three mid grade healing potions which really was a struggle while running as the inventory interface kept shaking while she ran. Maybe she should have taken advantage of the moment to dispose of her current enemy, but she’d rather heal up for now. She had the nagging impression that the priestess was waiting for reinforcements and wanted her to be too overwhelmed to consider other options than fighting.

  She held it close against her chest as she heard a raging scream behind.

  Heheh. Well that scream had made it all worth it.

  Vic removed the bolt from her shoulder with a hiss and a swear, let it clank on the ground, and difficultly poured the contents over the wound. Most of the precious magic-tinted liquid missed the mark, so she stopped running and hid behind conveniently placed storage boxes to properly pour it down. The invisibility game-mechanic soon followed as she crouched behind the box. Heheh, that was one of her favourite things to do. And if the high priestess could detect her mana signature? Well worst things worst she was baiting the priestess to attack her. Yeah, this was just baiting her. Not a tactical mistake on her part, nuh-huh.

  Still having her back turned to the enemy, crouching behind that lump of boxes, Vic quickly poured the healing potion on the gap and finally felt the hiss and the numbing, itching pain that accompanied the mending of the wounds. She barely had the time to pour it on the blisters of her hand too, before she had to duck on the ground and avoid another blast of air.

  Mierda. That was so unfair, why should a high priestess actually be competent enough to be an annoyance to her, specifically?

  Splinters of wood and the sound of fragile pots being broken to pieces followed behind her.

  Jeeze, those attacks were scary because she wasn’t quite sure that the ‘rolling on the ground’ would work to dodge them. She knew it worked perfectly on physical objects, but… air was matter, too, right? Those were molecules, right? She stared at her clothes and noted that nothing was out of place… except for a few missing spots, but those were damages from before, so it was fine.

  She allowed herself a little smile until she realised that the priestess was once more warping herself weirdly through the air, leaving that trail of red after-images, until she was just at her side and- no, until she had gone way past Vic and stared at her from above.

  Vic frowned as she stared back. That had been a weird move.

  The priestess, from further down the road, invoked another glacier, but from a safe distance. It began spreading.

  What was this about?

  Oh. Ooooh.

  She was trying to bring her towards the southern districts.

  Towards… the ones that had been emptied. Oh, so she was viewed as a proper threat, finally.

  …But those were excellent news!

  The huge glacier consumed madly fast the space in the street, going even far above the buildings’ level, and Vic didn’t wait to run away from it. She even comically screamed to signal how bad in a position she was.

  She ran back to where she had come from, passing before the gaping fuming mouth she’d left in the hall, and without looking back, she raced towards the great plaza. With her great leaps done with her shadow armour, it wasn’t hard to outpace the ever-growing ice spikes that reached above twenty metres of height.

  Vic smiled. Excellent news, those were, yes yes. After all, there was a “dark sorcerer” in those emptied districts, wasn’t there? Yes, yes…

  It would be unfair to keep all the fun that this high priestess was bringing all to herself. Sharing was caring! An unprompted ally would do her good.

  And now, she wouldn’t even have to worry about collateral casualties, as the districts would be emptied.

  …She was a genius. Now she wouldn’t even be held back by whatever moral constraints remained from her time spent on Earth, haha!

  With a bright smile, she stumbled into the great plaza, and on that great wide space that had once been a coliseum, her smile froze in place, as on the other side of it, she saw rows of soldiers running towards the giant glacier.

  Crap.

  Ah… crap.

  The size of the glacier… could it be… that it had been a signal? A landmark to signal an enemy?

  Vic looked back, and saw the glacier blocking fully the end of that street. It crept on, trying most likely to block other ends of streets as soon as she looked at them.

  This was just overkill.

  What a waste of mana, heh. But who was she to criticise?

  She saw mages and sorcerers alike prepare spells behind the lines of advancing soldiers. There was a tense cautiousness in their pace.

  And yet with it, they were encircling effectively encircling her.

  Vic tightly smiled.

  …That was a bit much for a tiny, gangly teenager, wasn’t it?

  Vic chuckled madly, intending fully on making those soldiers tense more. She unsheathed the measly, thin, inconspicuous sword that was at her hip. She raised it on her side, breathing in and out, deliberately.

  “Alright, time to show off without restraint”, she said, slowly stretching and making her articulations crack along her flowing movements. The wounds on her hand had healed back up, and the deep one on her shoulder felt tense, but she could now raise back her arm like normal again.

  She was back to operating at normal capacity. A little dent on her mana reserves wouldn’t hurt her.

  She imagined making her shadow knuckles crackle as she ground her hands together.

  “Insurmountable odds stacked against my shoulders once more?” she rhetorically, smugly asked outloud to herself, certain of the outcome, “Here we go again!”