Chapter 55: Magical Steroids

"Whatever."

John smiled, pulling out a small bottle filled with blue liquid from his pocket. I recognized that description from somewhere in the novel.

What was it called again...?

Mana Strengtheners?

Magic Boosters?

Something more creative?

Whatever. All I remembered was that potion played a role in a future arc. So it was interesting that he already had one, five months earlier than when they were supposed to appear.

"You already heard me, so the polite version’s off the table. And I’m not about to gamble on letting you go when your father’s a duke with half the noble houses in his pocket. It’s all or nothing now."

Personally, I think John was overestimating my father. But after being caught off guard by my enhanced hearing, it was obvious his information network was severely lacking.

"Come on then. Drink your little potion and fight me."

I wasn’t just saying that to show off and get a fun fight.

I was genuinely curious...

I remembered most of the novel, but not all of it. I still considered the novel pretty bad, after all.

It’s a miracle I even remembered this much. That potion John was holding was important to a future arc, one I’d mostly forgotten since it didn’t involve villainesses. More political and social commentary about drugs than anything else.

Thinking about it, it made sense why I forgot.

"Gladly." John moved to drink.

"But..."

I raised my hand, and John stopped the bottle just inches from his lips.

"You seem confident in your potion. Care to tell me my fate if I lose here? Either way, if I lose, I can’t exactly leak the info, and if I win, you’re dead regardless. So care to be nice and tell me what the plan is?"

John paused, the bottle still in his grip. He considered my logic for a moment, then shrugged.

"Fair enough. Get killed, captured, or tortured. As long as that little maid of yours gets demotivated, we’ll do anything."

John gulped down the potion, and his veins immediately glowed bright blue. The air around him swirled like a miniature tornado as mana converged toward him.

"Let’s take this somewhere more private."

"Private?"

John raised his hand, and the pile of bodies I’d gathered began to glow. Threads of mana converged into his palm as the silhouettes shrank little by little, as if being sucked dry.

FWOOSH!

He was quick. The moment the first thread reached him, he lunged toward me at what I estimated to be the speed of sound.

One heartbeat I was standing in the open. The next, his fingers closed around my collar, and the world ripped sideways.

Wind hammered my face. My ears popped. Every building, cart, and person we passed registered as a single smear of color.

I couldn’t breathe.

I couldn’t even open my eyes.

Then the sonic boom caught up.

It hit us from behind, a deafening crack that rattled my teeth, the sound of our own passage trailing a few steps late. A cart we’d passed seconds ago flipped onto its side. Somewhere behind us, a chicken exploded into feathers.

He dragged me by the collar, beyond the city’s perimeter to rural farmland just outside where everyone was.

FWOOSH!

He threw me the moment we arrived. I hit the first fence before I could even summon my chains, it detonated into splinters, and I tumbled through the wreckage. Then the chains snapped out of my palm, biting into the dirt and dragging me to a stop bare inches before a second fence.

He was fast...

He traveled at the speed of the crack of a whip.

"You’re still conscious...?"

John was audibly and visibly surprised, staring at me, my clothes torn to scraps that barely kept me modest.

The wind had torn through my skin like blades. My clothes were gone, my arms raw, and for half a second I genuinely couldn’t feel my face. Then my magic caught up, knitting the wounds shut.

"I’m starting to lose count of how many times you’re getting surprised. Here I thought you were an expert at this kind of thing."

"I’ve got to give it to you, Lord Reyn. You’ve surpassed all my metrics. And to think we used your brother as a template to determine our current strategy."

My brother? So they used Gavian when he was my age to come up with this plan?

That made sense. Current Gavian was past King-level; if John had built his strategy around that, I’d already be dead. They’d templated me off a younger Gavian. A Sage-level Gavian. Someone they thought I’d measure up to.

No wonder they were lacking in almost every field.

"You insult me." I laughed.

"Quite the opposite."

John, despite losing his cover, was surprisingly similar to his school disguise. Still joking, somewhat lighthearted, but now with a hint of kidnappery and bloodthirst.

Guess the best kind of disguise is something that’s somewhat true to yourself, after all.

The farmland stretched flat and dark around us, nothing but open fields and a few scattered barns. Not a single witness in sight. John had chosen this spot deliberately.

I rolled my shoulders, letting the last of the healing magic knit the raw skin along my arms. The wind burns faded, but the memory of that speed lingered.

He wasn’t just fast. He was precise. He’d grabbed me, dragged me across half the capital, and thrown me through a fence without losing control once.

That potion was no joke.

I would have died if I were attuned to any element other than light.

That meant I couldn’t use him to engineer Trish’s snap. He was far too powerful to be a variable. I wasn’t one to waste assets, but I’d prefer to live another day than intentionally hold back against someone with supersonic speeds.

CRACK-BOOM!

He lunged the moment he sensed the faintest shift of mana around my body. So he wasn’t going to let himself be caught off guard again, huh?

Too bad!

Just before he reached me, I’d already summoned multiple light orbs into the air around us. Each one connected to the next with sharp threads of light so thin they were nearly invisible unless you knew to look for them.

And John, moving at the speed of sound, definitely didn’t see them in time.

"Think I’ll fall for the same attack twice?"