Shards of the Eight

by iridium248

Five hundred years ago, the Eight Greed Kings walked the New World. Through their strength of arms and magics, they sought to bend all to their will - But, in their avarice, fell to strife and slaughter. The end for one world is the beginning for the next: This time, as a new wave of Players descends upon the land, can anyone survive? Will anything?

47. Chapter 37 - Player versus Player

Our swords shall play the orators for us.

― Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great, Act I Scene II

Chapter 37 - Player versus Player

In the last days of YGGDRASIL - Near the very end of its lifespan - there had been increasingly desperate attempts to halt the slow slide into irrelevancy, to reverse the game's dwindling fortunes.

Even amid the arcane worlds of DMMOs, YGGDRASIL had always been obtuse, rewarding hard-won experience and mastery of countless esoteric systems over instant gratification. That was both its appeal and the albatross around its neck. Once you started, you were in it for the long haul.

The slow trudge to the endgame was a death march, marked by plateaus of grinding and the occasional spike of progress. Not everyone was ready for that level of commitment - It was far too easy to get frustrated, for weeks to months of effort to yield no visible result.

Frustrated players often fled to other, less complicated virtual worlds. In truth, given the chance, I would probably have been one of them. I've never considered myself to be an especially patient man, not when it came to something as ephemeral as DMMOs: The slings and arrows of our hardscrabble life were about as much as I could endure, and that was mostly because there was no choice at all.

If, however, a tangible symbol of YGGDRASIL's decline had to be identified, the dwindling playerbase would have pointed the finger squarely at Valkyrie's Downfall and all that had come with it.

Namely, the Powered Suit.

Massive, servo-assisted exoskeletons, Reinforced Armors had been an attempt to cash in on the abrupt, short-lived popularity of games like Eleceed, Aberage and Phantom Breaker. The full deployment of linear frames in the East Bloc conflict had been a happy coincidence: For months, there had been endless footage of armed interventions, grey-uniformed men mowed down en masse by thirty-millimeter smartguns or pulverized by depleted-uranium munitions.

And then the Eurasians had begun deploying thermobaric ordnance, in the form of micro-seeded munitions and plasma throwers. Suddenly, the design flaws of the chassis had become achingly obvious - Haunting images of burning mechs, still blazing as melting crew hung from the escape hatches, came to dominate the airwaves for long after the offensive had failed.

Personally, I thought they'd had a good run. As good as could be expected, at any rate. Not that I was anything resembling an expert.

After that, their popularity plummeted. Phantom Breaker and Eleceed had quietly vanished into the mists of memory, their end-of-service announcements going mostly unnoticed amid the news of mass crop failure in the southern hemisphere and the resulting collapse of the Hock conglomerate.

But the Powered Suit lived on, in YGGDRASIL. Like a stain on collective memory, one that couldn't be expunged.

It wasn't that the idea was inherently unsound. Now, players with builds less-than-suited for combat could now actively contribute to the fight - Though never quite as effectively as a player who was. True, acquiring one was relatively expensive…But that just provided a goal to work towards, another treadmill of incremental progress that defined DMMOs in general.

No, it was what they represented. They didn't just clash with YGGDRASIL's sword-and-sorcery aesthetic: The Powered Suit was a half-measure, an attempt to retain the attention of players who couldn't engage (or didn't want to) with the complex, labyrinthine systems that made YGGDRASIL what it was.

It was a sign that the world, and everything in it, was dying a slow death.

Worse, the Reinforced Armor didn't play well with others. There were limits, hard ones: Warriors couldn't use their skills or wear armor, and weapons had to be specifically crafted to match the Powered Suit's scale. The cumbersome nature of the exoframe made casting spells near-impossible: While integrated magics were available, they drew from a relatively small (and exquisitely limited) pool, and accessing them required rare and exotic components.

But what had been a fundamental fact of the universe in YGGDRASIL no longer held true in the New World. The Vanisher's genius, I think, was being one of the first to realize that. He was acutely aware of his weaknesses, more so than the rest of us - And so he'd done the only thing that made sense to him.

He'd built around them.

The Frost Dragons were integral to the process, I believe. They may have been lesser cousins of truly primordial beings, but their very nature was magic. It was integral to them, part of them, all the way to the core of the being.

Specifically, their bones. Through painstaking effort, the Vanisher had found a way to make spellcasting possible, even from within his vast exo-armor - But that was only the beginning of what he'd planned.

When finished, Balmung was meant to make him unbeatable. An entirely different class of being, in fact.

If he'd had more time-

If he'd had everything he needed to complete his masterwork-

Well, I suppose this story would have ended very differently.

---

Impact.

The howl of thunder. The cackling werewolf growl of servos, pushed to maximum power. A thing of midnight skies and black steel and lightning bolts, blazing eyes roaring with endless smoke.

Balmung's howl cut the air keener than any knife.

It came on less like a dragon and more like a bull ape, ploughing forward with an awful unstoppability, pounding forward on legs and arms alike. It was a gallop, a charge that hurled that metal mountain forward with the force of a missile, shaking the earth, ripping it up in great furrows of crushed stone and snow.

I should have been cowering. Should have been shaking in fear and pain and madness, as it hurtled towards me.

But I had never felt this strong.

This driven. This justified.

I had never known such certainty.

There was a push and pull, you see. Between the awful, real horror of what had unfolded, and the nature of this place.

The roles we had chosen, and how we chose to play them.

For the first time since I'd arrived in Re-Estize, I knew exactly what to do. Knew that my target was finally, at long last, in my sights. That, here and now, the only thing left to do was to destroy him or be destroyed by him in turn.

There's a power in that, I think. A purity, in knowing you hate someone, in wanting them dead. When you embrace that, thought becomes will and will becomes deed: All that matters, then, is making it happen - Putting every iota of force you can muster, everything that you are, in bringing it about.

This was a fight I wanted.

All doubts, all uncertainties, all plans for the future were elsewhere. There was only the infinite now.

And the weapons - One lightless black, the other roiling with red flame - in my fists.

Wait.

Every pounding footfall shook the world.

Wait.

The exo-armor's spine-encrusted shoulders, vast chassis collar rolling and pistoning furiously, gouted a thick miasma of burning vapor and crackling sparks.

Wait-

Coming for me, directly. Filling my world.

Now.

And there was the strength I needed, surging through me in a tide of adrenaline and fury and pent-up rage, and there was Forge-breaker, moving so fast it became a blur. A tail of crimson fire dragged behind the great head of the hammer, as I swung with all the force I could muster.

Or rather, all the force I knew I could muster.

-the walls of the manor, dragged down after the shattered gate, a great cavalcade of crushing, crashing stone like the gods playing dice-

It struck Balmung's hurtling shape, but there was no explosion of hammerscale, no shock of impact. Instead, there was a deep, damned tolling, like the bells of Re-Estize had been set to ringing - A brilliant, blinding beryl flash…

And then nothing. An absence, as if all Forge-breaker's hurtling momentum was just abruptly and totally gone.

The dragon fell on me like an avalanche.

There was a crunch, a bang. A full-body impact: Not my ribs or my limbs or even my skull. It struck me in all of me, my entire body smashed back by the all-encompassing force that lifted me across the full length of the concourse and flung me away like a broken toy.

Spit, and most of my sense, flew out of my mouth. I crashed down, gauntlets locked to stop my weapons from spinning out of my hands, propelled by a force as total as it was irresistible. I rolled and rolled and rolled, Gnosis' edge dragging against the pavement with the shriek of metal-on-stone…

"You've forgotten what it was like - So permit me to remind you."

-Heard that awful, gurgling voice-

"[Maximize Magic-]"

I felt the air distort around me. Tasted iron in my mouth, felt a familiar dread pulse up my spine…

No-

Not again-

There was no time to run, to flee. Dazed as I was, I couldn't make sense of my surroundings, let alone find my footing. Instead, I hurled myself to the ground, arms crossing to guard my face, making shields of my forearms-

"[Blade Barrier]."

Blades of concentrated sunfire condensed into being, and filled the world with their slashing, stabbing fury.

---

Pain.

Oh, pain.

It was like a flurry of papercuts, like the cold bite of scalpels dragging over skin. I heard the gnawing scrape of metal being ground away, sparks raining down as blades churned around me with frantic whirling velocity. It was a blitz of razor-rounds, shredding into me - A damnation cloud of sword-winged locusts, all intent on their pound of flesh.

The white light welling up from me, flickering around me, turned a scarlet hue. Like blood in water, a spreading, boiling cloud of red. It felt like I'd been thrown head-first into an industrial grinder, teeth sawing through my armor, churning me to pulp.

But I'd lived through this - survived this - before.

And what could not be avoided had to be endured.

"What are you fighting for?" the Vanisher's voice hissed, through boiling clouds and shifting shadows. "That husk of a King? His slug of a son? The fucking nobles and their bootlickers?"

I'd expected him to take to the air, to rain down death from above. But even as my entire body flared with pain, I could hear the growl of his servos, the whirr of weapons spinning up-

And in a way, perhaps, he wanted to confess. To unburden himself, to the one person who would - could - understand.

Or perhaps he was holding back. Perhaps, even now, he thought that we could still cooperate. That this was all just some terrible misunderstanding, that common ground could be found between us as soon I saw the truth.

His truth.

"All they've done is take, more and more and *more*. And they're applauded for it, as the people starve. Worshipped for it, with the nation on the brink of collapse."

-a throb, from Gnosis. Shooting up my arm, in a wave of stinging strength.

"Every chance for revolution, castrated or destroyed or bought-"

Even through the agony, his words came through achingly clear. There was something building in him, something on the verge of explosion.

"Because men like you stand with them, every time."

And when the eruption came, it would not be good.

"You've seen it. You've lived it. An entire life with a boot on your neck. Everything and everyone, sacrificed on the altar of greed."

I barely heard him, through a red haze of gnawing, tearing agony. Sprays of blood whipped out in all directions as I tried to shield my head and body with my armoured limbs, gasping at the cold, tearing pain of each cut-

"And you chose them? Those vermin? For what?"

I could feel him circling, now. A predator, seeking the best route to attack.

Blood roared in my ears. I tasted copper on my tongue, felt rivulets of gore running over my sliced arms, down my legs. Felt steel grinding through meat, the reverberation making a sick horror churn in my gut.

"So you could play at being a knight?"

The blade in my hand pulsed again, as if in warning-

"To keep those fat, bloated pigs in power?"

The Vanisher knew me better than I knew myself: Knew that the blade barrier wasn't enough to kill me, not by itself. But it could batter me down, hammer me to my knees, cutting and gouging and slicing until I went blind.

"Is that what you want? To be one of them?"

It could pin me in place, until he could land a killing blow, something that would turn me into a welter of broken flesh and splintered bone. Each second I tried to shelter from them, to shield myself from the worst of the slashing, freezing pain, was another moment he had to bring his truest weapons to bear.

"Their low-rent, piece of shit running dog?"

I could hear the loathing in his voice as light blossomed all around me, red and granular. Through the storm of blades, I could see Balmung's blackened silhouette, hunching down as it swung its main guns in line-

I spat blood, felt it spray against the inside of my helmet as my fist clenched down around Gnosis.

"Vorpal-"

Arcs of silent lightning streamed down my hands, and across Gnosis' killing edge. My vision seemed to narrow, to tunnel. Shrinking down, until there was nothing in the world but myself and Balmung's great, dark shape.

A roaring in my ears as the column of fire fell, a great burning exhalation like the breath of some invisible dragon-

"Aphelion."

-a single, drumming heartbeat-

The world grew hot. Hotter. A monstrous furnace-heat, cascading down around me, so hot and bright the glare filled my vision with swirling orange flame. I felt my flesh blister inside my gauntlets, felt the breath burn hot in my lungs.

I lurched upright. Abandoning all defense, the bloody-tipped blurs of whirling blades converging on me. Constellations of knives, cutting me to the quick-

…As I swung my left foot forward in a single long step.

A rush of dizzying acceleration. The howl of the fastest wind.

The vapor ring of a sonic boom tore the air, as the boot I'd raised almost a hundred meters away came down a little less than one from the Vanisher. Even as the stone behind me boiled and glowed with furnace-heat, rising in shimmering waves from the conflagration that had descended, I put the full weight of my arms and shoulders into a single hacking swing.

He saw it coming. How, I don't know - But with machine-driven speed, with reflexes beyond belief, Balmung wrenched one great arm up to take the blow.

Except it wasn't just adamantite that came carving down. For that single, terrible strike, Gnosis smoked with dark vapour, coruscating with howling energies torn from the infinite dark between the stars.

A line of black fire sliced through the limb. It smashed through armor sheets, metal buckling under the fury of the impact. Static lightning rippled across the great gouge of the wound, piston fluid and oil jetting out, dark in the foul light. The damage seemed to ripple through Balmung's form: As I reared back to swing Forge-breaker, I heard the ugly grinding of ruptured components-

Balmung twisted, torso wrenching around with a brutal growl of hydraulics. I was inside the reach of its guns, too close, too fast to be stopped.

Or so I thought.

There came a mechanical clatter, as ports opened in the exo-armor's chest. Rockets flared out, in gouts of smoke and flame.

Behind my helmet, my eyes went wide.

Everything exploded, in a hailstorm of metal and stone. Overlapping concussions, blast after blast, drowning out all sound in a ringing peal of thunder.

The force of it hurled me backward, through starbursts of roiling fire: A witchfire glow limned my limbs, my brother's armor tightening around me to spare me the worst of it, but I hit the ground in a bubble of pain, my brain rattling in my skull.

I tried to get up.

I couldn't.

I couldn't.

---

You have to understand: Beneath the fury that had driven me into the fight, beneath whatever subliminal conditioning the legacy of YGGDRASIL had layered into my form, my predominant impression was one of shock.

Utter and total.

The forces moving around me were out of human scale, and part of me - that part that had learned, over thirty-two years of life, what my limits should have been - simply didn't know how to deal with it.

It was like a car accident, over and over again. Like a single word, bellowed with deafening force, until your eardrums burst or your heart stopped.

You didn't even feel the pain until later.

