The air rang with the sound of impossibly thick iron bands exploding as Eric howled with a berserker’s fury.

  Hroka stumbled back, wide-eyed, blood trickling from his ears as he was braced by a grimacing Caliban, peering at the howling beast with undisguised hope as Hroka’s heart quailed with despair. Yet the court roared and cheered, eyes wild with fey passions and fearsome intensity as the monster radiating such raw killing fury sprung to his feet so fast that time itself seemed to freeze.

  And how odd it was to see his once diminutive assistant gently, fearlessly, brush the wild-eyed killer’s brow.

  “Quest granted,” she whispered with a teasing smile and the air didn’t crack so much as bleed, with no pressure wave at all which somehow made it worse as the locus of such shocking killing intent vanished so quickly that Hroka knew that had he and his former men actually tried to force Eric Silver’s hand… they would be the ones broken and lifeless on the ground.

  “Look at him go!” Enthused none other than the boy’s familiar, now being given the singular honor of being allowed to perch upon the empress’s shoulder as they both gazed upon her tablet display.

  A split screen showing an enormous ballistic missile beginning to glow as it initiated atmospheric reentry… and a terrified youth who now looked the farthest thing from a monster, just a boy bleeding tears of panic, blessed with wings of brilliant fire giving lift to his steps as he raced to intercept it in time.

  ***

  “Creo ventus incurvo unos dies!” Eric howled, racing as fast as he had ever dared before, wind resistance deliberately reduced to near nothing as he tore through billowy white clouds to soar into howling winds, the stars beginning to twinkle as the skies turned black as night while MACH 5.4 slowly increased to 6.

  And still Eric knew it wasn’t enough as his panicked, racing thoughts solidified, turning the hideous spiritual agony of severing over 3 million ties to his soul at once, and the awful ache in his bones that he sensed he’d feel pretty much non stop for at least a while, having purged so many of Malificent’s tainted genes… all that pain and terror transformed into desperate focus. Because his personal losses would change nothing, and it didn’t matter in the least. All that mattered was that his interface map was suddenly flaring red and he could finally see his target as the air thinned noticeably and with his shockingly high resistances and regeneration he was pretty sure that Earth standard temperature, air pressure, or even oxygen were all strictly optional. But damn if he wouldn’t inhale every oxygen rich breath of magically forming air about his head, knowing he needed to be able to think, act, and strike faster than he ever had before.

  He didn’t dare think about the oddity of him racing at an inverse slope with gravity and air pressure and even the surface he raced upon… all of it merely constructs of his will as much as reality, for all that he felt the biting winter chill of near earth orbit as no more than a tingle.

  “Eric! It’s now in its terminal phase!”

  Bunbun’s desperate scream was entirely unnecessary. For Eric was already locked on his target, knowing damn well the consequences, if he didn’t time things perfectly with the tiny sliver of flashing brilliance that was rapidly ballooning in his sight to a full-sized supersonic ICBM that he could actually make out, despite it going far faster than him, thanks to Battletime and 1700 Perception.

  It was a massive rust-hued rocket now glowing white hot as it touched the upper atmosphere. A horrific goblin steampunk version of the missiles in so many holocaust movies, so many innocent years ago. A nightmare construct that should be an utter impossibility, but somehow was most definitely at the end of its parabolic arc and less than a minute from obliterating New York. And if there were any trigger mechanisms he didn’t understand… if it would simply trigger from sudden spikes in air pressure and hull temperature…

  All he could do was focus for all he was worth as death seemed to streak right toward him, mind screaming in Battletime, finding things to be just as dreadful as he had feared.

  Unified Perception check: Critical success! This is a goblin Technomancer-modified ICBM! Who knows what joyful things will happen when a hyperion core catalyzes over a two tons of lithium deuteride? Odds are, you’ll soon find out!

  Eric’s could hear Elonia’s mental scream and Major Hroka’s desperate plea to the madmen at the other end of the monitor, as if American’s original ICBMs had been anything but fire and forget. He was too panicked even to be grateful for the extra tidbit Conceptio had concealed as deadly snark, when Eric had noticed the multiple layers of black runes scribed all over the entire missile.

  Twisted runes that his mind couldn’t help but to instantly understand. Runes of hate. Runes of destruction. Runes of folly and betrayal. Because of course it wasn’t running on electromagnetic principles, but electromana with a good dollop of raw, lubricating magic.

  Worst of all, even with Eric’s desperate pace, it wasn’t enough. His Dominion Map Interface showed an actual projection overlay of an intercept path… and he was moving too damned slow to save anyone.

