I had seen that speed before. The breathless cast was the casting tier above what an Acolyte should be capable of producing.
There were many reasons why Acolytes could not cast very quickly, and one of them was that the strength of our channels could not withstand pushing Anima very quickly through them, and that was just mentioning the physical part of it.
Only time could solve this issue, as the more an Acolyte casts spells and grows their discipline and Anima Depth, the stronger their bodies and channels become.
Rex was casting too quickly, meaning he was not seventeen years old.
However, I had proven there was another way to get stronger, which was to abuse your body until it breaks.
Shame that you only had to die to get the benefit, though.
The cast that crossed the six meters between us was not Flame, as I thought, but the dark-light of Veilcraft. The compressed pulse of unmaking that operated on the substance of the spell rather than through it.
Rex was opening with his strongest discipline, and he was not bothering to scale up.
So not fair. Villains in the stories always underestimated their prey, using lesser tactics one after the other before going for the final move.
Rex... was smarter than I had given him credit for.
Still, as quickly as he had cast his spell, I had also built a lattice of defense before the cast had cleared his staff.
The piercing cold from Death-Touched acted as a sixth sense, and I could tell the intensity of danger by the degree of the cold feedback on my skin.
And so the moment the cold spot deepened, I knew Rex was about to strike, and I quickly put up the defensive lattice.
The lattice was the ground-anchored configuration I had used in the previous loop, but it was not the lattice from the previous loop.
Threadwork at forty-five was a different skill from Threadwork at forty-two. Concentration at forty-four was a different grip than Concentration at forty-one. The lattice I built between Rex and me was a denser weave than anything I had produced before, and the corners pinned to the earth did not bow when the dark light hit them — they took the load and held.
The cast spread laterally across the lattice, looking for the threads to corrode, finding them, and beginning to consume them.
Veilcraft did not care about the structural improvements I had made. Veilcraft operated below the level of structure. The lattice would come apart in a few seconds.
Of course, if I keep improving this discipline beyond the level of mastery of Rex’s spell, then even with Veilcraft, he may spend months and may not succeed in breaking through my spell.
There was no omnipotent spell.
My shield would be down in a few seconds, but I did not need a few seconds.
I needed one.
I pulled my left hand off the staff and opened my palm, and inside my chest, Lightning Resonance answered.
The discipline that had stopped being a tool and started being a part of me flared at the surface of my skin, and the lightning that left my palm was not the lightning that would have left my staff.
It was smaller, weaker, but it was direct, since I did not need to move my spells through an intermediary like my staff.
The arc crossed the distance between my palm and Rex’s chest faster than the eye could track, and Rex did not see it coming, because he had not been watching my left hand, which was holding my staff.
Acolytes cast through staves. That was the rule. Rex had been at Aldenmere for the same number of years I had been at the Academy, and the rule was the rule, and Rex’s tactical attention had been on the obvious focus.
I was casting Threadwork, a discipline that requires constant channeling of power, and so Rex believed all my attention would be on preserving my spell, so he missed the cast I made.
The arc found his right shoulder, and the discharge passed through the Threadwork or whatever defensive enchantment Rex had under his coat with a sound like a snapped bowstring.
Rex was thrown backward and went two meters in the air, came down on his back in the grass at the center of the draw, and rolled with a smooth, deliberate roll that got him back to his feet, supported by his staff.
If my Lightning Resonance was stronger and I was able to push out as much power as I wanted, then this cast would have killed him. Not even Bari or Dara would have survived half the power I placed inside that spell.
Rex’s right shoulder was burned, and the field coat was charred through to the skin, maybe even deeper.
Breaking his defensive enchantment and his body’s innate durability had saved his life.
He was on his feet before I had taken a second breath, and his stupid smirk was gone.
"What was that?" he said.
"Wouldn’t you like to know," I replied dryly.
"Do you have a Talisman with you?"
I paused, then smiled, "Sure, those things go for a dozen gold coins, but you know I always do my best... especially when I am dealing with nobility."
"Voss." Rex steadied his stance. The wounded shoulder was visibly shaking, but his staff was up, and the cold spot on my chest was sharpening again. "I am revising my estimate of you."
"Revise faster. I am leaving this place, and you are not holding me back."
I cast again, this time through the staff. Surge-amplified Arc Lightning, pushing fifteen percent of my Anima Depth into the cast.
The staff’s blue crystal lit up from within with the focused weight of the discipline I had been training in for two years, and the arc crossed the draw as a tree of light.
Rex cursed and met it with a counter-discharge of Veilcraft, but directional, aimed at the tree’s center branch.
The two casts met in the center and produced a sound of glass breaking inside a bell.
This was the high crystal note of two contradictory disciplines colliding without either fully consuming the other.
For a moment, the two spells seemed to be at an equilibrium, but Rex’s spell began to cut through my spell, but the lightning tree’s outer branches survived the center’s collapse, and they struck Rex on both sides of his body.