Huang Li watched with narrowed eyes as Randidly Ghosthound, the most powerful man on Expira, was opened from shoulder to hip by Lucifer’s strike. The flesh split and flecks of gore were flung onto the floor. Pressing his lips together, Huang Li continued to churn his images around the edges of the arena as he prepared for his opportunity to move. But he couldn’t tear his eye away from the Ghosthound’s wound.

Flesh might have ruptured and bones cracked, but nothing leaked out after the initial biological debris. At least nothing physical. It was a dull red heat that escaped from the wound in his body, hazing the air with waves of heat. As he stood before the stunned Lucifer, Randidly Ghosthound looked more like some deadly machine than any being of flesh. Even worse, his insides were clearly on display. Fleshy red and pink globes pulsed slightly, ostensibly still carrying on their routine functions despite how close they came to being cut in half like a ripe tomato.

The Ghosthound’s smile curled upward as he considered the shock on their faces. When he spoke, more steam escaped his mouth, seeming to glow slightly. “Yea… this is fun, isn’t it?”

There was suddenly something present in the room that hadn’t been there previously. It was only a trace, and that trace was both minuscule and elusive, but a shadow flickered in the heat waves around his body and the Ghosthound’s heaving shoulders. His body had been a cage and now this being could escape. The image of the Grim Chimera leaked outward, staining the air like colored ink does water.

Somehow that small sliver of the image was enough to suppress the surrounding images. It spread its twisted limbs, pushing everything else back. The air suddenly tasted metallic and sour. The Ghosthound’s shoulders and spine cracked as his body shifted and grew. His bones seemed heavier, his muscles coarser and almost charred by that powerful source of heat in his chest. The waves of heat wafting off of him intensified. All but the extremities of his body were blurred and muddled, giving him a strange ghastliness. While his aura darkened, it was only the Ghosthound’s emerald eyes that stayed the same, weighing the surrounding threats.

“Attacks based on images can reach him,” Alana announced. Then she twisted her mouth. “It’s obnoxious, but physical attacks don’t appear to do anything significant. We will tire out before he does. Use your images as much as possible.”

The Ghosthound and sprang into motion. Somehow he only seemed faster with those few inches of height and width that he added with that strange transformation when he had been wounded, moving at lightning speed toward the closed-eyed Dinesh. Paolo and Kayle were instantly there, interposing themselves between the Ghosthound and his target. Both positively blazed with their images.

And then the Ghosthound accelerated. He stepped right and then stepped left with that same preternatural grace and he was past Paolo, leaving only a billowing cloud of steam in his wake from his overheating body.

“Wha-? YOU!” Paolo roared, and his image roared and spun back into his body. Perhaps in some instinctual imitation, that burning flame of triumph that he had spun itself into thin threads that entered Paolo’s body and fueled him to greater heights as he had seen from the Ghosthound. So he twisted as the Ghosthound moved past him, ignoring the steam and pouncing toward the Ghosthound’s exposed back.

Paolo hit the ground without being able to land a strike. He blinked in confusion; he was too slow to catch up.

Huang Li’s hands tightened on his sword, so much so that his fingers were trembling. His strike was not yet prepared, but he would need to use it anyway if Dinesh was in danger while preparing their next move. But luckily, Hank Howard rolled forward and sprung up in the Ghosthound’s path. Both narrowed their eyes as they considered each other; Hank drew his repeater with a speed that could keep up with the Ghosthound and carefully aimed at his opponent’s chest.

The Ghosthound, still with flames licking up out of the gaping wound on his chest, stepped to the side in what appeared to be an attempt to avoid Hank just as he had Paolo. But at the last second, his left hand snapped sideways to snag Hank’s head. Hank leaned to the left as though he had predicted the attack, then fired six bullets out of his repeater into the Ghosthound’s open wound.

Huang Li saw one of the organs exposed in the Ghosthound’s chest pop.

The Ghosthound hissed and spun, his leg arcing up to crack against Hank’s shoulder and send the man sprawling. But that was all the time Paolo needed to catch up to the Ghosthound’s back and bring both of his hands, wreathed in glorious golden light, crashing down toward their quarry’s back.

The Ghosthound twisted and thrust forward with his right arm while taking a step forward. Blood sprayed out of a gaping hole as he opened in Paolo’s shoulder, even while the wounded man in question planted his foot and roared, fully in the Ghosthound’s face. With that thunderous shout came a searing image of challenge that blasted the Ghosthound directly.

The Ghosthound winced and took a half step back.

Which put him perfectly in line for Tykes' massive metal orb to smash toward him. The huge projectile, howled with an image of momentum, seeming to possess all the force of a collapsing mountain. Tykes pumped his legs and shoved it forward with all his strength.

The Ghosthound twisted and lashed out with his right arm. But even he seemed surprised when his bone spear of a right arm skewered through the iron ball and he was still impacted as the ball slid along the length of bone. Then Tykes planted his feet and physically shoved the ball forward, knocking the Ghosthound off balance.

A split second later, the Ghosthound’s back foot smashed down and he stopped Tykes dead. But again, that brief moment was enough of an opening for the powerful warriors they had gathered to intervene.