  There was no way in hell he’d be able to intercept it in time, let alone cast greater abjuration, or neatly claim the core.

  If he wanted to stop it, he would have to go through it, and pray that a low earth orbit hyperion nuke was a lot less deadly than one hitting New York directly. And of course it would kill him. Because of course his sire had had multiple twisted contingencies and warped backup plans in place that had come so close to eliminating Eric already, all to assure that ANYONE who dared to strike at him would forever be the ones to suffer just as badly as he.

  Explaining why Emperor Exalt and his wife had allowed Malificent to continue rotting and festering for so damned long. Waiting for the perfect patsy who could actually take the monster out...and of course, take the fall.

  And what better dagger for that twisted heart than his own embittered former wife of countless centuries before, and their carefully crafted son? And with Eric’s mother now ascended, who better to die in their place than he?

  Even better, Eve was now up 3 million Bronze Tier revenants, who, thanks to Charge, a skill Eric himself, as a Contender, had somehow pulled into existence from the quantum flux of absurdity, could now strike with logarithmic damage scaling far in excess of the shockingly fast speeds Eve could no doubt drag his Bunbun along at.

  The perfect solution to a thorny problem complete with 3 million presents that Eve and Exalt could share with all their future competitors and friends.

  Eric wanted to laugh at the bitter absurdity of it all, but instead screamed with the cry of the phoenix as massive golden wings BLAZED with all the towering hate and fury for the MONSTER that would dare jeopardize Eric’s nest.

  A nest he had already sacrificed so much to protect.

  A nest that he refused to let be destroyed for the sake of his withered featherless sire’s hate.

  You have SUCCESSFULLY enhanced your flight with Wings of the Phoenix!

  MACH 5 has been boosted to MACH 30!

  He seethed in memory of the HATE he had for the cackling monster and his vile clan that had come so close to bombing his mate and unborn child to oblivion. That had been so close to destroying his mother’s people… his people, completely.

  So he embraced that hate with his subspace shattering shriek, recalling only in that moment of furious crystalline clarity why a certain desperately clawed-for perk kept eluding his fragile mortal shell.

  When his original Ice Fire blade had ascended from cleaving through Bronze Mercenaries to dreadnoughts and battleships to tearing through the cores of ENTIRE PLANETS, it hadn’t been in the shape of a boy…

  It had been with the wings of an ascending phoenix blazing past Bronze and Silver to ignite with Gold’s eternal fury in a single endless night, by his mother’s side.

  Wings he brought to bear once more in the final moments before nuclear obliteration could streak right past him and kill his sister, his friends, and 35 million reborn New Yorkers and elves he had struggled so hard to—

  PHOENIX STRIKE!

  You have Critically Struck – Bloodtear Hellfire Missile!

  Rank 15 Transcendent Attack successfully ruptures ALL CURSE WARDS!

  Time screaming at impossible speeds slowed to exquisite clarity as transcendent heat split the missile completely in twain. A missile that had been instantly frozen to negative hundreds of thousands of degrees in ways that went far beyond standard physics.

  Before the impossibly hot incision point of Eric’s blazing wing caused a cascade of such pristine destruction that the entire bomb instantly erupted in a brilliant flash of icy shrapnel that would have imperiled Deepest Silver, perhaps even half-step Gold.

  The ether shook with an explosion that was beyond catastrophic.

  Yet not one flare of deadly radiation, not one shard of rail gun-force shrapnel struck the blazing phoenix that was already miles away, or the precious life-giving globe that the missile had been aimed for. Instead, the entire eruption reached for the stars… and didn’t bother coming back down to earth at all.

  For Ice knew its master.

  And two of his favorite skills had just leveled up.

  Congratulations! Extra Storage Space has just hit Rank 20!

  You have claimed the perk: Arcane Resonance Mastery II!

  You’re not quite sure what this does, and neither are we! But if Tier 1 is enough to claim all the gold in Fort Knox, surely Tier 2 is enough to snatch a Hyperion Core in the microsecond you claimed mastery and Dominion over your sire’s final gift!

  Sadly, even with slow-time in effect, your claimed Hyperion Core is once more OBLITERATING all your priceless treasures you kept in your ES Space. But with your Hyperion Blazer perk… you’ve never felt better!

  Phoenix Strike has just achieved Rank 21!

  Deferred Perk has been claimed!

  Phoenix Strike has evolved into Phoenix Reach!

  Congratulations! You now have the potential to evolve your deadliest attack to tear through any opposing dreadnought and, one day, cleave through the cores of any planet foolish enough to oppose your Wrath!

