Chapter 62

For a moment, in the eye of the storm, Nic allowed his eyes to dull and look inward.

There had been a time he expected to die any day. When every adventure seemed to be leading towards the moment that he would come up short, step wrong, and lose his life.

But those days were gone.

Now, he had momentum behind him. One battle had bled into the next; skirmishes had turned into wars. With each victory, the thought had grown. Maybe this wasn’t leading to an unmarked grave in the cold earth. Maybe there was something beyond for him.

And slowly the hope of winning had grown in Nic’s heart.

The belief he could fight his way to free to a better horizon.

Nic had three tools remaining to him.

The Book of Day’s Zenith could shield him, at least for a moment.

Second, he had the Wandering Cloud Lotus. Long ago he’d scattered the seeds across this dungeon, and he could still use the lotus to escape, teleporting to one of the smaller flowers he’d planted. The only problem was that he’d need to find a moment to do it when Seoona, the pygmy, and all the rest weren’t focused upon him, ready to stop his escape.

Those two should be enough.

But…

If they came short…

Long ago he’d stolen part of a scroll of reincarnation, a supremely heretical artifact. It contained an all-consuming power that damaged his cultivation and could, if the System chose, even see him labeled a heretic himself.

But if he had to…

“Your squirming irritates me. Die.” The pygmy’s hand shot out, pointing a single finger. A thin beam of golden light pierced towards Nic’s throat.

He darted backwards, his feet scraping through the sand. As he swept into a sideways dodge his left foot carved a semicircle line.

Seoona’s own hand flashed out. A red claw shot through the air, and again, Nic stepped aside, letting it slash across the ground as he evaded. Red blood pooled where it touched the earth, eating corrosively through the sand.

The musician whistled. An invisible blade chopped towards Nic’s throat, and he caught it with Peacemaker’s edge, shattering the musical weapon.

One, two, three.

Again, they lashed out. Seoona’s claws reached through the sky. The pygmy struck with dazzlingly fast beams. The musician wove invisible blades into the moments between, trying to catch and snare him.

They weren't committing. Each of them was poking at him, prodding his defenses, trying to see if he'd overreact or trip up. None of them wanted to close in and fight for real.

Because whoever spent the most trying to take him down...

Whoever exhausted themselves attempting to murder this pest who'd plagued them both...

Would be turned on and snapped up by the other.

They had all the power they needed to kill him, but Nic still wore a ferocious smile. There was no trust. Neither side could afford to commit themselves totally.

The only one with freedom of action was Nic.

And Seoona knew it. "Come forth!" She commanded, and a portal snapped open beside her. Out stepped the elven sand devil, her lieutenant, her right hand. Nic had maimed the elf badly on their last encounter and now she was part-machine, her right leg and both arms replaced by wooden puppet limbs coiled with tightly-locked runes that turned like clockwork.

Nic met her eyes, and what he saw was the brittle, hollow rage of pride.

"Kill him." Seoona commanded. "I give you your second chance."

"Gladly." The elf-devil hissed.

"Go." Commanded the pygmy to the musician.

And on cue, both of the servants shot towards Nic. The musician moved in an awkward, stuttering step, teleporting wildly so he was here one second and gone the next. The elven devil leapt up, a massive pillar of glass erupting underfoot to launch her high into the air. Ice-blue glass armor covered in twisting spikes grew across her skin as she lifted her spear high.

In the same instant, already finding rhythm in the combat, the musician whistled and unleashed a volley of invisible blades to scythe through the air. Each one made a clear, high note as it twisted to slice into Nic from strange and bizarre angles.

Nic slid into the formless, unpredictable dance of the Mistwater Step. All around him he could feel the presence of the blades, even without seeing them. He wove around them with circling, evasive steps, passing through the volley without being touched. Illusions burst into being as mist trailed from his skin, surrounding him in a smoky barrier in which dozens of doppelgangers lurked.