Huang Shou and Glendel glanced at each other. Then Huang Shou pointed at the Ghosthound. “Be Still.”

Even as he handled the aggression of the arrayed figured of Tykes, Lucifer, Paolo, and Kayle, the Ghosthound’s gaze whipped around to focus on Huang Shou as he spoke. The Ghosthound then barred his teeth, his shoulders rolled and began to pop once more as some new change came over the Grim Chimera.

Glendel slapped his hands together and created a noise that echoed through the underground training arena. “Sovereign’s Guillotine.”

That massive phantom and its dark crown that stood behind Glendel began to tremble with exertion. The towering figure raised a shadowy finger and from it sprung a keening, wailing blade that shot toward the Ghosthound. There was something overwhelming that Huang Li could sense from that blade. It pressured the surrounding space to surrender to it, to give completely into the fate that it brought. In terms of image, this was the most condensed strike against the Ghosthound yet. Paolo punched, Kayle and Lucifer slashed, and Tykes continued to strain against the massive iron ball to keep the Ghosthound locked in place to receive that attack.

Crack!

BOOOOOOOM!

A tremor ran through the Ghosthound’s body right before the attack landed, transforming into a massive shaking that sundered Tykes’ massive iron ball right down the middle. From that broken orb of metal emerged a slender hand that seized Tykes’ face. By the time the dust cleared from Glendel’s Sovereign’s Guillotine landing, Tykes had been tossed to the side.

He had been rendered instantly unconscious, just like Giuliana.

But they had scored another deep hit against him. The Ghosthound’s left hip and much of his thigh had been ripped open, flesh and bone appearing strangely more like a thin film with an underlying metal scaffolding than flesh. Seeing the wound, Huang Li was reminded of seeing the peeled back exterior of a zeppelin than any examination of a living being. With all the dangerous explosiveness of a hydrogen balloon, considering the radiating heatwaves and the horrifying image that was also escaping through that new wound.

The worst part was that the Grim Chimera stirred again, once more given outlet into the world. The heatwaves were starting to fade around the Ghosthound, revealing the sharp-edged details of his form. Just that sliver of the Grim Chimera’s image seemed to reach out and squeeze Huang Li’s heart.

But the Ghosthound’s face was twisted into a grimace; the attack had definitively dealt damage.

Huang Li also didn’t miss the change in the Ghosthound’s right arm. The bone spear appeared to have swollen within Tykes’ iron ball with enough force to rupture it and taken on different proportions. The new limb was still thin, and when all the slender fingers were pressed together still formed a sharp point, but now five spindly fingers stretched from a skeletally thin forearm. Compared to the dominant left arm, the balance struck Li as comically horrifying. Rather than any muscles, the entire thing seemed to be held together by pitch-black tendons, creating a stark contrast to the dried blood and yellow of the bones.

Kayle yelped abruptly, drawing everyone’s attention. And suddenly the Ghosthound was gone, pouncing forward at his most recent prey. At some point, a long tail as thick as two fists pressed together had snaked outward from the Ghosthound’s waist. With a flick, it swept Kayle’s feet out from under him. By the time Huang Li had registered these facts, the Ghosthound was springing forward to knock the runner-up out of this ambush.

“The Fifth Revelation: Want.”

Alana blazed with holy fire, smashing into the Ghosthound before he could reach the surprised Kayle. At the last moment, the Ghosthound twisted midair like a feral cat and met this new threat. His massive left arm whipped around, smashing into Alana’s almost blinding spear thrusts. Once more the Grim Chimera manifested, its fury completely apparent. For a brief instant, the impact of images was so powerful that Huang Li coughed and was forced to take a step back.

In the air above them, Grim Chimera and prophet Valkyrie fought. It was a frozen instant of a full impact between the two images.

Then Alana grunted and was sent tumbling backward. Her image flickered and then died around her like the flames had been buried in ice. Kayle was able to regain his feet, but the twisting movement that the Ghosthound used to face Alana allowed him to also bring his tail around in a whip blow that smashed Kayle into the ground sent him bouncing away like a ragdoll.

“Lucifer Slash!” Lucifer quickly stepped in, but the wounded Ghosthound was even more monstrously fast than he had been while at peak health. The Ghosthound avoided it with a single step toward Dinesh, but Donny was instantly blocking his way. As though he had expected that, the Ghosthound stepped again and rushed toward the previously motionless Stan. Lyra opened her palms and released a powerful ray of violet light, but the Ghosthound ducked under it without slowing at all.

On cue, Stan erupted into a perfect mirror of the Ghosthound, leaping forward and lashing out with the sharp and slender claws on his left hand. It was the Grim Chimera, hitting all the same notes, but on a much smaller scale. Yet like a handler cradling a newborn giraffe, the Ghosthound slipped under the blow and touched Stan on his head and waist at the same time. The man instantly crumpled, the imitation Grim Chimera gone.

The Ghosthound turned to regard the rest of them. “Heh. The Grim Chimera grows based on danger. How could a freshly born version be anything compared to me? Which begs the question that I’ve been wondering since this started…”

The Ghosthound tilted his head to the side. “Why bother with this? Do you really want a beating that badly?”