Noah was doing his best to keep track of things, but it was really getting to be quite the hassle. The world was stubbornly insisting on shifting in and out of… well, everything. He was starting to wonder if everyone had suddenly learned spatial magic out of nowhere.

One moment, people would be fighting right in front of him. The next they were gone. Sometimes they’d just straight up disappear mid-fight, while others they would teleport over to the side, suddenly covered in a dozen new injuries.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the entire world had not, in fact, learned how to teleport. The randomly appearing wounds were proof of that. No, the problem had nothing at all to do with everyone else and everything to do with Noah.

He was slipping in and out of time. Or reality. Or — well, something. He wasn’t quite sure what it was yet. The strange thing was that he didn’t himself feel as if anything had been lost. There were no significant gaps in his memory, nor did it feel like his soul had suddenly taken any kind of damage that could have caused this.

It was like the world was just… forgetting about him.

Stranger still was the manner in which people reacted to him. Until he actually did anything, the other mages didn’t seem to notice his presence at all. It was like he was a ghost. Noah tested the theory by walking straight up to a pair of mages that were engrossed in flinging fireballs at each other.

He’d flicked one of the men in the side of the head before they even registered the fact that he was there.

Then the world had skipped forward again, and one of them was gone. The other was on the run from a new mage that had joined into the fight —

The world skipped.

No sign of the third party remained, but the remaining fire mage looked like he was on his last legs. He darted off as fast as his feet could carry him, trying to find somewhere to hide as the thunderous roar of magic crashed all around him.

Not a single person tried to attack Noah.

Annoyance mixed with his confusion. This was really quite frustrating. But, interestingly enough, the actual time covered by the skips seemed to be decreasing. He’d lost several minutes when he’d first arrived on the arena floor. Now, it was down to just mere seconds.

There were already a few theories forming in his mind as to what might have been happening. But Noah put them on hold. He wasn’t in danger. On the contrary. Whatever had happened to him was giving him a massive advantage. With how little people seemed to be aware of his presence, he was pretty sure that he could have walked up to just about any of his competitors and just slit their throat on the spot should he have been so inclined.

But that was considerably less useful when he was trying to make an impact. This strange magic was ridiculously powerful — and stood directly in the way of what he was trying to accomplish. If whatever effect was obscuring him from the other mages had also hidden him from the crowd… then people weren’t going to notice him.

This is a load of bullshit. Some god is having a joke at my expense. I would have loved to have this ability back when I was fighting Father. Why now, of all times?

But the fight isn’t over yet. There are a lot of mages left in the arena, and effects of whatever this shit is are fading. I’ve still got room to make up lost time.

Noah’s eyes swept over his competition. The world skipped forward slightly, but by no more than a few moments. Then the corners of his lips pulled upward as he spotted his next target.

This almost feels cruel.

***

“To your side!” Seleth barked.

Vincent dropped, calling on his storm magic and sweeping his leg out without even looking. There was a meaty thud followed by the crack of thunder and the sizzling hiss of scorched flesh. A mage tumbled across the ground, smoke rising from his shoulder, before skidding to a halt at the feet of a group of mages.

One of them immediately sent a blood-red scythe of magic slicing down into the fallen man’s chest. A beam of light crashed down, swallowing him whole and porting him away from the arena. The attacking mage hadn’t even been part of the fight.

But that was little surprise. Those who sought the large groups were cowards. They would only attack when they thought they had a chance to get away with it safely. Such an attitude disgusted Vincent, but he wasn’t going to refuse the help when they were besieged on all sides.

Such things were simply part of the rules of the tournament.

“Thanks,” Vincent said.

Seleth just nodded. Liquid stone coursed to form a snakelike structure around her, a beam of light swallowing the battered form of the mage that she’d just been fighting. Joining up with her had been a good move. There were just too many other people in the melee.

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If she hadn’t been there, Vincent was fairly certain he might have already fallen. He could still feel the eyes of the grouped mages. They were like starved, ravenous rats, all waiting to see if anyone would leave themselves open enough for an attack.

I owe that masked musician a thank you. If he hadn’t appeared, we probably would have kept fighting and both been eliminated at some point during this round.

Vincent was forced to admit that the quality of his opponents was… higher than he had expected. He’d thought the melee would have been a clean sweep, barring the potential presence of any Rank 6s. But that couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

The pounding of his heart and his shortened breath told the story. His enemies were skilled. Far more skilled than he’d expected. He was at the peak of Rank 5, nearly Rank 6… but it seemed many of the others were in the same boat. Vincent didn’t allow such thoughts to go far. They served him no good. Especially not here, when the fight was far from over.

“Shit,” Seleth said, fighting to catch her breath. “It never ends. Why is this fight going so long? I swear the other rounds were shorter.”

