The question hung in the quiet air of Villa 1. It felt heavier than the suffocating pressure of Nyx's Justiciar aura.
"Do you want my Authority?"
Vane stared up at the girl straddling his chest. His mind systematically broke down the situation. He was intimately aware of how the Usurper worked. It was the tool that had kept him alive in the mud of Oakhaven long before Zenith Academy was even a thought in his mind.
He did not steal. He copied. He replicated the abilities of others, leaving the original perfectly intact. To copy a simple skill, the Usurper required a bridge to bypass the natural defenses of a mage's soul. That bridge could be profound emotional intimacy, or it could be purely physical. In the slums of Oakhaven, Vane had only ever used sex. He had spent countless nights in dingy taverns, buying cheap ale for passing mercenary mages, using physical intimacy as a pure transaction to copy the combat skills he needed to survive the brutal gang wars of his home.
