“Svena? I have a bad feeling about this.”

  Svena, face covered in grime and exhaustion even through the faceplate of her power armor, gave her closest elven friend a bemused look, before turning to regard the pair of imperial agents standing beside their employer, all three now staring at Svena and her companions like bugs under a microscope.

  “Yeah, I don’t particularly like the look of Lord Song’s friends, either. But we’re already in their sights. Really, it’s not so surprising considering the Calamity-Tier nightmare those fucking locusts are turning into. They’re probably compiling an imperial report and getting accounts from everyone whose survived running into those things.” She gave Elly a reassuring smile, sensing her companion’s clear anxiety, speaking in a quiet, soothing tone. “Far better that we answer their questions and get this over with than pull a runner and actually earn their undivided attention. Besides, we owe it to our employer to at least tender our resignation.”

  Elly dipped her head, agreeing in principle as she took careful measure of their employer who was presently taking his ease on the padded chrome chair before him, a pair of aloof-looking uniformed servants awaiting his beck and call to his left side, the pair of cold-eyed inquisitors decked in glossy black body armor with arcane blasters at their hips to their employer’s right. Elly frowned. According to her Magesight, the Inquisitor’s weapons didn’t seem to be effected by the mana fluctuations at all.

  Lord Song, possessing salt and pepper hair, the only sign of his age, and flawless, chiseled features that might have been handsome if his eyes weren’t so damn cold, actually gave them the tiniest of nods. As if finding their presence...satisfactory.

  Even Bennett, much to Elly’s relief, had stopped at the periphery of their employer’s camp, sensing the unexpected tension in the air. A full dozen of Lord Song’s mercenaries were also in attendance, equipped as well as one could be when almost all power armor was now on the fritz, were giving them equally intent looks.

  But the tension seemed to lift with their employer’s smile.

  “Rising Sun. How good of you to arrive. You’re the first company to do so. I look forward to your report.” Lord Song, dipped his head with a hard smile for the pair of imperial officers beside him. “Our friends here are serving as part of an emergency convoy sent here to investigate the anomaly. We hope you can shed some light on matters?”

  These words caused Bennett’s honed caution to thaw into a smile. “Of course, Lord Song.”

  Bennett exchanged a quick glance with Elly, as if to assure they would keep certain secrets close. He then stepped forward, earning a glare for daring to approach a noble of Song’s rank in their present state before he collected himself. “Apologies,” he said with a sheepish smile. “It’s been a very long couple of days.” As one, the company took off their helmets, and Elly was grateful that they didn’t have to completely strip in the field the same as they would for meeting nobility on more civilized worlds.

  Song dipped his head. “You have your report?”

  “Of course, Your Grace.”

  Bennett stepped forward to present the chip in his hand.

  A servant rushed to his side before he was within three feet of Lord Song, claiming the chip with a bow.

  “Excellent. Now, what can you tell me of the other companies that had joined you in triangulating the rift we sought?”

  Bennett swallowed. “I’m afraid they didn’t make it, sir.”

  The cool smile on Lord Song’s face vanished into a hard-eyed glare, the pair of imperial agents now staring dead-on at Elly and her friends.

  “Explain. Everything. Never mind the report. I want to heart it all from your lips. Leave no details out, Captain Bennett.”

  At that moment one of the inquisitor’s raised a clenched fist, his jeweled bracelet flashing as a wall of shimmering light abruptly formed, surrounding both Inquisitors, Lord Song, and Rising Sun Corp, and cutting off everyone else from view.

  Elly frowned, hating privacy fields that somehow always worked in their employer’s favor.

  Bennett saluted. “Yes, Sir!” He then gave a concise but thorough accounting, making careful detailed note of their original textbook reconnaissance before everything went sideways, and they were suddenly fighting for their lives agains sudden unexpected encounters with numerous anomalies in the form of both mantises and the locust swarm.

  And how chilling it was to see even Lord Song pause, for all that he played it off as if it had been his intention all along to dip his head to the inquisitors.

  Hard eyes glared into their own. “You claim that you fought mantises… and then locusts? Nothing else?” The man flashed an icy smile. “No… local boss-tier abominations or other anomalies that it is specifically against the Terran charters for mercenaries to engage with, in any and all circumstances?”

  Elly swallowed her sudden flare of anxiety, doing her best to keep her features passive, for all that her guts roiled with the way the man was looking at them. Smiling at them.

  To her mind, he looked less like an impartial officer getting an objective report than he did a predator eager to ambush unsuspecting prey.

  Bennett shook his head. “To the best of my knowledge, we successfully avoided any and all boss-tier encounters, save in cases of self-defense, which are, in fact, permitted in the Universal Accords.

  The Inquisitor’s eyes narrowed. “Save in the case of self-defense, is it? So, you did encounter a boss-tier monster. A boss-tier monster that, for all we know, catalyzed this breach!” The Inquisitor’s eyes flashed with righteous heat, his hand suddenly on the hilt of his blaster. “You will explain the nature of this encounter and this opponent, and you will do so at once!”

  Elly squeezed tight her anxious fists as her guts screamed warning, suddenly feeling like the walls of a trap were springing on them. She exchanged a quick glance with Svena, so much being said with that simple gesture.

  Screw Lord Song, and their flawless record. The man was an arrogant ass and no record was worth getting set up by imperial assholes clearly looking for a scapegoat.

  The other inquisitor frowned their way. Elly froze before the weight of the man’s killing aura… almost as if he could read her mind! Then, of all things, he flashed a sympathetic smile.