  NOTE! You have evolved your mastery of this art along its most pristine path! You may ONLY summon this manifestation AS A PHOENIX! The dream of the boy you still choose to embrace is UNABLE to access this manifestation of your pristine art!

  NOTE! You have DECLINED direct ascension. 3rd Tier Core Saturation has been DEPLETED from 95.51% to 89.96%

  There is a PRICE TO BE PAID for hatching too soon, chick!

  ***

  Elonia’s throne room was deathly silent, the air still echoing with the cracks of her brother shattering marble tiles as he fled… and she wouldn’t even nag him about the massive hole in her ceiling… the once indestructible ceiling shattered right where his portrait in the ritual sacrifice fresco had been portrayed.

  Elonia took a shuddering breath, heart now hammering with the weight of 35 million desperate souls, all of them tasting what she feared would be the final seconds of their lives ticking down. She closed tear-filled eyes, imagining soothing countless panicked families and children, offering them the balm of gentle sleep, so should doom strike… they would feel nothing save sweetest dream, until it was time to be reborn once more.

  Assuming her beloved Arcadia survived in any shape or form.

  It was then that she felt it, an insistent urgent beeping in the corner of her mind. She snapped her eyes open, jaw clenched that now of all times they’d try to make contact. But if there was the slightest chance…

  “Put them through,” Said none other than the diminutive warmly smiling Imperial Inquisitor who Elonia wouldn’t dream of crossing under any circumstances, ever.

  She just barely had the poise to dip her head as the farmost wall immediately flared to life with a wild-eyed young woman of Chinese Han descent, whose imperial silk robes and fine porcelain features were spattered with blood as shockingly bright as the crimson lipstick she wore.

  Elonia’s eyes widened, taking in what looked to be a grand meeting hall far more elaborate than the bunker favored by the American Administrative Council, even as murmurs from her more influential Terran guests washed over her court.

  “The global counsel. Have they come to gloat in the final moment as well? Damn them all!”

  “The Jade Queen, empress of China? She’s an Administrator?”

  “It doesn’t matter, we’re all dead!”

  Her eyes widened as she got a good look at the counselors and Administrators closest to the so-called Jade Queen.

  Noting with a chill how very dead they were.

  For only a moment did Elonia freeze with dismay, seeing the terror in her brother’s face as he raced through the air at an impossible sprint, thanks to some trick she didn’t understand upon the split-screen monitor the Inquisitors had established. Yet a single glare from Evelyn Death and she choked out the words.

  “You may speak.”

  The girl, who couldn’t have been any older than Elonia, hurriedly filled the silence.

  “The Terran Global Counsel condemns and censors the unforgivable actions committed by the former American Administrative Counsel. They have been formally censured by all surviving members of the Terran Counsel.” She flashed a bloody smile. “Our people’s manifest destiny will not be used as a vessel for their twisted path!”

  “She slaughtered everyone there!” Hroka whispered with a certain amount of breathless horror.

  “Incorrect,” The Jade Queen assured, waving her bloody battle jian at scores of terrified-looking men and women who only then showed themselves before the screen, several slipping on pools of viscera and gore, or tripping over what were, in fact, only a handful of decapitated bodies. At which point, all of them immediately prostrated themselves.

  “We condemn the actions of the AAC and place ourselves at the mercy of Inquisitorial Judgement!” They cried out in unison.

  Evelyn Death quirked a cold smile. “Acceptable.” She locked gazes with the blood-spattered woman. “Your quick actions have spared your entire counsel from what will soon be the AAC’s fate. Would you like to see what that will be?”

  The porcelain-featured girl swallowed, then quickly dipped her head. “We would be honored to,” she whispered softly.

  “Good. Then behold their fate.”

  Evelyn then gestured with her hand and that was all it took for the Global Counsel’s hologram to lift off the far wall of Elonia’s throne room, elevated for an unobstructed view of the split screen that showcased both Vidrig’s mad, gloating smile to the left, and Eric racing through the heavens in the right.

  The Administrator’s eyes bulged with furious hate, clearly understanding the significance of the Global Counsel’s appearance.

  He roared, jabbing a finger at the clearly opposing faction. “Now’s when you make your power-grab? In our most crucial hour? You would dare to defy our entire accord, you chinky-eyed bitch? Weaken our death curse?”

