Overpowered Wizard-Chapter B4 Ch45: Old Man Zarian

Zarian was annoyed.

The cheering and heckling crowd packed into the arena stands annoyed him. The bright lights, the obnoxious announcer, the heavy-handed and ungraceful bottom-tier System magic used for lesser realm events, all annoyances. Then there were the cheap enchantments that were holding this place together, the equivalent of glue, tape, and prayer, a thinly veiled collection of shoddy workmanship. Annoying and sad.

Wonderland had been primitive, but at least it had been homey. He’d missed the mist-heavy forest, the pitter-patter drumming of rain, the lush, verdant peace between study sessions and carefully corralled spars. It hadn’t been longer than half a day since leaving Wonderland, and he already missed Ruvaria’s body nestled into his while going over complex cosmic theories and deep sorcerous conclusions. He’d missed dunking on his kid in magic practices and throwing rainforest mudballs at her by the river.

He knew he’d grown too familiar with thirty years of the same routine. It had become his oasis, where for the first time in his life there were well-founded habits he’d developed and followed religiously. It wasn’t even about family life and bliss. It was more than that. Thirty years of peace and certainty had left their marks on him, burdening him with expectations and privileges most couldn’t ever imagine.

Intellectually, he knew he needed to get back into the so-called real world and recalibrate. But damn, it was hard. He was in his fifties. He looked like his mid twenties, but he still had a mortal mentality toward time and age. He could’ve done away with it, but it grounded him. Even if it meant he was more crabby out here than ever before.

The dvergr man in front of him, who was possibly older, was wasting time showboating and flapping off for whatever reason instead of fighting. I’m being a hypocrite right now, Zarian realized wearily. That was my thing. Showboating. Have I changed that much?

Zarian studied the dvergr as Valin made promises to put the wizard down in the name of his god. Growing bored, Zarian scanned the air for divine influences. There were none outside the System. More importantly, there were no avatars in attendance. By threading his senses beyond the System’s barriers, Zarian searched the stadium. Other than Foodie and Para and small traces of Ariana, there was nobody else divine. That was peculiar. Suspicious, really.

“Am I boring you, Dark Lord?!” roared Valin while Zarian was scanning around with his own eyes.

“Hm, well, yes, you are. And it’s Dark Emperor,” Zarian said absentmindedly. “Before I forget to ask, do you want this to end quickly or slowly?”

Valin erupted into an electromagnetic storm of magic. His aura crackled outside of him with a distinct trick that wasn’t quite Aura Ignition. Zarian and Ruvaria had gone over various aura techniques with Foodie, so Valin’s new Aura Storm trait didn’t get a reaction out of Zarian whatsoever.

With massive hammers held in both of his knobby fists, the barrel-chested and short dvergr threw himself at supersonic speeds straight for Zarian. The air tasted of ozone. Thick stalks of lightning shot outward in all directions, dozens lashing straight toward Zarian while Valin closed the gap.

Zarian slowed time.

For the entire world.

The technique used a mix of absolute sorcery and spellcraft from his bibliotheca. He circumvented the aura cost with a complex layering of his authority, to where it could eclipse the rudimentary system magic being used on this lesser realm. More importantly, the time slowdown reached beyond the arena despite the system’s attempt to contain the fight in one location. That would’ve made an already dull fight all too boring, so Zarian flexed more of his reach for himself and for his daughters.

Foodie was the quickest to desync herself from her father’s control over this region’s time. Para took far longer because she didn’t have the proper training. She brute-forced it with a growl before standing in the stands on the opposite side from Foodie. After the two rivaling daughters examined each other with open hostility, their attention drifted to Zarian, because they couldn’t help it. He was showing his stuff.

“I don’t have long, because this is going to get too expensive soon, and I don’t want to drain the sun for no reason,” Zarian said, his voice warm while having a hint of his old humor. It wasn’t all gone. But it was more subdued than before. “How should I end this? There are no wrong answers, kiddos.”

“End it in a shower of gore,” Para demanded. “Or throw him into the abyss and let him suffer.”

“Beat him at his own game,” Foodie said. “Break him and let him live so he’ll remember it.”

Thinking over their proposals, Zarian flicked his tail and frowned down at his missing arm. Didn’t he have to see Gilbert after this? Wow, it had been a long time. He’d nearly forgotten about getting his arm back. Before he lost his more important train of thought, Para piped up again.

“What happened?! Why are you so different! And what have you done with that pretender?” Para jabbed a sharp finger in Foodie’s direction across the arena.

“Call me pretender all you want, I’ll shed some light on that just like how Bianca lit you up!” Foodie spat back with a hiss, ears flat against her head, fangs out. Para hissed back, becoming even more monstrous.

