II-35 Puppeteer

“Who are you?”

“I am… Sir Galloway. I am a Dragon Knight. I am—I am Master-Tier. My strongest skill is The Sword Ascending.”

“And what have you become?”

“Your empty vessel, taken, twisted, broken. An echo of me has been brought back through Necromancy.”

“And why have you become this?”

“Because—because I slaughtered innocent villagers in a fit of rage when they used the wrong title to address me.”

“And why were you cut down? Were you cut down by the villagers?”

“No—most of them died; they had little chance against me.”

“So, why did you die?”

“Because you were there, drinking at the tavern in the village…and I did not know—Great Valor Thann. I did not know it was you. I didn’t know—

“If you did, you would have gone to some other village, to kill some other people for whatever foolish reason. The system wanted you to die this day, and you helped it. You chose to be unwise; you chose to be a monstrous tyrant; you chose to spit on your own valor and honor and virtue. Knight. Knight should mean something. I know the Semper Paragon of your people. He believes in these values, values beyond strength and violence.”

“What use is an apology now? I speak to only a shadow of what was. What a waste. I will make a final use of you. Understand and take what solace you can when I spend your life. It will be to kill another monster.”

“I… surrender myself to your power, Legend Valor.”

“Ha. Because you have no other choice, fool.”

-Conversation with the newly animated Sir Galloway and Legendary-Pathbearer Valor Thann

II-35
Puppeteer

2 Minutes Prior…

The arrow impacted a few meters away from the Jealousy, and Uva materialized a second later. She had Adam bind her to the arrow and fire her off. Meanwhile, he was to go and assist Shiv in getting Valor’s arm after finding his rapier again. The Jealousy was her duty—and only hers.

The Weaveresses would ambush and bleed the remaining dragons as best they could. Meanwhile, Valor needed to regain his strength. The Necromancy used by the Legendary Pathbearer drained him greatly, leaving him diminished and barely capable of flight. When she last saw him, he was resting in the mud near the mind-broken water and fire dragons, guarded by a single Trapdoor Weaveress.

Uva stared at the unmoving Jealousy and sighed as observed its body. The Greater Demon was entirely healed. It’s mind, however, was still broken, and it would take a substantial act on her part to bind herself to its consciousness and guide its actions once more. Perhaps more power than she had left, but she needed to find a way. She had to. Shiv needed her. Weave needed this. She would not fail them. Not matter the cost. No matter the price.

Uva focused her Psychomancy, and immediately an incredible pain washed through her. She could feel the blood vessels bursting inside her skull from the effort, but still she forced her power out. It trickled forth like water leaking from a crack in a dam, extending all too slowly toward the Jealousy’s broken mind.

“Flow,” Uva snarled, pitting her raw will against the mana strain.

Shroud of the Shapeless Mind > 91

But just a moment before she could reach the Jealousy, it all became too much. Something popped in her head, and Uva collapsed to her knees, clutching her head.

And that was all it took to spare her life. A sudden slash tore through the air above her. Then something struck the ground beside her. A shockwave blasted Uva off her feet. As she was flung into the air, she reflexively launched a pillar of ice at her attacker—only for it to shatter against the face of an approaching dragon. Its body was a mass of moving shadows, aside from two blood-red eyes and a chestpiece made of dense wood and blossoming flowers. 

It drove a spear infused with Dynamancy into her chest. A blast of force crashed into the Umbral. Uva cried out, feeling her sternum break. She bounced across the ground, skipping as she momentarily lost focus. Then the dragon was on top of her, driving its spear down. She twisted her body to the side—and it was the additional bone plating that saved her this time. It adapted to the blow and allowed her to shrug the massive dagger’s tip off with all her strength. The dragon growled as its weapon sank into the earth, and Uva created a pillar of ice and smashed it across the dragon’s head.

It broke. The dragon just laughed. Then, it swatted her with the flat of its spear. 

