CHAPTER 88: BULLY

The lift arrived with a soft hiss. Varik didn’t move to enter.

Lucen stepped in first, leaned against the inner wall, and waited. When Varik joined him, the door shut without a command. Descent hummed faintly beneath their feet.

"You trust me with that?" Varik said after a beat. "Your design keys?"

"I trust your combat sense," Lucen replied. "If you were going to burn me, you’d have done it already."

Varik gave a soft grunt. Not agreement. Just motion.

Lucen looked straight ahead.

"I’ve made seven personal spells so far. One was random, courtesy of the core. I can design fast if I know what the battlefield needs."

He tapped his temple once.

"Problem is, I don’t know everything I’m missing."

Varik was quiet for a long moment.

Then he spoke.

"Escape first."

Lucen blinked.

"Not offense?"

Varik shook his head. "Offense you’ve got. Versatility too. But you can’t disengage when it matters. Every fight you’ve won, you’ve done it by barely standing."

Lucen didn’t argue.

Varik continued, "Design something that breaks line of sight. Disorients tracking. Not invisibility. Not glamor. A real vanish. One that punishes pursuit."

Lucen tilted his head. "High mana?"

"Medium," Varik said. "If it costs too much, you’ll never use it when you’re tired. Give it an anchor vector—leave a trace behind, maybe a fake mana trail."

Lucen nodded slowly, gears turning.

"And the second?"

"Interruptive," Varik said. "You’re good at reacting. Fast casting. But you don’t have a way to cancel a fight. Not reset. Cancel. Force an enemy to halt. Interrupt a cast. Break a charge. Doesn’t have to do damage—just stop the flow."

Lucen’s fingers flexed. "Like Null Reversal?"

"No," Varik said. "Reversal is rare. But too specific. You need something active. Something you control. A disruption sigil with wide variance."

Lucen muttered, "Could try kinetic scatter. Pulse delay. Maybe corrupt their next glyph draw—"

Varik cut in, "That’s the one."

Lucen raised a brow. "Which?"

"Force a miscast," Varik said. "Not block. Not counter. Just scramble. Give them a feedback loop they didn’t expect."

Lucen grinned, low.

"That’s evil."

"That’s war."

The lift slowed.

Lucen looked down at his hand, faint sigil marks still faintly aglow from earlier casts.

Then: "Third slot?"

Varik didn’t answer right away.

When he did, his voice dropped.

"Something no one’s seen before."

Lucen frowned. "That’s not a type."

"It is for you."

Lucen looked up.

Varik didn’t elaborate. He just stared back, gaze cold, steady.

"You’re not like anyone else I’ve trained. You don’t need a bigger fireball. You need something that makes people ask what the hell just happened."

The lift stopped.

The doors opened.

Dim corridor. Same vault-colored walls. No sound.

Lucen stepped out slowly.

And said, "I’ll bring you a draft."

Varik didn’t follow.

Just called after him, "Bring me proof."

Lucen didn’t look back.

He walked down the hall, mind already assembling glyph patterns behind his eyes.

One for vanishing.

One for breaking the rhythm.

And one he hadn’t named yet.

Not because he didn’t know what it was.

Because no one else had seen it before.

—

Lucen exited the facility alone.

No escort. No transport.

Varik had already disappeared, probably through a sealed door that didn’t exist on any city map. Lucen didn’t ask.

The hallway outside led to a back elevator, disguised to look like a maintenance access shaft. There were no signs. Just a faint hum and the sound of his boots hitting steel.

By the time he reached street level, the air had changed.

Louder.

More color.

Mana ad-boards buzzed overhead, flickering out recruiter messages and shop banners.

Somewhere, a drift-runner school was blasting spellcast demos on repeat, third-year initiates hitting practice dummies with entry-tier fire glyphs and yelling like they’d leveled up.

Lucen kept his head down, coat pulled a little tighter around his ribs. Not because he was hiding. Just because he didn’t feel like being seen.

He was halfway through the plaza when someone bumped into him hard, shoulder to shoulder.

Not just contact.

Pressure.

Lucen rocked sideways a step.

Turned, slow.

The guy who hit him turned too. Taller. Older. Maybe early twenties. Built like someone who spent more time in mana-gyms than drift zones.

Hair swept back. Light armor stylized for look more than function, runes etched in gold trim that screamed self-promotion.

Lucen was about to keep walking when the guy said, loud enough to catch ears nearby, "Watch it, kid."

Lucen stopped.

Turned back, casual.

"I did," he said. "You still got in the way."

The guy’s expression shifted.

Not a big one.

Just enough.

"You got a mouth on you."

Lucen smiled—barely.

"You got a shoulder problem. We match."

The guy took a step forward, real slow.

Lucen didn’t flinch.

"Awakened?" the guy asked, tone dripping with condescension.

Lucen nodded. "C-Class. Spell Tracer. Support role. Terrible in a fight."

A few people nearby slowed their walk.

The guy scoffed. "Shouldn’t lie. You’ve got drift burns on your gloves and your coat’s got mana scoring from a tier-three caster. C-Class doesn’t make it out of that."

Lucen raised a brow. "Wow. You did all that detective work before picking a fight?"

The guy tilted his head. "No fight."

Pause.

Then: "Unless you’re saying you want one."

Lucen tilted his head right back. "Unless you’re saying you need one to feel better."

The guy stepped forward again. Close now. The grin he wore was practiced, thin, performative, and absolutely not earned.

"You know who I am?"

Lucen didn’t blink.

"Some guy who spent more on gloves than brain cells."

The man’s eyes flashed.

"Name’s Halren. A-Rank. Ranked in two circuits. I’ve cleaned out more support casters than you’ve seen spellbooks."

Lucen’s smile faded, only slightly.

He looked down, then back up. Voice calm.

"You said A-Rank like it meant something."

Halren frowned.

Lucen added, flatly, "I’ve met monsters who hit harder than titles."

A pause.

The crowd was paying attention now. A few passersby slowed their stride. One leaned against a food stall. Mana lights flickered above them, casting gold-pink shadows across the stone.

Halren exhaled.

Then his voice dropped just a little. "You’re mouthy for someone without a team behind him."

Lucen didn’t say anything for a moment.

Then:

"I’ve got a system that hates liars, a bag full of high-output sigils, and exactly zero patience for someone who thinks ’circuits’ mean more than bleeding."

He took a slow step forward.

Didn’t flare his mana.

Didn’t raise a hand.

But Halren flinched.

Just once.

Just enough.

Lucen caught it.

"Tell you what," Lucen said. "You want to test it? I’ll give you five meters and a handicap. You can even pick the spell I open with."

Halren didn’t answer.

Lucen waited.

Then said, louder, "Didn’t think so."

He turned and walked away.

Halren didn’t follow.

Someone in the crowd muttered, "Damn."

Lucen didn’t turn back.

Didn’t need to.

The next message from his system popped up two steps later.