Surtr transformed into a lion as Sekh jumped on his back. They dashed to catch up with their spell. She readied her abyssal icefme mace and swung it like a bat, causing their part of the war effort to ram into Remy from behind, locking her between a rock and a hard pce.

  The collision created an explosive surge of energy that reverberated throughout the Spiritual Grove. Remy was caught in a bst almost as powerful as the spell that wounded Aetos.

  The two magics continued to csh as reality trembled. Arcane energies detonated, sending shockwaves that violently unsteadied Quel.

  I hastily flew and caught her in my arms before nding near Tris and the EoW. Surtr and Sekh joined us.

  It was time for the eagle to act. The little bird manifested in an explosion of naturalistic light and fulfilled his role in the pn. He wasn’t connected to the Eagle Yew in that its mana sustained him—yet the gross amount it held was authorized to him. He could use it at his discretion. The tree had many decades left, but Aetos used about fifteen years of it to construct a tight barrier around Remy to constrain the magic.

  Thank you, Eagle Yew…

  We couldn’t see them through the opaque fmes, but my clones were still alive. They were still devouring her. I didn’t even want to theorize what was happening inside that barrier.

  Immediately, I sat Quel down and rushed to Tris. She was unsteady on her feet and looked pale. “Hey, don’t worry. I’ve got you,” I whispered, catching her in my arms.

  “I’m…”

  “Don’t you even dare say you’re sorry. Just don’t, okay?" I hugged her. I cried and rubbed her head. “We couldn’t have done without you,” I whispered. “Are you hurt?!”

  “I…” Her voice was so quiet that she needed to use telepathy. Her entire body quivered. She seemed so frail...so meek.

  “I can heal her. I can—"

  My heart sank…because Quel was stopped mid-sentence.

  “She’s still not dead?!” I excimed. The fmes raging inside the barrier had stopped—likely from [Temporal Standstill].

  An arm suddenly thrust through the top. It was bckened and burnt—even the bone had turned to coal. Another breached it as Remy pulled herself free—her body bore bite marks across the scorched flesh and bones. I immediately aimed my guns, but Remy deactivated her spell and teleported to the Spiritual Grove’s furthest reaches.

  The congested power left through the path of least resistance, shooting to the Spiritual Grove’s ceiling, catching the skies on fire. Quel panicked. She knew what this meant. Aetos spread his wings and used more of the grove’s mana to repair the damage. Sekh cimed ownership over the conjoined spell. She immediately canceled it. The curtain of fmes vanished before Aetos had to use the rest of the Eagle Yew to save the grove.

  Remy appeared a hair ter—her nearly destroyed body immediately healing from the rainbow-colored elixir she held to her crispy lips.

  She had another suit.

  Sekh redoubled the grip on her weapon. Surtr roared.

  Tris forced herself to stand before limping in front of me. She wobbly banced, spreading her arms like she wanted Remy to target her.

  What the hell are you doing?!

  Trust me!

  Quel dropped to her knees and vomited, her body shivering as if she was in a blizzard. “How…are you alive?! Just how?! THAT SHOULD HAVE KILLED YOU!!! Why aren’t—”

  Time had stopped once more. Suddenly, she wasn’t alone.

  The woman…whose back I had stared at…was gone.

  Time resumed.

  “—you dead?! TRIS?!” Quel cried the name of the girl that Remy held by the hair. Her other hand gripped a dagger dangerously close to her neck.

  I need to confess something. I attained evolution in the st battle. The notification was buried beneath a sea of errors, and I accidentally deyed it. It now demands manual activation through a physical reboot. Despite Remy altering the algorithm, I can decipher it within a second. I have braced myself for any additional modifications she may use.

  Then…

  I listened closely as Tris told me a pn.

  Are you sure?

  I am. The chance of winning remains 100%, yet I want Remy to suffer. Her fears should fuel Lady Sekh’s power even more. I will not be satisfied until she has felt the depths of despair. I know I am asking a lot. It goes against a direct order you have given me in the past, but it must happen for me to evolve.