Uva cried out as something popped in her right leg, and she impacted the Jealousy—stopping dead against the hard scales of its body. She clung to the colossal monster as the dragon came for her again, driving its blade through the Jealousy’s scales and barely missing Uva. Yet, the spear was lodged in place, for the Jealousy was Master-Tier in Toughness as well, and the shadow-dragon roared in frustration before releasing the spear. But it chose the wise choice far too late, it turned on Uva, just in time to take a lance of mind magic into the skull.

The dragon flinched back, clutching its head, while Uva felt an incredible cluster headache explode through her skull. Blood rained down her eyes and ears, but she seized the pain and poured it into the dragon, using a technique that Shiv used so well.

The dragon-knight gave a wail of agony as it collapsed. It vomited from the pain as it tried to rise, and it howled for the hurt to end. Howled for the Composer, because that was what Uva was doing. Their minds blurred and blended into each others, but only one of them was a Psychomancer, and only one was trained in swimming through the chaos of another’s mind.

As the dragon twitched on the ground, trying to fight through the pain, Uva managed to stop the spell. But that was all she managed to do. As she looked at the Jealousy, the world spun and darkness crashed over her, drowning her consciousness in a wave of black and silence.

She came to a moment later, quivering, her body drenched in cold sweat. The dragon collapsed again not far from her. Both of them were laid across the Jealousy, struggling to get up. Uva hissed as she fought her way back to her feet, while the dragon-knight remained incoherent with pain as it clawed at its skull and sobbed from the suffering. Uva empathized. After all, a good portion of that pain was hers. She materialized spikes of ice and flung them at the dragon; they crashed against its armor and broke. She sighed and stumbled closer to the Jealousy.

“Need… you…” She muttered, speaking to the mind-dead colossus. The Jealousy didn’t respond. Uva clenched her teeth, asked the Composer for strength, and then flung every last bit of her Psychomancy mana into the Jealousy, trying to establish a connection. Her field shivered. The beginnings of a spell formed—but broke instantly as an inhuman scream of misery left her lips.

She didn’t even know she was capable of making such a noise. Uva crashed against the Greater Demon. Her skull swam with drifting thoughts. The dragon wasn’t sobbing so much anymore. When it recovered, it would kill her, and unless she managed to push through this, there would be nothing she could do…

Nothing…

Her Psychomancy was spent. Trying to use it at all was more likely to knock her out. But her next highest skill was Parallel-Thinking—an Adept-Tier Skill Evolution from Multi-Task. After that, she had her swordsword and her Cryomancy, but she wasn’t going to kill a dragon-knight with that. Not with her Physicality.

A dagger appeared in her mind. The dagger that killed her mother. If she died here, she would never find out who did it. If she died her, she would never get to set things right, never see her city again, never chide Ikki in front of the time, argue with her sisters, never make another piece of clothing. Never… never go to another museum. Never hear another one of her goddess’s songs. Never feel Shiv’s touch—taste another of his dishes. Never listen to Adam complain about something.

Shiv. Adam. They were her team, too.

They were her boys. And they were fighting dragons. Killing dragons without her. She needed to be with them. She needed—she had no choice to become someone more.

“Please,” Uva cried, her voice hoarse from screaming. She begged the system, the Composer, anyone that could listen to give her the strength. And then she stopped. Because Uva wasn’t the begging, whimpering kind. She had a moment of respite. Now? Now, she dove back into the pain. She wasn’t going to let some dragon-knight finish her. Uva was either going to assimilate with the Jealousy’s power and melt into its mind once more, or break herself trying.

Mana flowed out from her. Incredible pain consumed her—pain beyond anything she knew, comparable only to when she strained herself past that threshold facing Harkness. She would have died then if there weren’t so many Biomancers in the passage. There weren’t going to be Biomancers here, but it didn’t matter. She just needed to live long enough to reach into the Jealousy and stun the other monsters, kill them, break at least one, and make it possible for Shiv to prevail.

