Master Jujud planted her foot on the flying shovel, drawing one arm back like a bow.

  I spun downward, the lack of oxygen burning up within my chest, pressing against the inside of my head and eyes, threatening to throw me unconscious.

  First things first.

  I clasped my hands together, funneling mental energy into an enchanted ball of oxygen, anchored around my head.

  Next, I summoned a stone block, pushing downward.

  A chain grazed my shoulder.

  Master Jujud raised her arms again, building up another complex wave of mana. As I was still summoning Crapshoveler toward me, he turned lethargically, pointing Jujud in my direction once again.

  So I let go, intending to drop Jujud.

  Crapshoveler kept moving forward, oblivious.

  Hang on.

  I slipped along a path of summoned ice, pulling Crapshoveler toward me again. Although he did turn, it was extremely, extremely slowly, as if he was wading through molten lead.

  Another chain, nicking the side of my face despite the distance I’d put between me and Jujud.

  Her aim was good.

  But what had she done to Crapshoveler?

  {Crapshoveler}

  [Dirt]

  [+1 Str]

  [This entity is under the effects of [Temporary enchantment : Bind : [10:00]]]

  I jumped over the next bolt of chain, summoning platform after platform like steps in a ladder. Though I could do a lot with mental energy, I still wasn’t an efficient summoner. In order to make steps, I had to summon an object with substantial inertia, in order to have something unsupported which I could still jump off. In other words, that meant summoning a lot of mass, which was burning through my supply of energy.

  I’d have to think of something.

  Then the Island appeared.

  It burst from the clouds, spraying mist and dust over the sky. The island had been condensed into a flat-topped sphere maybe fifty yards around. The chains which had bound it had since dissolved.

  It was also enchanted.

  I whipped to the left and Crapshoveler adjusted. The island swiveled around at a substantially faster speed, as if it were a pendulum, locked onto Crapshoveler with invisible metal rods. Not only did the island have a lot of inertia, the distance between it and Crapshoveler acted as a lever, magnifying the force needed, slowing Crapshoveler’s movements.

  And without my shovel, I had to waste mental energy just to stay in the air. Once I ran out of mental energy—that was it. I’d have to break another suppression band to release more power if I even could, which would regardless require additional enchantments to keep my senses from overwhelming me. That would take time, effort, and energy, neither of which I could spare if me and Jujud were actively fighting.

  The fight would be over.

  Jujud was trying to force me back to the ground, where I wouldn’t need nearly as much mental energy. As long as I was somewhere solid, she could use her chains to their fullest extent

  Jujud watched me, arm drawn back, daring me to stop moving.

  She was conserving her energy.

  She knew that I knew her strategy.

  This was a game of attrition now. And she knew I was cornered.

  Think.

  Gravity pulled me back down, requiring another jump off a summoned platform.

  I couldn’t go back to the ground. Soise and Rex were still somewhere in the forest, and Jujud was the only one who posed a serious threat to them.

  And that meant I just had to figure out how to fight in the air.

  I jumped off another platform.

  Crapshoveler wasn’t disabled. He just had some weights on.

  I jumped again.

  Not on a platform.

  I pushed off the air.

  {Grind}

  [10 Hp 3.1m Str]

  The bone in my leg cracked.

  I bit back a scream, adrenaline keeping me conscious as the bolt of shock tore through my body. Any exposed skin became raw under the torrent of air whipping over it.

  But it worked.

  The air blasted out in a cone beneath my feet, propelling me upward with far more force than I could’ve expected. I shot miles past the island, skimming over the cloudless sky.

  The lower my health got, the weaker my body became. Breaking bones was definitely new, though. I’d have to be more careful.

  I healed my body, increasing my health to ten thousand. As compensation for the increased weight, I focused my aura before I jumped.

  That might have been stupid.

  As it turns out, when I’m much heavier I experience far less air resistance.

  In other words, I blinked across the sky like a bullet, spotting the island for less than a second.

  My leg still burned, but it didn’t break.

  “Settle down,” I whispered to myself, treading the air like water.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Of course, using physical force had glaring limitations. Even after only a few seconds, I could feel my muscles tiring. But I could work with this.

  I just had to buy Soise time.

  Jujud didn’t see me until the moment I tackled her, throwing the two of us back beneath the clouds. Mana pulsed across her skin, and I was thrown, tumbling across the open sky.

  “Give it a try!” Jujud shouted. She spun, latching a chain onto the island to pull herself up. “You don’t seriously think you’re a better fighter than I am, do you?”

  I was breathing heavier than before, and my kicks weren’t sending me as far as they used to.

  I already knew what that meant.

  {Your aura has been disassembled}

  “How are you doing that?” I muttered, clenching and unclenching my fists. Jujud definitely had her own weaponized aura, but it wasn’t nearly as strong as mine. Despite that, whenever we came close to one another, my aura fell apart.

  The island rose upward as Crapshoveler turned toward me as I drifted lower, carrying Jujud along for the ride. Both started sinking, dipping through the sea of cloud.

  Think.

  I squeezed the sides of my head.

  THINK!

  Aura is not something abstract. It’s a literal representation of personality, much in the way mental energy is the literal representation of perspective, or mana represents magic. Because it’s literal, it has rules, and because it has rules, there’s a method for turning the aura into a physical force, and with that a method to break it apart.

  Which means to dissolve an aura, you must first understand how to make one in the first place.

  Beads of sweat trickled down my forehead, dropping into the abyssal darkness where storm clouds clustered.

  I kicked softer, bobbing steadily lower.

  {Your aura has been weaponized.}

  {Your aura has been disassembled.}

  It wasn’t an instant change. There was delay, based on distance.