  Will it hurt?

  No. It will be a reprieve from the pain, my lord. Everything hurts. It’s…taking all I have to speak with you. My body desperately wishes to shut down to enter its cooldown state.

  Then... I’ll do it…

  Forgive me for my selfishness.

  I’m just happy you’re being selfish. Do that more often.

  Tris's cute, pained giggles reverberated around my mind.

  *****

  *****

  What’s the move?! Can I do anything?

  It felt like victory was snatched from our hands by a cruel, cold reminder that this world was anything but fair. Remy should’ve been dead!

  Her being alive didn’t make any sense!

  I thought myself hysterical while looking through my Skill Menu. I had all these spells! All these tomes! None would help us kill someone like Remy!

  Then I heard a ugh that froze my blood solid.

  “WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU SMILING?!” Remy demanded, her voice quivering. “STOP LAUGHING!” She made a shallow slit along Tris’s pretty neck. A curtain of blood oozed onto her blouse, soiling it. “You’re only winning because she’s helping you! No one should know how to intercept my void teleports! No one! I’ll kill her! I’ll ravage her fucking corpse and make you watch! She might be a void skill pretending to be a person, but this bitch can bleed! She can die like the rest!”

  “The path of revenge is a desote road. You must be prepared to make sacrifices to get what you want the most.”

  “What the hell did you say?!” Remy made another cut, but Tris was stone-hearted. She didn’t scream or flinch, but surely Lord Springfield wasn’t about…

  “What are you doing?!” I shouted when she raised her rifle at Remy. I tried to push it away. Sekh intercepted and restrained me, pinning my arms behind my back in a hold. I struggled, but her stern, violent voice told me something…I never expected.

  “You heard me, wolf. You consider me so na?ve that I didn’t entertain the possibility of losing allies during my journey? Tris knew what she was signing up for. Besides, you’re scared, aren’t you?”

  “She is, Mi.” Sekh pushed me away before approaching Lord Springfield. “Can’t you see the cowardice in her eyes? Oh, it’s delectable. At this rate… I doubt I’ll ever run out of mana. You haven’t seen anything yet. You don’t know true despair. I’ll show you why the world feared me.”

  “There you have it. Don’t think me so na?ve that this would stop me. Nothing will hold me back from killing the ones I hate the most.”

  Remy’s eyes widened… It was so unnatural to see her like this.

  Bang!

  Lord Springfield…pulled the trigger…

  Smoke bellowed from the barrel… Blood gushed from the wound in Tris’s head.

  Remy stumbled away, dropping her dagger. She jumped away from Tris’s corpse. “You dumb bitch! You lost your only—”

  “Did I? Tris, the Transcendent Dark Lord commands you to evolve!”

  Tris’s body glowed like a shooting star in the night sky. Cracks radiated from the wound and spread down her body, unleashing a whirling tornado of a thousand prismatic lights when she shattered like gss. It shot into the sky, collected into an orb, and cracked like an egg, revealing someone who had just died.

  Tris was there…hovering like an angel as she descended near her lord—her posture as perfect as ever with a shining smile.

  “You once said the void wanted to rid itself of [Deduction] and [Skyview], but you couldn’t be more wrong. There does not exist an item, a spell, a gun, or a monster that is more powerful than [Tris, Fragment of Wisdom]—no, you’re not a fragment, are you? You’re my [Beacon of Wisdom]—a shining light illuminating my victory! Death? Tris is immortal, you dumb piece of shit! It doesn’t matter what you do! She’ll always be reborn! Your st-ditch effort? It was this?” Lord Springfield erupted into ughter. “You’re fucked. You’re done for! Yes, I know you changed your teleports, but so what? Tris has already figured it out! She’s a thousand times smarter than before! I know you can’t sustain [Time Magic] anymore. Even if you could, your [Temporal Standstill] won’t affect me.”

  Was…this a miracle?

  Did those fabled, holy things exist in a world as fucked as this?!

  Remy lost it. She acted as if she suffered from trichotillomania and ripped rge chunks of her hair out.