From this small interaction, Zarian noticed the imperfect ticks that betrayed Para’s real feelings. The way she shifted her body nervously and curled her tail about. She was also holding herself back from infecting everyone in the stands even though she easily could. If anyone took her attitude at face value, they would’ve missed that she wasn’t completely gone over the deep end.

There was still good inside Para, just buried deep down.

Zarian answered her. “It’s been thirty years, Para. You know how it is. Hyperbolic time chamber shenanigans.”

Eyes widening, she fell silent, and Zarian considered the conversation at end after burning enough of his own aura. That and the grand he was working was going to break apart like overstressed gears. Large cosmic bodies preferred to keep moving forward under the usual parameters set by the universe and system, and Zarian couldn’t fault them for that.

Decision made, he walked around the shower of lightning bolts that had crept toward him inch-by-inch. He dropped the time magic.

The world snapped back to where it should be compared to the rest of the universe, giving everyone – adventurer, monster, everyone – an eerie wave of vertigo. It was too much for some people, filling the stands with projectile vomiting. Valin ended up vomiting from the cosmic wrongness he had to endure, his rush wasted as he flew past, flash-frying his past meal. He crashed into the arena barrier in an explosion of sparks and lightning.

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“Take care of this for me, Loner,” Zarian said, casually ripping a portal into the abyss.

A familiar goblin skeleton stepped out through the rip. Regardless of the arena’s barrier and the system’s defenses, every person who glimpsed into the hole to the abyss ended up clawing out their eyes or strangling themselves. Frowning, Zarian raised a shimmering heat haze to stop foolish onlookers from gazing into the abyss. Once Loner was out, he sealed the rip and gave the Abyssal Skeleton War Prince a look over.

Loner had come a long way, his bones a dark shade of purple on the verge of black. A tarry substance dripped from his eye sockets, down his ribs, and along his limbs. He was as quiet as usual, but the weight of his foulness permeated across the arena, stopping short of harming the audience because of the barriers. Still, the sheer power made the barriers spark and hiss, crackling dangerously from straining to contain the abyssal miasma Loner exuded.

That was the skeleton’s aura, and Valin was suffering the brunt of it.

“Do you surrender?” Zarian asked coldly.

“This again? How many times do I have to tell you there is no surrender?! I’m a warrior of honor and combat! Face me in truth, scoundrel!” Valin threw himself back at Zarian.

Loner’s hand twitched. Dark lights, like burning will-o’-wisps, shone from his eye sockets. His hand twitched again, though it had something to occupy it this time when his deadly aura merged into a miasma-clad saber. Then the inevitable clash came and went, with Loner swatting Valin out of the air and blocking dozens of heavy bolts lunging forth from Valin’s Aura Storm. Any other bolt that tried to move around and strike Zarian suffered Loner’s crushing aura, like flames being snuffed by condensed darkness.

From there, Loner and Valin battled, with the abyssal skeleton harrying the dvergr, each sweep of Loner’s heavy abyssal blade knocking the warrior backward. When Valin bolted aside to get around, Loner matched his maneuver perfectly before cutting him off with another heavy sword swing.

Grunting, Valin crashed into the arena barrier and bounced off, his Aura Storm clambering and roaring like thunder and high surf against a magic cliff side. The dvergr bellowed and shone with greater power – his traditional good pumping him up.

Loner closed the gap and slugged Valin’s jaw with his bony backhand. He followed up with a quick cut to Valin’s ribs, forcing the dvergr to perform an awkward block with his hammers. He ended up off his feet and crashing against the barrier again before blasting off on the rebound. In a situation that reminded Zarian of a fighting game, Loner used the barrier to air juggle Valin. He battered the stubborn warrior away from the arena floor and dribbled him against the barrier wall, stressing the arena’s protections.

Zarian watched passively while preparing a cigar he’d taken out of one of the many pocket dimensions he used for storage. He took his time to cut the tip with a snip of two fingers, sample it dryly, then commit by lighting the end with a flick of his thumb. The orange ember glowed brightly, and Zarian soon had smoky drafts clouding around his head.

By that point, Loner had let the fight go back to the floor and showed off his boxing by beating Valin around the arena’s edge with bony punches. It was a brutal and one-sided fight, and Valin’s attempts to power up ran into an unforgiving undead power that refused to yield.

After ten minutes of this, Valin fell to his knees, his Willpower and traditional goodness broken. He didn’t try to get up. He didn’t say anything valiant. He stayed down on his hands and knees, breathing haggard drafts like he had to work with a straw and one lung. Loner’s body shots had mashed up the dvergr something fiercely on the inside, and his face was hideously puffed up from blocking skeletal knuckles with his head.