  He furiously pounded his table, the chrome briefcase jostling with every blow. “I always knew you were a treacherous power-grubbing bitch, Hao Ling! And your foolish actions will do NOTHING to change their fate, or your own, you sellout coward! You will form no alliances in the Americas, whatsoever! And once we’ve solidified our hold here, you damn well better believe were coming for your joke of an empire as well! You thought the opium wars were bad? We’ll soon be using your baby brats for our future soul forges!”

  This earned a sneer as Hao Ling flicked the last of the blood off her jian before resheathing it with effortless grace. “I look forward to seizing your pawns and claiming your board.” Her eyes then lightened up with dark bemusement. “But regrettably, I don’t think I will be the one delivering your just comeuppance.”

  This earned a dark scowl from Vidrig, just as the split screen flashed.

  Hao Ling’s eyes widened. “Fuck me, that boy has golden wings?”

  The arcadian hall filled with the roars of Elonia’s people.

  “Our champion has ascended!”

  “The Prince of Autumn blesses us with his mercy!”

  It was then that Elonia felt death’s hoary grip squeeze tightly upon her heart. For a single perilous moment, she saw the blinding streak of silvery destruction approaching so rapidly that she couldn’t even gasp for air as her entire realm SCREAMED as it tasted the end of its tale…

  Before she flinched, blinded like her entire court and the distant global council was by the massive bar of fiery blue that flared so brightly, her mind screaming with concepts of Fire and Ice, endless energy and the blackest voids of space, all coalescing in an act of destruction so absolute and utter that the arcane fields surrounding her world shuddered with the backlash of potency and power released as a half-step Gold’s final curse was obliterated on the event horizon of Earth and Oblivion.

  Yet their ozone layer and their reality were fully intact, no matter the devastation rippling through spacetime itself in all directions, save toward earth itself.

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  For Ice knew its master.

  Her brother.

  Lastborn son of the Winter Queen herself.

  A trembling Elonia blinked into the sudden absolute deathly silence overcoming her entire court. A thousand eyes of sapphire blue, hazel, and forest green stared at the giant phoenix blazing so brightly in the inky darkness of space, all of their ears echoing with the snap of a doom curse torn free of all their souls.

  She could feel it, then.

  A terrible weight.

  A monstrous pressure.

  So like the cold-eyed Inquisitor who might just be an empress.

  Only worse. So much worse. Unbridled. Uncontained.

  A wild force of primal destruction that could destroy her precious world with a single flap of its—

  “Eric, pull it together! Earth is fragile, and your saturation’s already below 90%!”

  Elonia blinked, gazing at Eric’s familiar, of all things, shouting at the monitor while comfortably perched upon Evelyn Kahn’s shoulder.

  The only thing more startling than the rabbit’s angry shout was the oddly guilty flinch from the blazing phoenix… that immediately became—had always been—her brother.

  Just an odd trick of the light, his silhouette captured by the sparkle of countless shards of frozen...whatever that horrific missile had been.

  Yet the expression on her brother’s face…

  The look of primal rage that she last recalled when sick and dizzy in the arms of a man she had once thought loved her, only to find herself being manhandled toward a helicopter and…

  She flinched, taking a shuddering breath as the Tokyo air rang with the crack of Harvey’s dislocated jaw before he was sent tumbling off the guardrail with a panicked shriek that—

  She shuddered, shaking her head, taking a wheezing gasp of air, mind flashing with memories of such exultant highs and desperate lows from memories that she knew damn well were no more than figments of a life that never was.

  Save for Eric… and maybe the Gold gazing at her so intently, even now.

  “Quest complete,” Evelyn Kahn brightly declared.

  Elonia suppressed the icy shiver crawling down her spine. “I’m sorry, Inquisitor Kahn?”

  The inquisitor… empress? Winked, delicate lacquered nails the color of brightly spilled blood stroking the purring rabbit’s ears. “I believe your brother’s embracing a certain side quest which just happens to include the precise location of his target.”

  Elonia’s heart began to pound. She swallowed her too dry throat. “And that would be?”

  By way of answer, the strikingly graceful woman turned to the split screen monitor, where the wild-eyed Administrator Vidrig was running trembling hands through his greasy locks, rivulets of sweat running down his cheeks, glaring right at Elonia in horrified disbelief.

  “No… NO! Impossible! No force on Earth can stop an ICBM going 25 times the speed of sound! You should be dead. All you fools should be dead!”

  “Hold it together!” Marge snapped while half the Administrators glared at the monitor, the other half wearing the panicked looks of cornered animals. “ICBMs slow down upon reentry. They have another minute of life at best!”

  Yet the look of terrified confusion upon the distant Administrator’s faces was unmistakable.