  Suddenly, her arms dropped by her side, and she slowly looked up.

  "Aetos, she’s looking for a path out!” Lord Springfield shouted. She drew her guns and fired bullets made of fmes. Surtr roared, and I immediately used my magic. “Do whatever you can to prevent her from teleporting away!

  Warping out of a realm like the Spiritual Grove could not have been easy. I didn’t know the mechanics, but it wasn’t something she could do at the drop of a hat. Remy ran and scrambled, barely dodging. The barriers and wards she produced with her daggers were broken almost immediately.

  Sekh shot herself into the air on pilrs of fmes as I gave her wings. The explosive orbs she had used before to bombard manifested behind her, but they had tripled in size. The unbelievable heat melted the air and caught fire. Even light was refracting heavily around them.

  Suddenly, Remy’s body became enveloped in a dark, cold glow. It happened before Sekh was about to unleash her spells. Lord Springfield and Surtr wouldn’t reach her in time! “I GOT—”

  “With the power of [Conferment], I use my authority as the Spirit Lord of Nature to restrain the one called Remy within the Spiritual Grove! Her abilities shall not be used to escape my realm!” I looked behind and saw Lord Aetos. He spread his wings. A grey aura phased over the Spiritual Grove.

  Whatever Remy had been attempting…failed. It was like someone had unplugged a cord from the machine that illuminated her body.

  “GO! KILL HER! The Eagle Yew cannot sustain this forever!” Lord Aetos croaked. Remy’s warping came from the void. Blocking those couldn’t have come cheap. Already, the ground below us was rumbling. The skies were shaking as if we were amid an earthquake.

  Sekh unleashed her charged barrage. Lord Springfield and Surtr reached Remy, their weapons at the ready.

  Remy warped away, but a thousand individual little lights filled the grove. They all alternated colors every tenth of a second. Then they were gone—I couldn’t see them.

  “I KNOW YOU’RE THERE!” The chimeric High Elf turned and shot a controlled burst of her automatic rifle, the bullets hitting true right as Remy manifested. All six were lodged deep in her left lung. Sekh’s spells changed course for Remy at the st second.

  She wasn’t moving. Blood oozed from her wounds as crimson leaked from her mouth.

  “COME ON!!” I found myself shouting. “JUST DIE ALREADY!!!!”

  The spells were…were almost there…

  Just a little longer… Lord Springfield was already firing more fme spells while retreating to me. Surtr was roaring, energy gathering on the bde of his axe. I was still immune to fire. The buffs hadn’t worn off yet.

  Come on!! Come on!!!!

  I didn’t know how it happened, but dark clouds suddenly gathered overhead. They centered above Remy, whose body ominously glowed like a demon.

  I didn’t like it.

  An oppressive wave of force radiated from her, scattering everything back. Sekh’s spells were deflected and smmed against the grove’s skies. All that destruction…just accelerated our grove's eventual demise. Lord Aetos groaned behind me.

  “That’s [Over Limit],” Sekh said, returning with Lord Springfield and Surtr. “She’s also using [Limit Break]. That’s a 6x multiplier to her power.”

  “Then it means she’s close to death. Is it like [Tyrannical Renewal]?” Sekh nodded. “This is going to be our final csh. Aetos, focus on keeping her here while remaining safe. I don’t need you to die so soon after I transpnted you.”

  “You do not have much time left. I already feel the Eagle Yew’s death close at hand. It will fall. The vilge will be obliterated soon.”

  “Quel, your role has finished.”

  “What?!” I argued. I couldn’t leave! Not when the woman who had made me into some sick murderer whose hands almost greedily shook at the thought of taking lives was about to perish!

  “Do you not trust me?”

  “That’s not—”

  “Evacuate the vilge. Please… I may not be a genuine High Elf of Vredi, but I don’t want the vilgers to die. I’ve come to love them. It’s my fault Aetos was injured in the first pce. I can’t right this wrong alone. Please, do this for me.”

  I wanted to argue. I really did.

