Class Is Over

Hal’s shoulders were still raised, sword angled forward, but the confidence that had held him up a minute ago was all but drained. Quincy stood near the back wall with his staff tightly in his grasp.

Holm remained where he was.

The staff stayed planted like a cane and his body hadn't moved an inch. Nothing about his body had changed, only his expression. It was the look of a man who had been starving politely for ages and had just been handed a plate of delectable food.

Hal gulped loudly.

“Quincy,” his voice barely above a whisper. “That level… was that real?”

Quincy’s eyes flicked to Mira, then to the circle, then to Holm again. His mind wanted to retreat into drawing the ritual, but he forced himself to speak anyway.

“It was an approximation,” Quincy said, voice louder than he intended it to be. “Which means it’s probably worse.”

Hal grimaced, sweat beginning to form on his face. “Worse than two thousand?”

Holm let out a small sound, almost a chuckle. He leaned forward just a fraction on his staff.

“Don’t worry,” he said, twisted face grinning ever so more. “I’m still retired.”

Hal swallowed again, then forced his feet to move. He adjusted his stance, blade angling lower, less aggressive. More cautious. His grip tightened until his knuckles whitened.

“Fine,” he muttered. “Then let’s see how retired you really are. Boost me, Quincy.”

Quincy was already on the same page. No matter how much they argued on the quiet days, they were technically still high-ranked adventurers who fought plenty of battles alongside each other. They had full confidence in their synergy against foes stronger than them.

"[Overclock: Redline]," he incanted, mana already sketching in the air with extreme efficiency. This wasn’t as intricate as ritual spells, this was battlefield casting. Fast, ugly, and effective enough.

“Don’t overextend,” he said. “I’ll keep you supported, so find me an opening.”

Light enveloped Hal’s body.

A glow of crimson aura radiated from him, his skin becoming brighter shades of pink and red. Hal rolled his shoulders, examining his bulging muscles. This was sure going to make him feel like hell once it finally ended. Any time they had to use this spell to take on an enemy, he would be out of commission for at least a few days.

Holm sat and observed it all from the sideline, letting them even the playing field in whatever ways they wanted to try. It wouldn't be fun if the fight ended so quickly, so why not give himself a challenge? However, Holm couldn't allow himself to take the fight so carefree anymore, not when they were going all out.

Holm straightened at last, eyes tracking the way Hal’s aura bled off him in faint, smoking tendrils. “Redline, you said? I've never seen that spell before.”

Hal didn’t give him time to say anything else.

He vanished.

To the average person watching, it would have looked like he phased out of this world entirely, ceasing to exist. In reality, it was pure acceleration pushed past the point of what even a Sapphire ranked warrior should be able to do.

Redline did not simply make Hal faster, it boosted his physical attributes to the absolute limit of what a human could exert at once. Redline, a fifteenth-tier offensive buff spell, continuously maintains the target at their limit, leading to the blood particles leaving his body.

One moment he was standing there, muscles tensed and glowing crimson, and the next there was absence.

Holm, meanwhile, hadn’t taken a single step.

Suddenly, the air around him detonated.

CRACK. CLANG. CRRKK.

Stone scarred as something hit it from the side, then behind, then above. The cave was beginning to be carved from the stray strikes of Hal's sword. Holm finally looked like he was put on edge, not fast enough to go on the offensive. This is what they needed, and the two of them were glad that they were strong enough to go toe-to-toe with a Ruby.

They could fight a Ruby.

The staff vibrated in his hands as it met another invisible strike, the impact traveling cleanly through his arms and into the stone beneath his feet. Holm adjusted his stance again, letting the strike slide off into the floor instead of stopping it outright. The cave shuddered from impacts meant to cleave iron.

Holm smiled, laughing between strikes. "So this is a Sapphire these days? How very, very interesting."

Hal’s voice answered from nowhere and everywhere at once. “Shut up.”

Another strike landed, this one catching Holm square in the forearm. The staff barely intercepted it in time, the force numbing his fingers and shuddering through his frame. Holm was dancing now, the thrill of battle keeping him on his toes.

Holm finally moved from his post, no longer allowing for the fight to come to him. He ran, boots jumping off stone as another unseen strike screamed past his head and shaved the air behind him. He twisted mid-step, staff snapping up on instinct like he was in his twenties once more. How invigorating it felt to experience this again.