  “Vidrig!” Interrupted a scrawny fellow in tweed suit and wire-rim glasses, wearing a look of shocked dismay. “White Mantis company has just left our service. They have declared our contract nul and void!”

  Vidrig’s eyes bulged. “Outrageous! Those Bronze fools are only here because we permitted them. They’ll be penalized 3 levels for their breach! That much was made clear when—”

  “Iron Shields has also left our…” Tweed Suit stumbled back, a deathly pallor coming over his features. “Every last outworld mercenary company has… has just left our service.”

  Marge clenched her jaw, pinched features radiating absolute fury as she glared daggers at Tweed Suit. “Explain this idiocy, Marloc!”

  Marloc could only shake his head with dismay. “System-wide notice on whatever foreign channel they use. They say… they say that we’ve breached Inquisitorial Accords that supersede all our…” He licked his lips. “Previous arrangements.”

  Elonia felt her lips curl in a predatory grin. Savoring more than was strictly proper, the look of fear slithering across the countenances of her foes, as she dared to show ALL her teeth.

  Finally accepting just how truly HUNGRY she was to make those bastards pay.

  Marge’s look was one of horror. “No… abomination!” She snarled. “You need to purged. Our strike is righteous! All of you foul demons need to be—”

  Her words were cut off by the dull thud Elonia could hear even from where she sat upon her throne.

  “What the hell is that?” Screamed a panicked woman in the rear of the concrete bunker, dozens of faces now turning toward the massive vault door sealing their inner chamber..

  “Earth tremor. It means nothing!” Marge snapped. “Now brace for impact and ready our”—”

  “Perimeter breach! Unknown hostile has broken through the outer—AAII!”

  A panicked scream over their speakers.

  Vidrig stiffened, a look of furtive dread coming over his features. Marge’s eyes widened with dismay before she bolted into gloomy shadows that hadn’t been there seconds ago as the entire council erupted in panicked shouts.

  An alarmed Vidrig turned to face a coldly smiling Elonia with wide, desperate eyes, now frantically pushing the horrid kill switch in his briefcase, as if that would do a damned thing. “No… no, no, no! You should be dead!” He sobbed, tears of terror prickling in the corner of his eyes. “You should all be dead! No more real than a dream!”

  The NORAD bunker shook visibly through the monitor, a fresh panicked voice crackling through the chamber.

  “Perimeter Breach! Inner perimeter has been—”

  The words cut off with a horrific scream and the sound of crackling bones and worse. So much worse.

  Vidrig’s visibly began to tremble, a low keening wail slipping through his bulbous lips.

  Before his head was jostled by a hot-eyed redheaded’s slap. “Pull yourself together, fool! That damned bitch can’t do anything to us. We have over a century of immunity! Longer, if we play our cards right. All we have to do is get rid of that bastard brat daring to rise so far above his station, and we have the power to do so!”

  Elonia smirked at the sight of dozens of Administrators, eyes wild with the terror infecting them all quickly nodded.

  “Yes! We shall pass an immediate resolution. A unanimous local resolution, and all Classers beyond our rank are summarily expelled from the entire continent!”

  “But that will include us, if we ever advance a single step further!” Vidrig whimpered.

  “Limit it to Silver!” Screamed one.

  “No, Bronze! Are any of us even Bronze?” Cried another.

  “It doesn’t matter!” The ginger-haired man roared. “We pass the resolution now, or we’re all dead!”

  Elonia was darkly amused to see all fifty or so Administrators, everyone that Marge hadn’t shot and killed, giving tentative nods. And as simple as that, Vidrig’s terrified countenance twisted into a sneer of contemptuous pride once more.

  His eyes flashed, and Elonia felt just the tiniest breath of pressure against her soul.

  Effortlessly buffered to nothing, secure she was in the bosom of her kingdom as the monitor crackled with Vidrig’s pronouncement.

  “By the power invested in me, I, Vidrig Caligula, LAWFULLY appointed custodian of the Americas, do invoke Eminent Domain to ABJURE any and all interlopers and Contenders beyond the rank of—”

  His words broke off as the air shrieked with the cacophony of steel strained to the bursting point.

  Elonia’s blinked at the sight of the massive NORAD vault door warping as if it were no more substantial than toffee before being torn right off its massive hinges and casually tossed inside, tumbling end over end to obliterate a half dozen wide-eyed Administrators who were instantly pulpified, blood and entrails exploding from underneath the cratered door to spatter a good dozen more bureaucrats now screaming in panic as they darted away from the wild-eyed creature now among them as the harbinger of death that he most certainly was.