  “Leave them to me. I swear I’ll evacuate everyone!”

  Except I couldn’t be selfish—this wasn’t the time.

  Lord Springfield opened a pathway to the vilge’s graveyard with [Conferment]. She spoke to the Essence of Wrath. “It’s time for you to join the fight. I want to decimate her. Direct your hatred of me and Sekh towards her. Know that your life forever hangs in a perilous thread I can cut with a mere thought. The smartest being in the world is watching your every move. You can’t even think without her permission.”

  Gradually, the strain left the Dragonfolk’s face. She was astonished that Lord Springfield took half of the burden.

  “I shall fight for you, Lord Springfield. Your enemies are mine, and they shall fall.” I had thought the spirit was one of fmes, but her attire turned cold—like something you’d see in a winter py. Snowfkes danced around her lithe armor and dripped from that azure cloak. The rapier she held suited someone used to the delicate precision required for fencing.

  Remy turned to look at us. Every step she took caused the Spiritual Grove to violently shake. The portal finally appeared behind me…

  I flew through it after telling her to make it excruciatingly agonizing.

  The earthquakes weren’t restrained to the pocket realm inside the Eagle Yew. I lost bance as soon as I stepped outside. The decayed trees surrounding the graveyard didn’t have the strength to remain. They toppled like dominos, and dead leaves scattered, joining the fallen they had honored for so long.

  I couldn’t waste time.

  *****

  *****

  [Tris, Beacon of Wisdom]...

  There was not a more fitting title for her.

  [Void Storage] had grown. Tris’s experience in solving Remy’s void warping enabled her to make further optimizations, meaning she could now expand it at will—meaning it was truly infinite—using the same algorithm tightly compressed within the orb I obtained after achieving Soul Evolution.

  [Auto Loot] was now maxed—everything Tris deemed important—be it from a man, an animal, or a monster, was automatically stored in our inventory the moment I killed them. There was no limit on the range.

  [Skyview] now had a satellite scanning feature that filled in everything within a ten-mile radius—with a cooldown of only a day.

  Those improvements were welcomed, but the best addition had to be [Void Replication]. Tris had solved the mystery behind Remy’s void warping, so she was working on reverse-engineering it for my use.

  However, Tris wouldn’t have a body for about 168 hours— nearly seven days needed to pass before I held her in my arms once more. Until then…she was a waypoint sculpture—a being of intangible lights.

  “You… You ruined everything!!!!” Remy stomped, making a crater. A jagged line ruptured the ground, causing another quake. “WHO ARE YOU?!?! HOW ARE YOU SO STRONG?! WHY DID THE VOID BLESS YOU?!?! I’LL BEAT IT OUT OF YOU!!!!”

  Lady Sekh is the target, my lord! Please fire at her!

  I immediately unloaded a hail of bullets. All smmed into Remy a heartbeat after she swapped with Sekh.

  The projectiles bounced off. Remy grinned, snarling like a rabid beast as she retrieved more daggers. The EoW leapt to me, summoning a shield from her thin sword that took the blows. “YOU CAN’T EVEN FIGHT YOUR OWN BATTLES!!!”

  Surtr roared and swung his axe. Remy sidestepped and kicked him away, but he recovered, transforming into a lion. He ran to Sekh, but Remy swapped with those two.

  “It’s always like a coward to back away!” I taunted. “I always knew the lowlifes Meruria kept with her, but why was I ever afraid of a weakling like you?! You’re nothing, you goddamn wolf!” We didn’t waste any time.

  We chased after her. Sekh was on Surtr. The EoW and I were using wings. Remy held both hands, ughing like a maniac. [Apocalypse Serpentine]!” Tendrils of crackling energy manifested from a scar in the fabric of reality. They dripped an eerie bck sludge that seemingly melted space and time. Their serpentine forms slithered towards us, with ten of them hanging back. They curled, flinging the sludge as if they were artillery shells.