The elven devil crashed down, detonating the spikes on her armor to spray shards of glass in all directions. Her spear swung, decapitating an illusion and smashing into the ground below. Where it touched the sand a line of glass spines erupted upwards, ripping through two more, detonating, wiping out another…

Nic was behind her.

Peacemaker swung for the back of her leg.

And Seoona raised a hand. Another red claw shot through the air, trailing ghostly mist as the bloodstained fingers reached for Nic.

He was forced to abandon the attack and leap backwards, the elven devil already spinning, her spear swiping across his chest. Glass grew into the wounds and paralyzed his regeneration, the feeling of tiny shards grinding against his flesh worse than being ripped apart by a chainsaw.

A whistle sounded.

Nic deflected the invisible blade with a sweep of Peacemaker.

In that instant, the musician had closed in upon him. In the assassin’s hand was a long, thin sword made of bone, like a sharpened needle the length of an arm. He unleashed a flurry of strikes and Nic was locked in place for a fatal second, parrying his way through.

In the same heartbeat, a golden beam shot from the pygmy’s finger and pierced his leg.

Nic dropped to one knee, catching the needle-sword piercing towards his chest by letting it run through his open palm and locking it in place with a fistful of tar.

The elf-devil slammed her spear into the ground and a line of glass rushed across the sand towards Nic.

“RIVER!”

The runes on his armor flashed and a river of black waters erupted outwards, sweeping the musician back into the devil as they both struggled to hold their ground, the river coiling out like a wrathful serpent. Leg already healed, Nic rode atop the waters, Peacemaker in hand, darting left and right to replenish his stock of illusions as each motion gave rise to a doppelganger darting off in the direction he’d feinted–

“Leash!”

He rushed towards the elf-devil, slicing down at her. She parried with her staff of glass and kicked, sending a spine rising up towards his throat–

“Retract!”

Gwungo snapped him back out of the way, sending him flicking backwards. Nic turned in the air and aimed for one of his illusionary doubles.

They had no substance, normally, but with the Mistwater Veil…

Nic could detonate them.

As his feet sank into the illusion, he made it explode in a pressurized burst of water, launching him. He slammed into another double and detonated again, like a pinball rebounding off the bouncers, sending him flying.

And before the musician could blink, Nic had reversed course back towards him, carving in at an angle impossible to block. Peacemaker flashed out, blazing with flame.

The musician’s hand and sword came cleaving away.

Before, the Mistwater Step had made Nic boneless, soft, malleable enough to slip through attacks. Now, with this new innovation, he could instantly switch to being straightforward, sharp, and blazingly fast, striking out from wildly-shifting angles.

He kicked the musician aside, and dropped into the muddy earth with Mire-Caller to escape being struck by a beam of light– a second too late to save the unfortunate assassin.

As Nic popped back out of the earth, his Domain was taking shape. Before, it had been powerful enough to crush a ship. Now it extended through a land his river-rune had turned to mud, and took control of every inch that it touched. Tall golden reeds and cattails sprouted from the soft earth. Water oozed up and made bubbling mudpits. Illusionary mangroves formed.

The musician was screaming, clutching at the stump of his arm. His legs were being pulled down, sucked into the mud, the sticky, clutching earth climbing higher up his body as he struggled and sank. He fought to grasp hold of a talisman and crush it in his one good hand…

“Perish.”

Seoona lifted her hand, and a thousand claw strikes rained from the sky, a bloody mass of reaching fingers that pierced and struck into the earth with thunderous force. Nic dove back into the ground as his Domain came crumbling down. The mangroves were torn apart. The reeds and cattails lifted like an army of spears and were shattered. Nic felt pressure surge against his chest, his aura straining to maintain the Domain–

And within his core, the burning sun flickered. It shrank into itself for a second, and then exploded forward, kicking hard against his meridians and nodes; Nic felt shattering pain burst through his arm as a meridian line shattered entirely, and fiery agony burned in his chest.

