“I’m so sorry,” Veyra said. “Really, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I said. “You’re here now. That’s all that matters.”

  The Emerald Aurora was white and green, with colors that I’d never seen on Veyra. Its silky fabric could only belong to a support mage. Veyra wasn’t in her element at all wearing it, and that showed from her uncomfortable posture.

  I grabbed her into a tight hug. “How does everything you wear look so damn good?”

  “Oh, shut up,” Veyra said. “I look like some fairy. And you can’t just hug me on the Worlds stage, Aiden…”

  “You’ll destroy them, right?” I asked.

  “That’s the plan,” she said. “But no promises.”

  “They’ll make mistakes,” I said. “Even if you can’t imagine any openings, they’ll create some.”

  We stayed in the hug, until she said, “I’ll do my best.”

  “Perfect,” I said. “You can count on me.”

  Annath and her guild had the exact same item set that they’d knocked us to the losers’ bracket with. We didn’t need to study them. Our plans were already set, and we were ready to start. Annath saw Veyra’s set for the first time now, however, making it their turn to discuss whether they needed to change strategies.

  I doubted they would change plans. In their eyes, the Emerald Aurora wouldn’t change much. Veyra would do slightly less damage without the quick-casting buff of her old robe, and I’d be slightly tankier. Really, the healing buff would have only been truly overpowered in the Guild PvP tournament when spread for the full front line. For a single person, it would have around the same effect that an upper mid-game support player would have if they were to focus solely on buffing me. The robe was still pretty damn good, but it was far from an instant win.

  “How long do you think you’ll need to stack ten blessings?” I asked.

  “I found a bug this morning,” Veyra said. “Or if it’s not a bug, it’s poor design. The spell needs me to land any damage for a stack to apply. Zero-point-zero-one damage is enough. I can stack it pretty much instantly.”

  I smirked. “Nice.”

  There wasn’t much else to discuss that we hadn’t already. We both had our own jobs to perform for the match. From now on, we’d both need to enter the zone as quickly as possible. Talking and planning would hinder that. Our margin for error was next to none.

  In my head, I went over our win conditions once more. Ultimately, the only way we could win this would be if I could stack myself to over a thousand defence at minimum. I had to keep the defence up and either kill Annath through any heals she’d receive, or I’d need to kill both of their supports with my increased attack force stat. Veyra also had to stay alive throughout the whole fight, and she’d need to keep at least one enemy support mage distracted.

  Understanding our own win conditions was necessary. But much more importantly, we had to understand the enemy's win conditions; our instant lose conditions.

  There were almost too many to count.

  If Prancer or Miko landed any crowd control on me—snares, stuns, slows, taunts, anything that hindered my movement—Annath could easily finish me off. Miko’s swamp, [Warlock’s Territory], was the biggest problem, but beyond that, Prancer had multiple spells that would instantly end the fight if he landed a direct hit.

  [Binding Illumination] was the most dangerous one I had to keep an eye for. The spell was a direct projectile that would snare my feet to the ground if it as much as grazed my skin. Miko also had [Sigil Of Impairment], which was essentially the same thing, but with a more visible cast animation. And, of course, they’d have [Heaven’s Prison], which was similar to [Absolute Zero], except it shot down from the sky.

  Veyra would help by drawing attention to herself, but it was my responsibility to not get hit by any spells that would lead to my death. I’d need to listen to audio cues and watch casting animations while dueling Annath. Easier said than done.

  The one good thing was that with Emerald Aurora’s effect active, my resistances would be pretty good. As in, I would have the same resistances that an ordinary sword fighter player would have. Prancer and Miko could do damage to me with offensive spells, but they would need three to five direct hits to kill me, and they’d need to land those in quick succession, or Emerald Aurora would heal me. Annath’s [Curse Of The Devourer] would be less effective thanks to the resistances as well.

  The start of the fight would still be insanely difficult. If Annath landed a good hit before I had defence stacked up, we’d just lose, no questions asked. In our previous match, Miko and Prancer hadn’t even buffed her. They only used [Warlock’s Territory], and they’d still dominated us.

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  We were kind of hoping Annath would be cocky again, hoping to beat us with as little resources as she could. If she treated her support mages like a safety net, that could give us an easy round one.

  Or, well, round two. We’d lost round one, and we could lose one more. We needed three wins, and if we got even one win, Annath would definitely bring out everything she had.

  And after all of those problems, I had to take Emerald Aurora’s downtime into account after its effect ran out and Veyra had to replenish it. I had to make sure Annath wouldn’t suddenly dash to Veyra instead, and ideally I had to keep track of her portal’s cooldown.

  And even if I tracked everything listed perfectly, we could still lose to some unexpected bullshit. Annath just had tenfold more win conditions at her disposal than we did.

  The only advantage I had over her was that I knew, with absolute certainty, that my Goddess was way better at the game than either of Annath’s two goons.

  The Celestial Order finally readied up.

