Chapter 12: Crumpled

The bear was about five to six feet long, and probably around 300 pounds or so. Seeing its size, Jaxir immediately knew that his previous tactics wouldn’t work at all. The only chance he would have at moving this creature with an attack was if he could Charge an attack for a long while, but there was no way this beast was just going to sit there and let him do that.

And right about now... it looked real pissed off.

Jaxir looked behind him to see if there was a path to run, only to see the path out was blocked by a formless barrier.

"Fantastic."

The bear roared and then charged right for Jaxir.

"Damn."

There wasn’t time.

The room was about 15 meters in diameter or so. Quite large for the middle of an underground cave system, but impossibly small for Jaxir’s needs.

He thought about immediately using the Twinkle Steps card he had gotten, but would he really have to use it so early? This definitely wasn’t the final boss and he could only use that card twice even with Encore.

The world almost seemed to slow around him as his mind raced and there only seemed to be one solution.

Buy time.

Jaxir’s mouth opened on its own as he began to chant. The video game’s mechanics seemed to take control of his body as he reached into the center of his being to cast Bind.

He hadn’t gotten into the habit of using his Hex Path Abilities in battle because they cost too much and took too long to cast. As an ancient language flew from his mouth, a cold sweat raced down his back as the bear quickly closed the distance.

And yet, there was a chilly sort of focus in the depths of Jaxir’s eyes nonetheless. He held on, successfully completing the cast and then even further loading it with Charge to increase its strength just a little bit.

Then the spell erupted.

Black tendrils rose from the bear’s shadow, catching its arms, and torso, legs, and even its head.

However, the attack did nothing to slow the bear down. Not because it instantly broke free, but instead because Bind didn’t restrain the target. It only had one use.

Lock an enemy’s MP and stop them from using abilities.

Jaxir’s timing was perfect, the bear had just closed in the distance to a final meter between them and then raised its paw. A starry energy glowed across its paw as it was about to slash down, but then the MP it was using sputtered out.

A timer appeared out of the corner of Jaxir’s eyes and he knew that his Bind spell would only work for another four seconds.

Jaxir ducked and rolled. The paw just barely staggered in the air, the interruption coming with a small delay in the bear’s movement.

Jaxir actually hadn’t accounted for that and he dodged almost too fast, half expecting to be nipped on his way down.

But as he rolled, that didn’t stop him from quickly shifting to his next action.

His fingers nimbly moved to his card holder. He held the Twinkle Steps Card between his fore and middle fingers, pinching out a new card between his middle and ring. He seamlessly swapped their two positions as though he had done this a million times before.

In the heat of battle, he didn’t even notice. He had been playing with Vestigem Cards since he was young, but never like this.

What he did notice was the flare of fire that raged across the air as Flare Burst activated and hit the bear square in the face.

[-30]

"Strong defense." Jaxir said absent mindedly as he rolled to his feet. Last time he used that attack against a player it did more than 40 damage. Now it was just 30.

Without missing a beat, Jaxir pulled hard on his internal mana reserves again and activated Fracture.

A glass encasement appeared around the bear as it roared with fury, its eyes going blind in the fierce light of Flare Burst.

Then the glass encasement shattered.

Jaxir used Encore on Flare Burst, but rather than using it again, his fingers danced and the position of the card and Twinkle Steps swapped again. He slipped Flare Burst back into his card holder and then pulled out Concussive Wave.

He poured his mana into it, his senses taking account of every nook and cranny his energy passed through. It was like his mana had eyes of its own and it was relaying the feedback of every twist and turn within the card.

And then a blast of mana jetted out, slamming against the body of the rampaging bear and sending it flying backward.

[-37]

Jaxir’s pupils constricted. Even against the trio, Concussive Wave had only done damage in the high teens. This made sense, it was a Vestigem Card focused on crowd control, not damage. But this...

There was no doubt, it was because of Fracture. While Bind locked MP usage, Fracture cracked magic resistance, making every attack hit harder.

Suddenly, the bear was down to just under 80% of his HP. But that wasn’t nearly enough.

After just using Bind and Fracture once each, Jaxir had also blown through about 60 MP. He had to end this battle quickly.

He raised his staff without hesitation as the bear rolled to its feet, its head snapping from side to side as it tried to lay eyes on its target, but just couldn’t manage to see.

A second timer appeared out of the corner of Jaxir’s eyes, this one for the duration of Fracture. This was longer, but it was still already down to nine seconds.

It was enough.

Jaxir charged two magic bullets, the twin pair of radiant lights growing larger and larger as the bear began to rampage around, raising up to its hind legs and smashing down with a horrible momentum.

The ground shook, dust kicking up, and it felt like the cave might even collapse. But Jaxir remained unwavering, even when it felt like the bear would get close.

And then the creature turned in the wrong direction, charging ahead toward a wall.

It was then the blindness of Flare Burst ran out, and in just one second more, the MP lock of Bind would fail too.

But one second was more than enough.

Jaxir’s pair of magic bullets shot through the air. The centripetal force it put on them reacted out of his expectations, causing the two Casts to intertwine and spin in relation to one another as though they had been shot out of a twisting double barrel shotgun.

―

Lv18 Cast > Lv19 Cast

―

Lv13 Charge > Lv14 Charge

―

Lv14 Charge > Lv15 Charge

―

Lv15 Charge > Lv16 Charge

―

That was when Jaxir understood something about Charge. It wasn’t just about accumulating more energy into an attack at all.

All this time, he had been using Cast as the conduit for controlling how his magic bullet came out. But there wasn’t enough time to do it through Cast alone.

Only by using Charge to delay could he actually have time to manipulate Cast as much as he wanted. But when he used Charge, he ended up going back to the Cast-specific circuits to make changes as though they were each individual.

This wasn’t what he should be doing at all.

The secret to manipulating his spells to his desired level was by using all three foundational Magic Abilities together. They were the foundation of everything for a reason.

―

[Cast has reached Level 20. Special exemption granted. L1 Hex Branch Abilities have been improved to Level 3]

―

[Charge has reached Level 20. Special exemption granted. L1 Hex Branch Abilities has been improved to Level 4]

―

BANG.

[-227]

"Nice." Jaxir grinned. He just barely managed to squeeze that attack in with the effects of Bind still active. And now there were still just under five seconds remaining of Fracture and the bear only had a sliver of health left. Jaxir was pretty confident that he could end this battle quickly now, he should be good.

Jaxir gave his MP a quick glance and was happy to find that that attack had only taken 20 or so MP. He had dipped beneath 50% MP remaining, but he should be able to end this battle with a few quick fire shots.

The bear spun to face Jaxir, finally able to see again and Jaxir responded with a rain of attacks, wanting to end this quickly. It only had six HP left. It was finished.

The twinkle twinkle bear quickly closed in the distance, but Jaxir had already sent out two rapid fire bullets. The moment they landed, it should be over.

[-5]

Jaxir immediately was wrong when the first strike landed. He should have done way more damage than that with Fracture activated. But despite his frown, he felt that the bear only had 1 HP left anyway, it shouldn’t be a big deal―.

[-0]

The bear rammed right into Jaxir, sending him flying into a wall.

Jaxir crumpled into a heap, his HP hitting rock bottom.