  “Ah. You must forgive my companion. It has been a very trying handful of days, as you no doubt know. Please, continue with your report, Captain Bennett. Your honesty shall be the light that burns the darkness away, so do please be so gracious as to leave nothing out.”

  Bennett blinked at the sudden change in tone, before cautiously dipping his head, and continuing. “Of course, officer. After a handful of mantises became a swarm, we feared that the territory was suffering from a wild ascension and might soon risk a breach, flooding the entire region. At that point, we realized that a tactical repositioning and returning with our report had to take precedence over our original mission. Regrettably, fighting our way out of the territory proved to be far more difficult than our original foray, as the entire region is now swarming with locusts.”

  The kind-eyed inquisitor’s nostrils flared. “But that’s not all, is it?”

  Elly’s guts roiled with anxiety. This agent could sense deception even through omission? This was bad. Very, very bad.

  Yet her calmly smiling commander never lost his cool.

  “Yes we did witness a boss-tier monster fight while the mantises were swarming, but the monsters were utterly out of our league. Our only hope was to not catch the eyes of any ravenous killers that might look our way when the fight was over.”

  Naje and Myl nodded in agreement. “It was bad, sir,” said Myl.

  “Real bad,” Naje agreed in a raspy voice, suppressing a shiver.

  Elly’s cheeks flushed. Absolutely hating the fact that what her corpmates had said was technically true. As much as she adored her mixed-blood lover, that too young Contender fought like an absolute savage. A wild wolf that had somehow claimed at least a piece of her heart, much to her own amazement. And the fear her corpmates had felt, when a blood-spattered Ernest had glared their way before forcing his features into a far friendlier smile? She shivered in sudden memory, cheeks flushing at how intoxicating that wild mix of fear and desire had both enticed and seduced her. As much as a tiny corner of her mind could entertain fantasies of taming and claiming that beautiful boy, when they had crossed paths not that many hours ago, Ernest truly had seemed the most fearsome predator in the entire jungle.

  The second imperial agent nodded sympathetically, his magic seemingly finding nothing contradictory with their report. “One can only imagine. Sadly, you’re the only company that has made it out so far, and how grateful we are to have your report! Yet, as well armed and armored as you mercenary companies tend to be, one would think that your fellow companies would have had at least a few survivors, don’t you?”

  Naje gave a sad shake of his head. “Afraid not, sir.”

  “Really?” The inquisitor affected a curious mien. “And why would that be, pray tell?”

  “All their armor started shorting out when the Red region, which was Orange not that many days back, suddenly ascended all the way to Black-Tier territory.” The shorter man scratched his whiskers before shaking his head with genuine regret in his eyes. “We told them all to get out. To flee while they could. Even if they had to surrender their armor, that they didn’t have a full hour’s grace like they might on any other ascending world. Because here on Terra, the mana spikes are damned fast, and the mana spice is especially.. potent. Their armor shorted out in minutes, not hours.”

  The man nodded his head sympathetically. “It must have been awful to hear the desperation in their voices and not be able to help them.”

  Bennett’s brow furrowed slightly, but Naje nodded in complete agreement. In that moment it felt like it was just them and the gentle-eyed inquisitor, who actually seemed to care about their plight.

  “It was, sir. It truly was.”

  “Yet I see that your power armor is fully intact. What a remarkable feat!”

  Naje bowed his head. “And I feel damned guilty that I couldn’t save anyone else, even with this treasure. It was all we could do to fight our way back out of there! No matter the screams we heard on the comms.”

  This earned a commiserating nod from the agent. “Understandable. But you mustn’t blame yourselves! It wasn’t like you could enhance their armor, even if you wanted to! It was simply the wild luck of an ascending planet that you actually managed to cross paths with a Contender capable of pulling up such treasures from a delve, is it not?”

  An exhausted and dazed Elly’s eyes widened, guts screaming warning even as Naje nodded with relief. “That’s correct, sir,” he said. “We lucked out where others didn’t. It’s a miracle we survived that delve, and I’ll always be grateful for the treasures we retrieved.

  The gently smiling Inquisitor steepled his fingers and nodded sympathetically. “Indeed those enchanted power armored suits are impressive. One can almost imagine that a lesser man might think it worth daring delves with wanted criminals guilty of multiple high crimes and acts of terrorism.”

  Naje’s easygoing flow of words cut off with a sudden look of alarm. “Woah, hold on a minute there, bud! We never delved with any terrorists!”

  The formerly kindly-looking Inquisitor’s smile suddenly revealed all his teeth. “The are you formally denying ever meeting or interacting with on Ernest ‘Edgelord’ Slaughter?”

  Naje’s mouth opened in surprised, but no words out.

  The other Inquisitor sneered. “Guilty as sin. All of them!”

  “Yes, we did encounter a Terran by that name,” Bennet boldly declared, stepping in front of a flustered Naje. “He offered us a legitimate contract and we accepted, which is precisely permitted by the Terran Accords!”

  “Really? Are you claiming the Terran Accords gave you the right to aid and abet a known swindler in stealing a fortune and claiming a city that by rights belongs to the Bloodtear Syndicate?” Demanded the first Inquisitor.

  The second nodded, looking every bit as ruthless as his partner. “We have survivor’s accounts depicting the use of multiple undead revenants used in the unjust slaughter of Administrators, Barristers, and the loyal mercenaries valiantly defending their lives.” The coolly smiling Inquisitor’s hands flashed, revealing a vellum document that seemed to pulse with blood and silent screams. Elly flinched away in horror.

