II-33 Endure

I watched my brothers die as we tried to take the walls. I watched them fall… and the Necrotechs—those twisted, vile monsters… they took the bodies. They took them into the dark.

My brothers came back to me later. I saw them. They were without skin, without flesh, without anything that… but I still knew who they were. Even with the taint of Necromancy spilling from their eyes, they still called out to me, they still remembered who they were. And they begged me to kill them. They begged me. They screamed! Even as the fucking Necrotechs made them fight me!

I can’t—I killed them again, and they cried out for ma! I can’t do this! I can’t do this! I need to go home! I need to go home! The Inquisition needs to burn this place! Let the Ascendants pour fire until there is nothing left in the Abyss! Nothing! Just get me out! I won’t fight anymore! Get me out!

Why are we even here? What are we doing here? Why did we get sent down into the dark? Why…

-Interview with Twilight Republic Sergeant-Adept Audrey Connors. Later executed for dereliction of duty and heresy by the Inquisition

II-33

Endure

“You are a wretched thing. A wretched creature. A spawn of wrongness and taint. The Town-Lord is a good man, but his goodness has turned to a flaw with you. He should have allowed us to burn on the altar as the demon you were—weeping while still inside your own mother’s corpse. He should have… But he refuses. And even now, he refuses to allow anyone else to correct this mistake.”

Shiv curled tighter into himself, trying not to whimper from the pain. Something inside him was broken. It hurt to move. So he stayed as still as he could. He stopped crying too. Crying only made them beat him harder. “I… just wanted food… Hungry.”

A boot slammed into his back and sent him bouncing down the steps. The young Omenborn shrieked as pain exploded inside him. He cracked his head against the cobblestone at the bottom of the church, and he heard the War Priest’s boots pound closer. Something thick, warm, and wet hit his neck. It was too brief to be urine, so it had to be spit. The congregation was following the War Priest down.

Shiv turned. If they were going to kill him, he might as well get a good look at his murders. The War Priest was a large man with a long black beard. He had these glowing prismatic robes over his armor, but his eyes were dark and hateful. And Shiv didn’t even know what he did wrong. He didn’t know why everyone hated him, why the matrons in the orphanage hated him, why the other children hated him, why absolutely everyone hated him.

“Look away from me, creature,” the War Priest snarled. “You are unworthy of gazing upon a servant of the Ascendants.”

But though a child, the Omenborn snarled. What else did he have left? Crying and apologizing didn’t get them to stop. The world didn’t care if he was sorry. The world didn’t care if he felt bad. The world just wanted to hurt him. And for the first time in his life, Shiv spat back. He spat blood all over the man’s boot.

“No,” Shiv said. “I just wanted food. And you just wanted to hurt me.”

The War Priest snarled and raised his boot over Shiv’s head, intending to finish the bloody affair. Some of Shiv’s bloody spit spilled back on his face.

“Stop!” 

The War Priest froze. The Congregation broke into a clamor. An automaton guard marched forward from across the street, flanked by two humans. Shiv looked at them, and realized people were watching. But they didn’t do anything. They were just going to watch as the War Priest killed him. The only person who cared was the guard. The guard. They beat Shiv too. But just to get him to leave. Just a hit or two, nothing more.

“What are you doing, Master Halvus?” the automaton guard asked, his voice deep and baritone.

“I am going to finish this,” the War Priest snarled. “I am going to finish the Omenspawn, and bring—”

“You are going to get yourself executed by the Town-Lord,” the guard corrected. “Publically.”

The War Priest’s face twisted in disbelief and fury. “Why? Why does he protect this creature? For what reason.”

“Does the Town-Lord need to explain himself to you?” the guard asked, sounding incensed. “Do you feel that you are owed an explanation from the hero of the Eclipse War?”

“I—but—”

“If you kill this child, the Town-Lord will come see you personally,” the guard finished. The automaton looked down at Shiv. Its eyes glowed green, and there was nothing there. No kindness. Just a duty. “It doesn’t matter why he demands the boy’s survival. It only matters that the boy survives. That is the edict placed on him by the Town-Lord, and that is the way things will be.”

