There was a crash. There had been a fully expanding mass of yellow amber with iridescent mineral seams reminiscent of sickly veins, warping the surroundings of the partially destroyed makeshift hospital that barely held up its newly found fragile balance, unbroken wooden beams still cracking under the added pressure of newly missing joints of the structure. To Vic, now yellow was all there was, until everything began to darken, blotches of black scourging across what she could see. It was all dimming.

  Oh, right. She’d seen that in her physics class, a long, very long time ago. When light passed through coloured tinted glass, the latter absorbed the wavelengths of that colour. Yellow and purple were complimentary. Her warped surroundings were both tinted by that golden glow and her intensifying purple shadow armour. Most of the light was being filtered out. It’d been called substractive filtering, right? Yeah. That sounded about right. That made sense.

  [Advanced reaction time: auto-activated], the game interface blinked.

  Oh. Right. She’d spaced out mid-fight, while getting attacked. She would have gotten mauled by that blob if she hadn’t had her shadow armour on. She was being blobbed by the blob right now. She had to be fully surrounded by it. They had to have flipped around a couple of times before coming down to a stop. Her sense of direction had gotten scrambled, like eggs.

  The purple tint of her shadow armour had to be decreasing, because she was starting to see a bit more brightly. Things weren’t clearer, just less dim. It was still all warped, like seeing everything through a golden deforming mirror, until the deformation turned kaleidoscopic.

  She could see the governor. He’d dragged himself away from where he’d been, a hand barely over his limp arm, body half pushed against a wall to keep himself up.

  Oh. He was fine. Yeah. Oh, she’d been finessed. Damn. It knew how to bait. The blob had used him as bait to crash headfirst on her.

  This was fine. It couldn’t get through the shadow armour. It’d tried before, and it… had only worked with that expensive spear attack.

  She saw purple sparkles appear through the outer layer of shadow armour, starting from one point and making patterns across its surface.

  Was the blob trying to figure out a pattern to break it?

  Oh, oh right. She should do something about that. What could she do? Oh. Her hands were shaking, in slow motion. What a weird sensation.

  [Passive shadow armour] has levelled up!

  That was fine. She was fine. What spell could work? Rainbow beam attack? It’d barely made a dent on those healthpoints, but it might just be the thing to get that blob off. How could an organism made of organic goop-soup resist plasma hot jets of actual plasma when she was inside it?

  She quietly thought “the sun is a deadly laser”, and saw the purple sparkles making patterns across the surface of her shadow armour stop. The kaleidoscopic effect stopped too, things turning back to only warped like a deforming mirror. Instead, she could see the plasma jet form a bright, shiny mass within that golden warping substance, and be slowly spewed out at the other end of the corridor, like pus being popped out of skin. The healthpoints of the boss’s circular health bar didn’t change. The plasma splattered on the ground, starting to hiss and dig through the stone as if it were acid. Fuck, she couldn’t use the rainbow blast again if it could redirect it. It could have sent it on the guy. Why hadn’t it done so? Had it been too focused on redirecting it? There had to be some sort of weakness that could be exploited.

  This attack had done no damage. Not even one HP had been lost. Vic blinked.

  No, no. No. Other spells. She had other spells. What could she do?

  Stuff like her ominous ashen breath or the fake ice storm wouldn’t work. No deceit would work with this… thing. At least she didn’t think that it could. Only raw power could scare it. Did she have enough raw power to do that? No. No, probably not. Could… could she use the big nuke spell here? Would just bluffing incanting that one work, while not finishing it up, like she’d done before, showing off what was about to happen, since this god-goop thing seemed to be the kind to finick over mana shit and would detect it? No. Too expensive. It’d be too expensive. Especially if it didn’t work. She needed to leave it as a last resort. Probably. There were other options, weren’t there? She stared at the available spells in her game interface.