  “Here is an account of what really happened the day that Blue Federation broke all law and precedent, conspiring with wanted terrorists and criminals to steal a city, seize an unlawful fortune in gold, and slaughter hundreds of political opponents while doing so.”

  “A travesty of justice!” His partner roared.

  The first inquisitor nodded his agreement. “And this is a document that you all will acknowledge and sign, binding your very souls to its authenticity and legitimacy as the first step in making amends for your many, many transgressions.” The man flashed a pitiless smile. “Not that it will avail you mercy or leniency, mind you. Your crimes are far too significant for that. But your compliance will at least aid us in delivering Freetown to the hands of its rightful owners, and this is just the tip of the reparations that the fallen Blue will be paying to the aggrieved parties, we assure you!”

  Bennett’s eyes flashed with sudden heat. Far from being cowed, Rising Sun's commander looked furious. “This is outrageous! Terra's an ascending world and is in open contention! Territory conquest by any means is permitted and perfectly lawful for any and all native-born Contenders to engage in! Furthermore, we were hired for treasure reclamation and had no truck with any faction warfare, in any case! You think we're fools? You think we can't see how you're twisting events and precedents to suit your own objectives? Clearly, you're in the goblin faction’s pockets! We demand immediate legal represen—”

  The air rang out with Naje and Bennett’s screams even as Elly, eyes wide with alarm, shook out of her daze enough to wonder why the hell she was just standing there in a stupor when those bastards were obviously setting Rising Sun up to take the fall for the bastards they had clearly sold out to. And what was that thing Lord Song was holding in his hands, pulsating with oddly dizzying waves of something…

  They had to get out of this privacy dome and flee this region for neutral territory. Blue Corp territory. Warn them that imperial agents were taking sides. And they had to do so NOW!

  “Svena!”

  Yet before Elly could even turn, the privacy barrier was pierced from the other side by hands wielding crackling truncheons being slammed into the base of Naje, Myl and Bennett’s skull.

  Elly’s heart pounded with terror and dismay. She should have listened to her instincts. Why hadn’t she insisted they just LEAVE when they had the chance? Why had they taken their helmets off for this bastard? Why would imperial agents be interrogating random crews in the middle of an incursion? The whole damned thing had been so fishy she should never have—

  Her thoughts cut off in a burst of blinding pain. She desperately swiveled around and charged through the wall of light, only to be struck three different times by truncheons wielded by the cold eyes mercenaries that of course had been part of this whole damned setup. Because the privacy field hadn’t been to protect secrets, it had been to blind Elly and her friends to how they were all being set up and surrounded! Even now one of the mercs who stunk of orc blood was sneering down at Elly as he roughly tore the armor free of her body before binding her in shock collars and cords.

  “No, do not kill them!” Roared Lord Song. “Remove their armor carefully! They must be alive and consent to surrender for their treasures to be successfully rebonded!”

  Elly mentally screamed with helpless fury even if all she could do physically was whimper as the grunting green-skinned man on top of her slammed her face with his fist with obvious relish while jabbing his shock stick into her jugular with a sadist’s twisted glee.

  “Think you’re better than my kind, you stuck-up elf bitch? Well you’re going to be put in your place right damn quick,” the man—half-orc!—hissed in her ear… before tearing it off with a cold laugh even as his friends finished stripping her bare.

  Yet still, despite the horrific agony she felt, with only a single ear intact, she could hear the conversation occurring over her friends shouts and cries with exquisite clarity.

  A conversation she was damn certain she should never have been able to hear at all.

  “It is done, Adolf.”

  “Good. Don’t forget to clean up the trash when we leave, Song.”

  Song snorted. “Their final meal is already being prepared. So, what’s next for these fools?”

  This earned a cold laugh. “Nazem is already setting up the pain vats. In very short order, they will be signing whatever we put before them before suffering torments beyond their wildest dreams while serving as the key to destroying our new associate’s greatest enemy.”

  Song chuckled. “I told you the New York seers would do whatever it took to survive. Even arrange for that meeting that will change the fate of our entire clan! We shall ascend while assuring that all our enemies crumble and fall!”

  The pair laughed coldly at words that Elly knew she should never have been allowed to hear at all, her Arcane Perception now so effortlessly piercing the sound wards the pair of paranoid fools wore. But she wanted to see their faces. NEEDED to see their smirking, vile faces! Yet before Elly could crank her neck sufficient to get a good final look at the monsters she would dedicate her life to purging, short as it may be, the half-orc bastard slammed the back of her neck with the heel of his foot so loud that even she heard the crack.

  “No, you damned fool! I don’t care if she’s an elf!” Nazem roared as the air flashed with sudden heat and her half-orc tormentor groaned and collapsed right on top of her “You fools are not to kill any of them! We need them alive!”

  Other words were said then, her enemies quickly plunging crimson hot torment into her veins before she lost all consciousness, spinning away in swirling darkness at last.

  * * *

  “Surge Centuria! Imperator Imperat, Tibi!”

  The words echoed endlessly over the smoking ruins of what had once been endless lush jungle and verdant fields lit by countless wildflowers and exotic blossoms that would have made alchemists swoon with eagerness to harvest those treasures, did they dare this realm, just days ago.