“Groups are too big,” Vincent replied grimly. “Not enough people are getting eliminated, and the big groups are just sitting around and waiting around for the little guys to fall before they risk making a move themselves.”

“Bastards,” Seleth snarled. “Don’t they have any shame?”

“There’s no shame in victory, regardless of the path.”

Seleth sent him a sidelong glance, though neither of them let their guards down. They were, after all, one of those small groups that the others were waiting to remove from the battlefield. “Weren’t you all about honor or something?”

“I do not impose my ideals upon others,” Vincent replied. “And I am not an idiot. The optimal path to victory is not always the righteous one. I…”

He trailed off as a deafening crash split the air. Both his and Seleth’s gaze snapped over toward it.

A young mage, probably just barely in their twenties, skidded back across the ground. Coils of smoke rose up from his skin and ash swirled in an angry storm around him.

Three mages darted toward him in a formation. It only took a single glance at them to tell the trio had fought together prior to the tournament. They dashed around the bolts of ash that the young mage sent in their direction, closing the distance between them in an instant.

The three of them all attacked at once, darting toward the boy from multiple different directions.

Ash exploded out from him with an angry howl, slicing through the air as the young mage threw himself back, trying to make room. He hit the ground in a roll, narrowly ducking under a streaking bolt of blue lighting, then launched himself to his feet and made to turn back toward the trio chasing after him.

But they had already surrounded him. His prior attack hadn’t slowed them at all. Bands of buzzing lightning snapped to life around them, connecting the trio in a triangle, and they closed in on their victim.

Three versus one when the solo is clearly less skilled than the others. Not a worthy fight. He’s finished.

The three mages blurred forward in a synchronized attack.

And then one of them launched into the air.

Vincent blinked.

What?

The mage seemed as surprised as Vincent was. He spun through the air, confusion and shock playing across his features as he found himself suspended in the sky.

Then he accelerated into the ground. He landed with a loud crunch. A beam of light descended an instant later, swallowing and porting him out of the arena.

Gooseflesh raced across Vincent’s back.

Standing where the man had been a moment before was the masked musician.

He did it again. When did he get there?

The other two mages of the trio noticed the man at the same time. They dashed toward him, lighting coursing between them, their former opponent forgotten as the realized there was a far greater threat to deal with.

It was pointless.

The masked musician raised his hand.

A mote of darkness twisted through the air just beside the mage on the right. He was yanked violently off course. The man tripped over his own feet, just barely managing to keep from faceplanting on the ground. He managed to regain his balance and spun back toward the masked musician…

And only then did he notice the fact that the band of lightning connecting him to his ally was gone.

His eyes widened and his gaze snapped to the side just in time to catch the beam of yellow light crashing down from the heavens to swallow up the second member of his trio. In the time it had taken him to recover his balance, the masked musician had dispatched his ally.

The mage’s face went pale as he realized all too late that the element of surprise had not been a factor in the fight. They were completely outclassed. Vincent’s spine prickled. A difference in power at this scale should have been astronomically unlikely.

He was pretty sure the trio had been at least fairly powerful Rank 5s, but the masked musician’s magic had cut through their domains with practically zero effort. It was like an adult fighting children. The difference in the quality and power of their runes must have been huge.

“What do you want with us?” The mage asked, his eyes darting around in search of an escape.

“Now? Nothing,” the masked man replied. “The fight just looked a little unfair. Three versus one. Not the most reasonable odds, wouldn’t you say? I was just fixing them a bit.”

“What?” The other mage asked, staring at the masked man in disbelief. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

But he really should have been paying more attention to the first fight he’d been in. An ashen spike erupted from the center of his chest, bursting free in a spray of blood. The lightning mage looked down in stunned shock.

Then a pillar of yellow magic crashed down, stealing him away from the fight.

The ash flowed back to twist around the young mage, who inclined his head in appreciation.

“Thank you. Are we to fight now?”

The masked musician laughed. “No. Personally, I much prefer more… uneven odds.”

His gaze landed on the nearest large group of mages.

He didn’t have to say another word. The meaning was as clear as day.

A flash of darkness cut through the air. A woman in the group cried out, tumbling forward with a huge, smoking hole in her side. She was swallowed by a beam of magic an instant later — but the musician hadn’t even moved.

The attacker had been her own ally, a man in the group beside her.

“I’m not with them!” the man yelled, taking a hurried step back. Then shadows shot up from the ground and swallowed him. He’d broken ranks.

And he was only the first.

The large group disintegrated right in front of Vincent’s eyes. Flashes of magic split through the air as they turned on each other in an instant, and a dozen new beams of magic crashed down from overhead.

“Shit,” Vincent breathed. “He’s targeting the large groups on purpose to make them destroy themselves.”

And, even though Vincent couldn’t see his face, he somehow knew one thing for certain.

The musician was smiling.