“Take this…” Nic tossed a grenade to Inkspur, who caught it in his claws. “Go find the girl and take her out with it.”

The wyvern nodded and shot out the window, leaving his master behind. Nic took a kneeling position. He’d waited long enough for his enemies to follow him into the lodge- clearly, they’d realized they would have no chance in close quarters.

So, he’d wait for their play.

As Nic breathed in and out slowly, the house shuddered.

Attacks slammed into the walls of the lodge, one by one. They’d chosen not to follow him in, not to disturb the snares Nic had left as he spread homemade mud across the floors and ceilings, ready to form glue-traps or falling curtains to blind them.

Instead, they were bringing the house down. It was a slow tactic, and that was its chief weakness. With every second that passed Nic was restoring his aura, flooding his veins with new power, and desperately trying to push out the cold poisonous ash that was clogging his body’s regeneration.

They gave him time at their own risk.

With a sudden crack, the ceiling began to fall inwards…

And Nic activated the Plates of the Sun God’s Dictate. Golden energy surrounded him, infusing his skin until he shone like a deific statue. As the wooden beams above tumbled down, they crashed harmlessly against him, although the weight still landed upon his back and pushed him to kneel. Slowly, as the avalanche settled, Nic shoved his way up and climbed out of the ruins…

De Vega and the Spearman waited for him in the streets. That much he’d expected.

But Nic didn’t have a smile on his face as he looked up...

What Nic was surprised by was the lack of a sky above him. The blue, clear daylight was gone. Instead a massive swirling pool of night rippled overhead, like a lake of dark water suspended in the sky, filled with stars that gleamed with the cold bright luster of bared swords.

Nic’s smile twitched. That...

That might be a problem.

He’d underestimated just how much the girl he’d named Orion was capable of doing, given time to build up her attacks.

One by one, the stars dropped out of the sky and fell towards him, cutting blazing streaks of white flame through the air as they chased him down.

Nic wasn’t about to make it easy.

Rotating his power into his legs, Nic shot straight forward. The Spearman and de Vega each fired, buckshot and piercing rays of light cutting wildly through the air as Nic simply broke through their attacks, relying on his golden mantle as lead chipped off his shoulders and face, sparks spraying as the beams tried and failed to cut against skin that had turned as solid as metal.

Stars slammed into the dirt where Nic had been seconds before, chasing him.

His opponents swerved, darting off in opposite directions.

Nic feinted towards de Vega, then slammed his foot down, rooting himself with sticky mud so that he swung in a smooth pivot and darted towards his real goal- the Spearman.

As he kicked the ground a huge wave of dust rose up. A primitive bomb of bamboo went flying overhead, and Nic emerged like a demon, bursting out of the cloud to lunge for his enemy with his sword in hand.

The first beam was deflected by a high parry.

The second chipped against Nic’s skin to no effect.

The third-

There was no third.

The bomb detonated, hurling shrapnel into the back of the man’s body. He stumbled forward, clumsily trying for a blind, desperate block as Nic’s sword hurled down…

Nic released the aura holding the blade of wind together. The hilt, now bladeless, passed in front of the guard and down.

He poured aura back through the weapon and the blade snapped back into place.

His foot slammed down, rooting him as he used both hands to drive upwards, and send the blade piercing through the base of the man’s throat and up through his skull. The swirling, razor-sharp wind turned red as it drew the blood and grey matter of the wound into a torrent of gore.

Nic ripped the blade away and turned.

De Vega’s fired three times in rapid succession, backpedaling as fast as he could. Each shot sent tiny cracks rippling through the golden armor, but did nothing to harm Nic.

“BETH!” De Vega roared out. “NOW!”

He lifted his hand on the shotgun’s pump, lifting all five fingers to cast out his control over gravity. Nic slowed, the soft, enveloping weight more effective than any sharp blow would be. His feet sank into the dust as he advanced forward.

De Vega was still, motionless. Bringing the heavens down onto Nic’s back made sweat stream down from his brow as his fingers shook.

But it was enough.

The falling stars had landed.

The first deflected against Nic’s armor, exploding into a puff of blue-white fire. The second, likewise, but now with a crack spreading across the golden halo of light. Before the fracture could close, another slammed down, this one reaching through to make Nic stumble and come down hard, his weight braced awkwardly on one leg.

There were more. There were so many, and two strikes in quick succession nearly knocked Nic to the dust as his armor began to splinter. As the steady fall of stars took on a rhythm, striking at a relentless, hammering pace, they flowed together and became a continuous stream of flame. The halo of golden light dimmed and began to flicker, flicker, flicker…

Nic could feel the vibrations now, shuddering through his protective mantle to shake his bones. He’d been struck four times directly by the flame, and each of those four wounds drew in energy from the attacks landing against his back, resonating in tune and sending hair-thin cuts spiraling out across his skin. He would be shaken apart as those cuts dug down and etched themselves into his bones.

With a growl Nic forced himself to take a step forward. Then another.

The shield collapsed.

Nic was slammed into the ground, blow after blow forcing him down. It felt like he was being shaken apart from within-

And then something changed. The thin, mercurial layer of armor wrapped over him expanded upwards, taking the form of dozens of thin reaching tendrils that covered Nic like a protective dome. They caught the falling beams of starlight and pulsed brilliantly as they absorbed it.