Her mana field felt like it was tearing out of her being. It touched the Jealousy, and finally Uva felt its broken mind. She reached into it—it was like dragging her mind over burning, jagged blades. Every push carved into her consciousness, and any other Psychomancer she knew might have broken. But she managed to push all the way through, and then a notification appeared in her vision.

But her mind went blank as something struck her hard. Uva screamed as her right leg shattered entirely. She shot high up into the air, twirling a few times before she felt the hand of a dragon before she felt the massive claws of a dragon’s close around her. Uva gasped and choked. The dragon squeezed, and Shiv’s adamantine plating held. She was spared from being crushed immediately, but still found herself unable to breathe.

Then, she noticed the notification, and despite everything, Uva laughed.

Her boys did it! Somehow! Those mad, Composer blessed surfacers did it.

Quest Complete: Intercept the Outcast Descender Dragon-Knights and their new Aviary allies before they can sell off the right hand of Valor Thann to Compact and re-open Gate Theborn.

Select a Skill to infuse with +10 Levels

Select a Skill to Evolve to Adept-Tier

Then, a flash of electricity struck her, and she felt her armor’s Magical Resistance slightly fracture. Uva blinked and realized she wasn’t dealing with the same dragon. Instead, she was staring at a dragon that had wind-chimes hanging off of its armor. Its scales were a sky-blue color, and there looked to be the remains of a splattered Weaveress smeared across its arm.

The sight of the dead Weaveress sent a surge of cold rage through Uva. And another thing about Uva: She never got heated, she just got more focused. Uva looked at her offered quest rewards again. Two things were broken inside her just then—her bones and her mind. So, she decided to change that.

Uva chose to become an Adept in Toughness, and her body suddenly changed.

Skill Evolution: Toughness (Common) > Blastmolt (Adept)

The dragon channeled another bolt of lightning into her. At the same time, the shadowy dragon she fought earlier rose over the current dragon-knight’s shoulders—and the bastard had its spear back as well. As Uva’s armor took the hit, however, something surprising happened. Her Magical Resistance cracked first, but then she felt her body rattle violently as she exploded a meter back and snapped free from the dragon’s claws. In her place, a shivering echo of her person remained in the dragon’s hands.

She realized that the echo absorbed a portion of the force that just hit her—and then it promptly exploded, surprising the wind dragon.

But then Uva was falling, and the shadow dragon went after. She put the ten levels into her Psychomancy, and a second transformation took place inside her—but she didn’t wait for the details to load before she flung her mind magic out at the wind dragon.

Skill Evolution: Shroud of the Shapeless Mind (Adept) > Puppeteer of the Formless Strings (Heroic)

 Puppeteer of the Formless Strings > 101

As she cast out her power, she expected to feel pain, but came only strength and expansion. Her mana field broke apart as it speared out toward the horizon, becoming ten-times larger than it had been before. For a moment, she thought she had destroyed her own magical skill—but instead, her magical had undergone a beautiful metamorphosis. What used to be a solid field broke into hair-thin filaments bound to her mind.

Each filament drifted through existence, brushing other entities capable of thought. The world came alight around her just then, becoming a sea of cognitive constellations. Her own consciousness narrowed into channels of focus. Her own mind changed more than the outside world. Uva’s very consciousness felt like a dense weave of twine. The shadow dragon surged at her. Uva shaped a spell. Strands flowed from her mind, and it was like she was manipulating the entirety of her consciousness as puppet strings. She cast her magic out, and every last string she possessed was drawn away from the world and threaded into the wind-dragon.

The beast cried out as Uva pierced into their mind from over a thousand different angles. She felt her Parallel Thinking Skill activate as well as she drove her intent through multiple layers of memory and thought. So focused was she that she didn’t even notice the shadow dragon striking her.

Her right leg popped. There was pain, but Uva diverted the hurt down along her strands into the wind dragon. It promptly clutched its right leg in her stead. Meanwhile, she jolted away from her body again as an echo took part of the blow for her. It exploded, launching the shadow dragon’s spear-strike off course. She caught the shadow dragon’s eyes widening in surprise, but the bulk of her consciousness was flowing elsewhere.

