Absolute Being: I Am Nothing-Chapter 99: Deep Thoughts

The pressure was immense. Moore could feel it pressing against his ancient bones, testing the limits of his power. Around him, the young competitors were struggling—Lysandra’s flames flickering, Theron’s ice cracking, Kael’s teleports becoming shorter and more frantic.

Moore raised his voice, cutting through the oppressive weight.

"Remember your training!"

His words carried a subtle magic—not enough to counter Dagon’s presence, but enough to focus minds, to cut through fear.

"Lysandra! What’s the first rule of fire against overwhelming force?"

The girl’s eyes snapped to him, her jaw tight with effort. "Don’t match power. Match strategy."

"Then stop trying to burn him and start thinking about what you can burn around him!"

Understanding flickered in her eyes. Her flames shifted—no longer directed at Dagon himself, but at the ground beneath him, the air around him, creating barriers of heat that distorted vision and limited movement.

"Theron! Ice against a god?"

"Containment, not destruction." The boy’s voice was strained but clear. "I can’t freeze him, but I can freeze his options."

"Then do it!"

Ice spread across the arena floor, not toward Dagon but around him—walls, barriers, obstacles that channeled movement, limited escape routes, created a cage of frozen possibility.

"Kael! Spatial manipulation against an opponent who probably understands space better than you do?"

Kael appeared beside Moore, breathing hard. "Don’t try to outmaneuver him. Try to out-time him. Small shifts, not big jumps."

"Good. Keep him guessing. Never be where he expects, never stay still long enough to predict."

Kael vanished again, his teleports becoming shorter, more erratic—frustrating rather than flashy.

Moore turned to the others, the dozens of young mages who had gathered despite their fear.

"Stoneheart! Your defenses won’t stop him. But they might slow him. Use them to protect each other, not to face him alone."

The Stoneheart boy nodded, his earthen barriers rising not against Dagon but around Lysandra and Theron, giving them cover to work.

"Thunder! Your lightning is fast, but he’s faster. Don’t aim at him. Aim at what he might do, where he might move. Prediction, not reaction."

Crackling energy shifted, no longer targeting Dagon directly but tracing patterns in the air, creating webs of potential that would catch him if he moved certain ways.

Moore moved through them all, a calm center in the storm, giving each competitor a specific role, a specific task, a way to contribute that didn’t require matching a god’s power directly. He wove them together like threads in a tapestry, creating something greater than any of them could achieve alone.

And as he worked, his mind drifted.

Thirty-five years, he thought. Thirty-five years I’ve spent in this world, pretending to be a simple tutor, watching these people grow.

It had started as strategy. A way to observe Dagon’s awakening, to prepare for the moment when the god would finally move. But somewhere along the way, strategy had become something else.

He remembered his own childhood—if it could be called that. Born with a half-formed skull, a face that made others flinch, he had never known kindness. Never known acceptance. The other children had run from him. The adults had whispered prayers for protection. He had grown up alone, in the shadows, learning to fight because fighting was the only thing that didn’t require anyone to look at him.

And now, here, in this world he had helped build, he had given others what he never had.

Lysandra, whose parents had died when she was young, found a mentor who believed in her. Theron, whose family’s expectations threatened to crush him, found a teacher who valued control over power. Kael, the anomaly with no clan and no history, found a place where being different was interesting rather than threatening.

They didn’t know his true face. They didn’t know about the scarred, half-formed skull beneath the illusion he wore. They knew Moore—kind, patient, impossibly knowledgeable Moore—and they loved him for who he was, not how he looked.

If they saw me, he wondered. If they knew what I really am... would they still look at me the same way?

He didn’t know. He might never know. But for now, in this moment, he was exactly where he was supposed to be.

A teacher. A mentor. A guide.

Home.

The thought surprised him. He hadn’t felt that word in millennia.

Dagon’s laughter snapped him back to the present. The god was watching their preparations with genuine amusement, making no move to interfere.

"Clever," Dagon said. "You’ve trained them well, old man. They work together like a single organism. Coordinated. Efficient." His eyes narrowed. "But coordination only matters if you can actually hurt me."

Moore straightened, meeting the god’s gaze.

"You’re right," he said calmly. "We probably can’t hurt you. Not seriously. Not permanently." He smiled. "But that’s not the point."

"Then what is the point?"

Moore looked at the young faces around him—frightened but determined, uncertain but willing. He thought of everything they’d learned, everything they’d become, everything they still could be.

"The point," he said, raising his voice so they could all hear, "is that you’re not fighting to win. You’re fighting to learn. To test yourselves against something that should be impossible. To discover what you’re truly capable of when there’s no safety net, no backup, no second chances."

He turned back to Dagon.

"Thirty-five years ago, this world was saved by one boy with power beyond comprehension. He gave us peace. He gave us time. He gave us the chance to become something more." He spread his arms, encompassing the arena, the competitors, the entire stadium. "And we took that chance. We built. We grew. We evolved. These children—these brilliant, talented, courageous children—are the proof."

Dagon was silent, watching.

"So go ahead," Moore said. "Show them what a god can do. Show them the full extent of your power. Give them something to measure themselves against." His voice rose, filled with pride and love and fierce determination. "And when you’re done, when you think you’ve taught them fear—they’ll show you what they’ve learned."

He looked at Lysandra, at Theron, at Kael, at all the others.

"Go all out," he said quietly. "All of you. Hold nothing back. Show this god what Magicka has become."

For a heartbeat, nothing moved.

Then Lysandra’s flames erupted—not the controlled fire of before, but a blazing inferno that turned the arena into a furnace. Theron’s ice answered, not competing but complementing, creating steam that obscured vision and carried burning heat. Kael flickered through a dozen positions in a second, his spatial distortions making it impossible to track him.

The others joined in—Stoneheart raising barriers that channeled the chaos, Thunder adding lightning that danced through the steam, a dozen bloodlines contributing their unique gifts to the assault.

Dagon’s eyes widened.

Not with fear. With something else.

Wonder.

This, Moore thought, watching his students fight, this is why I stayed.

And for the first time in his long, lonely existence, he felt like he truly belonged.