I Transmigrated Into a Weak Body

Chapter 6

Voss flinched, instinctively tightening his shield. "Fool!" the Inquisitor shouted over the roar of the flames. "Your fire cannot penetrate the barrier! The heat cannot reach me!"

"I don't need the heat to reach you," Brandon yelled back. "I need the fire to eat!" 

Fire is a chemical reaction. It requires three things to exist: fuel, heat, and oxygen. The highly volatile solvent provided the fuel and the heat. But it needed oxygen to keep burning. And a fire that large, burning that intensely, consumes oxygen at a terrifying rate. 

The roaring circle of flames around Voss’s feet acted like a vacuum. It aggressively sucked all the available oxygen out of the surrounding air to fuel itself. And because Voss’s shield allowed gasses to pass through, the fire pulled the oxygen straight out of the inside of the kinetic bubble. 

In less than three seconds, the localized atmosphere inside Voss's shield was completely stripped of oxygen. 

Voss opened his mouth to laugh again, but no sound came out. 

Instead, the Inquisitor gasped. His eyes widened in sudden, absolute panic. He clawed at his own throat, taking a deep, desperate breath, but there was nothing there. It was like trying to breathe underwater. He was suffocating in a vacuum of his own making. 

"Magic is just energy, Voss," Brandon said quietly, watching the Inquisitor struggle. "And energy obeys the laws of thermodynamics. You built an impenetrable fortress, but you forgot to give it ventilation." 

Voss stumbled backward, his silver mask slipping as his face turned dark red. Panic overrode his magical concentration. The human brain requires a constant flow of oxygen to function. Without it, the mind breaks down rapidly. 

The Inquisitor's arm, which had been raised to choke Veronica, suddenly fell limp to his side. 

The invisible grip vanished. 

Veronica dropped to the floor with a heavy thud, gasping loudly, coughing, and pulling desperate lungfuls of air into her chest. 

Voss fell to his knees in the center of the dying fire. The solvent was burning out, but the damage to Voss’s brain was already done. His eyes rolled wildly. The shimmering, impenetrable kinetic shield flickered, cracked like broken glass, and shattered into a million fading sparks of light. 

The barrier was down. 

Brandon did not hesitate. He did not wait for the Inquisitor to catch his breath. In this brutal world, mercy was a luxury he could not afford. 

He snatched a long, heavy copper pipe off the worktable. The pipe was sharply angled at the end, meant for funneling liquids. Brandon gripped it with both hands like a spear. 

He lunged across the room, stepping over the dying embers of the solvent fire. 

Voss looked up, gasping weakly, his hands reaching out to try and summon his magic again. "Wait..." the Inquisitor wheezed, his eyes wide with fear. 

Brandon drove the sharp, angled end of the copper pipe directly into the center of Inquisitor Voss’s throat. 

The pipe pierced the flesh, sinking deep into the Inquisitor’s neck, pinning him backward onto the stone floor. Blood bubbled violently around the copper metal. Voss’s eyes bulged, his hands weakly grabbing at Brandon’s arms, but the fight was over. The Inquisitor gave one final, violently shuddering breath, and went entirely still. 

Brandon stood over the dead man, breathing heavily. His hands were shaking. He had just killed an Inquisitor of the Sun-King. He had killed a man who commanded the magic of gods. And he had done it with a puddle of dirty solvent and a broken piece of glass. 

"Brandon..." Veronica croaked from the corner. She was sitting up, rubbing her badly bruised neck. 

Brandon let go of the copper pipe and turned to check on her. "It's over, El. It's okay now." 

But as he turned, a strange, sickening squelch sounded behind him. 

Brandon spun back around. 

Something was happening to Voss’s body. The Inquisitor’s white coat began to burn away at the chest, revealing the pale skin beneath. Carved directly into the dead man’s heart was a complex, glowing red symbol. It looked like a multi-pointed star surrounded by jagged, thorn-like runes. 

The symbol was not just glowing; it was moving. It was writhing like a nest of glowing red snakes beneath the dead skin. 

“What the hell is that?” Brandon thought, taking a step back. 

Suddenly, the red symbol tore itself completely out of Voss’s chest. It leaped into the air like a living, predatory insect made of pure, burning light. 

Before Brandon could react, the glowing red symbol shot across the room at impossible speed. It bypassed his defensive block entirely and slammed violently into the back of Brandon’s right hand. 

The pain was instantaneous and absolute. 

It was worse than the beating in the alley. It felt as if someone had poured boiling acid directly into his veins. Brandon screamed, a raw, primal sound of agony. He collapsed to his knees, gripping his right wrist with his left hand, trying desperately to tear the burning light off his skin. 

But it wasn't on his skin. It was burning SimmonsintoSimmons him. 

The red symbol seared itself deeply into the flesh of his right hand, the jagged, thorny lines spreading out like roots, wrapping around his knuckles and creeping up his forearm. 

Brandon fell onto his side, convulsing in the dirt. His vision went white. His heart beat so fast he thought his chest would explode. He could feel the foreign magic forcefully merging with his nervous system, invading his body, mapping his veins, and latching onto his very soul. 

He was being branded. 

Through the blinding haze of pain, he heard Veronica screaming his name. But her voice sounded like it was underwater, fading away into the dark. 

The last thing Brandon saw before he lost consciousness was the glowing red brand on his hand, pulsing with a sinister, rhythmic heartbeat that was not his own.