  Vidrig spun around, flinching back as Eric pinned the man with his furious gaze.

  His face twisted into a snarl of pristine hate as he thrust his hand and roared his chant. “I abjure you! I abjure you, abomination!”

  “We abjure you!” shrieked all of the surviving Administrators, and a dismayed Elonia realized she could feel the awful pressure of a nation’s wild territories, so much untapped perilous power that could destroy them all, now being channeled for a single unified desperate expulsion.

  Elonia’s heart clenched, only now truly appreciating the power being channeled by those self-appointed puppets who could so easily use those arts to overtake the entire continent. And from what Vidrig had let slip, that was most definitely on their agenda as they tore free their masks as Earth’s so-called caretakers and stewards and revealed to the world the would-be tyrants they most certainly were.

  And how odd it was, to see the massive door of steel and tungsten alloy, a multiton weight, itself be sent hurtling back out of the chamber, along with the pulpified bodies of everyone that had been crushed. Yet Eric did no more than lean into an unseen breeze. His hair blew wildly, it was true, but all he did was flash a furious, hungry smile.

  “No… impossible!” Hissed a particularly rat-like Administrator. “Our expulsion should have you hurtling into space.”

  Eric’s smile only grew. “Vendetta,” he whispered, saying all that needed saying as he spread his arms wide, revealing an exquisite physique glistening with sweat, exertion, earth-reentry, and so very much gore, wearing nothing but the blood of his foes and an impossibly intact pair of bluejeans.

  A tiny corner of Elonia’s mind just knew that if this were an actual recorded film and not her brother fighting for the literal future of her world, Eric would be the next Hollywood heartthrob. Their mother would have made damn sure of that.

  “How dare you defy us, outlaw! Kneel before us, and accept your damnation!” Vidrig roared, his movements copied by dozens of desperate men and women when he threw a desperate handful of twisted black warrants and summons, contracts and codicils. Scores of foul, tainted remnants of twisted goblin magic whipping through the air like frantic serpents, before each and every flying slip of paper exploded into puffs of smoke and distant screams with a single uttered word.

  “Repudio.”

  For a heartbeat, the projection flickered and flared, Evelyn herself giving a surprised chuckle before it snapped back into focus.

  “No. Outrageous!” An incensed Vidrig roared as the air filled with shrieks and shredded limbs and blood. So very much blood as Eric casually tore off the arm of the closest Administrator still trying to damn him with twisted goblin Barrister arts as Eric slowly strode toward a now desperately backpedaling Vidrig. One slow step at a time through the panicked cacophony did Eric approach, pinning his sworn foe with his ice-cold eyes and bitter smile, effortlessly sliding past the handful of Administrators daring to strike at him as if they were no more real than a passing breeze.

  “We are the embodiment of legal authority, here in the Americas! It is for us to forge laws and you to obey! It is for us to rule and you to serve! You have failed in your service, thus it is our divine right to cast you off as the chattel you—”

  His words cut off with a yelp when Eric was suddenly right before him, Vidrig’s eyes helplessly following a wildly blinking head that Eric had just torn free from the neck of yet another Administrator shrieking goblinoid curses before his tongue was silenced for all time, body stiffening and spurting blood for a heartbeat, before slumping over in a boneless, blood-spurting heap.

  Eric’s bitter smile turned to a pitiless glare as he cracked knuckles covered in blood. “For your crimes, there can be no forgiveness.”

  Elonia shivered. Eric’s words a promise of such hideous retribution that Elonia herself felt an awful spike of dismay in her gut.

  Her ears rang with Vidrig’s final desperate scream when Eric opened his cavernous mouth and tore off the furiously struggling Vidrig’s head with a single bite.

  Before he was struck by dozens of plasma beams flaring brightly against the projection.

  “Eric!” Elonia cried.

  “Monster! Abomination! This is where we put you down!” Marge screamed with a note of twisted triumph in her voice when the metal grating rang with the sound of a dozen heavily armored soldiers filling up the underground council chamber. Perhaps the only band of Bronze troopers that hadn’t gotten the memo… or didn’t really care.

  Yet Marge’s furious smile turned to a look of startled disbelief when a smirking Eric looked down at his utterly unmarked body after completely devouring his foe, the pretty plasma lights doing nothing more than baking some of the spattered blood off his form, the sizzling hole in his bluejeans knitting itself back together within seconds.

  Eric smirked at his unmarked body, before turning to smirk at the snarling mercenaries still trying to perforate his body.

  “Red Scorpions, right? Fucking fantastic. I’ve had an eye out for you assholes for a while now, and I just LOVE the thought of tying everything up in one fell swoop.”

