Chapter 25: A Rudely Interrupted Redressing

The man before Ryland was fortunate. This wasn’t the first time he had been annoyed here. Alaric had taken that spot with his insistence on minimizing Ryland’s presence.

That said, interrupting the fifth stanza of the Puredrake Poet’s latest work was grossly rude.

At least he was kind enough to let Ryland rise back up in peace. He was standing still, some self-preserving instinct probably screeching at him to not make things even worse. The man wasn’t the only one. All around the Designated Area, every other mage had frozen as well, watching proceedings with wide eyes.

Ryland had sensed the others arriving, though there were fewer than he’d have expected. It seemed the Trials’ challenges had winnowed their numbers.

“I don’t know what nonsense you’re spouting,” the bald man said. His brows had furrowed into hard runnels. “You’d do well to shut up and beg for your life instead. Don’t want to end up like your useless friend over there, do you?”

His voice hadn’t wavered once in that little speech. He even had the temerity to jerk his head to the side, indicating where Kendren had fallen and was being tended to by Alendra.

Ryland slowly turned back to face his would-be aggressor. “What an odd case you are,” he murmured.

“What?”

“You’ve thrown yourself into the brambles. But instead of extricating yourself as quickly and efficiently as possible, you sink deeper into its thorny clutches. You have this little thing called pride that you’re determined to nurse and protect, even when you sink deeper and deeper towards despair.”

“Shut up,” he growled, then raised his voice. “Stop talking nonsense, you fool.”

And yet, for all his aggression, he wasn’t daring to approach Ryland. He really was caught between a rock and a hard place.

On the one hand, if he backed down now, he’d be shattering the illusion that he was supposed to be the most feared individual in this area. On the other hand, his instincts were likely screaming at him that moving even a fingerbreadth closer to Ryland was going to end terribly poorly for him, which would be shattering his pride anyway.

“This is what happens when you don’t deliberate,” Ryland said, shaking his head in disappointment. “[Mindscape].”

His spell circle with the Soul Glyph of Time burned in the air.

All of the world froze, including his bald aggressor who had started trembling under the stress of his fraught circumstance. Ryland had stilled too, save his mind, of course.

Good. Now he had ample time to think.

The only reason Ryland hadn’t acted yet was because, for the first time since returning to Vyrd, he would need to act against a person. And it wasn’t just any old person either. Ryland didn’t care one whit that the big, bald fellow had one of the richest cloaks among all the candidates, indicating wealth and nobility.

Rather, Ryland was concerned that he was facing a student. A prospective one, but still.

From what he remembered, human prefrontal cortexes continued development even through a person’s twenties. Of course, one’s mental state should be mostly mature by then. Still. Something about taking a direct, aggressive hand against a person seeking instruction irked him.

Almost funny how he was considering staying his hand, just as Alaric had wanted, as a result of his own deliberation.

As the flow of time resumed its hurried onrush, Ryland cast another spell.

“[Omniscience].”

It was an interesting challenge to find what he was searching for before things got to a head. Ryland’s right eye got swallowed up by gold-edged cosmic darkness. His rift breaking the containment of the Reality Demesne was nothing new. [Sun Summoning] had done it too.

What had Kendren said? Ah, right. House Flitchard. That was exactly where Ryland’s rift opened up.

“Your fields look terribly barren, Flitchard,” Ryland said.

That made the man freeze, despite the end of [Mindscape]. The other candidates were staring at him too, trying to understand what exactly he was doing just then.

Initially, Ryland kept his rift floating far above the manor, giving him a bird’s eye view of the grassless grounds dotted with the rare tree, the manor’s main path cracked and infected with weeds.

The rift moved. No doubt, House Flitchard had its own defences against magical intrusions such as a random portal cracking open in the middle of their grounds. But seeing the rather sorry condition of the estate, a few things became evident rather easily. One was that they certainly had nothing even close to the alarms that Arcoryx possessed.

For another, it was starting to become clear just what Flitchard was overcompensating for over here in the Trials.

“What are you doing?” Flitchard asked with the first overt hints of fright. His eyes were fixed on Ryland’s own. Specifically, on the one that had been replaced by a crack in spacetime.

“Merely taking a peek at your home,” Ryland said mildly. “Ah, your room seems to have fallen into disrepair too. Did you empty your wardrobe anticipating that you would be accepted into Arcoryx? And do you never dust that silver mirror with a golden point? Your bloodhound appears starved too. How awful.”

Flitchard’s eyes had gone wide. He actually took a step back, his fingers clenched so tight that he looked as though he was about to dig bloody holes into his palms. “How are you—who—” He shook his head. “Stop that. Right now.”

“Hmm, perhaps I should peek into this cabinet with the crosses scratched into it. It’s locked but that’s hardly a bother for me…” Another rift cracked open, this one around his right hand. “Notebooks. How intriguing. One wonders what could be written in journals hidden away so desperately.”

“I said stop.”

Ryland stared at him. “Really? Stop now? When we’re getting to the good part?” He made a show of looking around, once again catching sight of everyone else staring at their altercation. “I didn’t see you stopping after taking down one team. Oh no. You still went after others. Until you made a terrible miscalculation.”

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For just a second, he hesitated. Then his face broke. “I did! Alright? I admit it. I… I got too greedy. I made bad decisions.”

He wasn’t exactly projecting his acknowledgement of his stupidity loudly enough for everyone else in the designated area to hear, but Ryland supposed he could have mercy on the man’s soul.

Not that he had a lot of choice in the matter. Moments after Flitchard was done talking, the metal posts bounding the designated area grew brighter. The translucent walls separating the candidates within the area from the rest of the Trial Zone flickered a few times, then disappeared entirely.

“What the—”

One of the candidates who had clearly been about to ask what was going on now froze. Literally. A flash of energy landed between the gathered prospective students, so fast and so unexpected, that none of them had time to react.

And where the flash had struck, it had frozen solid an entire person in no time at all.

Someone screamed. Followed by several someones.

The blistering cold making its presence felt intensified by several degrees in mere blinks of an eye. Ryland was immediately reminded of Kendren pointing out the growing chill earlier. It was so strong now that Alendra’s [Environmental Control] was starting to struggle.

“[Oneself World],” he cast, his Soul Glyph of Aegis forming the Centreglyph while his Soul Glyph of Rift joined the spell circle as a Subglyph. He had cast it four times in quick succession, his manasoul burgeoning with the intensity of magic he was pumping out as he ensured his teammates were just as protected as him.