The guard held up a golden arrow for all to see, and several of the congregation backed away. “A shot was fired. An order was delivered from Starhawk’s Perch—Master Roland Arrow is watching. And he will not forgive disobedience.”

And then a scroll was given to the War Priest. With each word he read, his expression grew fouler and angrier.

Unable to help himself, Shiv laughed. A second ago, he thought the priest was powerful. No. The priest was just another rat in this city. Another coward. They were all cowards. All of them. They hurt him because they could get away with it. It was who they are. Whatever his parents did—that was an excuse.

Blackedge was a town of cowards, not heroes.

“I thought you served the Ascendants?” Shiv wheezed. “Is… is the Town-Lord an Ascendant?”

“Silence,” the War Priest growled.

“Why—you’re not powerful anymore? You were never powerful; you’re just a coward,” Shiv hissed. “I thought you were all faithful. But you were just, just afraid. Afraid for me—for nothing.”

And the Warpriest saw something inside you—something that made him flinch back. But the Priest couldn’t suffer the pain of his realization. And so he chose anger. He chose to bring his boot down on Shiv—not on his head, but on the arm.

***

Shiv snapped back to consciousness with a bellow of pain as his right arm fractured.

“Shiv!” Can Hu cried. The machine’s voice was thick with electrical interference and worry. “Get up! You need to get up now!”

Shiv groaned. “What? What’s happened?” And then, something hit him again—hit him hard. He went bouncing off the ground, twisting and turning, ripping chunks out of the land with every impact. Shiv grunted in pain and with each hit, he remembered where he was.

Right. The dragons. The fight. He was in the middle of getting the shit kicked out of him, and it brought back old memories—especially unwelcome ones.

Shiv used the rage he felt from the memory of the War Priest and stilled himself with a gravitic field. He turned to face his attackers and took stock of his many wounds: a minor concussion, a fractured right arm, most of his ribs cracked, one of his lungs punctured, and his right leg partially dislocated from the knee down.

“Not too bad, all things considered,” Shiv muttered.

Then, seven dragons jumped him at once.

The dragon Dynamancer brought a massive spike of gravity down on him, crashing against his own gravitic field. Shiv growled as he tried to push it back, only to receive a massive axe strike to the chest.

Before he could be knocked back, the kukri-wielding dragon blinked in from the side and stabbed into his back again. His rearmost armor was practically stabbed clean through.

Can Hu let out a mechanical squeal. Shiv needed to reinforce his armor before he completely came apart and the Penitent died in his stead.

He reactivated his Song of the Vigilant, ignoring how his soul felt, and he channeled a Woundeater out from his own body. It materialized in his hands, and he flung it outward, only for the dragon-knight Biomancer to intercept it.

A clash of crimson mana was flared through the air, but the spell was caught and held in place. Both he and the Biomancer were equals in terms of power, but he couldn’t fight it and the other dragons at the same time. He let his wounds return with a groan—which began a snarl of pain as the wind-dragon slammed into him from behind, dragging him along the ground, he was flicked up in the air. A moment later, he tried to recover, but then a javelin of pure cutting force came from nowhere and cleaved into his right hand. Shiv felt his pinky and ring finger break.

“Shiv, listen,” Can Hu said. “You need to distract them. If you try to use your momentum core like you did before, it will only be intercepted. You need to stall the dragon with the blade. Before you can go for the Psychomancer.”

“I know,” Shiv said, realizing the automaton was talking about the kukri dragon.

And as he thought of her, she immediately materialized, aiming a blow at his back. This time he managed to parry her, sliding his body off course and causing her blow to glide through the air, like it was being dragged across a slick surface.

She teleported as she tried striking him again, but he knew this trick of hers as well. Once more he parried her, and this time he flung her into another dragon sword-wielding with a tug of his field.