  Now, save for locusts and revenants, there was nothing but lifeless grey soil gnawed and devoured of absolutely all sustenance. Not even stumps remained of the once glorious jungle, the stone itself picked clean of all lichen, the soil so lifeless of nutients that they greedily sucked up all the ichor released from hundreds upon thousands of shattered locusts lying in their own shattered graves. Locusts that had been impaled by over a million weapon-feat modified spear thrusts unleashing an explosion of kinetic energy so profound over a multiple mile radius that the air itself had cracked and shuddered, releasing so much dust and grit into the air that it would have been toxic to any mortal constitution.

  Locusts that rose once more, the endless swarm of shattered carapaces erupting into eight foot tall revenants, their bodies covered in chitin armor that, thanks to the sigils blazing upon all their forms, was now as strong as mithril. Or at least pretty damn close.

  Even Eric had to make full use of Unified Perception and Infravision along with his 841 Perception to see through the haze of dust and vaporized ichor, yet all he felt was admiration for his newly risen troops, all pounding fists to armored chests below.

  His approving grin widened into genuine heart-felt fondness as he gazed upon the familiar who meant so much to him, hopping somersaults in the air beside him.

  “My what impressive chompers you have, Fearless Leader!” BunBun quipped, her ears not twitching a bit in the howling gale shrieking through this dying land that they both floated over, thanks to Eric’s Speed Racer perks now fully affecting all his revenants and, in this case, closest friend, who gave him an approving salute. “And now our sarissophoroi are up another quarter million! But that’s still leaving half our fallen foes on the ground, and you-know-who is rapidly heading this way!”

  Eric dipped his head, glaring at the howling monstrosity of tightly swarming locusts that, in sum total, had formed the rough outline of a humanoid soaring at least a mile high.

  Complete with a pair of hot glowing eyes he recognized all too well, even if he knew not another soul in the world would understand the significance of the nightmare apparition forming from their own global doom.

  Even now the howling gale was buffeted by the supersonic scream of his foe that sent chills down his spine that Eric absolutely refused to acknowledge as fear.

  “Mine! Mine! You worthless maggot! All you create, I will destroy! All you treasure, I will devour!”

  Eric’s heart lurched when the mile-high swarm tilted its massive head to glare right at Eric. He could fill the killing aura of his foe even from multiple miles away, the hideous pressure of a Deep Silver that had been on the cusp of Gold for too long yet never had what it took to break through. A massive abomination now clenching giant fist crackling with what he damn well knew was Silver-Tier death arts that sure as hell shouldn’t be in play on Terra right now, glaring at Eric across the distance with such furious HATE!

  Hate enough to stop most Contenders cold.

  Bitter contempt sufficient to freeze any mortal’s heart in his chest.

  Eric could feel even his heart lurching and spasming as fresh black cords sought to form—

  “Eric!”

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  Contest of Skills versus overwhelming odd—

  “Bullshit!” Eric roared, rejecting both Malice’s hideous curse and a System that would constrain his doom to what he understood in that moment were such a constricting trio of spatial dimensions. So Eric embraced his instincts and the memory of a glorious ascent by his mother’s side, instinctively twisting his body in unexpected directions.

  The air flashed brilliant with a sudden blazing corona of fiery brilliance as he somehow slipped completely free of yet another strand of twisted fate trying to tie him to his nemesis’s wyrd once more.

  Then he popped back into the world that was his own, belting out the words that had already turned the tides of battle and might well be all that kept Earth from becoming a lifeless dust bowl, thanks to the monster he was determined to face, no matter how futile fighting it might actually be.

  “Surge Centuria! Imperator Imperat, Tibi!”

  Eric screamed in an act of supreme defiance, clenching his fist in a mocking echo of his foe. Only his words had far more of an effect, the ground rumbling and shaking as another quarter million revenants rose from the shattered carapaces of his foes.

  His lips curled in a twisted grin as the ground for miles in all directions exploded in a haze of ichor as so many of his freshly forged sarissophoroi sprung free of their old lives in unison, reborn into exquisite perfection as far as he was concerned, their hated locust bodies now those of the most exalted of men. Even if the chitinous armor they wore WAS their flesh, their bodies were still those of Adoni and their twenty-five-foot-long spears of pristine sharpness, indestructible rune-enhanced alloy were essence infused perfection. Razor sharp tips blazed with literal killing intent as they sprung from their earthly origins with a unified shout, all of them racing to a hovering Eric and Bunbun’s side at a very deliberate very calculated pace of a shockingly modest hundred miles per hour, it taking over three minutes for the swarm of spearmen to organize themselves into proper phalanx below. Hundreds of times quicker than mortal soldiers in the millions, of course… but when they effectively moved like pieces on a chessboard to his will, as effortless as him commanding his arm of literal billions of cells to move where he willed… it was still far, far slower than he was capable of.

  Yet with his final Call To Battle, every last fallen corps upon the now lifeless desert now owed eternal fealty to him.

  Bunbun gave him a curious look, one ear flapping as soft, pale blue eyes filled with crimson flame gazed at his own. “Boss? I can’t help but note that a certain nightmare swarm of locusts in the shape of our ultimate foe is rapidly approaching.”

  Eric nodded. “True.”

  “And they’re only a few miles out but, um, heading toward us as fast as those locusts can fly. Which is pretty damn fast. For a locust, I mean.”

  Eric dipped his head again.

  Bunbun frowned. “And I can’t help but see the way you’re smugly glancing down at your ring. A ring that is somehow containing over two and a half million of your troops, which you recalled right before that massive swarm opened it’s actually freekin’ eyes! And that fucker’s over a mile high!”

