Chapter 41

SMASH.

A jug detonated against the wall beside him. Wine cascading down the wall like arterial spray.

A roar followed. Loud. Drunk. Male. The trifecta of bad decisions.

"I SAID IT TASTED SOUR, YOU BITCH!"

Aster turned.

A waitress — a girl, no older than sixteen — flinched as the man lunged toward her. Big. Broad. Face like a slab of ruined pork. His smirk widened as she stepped back. He slapped her ass as she turned to flee, laughing. Victorious in the way men got when they mistook fear for respect.

Something in Aster's chest lit like a fuse.

Okay. Fine. Let's go ahead and ruin a perfectly good afternoon.

Several spare glyph scripts rested in his Dantian — left over artifact extractions, experimental nonsense, the magical equivalent of spare fireworks in a coat pocket.

His hand settled on one.

Not the strongest script. This requires a specific touch. Not violence but humiliation.

Heavy Mucus.

SPLORT.

A torrent of thick, revolting green mucus blasted across the bar like a sneeze from a war god. It smacked the drunk full in the side of the head, knocking him from his stool and sending his temple crashing into the edge of a table with a deeply satisfying THUNK.

The tavern froze.

Aster inspected his hand like he'd flicked lint instead of biological warfare. "Huh. Stronger than I thought. Hope he's not allergic."

The waitress stared at him like he'd sprouted wings. Relief, amusement, and raw disbelief at war on her face.

Not everyone shared the sentiment.

Two of the drunk's companions rose from their seats. One looked like a pork butcher had tried to sculpt a man from bad memories. The other had the kind of red hair and complexion that made freckles look like bloodstains.

"You just made a big mistake," Pig-Face snarled, stepping forward. "Hitting an Aware over an Astral Born? Are you trying to die?"

Aster tilted his head, mildly curious. "Astral Born?"

He turned and glanced at the girl. Human. Small. Terrified. Clearly the spawn of Cthulhu.

"You're going to have to use smaller words," Aster said.

Freckles stepped forward with the expression of a man who believed he was the brains of the operation, which was tragic given the competition. "She... she wasn't born on the Material Plane. She's not... one of us."

Aster looked her over again. Still very much human. Still very much not the problem. He looked back. "Seems human to me. Unless we're counting the high-pitched squealing as a disqualifier, in which case" — he gestured at Pig-Face — "someone should really check your birth certificate."

Pig-Face snarled, hand twitching toward his side. "You think you're clever?"

"No, no," Aster said quickly. "I know I'm clever. I just think you're trying very hard to blink and breathe at the same time, and it's making your forehead hurt."

The ginger one blinked. "But she's not human," he offered again, uncertain, like he was still waiting for this to make sense.

Behind them, the mucus-covered drunk groaned. He sat up. Touched his face. And promptly lost it.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!"

The barmaid giggled. Bad move.

"You bitch—!"

Aster didn't see the scimitar unsheathe. He felt it.

Wind exploded through the tavern the moment it left the drunk's Dantian— the air pressure changed, spiralling wind kicking up napkins, scattering ale froth, making hair dance like weeds underwater. The blade thrummed with Wind-typed energy, the artifact humming at Greater E grade.

Not impressive by academy standards. Not compared to Cassian. Not compared to Lena. But compared to Aster?

Very dangerous.

His staff was still made from the street sign he'd been forced to use on the Material Plane. Durable enough to survive his own combat style, but it might as well be a chopstick compared to the scimitar's glimmering edge.

That would be getting rectified. Soon. If he lived through this.

But that didn't matter right now.

Aster stepped between the drunk and the girl without hesitation.

The drunk sneered. "You dare stand up for this bitch?"

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The Prediction Glyph activated.

Like cold water thrown directly into his nervous system.

The world sharpened. Tiny details leaping into focus — weight shifts, muscle tension, breathing changes. Intent. The thing Lena had spent the last month drilling into him.

The decision before the action.

Six Will anchors flared to life around the bar like glowing threads on the edges of perception, tension lines in space just waiting to snap.

The drunk didn't notice. He was too busy monologuing.

"You think her life is worth more than that of an aware??"

"No."

Aster tilted his head, eyes half-lidded.

"You've simply done a remarkable job of lowering the average."

The man's face twitched. There it was — that flare of temper, the edge of restraint. Aster saw it in the tightening of the knuckles, the shift in footing, the minute dilation of his pupils.

He's about to act. One more push.

Aster smiled, slow and cruel. "Besides, from what I saw, you couldn't even satisfy your bar tab. Imagine being this angry and broke. Life really dealt you the tutorial deck, huh?"

"She would've gotten off easy if you hadn't stepped in," the man said, voice turning syrupy with malice. "Now I'm gonna have fun with her after I break you."

Aster smiled.

Not kindly.

"I don't know how your dad's cumsock gained sentience and learned to cultivate," he said, tapping his staff on the stone floor with a click, "but I feel morally obligated to rectify the administrative error."

Laughter. The barmaid. She couldn't help herself.

The drunks’s aura flared, Wind energy compressing around him in ragged pulses, artifact trembling in his grip.

Aster saw it before the man moved.

Left foot. Weight forward. Shoulder rotating. Neck tightening.

The strike formed inside the Prediction Glyph before it existed in reality.

Now.

Point Burst detonated — Aster vanished sideways. The scimitar cut through empty air where he'd just been standing.