They crashed together, a brief opening that was interrupted as Shiv felt the Dynamancer grip him. Electric arcs splashed out from the Dynamancer’s hands. Shiv felt his armor endure the lightning bolts, but the magic that followed—the magnetism and the gravity—was harder to resist. It crushed down on him. He used his Momentum Core to drain as much as he could. Time slowed, then the wind dragon slammed into him once more, briefly stunning him—

Long enough for the enemy Biomancer to slam their field into his own, and long enough for the massive dragon axe-wielder to drive its weapon into his chest.

Two cracks thundered through Shiv.

His mana held better than his body did, as he felt all of his ribs fold inward, blood gushing down from his mouth. The world went dark again, and only Can Hu’s call dragged Shiv back before he could plunge into unconsciousness.

He drained what he could from the axe-wielder’s blow; that was enough—his Momentum Core filled. He launched himself blindly in the direction of the Psychomancer, sliding along the edge of the axe. It was a testament to his durability that he left a long scratch on the steel, but the axe was adamantium too, and it didn’t break like the wind dragon’s hammer did. 

He shot through the air. As Can Hu called out a warning, Shiv twisted himself just slightly through the sky, pulling himself to the right using his gravitic field. The kukri dragon cut down and missed.

Skill Gained: Dodge (Common)

Dodge > 1

As he approached the Psychomancer, he saw the pale-scaled dragon-knight chanting a spell. It formed over its head, and dragon was on the verge of unleashing it—just then, however, a crossbow bolt hit the dragon in the left eye, and it cried out. The spell broke; a surge of Psychomancy spread over everyone, but Shiv parried the magic with his gauntlet and took the opportunity to slam headfirst into its chest. The dense titanium armor the dragon wore folded inward, and he heard it give a feminine gasp as its chest crumpled inward.

But Shiv wasn’t done. If he was going to die this time, he would take at least one of them with him. He seized the dragon by the throat and ripped. He tore. Her scales peeled and parted one after another as the creature shrieked and tried to throw him off. Shiv used his Biomancy to rend his own throat and flung the spell into her. Suddenly, an entire section of her neck unlatched, splitting open vertically. Blood gushed down over him, but the dragon absorbed some magic. When the full effects did not manifest, Shiv struck again. More of her throat opened up, and he caught something arterial. There was so much blood over him.

And then the kukri dragon was on him again, tearing him off her ally and teleporting him away with her. It was a brief jump this time, and they arrived among the other dragons just in time for the axe-wielder to strike Shiv across the head. The blow left him stunned—only for a kukri to slam into his abdomen and leave his outer stomach dangling like a flap of meat.

He was spinning through the air, but only for a moment. The Dynamancer caught him with its magic, and just then, the Wind Dragon drove an ascending elbow into Shiv’s chest. The dragon was going as fast as it could—but Shiv was still hardened, still adamantine, even with compromised armor. The dragon hit him, and it was the dragon’s elbow that snapped. The wind dragon cried out in pain, and to Shiv’s disbelief, the axe-bearing dragon let out a massive, barking laugh.

Adamantine Adaption > 110

“Pussy!” the axe-bearing dragon cried. And then it knocked another dragon aside as it reared back its massive, metallic fist. The axe-bearer eyed Shiv with his dark red eyes and smiled. A jagged forest of bladed teeth gleamed in the dimness of the Abyss. “All right, you little hard bastard—let’s see how you get hit by a proper Dragon.” 

Shiv spat blood. “Sure.” Feeding his anger into his Gravitic Wrestler, he suddenly broke free from the Dynamancer’s grasp and slammed into the axe-wielding Dragon’s face. “But I think I’m gonna hit you first.”

Shiv picked up the axe-wielding dragon, using all his strength to do so. He felt himself empty of anger. The feeling was calming—unnaturally so. His strength plummeted just in time for him to suplex the massive dragon head-first into the dirt. Then Shiv brutally pulled the dragon’s neck at an angle. A loud crackle sounded from the axe-bearers collarbone—but that was as far as Shiv got before the kukri dragon smashed him out of the air again.