As I lay there, limbs twitching in spasm, I realized - dimly - that we'd blasted our way out through the granary's walls, and into the street beyond. Everyone who could still move had fled, by now: Scattered corpses remained, as a few scarlet-smeared shapes of anonymous flesh dragged themselves inch by shivering inch toward any shadow that might promise cover.

Balmung was above me, one three-taloned foot raised. I could see the gutting claws, as long as scythe blades, sizzling with charge. The whipping tail, lashing in counterweight, knobbed and articulated like a length of human spine-

Without ceremony, it stomped.

Like a man crushing an insolent bug.

I jerked to the side, felt my blood pattering down my side. An instant later, the Reinforced Armor's full weight came down on the place I'd been, splintering the stone. The impact made the ground judder, the convulsion flipping me on my back like a coin.

And for a moment, just a moment, I saw my opening. Two armor plates parting for an instant, to expose the cables and gears beneath…

I lashed out with Gnosis, and drove the sword point-first into Balmung's calf. It slammed home, like a key into a lock: There was a teeth-grinding metal-on-metal shriek as I wrenched the slicing edge left, right, twisting it in the joint until I felt something give way-

But even as the thrust drove home, the pivoting force of the turn snapped the armor plates back together on the blade.

Sparks showered out, raining down on me. Momentarily blinded, I felt the earth shake as the hulking leviathan staggered a step, dragging me with it. I hung on, adrenaline boiling in my blood, hand clamping down on Gnosis' hilt as I levered the sword sideways-

I gained my feet for a second, as the blade tore free. My ears rang with a roaring, a mechanical bellow that shook the world as Balmung stomped away, bleeding fire from the wound. Each step made the ground shake, spraying stone into the air: Riochets rang dully from my armor as I stumbled back, trying to avoid being pounded into the dirt.

And then Balmung's chain-link tail whirred out, invisibly fast, and smashed me from my feet.

---

A Frost Dragon's barbed tail was a weapon in itself. A single blow could shatter trees, rip through thrice-hammered plate like tin. Men could and had been torn in half by glancing hits - A direct one would turn a corpse into an unidentifiable red smear.

The Vanisher had replicated the shape, but not the function. Instead of scything barbs, Balmung's tail was tipped with a fist-sized sphere of hyperdense apoithakarah, crackling with blue sparks of electric charge.

It hit me like a cannon shell.

There was a loud bang. The discharging force hurled me bodily across the street, through the raised pole of a lamp. I landed hard, mithril armor shrieking as it left deep grooves in the pitted stone, fetching up against the twisted wreckage of a bench.

My breastplate had cracked. My right arm, the one that clutched Gnosis, went dead. Broken, maybe - I didn't know. Dying webs of lightning played across my cuirass, a dull ache radiating through my chest as I sprawled there, static fuzzing through my mind.

I think I may have said:

"-"

The Vanisher gave me no respite. Through the choking swirl of fog, Balmung came on. One arm hung limp, twitching as if with palsy, but it raised another hand and opened its palm. I caught a glimpse of a short-barreled weapon, focusing lens whirring as they aligned, coils glowing with white heat…

What-

An invisible pulse hit me, and slammed me into the floor. Cracks skittered across the ground, dust puffing from deepening fissures. I felt my head wrenched to the side, felt my spine go rigid, a deep, dire ache in my bones as the force bore down on me.

I thrashed, but there was nothing to strike at, nothing to hit. Just a hideous pressure, pinning me in place, ratcheting up with every passing moment. The pressure squeezed the air from my lungs, then kept right on squeezing until I thought my lungs were going to pop. Blackness crept in on the edges of my vision, tremendous pressure building around my eyes.

I could feel it crushing the life from me, the bones in my chest, arms, and legs grinding beneath the colossal weight. Heard the creak of mithril distorting, the joints of my armor beginning to shear under the weight-

Gravity. He was killing me with gravity.

"I would have saved them," came the crackling hiss. "You could have spared them all this-"

Over the droning hum of the weapon, I heard the hiss of pilot flames flaring to life. The nozzles of ventral flame units deployed, swinging towards me in a wide-angled array.

"But now you'll just burn."

An inferno belched forth. Great gouts of napalm, a towering fan of it, washing me with liquid flame. The view through my helmet dimmed, as my view became sun-bright patches of light and black silhouettes, dark spots hazing and pulsing in my sight as the ravening fires swept across me.

At the very last moment, my armor's wards pushed the flames away from me, parting them like a stream. For one blistering second I could actually see the clawing torrent of fire roaring around me, flames raking my flanks as they splashed around me. The smoke burned my eyes like acid, blinding me with tears, as heat-stressed stone began to crack, to spall.

I would be incinerated in seconds rather than moments, but I would be incinerated all the same.

I tasted blood in my mouth. Felt the air being crushed from my lungs. Every breath felt like drowning, but - with an effort that sent adrenaline bursting through my brain - I lifted Forge-breaker, limbs quaking from the strain…

And threw.

The great maul screamed through the air like a missile, driven by more-than-mortal force. It didn't tumble, didn't spin end-over-end: Instead, as soon as Forge-breaker left my hand, it flew straight and true, accelerating into a blur. As if enraged by the conflagration on all sides, the hammer's corona of eerie crimson flame flared brighter still, almost incandescent.

It punched through the smoke, through the clouds of churning steam, and hit Balmung head-on.

Armor shattered. A great sphere of molten metal radiated forth, as the vast machine lurched. Shreds of metal spun out, clotted oil spraying: Flame mounts deforming beneath the impact with the baritone crunch of steel on steel, garlands of fire rippling across Balmung's surface. Parts of it were booming, breaking, smashed free in a shower of rotating fragments and splintered mechanisms.

The torrent of flame rolled upward, leaving a wash of choking black smoke-

And I was free.

I was off the floor, running. The warped joints of my armor grinding, crushed muscles screaming torment. Everything hurt, but I could feel the tempestuous light within me, buoying me up, ghostly radiance flaring around my limbs.

That, and the primal need for vengeance. To hurt the one who'd hurt me.

My right arm didn't move. My gauntlet spasmed open, all the same, and I wrenched Gnosis from its nerveless grip. Balmung had rocked back on its axis, a heavyweight boxer taking a stunning blow, but that chain-link tail lashed out, spinning low to sweep my legs from under me-

"Parhelion-"

I leapt. Hurled myself at him, a human bullet. Felt the world spin around me as I left the ground-

"Fangs of Sól!"

Gnosis cut. Once, twice, thrice - Three blinks of razor sharpness, in the time it took to let out a single breath.

So fast. So fast they were just lines of light, like laser fire.

The first blow seared out, far further than humanly possible. It sliced through the gravity gun's carbon-composite barrel, through the star-bright accelerant chamber and the pulsing, sparking heart of the induction core. The weapon erupted, in a thunderous strobe of blinding light: Arcs of hungry energy cracked through the air, shards of metal flung out in a burning spiral.

My second blow hacked into Balmung's already-damaged arm, and all but severed it. With a grinding screech, Gnosis raked across the opalescent plating, chopping down into the joint. I heard cables snap, black fluid spraying as energy feeds and piping gave way. The limb thumped to the ground, falling with a thud of dead metal, twitching fingers uncurling in a reverse bloom of sundered connections.

The third slash ripped across the murdered dragon's wedge-shaped skull, and tore a deep gouge across its faceplate. One back-swept horn went spinning away, cut clean through.

I heard the Vanisher curse, a brutal snarl of static. The iron beast lashed out, one great claw swinging to smash me aside. Somehow, somehow, I twisted out of the way - Felt the wind of the claws, shearing past - and hacked down, carving through cables and struts in a two-handed chop.

I slewed Gnosis to the side, dragging the sword down the full length of Balmung's chassis with a grating squeal of deforming metal. Broken scales rained down, the blade leaving a fizzing wake as it tore free in a shower of sparks and shattered circuitry - My heart raced as fragments pinged from my armor, teeth clenched so hard I feared they'd snap.

I can do this, I thought, with a kind of dizzy exultation.

The Vanisher's machine was twice my size, and - Impossibly, against all odds - I was taking it apart.

I feinted left, then drove towards Balmung. If I could get inside its guard, if I could stay close, all that rippling black-scaled mass would work against him. I lunged, sword held high, spearing it at the fissure Forge-breaker had left in the chest plating.

I can-

There was the snap-hiss of mechanisms extruding, the powered suit's lower-left arm hinging open to reveal myomer muscle and absorption coils interknitted like brambles…

And a concealed emitter like a long, bladeless hilt.

Balmung's fingers folded out of the way, and a band of violet plasma seared forth. Twice as long as any sword, it burned as hot as the surface of a star. With a fluid, rushing speed, it swept across, the searing brand crackling as it sliced towards me-

My eyes went wide. I tried to twist out of the way-

Too late.

Burning pain slashed my chest, and I reeled back. I could see black smoke coiling from my side, the mithril smoking from the contact. The light from the fusion blade left searing lines in my field of vision, as the Vanisher's sword lashed out in a scything backswing-

Somehow, somehow, I wrenched Gnosis up to meet the gleaming blade. Shining energies met adamantite, loops of molten metal spraying. There was a pitiless machine strength behind the blow: The impact nearly hurled me from my feet, my knees buckling as I tried to force it back, one-handed.

Can't-

-hold-

My sword glowed where the plasma cascade bit into it, the lightless metal going - slowly, so slowly - from black to smoking red to incandescent white. Vapor streamed from the point of contact, a gasp of effort wrenched from my throat as I felt my feet begin to slip…

I willed my right arm to move. It didn't: The numbness had faded, just enough for it to start really hurting, but it still hung limp at my side. Torn muscles, maybe. Or perhaps the bone itself had snapped, the shards shearing into my flesh.

Just thinking that made nausea churn in my gut. Overhead, wisps of writhing mist gathered themselves into misty arrows. From my corner of my eye, past the blaze, I glimpsed something green, something venomous, drooling from them. Something that smoked where they struck-

Acid.

My grip faltered, and a line of heat sliced into my left pauldron. I fought down the scream boiling up from within, snapped my head forward…

Like before, like with Vijar-

And I head-butted the fusion blade.

Of all the risks I'd taken that day, it was the maddest one yet. But my helm was still intact, where the rest of my armor wasn't: If anything could survive the impact, it would. Dimly, I'd intuited that - somehow, somehow - I'd been holding the piston-driven might of the Vanisher's creation at bay, through sheer human strength alone…

-Except there was nothing human about it.

Something about that desperate move - the star silver alloy of my helm, the wards that held ravening energies at bay, the surge that shot up my spine and through my battered form - was enough.

My helm struck the searing line of plasma flame, and knocked it back.

Just for a moment.

For just long enough.

For even as half of the view through my helmet went dark, even as fragments of colour spun in my sight, I took a single lunging step forward, and drove the Gatebreaker Ring right at Balmung's damaged leg.

I spoke the word.

---

I'd used the ring once before, when I'd been pinned beneath what felt like tonnes of rubble. Back then, the discharge had slammed out in every direction at once like the bow-wave of some immense detonation. Even diffused, it'd been enough to shake the earth, blasting back collapsed beams and stone columns like matchsticks in a hurricane.

But this time, all that immense, shattering power was focused in a single direction.

This time, it had a target.

Force slammed out. There was a hurricane of wind, as something - A half-seen, almost caprine shape - burst from the churning air. It hurtled forward with the fatal velocity of a speeding bullet, and smashed into Balmung like a wrecking ball.

The splitting boom of impact eclipsed all sound.

The air-shock pummeled me, the recoil wrenching my arm back. Iron shattered, with a crack like a rifle shot: the ring burning cold against my hand, as it split apart into crumbling fragments.

With a lucid certainty, I knew - right then - that I'd pushed it too far. Destroyed something priceless, out of desperation and sheer driving need.

The results were impressive, all the same.

Already mangled, the exo-armor's leg exploded. Shards flew like buckshot, gears shredding as the knee joint gave. I heard the ugly, brutal snap of galvanized bone breaking, the powered suit listing violently to the side. With a scream of tortured metal, its own weight completed the work I had started, and Balmung came crashing down like a great toppling tree.

The ground shook at the impact. With a great, outraged howl - An ungodly scream, like shrieking feedback - the Vanisher's masterpiece struggled to right itself, pneumatics shuddering across its damaged frame as it thrashed its limbs. It fought to wrench itself up, the searing arc of its plasma blade gouging a deep furrow across the ground: One great claw slammed down, and Balmung heaved itself up on two arms and one leg.

I charged. Low, fast, half-running, half-stumbling. Shouting wordlessly, lungs burning with the need for air. Through whirling limbs, lashing out one-handed with Gnosis. I heard the frantic whirring of weapons trying to track me, but I was too close, moving too fast-

The acid arrows hissed down from above. Venom washed and splashed the cobbles, sending the paving stones smoking and hissing where they'd struck. With my head down, I felt one of them tear through my tattered cloak, felt another slam into my knee hard enough to throw a lurch into my step-

But I was going forward, all the same. I came up in a rising blow, and my sword caught Balmung right where its guts should have been. Gnosis cut - Ripping, tearing, into metal. Through metal, slicing through piston feeds and cables, rupturing hydraulics and shattering sensors.

Half-blind, I felt the resistance on the blade, the fierce savage joy of each blow driving me on, feeding my will to fight. I hacked and slashed, armor shearing and breaking beneath Gnosis' slicing edge. Things shattered along Balmung's hulking form, the recoil of each impact juddering through me: I sliced the blade between matte-black plating, cutting and cutting again until oil scattered and pieces of splintered carapace rained down-

With a shriek of gears, a battered arm rose to smash me aside. I drove Gnosis into the joint where the limb met the machine-dragon's torso, twisting and shearing until hydraulic fluid spurted from the seams. There was a hideous grinding and scraping, the point working itself deeper into the interlocking seal…

-And with a surge of brain-bursting effort, I gouged the arm loose.

I barely heard the crunch of ruptured metal hitting the ground, over the triphammer of my pulse. If not for the emerald-studded amulet I wore, the one that sent strength surging through me, I'd have been on my knees.