  “THIS IS NOTHING!!!” I summoned all my guns and fired. The EoW supplied me with Soul Energy to fuel my bullets. Smoke bellowed from the barrels as I used eight instances of [Explosion] with [Chimeric Armatization] to bst the incoming projectiles out of the skies.

  The EoW jumped and held her rapier up. A delicate icicle banced on the tip. She suddenly carved it. It turned into a blizzard of snowfkes that she sent toward the tentacles. They exploded into a frigid cyclone, destroying them.

  Tris said Remy was coming.

  Her target was me.

  I appeared where she used to be, and when I turned around, she was met with rapier, mace, and fangs. Remy used a forcefield to push everyone away, and she warped to Sekh. She jabbed her hands in her armor, throwing her off Surtr. The two exchanged blows.

  Recreate me behind you!

  I did what the EoW had said, tched onto her with my vines, spun to gain speed, and unched her like a rocket toward Remy.

  Tris told Surtr to tell Sekh to get ready.

  “Die!” shouted the spirit, her rapier held out. She smmed into Remy from behind, piercing the shitty wolf with her weapon and horns, then used an icy pilr to unch her into the sky.

  “UUUGGHHHHH!!!!”

  Sekh dropped her shield to enrge her mace.

  It looked so demonic, but she roared and packed all her power into a mighty swing. A fme spurt erupted from the point of impact, and Remy slid along the uneven, destroyed, melted ground like trash. Surtr slid into view, catching his prey in his mouth. He mauled her, biting and thrashing around before tossing her back to his summoner.

  Sekh and the EoW fought together, alternating strikes that barely—just barely-- cut Remy’s reinforced skin.

  A thought came to me. [Conferment] worked on Remy, so why…allow her to remain this strong?

  “With the power of [Conferment], I use my authority as the Transcendent Dark Lord to pacify the effects of [Limit Break] within the Spiritual Grove!” Grey mana shot into the sky from my hand. It exploded, weakening Remy. She was just 3x as powerful, but either way…

  It didn’t matter.

  Each powerful blow sent a wave of fmes and liquid ice, turning the Spiritual Grove into more of a desote wastend of opposing elements.

  Aetos cried, his voice appearing as a small whisper. I barely heard him say the Eagle Yew was beginning to catch fire. Our fight had been so intense that reality tears were starting to form. It was too much for the two to bear.

  We had less time than before.

  I’m sorry, Eagle Yew.

  Remy defended the best she could, but it wasn’t enough. Her daggers kept shattering. Her pained cries were delightful. She had nothing to parry with since it took her longer to replenish her weapons.

  Remy thought she could escape into the sky, but I was there. Her warps were an open secret. She could do nothing to hide them from Tris. I tackled her to the ground. Sekh rode on Surtr, leaping from his back with her mace enfmed. She swung with reckless abandon. It harmlessly avoided me after I briefly turned into water.

  “RRRRAAHHHHHHHH!” screamed Sekh. Remy smmed into the ground as a bed of abyssal icefme spikes pierced her back. She jerked her shoulders, destroying the spell, then rolled to the left as I descended with my spear. Tris alerted her to my right, so I swung, connecting with her chin.

  She took the blow, standing like an immovable rock as she shattered my spear, but Sekh’s roar alerted her to a dazzling murder of swarming abyssal icefme bolts that threatened to darken the skies. Remy warped—a useless tactic. She had preprogrammed ten warps, and Tris had deduced their locations. The info was sent to Sekh, who ensured her mighty spell found their rightful home inside that wolf’s disgusting body.

  She was like a pincushion until a pulse of her mana destroyed the bolts. Sekh nded and grinned, resting her mace on her shoulder. I joined her…

  …but it wasn’t me.

  That was a clone.

  The real me had slipped behind Remy as a tiny fragment of inconspicuous slime that resembled blood. The dumb bitch was none the wiser as Sekh stepped forward.

  “YOU DESERVE ALL THIS!!!” I shouted, penetrating her back with Kronto. Fmes gathered around the shaft and unched her to Sekh. I joined her assault, using each other’s strikes to reinforce our own.

