After speaking, Magnus fell silent.
He'd put his mask away in his storage ring earlier, back when he took it off to help the captives feel safer. The projection of his Cain uniform disappeared with it, leaving him in his real clothes—his Takerth Academy uniform. Calling the academy's uniform "durable" was almost an understatement. Students were allowed to spar freely in the arena, so their uniforms had to withstand just about anything, whether the wearer was an Apprentice or an Adept. Magnus had survived everything he'd put it through so far, from the illusion-creating mana beast to being submerged in magma and the battle against the Nullfang that followed.
But now, after his latest fight—a battle that nearly breached the Master Class—the uniform was torn to shreds.
Looking down at what was left, Magnus grabbed the tattered fabric and pulled it off. Austra, still trying to process everything that had just happened, heard the cloth tear and saw it drift to the ground. This was her first time seeing Magnus's bare torso, the strange, statue-like shape of his body, and the magical artifice embedded in his chest.
She frowned, her eyes lingering—not because of the artifice or the odd shape of his body, which she'd noticed before, but because of something else. She was good at spotting every tiny movement a muscle made, a natural talent as a vampire, and now she could see Magnus's skin moving. It wasn't like how skin shifts when a joint moves. All over his body, in random patterns, his skin seemed to shift, just a little, as if something underneath was alive, though it was more subtle than before.
"What... what the hell is going on with your body? What did you do?" Austra muttered. Magnus just raised an eyebrow, looking more amused than concerned.
"Oh, you can still see that? You Hierarchs really are something," he said with a lazy shrug.
Austra watched him, her wariness slowly turning into annoyance.
"Do you think this is a game, boy? That teleporting will save you? Because I promise, it won't. Even if you dump me halfway across the continent, I'll still find my way back."
"Strand you?" Magnus tilted his head, then let out a laugh, shaking it off.
"No, I didn't bring you here to leave you stranded. I was just tired of being stuck in that underground chapel—bad memories, you know? Anyway, if you want to know what's going on with my body, explaining it would take forever. It's easier if you just see for yourself." He beckoned with his hand, leaning forward a bit.
Austra's eye twitched, and a half-smile cracked across her face, all irritation. She crouched low, knees nearly touching the ground, one hand pressed to the earth, and her nails digging in.
"Every time you open your mouth, you remind me why I want you dead!" She shot forward, the ground beneath her exploding into fragments and dust. In an instant, she was weaving left, right, even leaping with short, unpredictable hops—every move meant to avoid Rokshaata. Even if she couldn't see it, she knew Magnus could probably teleport it straight to them.
Then she made herself even harder to track. Using her perception-shifting ability, Austra split—where there'd been one of her, now there were two, then four, then eight. The numbers kept rising, each copy branching from another. Silence fell around Magnus, the stars above dimming as the world's visuals turned strange and senseless.
Still, as the Austras closed in, Magnus stayed put, his smirk unchanged.
Let's see if you can keep smiling after this!
With that thought, Austra dropped all her tricks. Instantly, the world snapped back to normal, her duplicates vanished, and Magnus could see clearly again. Which was exactly what she wanted.
Suddenly, the choir of her background music screamed from directly behind Magnus. In the next instant, there was a sickening squelch—bone shattered, flesh tore. Austra's hand punched straight through his torso, blood and bits of his insides spraying out. Clutched in her grip was Magnus's still-beating heart, its rhythm slowing as it met the outside air.
Magnus looked down. He tried to speak, but only blood spilled from his lips.
Behind him, Austra let out a chuckle.
"Finally. You can't run your mouth anymore." She pulled her hand free.
Magnus staggered forward, pressing a hand to the hole in his chest. He managed to turn, staring at Austra, still holding his heart. He tried to say something again, but more blood just gushed out.
"The more you try to talk, the more painful your death will be. Now then..." Austra glanced at his wounds, eyes glinting with malice.
"I guess you won't be needing this anymore," she said, tightening her grip on his heart as she met his eyes. She watched him as she tried to crush it.
But... nothing happened.
Austra glanced down, frowning in confusion. She could feel the organ, slick and warm in her palm, but it was like trying to squeeze solid metal. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't crush it.
"What the hell?" That's when she noticed something else. Magnus had stopped stumbling and just stood there. By all rights, he should have been dead—no human could survive having their heart ripped out.
Blood was still pouring from his wound, but his face hadn't even changed color.