  Fuck. A bitter smile started tearing itself over her face. She had one option, but it wouldn’t work. Her most powerful, costly, overkill spell in store, on top of the list, was one she should never have picked after levelling up to her last spell selection threshold. Even the game system itself had warned her that she wasn’t high level enough to manage it, back then. She could never beat that game level of Pong. The ball was just too fast to keep in bounds between those two bars after just ten seconds. And she couldn’t even abuse the advanced reaction time mechanic. The slow-motion didn’t include the mini-games themselves.

  Why had it been unlockable instead of greyed out? It’d been too tempting, sitting at the near end top of the spell tree, a bit on the side, as forgotten by the interface itself. Damn curiosity of hers. Damn Game System. Damn leftover bug. She’d chosen this instead of the logical next step to take. She could have had another overpowered spell instead of that dud. She could have had options.

  Her slightly shaking finger lingered over the last option she had. The Big Sword Spell. The pinprick version.

  …This creature had burst out from the accumulation of mana, from both human beings and mana constructs alike. Oh.

  That was the only choice she actually could make. It would work, too. Her pinprick absorbed mana. It was so simple. How had she not connected the dots before? Something like relief went through her chest while rereading the spell. She reread it again. And again, only skipping the very last sentence of the block because it didn’t feel as good as the rest. Yes. This was how she won. This was the way out of this fight.

  [Big Magic Sword]

  The [player]’s weapon is wrapped in a mana aura that amplifies the blade’s power in length, sharpness and magic, also strengthening their [Special Attributes].

  Aspect unlocked: [Mana Disrupter]: Your [Big Magic Sword] disrupts the flow of any magic spells it comes into contact. {Condition: Use on an [aspected] weapon}

  Aspect unlocked: [Mana Concentration]: Your [Big Magic Sword] absorbs mana it comes into contact. Stay in contact to exponentially absorb mana. Select [inward] or [outward] mode to redirect absorbed mana towards [Big Magic Sword] or [Player]. Your [Big Magic Sword] requires a 50 MP/minute upkeep under this Aspect. A lack of mana will automatically shift your [Big Magic Sword] into an inferior [Aspect] to the current one.

  {Condition 1: Reach level 75 of [Big Magic Sword] or reach a concentration of the [weapon]’s aura above 100 MP per mm2 }

  {Condition 2: Use [Big Magic Sword] on [weapon] composed of a part of [Player]}

  Locked aspect: [???] {3 [conditions] required to unlock}

  A pinprick. Anything tiny and pointy could replace it. That’s all she needed. She could move around within the layers of her shadow armour, she would be able to pierce her skin to get those pinpricks bloody. Shards of glass from her empty potion vials that she’d kept in her inventory since the previous fights? Would work. That’s why she always kept useless stuff in her inventory. It always could be reused.

  Vic faltered again. No. No, wait. No.

  She just… needed to cast the spell on a weapon made of a part of her. What even was a weapon?

  Her fingers twitched. Could she… Should she try it on one of her nails? At worst- she broke off a nail. At worst. She wouldn’t lose an arm over it. She didn’t have the time to test it. She didn’t have the time to take and break a glass vial or take out her broken sword to break it further: she didn’t want to either.

  [Passive shadow armour] has levelled up!

  Good, good, everything was fine.

  She started the spell, switching to its [outward] mode to ensure that she wouldn’t be affected by any mana she’d absorb, in case it’d be infected in some way by that god. The interface then locked onto her right thumb’s nail without difficulty when she tried to place it. She felt numb and kinda stupid for that. That felt like such an obvious use of the spell. There never had been any need to spill her own blood on weapons to use this version of the spell. The game level of geometry dash opened. Slightly behind that window, she could see the governor. He’d taken a few steps away, but hadn’t gotten much farther, leaning heavily on that wall. There was a small blood trail at his feet, dripping down his arm. He was slumping down the wall, slowly. She stared back as the game level chimed its hectic song. Some guy was dying, so she was going to play a video game.

  Something ashen like hope bubbled up from her throat and turned into laughter.