He twisted and bounced, gliding through the dirt, but before he could get up, something hit him so hard he nearly blacked out again. It dragged him on for a long while, and he felt the tip of the kukri dagger drive into his chest, splitting entirely through his exoskeleton. Shiv gagged and vomited blood all over the inside of his helmet. Then, Sir Tarlow—the kukri dragon—channeled a beam of pure starlight, burning him. Shiv tried to wrestle it aside, but was completely spent of strength.

This life was about to be used up.

As her Momentum Core came to an end, Shiv lay there partially impaled, groaning and trying to free himself from the blade. The Dragon flicked him off her blade like he was a gnat, and Shiv bounced for several meters. As he looked down: most of his chest was a bloody, charred mess. His mutilated stomach turned again, and Shiv barely held back from retching again.

“There is nothing shameful about this,” she said, stalking toward him. They’d traveled a good few kilometers again; at least the other dragons were far, far away.

Shiv blinked as he realized something. Far away from the others… she just made a mistake. I think there’s still a little fight left in me.

“Can Hu…” Shiv groaned.

“I am here,” Can Hu said, though the automaton sounded hurt as well. “I am… only moderately damaged. Surprisingly. Your bones serve well as armor.”

Shiv sniffed. “Great. Good. I’m probably going to be dead soon. No sense in you getting destroyed with me. Just play dead in the mud, and I’ll come back for you if I can.”

“I wouldn’t be able to move even if I wanted to,” Can Hu said.

Shiv remembered. “Ah, right. Your skills… Thanks for everything,” Shiv said.

Can Hu responded with an uncomfortable beep.“I don’t think I did very much at all, Pathbearer.”

“Bullshit,” Shiv snapped. “I don’t think I would have caught half of her blows if you didn’t call them out.”

He unclasped himself from the armor and pulled some horse asshole off of his face. He rose, staggering, and summoned a wyrm to drain away the last of his wounds.

“Ah,” the kukri dragon said, looking at him appreciatively. “Finally, you are human after all, underneath. But perhaps even deeper, you are not. So much raw durability. This is not a skill your people often get.”

She spun the blade in her hand, switching her grip from reverse to standard. “So, would you like to see this through to the end?”

“Yeah,” Shiv said, licking the blood from his lips. “I think I want to find out if I can finish you off first, or if it’ll take you longer than your friends arrive to finish me off.”

Sir Tarlow nodded. “I was curious of that too. That is why I brought you here, after all. You have my interest piqued. I think… I will think back of this moment. Long, long after this day.”

“I don’t know if I will,” Shiv replied. “You’re a nasty fight now, but I have a feeling it got a lot worse to come.”

He laughed. “I will miss the arrogance.”

“No,” Shiv replied. “Not if you’re dead.”

And then he charged towards her, tearing an open chasm across the ground. No more strategy. No more technique. Just a man trying to beat a monster to death with his bare godsdamn hands.

The dragon blinked, but even without Can Hu, Shiv knew what to expect. He knew what to expect when she dodged through him. He knew what to expect when she teleported twice. And he knew what to expect when she finally drove her blade against his chest. He knew he wouldn’t be fast enough to catch her. And he knew he didn’t have long to inflict harm before she teleported or simply blinked again.

So, she let her wound him, and he traded with her, launching his Woundeater into her chest as she cut a deep slice on his. He was blasted into the earth, but the dragon staggered back, stunned. He created another Woundeater from the injury he just got, and he launched it at her too. She almost managed to dodge that one. Almost, but spells move pretty quick, especially when you were in someone else’s field. Another problem was how she couldn’t sense his Biomancy field, so she was struck trying to predict his Woundeater—and that wasn’t reliable at all.

As a second crimson explosion expanded around her, he felt her Magical Resistance crack—approach the verge of breaking.

And this time, Shiv tore himself completely apart, practically flaying his own flesh off his body as he launched himself towards her.

The dragon stumbled back, trying to recover. It teleported, and Shiv waited—waited for it to strike him. For a moment, he thought she was gone, that she had done the wise thing and fled back to return with her companions and finish him off together.