  Alex dipped his head. “All true.”

  “Why?”

  Eric, heart pounding with an odd mixture of existential dread and utter exhilaration, flashed a manic grin. “Because if we’ve learned anything about taking this bastard on, it’s that he doesn’t know everything, and that it will never be easy. The minute we underestimate any of his twisted schemes, that’s the minute we pay the steepest price.” He then clenched his fists. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to treat him as some kind of god that can read my mind and knows absolutely everything. Hell, no! His doomsday swarm might have been propagating like mad, but that doesn’t mean that he had any direct control of it, or knew it’s counters.”

  BunBun blinked, ears perking up in surprised excitement. “You’re right! He only made contact with us, tried to set fresh cords of binding on us, less than a minute ago! He doesn’t know about—”

  Her ears wilted in embarrassment when he covered her mouth, then softened his glare with a wink.

  “Exactly. Maybe he does know what I can do. But we only sensed him the instant a certain explosion had obliterated half a million of his locusts. The ground is covered in an ichor haze even I had trouble seeing through. And I’m actually right here, with all my perks in play. And now we have at my back exactly what one would expect of a Master Necromancer.

  Bunbun blinked. “Half a million Bronze-Tier troops ready to fight for your honor?”

  Eric dipped his head. “And what are they not doing?”

  Bunbun’s button blue eyes widened. “Their not fl—got it! But they can’t do shit on the ground, and daddy dearest knows it!”

  Even as she whispered the words, their eyes were helplessly drawn to the massive abomination now rapidly closing the distance. Mouth opening wide in a hideous smile as it gazed down upon them from what was still over a mile away.

  “What is yours is MINE!”

  “Eric!”

  But Eric was already acting, already MOVING! As a stream of impossibly thick darkness roared out of the abomination’s orifice that spread like a dragon’s cone of fire. Eric knew there was only one thing he could do before at the wave of oncoming caustic oblivion screaming with curse and death magics and that was to MOVE with everything he had.

  A single thought for his men below was all he could spare as his familiar screamed as the cone of caustic blackness came just inches from washing over them as Battletime came into sharp screaming focus, his thoughts racing faster than his feet could move as he felt the roaring tide of death about to drown him and in panicked desperation, felt his perception of space unfold once more and he realized all he had to do was give a single pump of his prismatic wings UPWARDS at right angles to any angle ever ascened before as caustic oblivion washed over the tormented land where his troops had been, just a heartbeat before.

  Leaving nothing but a giant crater of liquified reality that collapsed upon itself as the world of his birth slammed down upon the void with a desperate tormented scream, space itself destroyed, so hideous had been Malice’s caustic breath.

  Eric could do nothing but mentally howl in sublime terror even as he skimmed above the fragile pristine tapestry of reality a single heartbeat DOWN, his brilliant blazing wings keeping him aloft for precious moments as his Mana Pool began to plummet and he knew what he had done, understood what he was doing, how perilous a game he was playing with an ascension that, improperly embraced, could destroy the fragile tapestry of a world he loved so dearly.

  Yet even now he sensed that priceless masterwork fraying. Fraying in an ugly knot right where his that abomination had struck! Which meant that he needed to get back there and take him out NOW! No matter how hideous the odds now stacked against him might be. No matter that his familiar was mentally screaming, forced in dimensions and directions that should have instantly obliterated her, save that her Vitality was now so utterly infused with his own.

  His panicked thoughts raced as he sensed his foe roaring in vicious triumph as Malice turned his swarm towards New Arcadia.

  His sister’s sanctuary.

  Because a single doom imperiling their world wasn’t enough.

  Their ultimate foe was determined to head to New Arcadia and destroy it with a fucking Silver-Tier death ray just to make sure that the last of Aurelia’s bloodline perished, a final act of spite and hate against the angel who had managed to free herself and their first two children from his vile clutches.

  There was no way in hell that Eric would let that happen.

  “We’re going in hot, Bun!”

  “What did you do! Were are we? I’m going to be sick! Space is warping and gyrating and I feel like I’m a stretched out in a tesseract!”

  In answer Eric dared a single careful flap of his transcendent wings of flame.

  Pristine Golden Phoenix skillcheck made: Critical Success!

  You have managed NOT to devastate the fragile tapestry of your 3-D world with your reentry into this local plane!

  You have re-entered your birthworld at 10x the speed of sound! Speed Racer in effect! 1000+ Strength, Vitality, & Quickness in effect! Battletime in effect! Contender Status in effect!

  You have SAVED versus disorientation, crushing pressure, and dimensional reintegration!

  “Surprise, Motherfucker!” Eric roared as reality snapped back into focus once more. The endless twisted void of space and time warping and screaming in ways that were both horrific and almost musical, a gyration of sound, color, ecstacy and torment he could almost understand in that single precious heartbeat, before hurtling himself back to Terra with a single delicate flap of wings that still propelled him at MACH 10.

  No time at all to summon his legion.

  But more than enough time to wrap himself in his own prismatic wings that he dare maintain for only a single heartbeat in time as he struck the massive shimmering Eye of Malice glaring RIGHT AT HIM! With every last ounce of hate and defiance he had.

  PHOENIX STRIKE!

  You have struck your foe with a Higher Order attack!

  Your attack has been ENHANCED by interdimensional CHARGE Bonus!

  Charge skill is now Rank 16!

