Rex cursed in pain as his left side took an arc to the ribs, his right side took the second arc to the hip, and he was driven back another step.

His staff dipped, as he almost lost his focus from the electricity running through his body, but he caught the staff before it fell.

From this display, I could infer that Rex should be a peak Acolyte, but he should have the same restrictions that bound most Acolytes, and it was still holding him back, and that was the issue of Resonance.

His Anima Depth was most likely at 59, and he must have also brought most of his spells to the threshold of the Adept level, but without Resonance for his core discipline, he could not become an Adept, but that did not make him any less dangerous to the present me.

I could not give Rex the chance, or I don’t think I would be able to stop him in time.

Rex had lost a beat, and I closed the distance between us in three strides, and the staff in my hand came around in a strike.

Mages have powerful bodies; even as Acolytes, our bodies are stronger than what the average man would ever possess, even if they spend all of their lives training.

So we were all taught staff and weapons combat, although the Aldemere Academy was not focused on this aspect, I could competently wield a staff.

I brought the head of the staff to the side of Rex’s head, but he recovered quicker than I thought and caught the strike with his own staff.

The two staves met in the air between us, and the impact ran up my arm and into my shoulder, but the impact was harder for Rex as his shoulder was already burned, alongside his ribs and hips.

He grunted in pain, shock, and fear in his eyes.

I brought the staff down in an overhead chop that he struggled to block, and I drove him back.

Our staves traded blows, strike, parry, strike, the rhythm that had been drilled into us in our first year.

Rex was good, in fact, he was Adept-tier good, but he was injured, and bleeding, and my body was fresh with Anima Depth at forty-eight percent, and Mortal Shell was holding the impacts that came back to me through the parry without letting them register in my arm.

There was no effective way for me to combat Rex’s Veilcraft with the present mastery of my lightning discipline, so I had to change the way I fought with him, else I would be here too long... Rex was not the greatest source of danger; the horned demon back at the pyramid was.

Rex stumbled; the ground had been uneven where his foot landed. He recovered in half a second. But the stumble was the opening, and I took it.

The next strike of my staff was a thrust. I drove the head of the staff into the center of Rex’s chest with the full forward motion of my body behind it, and the staff caught him in the burned region of the field coat.

That burned region was already structurally compromised, and the staff went through the coat and the cloth and the skin underneath until the staff was three inches into Rex’s chest cavity.

Rex looked down at his own chest with an expression that I found hard to describe. There was shock, and then this sort of profound fear that was hard to describe.

Is this what I looked like when I was about to die?

He was still alive. I had not hit anything that would kill him in the next few seconds. But he was finished. The next cast would end him.

I only needed to cast Arc Lightning through my staff, and I would fry his heart, and Rex knew this.

He looked up at me, and this was the look I had been waiting for. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

It was the look of a man who had run out of ways to win.

I drew Lightning Resonance into my left palm, raised the hand, and prepared the cast that would put the arc through the center of his head.

Rex’s breathing was coming fast and heavy, and tears were gathering at the side of his eyes... when those pitiful eyes changed.

I saw something deep inside him awaken with the same suddenness with which a fish surfaces through still water, and the noble boy who had been losing the fight was no longer the one I was fighting.

The body did not move yet, but the cold spot on my chest had just changed.

It had been a coin; now it covered the entirety of my torso.

This change was on an order of magnitude beyond what Rex had been capable of producing, and the weight had arrived in the space of one heartbeat, and I knew with the certainty Death-Touched gave me that the cast I had been about to send through Rex’s head would not reach him, because the thing that was now in Rex was not going to let it.

The moment I cast, half of my body would be obliterated.

I was tempted to still cast all the same, but I held back; dying in this manner would not teach me more about Rex.

Rex kept his dead eyes on me as his body straightened. His staff, which had fallen from his hand, lifted off the grass.

I had Staff Resonance, and I knew what it looked and felt like to summon a staff. When Rex’s staff rose from the ground, its movement was wrong.

It was as if the staff was being carried by an invisible hand and brought to his palm.

I felt a chill across my spine, and goosebumps rippled across my skin because it almost felt as if there were several invisible people around us, and they were so close to me, yet I could not see or sense them.

What sort of magic is this?

The only reason I did not throw my life away and blast Rex to pieces was that I knew that would signify my death, and for the moment, I did not want to die yet... not until I made sure I learned everything I could.

Death for me was not cheap; the pain and the scars traveled over, and there may come a time when even Mortal Shell would not be able to keep my soul safe, and for this reason alone, I cannot easily throw myself into death, not until I have done everything I could to live.

The mouth of Rex opened, and the voice that came out was not Rex’s voice.

"Hello, Acolyte Voss. We have not spoken in a while."