As it was, I was half-blind with fatigue, retching with exhaustion. Some of the life was coming back to my right arm, the pain fading to a dull throb, and I worked the fingers until they gripped Gnosis's hilt once more.

"Save them?"

The words rasped in my throat, through the wretched taste of lactic acid in my mouth. I dragged a breath through the grille of my helm, lungs labouring, fighting for air that didn't stink of smoke or the hideous alchemy of burning.

Like a half-crushed spider, Balmung was trying to right itself. With one leg damaged and two arms ruined, the giant's own weight worked against it: It'd lost limb function on one side, fires crawling across its night-dark carapace, shedding a steady stream of smoke. I could hear hydraulics whining as they fought to compensate, shorn cables spurting coolant and sparks.

But it wasn't dead. Not even remotely.

The great wedge of the head ratcheted around to keep me in its sights, bladed talons scraping the ground. Balmung's towering chassis seemed to tense, to swell-

Half my helm had been charred black by the Vanisher's plasma blade. It left me half-blind, my vision half-swallowed by flickering darkness.

But when Balmung's spined tail tore the air to find me, my sword lashed out all the same.

-slice-

The peerless edge hacked into the winding length, and three meters of segmented metal - Still twitching, still thrashing - fell to the ground, shorn end glowing with the heat of the cut. Seething with sparks, the maul continued to crackle, the faint glow of denied lightnings writhing at the very edge of my perception.

"Savethem?"

I was going forward, now. One slow step at a time, over the fused flagstones. Across the bloodstained, fire-lit road. Panting hard, though the red fog of rage that smoked in my mind, the steam that fumed from my mouth.

Sweat had soaked every inch of me, my hair matted to my scalp - I was hurt, cut and battered in more ways than I could have ever imagined, yet somehow less so than I'd thought.

There was stillness, then, and silence. A momentary lull, as abrupt as it was necessary: Winded, it was all I could do to keep moving, sword gripped in both hands, letting each moment breathe new life into my aching limbs. Blood ran down my arm, the flesh ripped wide, and part of me desperately wanted to look, to see how bad it was.

The rest of me knew better.

The Vanisher waited, patient as winter. Ensconced in Balmung, he'd been freed, wholly, from the strain of the fight. Yet, with its motive systems damaged, arcane mechanisms compromised, the powered suit was no longer obeying him as diligently as before. I could see the jagged edges and split steel I'd hacked into its chassis, the sheaves of sparking cables and shattered sensor-clusters that showed through the rents.

Good, I thought. Good.

I felt like death warmed over, but there was something liberating about doing harm to what you hated. A tactile quality to the violence, almost, that breathed new strength into my limbs, that set something dull and barbaric pounding in my skull.

An ecstasy in destruction, perhaps. To cut loose, to give in to the madness, all consequences be damned.

"-Is that what you were doing? Saving the people? Striking a blow for the common man?"

The words came out slow and flat and clear, the sneer cutting into the corners of my mouth.

"You and the Eight Fingers? You and the fucking undead?"

For a moment, I half-expected Balmung to come surging forward, carried by its burning wings…But all I heard was the grind of shifting servos, the whirring of the autoloaders as they fed fresh munitions to its guns. The fiery light of those unblinking blue eyes never wavered.

The Vanisher could've pressed the attack, all the same. Even damaged, sprawled like the carcass of a kill, he could've reached me with at least a dozen spells or weapons.

But he'd had his chance to speak. This was mine, filling the narrowing distance with words as we prepared to tear into each other again.

I pointed my blade up at Balmung, the edge glimmering with a lurid light. The wreck of the city was all around us, firelight shining through the gaps in the horizon as Re-Estize continued to burn.

"You're worse than all the rest put together, and you can't even see it. I bet you've even decided that it was the right thing to do - That all this bullshit was a positive act of creation. You fucking sicken me."

I could feel the cold rage that coiled in my voice. A rage that, at long last, had found a target.

"All you've done for the people is poison them, burn them and kill them," I said, baring teeth that tasted like blood. "The people can't wait to be done with you."

The words hung in the air, for a long, damned moment.

Like the morbid, stilted silence that comes after a terminal prognosis.

Like the great, deep stillness between two siblings, the moment they realize they hate each other.

And then-

There was a sound, flat and cold. A metal-on-metal grinding, like the scraping of newly-honed blades. Just hearing it made the hairs lift on the back of my neck, setting my nerves on edge. Balmung's eyes pulsed in time to that hideous sound, that soulless machine cackle.

Laughter.

The Vanisher was laughing.

"But you don't care, do you?" that hissing voice uttered. "You never did."

Bladed talons flexed, cising arcs of lightning crackling across their barbed lengths.

"You're a liar, a traitor to your kind. To yourself. To everything."

I could hear the sneer in that flat machine-voice, the dragon engine's scarred faceplate crooked forward in a snarl. Like it was his true face, perhaps - Or the only face that counted.

Traitor? I could have said.

We were never on the same side.

All I've tried to do - The only thing I've wanted - was save the Holy Kingdom. To spare thousands, to spare millions, from being devoured.

We're nothing alike.

But I knew what he meant.

Even as we strove against each other, the pressure of the world we'd known, the world we'd left behind, had closed around us like a vise.

The debris of our lives: The remembered weight of endless work shifts and cheap cigarettes, the choking dust in every breath that the masks could never quite keep out. The cheap, filthy stack habs that smelled of stale urine and decay.

The chemical taste of resyk. Everywhere, even in the water, like slow poison.

Lying awake, listening to the labored thumping and banging of the atmo-filters, waiting for the dry odor of refiltered air to become the grating howl of a breach. Wondering if you would never wake again, suffocated in your sleep, and that it might not be the worst thing.

The constant, grimy struggle of living hand-to-mouth, fighting to make ends meet.

Knowing that you were nothing, that you would never be anything, that all you had to look forward to were grey, endless days of toil as you rotted from within.

We fought not just to put an end to the other, but to wrestle free of that hold.

In that, at least, the Vanisher spoke true.

"-You've joined the oppressors, 'Sir Samuel'."

I drew a breath that burned, felt my ribs twinge in answer.

Was he right? I suppose so. I'd done little for the common man, since my arrival in Re-Estize. My overriding concern, the cause that had become my own, was the Holy Kingdom's war.

My war, now - And in the face of that, what did the rest matter?

It wasn't like I'd been blind to the poverty, the corruption, the rampant injustice, the bodies in the gutters. But I'd been quartered in glittering Ro Lente, met with royals and potentates, made myself part of the Prince's plan to crush the Nine Fingers…Not for the people, of course. Not to improve the lives of his subjects.

I'd only done it to help him get one over his brother. To put him one step closer to the throne - Because, as King, he'd be better-placed to aid us in turn.

I'd known all along, and I hadn't even told the Princess - The only one who was genuinely, in her own oblivious way, trying to do good.

Except-

"Maybe," I said. "But who gives a shit?"

I sprang, sword spinning.

---

It was then - Right then, I think - that the Vanisher stopped holding back.

Don't get me wrong. The same could be said for both of us - For we had both, in our own way, grown complacent. Grown used to fighting against those who couldn't truly fight back.

I was beginning to understand, only now, that there were few who could stand against us. At least for more than an instant, at any rate.

The Vanisher had been granted the time to find himself, to understand and appreciate the advantages that came with his new state of being. To make plans for the future, and all that would come with it.

But there was no preparing for this - For we were utterly different, bent towards completely divergent ends.

Unlike in YGGDRASIL, where true death was an illusion, there would be no second chances, not here. No way to measure relative strengths and tolerances, no way to gauge the magnitude of the forces being brought to bear.

Every moment of our clash was a potentially lethal learning curve, and there was only one way that could end.

Up until this point, the Vanisher had fought conservatively, relying on disposable minions, on magics he knew he could replace. Cold calculation must have driven him to hoard the irreplaceable items and artifacts that had come with him from YGGDRASIL - Knowing, as he did, that there would never be more.

Maybe, just maybe, he'd thought that they would be enough. That I was an easier target, a softer target, than I'd looked.

In that regard, at least, I was happy to surprise him.

For I was growing stronger.

I could feel it, in the pressure that surged through my limbs, the tickle of intuition in the back of my mind. With each blow landed, with each impact received, everything about me - From senses to bone density to musculature - was gradually accelerating.

Sheathed in the pale, ghostly light that flared and dripped around my form, like a candle-flame flickering in defiance of the darkness, I was being remade.

Speed. Strength. Resilience. All growing, all being amplified - Slowly at first, then in fits and starts, carried by the momentum of the fight - to match my foe.

Such was the nature of the form I'd inherited.

The baroque, intricate set-pieces that were YGGDRASIL's bosses were marathons, not sprints: As they rotated through their phases, revealing new arsenals of skills and weapons with every turn, they had to be met in kind.

You couldn't win, not with a single, terrible blow. The only path to victory was keeping up the pressure, steadily gathering the force that led to overwhelm.

Back in Loyts, that hadn't been possible. The abrupt stop-start rhythm of the fighting had been hell in zero gauge: Faced with a myriad of opponents, I'd been grateful for any lull, any break in the carnage. I hadn't realized that - without a singular opponent to strive against - there was no chance of drawing upon what lay within.

But now - Now, I was a vessel, one that was only starting to fill.

I just had to survive long enough to get there.

---

Even as the distance fell away, even as Gnosis flashed across in a great swing, light distorted the world.

The air opened up. There was a rule of noxious air, a bitter tang like blood - And as the ground sped past beneath me, I glimpsed a swirling portal, like a fold of night. Things moved within it, rippling, swaying-

A thousand writhing limbs burst forth, in a rush of hideous motion. Severed hands, fingers hooked into claws, propelling them forth at great speed. A tide of deformed spiders, metal-tipped limbs clattering, mobbing forward in a blind rush.

Just watching them move was to invite a kind of madness. Not all crawled: Some surged through the air, digits working as if swimming through it, claws splaying wide to rake and tear. Others trailed tatters of skin, like sails, shedding scraps of withered flesh as they swung towards me.

So many. So many, fleshed and unfleshed alike.

I may have blurted out a curse. I may have cried out, in sheer horrified disgust.

But mostly, I thought:

Oh, shit-

There was no time to run, no chance of getting away. I had a moment to brace myself, a moment to raise Samuel's sword, before they swarmed over me, grasping and tearing. It was a blind, frantic scrabbling, claws wrenching and ripping - Sparks flew from my cuirass, metal screeching as raw-metal gouges raked into the mithril surface.

About a dozen hands tried to tear Gnosis free from my grip, latching onto the blade, fighting to drag it down. Others tore at the seal of my helmet, hauling at the seams in my armor, trying to strangle me, pummel me, to gouge my flesh and rip my limbs from my body all at once.

This was worse than the mob, worse than the blind, furious weight of struggling bodies.

They'd been driven by a strength borne of madness, but - More than anything - they'd got in their own way, fighting each other to get at me.

The crawling hands had no such limitations. But this, at least, was something I could fight.

I went forward, my brother's sword moving like oiled lightning. On and up, carving my way into the oncoming horror, swinging the blade as if I was hacking through a thicket.

-slash-

Severed fingers, spiralling away like falling hail.

-slash-

Carving through wrists and jerking, clawing hands, ribbons of wretched black ichor trailing and splattering-

In those first few frantic seconds, I accounted for two dozen, maybe more, of the hideous constructs. Shorn limbs littered the flagstones, twitching in eerie half-life, even as I flailed the sword at them, through them, hearing the brittle crunch of bones giving way beneath my stomping boots.

But there were hundreds of them, and they were relentless. As I thrashed, fighting to regain my footing - Kicking out, even as more hands hauled at my cuirass, digging iron nails into the seam, trying to prise it free - they were all around me, a squirming mass that converged from every direction at once.

Something smashed into my helm, hard enough to shoot darkness through my vision. There was a death-grip on my gorget, vising down with single-minded strength, the seals creaking under the pressure. Talons raked the back of my leg, tore fistfuls from my cloak, clawing at my already-wounded shoulder in a flare of brutal and abrupt pain.

With one hand, I tried to pry them free. But they were strong, like iron, and freakishly nimble. The hand around my neck squeezed, tighter, tighter: I felt the bite of talons against my skin, moments away from digging into my throat.

Somewhere within me, I found that desperate focus, the cold concentration that only came in extremis-

"Back!" I shouted, and light tore out of me in a brief, blinding flash. The soundless, expanding burst ripped from me, ripped through me, with an effort that punched the breath from lungs, that made my legs buckle-

But on all sides, crawling hands burst into flame.

Some combusted, a foul, greasy smoke bleeding out of them. Others lost all animation, spasming open, going slack as they let go. The slush of clutching fingers fell away, billowed aside - I pulled free, the formaldehyde stink of rotting limbs filling the air, my gorge rising as I risked a glance.

On all sides, scuttling hands twitched in death, fingers opening and closing like the legs of half-crushed scorpions. Some tried to right themselves, jerking and spasming against the ground, never quite managing to find their way back up.

But there were more of them. Skittering towards me, with singular, mindless hunger. Clambering over the stinking, decaying debris of the fallen, spilling inky black fluid behind them. I could hear the click-click-click of their iron-tipped claws, scraping against the stone like flint-

I must have been bleeding from a dozen scratches and cuts. I could feel blood drooling down my left leg, a tacky, clotted mess inside my greave. The sensation was curiously muted: They ached, stung, but not enough to slow me.

Even as my breath wheezed against the inside of my helmet, the acrid stink of sweat stinging my senses, I knew I'd bought myself a second's respite, at best.

Just long enough.

In the breathless moment before the rush came, I dry-swallowed past the lump in my throat, fought down the urge to vomit, and said-

"Calamity-"

They hurled themselves at me. A seething swarm, an oncoming flock of misshapen, unnatural shapes, surging in to rip me apart.

"-Manifold Assault!"

There was a flash of power, one that burned dust and clotted gore from Gnosis' blade. For one heart-thumping instant, quicksilver lightning writhed along the edge, the discharge leaping across my limbs as the sword lit up in my hands.

