Book 3: Chapter 48 (2/2)
Lindyss smiled, and another tiny fireball exploded. Mary didn’t even flinch as her aura absorbed the impact. “Simple,” Lindyss said with a shrug. “All anti-magic works on the same principle—distorting the mana inside a spell. It looks like your null-magic disperses mana on contact. If I create a tiny explosive fireball, you can cancel it out before it explodes, but you can’t do anything to stop the physical impact if it explodes.
“Do you always lecture people while fighting?” Grimmy asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Shut up,” Lindyss said, glaring at Grimmy. “She reminded me of Vur for a second. Look at her head tilt and wide, innocent eyes.”
“Huh,” Grimmy said, stroking his chin. “You’re right. She does remind me of Vur.”
“You two know Vur?” Mary asked, her head tilting even further.
Grimmy snorted. “She’s stalling for time to heal her injuries,” he said to Lindyss. “Why are you letting her do that? You’re monologuing like a final boss in a play. If you don’t watch out, she’ll cut you down and win.”
Lindyss rolled her eyes. “I know. Did you think I wasn’t doing anything?” she asked as she crossed her arms over her chest. Without warning, the ground underneath Mary dropped straight down and crumbled into bits before she could use it to jump up, revealing a seemingly bottomless hole. Lindyss clapped her hands once, causing the hole to secrete an oil-like substance along its walls as its surface hardened into diamond. “There, now she’s trapped like a turtle in a jar.”
“You’re getting a lot of use out of that geomancer’s soul, aren’t you?” Grimmy asked as he lumbered out of the cave and peered into the trap. Through the darkness, he could see Mary leaping onto the walls but sliding down instantly due to the oil. The hole was in the shape of a cone, larger at the very bottom and narrower at the top.
“It’s convenient,” Lindyss said as she landed on Grimmy’s head, disabling her aura wings and the tiny floating fireballs. “Besides, it’d be a waste not to use it after suffering for so many years just to incorporate it.”
“You’re not going to finish her off?” Grimmy asked.
“Nope.” Lindyss leaned back as she drew a book and a drink out of her pocket. “It’s easily ten times more difficult to capture someone alive without injuring them than it is to kill them.” She placed a straw into her drink and took a sip. “This is a show of power. Once she gives up, I’ll capture her and use her to train Vur or something. She looks like she’d make a good sparring partner. She’s really fast—I almost got hit by her attacks.”