  15 combined ranks of Fire/Wrath/Ice/Dominion essences TRUMP 10 Ranks of Malice!

  Eric’s supersonic howl truly was the howl of the phoenix as the air blazed with superheated flame roaring in all directions with the brilliance of a fusion bomb as he tore through his foe, spending precious seconds reorienting himself and controlling his speed as he snapped shut wings that threatened the very tapestry of his world with the blaze of their transcendence.

  Even that was enough to send System-wide alarm bells shrieking in his interface and the world. Even during an apocalyptic event. Yet as glorious as it was to blaze so brightly for a single heartbeat, his now curse-free bones, momentarily infused with a Phoenix’s might, still ached and throbbed after tearing through his foe at MACH 10. Even with divine wings, over 400 Physical resistance making him in a sense more ‘real’ and solid than that which he had blown through, even with over 13,000 health… he was still suffering a dozen hair-line fractures that a Potency-Surge enhanced Unified Restoration barely healed in time for his to arc around as another massive cone of caustic oblivion blasted through the air where he had been just a heartbeat ago, and Eric was confronted with a sight that almost froze him even as he continued to race through the air, pushing his body like he had never dared to before.

  Because the swarming mass of locusts in the form of Malice looked exactly as it had before.

  No matter that he had charged right into the heart of its reality warping eye with a transcendent attack boosted by 15 Ranks of Essences, no matters that his Charge bonus and Charge of the Light Brigade damage boons had given his Phoenix Strike such shocking force and momentum that his Gold-Tier mother might have been proud...save for causing his entire reality to shudder with the force of his re-entrance… his foe was UNHARMED?

  Even the air that his Phoenix Strike had blazed through had been completely annihilated sufficient to unleash a radiation blast like a gamma ray flash.

  Yet the mile high swarm of locusts wasn’t only unfazed, the disgusting writhing mass of bugs had truly begun to fuse into a carapace-like depiction off Malice Bane in the living flesh, massive lips of chittin leaking ichor as the titanic avatar of bugs and spite actually began to wheeze and laugh!

  “Fool! Do you know nothing? The son can never harm the sire! It is against the laws of nature! Against the contract that binds both our bodies and our souls!”

  Eric’s instincts screamed as fresh black cords of ichor snaked through the air.

  He weaved and dodged, his monstrous stats, ability to pivot and dart about more gracefully than any top, twisting coin, or marionette, thanks to Speed Racer, Battletime, and his ability to make inertia his absolute tool were all that allowed him to survive the inky dark threads.

  Even as he forced himself to stay CLOSE to his foe. Far closer than he ever wanted to, knowing that if he were to survive, it was an absolute necessity. No matter that he was now in range of the twisted dark strands of compulsion and dominion, mockeries of twisted contractual codiciles, that his nemesis so dearly loved.

  Quickness check made!

  You have successfully weaved past a Twisted Strand of Fate!

  “Eric! We have to retreat!” His familiar, clinging to him for dear life, screamed in his mind.

  “Negative! You’ve played the same games I have! Eve’s Evolution! You’ve dealt with annoying mosquitoes in real life as well! What’s the one thing you don’t do when facing enemy turrets?”

  Bunbun hissed in panicked alarm. “Shit. You’re right. The farther away we are—DUCK!—The more likely he can draw a bead on us! If our transversal velocity is sick because we’re all over him and he’s got to turn his turrets, or in this case, giant massive head, to follow our pace, he’s not going to hit shit with that fucking breath weapon which even he avoids spraying on his own body!”

  “Exactly!”

  “But Eric! He’s still trying to bring us down with curse magic! And his fucking guilt-tripping bullshit… Ooh. Thanks for filling my ears with your blood of Dominiony sound-blocking goodness! But that’s not enough! Duck!”

  Eric judged it both a good and terrifying development when a glaring Malice quit lurching toward New Arcadia and instead turned all its focus on Eric, attempting to swat him with massive hands of now bug-fused carapaces, the air cracking with the force of the blow. Yet the fused bugs, which should have been so fragile, took no damage with a battleship-destroying swat.

  None at all.

  How? How the hell had it kept from destroying it’s own limbs?

  How had it so utterly resisted his attack?

  Heart pounding with growing dismay, Eric weaved and dodged for all he was worth, panicked mind desperate for answers.

  “Eric! What the fuck do we do? That was the most badass transcendent attack you had ever unleashed! 15 Ranks of essence to pierce his bullshit, and a combined 274-fold multiplier over whatever a baseline strike of that blade would be, and that’s transcendent damage! And I’m not even including a freaking MACH 10 Charge Bonus!”

  Eric flashed a bitter smile, even as he continued to dodge for all he was worth, desperate for a solution.

  You have successfully dodged past Death Curse!

  You have successfully weaved past Fallen Son Bane!

  Yet it seemed that he wasn’t the only one who could learn from his foes, or who sought to catch his enemy up in traps.

  A realization coming just a moment too late as single annoying threads of darkness he just had to weave a little faster to dart past suddenly became a net that a now sneering titan of a foe instantly summoned, seeking to wrap Eric up in strands of obligation and despair.

  “Eric! He’s catching on to us! Look out, that’s a net! A fucking—”

  There was no time to hesitate. No way to dart away. Even if it was futile there was only one thing he could—

  Phoenix Strike!

  15 Ranks of combined essences TRUMP 10 Ranks of Malice! You have successfully ruptured your foe’s Greater Curse Weave!

  “Eric! It worked!”