I could feel the force shuddering through my sinews, impelling my arms into motion-

The blade moved. Fast, like a bolt of lightning, so fast it became a smear. It cleaved the very air, a churning wake that arched like a scythe through long grass. Grasping hands sheared apart, cut through without slowing: The howling edge went through everything, a drizzle of gore flying off it like an unfurling fan.

It swept low, then high, scribing a coruscating wake. There was absolutely nothing natural about the way Gnosis moved, the way it trailed the shadow of its own sharpness - It pulled me with it, like I was the wielded rather than the wielder, the blade in my hands accelerating to invisibility as it completed its murmuring arc.

The world whirled past, in a storm of swords. It was like a drumbeat in my head, in my chest: Carrying me along, the blade looping and hissing in its reaping dance. Building to a crescendo, as if all this was about to be brought to an end.

I felt a curious detachment as twice-dead limbs lofted up, splitting apart in abrupt cross-section. They collapsed in soft, boneless tumbles as Gnosis tore through them - Blood, and fouler fluids, sprayed from ruptured veins, flashing to steam in the freezing air.

It wasn't going to be enough.

Even as the blade moved like some infernal engine, carving through all resistance, slicing it up, spitting it out, I knew: It simply wasn't going to be enough. Gnosis had done the work of a dozen lesser swords, a dozen oblate blades slicing in every direction at once - But as clots of flesh rained down in weeping profusion, more than half of the clutching, clawing crush remained.

I had to-

With sudden, explosive force, ghost-light splintered the air. Great crescents of it, thundering out from me. Sharp, like spectral blades, each a tight field of cutting - They tore out along the ground, hissing like snakes in oil, trailing lightning in their rippling wake.

It was like Gnosis had carved an ionized path, and the astral blades were spinning out to follow it. Flagstones split and scattered beneath their burning tracks: Each carving arc carried a furious momentum with it, like the lancing rays of a starburst, shearing through what they didn't annihilate.

They mowed through the throng, shards of cobblestone and clods of dirt raining down on me - Clawing hands crisping away like paper beneath a blowtorch, completing the work Gnosis had started.

And then it was over. At last, the force released its grip. I felt an invisible vise relaxing, limbs no longer impelled like a puppet's. Swaying, trying to focus through the blood and the pain, I tottered forward, my ears ringing in the sudden silence.

Heaps of hacked flesh lay strewn all around: Slick muscle and sinew quivered, eaten by ethereal flames as they charred and powdered away to ash in the lifting winds. My boots skidded on an oily slick of something that may have been pulverised meat, as Gnosis' point crunched into the stone below.

Dazed, senses reeling, I sucked in a ragged breath, leaning on the sword like a cane. I felt utterly spent, as if all the vital energy had been sucked out of me. Deep inside, I knew that I couldn't do that again for a while - If at all.

But the fight wasn't over. Not yet.

The great host of undead hands, the furious velocity of Calamity, had carried me away from the Vanisher. The fight had been so fast, each exchange so catastrophic, that at some point we'd punched through Wheat Row and into the boulevard one street over. Behind me, I heard the groan of timbers, a building slowly sagging from the great hole that had been smashed into its broad face.

Once, the avenue had been lined with hardy winter trees, braced with metal to keep them straight and true. Small chance of that, now: Most had been reduced to shattered stumps, pulverised by the dragon engine's thrashing limbs or my wild swings. At least four were on fire, burning steadily, wood crackling and popping in the streaming flames.

Where is he? I thought, heart hammering in my chest. Disorientated, I switched around, trying to get my bearings. Balmung's arm lay where it'd fallen, scraps of shredded plating scattered around it like dead leaves. Something scarlet glimmered amid the rubble of a half-collapsed wall, brought down almost in passing, as I kept turning.

Where is-

There was a dull grinding, a meshing of gears. Then a deeper sound - A low thrumming, right on the edge of audibility, a growing machine murmur that filled the air with a mechanical susurration.

Orange light flared, like the flames of a furnace. It threw everything into stark relief, illuminating a monstrous mass of cogs and whirring mechanisms. Balmung had inverted itself, pistons and gears exposed, inner workings laid bare - A massive, interconnected network of broken anatomy, exterior components folding back into the powered suit's interior, reabsorbed by the machine.

Plating retracted, stripped back from the damaged leg, from the half-ruined arm being fed into the waiting maws of internal shredders. Already, new components were emerging from within, still smoking from the heat of reforging: They locked into place, with a throb of renewed power, lines of white neon jagging across remade plating through fresh power-feeds.

The exo-armor was remaking itself, right before my eyes. Shedding ruined parts, cannibalising them for resources. It'd shrunk, fractionally, but the spread of its remaining limbs was changing - Reconfiguring, shifting into a quadruped stance, valves venting internal pressure with a hiss of superheated steam.

A chill crept through me, as the realisation blossomed in my mind. How long did I have? Minutes? Seconds?

I had to stop it. Now, while it was still vulnerable.

I raised my sword-

Balmung's shoulder-launchers blossomed, with fire and rocket exhaust. The space between us became a tangled web of vapour trails, a salvo of pin missiles roaring, twisting through the air.

I had a moment to brace myself for the eruption of flame and shrapnel, for the blinding, crashing shock-

But when the explosion came, there was no blast, no hail of flechettes. Instead, there was only the soft crump of airburst detonations, clouds blooming in great rosettes of crimson smoke. They shimmered as they plunged down, spreading a whirling, particulate haze like a descending curtain.

I had time to think - What? - as I backed away, trying to keep track of what was happening. There was a chemical reek to the expanding miasma, like sulfur or concentrated ammonia, a sickening taste I could sense even in my helmet.

My eyes were beginning to stream, as I coughed, then coughed again.

Poison. It had to be some kind of poison - Tear gas, maybe, or…

The wall of blood-red dust expanded. It billowed, like a blizzard of dirt, a billion dark specks coiling and twisting as one. Tendrils of smog trembled in the air, flocking, turning, shaping surreal patterns-

And all at once, with a howl like the desert wind, the cloud came for me.

It moved so fast, so ferociously, it seemed almost alive. Alive and possessed of a malevolent will, racing like a sandstorm. It smashed into me, seemed to cling, cloying: There was a mass to it, a dense weight, and it swept me to the ground like a crashing wave.

"-"

It was like being engulfed by ravenous locusts. I lashed out with Gnosis, but there was nothing to hit: Just a sickening stench, a vile taste of sulphur and rot seeping into my helm, my visor, into my mouth. Struggling, I tried to wrench myself away, but the Vanisher's insidious creation was already inside, pouring through the gaps in my helm, going for my face and eyes.

Can't breathe-

Half-blinded, I could hear the dry rattle of sand scouring my armor, keeping me pinned as I tried to fight my way to my feet. One-handed, gagging, I clawed at my helmet's release, fingers finding no purchase on the unyielding surface: That hideous substance was stuffing my mouth, swamping my vision, blotting out all light as I drowned in my own helm-

Not sand. Not sand at all.

A nanite swarm.

I tried to blink them away, but the swarm matted my eyes like cobwebs, clinging to my lips and forcing itself down my throat. Enveloped in the choking haze, I could hear the hateful buzz of them, like flies grown fat on carrion. It felt like they were burrowing into my flesh, snapping and sucking.

Can't-

There was a hiss as the mouth grille sealed, my helmet's vents juddering as they tried to cope with the invasion. On all fours, I scrambled away, Gnosis' blade scraping against the ground as I dragged myself over the rubble. Broken stone slithered, as I kept my head down - Thinking, vaguely, that if I stayed low, the smoke couldn't get to me.

Darkness billowed before my eyes, a dizziness uncoiling in my mind. It was a struggle to keep going, to keep the blackness from narrowing my vision into nothingness. Nearly blind, I kept crawling, hand over hand, the storm roiling overhead and around me. Fighting the churning miasma that weighed my limbs down, I reached out, searching, straining…

Until my fumbling hand closed around Forge-breaker's haft.

"Dis-" I gagged on crimson sand, forced the words through a throat scraped raw.

"Disjunction!"

---

Forge-breaker was a singular thing, a tool of unmaking. In the Stone of Despair's pitiless grasp, it had sundered more than just lives, more than the matchless blades wielded by the heroes who had dared to challenge the master of the Soul Forges.

In the right hands, it could shatter magic itself.

At least, that was what the gold-bordered window had said, with a flourish of scrolling text. Of course, there had been no way to test it - Not when it took a full week for the great hammer to renew itself, to gather the charge needed for the next burst.

But it was now or never.

I'd expected an explosion, some cataclysmic blast to eclipse everything that had come before. A hurricane, maybe, ripping through the streets, with the scream of electronic winds. Like a child's idea of an EMP, perhaps: All leaping anti-lightning, every surface running with static electricity in a tidal surge of negation.

Instead, it was like a great hand coming down, vast and implacable. Snuffing the storm out like a candle.

Everything went out. Every street lamp, every light-orb, the seething crimson cloud that churned around me like it bore a grudge.

Not a spit or a spark. Just off, done. A complete shut-down.

I lay supine, panting. One hand clutching Gnosis, the other clenched around Forge-breaker in a deathgrip. The white light that had shrouded me, waxing with each blow delivered, waning with each one received, had gone out, too.

Sand, or something that felt like sand, streamed from my limbs. Air hissed into me, a too-thin reed of air, as I fought my own closing throat.

Exhaustion crashed through me, like a wave. The lead weight of it dragged my limbs down: I knew I had to get up, had to move, but I just couldn't fight the terrible inertia that locked me in place. I wanted nothing - Nothing more - than to just lie there, until the world dragged itself back into some semblance of sanity.

I-

There was a distant rushing, a rolling crash, like waves beating against the surf.

Or like the beating of giant wings.

Remade, Balmung surged up. Up through the smoke, up through the filthy air, great metal pinions spread. The mere act of its ascent fanned the blazing trees into momentary infernos, driving a wall of dust at me - I flinched, one arm up to shield my face, fighting to get my feet beneath me as I pushed myself to my knees.

"Jesus," I heard myself gurgle, voice choked with disbelief. "God, no-"

The winged terror heard me, somehow. The Vanisher laughed, the sound like a roll of thunder, over the whirr of weapon-pods deploying. There was a bleak darkness in it, harsh like the ring of hammer on anvil.

"All this way," his machine-voice crackled. Over the urgent whine of whispering turbines, as lightning zig-zagged across the fulminating sky in twisted patterns.

"All the way from Earth. Just to die here."

I knew it was coming. Knew that he would open fire, on the very last word.

But some things must be said.

"Good-bye, 'Grandmaster'."

The guns roared to life.

---

The true nature of the Vanisher's weaponry would forever elude me. I had no idea, not really, what he armed his masterpiece with.

Some were relics from YGGDRASIL, of course - Hailing all the way from Valkyrie's Downfall, loaded with now-irreplaceable munitions. Others were, most likely, of his own creation: Flechettes charged with negative energies, iron slugs enchanted to become the bane of whatever they were fired at.

It must have taken him weeks - months - to accumulate his arsenal. Assembling them singularly or en masse, for a moment exactly like this. Unleashing them like this, I think, was an admission of sorts - That I would not, could not, be brought down without cost.

From this side, it wasn't much of a comfort.

His many, many guns blazed to life, spitting fire and death. The barrels sang their howling song, bursting off shots in one continuous chorus, rounds shrieking haphazardly from fiery blossoms. Balmung's pistons and sinews snapped as they swallowed the recoil, great infernos of smoke roaring out of the engines on its back, unholy blue light burning in its eyes as it swung to follow me.

I was on my feet, running. Fleeing, not to anywhere - Just blind, all-out flight, driven by a fear that gave me wings. Dimly, I realized I was moving fast, faster than I had any right to be: The ground blurring past underfoot, my boots barely skimming the ground as a blizzard of shots tore through the air.

"Apollyon!" I shouted, lurching ahead. "Apollyon-!"

Could it hear me, even here? I didn't dare slow, didn't dare wait to find out.

Forge-breaker dragged behind me, the maul's scarletite head bouncing against the paving stones. It clattered and jumped with each stride, like an anchor weighing me back - But it'd saved me before, and I would be damned if I let it go.

Perhaps I was damned anyway.

The barrage levelled the tenements behind me, shattering every door, pulverizing every wall, stripping the roofs of every building bare. It carved a crazed swathe of destruction across the avenue, tons of wood and brick going up in sprays and spatters. Entire structures collapsed, a continuous crashing roar of toppling masonry, sparks kicking up all around as bullets - and worse things - ricocheted from stone.

The noise was overwhelming. It made me want to hurl myself flat, to clutch at my ears, to pray that the torrent of death would somehow, somehow pass me by. But I kept running, just ahead of the river of gunfire and explosions. Thinking, vaguely:

I just need to-

"Wall of Ice!"

A whispered breath of hoarfrost. A groan of cold.

The ground cracked. A mirror-bright barrier of ice shot up, in a wave of frigid air. It loomed before me, as solid as it was abrupt, bristling with gleaming thorns. There was no way around it, no side-streets or alleys to dart down: As soon as I hit it, Balmung's guns would find me, and rip me to shreds.

But I had Forge-breaker in hand.

Teeth gritted, I put on a burst of speed - Willing myself to move faster, faster - and swung the hammer in a short-armed arc.

The ice shattered. Not neatly or in one piece, but in colossal shards. Jagged pieces bounded out, massive chunks hurled in every direction at once like shrapnel: I ducked my head, as a spray of dagger-sharp icicles whirred past, driven by impossible velocities.

One splintered against my helmet's crest, so hard it nearly threw me from my feet - But I kept moving, plunging through the shroud of frozen air, the bitter chill creeping into me as spontaneous frost crackled across my armor.

For a single racing heartbeat, the gunfire ceased. With a great sweep of its wings, Balmung surged ahead of me, rounding the lane ahead to cut me off. The powered frame's shadow fell across me, guns whirring back to life.

I threw an arm up, in desperate defence-

Moving at roughly twice the speed of sound, Apollyon swept in from the side and hit the dragon engine like a missile.

---

There was a bang like a sonic boom.

I didn't see the collision, not really. Just a bronze-black blur, too fast for my eyes to track - Then a brutal, shuddering crash that shook the world.