“No!” the wind dragon cried. His scales flared bright as his magical absorption briefly fought her, his Magical Resistance briefly resisted. “Get out! Get out of my—”

But Uva’s Heroic-Tier Psychomancy was a subtle thing. If the Jealousy was a giant, hidden blade piercing into someone’s mind and turning them into bombs, Uva was a forest of needles, each pulling their own threat. Nothing she did was truly hidden, but each strand of her new mana web was fine and subtle, and when gathered together, utterly overwhelming. The wind dragon’s ego was pierced through from multiple angles. It cried out once more, but she ordered it to stop with a thought.

Then, before the shadow dragon could come for her, she cast a spell she learned by harvesting the Jealousy’s memories. She transformed herself into Psychomancy mana and channeled her being across the many fibers. As the shadow dragon tried to stab her, it struck nothing but air as she parted into separate streams of translucent mana. And that was another difference she discovered between her and the Jealousy. It destroyed the hosts it occupied. Part of that was because it consumed consciousnesses, but also because its Skill Fusion was ultimately a lethal one.

Uva wouldn’t have been able to wear the Jealousy as she did if Shiv hadn’t hollowed its ego.

She, however, traded raw destructive power for more control. She wove her own ego over the wind dragon’s as he screamed inside of her. No! Let me out! Give me back—

Uva threaded a needle through the dragon’s defiance thoughts and dissolved them with a thought. Suddenly, the dragon stopped its pointless struggle. Wh—no! I… why can’t I—

And then she stitched herself closer to its senses and bodily functions. When she manipulated the Jealousy, she directed it through mental commands and raw psionic effort. Now, she wove herself into the dragon’s consciousness, her mana threads reweaving her ego over theirs like a tight knot. After that, what she wanted was what they wanted, and it was like putting on a finely-tailored piece of clothing.

She saw out from the eyes of the wind dragon.

“Where’d she go?” the shadow dragon called, flying over. “Do you see her?”

The entirety of Uva mana field was condensed with the wind dragon. She considered pulling a few threads free to strike the other dragon but decided not to risk it. Experimentation was best done in a controlled setting. Uva decided to go with the more reliable option of making her temporary body murder its friend.

Please, the wind dragon begged inside of her. Memories flowed through the wind dragon. Too many memories even for her to process. The shadow dragon appeared in many of them. Sir Orchid—the quiet member of this band of traitors. Too bad it didn’t know its own fate.

“Hallo? You alright?” The shadow dragon flew close. Uva made the wind dragon feign weakness.

“I think she broke something in me,” she said, clutching her head.

The shadow dragon came close. “What? Let me—”

Then, she was on him, driving her clawed thumbs through his red eyes in an instant. Inside, Sir Hallo—the wind dragon wailed in despair as he felt his thumbs sink deep into the eyes of his brother in arms. NOOOOOO!

Uva ignored the dragon screaming within her mind in favor of the one shrieking beyond it. The wind dragon wasn’t the strongest of its band, but it did have speed in spades. And that speed was hers. Hers to use as she accelerated into the shadow dragon, driving it across the sky and sinking her thumbs in deeper.

Please! Please! The wind dragon wailed. It couldn’t struggle. She removed that function from its mind. So all that remained was the begging and the pain. 

The shadow dragon stabbed at her blindly. Its spear slashed against the wind dragon’s scales, but the closeness of their proximity and the pain made the shadow dragon missile. But the shadow dragon wasn’t the only one that was breaking. Uva felt the wind dragon snap inside her, breaking apart around her mana strings. The act she forced it to do was driving it insane at an alarming rate. Without choice, the wind dragon descended into madness. But Uva staved that off as well, pulling away trauma with her strands.

 Puppeteer of the Formless Strings > 102

“Hallo! Stop!” The shadow dragon cried. “Why! Why!”

I can’t! Hallo screamed inside Uva. But the shadow dragon couldn’t hear, and she wouldn’t tell.