CLING.

The blow deflected upward, sparks biting into the ceiling instead of his chest.

He laughed again, breathless this time. “Good,” he called, voice carrying despite the chaos. “You’re finally trying to kill me.”

CLANG.

He let the force carry through the shaft, twisted his wrists, and directed it into the ground. The floor caved where it took the blow, cracks spreading like a meteor struck.

A sharp whiz cut through between the clashing of steel.

Holm foresaw it an instant before it arrived.

He twisted hard, abandoning his footing as a beam of compressed force tore through the space his torso had just occupied, barely staving off another strike meant to split him in half. The spell screamed past him and punched into the far wall, detonating in a concussive blast that sent shards of stone across the cave.

"What in the world was that?" Holm said to himself.

"[Spectral Lance]." A familiar voice rang out from afar. Quincy was finally joining the fight, casting another beam at Holm.

While Hal kept Holm busy, he was spending his time reinforcing his own abilities to remain on equal footing with spells such as [Foresight], [Sorcerer's Vigor], and [Greater Shield].

Holm laughed as he landed, breath raggedy. “Ah, coordination, that’s what I was forgetting.”

"[Binding Vines]." Quincy incanted.

In an effort to throw off the dancing mage before him, he conjured vines from the ground and gripped his leg in place, giving Hal a chance to land a successful blow.

Holm glanced down after coming to a screeching halt, surprised enough to be genuine. “Oh... that’s clever.”

Hal didn’t waste the opening.

Color exploded from him as a prismatic barrier flared into existence around Holm’s body. It was not a single shield, but layers of color appearing one after another. Hal’s blade hit the first and destroyed it instantly. It went through three layers before stopping at the fourth, shards of red, yellow and green flaking off like shattered glass.

Hal leapt back and finally stopped moving for a second. "What in the hell is that spell? I've never seen a mage with a defensive spell like that."

Hal glanced at Quincy, hoping for an answer, but he was just as stumped as him. Holm staggered a half-step with his free leg, then caught himself.

"That was a close one, good thing I put that on before coming here," he exhaled loudly, chest rising and falling in labored breaths. "[Ignite]."

The vines trapping him in place burned away in an instant. The most basic of spells, and quite frankly, the weakest he could have cast when dealing with vines. Holm had quite the need to show off even in the midst of battle.

Holm stepped backwards, testing that his leg was in good condition still.

“My turn.” Holm said.

One instant Holm stood where Hal could see him and the next the distance between them was reduced to zero. Holm was in his face now, staff ripping through the air in a short, brutal arc that forced Hal to twist sideways on reflex alone. The blow clipped the nearby wall instead of his ribs, the impact from the staff meeting stone looking far worse than what his sword was already dishing out.

Holm had just moved nearly as fast as Hal was already going, and he had Redline active.

What a monster this old man was.

Holm didn't let up, even in close quarters. He pulled his staff with the right hand and pushed with his left to allow the back end to strike Hal right in his arm guard. Pain exploded up his arm as Hal winced in pain, tears welling up in his eyes.

Quincy fired without hesitation. “[Ice Barrage]!”

Dozens of spiked shards tore across the cave and homed in on Holm, frost forming instantly along the walls where they passed.

Holm dodged as many as he could and destroyed the rest with a counter-spell, "[Ruikard's Flame]."

CRACK. CLANG.

They continued to exchange blows, and between strikes, Holm cast spells to attack and defend against incoming spells from Quincy.

[Lightning Spear]. [Ice Wall].

A glob of acid flew towards Holm. He cast a spell instantaneously that enveloped it in a bubble and popped itself into non-existence.

CRKKK.

Hal was there again, blade crashing down and shattering another prismatic shield. Holm retaliated with a swing of his own and hit him in the shin.

Steel, magic, stone. Over and over, the cave rang with it all; the floor scarred and shattered beneath their feet. Hal’s strikes came from everywhere at once, the Redline spell screaming through his body as he forced his mind to stay ahead of the pain. Holm answered each one with his own attack and never let up.

Out of everything going on at that moment, Quincy was watching something else. Not this old man, but Hal.

The crimson aura around him was thinning in places now, flickering instead of roaring. The blood-mist that signified his surplus of strength and speed now told a different story. Every step took longer than the last. Every missed strike looked less powerful.

Redline was eating him alive and soon would finish its meal.