Balmung was simply removed from my field of vision, dashed aside by the abrupt impact. For one heart-stopping moment, their flailing forms reeled through the air - Until they hit a half-timbered building, broken stone and spinning planks hurled forth in a thrashing arc of destruction.

Through the ringing in my ears, I saw the change that had come over Apollyon, the reconfiguration I'd only seen once before. I glimpsed a high, knightly visor, the flash of Apollyon's swords as they sliced out from the quad-armed torso.

The crackling blades of solid light hacked long, curving gouges into Balmung's plate, leaving raw gashes of pitted metal that glowed with orange heat. Flurries of sparks flew, as the Inevitable's swords struck with machine precision, regular as a metronome-

Writhing in the air, the dragon engine uttered a piercing howl of outrage. It wrenched away from the lashing blades, molten metal bleeding from its wounds. One great clawed hand lashed out, smashing Apollyon aside with a ring of metal-on-metal, a fierce incandescence thrumming across Balmung's form…

The exo-armor's burning eyes flashed, and a dry boom shook the air. A burst of violet flame caught the destrier and blasted it out of the sky.

I had to duck, as the slamming fireball swept across the broken roofscape. Pulverised brick and shattered tiles rained down, walls quivering in the aftermath of the blast. Trailing smoke, Apollyon struck the ground a hundred feet away, with a clatter of tangled limbs - It pawed the ground, trying to rise, but the blast had scorched it down one side, its form dented and pitted as it folded back into itself.

Showered with grit, I stumbled back, nearly flattened by the impact. Momentary triumphant, Balmung whirled, serpentine head sweeping around to regard me. I could hear the whirring of its wings, the red, skeletal fans seeming to pulse from within, like blood running through capillaries. Smoke drifted from the still-rotating barrels of its guns: For a moment, I tensed, expecting it to sweep down after me-

Instead, Balmung whipped away, shrugging off the grit and stone falling off its armor. With a roar of engines, it swept over the tilting spires and shattered stonework it'd left in its wake, angling westward.

Where's he…? I thought, caught off-guard.

Why run? Why now?

No - He was headed into the city, not away from it. Not towards the Square of Scales, but toward-

Oh, that bastard.

With a lurch, I realized where he was going.

Ro Lente. He was heading for Ro Lente.

---

In his place, I would've retreated. Found a place to go to ground, to rearm and reorientate for the next round. The Vanisher had an entire city to hide in, after all, and I didn't doubt that he'd prepared at least a dozen boltholes for just such an eventuality.

He was, after all, fighting for what he believed. He would never back down, never stop, as long as he lived.

In my mind's eye, I could see the shape of his plan taking form. The Second Prince had gathered all the forces he could muster, in his march on the undead. Those that remained posed no threat: Balmung would tear through them, like a hot knife through butter.

And after that-

I didn't know whether he intended to seize the King, or simply to execute him. In a way, it didn't matter - The Vanisher knew the power of a symbol, as much as I did. Making an example of Ramposa, levelling the castle…

It would destroy the idea of a monarch.

I didn't dare imagine the Crown Prince's fate. I knew only that, if he was truly fortunate, he was already dead. If Prince Zanac fell, too - No obvious heir remained, just a host of hungry claimants. The surviving nobles might elect a successor, but the kingdom would rip itself to pieces all the same…For every ambitious lord, every would-be warlord, would be a King to someone.

It would mean civil war, the end of Re-Estize.

It would mean the failure of our mission.

Unless I killed him first.

All those thoughts flashed through my mind, as I staggered over to Apollyon's side. Everything ached: All at once, everything I'd endured - The cuts, the bruises, the beatings, the burns - were making themselves known, and it was a fight to simply put one foot in front of the other.

Some part of me tried to tell me that I didn't have much more to give. I ignored it.

I'd go all the way. Wherever that was-

I'd go there.

"Get up," I said, harsher than I'd intended. Apollyon's eyes flickered in acknowledgement - Unsteadily, it rose to its feet, hooves scraping the stone. Metal scraped on metal, sparks shooting from the destrier's scorched flank as it tried to compensate for the damage: Balmung's claws had gouged through brass plating, but Apollyon issued no sign of complaint as it drew itself back up, smoke still wisping from its limbs.

That was good, I supposed. As long as it could still fly, nothing else mattered.

Limping to Apollyon's side, I pulled a potion from my belt. The syrupy contents - a bright, almost radioactive green - sloshed within the vial, as I twisted the cork free. The liquid fizzed as I lifted it to my lips, the sickly notes of aniseed and gasoline momentarily overpowering.

Bad for the heart, Pavel had said. But I was running out of options, out of time, and I couldn't think of any other way to-

I was lucky. Some unknowable instinct made me hesitate, made me take a sip rather than gulp the whole thing down. As soon as the first sour mouthful touched my tongue, I felt - knew - something was wrong, just from the taste: If anything, the potion tasted worse than anything before.

Not just bitter, but acrid, like battery acid or…

-poison-

I spat it out, retching, but the foul metallic taste clung to the back of my throat. As fingers of liquid fire spread through my gut, I understood what the Vanisher had done. Why he hadn't pressed the attack, even when he could have.

Something had gotten through. It'd been in the talons of the crawling hands, or the swirling damnation clouds of the nanite swarms, or the whirling blades he'd conjured. Something that curdled healing vials as soon as I drank them, that turned them to venom and gall.

There would be no healing, not for me. Not until this contest was done.

It took me seconds - precious seconds, seconds I didn't have - to seal the vial, to shove it back into its pouch. A sickly fever-heat scratched at my eyeballs, lungs labouring as I hauled myself up and onto Apollyon's back.

With a clatter like a dozen swords being drawn all at once, the charger's great metal wings opened, unfurling with a snap of scything steel: They rose up to frame me, as I shoved Forge-breaker's haft into the saddle holster, taking hold of the reins in my left hand.

My right arm ached abominably, all the way to the bone. I worked my hand around Gnosis' hilt, but my grip felt weaker, less certain, than before. Something in my shoulder felt torn, or at least wrenched, and I found myself wondering - distantly, stupidly - how many months that would take to heal.

Here, of all places.

I would have laughed, if my ribs weren't already aching.

A wave of dizziness passed through me, all of a sudden. It wasn't just the terrors of the day - the fatigue, the countless injuries acutely reminding me of their presence, the jolts of dull agony shooting up my spine - but the knowledge that the worst was yet to come, that everything before had merely been a prelude.

I fought it down, drawing myself up in the saddle. Got my feet in the stirrups, running entirely on automatic now, letting my limbs move as they would. I heard the whirr of mechanisms shifting, the whine of gathering energies, preparing to hurl Apollyon into the air, in pursuit.

I-

I stopped.

The air was hazy with smoke, rolling around, pouring upward in a brown-black cloud. Flames crackled and roared, shooting high into the sky like a newly-ignited torch. Light flickered and danced on the distant waters, busy with the reflection of fire.

From out of the burning buildings, a thin and agonised screaming came. A sobbing. A screech of pain, through the wide windows.

Many voices. The voices of those who had been using that building as a refuge.

I could have gone to help them. Smashed a path through the rubble, ripped open a half-collapsed wall with Forge-breaker. Done something, anything, to stop the spreading flames.

But the Vanisher would get away.

Close by, I heard shouts. The rattle of weapons and armor, the thumping of hard-pounding hooves. When I looked away from the flames, a score of riders came clattering in at the head of the street. Only the loosest order remained - Fear, and the exigencies of the day, had gathered them in a jostling crowd, none eager to be in front.

The fight had moved too quickly for the Prince's men to follow, but - at last, now it was too late - they'd finally caught up. The flame-light shone on pale, terrified features, wild-eyed warhorses snorting as they were reined in. The fine uniforms the cavalry wore, bearing the colours of a half-dozen lords or of the Crown itself, had all been rendered shabby and anonymous by dust.

The leader rider was a thickset, battle-scarred pug of a man, a great wedge of brown beard bristling over his mud-stained armor. An officer's badge, somehow immaculate, gleamed on his broad chest, heavy sword held in one hand as he took in - with a quiet kind of horror - the burning houses, the ruined street, the faint wails that hung in the air like the chorus of the damned.

A murmur of dismay went up, at the sight of me. I saw lances at half-tilt, some pointing at the spitting sky, some levelled - with extreme reluctance - in my direction. They were wavering, uncertain: Most had glimpsed part of the battle, and the sheer scale of the catastrophe, the enormous, shattering forces unleashed, had terrified them.

Apollyon's wings beat the air. Once, again, a flat, hard smack. Half-melted snow flurried out from the cracks and eddies in the road, a great gust scudding out like the ripple of a concussion.

There was no time left, none at all.

"In the name of the Crown Prince," the officer began, uncertainly. "In the name of the King-"

He stopped, as I met his gaze. To the side, the flames of the blaze turned red, fanned by the winds. There was a thin shriek, as the cries went up a notch. Shriller, more desperate than before.

"Help them," I said, and - before he could answer - Apollyon was aloft. The world fell away beneath my feet, as the destrier hurled itself skyward with a single, dizzying bound. I had a moment to see the ground receding as we left it far, far behind, the streets of Re-Estize shrinking away to nothing.

A powerful sense of vertigo swept through me, as I glimpsed astonished faces, upturned in shock. The shapes of men and horses, reduced to half-size, then to toys, as we soared upward into the smoke-reeking air of the city's night.

Towards cloud and thunder.

Into seething skies that boiled with lightning.

Even as we banked around a slouching tower, even as cones of blue-white fire trailed in Apollyon's wake - Falling snow flashing to steam - all I could think of what was I had meant to say:

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, and I am ashamed.

---

Flight.

Intoxicating, dizzying.

Utterly terrifying.

To be up there, up in the air, with nothing to protect you, is something I've never truly been able to get used to. Part of me has always recoiled, viscerally, at the concept: Even if one possesses the capacity, the sense that humans don't belong in the air is never truly gone.

It's different in a bulk lifter, or a cargo hopper. Those were like small, enclosed worlds unto themselves, the comforting thrum of machinery fostering the illusion of security. But when there's only your steed beneath you, you become acutely aware of your own vulnerability, how a single slip will send you spiralling to your death.

It's even worse without a mount. When magic alone holds you aloft, the mind rebels at the impossibility of it all, whispers that you're - constantly - a mere breath away from falling.

In YGGDRASIL, riding a mount was designed to be intuitive. You steered with your hands, controlling direction by leaning. There were subtle differences between specific instances, but, by and large, the principles were the same.

For me, however, taking to the air was all speed and acceleration and terror. The wind roared in my ears, as I hunched forward over Apollyon's neck - One hand gripping the saddle-horn in a white-knuckled deathgrip, the other locked around Gnosis in a cramped claw. I didn't dare do anything other than hold on, as the gleaming destrier sped through the skies: For Apollyon didn't fly like a bird, or even a plane.

It flew like a missile on its first and final flight.

The Vanisher had a head start. Balmung soared through the heavens, vast body surging ahead in defiance of all that was possible. There was a serpentine grace to it, a fluid, surgical speed that belied its size: Rising, it ascended with each beat of its wings, hurricanes of smoke and filthy snow swirling in its wake.

"Faster!" I shouted to Apollyon. The howling wind snatched my words away, rain drumming against my helmet like hail.

The air felt electric, dangerous, the clouds churning in nauseous motion. They rose in a black thunderhead above Re-Estize, a half-sphere lit from within by the flames of the burning city - I could see, tilted beneath the horizon, the malevolent, malaria-yellow light that rose in a crackling spike from the Square of Scales.

The awful radiance flashed across the hosts that struggled for supremacy, the wavering ranks of the Royal Army slamming into the black, seething blob of the waiting undead. Cavalry, a vast, dully glinting wave of horsemen, tore into the flanks of the mass, savage fighting erupting as they broke against the wall of the dead like a wave.

In that single, dizzying moment, I could see the contradictory scale of it all. Hundreds of riders, carried unstoppably onward by the momentum of the charge, bright lances impaling howling forms, shattering skulls. Individual spearmen, stabbing desperately with their weapons, shields raised to hold off rusty blades and raking claws. Fighting, falling, trampled by the living and the dead alike.

From the corner of my eye, I glimpsed a great flash, a sudden eruption of fire and stone. This far away, it was impossible to hear the report, but I saw mangled bodies flying, the air distorting at some tremendous impact. Mud and earth tore, tossed into the sky in rising plumes.

A great, blackened scar had been gouged through the fight, a pall of debris shrouding the extent of the damage. Now Zanac's lines were bowing backwards in the centre, crumbling, losing cohesion as something rose from the midst of the undead horde. I glimpsed the suggestion of a vast, blistered shape, dragging itself forward with ponderous unstoppability - But huge plumes of ink-black smoke coiled around it, and wreathed it from view.

Is that…? I had time to think, as skins of smoke and flame swept in to cover the thrashing melee. Faintly, if I strained to listen, I could hear the steady thump of explosions, the high notes of shrapnel whipping through the air.

A gleam, so brief I might have imagined it, of a blade as green as life-

Lightning blasted the clouds, and lightning blasted from Balmung's claws, and suddenly I had no attention to spare for anything else. In the instant before discharge, I wrenched hard on the reins, my feet pulling back sharply in the stirrups-

Apollyon reared up, wings spread like a mantle, and the forking arcs of pure, dazzling fury hit it head-on.

The world went blinding white. I only had the presence of mind to hunch down, out of sheer instinct - And even then, as the bolts erupted against Apollyon's wards in a blue globe of thunder and flaring sparks, I could feel barbs of electricity plucking at my skin, tiny crackling claws of pain digging into my body.

For one moment, I went deaf. Went blind, my vision reduced to swirling static, clinging on for dear life. Somehow, I kept hold of Gnosis, vapour whipping across the blade as the winged destrier hurtled onward, webs of discharge sliding and crackling across its brass frame. It stung right through my armor, an eerie, crawling sensation that made every hair stand on end.