But then her blade came crashing into his back again, and he couldn’t help but laugh, even as pain tore through his body.

“Just can’t resist,” Shiv cried, and he launched the Woundeater past his shoulder into her. Her Magical Resistance detonated like a bomb. Shiv could feel the pressure washing off her body as what remained of her mystical armor came asunder. Wounds erupted all over Sir Tarlow. Her scales came free in several places, hanging from her body like tatters. He flayed himself entirely. She suffered only a partial effect, but it was enough. She looked partially degloved, and howled with immense pain.

Tarlow staggered away from him, holding the bouncing strips of her body in place as blood spewed out from her. She cried out, almost delirious from the pain. “How do you deal with it? You flay yourself to wound me… How?”

“ I’ve kind of always lived this way,” he replied with a shrug as he staggered after her. “That’s just a simple thing of arithmetic. It might hurt me, but it will sure as shit kill you.” 

She nodded and tried to compose herself. “Admirable, I’ll keep that in mind. It is a good lesson.”

And then she shot towards him, her wings unleashing a furrow of massive icicles that crashed down the surrounding ground. He swatted them aside, barreling through them like a bear would charge through a small snow castle. But before they crashed into each other again, before he could unleash his Biomancy on her again, she teleported just as he ruptured two of his organs.

A second later, she dropped another dragon on him, and he felt the dragon Biomancer’s field crash against his own. Surprised, he dropped his spell as he tried to fight off the dragon Biomancer’s attempts to stop his heart.

“Damn it!” Shiv cried. His organs ruptured again, but the Song of the Vigilant kept him focused. He wrestled against the other Biomancer, both of them pitting spells of raw intent against each other, their mana swirling, magical shapes dancing around their bodies.

The battlegrounded changed once more. It seemed that Sir Tarlow wasn’t nearly as prideful as he assumed. Annoying. Tragic.

“So, you forced Sir Taro to finally seek some help,” the Biomancer dragon declared with a slight lisp. The big bastard was more than just a Biomancer, frankly. It held a tower shield almost as big as it were, and perhaps half the length of the Jealousy. In its other hand, it clutched what seemed to be something between a scepter and a banner, and a field of oppressive aura came pressing against Shiv, grinding at his mind, at his focus. He guessed it was some kind of Psychomancy-powered weapon, something to disrupt someone’s thoughts.

Shiv was glad he had the Song of the Vigilant. There was no way he could be casting without it.

Then Tarlow struck Shiv from behind again, and he went crashing head over foot. His back was flayed open, but he kept his focus and stopped the Biomancer from killing him. But even as he held the dragon-knight Biomancer at bay, he had to fight Tarlow with half his focus. 

That didn’t work out too good.

She carved him up, splitting him back and front. Her blade was an item of artistry in her hands—flowing between cuts and angles, her grip reverse then standard, stabbing then slicing. It was only by Shiv’s incredible durability aided by Momentum Core and his gravitic field, that he lasted as long as he did. But by the end, his skin was barely clinging to him, his muscles in tatters, held close to his body more by his Biomancy and gravity fields than by connective tissues.

Momentum Core > 84

Adamantine Adaption > 112

Gravitic Wrestler > 112

Woundeater > 61

And to make matters worse, the other dragons were on approach in the distance—just moments away.

Shiv sighed. “Didn’t quite manage to kill you, did I, Sir Tarlow?” He looked at the dragon as they staggered back from each other, both exhausted.

She shrugged and seemed dissatisfied as well. “I had to call for help,” she admitted. “We are both losers this day.”

That got a laugh out of Shiv. “I wish you weren’t a traitor. I think we would have liked each other.”

I wish you weren’t a fool mercenary who tried to steal from us. I wish you had surrendered.” She drew her blade back, and assumed a crouching stance. The dragon Biomancer retracted its field from Shiv to heal her “You would have made a fine dragon-knight.”

