Chapter 25
“When we are faced with a problem that cannot be solved, that is the true test of our capabilities. Something so far outside of our understanding of things that it cannot be contended with, or something so integral to our beliefs that it cannot be confronted.”
—The Limitations of Magic, Albrecht Magnus
His second match of the day was against another mage from the Whitehall, one that he’d never come across before, but that Bael’s coaching had him well prepared for. The dwarf was an earth affinity mage with a focus on defense, which was fairly common. What set him apart was his ability to tap into an almost abstract sense of solidity, the combination of some choice embodiments with his burgeoning magic had allowed him to do something almost directly opposite to how Havran handled a fight. While the more familiar mage could simply phase himself out of physicality so that blows and spells passed through him, this Whitehall recruit did the opposite, becoming so solid that nothing could penetrate his rocky outer shell.
The bout began with a straightforward exchange between them as they closed in on each other. Rocks were conjured into being and lobbed at Sylvas, who spiked the gravity in his orbitals to warp their flight path and guide them away from hitting him. That left him with plenty of time to work on his own casting, building up a stockpile of partial spells in his ego fragments to use later in the clash.
Predictable.
He ignored the voice as always and kept his eyes on his opponent. With the rock volley thwarted, the dwarf was now gathering stone about himself, becoming more and more massive with each passing moment. By the time that the two of them met in the middle of the arena the dwarf would be a towering colossus in comparison to Sylvas own meagre frame. That was fine by Sylvas. The old adage “the bigger they are, the harder they fall” became a lot more significant when you were wielding gravity as your weapon.
The dwarf’s progress should have slowed as he became more and more bulky, but it was the opposite, as he got bigger his stride grew longer and he gained momentum, heading across the field towards Sylvas like an unstoppable landslide.
While he was still out of reach of the ever-growing arms, Sylvas cast a Gravity Spike in the titan’s path. It should have dropped the dwarf to his bouldery knees, but instead the momentum carried him on. It wasn’t just the mass of the stone, it was the density. He had pushed so far into the earth affinity that he was brushing up against Sylvas’ own.
It was time to move, it didn’t matter if he could break through the armor or not if the whole thing steamrolled over him. Seizing hold of the gravity mana inside him, he launched himself upwards just as he had against Abbas and out of the titan’s path.
Yet despite taking to the air, his escape was a near thing all the same. One of the massive hands swiped at him as the dwarf passed beneath Sylvas feet, and it was only with a clumsy barrel roll that would have made Gharia laugh, that Sylvas managed to avoid being swatted like a bug.
He launched his orbitals as he repositioned himself, only to watch with resignation as they dented and bounced off the solid rock of the titan. He hadn’t expected much from them, given the size of the thing, but he’d hoped that there might have been some cracks that he could exploit later. The density was much higher than it should have been for mere rock. Harder than metal.
Sylvas cast one of his focused Gravity Spikes at the lumbering thing as it slowed to turn, and if it had hit the dwarf inside, he felt sure that the fight would have been over then and there, but it didn’t. It lodged somewhere inside that mass of stone and nothing seemed to change. It didn’t even pivot the titan’s balance.
The shot had been quick, but he’d aimed for the center of mass. Wherever the dwarf was in that great mass of stone, he was certain he hadn’t hit him. He must have repositioned himself somewhere as the thing continued to grow. Closing his eyes to focus on his gravity sense should have given Sylvas a clear picture, the tiny patch of softness inside all of that solid stone, but the mass of the thing was so dense he couldn’t penetrate deep enough as such couldn’t get a clear picture of what was within.
It’s generating its own gravity, or at least enough to blind my senses.
As it turned, one of those great arms swung out towards him, and as Sylvas sat there in the air feeling smugly out of reach, he was taken by surprise. The stalactite fingers that had been protruding from the rounded ends of the rocky arm came loose and soared out to pierce him.
He twisted in the air, dumping mass into himself as quick as he could, trying to drop out of reach of the spears of stone. But he was too slow and one of them struck him through the thigh, sliding through flesh all too easily for something so blunt looking.
Falling now, with the weight of the stone and his own weight dragging him down, he closed down the pain before it could reach him. It would not help him win, so he didn’t need to bother with it.
His orbitals buzzed in to catch him from beneath even as he reversed the pull on himself, and the sudden jerk as he stopped was enough to yank the spike of stone out. A great burst of blood followed. There was a hole in his leg wide enough to put a hand through.
It was probably the perfect moment to test out his newest scheme. The crystals that once belonged to his gauntlet and stored alien mana were still embedded in him after he declined the surgery to remove them. In fact as his embodiment progressed, he had guided them towards the back of his hand, a convenient place where his mana channels surfaced and could touch them.