God, please-

Let me live through this-

The desperate deflection had cost us speed. I felt Apollyon pull into a shuddering half-spin, as thunder roared around us: Something massive hurtled past, so close I felt the breeze of its passage. Our velocity became a plunging dive, metal snapping on metal with dreadful finality as the rush of acceleration clawed at me from all sides-

And suddenly, we were level. Sound returned, in the rush of wind across Apollyon's wings. Moving faster than before, now - Sparks flashing in the air around us, secret mechanisms throbbing with charge. Blue flames streamed from the charger's mane, lighting us like an actinic torch in the lightning-streaked night.

I had a moment to realize why that may not have been the best idea, right before sensor blisters on Balmung's torso scattered lines of seeking light towards us like reaching hands. One swept across my vision, and I ducked my head to keep from being blinded - But they were converging, tracking us, painting us for…

"Auspex!"

I felt the skin-itch of incoming disaster and slammed Apollyon to the left, a heartbeat before the void yawned open to meet us. Through my helmet's lenses, I glimpsed the impossible shape of an absolute nullity, sliding soundlessly through the air - A black sphere, like a pearl of condensed darkness, coming at us with the speed of night.

The lightless pull of it tugged at my sweat-soaked skin. I could feel warm liquid running from my nose, the void orb aching in my sight until I wrenched my gaze away. Even then, I could feel the awful absence of it, the all-consuming emptiness as it passed, so complete, so total, it chilled me to the bone.

A spear of lightning streaked through the clouds, and - In that flash - I saw him. We were gaining, bearing down inexorably on Balmung's whipping form, the distance narrowing with every second…

Until a single talon ripped across my back, and drew a bright line down my spine.

---

There was no warning, none at all.

Between the thunder and the ringing in my ears, the desperate evasion to avoid oncoming annihilation, I couldn't hear the rush of the vrock's ragged wings as it sailed over me. Instead, I had all of a moment to feel the chill of its shadow and then - more importantly - the blinding pain of its claws as it tore into me from behind.

My jaw locked, as my body erupted in agony. I could feel a scream clawing its way out of my throat, my blood painted across the sky as the demon's slashing track carried it away. It was a foul thing, equal parts vulture and reptile, gnarled limbs covered in sinew: Yet the thing's eyes burned with a predatory intelligence, a delight in suffering as it soared past.

Somehow, I twisted round in the saddle to swing Gnosis at it-

The sword went wide, swerving away from true. The killing edge clipped the fiend's tail, a spray of mangy feathers shearing free as the effort nearly pulled me from the saddle. Hissing, the vrock wheeled around, coming back towards me with a hideous cackling cry, knowing I'd never recover in time…

I didn't even try. Instead, I leaned right, hard, and Apollyon's burning pinions swept up to meet the demon as it swept towards my left.

The blades cut air. Then greasy demon flesh, then air again. Carved in two uneven halves, the vrock issued a wailing shriek as it tumbled away, trailing black ichor as it - messily - came apart.

Pain shuddered through me, as I slumped, gasping, over Apollyon's neck. My back burned: If I'd been flying a little slower, if the claw had gone a little deeper, it would have torn through my spine. Still bleeding, I could only hold on, trying to gauge the extent of the wound, how deeply it'd gouged-

Wait, a tiny voice murmured in the back of my mind. What if there's more than…?

I looked up, too late. Above, circling like vultures, four more pranced merrily through the air. Ropes of ghost-light stretched between them as they capered, gnarled forms twisting, swaying, with a sinuous writhing grace.

We dove. There was no choice, none at all. Balmung's leviathan form swept away, as Apollyon plunged down, wings swept back. There was the shrill whistle of wind, as blackness lapped at the corner of my vision. My back burned like it'd been flayed: I could feel my fingers slipping, knowing that if I passed out, I'd let go.

I had to concentrate. I had to make my grip my world, my anchor.

Hold on.

Hold on.

The streets of Re-Estize rushed up to meet me, unstoppable as a fist. The lines of roads and buildings were suddenly, abruptly there once more: Resolving from the abstract into stark reality, all brick and grey cobbles, the faces of men and women turning upward at the keening shriek of Apollyon's passage-

I might have called out. Futilely, uselessly, shouting a warning none could hear.

A great ripping tear crashed through the air, stark radiance searing forth like a flash of lightning. I heard the carrion laughter of the vrocks - Jeering, exulting in what they'd unleashed - in the instant before their dance of ruin pulled reality apart.

Die-straight and ice-white, lines of burning light rained down from the night sky. Each one made a teeth-aching screech as they flicked forth, scattering past me as they fell. They seemed so narrow, so innocuous, as Apollyon banked hard, twisting through a half-roll that spun us away from the barrage-

And the street below erupted, like a chain of volcanoes. The terminal point of each ray became a roiling ball of debris-spewing fire, the heat and fury of each impact explosively transmuting whatever it struck into smoking rubble and twisted metal.

I saw figures fly apart, obliterated by the annihilating light - Stone, glass, wood, metal, flesh all torn up and incinerated, a weaving trail of destruction that chased the destrier's hurling shape as we raced just above the buildings, skimming just ahead of the hailing fire.

I could hear screaming. Awful, anguished screaming, countless voices crying out in raw terror. It made my gut clench, made the sick surge of guilt curdle in my blood as I shouted:

"Up-"

I knew it was a mistake as soon as I did it. The streaming fire found me, as Apollyon clawed upward: We cleared two hundred feet metres above the level of the street before the burning kiss of the first beam raked across the winged steed's muzzle. More caught Apollyon's wings, slashing across my shoulder and left arm.

I felt the blast of heat through my eyepieces, and recoiled. Even as I tried to hunch down, to flinch away from the burning lines, I saw mithril flashing to red, heard the hiss as they tore across my armor-

The rays flashed aside a heartbeat later, never hitting us head-on, leaving savage burn-scars across Apollyon's frame without penetrating. Sparks and embers flew, whipping away in the howling wind: My eyes aching from the glare as I coughed, retched, throat full of the acid tang of burning. The world tilted back, back, then over…

I made a desperate grab, throwing my free arm around Apollyon's neck as the destrier climbed up past the circling vrocks. It inverted, yawing around just short of stall: My stomach did a flip-flop, kicked into the back of my throat by the wrenching manoeuvre, body locked rigid as the winged horrors filled my field of vision.

We were speeding toward them now, a headlong rush that held nothing back. The vrocks dropped from their wheeling dance, sweeping at us in a surge of needle-toothed maws and twisted claws, uttering piercing cries that tore at my ears as they came on. The fecal reek of them, a reeking bacterial stench, mingled foully with the ozone-tainted aftermath of the bombardment as I drew a breath, held it until it burned in my lungs.

Sinistral, I thought, but it was still too soon for that. Just thinking about it sent a frisson of cold spider-webbing through my nerves, leaving a dull ache behind my eyes. I bit back the pain that seared through my limbs, lifting Gnosis like a lance in one unsteady hand, and said:

"-Now."

Spears of charge jagged along Apollyon's sides, limning its racing form in a haze of power. Arcs of cising power leapt from protrusion to barbed protrusion, actinic in their brightness. They gathered before the destrier, in a single blindingly-bright blot, a burning point of swirling incandescence-

Not lightning, not this time.

Fire spewed forth across the sky, in a triumphant roar. A ravening sideways torrent of it, an ear-shattering blast that sucked all air into its frantic whirl. Scarlet tongues of fire raked out in all directions from the snarling column, seizing the vrocks in burning fingers.

The demons howled as they burst into flame, one after another, twisting violently through the air as their carrion wings ignited. They became thrashing fireballs, smoke pluming from their scorched forms as they went spiralling past me, flailing burning arms in their wailing despair. Apollyon sped onward through a haze of charred feathers, trailing in their tumbling wake as the blowtorch ferocity of the flames sputtered out.

I would have smiled, if everything didn't hurt so much. If the stench of burning meat was any less awful. Instead, as the world flipped itself back to the right-way over, I turned in my seat, thinking:

Where's…?

And then the bells of Re-Estize began to toll.

Clear, sombre, a doleful funeral pealing - The sound ringing out across the ruined townhouses and blasted streets of the capital. Across the rubble and the slag of fallen buildings, over the vast and craterous desolations where men still fled or fought for their lives.

It was like a dirge, and even with the adrenaline still resounding in my veins, breath ragged and gritty, I had to look down.

Like some ocean-dwelling behemoth in full breach, Balmung surged up through a bank of poisoned smoke, optics glowing cold blue as its great jaws yawned open to bite.

---

He came back to kill me.

If the Vanisher had kept going then, he'd have reached Ro Lente before I could follow. At the very least, he'd have bought himself time to wreak havoc on the castle while I struggled to catch up.

The summoned demons were never meant to be anything more than a distraction. But, bolstered by his magic, they'd hurt me, and badly - And so, even as the last vrock fell burning from the sky, he'd measured the odds and made his decision.

It wasn't only cold practicality, I think. Spite, too, must have been a spur: I'd flipped his carefully-crafted plans askew, and he wanted to punish me for that. To settle the score, now and forever…For he'd sensed, perhaps, that I had yet to come into the fullness of my strength.

A creature is most vulnerable in its infancy, and - In spite of Loyts and the long, long mourning that had followed - we were still capable of being snuffed out.

That would soon change.

---

The sound Balmung made, as it came on - high and keening, like a blizzard wind - blitzed the falling snow into drizzle. When that vast maw wrenched open, I glimpsed a gnashing nightmare: All churning reaper blades and whirring cutters, like the innards of some great harvester.

I saw it coming, but sheer, malfunctioning shock had me in its grasp. My hand spasmed on the reins, wrenching hard, and Apollyon veered to the side-

But the dragon's huge arrow-head skull shot forward, as hard and as fast as a lightning strike, and dagger-long fangs snapped shut around the destrier's leg. I heard the scream of tortured metal, felt the jolt of impact shoot through Apollyon's frame as they punched deep, and-

The opposing angles of our momentum jerked the world into a crazy tumble, and everything became a blur. Sky and land whirled, as we flailed through the air, dragged into a shuddering half-spin. Everything went grey at the edges, thunder roaring over the terrible grinding of abrading steel, great flurries of sparks flying from the point of contact.

Over the scream of the scraping descent, I fought to hold on. Apollyon's wings churned, fighting to keep us aloft, hooves lashing out as it kicked and kicked, bashing shallow dents into the exo-armor's skull - And in that moment, I realized I'd been wrong.

The destrier was a living thing. It felt pain, every bit as much as I did. I could see it in the frantic, flailing effort it made to break free, the way its eyes flared supernova-bright in echo of agony, head wrenching back and forth in flailing distress-

But all I could see was Balmung's slithering shape, vast serpentine form shedding coils of dark vapour as it wrenched us into a spiralling death-dive. Choking back nausea, I clung on as the world turned upside down: Light and dark, earth and sky, over and over. The wind pummelled me as we went spinning towards the ground - I could feel my guts tighten, acid frothing deep within them, as the brutal force of acceleration seized us in its grip.

Water flooded my eyes. The slipstream, tearing at them through the gaps in my helmet. The last dregs of adrenaline rattled in my body, drowning out all thought other than the simple desire for escape.

I don't know what fuelled my arm, as I hacked down with Gnosis. Fury. Frustration. Desperation. I had a dim, blurred idea of how fast we were going, how my only hope was to cut my way free-

The black blade flashed, as it sliced the air like a whip. It hewed down, raking across Balmung's skull. The edge cut a finger's-length scar across the metal, but the angle was all wrong, my aim poor. It was taking everything I had just to hold on, each frantic blow raking mere chips of armor free.

The dragon engine's jaws had clamped in place, with the ruthless strength of an industrial vise, and - No matter how much I hacked at the reinforced skull - it would never let go.

Ever.

The wild, fleeting thought of releasing Gnosis, of reaching for Forge-breaker flickered through my mind. But it was on the wrong side, and no force in the world could make me pry my fingers free from my deathgrip on the saddle-

One great limb came up, and claws mowed at me, from the side. I had to wrench round, bringing my sword up in a wild swing. With a frantic effort, I smashed the blow aside, my back crying out in agony as the tremendous force nearly hurled me from my perch.

A talon raked across my thigh, all the same. It drew blood, snagging in a seam of my armor before it tore free - I yowled, head pitching back as gore drizzled serenely down my leg. The pain reeled through me, a jagged, barbed thing that shot red-hot spikes of agony through my nerves, that swept through my vision in a crimson fog-

And Balmung lit up.

The neon channels that lined its form, die-straight like circuitry, crackled with black-edged silver. A thrumming wash of noxious heat swept across me, a fizzle of visual interference that sucked the light and form out of reality. A blur of distortion played across its chassis, rolling upwards from the white fury of its core, gathering at the base of its twisting throat.

No-

He'd been saving it, for this very moment. A death-blast, point-blank: Too close to avoid, too vast to survive. No possibility of escape, except the plunge.

Desperation lent me strength. Teeth bared, Gnosis gripped fast in one shaking hand, I cut.

The blade tore through Apollyon's leg, and severed it in one savage stroke.

A hideous mechanical shriek tore the air. I felt the static crackle of feedback race through the destrier's form, as - abruptly, suddenly freed - we tumbled through the storm-tossed sky. I hauled on the reins, but it was too late: We spun out, between the blazing forks of lightning that shook the dark, the world a blur of fluid speed.

Glowing ichor arched through the rain, from Apollyon's severed stump. Like liquid sunlight, hissing like molten metal fresh from the forge. For one heart-stopping moment, the destrier dropped like a stone - There was a horrid instant of weightlessness, the screaming turbulence fighting to hurl me free…

Balmung swept after us, that searing radiance - Gathering, coalescing - shining through the gaps in its fangs. For one moment, I glimpsed Apollyon's leg still twitching weakly between its teeth, losing shape, losing cohesion as the metal melted like wax beneath a blowtorch.

Apollyon's wings spread to catch the air, slowing our plummet as I fought for control. But there was no time, not now, not with the exo-armor glowing with the killing fires of a star. Everything lurched and jumped, heat skimming my skin as wisps of annihilating light spilled from Balmung's jaws.

How long before we hit the ground? How long before the blast wiped us from existence, like a stain?

Climb, I had time to think, desperately. Climb, I'm sor-

A great, twisting eruption of pallid radiance bloomed against Balmung's chassis, and something - a blurred something, a shimmering heat-haze suggestion of form - smashed into it from behind.