The shadow dragon dropped its spear as the wind dragon’s hands sank in all the way. Whereupon Uva had the wind dragon channel electricity via its Aeromancy. The shadow dragon gave a roar of unmatched pain as the wind dragon’s lightning blasted out from its thumbs. The insides of the shadow dragon’s eye sockets fried and combusted, its brain faired little better.

Brother! I’m sorry! I can’t—You monster! Monster!

The wind dragon was sobbing inside her, but Uva’s sympathy was at an all-time low. Being ambushed by two dragon-knights who had no problem with murdering her people helped with the indifference.

The shadow dragon twitched a few more times before it went still in her arms. The wind dragon screamed. Uva pulled her thumbs out and tossed it aside. Now, it was time to—

A large part of the wind dragon’s mind broke from the act. It spasmed in midair and suddenly, Uva found herself burdened with controlling a dragon’s body herself. The problem there was that she lacked the proper experiences and memories, considering a good number of them just dissolved. It wasn’t a clean ego hollowing like what Shiv did to the Greater Demon. This was the start of a complete collapse, and Uva was losing control of this new and alien body.

“Composer, control yourself,” Uva chided the dragon.

I want to die… I want to not exist… And since the wind dragon couldn’t resist her, it rushed head-first toward madness instead.

Wonderful, Uva said as her struggled to manage more and more of this body. She was going to need a new dragon to wear soon. One with an intact ego. She would probably need to focus more of her mana on blunting the trauma from her next target. This was a good first lesson.

Tentatively, she removed a few of her tendrils. Controlling the dragon didn’t feel much more difficult. As she removed half of her strands, she still felt stable, but her influence over the dragon was rapidly fading. Uva wondered if she could break multiple minds and simply broadcast orders into them using her mana strands. Have them fight autonomously on her behalf. 

She’d find out soon. 

Uva extended her strands, then, and left her mana spread out over the land. The umbral wilderness was a mess of dense trees and swaths of wasteland. She needed something to—

She felt her mind brush something. A mind that was impossibly resilient and hard, with several others closing in. Shiv? Wind exploded out from her winds as more of the wind dragon’s sanity collapsed. She had a direction, now. And a purpose. She was going to find her team, and they were going to finish the rest of the dragons off.

This had been a brutal fight. Uva had come closer to death more times in the past few seconds than she had for entire years during her early career. And she almost broke her own mind again. But the system rewarded this. The system loved strife, and it also loved strugglers. And from the moment Shiv came into her life, the struggle grew immense.

And Uva loved it.

Hold on, she thought as she tore across the horizon. She saw Shiv and Adam standing in a carter. Three other dragons closed in on them. Three new vessels to choose from.

And just then, the last bits of the wind dragon’s mind crumbled away, leaving Uva to fly its body without any context or practice. So. She did the best thing she could. She glided. But that mostly became a directed fall as the earth sped toward her. She struck the ground not far away from her team, as though the wind dragon briefly lost consciousness, Uva was still aware, and Uva wanted out.

She flexed every fiber of her mana outward, not bothering to untangle herself as she emerged back into the real world in a blast of Psychomancy and brain matter. She stepped and winced as she realized her right leg was fractured. Adept Toughness was better than nothing, but even with her new protections, she wasn’t nearly as durable as Shiv or Adam.

“Apologies,” she said, taking in her boys. Shiv was nothing more than a transparent outline now and Adam had a new arrow nocked. It seemed like they went through their transformations as well. In her periphery, she saw two dragons move—and she speared them with every thread she could immediately muster. Jets of trauma were injected out through her strands, and both the Biomancer and Sir Tarlow went down. “Couldn’t quite reach the Jealousy. I had to find another body to wear.”

Another one of her threads passed through Adam and Shiv. The Young Lord was terrified of what she just did, but Shiv—

“Holy shit… that was hot,” he muttered internally, enraptured by the sight of her striding out from the dragon.

Uva gave a slight smirk. Her dear brute was such an easy man to please.