  Marge hissed, stumbling back a step. “No. You should be dead. Dead!” Her wild eyes turned to the soldiers. “Take him down right now, and there’s a twenty million credit bounty in it for you!”

  The men dipped their heads. “It will be done! Unified strike… now!” Roared the largest of the band as their blasters struck in Perk-enhanced concert, utterly obliterating the wall that had been behind Eric.

  But as for Elonia’s coldly smiling brother… there was no trace to be found.

  Just startled shouts and cries when powerful hands tore off one powered helm after another, revealing half a dozen hard-eyed Bronze mercenaries with the glare of hardened killers blinking in surprise when their armor was so effortlessly torn free, before their faces were cratered with a single blow of Eric’s clenched fist, the shockwave of pressure causing the rear of their skulls to explode, showering the stunned mercenaries and councilmembers behind them in sprays of bone, blood, and gore.

  One after another.

  No matter how desperately they fought. Now matter how much they screamed and begged.

  Until there was only one Red Scorpion mercenary left. The largest of the party, gazing down at the spurting neck stumps of all his companions, a deathly pallor coming over his features.

  “Zel, Ornice! No, no, it can’t end like this! Not like—” His eyes bulged horribly, when Eric rammed his clenched fist down is enemy’s throat, now glaring into the bulging bloodshot eyes of the man gurgling in agony as he choked on Eric’s fist.

  “Yes, Fel. It can indeed end like this,” Eric uttered, holding the doomed man’s gaze as bloody pin-pricks formed in both his eyes, features turning a ghastly shade of purple as armored fists helplessly slammed into Eric with such force that he did nothing but break his own armored fingers.

  The final Red Scorpion began to shudder and spasm, eyes rolling up in the back of his head, as Eric whispered words Elonia could hear all too well.

  “This is what you get for trying to take out Freetown and imperiling 35 million lives. This is VENDETTA, motherfucker. Now go fuck yourself in hell.”

  With a snarl, Eric ripped his clenched fist free in a spray of blood and shattered teeth, forcing his dying prey to gaze at his own beating heart, held in Eric’s clenched fist before he squeezed. The final flickers of life left the tormented Broze’s gaze, the sight of his own exploding heart the last thing that doomed fool would ever see.

  Eric then lifted his bloodthirsty gaze to meet a trembling Marge’s own. “You’re turn,” he hissed, before flashing out of sight in the blink of an eye.

  Marge stiffened. “No. No one is that fast! It’s trickery!” She slipped back into the shadows Elonia had to work so hard to see, noting her cold calculation only turning to wide-eyed dismay when two naked arms clamped her wrists from behind.

  Her eyes widened with terror. “No. Unhand me. You have no right… no!”

  She began to scream what would be perhaps the shortest command of her life. “By right of eminent domain, I, Marge—”

  Her words were cut off when Eric casually tore out her throat.

  With is teeth.

  Before devouring her whole.

  Elonia blinked as her people roared and hooted in fierce approval for their savage Autumn Prince.

  A part of her quailed at the utter and absolute loss of anything like innocence that she and her twin might once have had. Yet far louder was her silent howl of triumph, reveling in her brother’s righteous kills.

  Feeling so hungry herself.

  Yet the next words to slip free of their preys’ lips caught even her off guard, and changed absolutely everything as her unexpected hunger turned to wonder and a sense of replete contentment that was almost euphoric, even as her brother’s expression of fierce, savage glee became one of unmitigated horror.

  Bunbun’s button eyes widened before she shook her head and sighed. “Well, fuck. That was unexpected.”

  Only then did her ears catch up to the reality that she already felt coursing through the bones of her kingdom.

  The bedrock of her soul.

  “The AAC unanimously surrenders to Eric Silver, Champion of the Sylvan Alliance!”

  Eric froze, a helpless statue glaring at the gore-covered Administrator serving as spokesman, covered in sweat, tears, and the spattered blood of his fellows, who immediately prostrated himself before the man that could so easily destroy them all.

  “Our territories are yours, our people are now your chattel for you to do with as you will!”

  Elonia blinked at that. “Wait. I thought they could only care-take unclaimed territories…”

  Her words were cut off by her brother’s desperate offer, instantly accepted, as her precious duchy grew by leaps and bounds, now including wondrous fecund paradises in California, Nevada, and the middle of Colorado as two thousand miles worth of magical railroads and blacktop highway formed out of the ether to connect multiple disparate regions into one grand whole. Railroads that would be utterly inviolate to any monstrous beast surge, repulsed by the very killing aura her brother now wildly radiated as he howled in agony Elonia could scarce conceive, his screams alone sufficient for panicked Administrators to collapse in blubbering heaps, blood trickling from ears, noses, and eyeballs bursting like cherry tomatoes in a microwave.