He was saying something. It came out hoarse and wet and too quiet.

“What’s that?” Zarian asked calmly.

“I surrender,” Valin croaked.

“Oh, is that so? I gladly accept your surrender. See? That wasn’t so hard.” Zarian chuckled before nodding toward Loner.

The skeleton nodded in return before turning around and looking toward Foodie in the stands. The silence around the arena was heavy on the souls of every mortal. It took until Foodie cheered and clapped with a volume that made the entire arena vibrate before the mortals joined in.

Loner shifted uncomfortably from the attention before nodding in appreciation at his sister. Then the former goblin tore at reality with his sharp, bony fingers, and slid back into the abyss where he belonged. The skeleton legion waited there quietly. They couldn’t stay outside of the abyss any longer than necessary or they would cause widespread damages for merely existing.

The announcer tried to salvage the moment and keep the excitement going. Zarian didn’t bother waiting around and ambled toward the exit. He thought about going straight to the other corner of the lesser realm and getting his arm back, but he decided against it. He’d prefer to finish things here before hopping around.

“You looked so bored!” Foodie yelled, finding him in the private staging area. Nobody had tried to stop her.

“Well, it’s just one of those cases where I outgrew the revenge.” Zarian rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. “It’s a little weird remembering how strongly I felt about it at the time. Now it’s old news.”

“So, does that mean you’ll let him live?” Foodie asked.

Zarian frowned. “I’m not saving him either.”

Eyebrows furrowed, Foodie thought over it very little. It wasn’t hard to guess what he’d meant. The answer came to them as Para sauntered through the staging area while smelling of Valin. Then even his scent was gone, completely consumed just like the rest of him.

There were few mortals remaining in the tunnel-like area. They made themselves scarce as the Darkruns occupied the space. Zarian waited in the middle as his daughters sized each other up again.

Time seemed to slow. They read and re-read each other, with Foodie looking down into Para’s eyes from a slightly higher vantage point. The tension was so thick, Zarian could’ve sliced into it with a butter knife.

“Oh, vile me, Hisscreep be praised, I made it right on time for the cat fight!” Ekri frolicked into the middle, his attire as dapper and gentlemanly as ever. His appearance dispelled the tension, and in a surprising show of restraint, Para turned to leave first.

“Wait,” Foodie called.

“My dear, this fateful meeting can always happen somewhere that’s off our vulnerable world,” Ekri said with a strained cheeriness.

“It’s going to be okay.” Zarian patted the drider on one of his shoulders, comforting the older man. Funny that. Even the old animosity he had toward Ekri was gone, which was a rightful change. Ekri hadn’t deserved his prior scorn.

The drider bowed in understanding, and Para stood waiting to hear Foodie out.

“I’m not weak,” the goblin said. “And I’m a true Darkrun, just like you. I want to fight you and see who’s stronger, but I also want to be family with you. We don’t have to hate each other.”

“All I have room for is hate.” Para sauntered away. Only after she was gone did Foodie show her disappointment, her ears drooping. Ekri was instantly at her side, patting her broad back.

Zarian remained distant for now. It always worked better when he let Foodie come to him or figure things out for herself. However, he sensed Para was a different case, and this wasn’t because of Lion Prince.

I can’t believe it took me fifteen years to realize the ultra skill could work against me more than help me.

He was a creature of chaos, and his efforts to bring order to that were clashing with his true nature. In other words, his careless decisions were sometimes just that, careless and crass. Fortunately, Zarian had plenty of time during the past three decades to work past that and rework how to use Lion Prince.

He went against the flow of causality. He went after Para to talk to her. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

Unfortunately, as soon as he drew close, the flow became too heavy, and Zarian found himself stuck. Worse yet, the darkness rippled, and a familiar form revealed herself to block off the way to Para for certain.

“She’s mine,” Zarian grunted.

Ariana smirked. “It’s up to her to choose now. You’ve made sure of that, old man.”

“You really had me fooled for a long time. But the time spent away from you has really changed my perspective. For one, you’re full of shit. And two, you’re afraid of what would happen if I could surpass my nature without you.”

She lost her smirk and scowled. “So it’s like that, huh?”

“It’s always been like that, I just didn’t have the time to realize it.” Zarian’s tail swept lazily behind him as he glowered at his sister. “With that said, it’s still up to me to save your foolish ass, even if it means I’ll have to show you some tough love.”

“I’m going to bring it all crashing down on your head. Then you’ll know you’re nothing without me. You always were.”

“Nice of you to shed some light on that.” Turning around, Zarian walked away, a broad smile on his face. Okay, maybe he hadn’t aged out of being a shit-talker just yet. He really owed Bianca for making it so easy.