Crippled

Chapter 8

Boost!]

The gem set in the back of his hand glowed brightly even as he crafted a circled a circle underneath his feet, formed with a calculation done in a single moment.

He couldn't afford to waste a single second in this.

The circle launched him backwards just as the veritable missile of pure magic slammed into the ground he occupied, cratering the ground with ease.

Calculations ran through Issei's head, taking in the numbers flashing almost nauseatingly everywhere. He resisted the urge to close his eyes and look away, instead finding and sifting through the information they carried, immediately dismissing useless parts and gathering everything that could help in the construction of the circle he had in mind.

The design in his head disappeared quickly, thrown into disarray when an elaborate chain of magic twisted and crawled from a single kanji symbol that had sprouted underneath him.

It threatened to swallow him up, walls of light growing in eight directions around him, quickly closing in around him hungrily.

[Boost!]

He felt his reserves grow, felt his own power double in a sudden influx that actually caught him off-guard.

The shock lasted only for a split second, prioritizing the reality that was now pressing against him with painful pressure.

Issei twitched his left hand, Boosted Gear shining brightly. He pushed his magic through it, made more effective, made more potent now.

Japanese magic, specifically Kanji-based ones were not his specialty, barely even touching upon the subject matter.

In the instant he had, he couldn't unravel the threads that made up the elegantly woven creation, the construct being too complex, too much material making up the whole of it.

So he made do with brute force.

A wave of magic flowed from him, twisting and straining and tearing, none of his usual deliberation and calculation in them, the situation not permitting him to do so. The magic broke against the barrier, the construct rebuffing the advances but not even it was capable of holding for too long. The magic flooded outwards once the ethereal walls of the barrier broke, a torrent finally free to do what it wanted, and what it wanted was to break free.

Issei immediately latched onto them before they could disperse into the air, instead reigning them in for another offensive.

[Boost!]

'Good timing.' Issei thought, control over the raging magic growing exponentially, finally bringing it to heel.

He gathered it in his left hand, arm shaking from the strain of containing the power.

Issei carefully trained it on his target, erecting an eight-pointed defensive circle around himself, creating multiple redundancies.

It wouldn't hold, he knew that, especially not against an earnest attack. The onslaught of power aimed at him was too powerful for his shield to last for more than a second against such a sustained assault.

He 'parted' the circle, a single point of exit where he'd fire the gathered energy.

It launched from his palm, the force of its departure actually pushing him back, sending him skidding against the ground, nearly forcing him to let go of his cane if it weren't for a fumbling catch.

The condensed beam of pure concentrated magic was hot, ridiculously so, and Issei could feel his hand grow uncomfortably warm even through the temperature barrier he had hastily set up over himself.