  ***

  The match started, and Veyra cast [Astral Defiance] on Aiden right away.

  If she played perfectly optimally, she would have saved the skill to use it last second just before he died, but focusing on that would have taken too much mental space. Aiden would get himself quickly killed anyway, regardless of when [Astral Defiance] was cast.

  Veyra imagined each runic pattern of her spell rotation one more time, while listing enemy cooldowns.

  Sigil Of Impairment, eight-point-six seconds. Warlock’s Territory, seven-point-two. Searshot, fifteen-point-eight…

  I’m ready.

  I’m ready.

  I am ready.

  She did not feel ready. She couldn’t be ready against Celestial Order’s monster of a roster. Veyra had played with all of these players for almost two years. Miko and Prancer together were good.

  Preparations were over. It was time to put this new goddamned support robe to use.

  She poured mana into her staff, a process which also used imagination, and she initiated the runic pattern for ice magic: a cross with a vertical line through the middle. Further patterns would specify which spell she wanted to cast, while leaving it at just that indicated freehanded ice magic.

  To her, quick-casting was like drawing and rhythm games combined to create art in her head. She wasn’t forced to follow a rhythm, per se, but keeping a tempo gave her consistency. If she missed even one branch of a spell’s pattern, her magic would not fire.

  Freehanded magic also used the imagination, but more directly. She formed the image of a little ball of hail, and her vision came to reality. She visualized another, and one by one, balls of hail came into existence. She copied dozens in the span of two seconds. Prancer and Miko were already casting their buffs onto Annath, while metal clinked as Annath pressed her advantage against Aiden.

  She aimed her staff at the enemy back line with the balls of hail levitating on its tip, ready to be shot. She fired at the battlefield, showering everyone with a burst of hail.

  Many hit Aiden in the back, a few hit Annath’s armor, and some sprayed off to the backline. The attack was a waste of mana, each impact doing less than one damage.

  But with each undodgeable impact, Spirit Of Dawnsong registered her hitting an opponent, which procced its healing effect. And since a healing effect was procced, blessings made it to Aiden. Emerald Aurora’s passive was fully stacked.

  Veyra activated the blessings, making Aiden’s body glow. Tiny green butterfly spirits floated around his body, giving him the buff.

  Miko and Prancer got their first turn of spells in as well. [Warlock’s Territory] hindered Aiden’s movement, and Prancer buffed Annath with [Wisp Of Enhancement].

  Aiden [Shadow Dashed] to get out of the swamp, dashing through Annath and hitting her from behind. His daggers clinked against her armor, stealing a little bit of defence and avoiding the swamp, though this angle put him in the middle of all three opponents, giving Prancer and Miko free reign to shoot skills at him.

  Veyra trusted him to survive for three more seconds.

  She positioned herself behind Aiden like a good support mage. Nobody was paying attention to her. In their eyes, her role had been reduced to a support mage, and a sub-par one at that. She wasn’t a threat to anyone.

  She placed a sneaky portal behind her, and another behind Prancer and Miko.

  Then she initiated the runic pattern for [Time Freeze].

  She passed the annoying zig-zag pattern of time magic, with a line going through to combine ice magic, followed by a convoluted Y-shape. [Time Freeze] had the second most complex pattern out of the spells she knew next to [Funeral Sun]. The pattern kept growing with multiple turns, shapes she had to draw perfectly in her mind or the spell could fail entirely.

  Admittedly, her tempo wasn’t any faster today than it usually was. Miracles weren’t going to happen. If she pushed herself too hard, she risked failing a cast entirely. But she was still much faster than system casting.

  Two seconds later, when [Time Freeze] was almost done, Prancer finally spotted Veyra’s casting in the quiet back line. He frowned for a second, confused.

  When he realized what was about to happen to him, it was too late.

  Veyra fell into the portal she’d cast prior. She rose on the other side, and a fully charged [Time Freeze] erupted, freezing the air itself.

  Miko’s health bar fell to 57%, Prancer’s to 43%.

  I am not, Veyra thought, a support mage!

  Prancer gritted his teeth and started quick-casting [Wisp Of Major Healing], and Miko system-cast [Flame Lungs].

  Her staff glowed with mana as she passed the pattern for [Absolute Zero], freezing Prancer on the spot and interrupting his spell. With half a second remaining, she finished [Elemental Barrier] just in time as Miko breathed fire, making her take minimal damage. She flicked an icicle in Prancer’s head while he was still frozen.

  [Pendulum of Lost Hours - Pendulum Swing Active Conditions Met]

  [Upon dropping below 30% mana, the next spell is free of mana-cost.]

  She cast her second most mana-costly spell, [Chronorift], and Miko and Prancer were forced to jump back, too slow to counter with spells of their own. That left her with a moment of calm to drink a mana potion, and she started to cast the last of her high-tier spells that wasn’t on cooldown, [Ray Of Time].

  The real exchange of spells began.