***

Shiv was torn away from staring at Uva when the axe-bearer roared and charged. He saw several of Uva’s strands slash into the axe-bearer’s mind and—

“He’s completely mad!” Uva cried in surprise.

“Yup!” Shiv said, as he launched himself forward before the big bastard could smash into either of his more fragile allies. Shiv knew just how hard the big dragon could hit, how fast it was while raging. And so he adapted his strategy. He crouched low and crashed hard against dragon’s chest, driving it from an angle. Shiv felt himself get driven back like he was an insect trying to hold back an avalanche on a frozen slope, but he twisted his gravitic field, and he cut hard with his dagger, slashing at the dragon’s hind legs.

His blade crashed against the dragon, further empowered by his gravitic field, but to Shiv’s surprise, the cut wasn’t merely sharper or harder. No. The trembling power within its edge passed through the insides of the dragon as well. The beast cried out as Shiv sensed his slash start against skin before it swam through flesh, bone, and artery. The dragon had Adamantine Adaption as well, but it hadn’t been hit in a while, and Shiv’s blade held simpler qualities. Blood spurted out from the axe-bearer’s left leg as it crashed down. But Shiv didn’t let it grind along the earth in peace. No, this big piece of shit knocked him out and kept beating him. With a flare of anger, Shiv stabbed through the dragon’s ribs and lifted it over his head before dropping it on his knee.

A cloud of blood burst out from its back and one of its ribs snapped.

But the axe-bearer’s Berserk was still active. It barely noticed the pain, and its lashing tail hit Shiv in the side. He drained some momentum and managed to stabilize himself—only for the dragon’s massive hand to pin him against the ground. Shiv sliced a finger and then ripped the entire digit off. The dragon punched him. Shiv felt his right shoulder fracture. He snarled and squeezed out from the dragon’s hands. His Sihloutte was still active and it punched nothing but dirt.

At the same time, a dozen dimensional arrows tore into existence and crashed into the axe-bearer’s legs. A massive series of blasts washed over Shiv. The axe-bearer cried out as it lost its left leg entirely. It took a step forward, only for more of Adam’s Veilpiercers to hit its wings, right ankle and both hands. It crashed down into the dirt and Shiv held it down before dragging his blade across its throat and launching his bone drills into the back of its head.

Deepest Edge > 54

Silhouette > 51

Gravitic Wrestler > 117

The dragon’s adamantine adaption stopped Shiv from fully slicing its neck open, but it still wounded the beast badly. Blood gushed out from its severed scales, and Shiv pulled back on its neck with a roar. If his blade couldn’t do the work, he would finish the job with his hands. Adam helped him by firing shots into the dragon’s open neck wound. The axe-bearer coughed as it tried to throw Shiv off, only to take two Veilpiercers in both eyes. That sent the beast reeling, and Shiv secured his entire field around the dragon’s neck as he pinched the dragon’s exposed arteries and pulled them out.

An entire jungle of veins and arteries were torn out from inside the dragon. Adam shot those too. The axe-bearer crashed down on its knees, but it shrugged hard, and Shiv nearly got thrown off. With a shout, he cast Adam’s wounds into the dragon, and its Magical Resistance rattled, stunning it briefly.

“Shiv!” Adam’s voice cried in his mind as Uva connected the three of them again. “Expose the wound.”

Shiv did, and as he pulled the dragon back, Uva threw something at Adam, and he caught his rapier once more. It flashed five times. Five new Adams appeared, each with a Veilpiercer nocked. They all fired as one, and a blood chasm was blown into the massive dragon’s throat. Shiv absorbed some of the impact with his Momentum Core as he slashed the dragon’s neck three more times. Every hit made the dragon harder, but then time stopped. His core filled. And Shiv discharged as he swiped through the axe-bearer’s neck a final time, feeding rage into the blow.

Where dragon struck him hard and blunt, Shiv slashed cut and quick. Deepest Edge worked in perfect tandem with Momentum Core and Gravitic Wrestler. Shiv’s hypercharged cut washed through the dragon’s already mutilated neck—and passed all through it. Its spine separated. Its tendons parted. Shiv tore the dragon’s head off its body, ripping away an entire section of scales that still clung on.