He drew fire mana down through the channel. It felt wrong, was wrong. The wrong affinity for his body. The wrong kind of mana for his core. But he wasn’t sending it to his core, nor even trying to cast with it. He cleared the usual mana inside him out of its path, and guided its way through the channels until it reached the hole in his leg and then he let it ignite on contact with the air. Searing smoke plumed from the bloody hole, the smell of cooking meat tinged with overheated metal, but when the smoke had cleared the wound was cauterized. He wouldn’t bleed out before the fight was done, and he wouldn’t fall into complacency again.
Setting his feet on the ground, he found that the leg couldn’t hold his weight, so with the same kind of experimental attitude that he’d always employed, he tucked one of his orbitals inside the wound and used it as a makeshift prosthetic to keep him moving and upright. As an afterthought he fractured off a little of his mind to control that one orbital and keep it in sync with his movements. Something he’d have called impossible before he began work on his new paradigm, and which now seemed oddly natural. As if he’d always been moving his body as a series of separate parts by will alone.
Turning his attention back outwards, he saw that the titan had made its turn and was now stampeding back his way, the other arm still tipped with spikes taking aim at him as it came on. He set aside the anxiety that such a sight provoked, dropping to his knees by the side of the bloody spike that had just fallen out of him. This close, all of his senses could peer inside. What he found was barely different from what he’d discovered from a distance. Solid all the way through, far denser than any stone should be, heavier too. He tried to pick it up with his newly enhanced body, and he could barely get it off the ground. Trying to move it with kinesis would be similarly hopeless.
There goes the idea of launching it back at the thing.
Sylvas took a few practice steps once he was back on his feet, making sure everything was in sync, then he took off running sideways as the spikes were launched. Seizing hold of both the orbital in his leg and internal gravity, he was able to fly out of the titan’s path, leaving a small, but dense forest of stone pillars in his wake. It bought him a moment to think, his mind shifting through his usual list of tricks.
Teleportation won’t help. Opening up cold storage might siphon off a little of the stone, but the dwarf can just replace it. Orbitals aren’t strong enough, nor is Gravity Spike. Hmm, I wonder…
Sylvas finished his internal ramble by casting Inversion as the great stomping feet of the titan came down on the spikes ahead of him only to again discover that the mass and density of the titan meant that even if gravity were inverted for one part of it, the rest was still enough to hold it in place. His only option was to to expand the sphere of influence of his inversion, which he knew he was not allowed to do under the laws of the Ardent before his fifth circle.
But then even if he did all that, there was still no guarantee that bouncing the titan back and forth off the dome and the floor would even touch the dwarf inside. A glance to the crowds showed everyone on their feet, but he couldn’t hear them shouting over the sound of blood rushing in his own ears. All eyes were on him, and he had no solution. A fire mage could have melted through the stone, even a water mage might have abraded it away given time and power, but here he was facing what should have been one of the easiest match ups in terms of affinities and he was at a loss.
He had access to other kinds of mana, but his spell book for them was extremely limited by what he’d managed to pick up so far, and the amount of mana that he could store was even more limited still. There would be no melting the stone to lava with the meagre spark of fire affinity mana he had. At best he’d leave a sooty mark on the thing. Not to mention that he really didn’t want to expose his ability to use other types of mana so early in the competition, otherwise he would have used healing magic on his leg instead of fire mana concealed in the wound.
Thinking on your feet was never your strong suit. Perhaps you should have taken that wet cat of a professor up on his offer of a nice research job. Slow and ponderous as your thoughts.
Ignoring the voice as was habit now, Sylvas launched himself back into the air where he could maneuver more easily. The more time he had, the more likely it was he’d come up with a solution. He tried one more focused gravity spike, this time into the blank faced head of the titan, on the off-chance the dwarf had shuffled himself up there, but again it did nothing, not even slowing its inexorable advance towards him.
Letting his hold on his body go loose and shedding weight, he cast the flight spell that he mostly still kept around out of habit and changed tactics. He took off, flying the same route that Gharia had before, skirting the dome as he built up speed. Maybe this will do the trick.
Once he was moving as fast as he could push the spell, he killed it, launching himself straight at the heart of the titan. As he flew quickly cast Gravity Shear and then poured on all the weight and mass he dared.
The tiny blur of him and his spell soared across what was left of the arena to strike into the thing’s chest. Any material weaker than the stone he faced would have been splintered, cast to the sides of the Shear and stripped out of the heart of the massive construct.
But the titan still held firm.
Sylvas’ Shear flattened out on contact with it, finding no purchase, and he himself followed after. Smashing against the impossibly solid wall of the thing’s chest with enough force to knock all the air out of his body.
The club-like hand of the titan swung in towards its chest where he lay flattened against it. His spell now dispersed. It was going to swat him like a mosquito and leave nothing but a red smear behind.
But Sylvas wasn’t about to let himself lose to a rock.
