Chapter 91: Grimoire III
The juggernaut’s roar hit like a shockwave, rattling the stone platforms and sending loose rubble skittering like terrified interns. It slammed its shield down—BOOM—and the shock cracked the floor into spiderweb fissures.
Vex didn’t slow.
It accelerated.
Its runes blazed white-hot, flaring off its body like the world’s most hostile rave. Each step left scorch-marks shaped suspiciously like exclamation points. Aria’s heart was galloping somewhere north of sanity.
"Vex, no—strategy first!" she shouted.
"STRATEGY IS YES," Vex scrawled midair as it vaulted off a fallen pillar.
The juggernaut swung its titanic shield like a battering ram made of ancient bad decisions.
Vex didn’t dodge.
Vex parried.
The shield hit like a collapsing cathedral—and stopped dead. The sound was like the concept of thunder being personally offended. Runes shrieked across Vex’s arms as the impact wave shredded the arena floor in a circle.
Laxin screamed like a backup vocalist in a horror opera.
"IT’S HOLDING IT—IT’S HOLDING IT?!"
Vex’s flames guttered—then reignited in a surge.
Its wand snapped up.
A circle the size of a house roared into existence behind it, spinning with layered runes stacked like skyscrapers of doom.
Aria blinked sweat from her eyes. "That’s... impossible. That’s a multi-tier circle—!"
"IT’S DOING A MULTI-TIER?! WE’RE ALL GONNA BURN BEAUTIFULLY!" Laxin squealed, both horrified and weirdly proud.
The juggernaut shoved.
Vex yielded—then redirected, sliding sideways in a blur, blade cutting a glowing sigil across the golden bone plating.
A crack appeared.
Vex saw it.
Vex decided it was personal.
It launched skyward in a spiral of violet force, wand drawing sigils so fast they blurred like furious constellations. The air screamed from the pressure. Runes locked together into an execution lattice.
"Final Gambit Protocol," Fenric murmured from the shadows, watching with unnerving calm. "Ill-advised."
"FINAL WHAT?!" Laxin shrieked.
"Do not interrupt," Fenric said mildly. "It is attempting to weaponize its own collapse."
Vex dove.
Its blade hit the crack.
Every rune detonated at once.
Color vanished. Sound folded inside out. For one apocalyptic heartbeat, there was nothing in the arena but raw annihilation—like someone had erased reality with excessive enthusiasm.
Then the light cleared.
The juggernaut was gone.
So was half the arena.
A smoking crater yawned where they’d stood. Bits of molten goldbone dripped from the ceiling. The air tasted like static and victory-flavored despair.
Vex stood at the epicenter.
Or rather—
Vex knelt.
One knee down, blade planted, runes fading to soft embers. Its eye-flames guttered, but burned... proud.
Silence.
Then Laxin howled, throwing his arms to the heavens like a prophet of chaos.
"WE HAVE CREATED—AN ICON."
Aria was laughing and crying simultaneously, like someone who had just survived both a miracle and a tax audit.
"It—it did it—oh gods, it actually did it—"
Fenric finally stepped forward. His expression didn’t shift, but the air tightened, like reality was holding its breath to see what he’d say.
"...Adequate," Fenric said.
Laxin collapsed face-first with a noise like emotional drywall caving in.
"HE SAID THE A-WORD AGAIN—"
Fenric glanced at Vex, who wobbled like a champion made of exhaustion.
"However," Fenric added, tone sliding colder than a budget meeting at dawn, "your construct is now operating at four percent structural integrity. Any further combat will result in catastrophic self-detonation."
Vex slowly turned its head toward him.
Wrote in glowing shaky runes:
"WORTH IT."
Then collapsed backward into a perfect skeleton-shaped crater with a dainty clonk.
Aria knelt beside it, still grinning like someone who had just seen the gods blink first.
"...He’ll recover," she whispered.
Fenric gave the faintest nod, like an avalanche granting mercy.
"See that he does," he said. "Tomorrow: tactical cognition drills."
Laxin’s soul audibly deflated.
"Tactical... cognition...? You want it to think now?!"
"Yes," Fenric said. "If it can destroy, it must also choose."
Aria’s grin sharpened. "Then we’ll make it brilliant."
Vex, facedown in rubble, raised one finger.
Glowing rune:
"BRAIN = OPTIONAL."
Laxin clutched his head.
"Oh no. It’s becoming self-aware."
Fenric was already leaving, voice like steel wrapped in frost.
"Then teach it to be aware strategically."
And the door slammed shut behind him like the closing statement of destiny.
The next day dawned like a reluctant intern—late, grey, and deeply under-caffeinated.
Inside the training hall, Vex stood in the center of the rune circle, glowing faintly like a suspiciously smug bonfire. It had been fully reconstituted overnight; Aria had spent the evening muttering incantations while Laxin dramatically stress-ate an entire bag of void crisps.
Now, Vex’s flames burned steady. Calm. Focused.
Which was unsettling in its own right.
Fenric arrived without fanfare, as if the concept of "making an entrance" were beneath him. He stopped at the edge of the circle, eyes cutting like surgical winter.