Underground, in blind darkness, he screamed.

The Domain broke apart.

His aura flickered like a dying candle.

When Nic reemerged from beneath the ground, the earth was devastated and dripping with a bloody haze, the excess aura of Seoona’s claws dissolving into a bruise-colored mist that pulsated with veins of red.

The assassin had been crushed to pieces.

And despite the pain, and the weakness that came and went with the beat of his heart, washing over him like icy water, Nic smiled.

They’d taken the bait. He’d left the assassin alive on purpose, forgoing a killing blow–

So that Seoona would deliver it instead, and the infighting would begin.

The elven-devil charged for him, spear reaching for his neck. He parried, but his grip was weak, the impact grinding his feet down into the mud. A piercing beam struck him through the throat and stopped up his breath, interrupting his aura.

With the last of his energy Nic tried to teleport–

Seoona’s hand squeezed shut and he went nowhere.

The elf-devil kicked down and a spike of glass tore upwards through his shoulder. Spines erupted from the spike where it pierced him, a fractal of blades tearing its way out from underneath his skin.

Nic flopped backwards as his whole arm was torn off. She kicked him mid-air, folding him around her leg.

Seoona’s red hand shot towards him. A beam flashed on the pygmy’s fingertip.

Nic called to the Book of Day’s Zenith and a golden light surrounded him, shining like a second sun. The elf-devil was thrown backwards as her spear scythed down to end him. The red hand dissolved into flames, and Seoona shrieked as golden fire outlined her body. The pygmy’s attack was absorbed, and the demon stumbled back, shielding his eyes.

Peacemaker lay on the ground, still clutched in his severed hand.

Nic poured the bottle of fragrant waters down his throat, a trickle of medicinal springwater escaping through the rapidly-closing hole in his neck. His arm was a lump of gristle trying to grow out over a slowly-regenerating frame of bone.

“Haaa!”

Nic lunged forward, flinging a Hand of Ash at the elf-devil. She was slammed down into the earth before she could regain her footing, the soft mud sucking her down. Nic clenched his fist and sticky tar wrapped around her in thick ropes.

“Gwungo! Peacemaker!”

The slime extended out and seized the blade, bringing it to hand as Nic vaulted forward. The light of the Day’s Zenith was already fading. It’s blessing could be counted in heartbeats.

But he charged forward, blade gripped one-handed, and chopped for her throat. The light of Internal Fission blazed within him as he stomped down and leaned into the blow with the force of a cannon.

She detonated her glass armor entirely, blasting free of confinement and sending razor-sharp fragments piercing into him like bullets. Her spear whipped up and met Peacemaker with a ringing clash.

The spear shattered.

Nic spat out primordial mist and she fell back, screaming, her remaining flesh beginning to flake away into dust. Her face was split apart by thousands of cracks like brittle porcelain, and her lips fell away into a gruesomely toothy grimace.

A darkness appeared above them. The pygmy had arrived, teleporting in with a rush of shadows. He hung suspended in the air, his legs and bare feet curled beneath him in a wild jump. His robes billowed in the wind.

Time seemed to slow as two of his fingers chopped down for the elf-devil’s skull. That same blow would slice Nic in two as a golden beam, stronger than any before, blazed from the tip of his fingers like a sword of light.

No.

Time was slowing.

With every shaving of a second, the movement of the world was going slower and slower, until everything froze.

Seoona arrived in front of the pygmy and slammed her clawed hand into his chest. He dissolved into shadows, the scream of the elf-devil resuming as sound returned to the world.

And the world erupted into chaos. The pygmy attacked from a dozen places at once, seeming to split into twelve. Strikes rushed towards Seoona from all directions as a swirling mist cascaded out to protect her. With that first exchange of blows, they were all out against one another now…

And Nic didn’t hesitate to seize his moment.

He ripped the Wind Palace Lotus from his bag and vanished.