  Jujud was stringing chains off the island, holding it in the air as Crapshoveler tried moving downward.

  What if my fist was angry?

  I closed my eyes, focused.

  Energy moved through my entire body, reacting to emotions. This reaction is like fire, where a reaction keeps going even after the emotion, or reactant, dies out. All it needs is a steady stream of fuel, which is mental energy, hence why suppression bands prevent aura.

  I started laughing.

  Jujud paused, dropping the chain she’d been preparing. “What now?”

  I shouted, cupping my hands to the side of my mouth. “Thank you!”

  Using weaponized aura took mental energy. And far more than controlling your movements. How hadn’t I realized that? I’d have burned through my whole capacity in fifteen minutes or less.

  And because aura uses mental energy, mental energy from an outside source can prevent that flow of fuel, cutting it off.

  So what if there was no fuel?

  Aura bunched around my hand, crackling visibly the air.

  Jujud staggered backward.

  The energy vanished with a puff.

  Emotional intensity is required to solidify the aura, and mental energy to retain that solidification. But that mental energy isn’t actually part of solidifying aura.

  “I’ve been doing it wrong this whole time,” I whispered.

  Aura is solidified by emotions in every single area. Mental energy is only in the second area. Thus, aura is supposed to be used in bursts, but by convincing myself that aura is a state, not an active effect, I was able to use mental energy to keep my aura solidified.

  What had Master Reggie said? Idiocy is the strongest force in the universe?

  I smirked.

  Rather than rewriting the rules behind how a power works, it would use far less mental energy to move its source.

  Jujud had killed Rose.

  That made me angry.

  Thus, if all of me was angry, my feet were angry too.

  Thus, I could use aura weaponization on my feet.

  I jumped onto the island, ducking under a punch from Jujud with a light touch of emotional force on my side. I spun, cracking a heel against Jujud’s head. Her mana shield absorbed the impact but the sheer force still pushed her to the rim of the island.

  Jujud created a pin, piercing it through the back of my knee, which made my knee angry, so I could use ten times the force when I moved, snapping the relatively flimsy line of mana.

  Jujud flinched back.

  We watched each other.

  Jujud moved first, snapping a staff toward my head, dropping it midmovement as I grasped the handle, accelerating one half of my body. She ducked low, summoning a sword and flicking it to my jaw, which I blocked with the staff, giving her the time to summon several pins—these much thicker than the ones before. She held these in her hands, their size making teleportation too expensive. When I moved, she slipped beneath the staff’s arc, striking my wrist to loosen the weapon, allowing her to grab it.

  By that point, she’d already thrown a needle into the air.

  Jujud blocked a punch, kicking a leg out from under me and striking the needle from the air with the end of the pole, impaling my shoulder.

  I used a burst of mental energy to knock it out, catching the staff with both hands. But she let go again, and my force threw the staff into the air, giving her the time to nail another needle into my leg.

  Jujud flicked her wrist, summoning a chain.

  I unleashed emotional force in my lower body, narrowly avoiding the third needle and the fourth a moment after, both chipping on the island.

  She caught the staff again.

  “Who taught you?” Jujud asked. “Most silvers can’t do that.”

  I blinked, steadying myself on the ground. All this movement was making me dizzy. “What?”

  “Compartmentalizing aura,” she snapped. “Who taught you?”

  I shrugged. “Self-taught.”

  Although bursts of emotional energy were far more efficient than a full body stats boost, I was starting to realize the drawbacks.

  Namely, speed. It took time to get the emotions in the right place for the right movement. And that was cutting into my reaction speed.

  Speaking of which, Jujud’s movements were starting to appear faster. Which, given a lack of stat increases or effects, meant I was running seriously low on mental energy, even with my increases in efficiency.

  “You are truly incredible,” Master Jujud sighed. “I mean that. If after I knock you unconscious, you wind up forgetting that technique, I’ll teach it back to you. Promise.”

  “I’m not forgetting anything,” I stated. “Promise.”

  I glanced down, realizing the ground hadn’t been the slightest bit affected by our million strength combat, even though the force had blown the clouds back, allowing the rising sun to blaze out in full glory.

  The island and Crapshoveler were connected to each, meaning the island also inherited Crapshoveler’s aspects such as invincibility.

  Which begged the question—

  “Eyes up here,” Jujud snapped.

  There was a metal hammer the size of a bus, inches from my face.

  I choked blood, clinging onto Crapshoveler for dear life. Mental energy enveloped my body, gradually dissipating after my teleportation. Though I knew Jujud wasn’t trying to kill me, a hit like that would’ve broken every bone in my body.

  I could feel my perception accelerating and my senses dull.

  I’d used almost all my mental energy.

  Fine.

  Jujud was a flicker, reaching toward me.

  I still had a little energy left.

  I grabbed Crapshoveler’s handle with both hands, planting my feet on an invincible, unmoving platform of summoned rock, floating in the air. What little energy I had evaporated as the enchantment started and finished, almost in the same instant.

  But in that moment of time, I focused my aura, swinging Crapshoveler in an upward arc.

  The whole island shot from the fog like a bullet, nailing Jujud in the side. But I hadn't stopped moving, whipping Crapshoveler down, throwing Jujud into the earth with a force that blew apart the storm clouds.

  The ground dissolved from beneath my feet, and I started falling all over again.

  My time was up.

  I could only hope Soise and Rex were somewhere safe.

  // {Notice} //

  Hi! Even as important as fantasy is, there’s things in the real world beyond what writing can fix. That’s where you come in.

  Want to fight human trafficking? Whether you’ve got money or time there are two organizations I wholly recommend.