The sound of an imaginary gunshot tore through the air. I braced myself for the imminent impact, convinced that a lethal wound, or even death, awaited me. But then, in a fraction of a second that seemed to unfold with exasperating slowness, I glimpsed it: a sharp, elongated lance, forged from pure bone, sliced through the atmosphere with a menacing whistle. Reinhardt, having just completed his silent incantation, had unleashed a spell. The lance flew toward the man like an arrow, forcing him to execute an evasive maneuver. His aim faltered, allowing me to roll through the muddy ground, dodging the attack by mere millimeters.
Simultaneously, Reinhardt raised his arm forward and chanted an intricate incantation. The words resonated in the air with a hypnotic cadence. Upon concluding his litany, the ground trembled slightly beneath our feet, and from nowhere emerged five skeletal warriors, immaculately white, wielding knives of bone as sharp as ceremonial razors. With an imperceptible gesture from Reinhardt, they charged toward the man, their weapons gleaming under the dim light filtering into the alley.
I stood paralyzed in awe as I watched from a distance. It was the first time I had witnessed with my own eyes the mysterious necromancy of sorcerers manifesting, that magic which manipulated the very essence of death. My curiosity burned like an unquenchable flame, and I fixed my gaze on the macabre spectacle, unable to look away for a single moment.
Upon activating my spiritual vision, I perceived how the man's soul glowed with orange flickers, an unmistakable sign of his non-human nature.
Upon consuming the stellar core of a mutant, the soul of the Enlightened became altered, which could trigger hallucinations, uncontrollable impulses, or even physical transformations reflecting the struggle between their humanity and the stellar energy they attempted to contain.
Spiritual vision, the innate ability I had awakened, allowed me to discern souls in nine primary shades, each imbued with a unique meaning, like levels on a scale of threats and predetermined destinies, revealing the essence of each being: their deepest emotions, accumulated experiences, luminous virtues, and dark sins, all manifested in vibrant colors dancing before me. Orange meant "do not approach," a stark warning suggesting that this man harbored a danger far greater than he appeared.
The colors of souls not only indicated the degree of corruption but also their potential level of danger. Pure human souls, those untainted by stellar energy, shone in blue tones; yellow signaled "attention required," but not an imminent threat. True dangers were the orange souls—"do not approach"—red souls—"immediate retreat"—or, worse still, black as the abyss, whose meaning I preferred not to even imagine.
The man, unfazed by our resistance, raised both arms with theatrical elegance and unleashed a barrage of invisible shots, each laden with the devastating force of a real projectile. I dove to the side in desperation, dodging clumsily as the summoned skeletons disintegrated into bone fragments with each devastating impact. I rolled across the ground, crouched among the debris, zigzagged through obstacles, advancing meter by meter toward the man with fierce determination. Finally, mere centimeters from him, I adopted a combat stance, leaned my torso forward, and launched a devastating punch directly at his geometric face.
The air vibrated with a shuddering crack, but not from the expected impact. The man's body shattered into a thousand pieces, as if it were a mirror breaking apart, and the shards dissolved into the atmosphere like ephemeral wisps of smoke. In a bewildering blink, he reappeared a few steps away, emerging from the alley's shadows with a silhouette that materialized gradually from absolute nothingness.
His body was a masterful illusion! Everything had been part of an elaborate performance!
The man resumed his offensive with renewed vigor, firing lethal bursts of compressed air toward Reinhardt and me, appearing and vanishing at completely unpredictable moments that defied any logical pattern.
¡Estallido!
Amid the illusory shot, I abruptly halted my advance. I didn't counterattack as I had initially planned. Mud splashed violently in front of my feet as a real bullet struck mere meters from my position. It was extremely difficult to distinguish the authentic from the fictitious, the tangible reality from the deceptive illusion, even with my spiritual vision fully activated.
Reinhardt raised his pale hand toward the sky, and a deadly rain of bone arrows flew toward our enemy. The man ducked with superhuman agility, but he wasn't fast enough: one arrow grazed his split hat, which flew off and crashed to the ground with a dull thud, while another opened a visible wound on his shoulder, from which a strange, viscous liquid oozed.
Rolling across the uneven pavement to evade the remaining arrows, the man climbed the alley walls with the astonishing agility of a primate, his frantic and disjointed movements proving disturbing to watch. From his elevated position, he fired precise compressed-air bullets with his finger-pistol, each whistling dangerously close to our vulnerable bodies. Suddenly, he stopped inexplicably, scratching his ears with a mocking smile that distorted his geometric face, as if this entire confrontation were nothing more than a trivial game to his twisted mind.
I thought he would escape, that he would vanish into the darkness of the night like a nightmare upon waking. But then, a familiar and terrifying sound shattered the sepulchral silence: the unmistakable echo of a real gunshot. A bullet pierced the man's chest with the relentless speed of a lightning bolt, drawing a guttural lament from him, a sound that didn't belong to the human repertoire but rather something broken and profoundly tragic that made my skin crawl. He fell to the ground with a dull thud that reverberated through the alley, the ensuing silence so oppressive it seemed to devour the very air we breathed.
Trembling like an autumn leaf, the man struggled to his feet, pressing the bleeding wound in his stomach with his right hand. Then, with a deliberately slow movement, he felt his left arm with a confused expression. The wound in his abdomen vanished before our astonished eyes, as if it had never existed, but his left arm tore open suddenly, revealing a gleaming silver bullet embedded in the mangled flesh.