There was one more advantage I turned out to have over Vex, and it was the only thing that might allow me to overcome his advantages over me: Even without my Power of Imagination auto-aim, I had way more control over my released spells than he did. And just because he was faster than me—and not even by that much—didn't mean his spells were faster than mine too. They packed way more of a punch than mine did, but I was actually connecting with my spells, absolutely including the defense debuffing Flame Javelin, a lot more than he was in spite of how fast he was.

Another thing that evened the scales between us was none other than Fiery Deflection. Vex, for all his power, seemed to possess almost nothing in the way of shielding spells, or even, judging from the damage I was doing him, defensive Traits. His class must have been even more offense-focused than mine was—which was certainly saying something. There was also the fact that I had a major evolution going for me and he didn't—this meant that in spite of his substantially higher Sturdiness, the fact that I had a higher percentage bonus helped bridge that gap so that my own Health pool maximum was actually a bit north of 80% of his.

"A'ight, so you got some tricks in ya," he said, casting something new. Whatever this was going to be, he actually needed to take a few seconds to cast it. Unfortunately, he'd successfully tracked my Fiery Deflection and Fire Shield's cooldowns so that neither of them were ready. When he finished the cast, he cupped his hands like he was firing a Kamehameha Wave, but instead of that, a line of blue flame a foot thick emerged. It zig-zagged through the air like a serpent, and homed in on me.

It struck before I could get more distance, and hurt worse than anything he'd cast that had previously managed to hit me. Thanks to the first trial, though, I was more able to cope with the pain than I would have been. Vex hit me with a couple follow-up fireballs, but less because I couldn't evade after the hit and more because I was pretending to be affected more than I was, to drop a Lesser Incendiary Mine hopefully without him noticing.

The stun effect didn't have a chance in hell of working with his Magic Power so much higher than mine, but he was dangerous enough that it'd be useful if he was so much as startled by the unexpected blast. When I'd finally gotten the spell to Level 10, the bonus had turned out to be the ability for me to see a mine after I placed it, in the form of a ghostly orange glow, so at least the attack wasn't likely to backfire on me.

In terms of our remaining Health and Mana, the fight could still go either way at this point. But in the psychological battle, Vex was losing his cool while I was heartened at the fact that so far, I'd pressured him at least as much as he'd pressured me.

On top of that, by now I was getting used to his attack style, to the point that I was able to use Power of Imagination to subtly direct many of his spells that would have hit me away from me. The decreased hit rate didn’t go unnoticed by Vex, and he was getting even more frustrated as a result.

That weird fire snake uber-spell was still trouble, though. It was too persistent to use Invincibility Frames, and another hit from that thing would be enough for me to lose the upper hand. It definitely had to have a big cooldown, but I had a feeling he was waiting for the next chance to cast it during Fiery Deflection’s cooldown.

It’d look a lot more obvious for me to divert that spell, but I saw little choice at this point. I let him bait out Fiery Deflection with one of his swift, but stronger than basic, spells and sure enough, he started readying it as soon as the barrier faded, judging by how long his next spell was taking to cast.

As the blue-flame serpent came at me a second time, I focused on causing it to move back away from me. However, this time I felt some kind of resistance. Most likely, this spell had some kind of manual guidance beyond the normal control that Psych provided.

Vex gritted his teeth as his own control of the spell fought against my Power of Imagination. I had no idea how long the spell could persist, and I wouldn’t be able to keep this up for long, so I did the only thing I could: I steered the serpent to turn around and head right back to him.

His eyes were still hidden by those Kamina glasses, but shock was still obvious on his face as the flames zig-zagged toward him. “How?! No, no no nonononono—GWAAAAAAAAAH!”

The damage Vex took from his own attack was severe. I wouldn’t need many hits to finish him off, now. He looked practically ready to collapse as he spoke.

“Damn...I didn’t think you’d have such a good cheat. It’s weird that you didn’t even use an item for it, too.”

“You mad bro?” I didn’t stop my own attacks...though he seemed to have more or less given up, making an effort to avoid my attacks but no longer retaliating.

“Naw man...cheating’s built in to the rules of the Tower. You’ll see what I mean sooner or later. I think I might have gotten the wrong idea, when he told me I’d been wasting my potential. Seeing how you fight, I think I understand it now...”

“He? He who?”

“Ahahahahaha...wouldn’t you like to know? But my death won’t be in vain, at least. Someday, I know you’ll see it—that peace ain’t worth fighting for in the Tower.”

His HP hit 0 while he was still speaking, but he was able to persist enough to gasp out a few more words. “And when you do—the Syndicate will be waiting for ya. Because though I may...die here...we...are...eternaaaaaaal!”

He finally collapsed. Well dang. His last words were actually really badass.