Tell me about it, I thought, struggling to maintain consciousness as my enhanced healing factor, when had I gotten a healing factor?—slowly began knitting muscle fibers back together. I'm as surprised as anyone that I still have most of my limbs.
"The subject displays anomalous reflexes," Virelia continued, circling me like a shark that had just discovered I might be worth studying instead of eating. "Predictive capabilities beyond baseline human parameters. Combat precognition without apparent magical enhancement."
She crouched down beside me, close enough that I could smell something like ozone and old parchment. "What are you, little variable?"
I tried to formulate a response that wouldn't get me immediately murdered, but the blood loss was making coherent thought feel like advanced calculus. "Just a really, really unlucky programmer," I managed between gasps.
That earned me a laugh that sounded like crystal breaking in an avalanche. "Oh, you're much more interesting than that."
I've been through worse trials, I told myself, trying to channel the determination that had carried me through a billion forging attempts. I survived cosmic fire. I can survive whatever comes next.
But even as I thought it, I knew it was hollow bravado. The forge had been predictable, controllable, something I could understand and eventually master. This was different. This was people with agendas and power and the absolute certainty that my life was worth less than their convenience.
The system provided one final, deeply unhelpful analysis:
[ESCAPE PROBABILITY VS ALDRIC: 20%]
[ESCAPE PROBABILITY VS VIRELIA: 2%]
[RECOMMENDATION: NON AVAILABLE]
Fuck that, I thought, forcing myself to focus through the pain. I didn't spend a thousand years learning to forge divine weapons just to get murdered by supernatural research enthusiasts.
My uninjured hand clenched, and I felt something respond in the air around me. Not the controlled flame manipulation I'd learned, but something rawer, more desperate. The kind of magic that came from having absolutely nothing left to lose.
Fire began to gather around my fingers, not the precise beams I'd used against the construct, but wild, chaotic energy that tasted like desperation and smelled like burning possibilities.
Aldric's blade shifted, tracking toward my throat with professional efficiency. Virelia's eyes lit up with scientific fascination. Thane took a half-step forward before catching herself.
And I realized that whatever happened next, my quiet days of cosmic blacksmithing were officially over.
My position on the floor wasn't random, blood loss and pain had a way of sharpening focus, and I'd managed to angle myself just slightly to Aldric's left. Close enough to seem helpless, far enough to have room to move if this desperate gambit had even a prayer of working.
"Wait!" I gasped, letting my voice crack with what I hoped sounded like terror rather than concentration. "I can explain...."
While I spoke, mana streams began gathering around my uninjured hand with all the subtlety of a nuclear reactor starting up. The air itself seemed to thicken with potential energy, and I prayed to whatever cosmic entities might be listening that my acting skills were better than my combat experience.
"There's nothing to explain," Aldric said, raising Dawnbreaker for what was clearly meant to be a finishing stroke. "Orders are..."
I channeled every drop of concentrated solar fury I could muster directly at her face.
The aetherfire erupted like a miniature star being born in the confines of the command tent. Not the controlled beam I'd used against the construct, but raw, desperate energy that turned the air itself into a weapon. The blast lit up the tent like a camera flash from hell, and for a split second, I thought I might actually pull this off.
Aldric's response was so fast it made my enhanced perception feel like slow motion in reverse. Dawnbreaker swept up in a perfect defensive arc, the blade suddenly wreathed in defensive fire magic that turned her weapon into a blazing barrier. My aetherfire struck her enchanted steel and scattered like water hitting a red-hot forge.
"Amateur," she said with professional disdain, and then she was moving.
Her counter-attack came wrapped in Pyraflux enhancement, the rapier's point trailing flames as it aimed directly for my chest. I threw myself sideways with all the grace of a sack of panicked potatoes, feeling the superheated air singe my clothes as the blade passed close enough to part the fabric.
Okay, I thought, scrambling across the tent's floor while my arm screamed protests, Plan A failed spectacularly. Time for Plan B.
As Aldric's fire magic began to dissipate, I reached for something I'd learned during those endless hours of magical study, Cryovalence manipulation. Ice-cold energy flowed through my remaining functional hand, and I channeled it directly into the air where her flames had been.
The reaction was immediate and catastrophic.
Superheated air met ice-cold mana in a collision that defied several laws of thermodynamics and possibly a few safety regulations. Steam erupted like a volcanic geyser, billowing white clouds that filled the entire command area in seconds. The temperature differential was so extreme I could hear the air itself screaming.
"What the hell..." someone shouted from the suddenly opaque chaos.
"Visual contact lost!" another voice called out.
"Secure the perimeter!"
Three seconds, I calculated, struggling to my feet in the blessed cover of the steam cloud. Maybe four before this clears. Time to get creative.
I gathered what remained of my mana reserves and began channeling Aerolith magic, wind manipulation that should, in theory, launch me clear over the camp perimeter like some kind of magical missile. It was desperate, stupid, and had about a million ways to go wrong, but it was the only plan I had left.
That's when Virelia's voice cut through the chaos like a blade through silk.
"Predictable little fly~" she said, her tone carrying the kind of amusement that made my blood run cold. "Did you think I couldn't read your amateur tactics?"
The steam was still clearing when I felt something slam into my chest with the force of a falling meteor.