  Fighting side by side with Sekh like this… It reinvigorated nostalgic feelings I never wanted to forget.

  We flowed so well.

  Remy finally found her voice after screaming an unholy wail. Another shockwave tried to send us away, but spiked vines kept me in pce. She shattered Kronto, stabbing the fractured spear into my heart.

  Did it matter?

  Fmes and ice fueled my fists as I punched her in the stomach. Fire erupted from my knuckles, forcing her back into the air as the deadly confgration consumed her skin.

  I ripped out my weapon. I healed my wounds.

  “I DON’T CARE HOW MANY LAST-RESORT ABILITIES YOU USE!! YOU WON’T WIN!!! YOU’RE DESTINED TO DIE HERE!!!!! SEKH!!! DO IT!!!!”

  The fming armor of [Ira Ignis] vanished, repced by [Furia Gcies] at 70 as the Essence of Wrath assisted Sekh in the air with a pilr of ice to meet our prey. She smmed her back down with a mighty strike—geysers of blood erupted from Remy’s mouth. The whimsical armor of ice and frigidness…

  How strange a feeling it was to have all that Wrath repced with a cold, unsettling fury…

  I connected with Remy’s chin, punching her into the air a second time with a pilr of ice.

  The EoW flew from above, spun, and kicked her away— her strikes fueled by [Furia Gcies]. The icy armor surrounding her legs shattered into snowfkes that followed like homing missiles. They lodged deep in her chest and exploded—much like when they destroyed that [Apocalypse Serpentine] spell. Surtr roared, now back as a Lionfolk. He used his ferocious axe to cleave her legs. He had used a jet stream of fmes out the back of his weapon to make it faster.

  I rushed under her and slid, summoning my rifle with Kronto attached to it while activating [Ira Ignis]. It skewered her through the chest as metallic tendrils pierced her body. They snaked like veins throughout her arms and legs and wrapped around her heart before bursting from her chest. They jabbed into the ground like support beams.

  Simultaneously, I used [Lightning Storm]. The skies trembled—storm clouds gathered overhead, looking as bck as pitch darkness. I also used [Lightning Rod] on my rifle—I’d learned both spells from Sera, but Tris had improved them.

  The air was gritty. Lightning bolts illuminated the abyssal sea of clouds. You could feel the thick tension. It seemed like fate just waited for me to pull the trigger...

  Yet I wanted more.

  More.

  More.

  Remy had to suffer more than anyone else.

  Suddenly, the Essence of Wrath let out a roar that shook the realm. Fmes exploded from her body, engulfing her in a blinding bze as she transformed into a colossal, terrifying dragon.

  Those scales shimmered like molten va, each one a living fme. The air around her threatened to melt. Wings of fire erupted from the dragon's back. Her eyes glowed a fierce, vengeful crimson as she raised her head. With a violent snap of her jaw, she unleashed a seething torrent of fire. The fmes surged forth, twisting and merging with the sky’s raging storm. The crackling lightning intertwined with the inferno, turning the clouds into a churning sea of death and devastation.

  “Give it all you’ve got, Surtr. Do not hold anything back!” Sekh nded nearby. She raised her mace. It fshed a deep bck, sending a swirling beam of abyssal icefme that melded with the clouds. Remy's fear of her was so great that Sekh gained more mana than she expended even while using her most powerful attacks.

  “Of course, my dy!”

  Surtr—in his lion form—did the same after roaring. It was like the apocalypse was happening overhead. So much magic... So much power... It was chaos in a destructive form that merely awaited the signal to strike.

  My signal...

  The signal to end it all.

  I pulled the trigger, calling forth a combination spell far, far eclipsing the attack that shattered the Eagle Yew’s bounded field.

  The skies cried. Existence was almost torn asunder as the rabid lightning gathered before striking Kronto’s tip. The noise was deafening—everything went bck—it felt like reality restarted.

  Remy’s screams were louder as the superheated fmes greedily devoured that piece of shit, blowing away more and more of her torso. The pressure was immense—the ground couldn’t take it. It shattered, splintering like someone had tossed a heavy boulder at an icy ke.