  She didn’t care that far too many cold, ruthless people with the titles of Global Administrators were now staring far too intently her way. All she cared about was the agony in her brother’s tormented gaze.

  Because ascending to the heavens and from there low earth orbit to take on an ICBM hadn’t been too much for her brother to handle. And dodging blaster fire had been effortless, the perk-enhanced plasma beams of actual Bronze-Tier mercenaries no more harmful to her shockingly powerful brother than a flashlight against her own skin. Yet their enemy’s surrender had him looking on death’s very doorstep?

  “Eric? What the fuck’s wrong? Talk to me! Please!”

  Bunbun’s whiskers twitched. She turned to gaze at a coolly observing Evelyn Kahn with panicked button eyes. “Permission to reach out to a business acquaintance?”

  The Inquisitor graciously dipped her head. “Of course, Bun.” And with a casual wave of her hand, a hard-eyed woman with curly auburn hair and flawless features wearing a heavily beribboned military uniform was scowling at the screen from the bridge of her ship.

  “This is Admiral Reiza of Tiger—” Her words cut off, eyes widening in shocked dismay at the sight of what to most would appear but a few Inquisitorial agents along with a Blue Corp representative and a certain cheeky bunny now presently happily riding on the shoulder of the empress herself.

  Her second could be seen furrowing his brow. “Admiral?”

  Bunbun gave her a cheerful wave. “Hey there, Reiza. Fancy seeing you so soon. How’s it hanging? Your ships purring happily? Ready for a little interplanetary conquest?”

  Bunbun ignored the look of dismay the admiral was giving her before flashing as cheeky a smile as any rabbit could. “You look great! And you wouldn’t believe the day I’ve been having. You know those cores that keep popping up? Well guess who just happened to trip over ANOTHER just lying around? And boy, do I have a deal for you!”

  The entire bridge grew deathly silent. The horror in Reiza’s eyes was almost the equal of the agony in poor Eric’s features.

  “You’re eminence, please! I beg of—”

  Evelyn Kahn, otherwise known as Empress Exault, or according to Elonia’s brother, Eve Death, gave a single airy wave of her hand that instantly silenced the trembling admiral.

  “Your queen’s prompt assurance of assistance with what’s to come has not gone unnoticed. Unlike so many we find to be far less worthy.” Evelyn Death snorted coldly. “Getting those fools to fulfill quotas and obligations is like pulling teeth!” Her eyes fla4ed with sudden heat. “And I hate pulling teeth.”

  “Understood, Your Eminence.”

  Eve nodded. “Good.” She gave a satisfied nod. “I’ve heard good things about your Tiger Fleet, Admiral Reiza.”

  The Admiral gulped. “We are… honored, Your Eminence.”

  Eve lifted one carefully sculpted brow. “Good. You should already know that I care nothing for local politics, so long as your finest ships are honed from your military exercises, and are eternally maintained in tip-top shape. I would see the finest fleets evolve. For only those will be worthy to assure our survival with what’s to come. My only question is this: When the call comes, will you be ready?”

  Reiza stiffened, hand slamming against her chest. “Andaar Imperium is eternally ready to serve the champions safeguarding our precious galaxy!”

  “Good. I have a recently ascended Dreadlord in need of immediate transportation to the nearest Titan Prime gate.”

  Reiza’s eyes widened. “Your Eminence…”

  “He will be arriving at your destination from the Terran Freetown Jump gate.” Eve’s cool demeanor warmed with a cheerful smile. “The same insertion point from which you’ve dealt with one of his former Underlords, no?”

  “She means me!” Bunbun helpfully declared, waving from Evelyn Death’s shoulder.

  “Now one of my generals.”

  The admiral’s eyes widened. “The rabbit is one of your—”

  “Yup! I’m moving up in the world!” Bunbun cheekily affirmed.

  Reiza flinched and paled, before bowing her head.

  “Understood, Your Eminence.”

  “Good. Should you wish to engage in matters of strategy, politics, or trade with your future passenger, you are free to do so. I care nothing for trivialities, strictures, or details, so long as your fleet shines when the call comes.”

  Reiza stood up and saluted. “Yes, Your Eminence.”

  “Good. Prepare Yourself for the transfer. Evelyn Exalt out.”