When he finally came to a stop, he chucked the dragon’s head aside and then spat on it. “I would have kicked your ass the first time if Tarlow didn’t step in.” And speaking of the quick dragon, he turned to see the dragon Biomancer crying out as the last vestiges of Uva surged into in a few hundred mana strings. A few meters away, Tarlow managed to teleport and Shiv cursed—

Only for Adam to fire a shot and send the kukri-wielding dragon crashing down to the dirt a few hundred meters away, with one arm barely hanging on.

Shiv looked at Adam and grinned. “Nice felling shot. Now. Let’s go put this dragon in the dirt.”

They reached Tarlow in seconds thanks to Adam’s dimensional rupture. Shiv stepped out from the chasm first. Adam hid behind him with an arrow drawn. A second later, as Tarlow tried to take flight, her wings were rendered into bloody mush as the Biomancer stomped over.

Faintly, Shiv could hear the dragon’s muffled screaming from within Uva. He saw a faint weaving of her layered over its mind as well. “Just what kind of Skill Evolution is that?” Shiv asked.

“Heroic,” Uva replied, making the dragon Biomancer smile at him.

Shiv grunted in surprise and bemusement. “Well. Look at you two out-evolving me.”

“Shut up, you Unique-Skill having abomination,” Adam muttered.

Before them, Tarlow gasped as she tried to rise. She turned and saw Shiv—looked at the Biomancer in confusion, and sighed. Her left arm was useless. Her right hand clenched the kukri tighter. “So. I’m assuming you won’t accept my surrender.”

Shiv snorted. “Yeah. Think about what your commander said—I’m a surfacer too.”

The dragon stared, and then she laughed. “Strange. I survived your forces the during the war, only to die to three random mercenaries here and now. The system mocks us.”

“It just wants us to fight and die,” Shiv said. “Today was both our turns.”

She nodded and noted the knife in his hands. She looked at her kukri. “Hey, little monster. How about a final round?”

Shiv nodded. And then he sent a thought to Adam. “Shoot her ass, she stabbed me in the back enough times.”

Adam loosed an arrow. Tarlow tried to move, but the Biomancer dragon turned her legs to paste and her arm as blown off. As she screamed and crashed against the ground, Shiv drove his dagger down through her skull and dragged across her body. Tarlow barely managed a final gurgle as she was gutted from head to pelvis. But even in death, she clung hard to her kukri.

“Well,” Adam said. “That was—” He laughed. “We butchered her, didn’t we?”

Shiv grunted. He looked at the massive kukri, which was glowing—and for some reason, shrinking. “There are still a few left. The Dynamancer—”

“I have him,” Uva declared. A second later, the Biomancer’s skull exploded as well, and the dragon toppled in the dirt beside Tarlow. Uva’s face was coiled in disgust as she looked at Shiv. “His memories were vile.” That was all she needed to say. A few moments later, she turned translucent as her mana threads reached across the horizon. “I’ll try to keep this one alive. We can do some questioning and trade him to the Descenders for a boon.”

And then she vanished over the horizon in a surge of translucent mind mana. Shiv and Adam looked on, unsure where she just went, but the Young Lord sighed. “Well. She terrified me before with her Psychomancy, but now—”

“Now we’re going to destroy that gate when we get to it,” Shiv chuckled. He reached out and clapped Adam on the shoulder. 

The Young Lord grunted. “What was that for?”

“For dragging my ass out of the dirt.”

Adam looked away and rolled his shoulders. “Well. It’s what a Pathbearer should do.”

“Yeah. Well. Thanks, asshole.”

“You’re welcome, bastard.”

And with that, the fight against what was a lance of twelve dragons came to a close. But one was a Psychomancer and listened closely, there came two final screams as the surviving dragons were swallowed by a newly risen Heroic-Tier Pathbearer.