  Eric’s eyes widened with furious vindication, realizing that his Prismatic Blade could indeed tear through his foe’s curses and weaves just as he had hoped they could.

  It was only his foe’s body that seemed completely immune to damage of any sort.

  Malice roared. “How dare you defy me, worm! Know your place and bow before your sire, you worthless castoff get!” The massive mile-high Malificent then inhaled, before spewing out yet another dragon’s breath worth of caustic oblivion, the cloud of dark foulness obliterating all it touched. Not just thing thing, but reality itself, Earth forced to crunch inward as thousands of square meters of both matter and the space it had occupied were obliterated in the blink of an eye.

  Eric’s thoughts raced at a furious pace even as he dodged caustic death, hands a blur as his blade tore through the ever-growing weave of thick spite-filled strands of absolute darkness, knowing that it was only because of his odd evolution as Death’s Disciple and fighting upon killing grounds thick with the death of literal millions of souls that his Spiritual Energy refilled so shockingly fast it was both glorious and chilling.

  Worst of all was the growing dreadful certainty that this might truly be Earth’s final hour.

  “Eric! We need to do something, and we need to do it fast!”

  Eric’s lips pressed tight in a desperate line, because his familiar was right.

  He did his best to keep his focus on his foe just as much as dodging his attacks, praying for a tell, a sign, a clue. Something that would explain how this horrific abomination resisted all damage! Not that Eric had been able to do anything but weave and dodge like a madman after his first strike, but there had to be something… there!

  And suddenly before him was a massive hand made of carapaces and hate, jutted right in front of him at an angle that would all bu guarantee he would hit it before the other hand could splat him to a pulp, even as a dozen interwoven strands of hate whipped down from all angles.

  Alex had no choice, his wings flaring for a single heartbeat that made reality scream as he twisted the tiniest bit UPWARDS out of reality before folding his wings and diving back in.

  Once more losing himself in the brilliant twisting reverberations of a reality of thought and sensation and horrifically beautiful twisting shapes, splaying dimensions of possibility opening up like massive flower petals of endlessly refracting curves. For just a heartbeat, Eric didn’t feel like he was about to lose himself in the nightmare void of twisted space but was rather like he was a butterfly finally slipping free of his cocoon to behold a beautiful forest of soaring interdimensional trees and impossibly beautiful flowers glittering like suns. Or perhaps, tiny dew-covered jewels. Yet he sensed in that pristine moment of transcendence that the lush garden of Even he had somehow stumbled into was more, far more than a simple field off interdimensional flowers of which Earth was just the tiniest of petals. It was a place of beauty and primordial savagery. Filled with creatures of impossible majesty and grace... and predators that could so easily devour flashy, newly forged Gold butterflies in the blink of an eye before his chrysalis snapped shut, the metaphor closed. Too many fragile secrets safely hidden once more even as the butterfly risked shaking apart his fragile perch, so gently blending back in with the fragile dew-covered leaf containing his shell and then he was back, kissing Earth’s tapestry once more, entering so carefully, and this time looking right at his foe as he struck with his blade at shocking speeds once more.

  Phoenix Strike!

  Soul Sight Perception Check: Critical Success! (Multiple Transcendent Modifiers in effect!)

  You sense the flow of causality and the devastation in its wake!

  You taste the cusp of interdimensional revelations!

  Eric’s profound revelations, savoring the sweet wonder of rapturous insight, crashed to the absolute terror of sensing just how perilous reality truly was, and the dismay of seeing just how brilliantly his foe had warded himself.

  Because Eric’s transcendent strikes, now so close to ascending to the next tier as he approached the cusp of Rank 20 and borrowing the shockingly powerful currents of slipping between worlds, did indeed harness a shocking degree of power with each swing.

  Power enough to rupture mountain tops.

  Power sufficient to crumple ancient edifices of metal and stone.

  Power channeled along cords of black spite and twisted fate before being expelled.

  Cords that had to have an anchor. And if that anchor could be found...

  Even as Eric desperately juked and dodged and slashed the whipping tendrils of death clamoring for his life, he conveyed his insights to Bunbun in a desperate flash, relieved to sense her instant understanding. He then delegated immediate control of all the hundred plus mantises kept separate from the multi-million locust regiment that somehow managed to fit so effortlessly inside his serpentine ring.

  It was another perilous moment of near death as Eric lashed out thrice with as long a Prismatic Strike blade as he dared. A strike he didn’t hesitate to channel with all the force and fury he could. A titanic blow more than capable of cutting any Bronze and perhaps more than a few Silvers completely in half, that did nothing save earn the mocking laughter of Malice, all of Eric’s killing blow channeled away long inky black strands of twisted fate demanding but one outcome to this confrontation. Yet as dismaying as Eric found his foe’s impermeability, the sudden light of understanding in Bunbun’s eyes gave him a much-needed flicker of hope.

  “Understood, fearless leader. We’re out! Wish us luck, and please keep that fucker distracted!”

  Eric swallowed the lump in his throat, dreading sending his familiar out, knowing how perilous it was even as she raced away through the air, just as fast as her feet could take her. As did every last one of his preying mantises, each sprouting off in a different direction, all simultaneously flying off in all directions, dozens shooting across Malice’s line-of-sight as Eric roared and struck yet again.

  Phoenix Strike!

  “Fool!” Malice roared, his shout becoming a black tidal wave of caustic death that Eric desperately darted away from even as his guts twisted in a sharp spike of dead when Malice, no fool, sprayed it out to catch as many locusts as he could.