And Shiv decided to make his last moments count. He charged Tarlow. At least, he tried to. The Biomancer suddenly commanded Shiv’s vessels to rupture, and he was forced to resist to survive.

Then the Dynamancer unleashed a spell from afar, and a massive blow descended on Shiv from above. Dynamancy, from what Can Hu briefly described, could control magnetism, could control gravity, could control force itself. One didn’t reach Dynamancy without gaining and fusing all the main elemental Mancy skills, like Cryomancy, Pyromancy, Aromancy, and Hydromancy, first.

The Dynamancer struck Shiv with was one of the hardest blows he ever suffered. Something even harder than Tarlow’s Momentum Core discharges. Shiv tried to bear its weight of the blow, but both his knees folded inward. He felt his legs break, and Shiv cried out in agony as more of his body fractured. Adamanatine Adaption stopped him from coming apart entirely, but his tendons were still plucked from his bones. Shiv’s focus finally shattered, and his soul was too worn from the Composer’s song to keep it up much longer. He dropped that as well, and then the banner’s full oppressive power smashed into his mind, flooding his thoughts with noise.

Shiv tried to rise, and the Biomancer’s shield crashed down on his body. He pushed against it, pushed against the dragon and the enormous weight of the shield with his gravitic field, only for the dragon axe-bearer to lay its weapon on top of the shield as well. “Feisty little fucker, isn’t he?” the axe wielder laughed.

Shiv spat blood on the shield. “Come find out, asshole. We’re not done.”

“Indeed,” Sir Tarlow said with a sigh. “We will not likely see his like again for a while.”

Shiv gave a ragged cry and tried to push himself free. “Shut up and just finish the job.” 

The axe wielder looked at Shiv and then nodded. “Aye, we won’t see his like again. See you in the afterworld, stranger. Great One take you into their memory.”

And the dragon brought his axe back and dropped it on top of the shield. What was an instrument of defense became a guillotine. Shiv felt his spine fracture—and then harden. It still took them approximately twelve swings to split Shiv down the middle. And only partially at that. As he felt the shield dig into his intestines, Shiv hissed and tried to push through the chaos and pain, tried to shape a final Woundeater to fight just a while longer. 

But the Biomancer, taking advantage of Shiv’s stunned and delirious state, reached into him and burst every blood vessel in his brain.

The last thoughts that passed through Shiv’s mind that time were, Ah, so that’s what it feels like.

Then Shiv was a Revenant, and he immediately moved towards the Psychomancer dragon-knight who just touched down behind the others.

Momentum Core > 89

Adamantine Adaption > 117

Gravitic Wrestler > 115

Frictionless Vector > 55

Woundeater > 66

Dodge > 10

Striking Proficiency > 34

Knife Proficiency > 43

“Well, that was a bloody hard affair,” the axe-wielder huffed, planting its greataxe into the earth. “Wouldn’t you say, Tarlow? How did a little insect like that give us so much trouble?”

Tarlow looked at Shiv, but she seemed troubled. She stared at his body, and then at her kukri. The edge still glimmered with gold. “Impossible. He’s dead. Why does the blade still remember cutting him…”

And the Biomancer noticed something else. “There’s still someone else here,” he cried. “There’s someone else. There’s another field still active inside mine. The bloody Weavereress are among us! Enemy Biomancer! Master-Tier!”

But while they were trying to figure things out, Shiv reached the pearl-scaled Psychomancer and dug into her with his Biomancy. In that moment, he tried something—doing what Dven said, reconstructing a wound from Mana alone. He focused, trying to recall his most recent injuries, but that didn’t work, so he went for something very simple: a series of lacerations and cuts, the type he suffered most often.

As he focused, Mana condensed in the air. A Woundeater manifested before him, shimmering with crystallized crimson mana. He still wasn’t fully ready—he hadn’t grasped every fine detail—so he drove what he had into the pearl-bright dragon, washing over her in a gout of raw power. Then he tore into her Magical Resistance as best he could.