  Oh, how my heart had been waiting for this moment!

  I pulled the trigger again.

  Again.

  Again.

  Again.

  I kept pulling until Kronto and my rifle shattered like gss, but I didn’t recreate it because the fight was over.

  Remy was missing half her chest. She didn’t have any legs. The storm clouds and remnants of the magic had vanished after I canceled the spells. Blood leaked from her eyes, nose, and ears, and that suit had stopped repairing itself.

  Sekh and Surtr approached with the Essence of Wrath after she canceled her transformation.

  “I know you’re not dead,” I said. “It won’t be long. I hope it’s excruciatingly painful, you piece of shit.” Sekh wasn’t moving. Neither was Surtr. I groaned. “Are you seriously using your st moments to stop time?”

  “Who says…it’s just for this…?” Remy vanished and appeared a few feet away. “[Mortal Mend]!” Bloody mist enveloped her. She slowly stood after being healed.

  “That spell is designed to kill the caster after rejuvenation,” said the Essence of Wrath. “She has three minutes, but I wager it’s less. [Limit Break] and [Over Limit] pushes the body to the extreme when used alone, but together? You may have canceled the effects of one, but the damage remains.”

  My lord, a new suggestion has come to me. Please listen…

  Tris’s pn…

  It was so goddamn diabolical… Oh, it would push Meruria to the pits of madness.

  Did I have enough life force for that?

  “You may take what you need from me.”

  “I’d have done it even if you hadn’t given me permission.”

  “Care to let me in?” Remy interjected.

  “Care to die?” I replied. Remy ughed. She suddenly clutched her stomach, vomiting bile, blood, and bck sludge a moment ter.

  “Yeah… I don’t have long left. Why don’t we settle this like monsters? Fists only… Come on, chimera… Let’s beat the shit out of each other… Can’t you grant a girl her dying wish?”

  I gave a pistol to the Essence of Wrath, and we held Remy at gunpoint.

  “I was ready to berate you for being stupid enough to fall for the false wiles of a venomous woman…even if it warranted me another thrashing by the Dark Lord of Tyranny.”

  “I won’t make the same mistake twice.”

  “So, that’s a no? I guess…that’s normal for someone like me. Hey, I have one more request… Just… Who are you?” Remy vomited again. She dropped to one knee and touched the blood spewing from her lips. It was a struggle to stand, but no one helped her. She made a cruel joke about how there aren’t any more gentlemen in the world. “I’m curious… I don’t think I can die…without knowing who I let get away from me…”

  “I refuse. Why would I ever want to make you happy? I hate you… So very, very much… No one deserves to die a death more horrible than you and Meruria.”

  “I never wanted to admit it, but I’m not the strongest. I was, but…” Remy cried, the salty water mixing with the blood leaking down her cheeks. “You can’t compare to a 6-Star Soul Warrior. No one can. They’re legends amongst legends… You’re a fool if you think you can kill Tokko and Mia. They’re more...monsters than we are... You can’t kill them. Lord Meruria’s the…safest woman in the world with…them around…”

  “I guess you didn’t hear me when I said I had the smartest being in the world on my side. Tris makes the impossible possible. She’ll find a path. She’ll secure my victory.” Tris appeared as a waypoint sculpture and smugly grinned. She looked down on Remy as if she was trash.

  “Nah… It’s impossible. It won’t work. Lord Meruria will be…safe without me…”

  “I won’t have this argument with you.”

  Time resumed after Remy returned to one knee.

  She didn’t get up this time.

  The others joined us in looking down on Remy.

  “I wished I’d seen you in your prime, you tyrannical lion. Maybe I’d have followed you instead… I don’t suppose you can use [Conferment] to send me back in time? It’s…a rule that you gotta grant…a st request, right? So…do this for me—"”

  Bang!

  I shot Remy in the heart. She fell to her back. Blood oozed from the bullet holes...

  She was seconds away from death.

  RuggyRuggy