Zrix the Spark stood in the middle of the ruined outpost with his hands in his coat pockets and a bright, almost cheerful expression on his face. Around him lay six higher creatures in various states of collapse. None of them were dead. All of them were finished as active threats.
He had not used anything that looked like conventional high-tier magic.
Where other mages hurled force lances, binding arrays, or elemental storms, Zrix simply read the field. Energy pathways, density nodes, circulation patterns—the invisible architecture that let these foreign beings reinforce their bodies and shape their abilities—were as clear to him as written script. Normal spells slid off their reinforced structures with depressing consistency. He had stopped bothering with those after the first exchange.
The brief fight had been ugly, close, and precise.