She lashed out with a blind spell meant to repel attackers, but his Magebreaker Gauntlet, his tattered clothing—the ones Uva bought for him—were bound to him. They materialized slowly as he did, leaving him more than capable of dealing with a magical attack.

“Equipped to do one’s soul indeed,” Shiv murmured in his own head.

As her Psychomancy spell exploded outward, he parried it with the Magebreaker and, using Frictionless Vector, launched it at several of the other dragons. It stunned the Biomancer just long enough for Shiv to shape another spell and crash it into the Psychomancer again. She cried out—and he felt part of her magical barrier give. She had little to begin with, likely a flaw with her current her armor. 

He landed a third spell just as the Dynamancer, uncertain what was happening, summoned a massive influx of lightning. Whips of electricity spliced through the air, forking into the other dragons as they sought Shiv—but they found nothing, even as Shiv drained the Psychomancer’s vitality and pulled forth a new set of armor out of his cloak in anticipation of his resurrection.

They weren’t ready for his return—especially the Pearlescent Dragon. He shattered her resistance with one final blast of exhausted Biomancy, then switched tactics. With a final act, he flayed open his own back and dove under her flesh, crawling into her wounds and ripping deeper into her parting flesh.

“A Weaveress is inside me!” the dragon cried. He felt her courage fracture as well. “She is crawling inside me!”

Shiv recalled every wound they’d inflicted on him, every hurt they’d caused, every injury they’d dealt—and he fed that rage into his Gravitic Wrestler. He began pulling in two directions. Outside, the Psychomancer lurched and shrieked with pain. The axe bearer called out to her, screaming for the Biomancer to help her. Inside, Shiv felt the dragon’s bones fracture, her organs rupture, her flesh tear down the middle. With an animalistic roar, Shiv pulled again—and his field flared hard with his rage. Suddenly, her scales ruptured open, and light from the outside flooded inward. He pulled again—tendons snapped and tissue split, breaking along their very strings. The dragon gurgled, and he saw the axe-bearer’s desperate face as it charged to aid the pearlescent dragon.

“Hold on,” the axe-bearer cried—

And then Shiv pulled one final time.

The Psychomancer came apart from within in an ocean of blood and gore, but Shiv was already drenched—blood-red and soaked to his very skin—and he felt invigorated with her death.

Six dragons remained. And when Uva made it back, there were going to be even fewer.

A ragged roar of absolute anguish sounded from the axe-bearing dragon. It rushed towards the place where the Psychomancer used to be and splashed down into the gore, pawing at the pieces of the other dragon, crying out for the Biomancer. Intuitively, Shiv realized that there was something deep and intimate between the two dragons—and he had just killed the Psychomancer.

That’s going to be problem. One I’ll deal with later.

Shiv blasted forward, blood peeling from his body. He went for the Biomancer next, but the spell the Dynamancer’s cast earlier found him.

A bolt of electricity crashed into his form, and the Dynamancer pointed. “There—I have him!” the dragon clenched a fist. It was like the world itself was tightening around Shiv. He fought with all his might, breaking free from the lightning, breaking free from the closing clutches of unseen force with a blow from his Magebreaker. Then, he twisted off to the side and shot toward the Biomancer.

As he accelerated toward his rival Biomancer, he was spent magically. If his rival launched a magical spell at him now, it would crack his field like an egg—and Shiv remembered how long he was out of commission after the Jealousy fight. He accelerated faster. Several other dragons moved to intercept him. The Biomancer shaped a glowing pillar of crimson in its hands—

Then a tide of arrows crashed down on the Biomancer, and countless more struck the other dragons. A downpour of magical projectiles followed—a colossal tide that speared down from the sky.

Above, hundreds of Adams fired and vanished, replaced by others as the original Adam cloned more of himself with his Heroic-Tier rapier giving off flashes of light.

Good thing Harkness was just playing with us, Shiv shuddered. That rapier is powerful.

Whatever happened to the two dragons that chased after Adam and Uva, Shiv didn’t know. All he knew was that he was glad to see the Young Lord and that it was good to have friends.