He began to glow, to turn orange and red as if he had been lit on fire, and then he swung his axe at Lucas, chopping downward. The two were separated by more than forty feet, but Lucas naturally dodged to the side regardless—and he was glad that he had when an inch-thick gash appeared on the floor where he had been standing.

“Crap. We shoulda just killed him,” Nick groaned, leveling his staff at Kegan.

Kegan didn’t wait for the spell to go off. He leapt up into the air and crossed the room in a single bound, arcing over twenty feet upward into the air. Nick adjusted his staff and aimed it at an upward angle, but by the time he fired, Kegan had already closed the distance between himself and Nick. The Chain Lightning spell that should have struck a far-off target instead exploded on someone inches away from its caster, causing the spell to not only strike Kegan but Nick as well.

That six-foot range is no joke, Lucas thought as he watched the electricity from what Lucas knew to be three charges of Chain Lightning bounce back and forth between Kegan and Nick. The energy from the Lightning singed off the hair on Kegan’s body, leaving him completely hairless right down to his eyebrows, but it didn’t stop his fury. He took his axe and cleaved Nick’s already-dead and melted body in two, a globular line of blood streaming from the blade of his axe as it continued on its way as if Nick’s flesh were a mere illusion.

The only comfort that Lucas could take from the exchange was the knowledge that it seemed as if Kegan had taken damage as well. The orange-and-red glow surrounding him had faded, and he was covered in burn marks and charred-looking skin left behind from Nick’s attack. Kegan let out a primitive-sounding, guttural cry, and his aura was reignited.

“We have to kill him quickly! That glow on him is his Chi,” Bonnie explained.

It’s a Chi attack? Lucas suddenly understood how the boss had such reach with his blade. Chi attacks were a primary skill set for almost all Fighter-based classes. Once a warrior began training in a martial discipline, whether it was unarmed combat, a melee weapon, or even something like archery, Chi allowed them to use their Stamina bar to charge up and unleash special attacks. The ones Lucas had seen in most videos were nearly instant and often short-ranged, and it was one of the reasons Spell-Staffs, who used both Chi and Arcane Energy to channel attacks, were so deadly: They had both instant and chargeable, short and long-ranged attacks.