"Today," he said, "you will think."
Vex wrote:
"ALREADY THINKING ABOUT EXPLOSIONS."
"No," Fenric said flatly. "Strategy."
Laxin waved a hand vaguely. "You know, like... using logic instead of detonations as your primary language."
Vex stared at him.
Then slowly wrote:
"EXCUSE ME WHAT IS ’NOT DETONATIONS’"
Fenric raised a single finger, and the air itself hushed like reality didn’t dare interrupt.
"Begin simple. Prediction models."
Aria perked up, bouncing on her heels. "Oh! Like—anticipating enemy moves, right?"
"Yes," Fenric said. "If it can predict, it can plan. If it can plan, it can win without collateral implosion."
"Or," Laxin muttered, "it can implode on purpose but strategically."
Fenric ignored him with the precision of a practiced executive.
He flicked his wrist—
The floor glyphs rearranged with the brisk efficiency of an overachieving filing clerk.
Four skeletal constructs rose from the runes: slim, nimble, each holding blunted bone sabers. Their eyes glimmered like annoyed candle flames.
"Scenario Alpha," Fenric said. "Objective: remain intact for five minutes."
Vex flared.
"OBJECTIVE ACCEPTED. SURVIVAL INITIATED."
The four skeletons charged as one, blades flashing.
Vex... froze.
Not in fear.
In processing.
Its runes brightened, cycling like furious equations. Aria bit her lip, heart hammering.
Then Vex moved.
Not with its usual explosive drama. No—this was sharp. Measured.
It let the first blade pass, ducking beneath like a burning shadow. A counterstrike flickered out—just enough to shove the attacker back, not destroy.
"Controlled force," Fenric murmured, almost approving. "It learns."
The second attacker came from behind.
Vex didn’t even look—its wand lashed back mid-spin, parrying blind, deflecting the strike into the third attacker. They tangled, clattered, cursed in rattling bone-speak.
The fourth closed in.
Vex simply stepped aside.
Like it had known exactly where that blade would land two seconds ago.
Aria whispered, awestruck, "It’s predicting their motion paths."
"Or it’s become psychic," Laxin said, "which is so much worse."
For four minutes, the hall became a ballet of bone and fire. Vex weaved, deflected, manipulated space like it was playing chess at swordpoint. Sparks flew. Bones clashed. Not one blow landed.
Fenric watched, unreadable.
Then, at exactly the five-minute mark, Vex vaulted back, landed in a crouch, and wrote in the air:
"MISSION: NOT-EXPLODE = SUCCESSFUL."
Silence.
Aria squealed like a proud lab parent. "It did it!! It thought!!"
Laxin threw his hands up. "I hate that I’m impressed!!"
Fenric stepped forward, boots whispering against stone. He regarded Vex, silver gaze cold and bright.
"...Acceptable," he said.
Aria gasped. "The A-word again—!"
Vex wrote:
"NEED NEW WORD. ACCEPTABLE IS BORING."
Fenric arched a single eyebrow. "Surprise me."
Vex paused.
Then flared.
And slowly scrawled:
"STRATEGICALLY MAGNIFICENT."
Laxin slapped his forehead. "Oh no. It learned branding."
Fenric just turned on his heel, cloak slicing the air like an executive memo.
"Next," he said, "tactical deception drills."
Vex’s runes pulsed like a heartbeat made of fireworks.
"YES. I WILL LIE GLORIOUSLY."
Aria clapped like she’d just been handed a promotion.
"This is going to be fun."
Laxin whispered, "This is how civilizations end," as the training glyphs began to glow.
The glyphs flared to life like someone had just slapped the training hall awake with an espresso the size of a moon.
Fenric stood at the edge of the arena, hands folded behind his back like an auditor about to emotionally ruin someone’s fiscal year.
"Deception," he said, voice crisp as freshly sharpened ice.
"Victory through manipulation. Misdirection. Exploiting assumptions. Do this correctly—your opponent defeats themselves."
Laxin raised a hesitant finger. "Do this incorrectly—?"
"You explode," Fenric said without looking at him.
Laxin lowered his finger. "Crystal clear."
Aria bounced on her heels, practically glowing. "Okay, Vex! Time to trick the enemy! Think sneaky thoughts!"
Vex’s flames flickered like a brain cell waking up reluctantly.
Then it wrote:
"DEFINING SNEAKY... COMPLETE. READY TO BE EVIL."
Fenric snapped his fingers.
The arena reshaped itself with bureaucratic efficiency—stone partitions rising like cubicle walls, shadowed corridors weaving in a tight maze. Four skeletal sentries materialized within, each armed with spears and glowing with the emotional range of a very angry filing cabinet.
"Objective," Fenric said, "is not destruction. It is infiltration. Reach the central glyph without being detected."
Aria grinned. "Like hide-and-seek, but with mortal peril!"
"Like a performance review," Laxin muttered darkly.
Vex faded into the maze.
For three long seconds, nothing happened.
Then—
BOOM.
A fireball detonated somewhere deep in the maze, rattling the partitions.
Laxin shrieked. "Subtlety is dead!"