  The spell took root. Her thumb contorted on its own, nearly making her lose one of her square’s three lives. Making sure that her slow-motioned fingers tapped at the right time was a bit hard, but by now she knew some of the specific sensations her mana sense had to beat to and she somehow managed to make her little square jump up without the tap of her fingers. She was getting better at this. That discovery felt numb. A few steps away, the guy had slumped down to the ground. The root of her nail ached sharply. It’d turned dark at some point, forming a thin, black line there. The stink was like a splinter shoving backwards beneath her nail. Her teeth gritted down against one another. A smile like a snarl came from it.

  Her finger contorted on its own. She saw her shadow armour start warping towards it, interacting weirdly with it, pushing it out. Her thumb straightened up because of that.

  [Shadow armour] has levelled up! x5

  [Big Magic Sword] has levelled up! x5

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  It hurt. It hurt, until the outward pull stopped, and the layers of shadow armour around her nail’s thumb converged inwards in a slowly spiralling motion, parting around the mini lightsaber. The slow-motion made it so clear to see. It came into contact with what lied outside.

  Her magical thumb’s nail thus touched the blob.

  In turn, it overreacted.

  It blew out upwards.

  Vic’s throat tightened when she saw it slowly distend towards the sky in organic, map-like patterns, swirling up above larger and larger, turning the tinier hole in the broken roof that it’d been looking down from before into a ten metres large gap, forming webs of wide holes, thin golden threads barely connecting one another, yet still cuttting effortlessly any splintered wood and cracked stone on its path. Parts of the building were crashing down again. She gulped as she tried to take in all that was happening in slow motion. Debris were free-falling, blown outwards, following a circular trajectory before being expelled from it. The distended blob vaguely looked mushroom shaped, with so much empty space between its webs of linked threads. Wait. Wait, no, it wasn’t just threads. There was still some sort of thin, barely perceptible membrane between those thicker threads. She could see it because of the lightly reflective surface on them.

  The slowed down music came to a screeching halt. The blob- it was taking so much more space than before. What the fuck was that? A second form? In the stead of the music, echoes of screams abruptly started, increasing in volume until it was deafening her. Her hands barely had the time to move up to her head while she grimaced. But it’d already stopped.

  Vic breathed out. There was blood slowly dripping down her nose. Unbearably slow. Her tongue came to meet the droplet because the sensation was just too distracting.

  The golden threads started flying through the air. Wait. Wait, had the guy survived that last attack? She glanced around. Oh. There he was. In one piece. Because they’d been near the centre of the attack? Or to use him as a hostage again? He was there, belly down on the ground, a hand still lingering against the remnant of the wall even if he was lying down. After having made a few steps, he’d slumped down to the ground. That’s what had happened. At this speed, she couldn’t see if his chest was raising and lowering.

  She needed to leave him behind without bringing attention to him if he was still alive. She needed to leave, making the… “blob” focus on her alone. That’s what she could do. She apologized internally. If she didn’t care for distractions, she wouldn’t make others pay for being that.

  She looked up as she started running in the opposite direction to where he was lying. She was going to pierce that thin membrane- it had to be thin and weaker than the rest as it was very spread out. Had the slowmo ever lasted so long? No, even more than that, had it ever been so slow? She’d barely made two steps. Fucking hells, no way was she getting bored in the middle of this.

  She saw the jointing points of the threads sparkle up, forming a pattern. Damn, in real time, she’d barely see this. It reminded her of a neuron or a weird fucked up bioluminescent octopus doing its own thing. Probably some weird, pathetic mating dance. The interlocking sparkling points were making a rhythm towards its centre, dimming the farther away they were to the one that was high above her. Her guts twisted. What… was happening?

  That point shone too brightly in the centre of the swirled web. She couldn’t move faster. She was fucking stuck watching this. Even if that was the solution to all of this, she couldn’t stab it to death with her pinprick. Vic felt the hairs on her arms raise on their own. This was fucked up. Was mana… tensing up? No, not that. She couldn’t tell at this speed.