Aster came from the man's blind spot, staff cracking against his collarbone.

CRUNCH.

The drunk stumbled.

Aster was already moving. Another anchor. Another burst. Staff slamming into the man's ribs. Then his thigh. Then the back of his shoulder. Every movement arriving before the attack. Every dodge happening before the danger existed.

The Prediction Glyph hummed inside his Mind Palace.

Tiny decisions unfolding milliseconds before action.

The drunk swung again. Aster was gone. The blade whistled through empty air.

Aster appeared behind him. Staff. Crack. Across the kidneys.

The man grunted. Aster burst away again.

The entire tavern had fallen silent. Even the drunk's companions looked confused. The fight looked less like combat and more like a grown man trying to stab a particularly disrespectful ghost.

Aster landed lightly atop a table. Blood sang through his veins.

He pointed his staff. "You know," he said conversationally, "for someone carrying an expensive weapon, you seem remarkably committed to disappointing it."

The drunk roared. Charged.

Point Burst. Gone.

The staff slammed into the man's jaw. His head snapped sideways. A tooth spun across the floor.

"See?" Aster said. "Disappointing."

The drunk wiped blood from his mouth. Spat. Then slowly raised the scimitar.

Wind gathered around the blade. Around him. His boots. His legs. His entire body. Loose parchment took flight. Tankards rattled across tables.

Aster felt the pressure change — the same way sailors noticed storms. The same way prey noticed predators.

The man smiled.

And for the first time since the fight started — Aster didn't like it.

"Found your confidence?" Aster asked.

The drunk rolled his neck.

Then roared.

Wind exploded outward from his core, snapping the air like a ripcord. The pressure around him compressed inward. His scimitar ignited with visible Aether — Wind hues, fully active. Surging into place.

Aster's smirk faltered.

"Oh. That's new."

The Prediction Glyph screamed.

But his scripture barely had time to react. Aster burst sideways —

Right foot. Forward. Diagonal approach. Upper cut—

The tether detonated. He threw himself sideways.

The scimitar missed his throat by less than an inch.

Aster landed hard and immediately launched again as the second strike came. Too fast. The blade flashed past his ribs. A third followed before the first had fully finished.

Aster's eyes widened.

The wind wasn't just empowering the blade. It was speeding up its movements — shortening the intervals between thought and action, carrying the drunk through the gaps where normal fighters slowed down.

Every movement flowed into the next without friction, without hesitation, without wasted momentum.

"...Right."

Suddenly he understood why Wind cultivators were such a nightmare.

The Prediction Glyph still showed him everything the same way it had thirty seconds ago. The problem was that the future kept arriving sooner.

Aster barely managed another burst before the scimitar flashed past his ribs. A thread of cloth drifted lazily from his academy jacket. Cut clean through.

Another attack. Another prediction. Another dodge. Closer and closer. The margin kept shrinking.

The drunk laughed. "You were movin' pretty good earlier."

Aster ducked beneath another slash. A table behind him exploded into splinters.

"Thanks."

Burst. Pivot. Staff strike. The staff clipped the man's shoulder. Barely. Not enough.

Aster was spending everything just to keep up. Each activation burned through his channels like molten wire. Muscles screamed. Tendons stretched toward tearing.

The next strike nearly opened his stomach.

The one after shaved hair from the side of his head.

Another carved a deep groove through the pillar he'd been standing beside a fraction of a second earlier.

He could see the future. His body just couldn't react to it in time anymore.

Aster ducked beneath another slash — twisted desperately — and this time was a fraction too slow. The scimitar grazed his calf.

Pain exploded through it like fire. Blood jetted from the wound mid-movement, staining the floor beneath him before he even landed. He hit hard, stumbling into a crouch, breath sharp, the leg trembling under sudden loss of stability.

The drunk stood across from him, grinning. Bloody, wild-eyed, but grinning. "You ain't movin' so good anymore."

Aster hissed, clutching the wounded leg. It throbbed like someone had jammed a branding iron through it.

Aster's jaw tightened.

"I preferred you when you were losing," he said through clenched teeth. "The brain damage made you charming."

The drunk stalked forward through the wind.

"You can see it, can't you?" he said.

Aster's stomach tightened.

The man laughed. "My attacks — you know where they're gonna be." Another step. Wind howled around the blade. "But knowin' ain't the same as gettin' there."

Aster pushed himself upright.

The drunk wasn't even close to Cassian. Cassian would be faster. Smarter. Much more skilled. But if this was already enough to push his Prediction Glyph to its limits...

Then what the hell was he supposed to do against someone who actually knew what they were doing?

And despite the pain, despite the blood, despite the drunk pressing forward — another thought slipped into his head. Not fear. Envy.

The movement was beautiful. Efficient. Every ounce of momentum carried forward into the next action. No wasted effort. No violent self-propelled launches. No detonating Scriptures through his knees like an idiot firing himself around a battlefield.

Just speed. Controlled. Elegant.

If I ever build an artifact... Wind. Movement. Something that carries momentum for me. Something that lets Prediction do what it's supposed to do.

The drunk pressed harder. His artifact sang with elemental pressure. Aster's breath came short. The tear in his calf bloomed wider with every detonation.

He wasn't going to win this exchange…. Well not honestly at least.

Which meant it was probably time to start cheating.