Chapter 52: Chapter 46

“Say, are you even human? The speed you just showed earlier was definitely not.” I said while we circled around each other on the wooden stage. Only the moonlight and the fire of torches spent both of us enough light to see the opponent very clearly.

“Says the person who just healed her nose in record time. What are you using? Healing magic?” I chuckled as I looked into his eyes and noticed just how much they seemed to glow in a fiery red. His words alone lead me to think he used some kind of magic, but his soul confirmed my suspicion. He was using magic constantly, but the problem was that I couldn’t see any. Everything was completely normal.

Something else entirely made me suspicious as well. His grip on the dagger was too loose as if he didn’t learn to fight at all. It was as if he just barely started to learn sword fighting. I smirked and blinked once, theoretically a perfect situation to exploit. And yet, there was no reaction from him at all, as if he didn’t even notice. He was no master at short-range fighting which could only need one thing.

“You are a mage.” I said and feigned to sweep upwards, only to ram my shoulder into his belly if he didn’t manage to dodge in time. He warily distanced himself from me as if he realized that I wasn’t easy prey, although I haven’t hit him once so far.

“That’s correct.” He didn’t even try to hide it anymore, but rather blatantly admitted to it in front of his underlings who seemed quite surprised by the revelation.

“And? What can you do?” I already had a few ideas of what he was capable of and whatnot.

“I can control the flow of time!” He said and rushed forwards with incredible speed. I could barely block the attack with my dagger and jump backwards to escape the torrent of attacks that would soon follow.

“Didn’t mommy always preach that you shouldn’t lie?” I didn’t know much about magic, but I did know that time manipulation, while theoretically possible, wasn’t something a normal human could achieve.

Aska tried it a few times already and failed completely. At one point, he managed to accelerate the time around him rapidly and catapulted himself three weeks into the future. Inside his time anomaly, he moved extremely fast, at least that what it seemed like for a few seconds. Three weeks went by in a flash for him, but then the backlash happened. The universe, trying to repair itself stopped time around him for about three weeks. He didn’t try it afterwards as I stacked a few stones above the anomaly. I will never forget the look on his face as stone after stone fell on his head as both his and my time aligned itself again. To conclude, time manipulation isn’t possible, but there are several ways in which to replicate the looks of it. Some of these magics certainly needed to be activated the whole time, which was exactly what the bandit did.

I ran towards the bandit once more, ducked underneath a slash I saw coming miles away and cut upwards again. With inhumane speed, he tried to retreat once more, but I wasn’t willing to let him go easily. I jumped forward, aiming my dagger directly at his face. What happened afterwards was rather surprising. His whole body shifted to the right completely silently.

I cut through nothing, at least that’s what I saw. I missed his head by hairs breath and the dagger harmlessly passed by the ears. But I did notice a slight resistance as if I cut through a little bit of skin, just above his ears. It was my first hit, but also a rather pricy one. His dagger stabbed into my side before I landed on the ground again. A worrying amount of blood spilt out of it until the wound closed itself while I kept my distance and tried to figure out what kind of magic he was using.

“Have you ever heard about Schrödinger´s cat?” I asked, hoping that I wasn’t wrong with the assumptions I made.

“And what is that?” We began to circle around each other again, but none of us tried to attack right away.

“It is a cat in a carton. Two holes were cut in the carton and two humans looked into each hole. Schrödinger was an illusionist though and showed one person the corpse of a cat. Then, he asked if the cat was alive or dead. Both participants argued, but none of them could convince the others.”

“What a touching story.” He was a lot warier now that I figured out what he was doing.

“The sad part is that none of them were right … the cat died during the experiment.” The bandit was fiddling with my vision in more than one way. While I may be able to see in which area he is, I was probably unable to pinpoint his exact location.

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“And the moral of the story is that the illusionist always wins.” He claimed while I stopped walking to the side.

“No. Not quite. What would a blind person do? Would he still just look at the cat or would he touch it and break the illusion?” I closed my eyes completely. I felt the wind on my skin, smelled the fresh air in my nostrils and heard how the wooden boards creaked under the weight of the bandit. I felt a gust of wind and a small cut on my cheek as I stepped backwards, avoiding an attack at hairs breath. He wasn’t strong, and neither was he fast. It was just that my vision lagged behind until he was actually close enough to strike me, making it seem like he was way faster than he could be.

I opened my eyes again but didn’t rely on what I saw at all. Everything could be faked and thus, it didn’t surprise me as my right leg was cut before I could evade, even when I saw the bandit right in front of me. His body was not where I could see it at all.

After another three seconds of standing still, he attacked again. This time, I heard him and could twist my upper body in time to evade and also sliced at the air where his arm must be. I smiled as a thin bloodstream dripped down on the floor for a short time until he somehow stopped it again.

“If I can cut you once …” Silence spread around the area as the bandit vanished and I was alone on the stage, at least judging purely by vision. But even as I listened to every sound I could, I was unable to hear him. I could only stare at an empty spot in front of me, unsure what to do now. I could go over there and fall into some kind of trap, or I could wait it out and make him spent his mana. I chose the latter, which was a mistake in hindsight.

A slight creak was all I heard from the incoming attack as he threw the dagger with pinpoint accuracy at me. I couldn’t react at all as I didn’t even know where he was aiming at, nor that he threw the dagger until it pierced my heart and embedded itself deeply into my chest. I fell backwards, stupefied that I haven’t thought about this possibility considering that I wanted to throw my dagger at the beginning of the fight. Already in pain, I hit the back of my head on the ground, but I did hold on to my dagger weakly.

Steps resounded as the darkness enveloped me because I closed my eyes. Even in pain, I listened very closely to the sound of creaking wooden boards which soon stopped as he stood directly beside me.

“The illusionist always wins.” The dagger in my chest moved again as he pulled it out of me. I choked on my own blood and helplessly coughed, not because I needed to, but rather because I wanted. I gripped my dagger tightly and stabbed with one swift motion into his thigh. He screamed and stumbled backwards, the dagger still in his thigh while I pulled the dagger out of my heart quickly. My body healed swiftly again, but my hunger increased considerably due to my blood loss.

I spit out even more blood and walked towards the bandit leisurely who robbed away from me on the ground. His illusion was broken and it was then as I realized just what I cut above his ears earlier. They were pointy, just like usual elf ears. I smiled as I noticed that the red glow in his eyes vanished completely, only to be replaced by an even deeper red without the magical part.

“I agree that lies always win, but the truth isn’t just hidden by illusions …”

I positioned myself sideways, lifted up my left leg and shifted my centre of gravity to the front as my arm catapulted the dagger forward, this time without any interruptions. The dagger flew beautifully and hit its mark perfectly. The blade pierced through his right eye, directly into his brain. He instantly fell backwards, completely limp and even more dead than Schrödinger´s cat.

Silence spread through the plaza as they realized what just happened. Their leader who fought for their freedom and his reputation against a little girl just lost. I didn’t know if it made everything worse or better, but he turned out to be an elf who probably just abused them to spread chaos in the human territory.

I placed my boot on the head of the late bandit boss and twisted the dagger out of his eyes for everyone to see. It was a gruesome scene, especially because I gave it an extra bit of gore by cutting healthy brain matter in the process to make sure that more than the blade exited the wound.

“So … who´s next?” I smiled innocently as I cleaned the dagger with the jacket of the dead bandit as reality struck every single one in my audience. The fires around them blocked off every escape path and I just killed the person that held this group together.

They were all incredibly close to death, but they all had a chance of surviving if they tried.

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