  That’s when she noticed that the god’s title above its circular health bar had changed. It was switching behind many, too many names, and maybe she could have read a few of them if only they didn’t switch by so quick. They weren’t written in unreadable letters anymore. Only one thing remained constant. Next to that changing variable, was written “BELATED SUN TOUCHED APOSTLE”. She was starting to manage to read the switching names.

  Above her, the focusing point of light erupted three metres outwards before tightly joining back together. Her throat was dry. The funny thought of the motion resembling the one of a focusing camera crossed her mind. Oh. The name of the boss was now only switching between three names, stopping on one all of a sudden.

  [[You] are acknowledged.]

  Vic stared back emptily at the window notification.

  Maybe she should have said a cringe one liner or two before stabbing it with her pinprick the first time, yes, something along the lines of “Do you know the difference between humans and gods?”, then waited a little for the blob to say nothing, which wouldn’t take much time at all, all to add then “THAT’S RIGHT! It’s opposable thumbs”. Then she could have shoved her magic thumb in its eye, and killed it surprisingly easily.

  Wait, no. No, that would have been too cringe to say. She was better than this.

  [Advanced reaction time: auto-deactivated], the game interface blinked. The music restarted, sounding triumphant this time.

  Vic stumbled and nearly crashed down as time slammed down to normal.

  >>Fatal danger incoming: Above<<, the game interface provided. A jittery line of exclamation points was vertically skewing her. Vic dodged to the side. A too bright, radiant thread connected to the ground where she’d just been, its end looking very similar to the previous spears. Another trail of exclamation points appeared again. She dodged a second time. Fuck, fuck, two of them at the same time?

  WAIT, wait, why was the god’s apostle more powerful than the god? Why could it do more spells at the same time? Fuck this shit fuck this shit. She was running. Her skewering magic nail met with the thin golden membrane and pierced it so easily it was insane, its borders comically jerking away to let her through. Vic grimaced as she thought she heard intense, cacophonous, extremely short screams, like the disembodied chorus from before. She ran forwards anyway, piercing a second and third membrane, but the latter just expanded abruptly to let her through before she even touched it with her mini-lightsaber.

  She stumbled out. The bloody governor was right before her, against that wall. HUH? She’d run in the opposite direction to him?? Fuck? How? In a panic, she picked him up. He was going to get turned into a flesh omelet if she left him on the path of… the blob. She was running. Her legs were just pushing on their own, she barely registered how she was dodging the lines that tried to skewer her. Four. She’d counted four simultaneous spear-like attacks. She dodged again. Mirror-like. The blob had been mirror-like. Things had been disorientating when she’d gotten stuck within it- had it actually been mirror-like? FUCK that was to note if she got stuck in it again. Better go the opposite direction than where she actually wanted to head- next time- She dodged again a strike. Should she trashtalk it for having shit aim? No. Should she roll on the ground next time instead of literally dodging? No, no.

  She licked up the blood from her nose again.

  “Hey dude, I know you’re alive, just keep hanging on there okay?” she said, to the governor. He hadn’t made much of a noise, or at least none that she’d heard since she’d been holding her beneath her arm, the one that didn’t have the pinprick on her thumb. She got no answer from him. Fuck. Seeing the thread of exclamation points, she dodged again a spear. Damn, that second blob’s form was actually trash. Hm. It looked hard to land a blow on it with the way it moved and the empty space beneath its… limbs. Should she jump? She couldn’t easily dodge while in the air. Should she try to shove her pinprick against the spear-like attacks and see if that harmed the boss? Being able to activate the advanced reaction time at will would be such a blessing. Wait. She hadn’t paid attention to the god’s circular healthbar when she’d first incanted her magic sword spell. Had it oneshot it? Huh. Uh. Probably not. Probably not what happened.

  Well, since this “apostle” attacked slower than its boss, it wouldn’t hurt to try parrying with her thumb. The positioning would be a little weird and precise to ensure it touched, but it would be manageable. She shoved herself behind the corner of a wall and stayed still. The line of exclamation points appeared through her torso. Hm. Now that she thought about it, this new form hadn’t done the weird “motion” thing where its body wholly displaced itself at the space where it’d thrown its attack. Could it not do it anymore? Was that only available to the upgraded first form?

