The Hyper Confrontation 4 – Efficient [Nia POV]

“It’s time for you to face the consequences of your actions!” Jake declared.

Nia tilted her head. Her field of view was an interesting affair, half the vision of a human and half a representation of the world created by tracking different mana flows. Impossibly or, rather, implausibly, her opponent’s soul remained connected to that of Hypercrush even after Lee had put her new technology in place.

“I’ll roll you up and smoke you up, doll!”

The dark-skinned man kept chatting, jumping from one foot to the other. It was like looking at a less alluring, less respectable, and certainly less cute version of Sylph. The speed was false. Nia could see it in every bounce of the man left to right. Her human sight tricked her into seeing after images.

“I’ll crush you down and snort you!”

Powder appeared on the back of his hand, only to be dragged in through his nose. His power spiked when he did so, pulling all of his physical abilities, especially his speed, with it. A borrowed power, a dull power, a power that would take its toll in the long run. It was more impressive as a singular spike than the growth spurred on by the mark on herself and the other haremettes, but that was where it ended. Hypercrush’s selfish nature had manifested in his Innate Ability just like John’s desire for equals had manifested in his.

“Oh yeah, you’ll make for such a pretty corpse!”

“No.”

Nia pulled her eyepatch off.

Her vision changed. The shapes of magic became inverted. No longer did she see the presence of the thing, but the absence of it, and that which interrupted that absence offended her. The mocking words of the masked man immediately turned into a despairing weep. “Please no,” he begged.

The pariah did not care.

She clenched her gaze around the connection of souls and severed it. Jake spat blood and wept red tears, as the empowering overdose surged from magic to blood. His heart beat and beat, his chest rose and fell, and Nia saw it all. With an eye of human anger and an eye of otherworldly apathy, she walked forwards.

Even as his heart threatened to explode from the strain of hammering too fast, he tried to crawl away from her. All the same, she arrived, swept his legs away with a swift kick, then gave him the mercy of a snapped neck. Nia undid every fibre of magic that still clung to the body.

Then, she turned away.