"How are you still alive…" The question slipped out quietly, disbelief and that same uneasy feeling creeping back in.
Magnus noticed her confusion and held up a finger, asking her to wait a second. Then he curled his finger, as if calling something over. Austra didn't get it at first—until she felt the heart in her hand move. Suddenly, her grip was overpowered as the heart flew out of her hand, turned in midair, and shot straight back into Magnus's chest. It didn't stop there. She watched as broken bits of bone and pieces of organs scattered on the ground started rising up, floating through the air before snapping back into Magnus's body, almost like time itself was rewinding.
A moment later, his wound closed up, and Magnus gave a cough to clear his throat.
"Oh wow… not used to tasting so much of my own blood," he muttered, flicking out his tongue like he'd tasted something foul. He coughed again and shook his head.
Once he finished, he looked at her.
"Anyway, I was trying to make a joke about you stealing my heart, but… It's tough to talk without lungs or, well, a heart. So it just came out as gargling. Plus, the air you use to talk isn't the same as the oxygen in your blood."
Austra didn't move, her eyes narrowing.
"That didn't answer my question…"
"Huh? Oh, right. I just reversed the process, that's all. If I see something happen, it's only natural I should be able to undo it, don't you think?" He pointed to his right arm, then grabbed it above the elbow and pulled, casually tearing his own arm off without flinching. Blood splattered across the ground, dripping from the open wound. He then tossed his arm into the air, and it hung there for a split second before dropping back down, sliding right back onto the stump. The bloody seam sealed itself shut, all visible to the naked eye.
Magnus flexed his arm a bit, waving it around, then turned back to Austra.
"A lot more effective than simple regeneration, but not as practical for bigger stuff, so I usually mix the two. Not that you care about all that. You're probably thinking about how you're going to kill me, right? Wondering if I'm immortal now, like you? Or maybe what else has changed about me?"
Austra's finger twitched as she stated, "You're playing with me…"
The next instant, a piece of her true form appeared behind Magnus, shifting into a spear aimed right for the back of his neck. It shot forward at nearly three times the speed of sound, shockwaves bursting off its inky black surface and shaking the ground where it struck from.
"I'm not playing with- Okay, maybe a little," Magnus chuckled, his voice split between here and somewhere else. Austra stared at the spot where he'd been standing. Her attack, the pitch-black spear, had pierced only air.
She tracked his voice to her right. There sat Magnus in a lawn chair—not that she had any idea what a lawn chair was—facing where he'd just been standing, but looking straight at her.
"I mean, can you blame me? Honestly, what you did to me was the most I've felt since I came to this world…" His tone dropped a bit, still laid back, but with more weight to it.
He tapped the side of his head.
"I had to shut off the parts of my brain for grief, guilt, and a bunch of other things just to keep functioning. So thanks to you, I literally can't not feel good right now. Guess that means you really did break me. If that makes you feel any better." Austra didn't answer. Her nails sharpened, and her hand shot out, aiming to stab right through his neck. But again, she hit nothing but air—Magnus and the chair both vanished.
"But who am I kidding, you don't care about any of that." Austra's head whipped around just in time to see Magnus right in front of her, hand raised, ready to pluck.
[Velocity Breaker—Lance]
Space twisted around Magnus's hand as he gathered force. When he let his finger flick out, the air warped, sending a shockwave in every direction. It was just a flick, but the blast and sound were like a cannon going off. Even with her high-speed perception, Austra lost track of his finger the moment the air turned to white-hot plasma.
The result was a beam—a laser of pure light shooting off from the hill, cutting through the darkness of night. The sound of the attack lagged behind the strike itself. For a split second, the whole world seemed to lose its color, arcs of electricity sparking across the ground and sky. The noise and shockwave rolled over the hills for kilometers, sweeping across grass and stone.
Austra didn't even realize when her view changed—from staring at Magnus to staring up at the night sky, the ground racing away beneath her. Her head and upper torso had been completely blasted apart, the force scattering the energy of her true body. Even if it hadn't been destroyed, she could sense it had been sent flying far away, moving too fast for her to recover anytime soon.
"Dammit!" She yelled, twisting her body against the crushing G-forces as she tumbled through the air. She managed to right herself just before slamming into the side of another hill, crashing down on all fours as a crater exploded around her, flinging dust, rock, and dirt everywhere.
"Where the hell is that bastard…" She muttered, jaw clenched, new teeth already growing back.