  She dodged like before, except her magic thumbs up met the spear thread. The contact there happened.

  Next thing she knew, she was face towards the ground. Oh. Fallen again.

  Her ears rung from the screams.

  And staring up, vertical chunks of the circular healthbar were missing, like chinks across a surface. Oh. Oh.

  Oh.

  What were those brutal thuds she was hearing?

  Vic bit violently down on the inside of her cheeks. Needed. She needed to get a hold of herself. Fuck. The thing where she fainted to the ground had happened again? No, she’d just gotten blown back, her shadow armour was still on. Her pinprick was… twice its previous size? The deafening screams. They were loud, they were loud. Her hand came to her ear. Oh. The name of the apostle was switching again between too many. She clung back to where she’d been and leaned against the wall and peeked to where the sounds of cracking and slamming were happening. The… blob was just, slamming itself against the ground. It was- thready? Very thready, but all of the lines coming out from it were going back against its centre, all while slamming itself against any surfaces. Repeatedly. Oh. Oh, okay. Okay.

  She leaned back on the ground. Oh. The governor was back there. She’d let go of him when she’d put her hand against her ear. She grimaced while staring at that damaged arm of his, and looked away. That was fucking ugly, and she’d seen some ugly, bone exposed, acid-spilled shit. She needed to move, to… do something.

  There was a weak voice.

  “My god… I can feel- hear him now,” he said, without looking up to her. Vic’s head snapped to him. He was alive! Actually alive! Yay to human resilience. “You… You. Talk to him.”

  Vic nearly laughed. Why?

  “Dude I’m not a priestess,” she lightheartedly said and walked down to him, scratching her scalp. Move. Needed to pick him up and move. “I couldn’t do that to save my life.”

  His heavily breathed wheezes were weird. His undamaged arm went to his ear to allow his hand deep within his thick mop of hair, mimicking her. But then his hand removed itself and opened herself to her, to hand her a U-shaped runic thing. She stared at it.

  “Now go,” he said, looking at her. “I’ve played my part.”

  Okay, no. She didn’t take the ear piece. She wasn’t taking this. No way was she going to let him have his sad goodbyes. Now to make excuses.

  “Dude, I’m crouching right now,” she said, tilting her head. Oh. Oh-hoho. Right. The game mechanic had slipped out of her mind. She was a genius, actually. She was fine. “It worked ass before during my last fight with mages, which was just bad luck for me, but your god couldn’t detect me at all. I’m willing to bet that this thing can’t detect me now.”

  Maybe they still should move a little farther away from their previous spot. That’s obviously where it was going to search first.

  “I do not bet,” he said in a low, tired voice. Fuck, maybe she actually needed to tell him not to go towards the light. Or to his god. “I’ve never been a lucky man.”

  She hesitated to take out her last mid grade potion. She would need this later. Fuck, ass, shit. She should have restocked. That’s why she should have restocked. Never for her to know peace for more than a week. She took out the potion and uncorked it. He put a hand against it to push it back. Dramatic ass.

  “We’re trading. The earpiece for the health potion. It’s a fair trade I say.”

  “My lady. No,” he said.

  “BAH BAH BAH look at me I’m a god, I don’t care about consent,” she said before he could stop her because he was weak, and poured half the potion’s contents on his arm, before stopping. It didn’t seem to be healing well. Or at all.

  He was staring at her. She’d never seen someone look both so exhausted and judgemental at the same time. Okay, okay. There were other things that could be done. Even if the damaged… flesh wasn’t bleeding much, the blood loss had to be stopped. Trails of blood were still dripping out beneath his shoulder. She quickly tore up some pieces of clothe from his bishop’s attire and quickly fixed that. He’d be fine.

  Vic felt that same trail of blood from before drip down her nose.

  The title of the boss had settled on the name of a new apostle.