The mud-cement held the first wave of heretics fast, but Torg’s voice was a panicked rasp.

  "Sir! From the ridge! It's a second wave! We're flanked!"

  Macus whirled. Torg was right. A dozen more heretics were charging down the slope.

  "Fall back to the wagons!" Macus yelled, drawing his own short sword, calculating the odds. Zero.

  A single, glass vial arced over Macus’s head from the trees behind the heretics. It shattered on the ground at the leader's feet.

  The world went silent. It didn't slow. It stopped.

  The charging heretics were frozen mid-stride. A raindrop, shaken from a pine bough, hung suspended in the air like a diamond.

  Aether stepped out of the trees. He moved at a normal, casual pace through the frozen tableau of violence. He walked past the leader, whose screaming face was locked in a mask of fury.

  "Hello, Macus," Aether said, his voice calm, though it seemed to echo in the unnatural quiet.

  He walked up to his apprentice, who was also frozen, his face pale with terror. Aether gently tapped Macus on the shoulder. With a sound like a gasping breath, time snapped back into place only for Macus.

  He stumbled. "M-M-Master?" Macus stammered. "What... what is this?"

  "A temporal stasis field," Aether said, as if discussing the weather. He gestured to the vial. "Locks everything in a localized bubble. It is... difficult to make."

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  He began to walk through the heretics, calmly plucking swords from their hands and tossing them into the woods.

  "But this is... this is the First Champion's magic," Macus whispered in awe. "This is Odion's speed."

  Aether froze, his back to Macus.

  "No," he said, his voice sharp. "It's not."

  He continued working, but his movements were tighter, angry.

  "This is my inferior version. A safer version. It is external. It changes the world, not the man."

  He finished disarming the last man and walked back to Macus.

  "Odion's potion... the Pearlescent Vial... it accelerated the Body. It forced the muscles to contract at the speed of thought. The friction cooked him from the inside out. To survive, he had to drink a Blue Vial of regeneration first."

  Aether mimicked the motion of drinking two potions in rapid succession.

  "He was drinking poison to cure poison. Enhance. Heal. Enhance. Heal. A cycle of chemical violence that turns blood into sludge and skin into iron. The heat was trapped inside him. That is why he screamed."

  Aether looked at Macus, his eyes hard.

  "The cost was too high. It always is."

  He pulled a small, second vial from his belt. "This is the release agent. When I break it, you have five seconds to get to the wagons."

  Macus nodded, his mind reeling. "Master, what about you?"

  "I'll be right behind you."

  Macus ran. He reached the wagons, turned, and smashed the vial. The world roared back to life. The heretics, suddenly and inexplicably unarmed, completed their charge, crashing into each other in a confused, panicked pile, face-planting into the mud.

  Aether was already at the wagon.

  "Drive!" he yelled.

  As the caravan lurched away, Macus stared at his mentor. He had just seen a legend in action—and learned the terrible recipe for the other one.