It was like the smoke itself had become solid, like light itself had become hard. The slam of the collision eclipsed the peal of distant thunder, shards of metal flying out like a starburst. I heard the rush of wings, glimpsed a faint outline, stark against the churning clouds.

It was smaller than Balmung, but moving far faster. A great spear, blade a blur, flashed out with lethal precision. There was a tremendous strength behind the blow, so smooth and fast that it made no sound: It stabbed down with a burst of half-glimpsed force, lunging for the base of the exo-armor's spine.

There was a shriek, like a finger sliding down glass. A brief flare of eye-burning light exploded from the dragon engine's frame, like the white fire of a lightning strike. Limned by a corona of writhing ethereal force, the killing point ground against interlocking plates of armor, hunting for a gap between the scales-

The spear snapped.

Bright shards, like slivers of sunlight, shivered away. It'd struck where the dragon engine was - should have been - at its weakest, and even then it'd failed to find purchase.

Even as Apollyon pulled out of its careening death-dive, the half-glimpsed shape - shrouded by its own personal storm - filled in. Its veil of visibility died, the charged field crackling, sparking as it failed.

And at last, I saw it.

The Potentia Interdictor was an elegant, lethal thing. Four wings beat as one to hold its graceful figure aloft, framing the halo that crowned its helm of silver and glass. Revealed, it was far taller than any man, long-limbed and slender. Damaged, its very substance flickered, flowing, blurring like a radiographic ghost.

There was an impression of fluttering robes, of panels and planes of silver arrayed like some intricate mechanism. A shimmering afterimage of itself trailed from slender shoulders like a smoke-cloak, spidery glyphs drifting in burning threads across its surface.

Kelart had been watching the entire time. How, I wasn't quite sure: She'd seen me faltering, and ordered her summoned angel to attack. I don't think she honestly believed that it could kill the Vanisher, not like this - Only that it could distract him, for a precious few moments.

The angel struck again. Those long, tapering arms, sheathed in mother-of-pearl white, bore surprising strength: It clung to Balmung like a tick, like a bird of prey taking a dove, stabbing over and over again with the broken haft of its shattered spear. The sundered weapon simply skittered across Balmung's armored hull, pinging off again and again.

There was a sound, a loud, clattering machine noise-

White-hot spines of light shot from hidden racks in the dragon engine's chassis. Needle-fine spikes, hundreds of them, buzzing like glittering hornets as they took flight. The angel tried to evade, but it was too close, the air too thick with hissing projectiles.

The flurry of heat barbs hit it head-on, like a cloud of flechettes. The Interdictor bucked and lurched as the pelting awls chewed through armor, shredding ethereal flesh in a hailstorm of superheated shrapnel.

The sight made my blood run cold, made an invisible fist clench around my heart. I tried to tell myself that Kelart wasn't there, that she'd sent it into the fight alone - But I couldn't be sure. Couldn't be certain, not really.

Ruptured, ruined, the angel's grasp failed. Impaled in a dozen places, visor pierced by a dozen awls, it let go. The impacts pitted and cratered its surface, the gleaming finish of its plated limbs shredded to nothing.

I was too far away to do anything, too slow to help. Wounded, Apollyon flew falteringly, scribing the sky with burning light as we swept in. It felt like the destrier was on the verge of plunging from the air, distortions shuddering through its frame as it levelled off, pulling a wide, wallowing turn.

I held on, white-knuckled grip tightening. Praying for more speed. Praying we'd get there before we fell out of the sky.

Balmung coiled upon itself, inverting with a screech of servos. Talons raked out as it twisted round, snarling maw spreading wide to reveal the hell-light that burned at the back of its throat.

Metal crunched, as the Vanisher landed a tremendous, mauling blow. The Interdictor's side caved in beneath the awful force, torn white feathers spinning free. Entire segments of plating tore apart - It fell away, ripped nearly in half, glowing pseudo-blood jetting from ruptured organs.

"[Blade Barrier]!"

When the whirling wall of blades snapped into existence, it shredded what remained of the angel like a bag of shrews in a blender. The entire clash had taken mere moments: The Interdictor's desperate assault, the full strength of a fifth-tier angel, hadn't even scratched Balmung's surface.

But it'd bought me time.

Apollyon lurched forward, accelerating so rapidly I was pushed back in my seat. It was barely keeping aloft, the hum of its wings less of a drone and more of a hard, labouring rasp. Scuds of grey vapour fumed and boiled from the rents in the winged destrier's chassis, charred black where it wasn't punctured.

I could feel the feverish heat emanating from within that half-ruptured shell, like the prickly bite of radiation-

The vast bulk of Balmung's form filled my vision, onrushing like a wall. We hurtled towards it like a comet, like a meteor, that terrible velocity bent towards a single end. Blood pumped sluggishly from my wounds as Gnosis rose over my shoulder, the blade catching the foul light like a black mirror.

"Surge-"

The word tore out of me, ragged, raw. The same one that had begun all this, that had started the whole nightmare. I could feel the buzzing ache in my teeth, felt the charge whip through my arm. A writhing radiance, a hyper-real significance, gathered around my brother's sword, like the heat-shimmer that rose from an open flame.

The Vanisher saw it coming. Balmung was already turning, outline and shape blurring with speed. Twin canisters thumped away from the dragon engine's launchers, tumbling towards us. I had a moment to brace, to duck my head-

When the blast came, it was a frozen explosion of night. We plunged headlong into it, a terrible cold winding through my limbs. Barbed things moved within the gloom, inquisitive fingers dragging across my armor, their low skirling whispers echoing in my ears.

The charnel stink of bacteria-swilling breath issuing from unseen but ravenous mouths. Something like teeth clamped down on my vambrace, chewing with frantic hunger, gnawing away in a desperate frenzy.

I fed it my sword instead. Gnosis punched into something that squealed and wailed like a child, the blade tearing free in a vile spray of gore. I raked the sword in a wide overarm circle, ripping it through squealing, flapping things that writhed away from its cold bite-

And then we were through, barreling through a sky full of darkness and fire in a straight, unswerving line. For a moment, just a moment, Balmung lit up in my mind's eye, clear as day: I saw the burnished bones that lay beneath all that plating, the layered hydraulics and mimetic polymers that formed the complex simulacrum of musculature.

Saw the squirming blot of the Vanisher's true form, his substance threading through every inch of the exo-armor's fibres like a cancer.

The tip of the sword struck Balmung just beneath the ribs. Gnosis shivered in my grip, ramming between scarred plates of black adamantite and into the metal beneath. It sliced through scales, through false flesh, through burnished bone.

A flood of oily hydraulic discharge vented from severed cooling tubes, gushing like black, stinking blood from ruined power conduits as I drove the point in deeper, deeper-

I heard the Vanisher's roar, deep and metallic, from speakers embedded in the dragon engine's chest. There was nothing human in that sound - Nothing, except pure, frustrated fury.

Balmung's pinions snapped out. The adamantite bars squeezed, tight as pincers, locking down in a crushing vise. The inexorable pressure tightened around me, crushing the air from my lungs: I heard Apollyon's already-buckled chassis give, crumpling inward with an agonising groan of collapsing metal.

A howl ripped from my throat, as I released the last of my breath in a shout-

"False Sun!"

Like an electronic shock of understanding, like a blast wave through water, the power burned through me. I tasted iron on my tongue, felt the heat beneath my skin as light splintered the air-

As Gnosis stabbed into the Balmung's reactor.

"-"

The world became silent whiteness.

---

Falling.

The wind, howling past.

Pitiless light, merciless light. A blinding, surging blossom of it, receding behind a great maelstrom of whirling flame and churning ash.

Above, a distant shape. Twisting, burning as it fell through the firestorm.

Momentum, dragging me down. Carrying me on.

Down through the clouds, lightning-wracked and tempest-tossed.

Down towards the flames, towards the stone buildings still gleaming with molten pitch.

Down into a smoke-choked blackness, haunted by the tolling of the bells.

Down.

The cold clarity of realisation, like waking from a dream.

Oh God, oh God, oh god-

A frantic, frenzied clawing. Colors and jagged patterns, spinning through my vision as I hurtled straight down. Flailing at the air, heart hammering out a rhythm in blood - Reaching out to seize hold of something, anything, firm enough to halt my descent.

I could feel the rushing speed of my plummet, as I spun through the air. In that moment, I could see so much: The full extent of the chaos wreaked by the Vanisher's plans. The Square of Scales, like a ruptured tumor at the capital's heart. The foul light that rose above it, like the eye of a storm.

The rubble of Re-Estize's broken body.

And I didn't care. The majesty and horror were utterly, completely lost on me. No, the only thing that mattered - That really, truly mattered - was saving myself.

To wake from the dream and find myself elsewhere.

Red warnings lit the inside of my helmet. I tried to think, to clutch at the fractured thoughts racing through my mind. In the sluggish crawl of that eternal moment, there had to be something. Something I could use to-

My helmet. Samuel's helm.

Like a drowning man tossed a line, my mind latched onto that sliver of memory, held on.

Three forms. Falcon, gryphon and…

-Raven.

"Nevermore!" I screamed, loud as I could make it. As if that alone could make it true.

"Never-"

My helmet changed, metal grinding as segments shifted into a new configuration. Before I could draw my next breath, the world erupted, came apart. A dizziness, a surreal sense of unreality swept across me - The bewildering sensation of falling in every direction at once. I saw my limbs dissolve into shreds of mist, unravelling as a racing cold spread down from the tips of my fingers to my heart…

I might have screamed, but I was already dissolving, scattering into tatters of night.

The swarm burst out from where I'd been.

There was a flare of bone-deep vertigo, a stab of distant pain. But then I was surging away, away and apart, in a dizzying rush. Boiling through the burning air in a wheeling flock, ten thousand wings beating in frantic unity.

The view through their eyes a frenzy of movement, too fast to interpret, but then the unkindness of ravens was was pouring down, down, in a spiral, taking me with it-

Past the rain-gutters and jagged roofscape of the capital's warrens. Over the raised parapets of watch-towers and cloisters, scattered amid the shells of burnt-out tenements and shophouses.

The dense, unified swarm came down in a torrent, becoming a seething, swirling flock of whirling bodies. They folded into the ragged edges of my shape, and I staggered free from the remnants of the cloud.

I felt sick, disorientated. The world spun, croaking cries echoing in my ears as my legs gave way. Somehow, somehow, I caught myself before I smashed face-first into the ground, retching through the mouth-grille of my helmet. All of a sudden, the close confines felt choking, unbearable - I clawed at the curving surface of my visor, trying to find the release…

My helm opened. The cold air hit my face in a rush as it folded away, retracting with a brittle hiss. I gasped for air, almost choked, my chest heaving like bellows as I tried - tried - to remember how to breathe.

My nose was bleeding, beads of blood spattering the cracked stone below: I would have vomited, but there was nothing left in my guts, no matter how much each rasping spasm of coughing wracked them.

The awful light of the false sun still shone overhead, but weakly, like some long-burning flare that was finally guttering out. In its harsh illumination, through bleary eyes, I saw-

I'd landed amongst the dead.

---

Once, the fountains of Re-Estize had been famous. In his last years, King Ramposa II, like all monarchs, had turned his weary mind towards cementing his legacy. At the end of a long and (mostly) unconsidered life, he'd ordered the construction of a monument to his own glory, one which all would look upon and marvel at.

It'd taken five years of gruelling toil, but - In the end - a great statue had been raised, depicting the monarch in the fullness of his power: A tall, regal man, mounted on his mighty steed, great sword raised overhead in the eternal triumph he'd always hungered for but rarely experienced.

But it was the fountains, dedicated to the God of Water, that had eclipsed him. Raised from pale blue marble, their simple, rugged design belied their beauty. The invocations of the priesthood kept the waters eternally fresh and crystal-clear, ever-renewed from a blessed spring that ran far beneath the stone.

Ultimately, their worth lay not in their beauty, but in their practicality. For many of Re-Estize's poorest, the fountains were their only source of clean water, untainted by the offal emptied into the city's river. It wasn't uncommon to see long lines - stretching from dawn to dusk - forming in the shadow of the monument, carrying away the waters one bucket at a time.

The Nobility faction had been less than pleased. The ever-present lines of ragged beggars and urban poor were unsightly, a blight upon one of the city's most famous landmarks. Besides, there was the water tax to consider: For the nobles owned the wells, cisterns and aqueducts alike, and the fees involved brought about a not-inconsiderable profit.

And so a fence had gone up. Guards had been posted, to keep undesirables out. Access now required payment, and - like so many other things - interest had faded over time. Still, the fountains had continued to stand, Ramposa II's effigy gazing fixedly into the distance, face upturned as if scorning the riff-raff around the stony hooves of his proud stallion…

But that had been before.

Here, now, it'd been the place for a last stand.

Dead men lay everywhere, tangled and torn apart. City guard, mostly, from their uniforms, sprawled amongst all kinds of broken gear. Left where they'd fallen, to rot.

The pale, grey forms of the twice-dead mingled with them, some naked, others still clad in tatters of cloth or rusted armor. They could be distinguished by the oddly bloodless wounds that had ended them, wounds that told of frenzied, hacking effort.

Flies were already busy at the gore that pooled underfoot. A tattered standard stuck up above the heap of the dead, flapping in the breeze. The body of a horse hung dead from the iron spikes of the fence, right next to where it'd been torn down by the mad press of bodies. I saw scorched wood, broken slates, smeared with gore from where a frantic point-blank battle had been fought.

The waters of the fountains were choked with corpses. Floating face-down, in pools of grey scum, waves lapping serenely against their carrion forms. The scarred, pockmarked faces of gargoyles, the gods and their heralds scowled down on the ruin, as if offended by the desecration.

The air stank of blood and smoke, of smashed-open bodies and everything they held.

I could see how it'd happened, at a glance. The undead had arrived, in force, drawn inexorably onwards to their final destination. They'd swarmed over the outmatched defenders, with the single-mindedness of drones. The fighting had been singular, savage and utterly without mercy, between men with nowhere left to run and horrors that felt neither fear nor pain.