  “Your think to flee? To give desperate warning to your friends that their doom is assured? Never!”

  Malice chortled with glee, nostrils dilating as the air screamed with his vacuum pull, devouring a half dozen of the fleeing mantises as he did so.

  “I can smell your terror. I can taste you despair, little worm!” The mile-high abomination opened a mouth that reveal a swirling void that Eric recognized all too well. It was the void between rifts, a place that had almost spelled his doom, once before.

  “First I will devour you, then your sister, then this entire world will serve as my new feasting grounds until I’ve drained it utterly dry! And I’ll make exquisitely sure that every last soul I devour is cursing you with its dying breath!”

  Malice Banes face contorted into a caricature of such hate that it chilled Eric to the quick. This went beyond simple killing hate to something profane and shockingly twisted.

  “I will taint your karma so badly that suicide will be your only escape for a million million lifetimes! I will make sure you can NEVER ascend, rotten maggot! I shall make the sun of even this world a thing your soul never glimpses again! I shall make sure your cave in hell is a thousand layers below my own before freezing you in the stygian depths of eternal regret forever!”

  Somehow, it didn’t matter that Eric had filled his ears with his own blood infused with Domion’s essence. That monster’s words still penetrated. And as fierce as Eric’s resolve might be, as outraged as he was by this monster’s vile threats, the sheer depth of the malicious hate froze Eric where he hovered.

  Just for the blink of an eye.

  All the Malice needed to shift its focus away from the handful of fleeing revenants back to the source of so much of this giant’s ire, sky scraper-sized hands now crashing together once more.

  And the horror of it was, even as he sensed the massive web of dark tendrils forming on all sides of hands being closed together with malicious, deliberate slowness, Eric knew he couldn’t leap away.

  Not the way he had before.

  Now knowing just how precious, sacred, and fragile his world truly was.

  Finally understanding the absolute depth of his sire’s malice, the wild light in the hateful creature’s eyes, already knowing that Eric COULD dodge the deliberately slow closing of oblivion’s paws.

  Because his ultimate nemesis wouldn’t stop at unbeatable locust plagues or indestructible mile-high abominations eager to devour the world. He’d use Eric’s very own gifts against him, goading Eric into flashing his wings yet again in dimensions he dare not tread. For there were REASONS why the Emperor of this entire quadrant seemed to take absolutely no interest in the squabbling of a thousand power-hungry Silvers, yet demanded that all ascending Golds immediately soar free of their nest without delay.

  Reasons that Eric was increasingly certain had to do with avoiding the doom of entire worlds. Perhaps entire systems.

  And Alex, young fool that he was, had come so damned close to playing right into this monster’s hands.

  Hands that were now shaping themselves like massive claws around him, eager to squeeze him to a pulp.

  “Eric! I’m losing the dark threads I was following! He has so many tangles and snarls and curses of confusion! We need a massive power surge flooding the connection, or it’s hopeless!”

  Bunbun’s party-linked cry was another knife of despair in Eric’s gut.

  Malice laughed in goading mockery, because in that awful moment that Eric, fool that he was, finally understood. Not only was this titan going to crush Eric to a pulp, he had even been paranoid enough to protect the cords he was using to channel his vile arts, and there was absolutely nothing that Eric could do about it without imperiling absolutely everything.

  Of course it was always possible that the flashes of color and chilling insights he had glimpsed when he had spun free of Malice’s last trap might be nothing more than his mind screaming with the discomfort of glimpsing 4-D space in ways he never had before.

  Perhaps it was perfectly safe for him to tease his own ascension… save, of course, for putting his own world in terrible peril every time he flexed even the memory of Gold-Tier wings.

  But he just couldn’t take the chance that his insect-equivalent awareness of 4-D’s magnificent splendor, and peril, was EXACTLY what he feared it was. Whereupon flashing gold repeatedly in a hyperdimensional realm chock full of terror and wonder both might be the last mistake he, or anyone else on Earth, ever made.

  Fortunately, he had one more card left to play, as doom slammed around him.

  That which he could summon in the blink of an eye, and even more importantly, that which would hopefully occupy his twisted foe utterly. A trump card to grab every last stand of Malice’s attention and give Bunbun the surge of desperately channeled potency she needed to track down the origins of Malice’s invulnerability as so many thoughts processed as Battletime screamed with insights and epiphanies.

  Even if Eric feared his latest epiphany could doom this entire territory. Or would, if there was anything left of value save the final handfuls of locusts t hat his sarissophoroi hadn’t been able to wipe out entirely before Malice himself dared to set foot in this realm. Creatures that had already devoured absolutely everything in this territory and were once more struggling to cross between realms, because all that was needed were for a few to slip free of barriers that Eric’s nemesis could so effortlessly slam open, just as he was about to slam open Eric’s skull.

  “Fuck, I have no choice!”

  “SURGE CENTURIA, WORMY II!”

  His System Interface gleefully flared with messages as Eric dared that which he had held off for so long, fearing the absolute worst.

  And as the screamingly brilliant flash of light that suddenly blazed through the entire world as his nemesis actually stumbled when a giant summons radiating the power of a blazing sun clamped around Malice… his worst fears proved to be absolutely correct.

  Eric had just unleashed a living Hyperion Core upon the face of Terra.

  He prayed he would survive his own daring, and that he wouldn’t end up destroying the very world he was so desperate to save.