"Behind you," Magnus answered, leaning casually against the side of the crater she'd just made.
On reflex, Austra lashed out with a kick, swinging her leg back through the air. As she did, an inky black haze coated her foot, trailing a crescent ready to absorb any living matter it touched.
But before she could finish the kick, her leg was gone.
Not just the haze—her whole leg had vanished. She stared down where her thigh ended in a clean stump. Even the traces of her true form in that leg were gone. It was just like when he'd crushed and sealed away parts of her body before erasing them, but this time there wasn't even that extra step.
He'd simply removed it.
That realization hit Austra hard, dread blooming in her chest. If he didn't need to crush and seal her away anymore, did that mean he could just erase any part of her, whenever he wanted? And if that was true, what was stopping him from erasing all of her at once?
No, no, no... If he could destroy me that easily, he would have done it already. There must be some requirement, some kind of limit. That has to be it, it has to-
Her thoughts cut off as she saw Magnus's grin. He was still smiling, like he could read every word going through her mind, and found it hilarious. The question she'd just asked herself echoed again: If he could erase her so easily, why was he keeping her alive?
Then she remembered what he'd said just a moment ago.
He was playing with her.
That realization brought a new feeling—one that had only ever lingered at the edges of Austra's mind until now. It was an emotion immortal vampires rarely experienced, one only Eveline had ever managed to truly stir in her.
Fear.
A shockwave swept over the small crater where she and Magnus stood on the hillside. Magnus squinted as the wind whipped past, hair fluttering. Austra was gone. She'd bolted at full speed.
Magnus glanced in the direction she'd run.
"Huh, she psyched herself out faster than I expected. Oh well, time to finish this." Rolling his neck, his eyes shimmered, and he vanished from the crater. Austra had already cleared the hills Magnus had brought them to. Her figure blended with the shadows, moving fast beneath the sharp moon and starlight. Up ahead, the forest edge came into view.
If I can just get under the trees, even with his teleportation, he shouldn't be able to find me!
But right as she prepared to dash into the woods, her entire body lurched to a stop. From head to toe, it felt like she'd been locked in place by an unstoppable force.
Wha- What is this? Psychokinesis? But how...
She couldn't even open her mouth, even as that cursed voice echoed behind her.
"You were so close." Footsteps crunched on loose gravel as the scenery shifted from rocky hills to the forest before her. Magnus soon stepped into view, giving her a curious look. Austra's panic only grew, but her face remained frozen. She couldn't change her form, couldn't even detonate any part of her body. She was completely stuck, trapped in this moment.
"I've always wondered what would happen if I used [Self Body Puppetry] on someone besides myself. Never had the chance to memorize anyone's body well enough—until now. I guess a long fight has its perks." His tone was casual, as if this was just another experiment. He barely seemed to care that she had no idea what he meant. He stood in front of her, glancing up at the sky before continuing.
"You know, part of the reason I dragged out this fight was because I'm not looking forward to getting my other emotions back. As much as I'd like to keep them gone, I can't really function around people if I'm always stuck in a good mood. Apparently, that's not great for my mental health—at least, that's what Basker says. Oh, right, you don't know who Basker is. Whatever. Not like it matters, since you're about to die." Those last words made Austra's panic spike, her eyes trying to dart with desperate energy, though her expression didn't change.
Magnus noticed anyway.
"Relax, it won't hurt. Honestly, that's more mercy than you deserve." He reached out and tapped her left arm—instantly, it vanished. Then the right. Even with both arms gone, Austra couldn't move.
Magnus continued, erasing her legs and then other parts, each one disappearing without a trace, every bit of her true body wiped from reality.
When his finger hovered near her torso, he paused.
"Oh, right. Eveline wanted a piece of Hierarch to study. Hmm... your virtual brain is probably in your torso, right? In that case, I'll just keep the head. Probably not much difference between a Nightborn brain and a Hierarch's anyway." With that, everything below Austra's neck faded to nothing. Her consciousness dimmed, her head floating, finally released from whatever force held it still.
Magnus caught it by the hair before it hit the ground, lifting it to eye level. He stared into the lifeless eyes, watching as the energy inside began to fade. A mana construct formed around the head in his hand, keeping the last bits of Austra from dissolving.
He glanced around, then smiled.
"Well, I guess I'm done here." With that, he disappeared, taking the mana construct with him.