But mortals tired, and the undead did not.

In the end, there was only one way it could have ended.

This was where the Vanisher's ideals had led. This was what by any means necessary meant - Where everyone and everything could be sacrificed for a cause.

Where anything could be justified, in the name of expediency.

This was the obscene reality behind his plans: A mad tangle of twisted corpses, heaps of rubble and broken spears. Thousands dead, a city shattered, all in the name of prising the crown from Prince Barbro's hands.

A catastrophe, a massacre. All carefully engineered, to put the right King on the throne.

Or was it?

I remember thinking, even then, that this couldn't be it. That there was something else, something I was missing.

Something-

A shadow, growing above me.

A rising shriek, like a shell falling to earth.

I turned to run-

Balmung came hammering down, Apollyon in its jaws, and struck the statue of Ramposa II from above.

The great horned skull hit first, ramming through stone - Right through, like a fist through plaster. Rubble spewed forth, chunks the size of cannonballs driving into the paving slabs in a great spray of slush and stone chips. Smaller stones rained down, glancing from my battered armor in a rattling, pinging hail.

It was all I could do to stagger away, trying to keep my footing before…

The bulk of the dragon followed, and smashed what remained into a cloud of dust and pulverised marble. The ground quaked beneath me, ringing from the collision: I felt the force shudder through me, the bruising concussion fighting to hurl me from my feet.

Ears still humming with the echoes, I stumbled free. Made myself turn to behold the aftermath.

The landing had nearly finished the work I'd started. Waste heat bled from Balmung's split hull, as it lay amid the ruin. The dragon engine's flank plating had broken open, leaping tongues of fire rolling free in great plumes. I could see the induction feeds and hydraulic lines that spilled from beneath the torn metal, the edges jagged and bleeding fluid - Coolant hissed as it ran over raw punctures, flashing away to noxious steam where it struck.

It looked half-melted, wings like broken frames draped with tatters of dully-flickering light. When it moved, interlaced struts and tendons creaked, on the verge of snapping. The metal components of Balmung's frame glowed white-hot, where the fires I'd unleashed had superheated and warped it.

And then, a crackle.

"Bastard-"

There was pain, true pain, in the Vanisher's voice. I wondered how he endured it - For the seals around the cocoon of iron at the machine's core had melted, and the fire was seeping in. In those close confines, with the filaments of his very self stretched through the Powered Suit, it must have been something very much like Hell.

The great engine rose. Sluggish, like a tower slow in falling. Joints half-fused, hoses and cables snaking free from its ruptured form, it lifted itself from the tarmac, tossing sparks. A clawed foot came down like a hammer, grinding a fallen body to red paste as it pushed itself up.

A horrific grinding filled the air, as Balmung dragged itself forward on two damaged limbs: Scorches marked the brushed metal of its plating, flames spreading up its back like a mantle. Apollyon's broken form swung loosely from its metal teeth, blue light flickering fitfully from damaged sockets as the destrier twitched in that iron grasp.

My skin crawled, but I held my ground. It was all I could do: My legs felt like they belonged to someone else, someone thirty years older. My entire right side pulsed, pain lancing through my ribs - When had I taken another hit? I didn't remember.

I could smell the chemical tang of the fumes, like copper, like the smoke that rose from burning plastic. It made me acutely aware of how weary I was, despite the amulet that breathed new life through my limbs.

The air tasted coarse, thick as steel wool. I was light-headed from the loss of blood, something clicking in my chest with every breath I took.

"You could have trusted a little more," I said. Weary, arm aching from shoulder to fingers, I brought Gnosis up to guard. The wounds in my back, my thigh, radiated pain that scraped away my strength.

There was a wall of numbness between me and the pain, but each moment wore it away.

"We're beyond that, now." Static blurred the Vanisher's words, but I could hear the agony in them. The agony, and the unyielding, unshakeable determination - The cold, steely surety that had carried him this far.

I nodded, slow. Conceding the point.

"Maybe," I said. "-Maybe. But if you'd given the people what they wanted, worked with them to bring about your revolution…"

My voice trailed off.

"You could have found a better way, I think. Something worth standing for, rather than against."

I shrugged, painfully.

"-Something that wasn't…this."

"You're lying to yourself." The answer came in a flat, toneless crackle, issuing from the remaining speakers in Balmung's bodywork. "You've seen the heart of the capital. You know it's riddled with cancer. But instead of fighting it, you sold yourself to it - Because you only ever learned how to obey."

Harsher now, like a squall of dull blackness.

"You're a coward, 'Sir Samuel'. One without the spirit, the courage, to do what has to be done. To do what's *right*."

Some strength had leeched back into my legs. I bit down hard on my breath, as the silence stretched out.

"And what's that?" My voice wasn't quite even. "What is 'the right thing'?"

"Cancer has to be cut out."

The Vanisher's voice was cold, implacable. Absolute, in his certainty. There was no room for compromise, no room for any solution except the one he'd set his mind on.

A zealot. That was the word for him, for he was beyond reason.

There was only one answer to that.

I took a step forward, across the field of the dead. As I lifted Gnosis in a two-handed grip, I focused my will in the way I'd only done once before. The blade began to keen, as power hissed and crackled through its edge-

And with a contemptuous twist of Balmung's head, the Vanisher flung Apollyon at me.

No-

Apollyon lanced through the air, a shrieking whirlwind of tangled brass and flailing hooves. Gearwork whirring beneath devastated plating, shining metal ripped away from a half-exposed skull. A metallic bellow wrenched from its fractured core, silver leaves flaking away from its tortured frame as it arced towards me.

My mind was jangled from the landing, but my arm came up anyway. Every muscle in me tensed, in anticipation of pain: A vivid, full-body premonition of how it'd feel to be crushed beneath tonnes of thrashing metal. Or maybe Apollyon would explode on impact, like a vehicle-sized grenade: I didn't know, and it didn't matter.

The destrier was yards away. Less than a fraction of a second.

In the heartbeat before impact, an instant before it smashed into me, I reached out-

"[Dolor!]"

…and bellowed a word.

Two feet from my face, Apollyon stopped. Dead in the air, as surely as if it'd slammed into an invisible wall. Just for a moment, I could pick out every detail of its aborted momentum - The water drumming against its half-ruined chassis, the ruptured lines of its form, the way its limbs jerked and twisted in impossible motion…

Azure light spewed forth, and Apollyon came apart.

Flash-blinded, I staggered back. After-images danced before my burning eyes, as something viced down around my left arm. I heard a thump, a crunch of stone, as Forge-breaker - Spat out from the whirl - thudded to the ground at my feet, a moment before a great, pinning weight nearly dragged me down.

Some instinct cried out for me to hurl it away, to tear free-

Instead, I held on. Held on, a rasp of metal echoing in my ears as the blurred weight writhed and clicked, centre of mass shifting with the sound of things sliding smoothly. Flickering light patterns roiled, like flashes of arc-lightning - It turned in my grasp, pivoting and aligning, until…

As my vision faded back in, a great slab of burnished brass rode high on my arm, surface seared black where the flames had scorched it. The mirror-polished metal below was in constant motion, panels opening and closing, sheets of metal extruding and enfolding as the last components snapped into place.

There was a deep, guttural throb, and the crushing pressure eased. My fist tightened on the grip as I heaved it into position-

For Apollyon had three forms.

The winged destrier.

The centaur-knight, all blades and blurred edges.

The Apollyonian Aegis was the third.

In form, it resembled a secmen's riot shield - The kind used to charge a mob of rioters, breaking bones and heads the entire time. Fully two-thirds my height, enough to cover me from head to knees, it was layered adamask and star silver rather than ballistic polycarbonate, the glyphs cut into its ornate face suffused with blue light.

Ripples of ghostly energy swept across the shield's shifting surface, the low hum of the charge reverberating through my bones. It almost seemed to lift itself, my torn shoulder crying out in relief: I had a moment to wonder where the rest of Apollyon's weight had gone, how tonnes of devastated armor plating, meshed components and brass had somehow folded themselves out of existence-

But then an endless high ringing filled my head and senses, and the bodies around me began to tremble. They swelled, as if filling with gas, in ugly, lumpen ways that evoked malformation and defect. Dead limbs shuddered, stirred by the gross distortions of their forms as they distended, losing all shape as they bloated like balloons.

Jesus, they're-

A cold jolt of realization broke through the horror. Blood pounding in my skull, I dropped to my knees, lifting the shield like a pavise. Tried to make myself as small as possible, knowing I could never be small enough…

The first corpse exploded, and the blast ripped the world to shreds. Ribs tore through paper-thin skin: Vertebrae and bone shards splintered outward, a mess of human shrapnel. Hurtling spikes of human bone slashed the air, bursting against the Aegis. There was a streak of red sparks as stray flechettes raked across my armor - It was all I could do to hold the shield up against the hailing impacts, gasping at the effort as my vision swam.

I don't know how long it took for the detonations to stop. All I knew was that, at some point, the ground had stopped shaking…But I stayed there all the same, waiting to be certain.

Waiting to make sure that the barrage was over.

Eventually, I uncurled, my ears still ringing. My cloak had been flayed, but I was remarkably whole: My battered armor had kept the worst of the blast at bay, except for a few grazes along my back. A fog of miasma billowed around me, as I pushed myself to my knees, then to my feet.

Panting, reeling from my narrow escape, I kept my shield raised as a cold wind chased the smog away. Bracing for the next impact, for a hail of bullets, for Balmung's entire shuddering weight to come down on me like a meteor-

Nothing.

There was no other sound in all of the world. That's what it felt like.

What if-

The thought flickered through my mind, as I peered over the shield's rim. Lifted it higher, a sick dread coiling in my gut. My arm trembled from the effort: It wasn't heavy, but it wasn't light, and I honestly didn't know how much I had left to give.

Every motion made cold sweat break out across my head and torn back, a sucking fatigue dragging at my leaden limbs. I tried to push through the cotton in my head, tried to fight down the cold, clammy shock that waited for me in its fatal depths.

What if he-

And then I saw what the Vanisher had done, and swore out loud.

---

Shimmering columns of light rose above the ruin, like the bars of a birdcage. They had the golden glow of solid sunlight, framing a half-sphere almost fifty feet across. The space within the dome had darkened, in equal measure: A half-glimpsed shape, a speed-distorted phantom, moved with the gloom.

A glimmering image rose overhead, like a banner. A great hourglass, amber sands draining from the upper chamber to the lower. A snake coiled around it, scales shimmering with iridescence, forked tongue flickering between translucent fangs.

It hissed at me, rearing up as if to strike, and I flinched back. But even as the ghostly serpent glared down at me, red-eyed, I could still hear the silken whisper of flowing sands, faster, faster…

-accelerating-

Oh, no.

Dimly, like a sped-up echo:

-impactbarriergreaterstrengthinertiashiftinfinitywall-

More.

-dispelorderchaosmantlefreeactiongreaterresistancephysicalboostconstructessencemassweaponaugmentationphaseshiftlifeshield-

The barrier shattered, with the sound of smashing glass. Sharp chips of fizzing energy came raining down, evaporating even as they tumbled to the distant ground. A burst of light bubbled outward, in a ring: It washed over me with the faintest crackle of electric current, but I barely noticed.

My attention was captured, utterly and completely, by the shape that emerged.

Balmung was smaller now, substantially so. It glowed hot, freshly-machined parts fading from white to red and black. For a moment, the dragon engine's iron skin was the cracked black of cooling lava, smoke and steam hissing into the air - Then midnight blue, as the furnace heat drained from its remade form.

Clad in curved plates of chromed beliat and black galvoln, it stood eight feet tall and half as wide: All excess pared away, until only sleek lethality and whiplash speed remained. Even as I looked on, the sculpted visor of its face locked in place with a hiss of mechanisms, optics burning red against a mask of snarling silver.

At a distance, in form and stature, it could almost - almost - have been mistaken for a man. A knight, perhaps, of such scale that everything else seemed out of proportion.

Yet something of the dragon remained, in Balmung's shape. Crowned with splayed vanes and swept-back horns, the gaps between its scales glowed with cold light, bright enough to illuminate it from within. When it moved, its limbs articulated with smooth power, each step a silent threat.

That was when I began to suspect that I was fucked.

The Powered Suit's arms - all six of them - came up. They spread wide, to reveal the gleaming swords gripped in each hand. All various lengths and sizes, mismatched in all aspects other than lethality.

Two blades of red iron crackled with wet ripples of lightning, slender eels of electricity coursing over their flats and edges. Another whispered and smelled of violet death, shrouded in a caul of humming force. The venomous green glow of the next hinted at deadly and immediate poisons, hissing faintly where it cut the air.

Another, cold like a spike of glacial ice, cast a loveless nether light.

The last and deadliest bore the ivory sheen of sun-bleached bone. Tears of bloody crimson wept from the curved edge, like it had just dispatched a long-hated foe.

And that was when I knew it.

"Shit," I said, through clenched teeth.

Wielded together, the colors radiating off the blades melted and ran into one. There was something mesmerising about the unnatural light, something almost hypnotic: It rippled across Balmung's form, turning lightless scales to burning diamond.

Six arms. Six Arms.

Of course.

Thunder cracked overhead. The flashing glare of lightning above, the distant boom and crash of the city tearing itself apart, told me that the other fight, the important one, was still raging. The Second Prince's army against the living dead, battling it out for the fate of the capital. A brutal, bloody cauldron of spears and standards and bodies, grinding both sides down to nothing.

In the face of that, there was no-one left to watch this. No-one left to see the end of our dirty little grudge match, amid all the desolation.

For it was just us now, in the profound and eerie quiet.

Just us, and the damage we had done to each other.

With a pained grunt, I hefted the Aegis, bracing myself for whatever came next. The extremity of the effort made darkness blossom at the corners of my vision, suddenly overwhelmed by tiredness, by pain.

"Come on, then," I muttered, into the silence of horrors yet to come. "Come o-"

The Vanisher said, simply:

"[-Perfect Warrior]."

The words boomed out of Balmung's faceplate like a clap of thunder, and an awful violet glare filled the world.

I never knew what hit me.

Next: Sevenfold