Quincy grit his teeth, he had to do something. They were evenly matched now, sure, but this was not a stalemate. He knew that if this old guy could hold out longer than Hal’s boost, they would surely lose. And Quincy knew with sickening certainty that Holm was aware of it too.

His eyes shot over to the only other person in the cave.

Mira.

An idea came to him, a very evil and ugly idea indeed. To gain the upper hand against this monster would be impossible, unless they were to have a hostage, that is.

Holm felt the shift immediately. The rhythm of the fight changed in a way that had nothing to do with Hal’s fading Redline aura or Quincy's onslaught of spells aimed at ending it. A terrible future came to Holm through his foresight, and he couldn't allow Quincy to do what he planned on doing. That spell he would cast after capturing her would all but see to Mira's death or Holm’s failure to save her. Neither outcome was good for Mira.

That was when Holm stopped pretending.

Hal’s blade passed through empty air where Holm was just standing nanoseconds ago. Quincy's foresight spell showed the next second to him, but it was too late to do anything about it.

Holm crossed the distance between them five times faster than he was already moving in that fight. One moment Quincy was hovering his hand over Mira's body, mana gathering to incant a spell meant to cast a binding vow on her heart; the next, his head was flying off his shoulders.

The strike was perfect, a painless death at that. Holm's staff had no edges meant to slice, yet it was so fast that it didn't matter.

There was a brief, wet sound as his head fell and rolled across the cave floor, body falling on its side.

Hal didn’t understand what had happened at first. His strike missing wasn't unusual, but the lack of visual on his opponent threw him off completely. He looked a full 180 degrees, even up and down, yet there was no sight of the old man.

“Quincy, can you see where he went?” He called, already uneasy.

There was no answer.

"Quincy?" He called again, still waiting for a response.

Again, there was no answer.

Quincy always answered. Whether it was mid-cast, he would respond, even if just to snap at him for interrupting his focus.

Hal turned, heart metaphorically beating faster for a reason that had nothing to do with Redline. His gaze landed on the circle first, half-expecting to see Quincy in some spell result like an ice box to stop an attack.

Instead, he saw the old man, his staff now dripping at the crescent tip.

Then he saw the body.

His breath caught hard in his throat. Quincy was on his side near Mira in a way Hal had seen before on battlefields and missions gone wrong.

Finally, he saw the head. It all hit him at once.

His sword slipped from his grip and clattered uselessly to the floor. Redline finally reached its limit, Hal falling face first to the ground as every muscle in his body gave out. His skin was burned off by that point, blood starting to crust a new layer on most of his body.

“No,” he whispered.

He hadn’t seen the strike. How could he let his friend die without even realizing it? How was he that fast? Hal’s vision swam as his body refused to respond, nerves screaming in agony. He tried to roll on his side, but it was impossible. Hal cried for the first time in years.

"No, no no. Please don't be real." He sobbed, tears streaming down his face.

Holm didn’t answer him right away; he let the silence do the work.

"I’m not ready to die. Not like this," Hal choked on the words, desperate now. “Please. I’ll go. I’ll disappear. I’ll never take another job like this. I'll go back to being an adventurer. I'll even train new adventurers, just please let me go!"

Holm stood over him, observing the effects of Redline.

“You were ready to let her die.” Holm responded, gaze settled on him in pure distaste.

Hal flinched like he’d been struck. Only his tearful sobs followed.

--------------

A cold breeze of air brushed Mira’s face as the afternoon sun shone itself through the clouds.

Holm shifted Mira slightly in his arms, careful not to drop her as he walked on the path. She stirred faintly, a soft sound escaping her lips as the sun finally was too much to ignore. She blinked, lashes fluttering as the world slowly came back into focus.

"Where am I?" She said to herself groggily.

“Mr… Holm?” she murmured, voice thick with sleep as she realized she was being carried.

He stopped walking.

“Yes, Mira?” He said gently.

Her eyes opened wider as she looked around, confusion knitting her brow. “Did I fall asleep in class again?”

“Something like that,” Holm laughed. He let her down and held her hand as they turned toward the path towards town. “Why don’t we get some ice cream?"

That seemed to perk her up. "Really?!"

"Of course." He replied.

Mira giggled and skipped on ahead, already thinking about the flavors she wanted. Holm followed some distance behind her, never once looking back at the mountain in the distance.