“I can help! I figured it out, ooh, yes, I think I’ve got it!” With a delighted babbling, Gwungo reached up, peeling away from Nic’s skin to gobble up the illusionary stars.

There was a second shiver and he shrank back down to envelop Nic once more. Now, he was crystalline, an armor formed of thousands of thin crystal plates layered like scales.

The starlight simply dissipated, dispelled as it touched him. Eaten…

“Oh.” Nic gasped out. “T-thanks..”

And fighting the weight of de Vega’s Shard, Nic pushed back up to his feet.

In the distance there was an explosive flash, and the conjured sky above flickered out, the last few stars vanishing as the lake of darkness shrank away to a pool, a dot, to nothing.

Inkspur had succeeded.

De Vega’s face was pale, pinched, ashen…

He smiled despite all that.

"You know, what I hate most about you invaders..." Samuel de Vega seemed to know these were his last words. "Is how smug, how self-satisfied, you are about being killers. As if we're all idiots for coming from a world where you don't have to butcher people just to live. Yes yes, I'm sure we look like backwater yokels to you, not fighting for every second of our existences. It really must be the sign of civilization to slaughter each other in the streets…”

Nic tilted his head. Not the speech he expected from a man who’d tried to feed him to a bunch of parasitic dryads and shake him down for ransom at the same time…

But even idiots got a few things right.

Deep in the man’s eyes was a rage that had reached the point of true madness. Rage for his planet. Rage for those he’d lost, maybe…

The man threw his weapon aside. He lifted both fists, showing Nic the bone-ribbed bracers of fur wrapped around each forearm. “Recognize these.”

Nic did. One was his half of the Wintertusk Bracers. The other he’d given to the angel-cursed boy, Shane.

The last hint of mercy fell away from Nic’s eyes. He roared, and shot forward with his blade raised high, rushing to make the killing blow before de Vega could draw on the bracer’s power. There would be a single window to make the cut before the transformation was completed. Tiny, but present.

His blade cut towards de Vega’s throat in a swirl of wind.

In the instant before the blow could make contact, de Vega opened his mouth and roared. A raw wave of sound slammed Nic backwards, sending his feet skidding through the dirt as he tried not to overbalance. Blood leaked from the notches that were an axolotl’s ears as he reeled.

Before him, de Vega had transformed. The full power of both bracers was something Nic had never seen before…

The man was unrecognizable. He stood twelve feet tall, as thick around as an old oak. His skin had taken on the light grey of stone and been etched with numerous markings. Tusks extended from his mouth, and his every breath expelled a wave of frost vapors, his beard hanging down in wild curls filled with shards of glittering ice.

His eyes glowed. His foot swept out.

Nic tried to move, but his body was far from peak condition. Every little thing was adding up without his regeneration, and de Vega still had gravity on his side, slowing Nic to a crawl as he tried to escape the brutal kick.

It made contact and punted Nic across the ground. Only a quick application of clinging mud kept his sword literally glued to his hand, preventing him from losing his weapon.

Nic came up on his feet. At this point, Nic had been knocked around and kicked down so often that, even if he died, his corpse would stand back up on instinct.

The giant advanced, sweeping a hand down to grab hold of him. Nic scrambled back, barely escaping, the fingers clawing through the dust where he’d been.

Nic’s sword flicked out, clawing a thin line through the thickened skin of the giant’s wrist. It was barely a fly’s bite of a wound.

De Vega’s lips split open, and teeth the size of tombstones made a grim, cruel smile. “Not so easy now, huh? I figure you’ve just about run yourself ragged…” His words boomed over the street.

Nic had one idea left. Since he’d escaped from the prison, he’d been keeping his left eye restrained, holding back the flood of information that wanted to write itself across his vision in a tide of golden runes. He undid his mental block, and the world shifted focus.

“NICOLAS!” A familiar voice filled his head.

“Oh-” But he shook his head, refusing to answer. He had no time.

The giant’s hand was already sweeping towards him, aiming to send him flying and shatter his bones with a brutal backhand. The golden runes did nothing but calculate the speed, angle, and power by which Nic would die.

It was already too late to dodge, but this time, he didn’t try to. He dropped his sword and clung on as the massive fist crashed into him. All the breath left his lungs and the wind whistled around him as he was carried up into the air.

De Vega blinked in confusion, trying to spot where Nic had gone.

Spitting out blood, Nic stood, releasing the sticky aura that had allowed him to ride the blow up. He ran down the arm in a dead sprint, leaping as de Vega tried to throw him off. He fell at a high angle towards the bastard’s swollen, magnified face, every scar and the furious glare of his eyes enlarged until they became closer to a mountain than a man.

Twenty seven percent…

Before, the information-runes from his left eye had shown him the efficiency of his strikes was only twenty seven percent.

Nic could do better.

Now he closed off everything else, narrowing his focus until all he saw of the world was his own right hand forming a singular palm strike. The world took on a slowed, stilted air, as if the sheer intensity of his will was forcing time to a halt. He felt his aura flood down the limb, filling up his meridians in a tide of energy. The branched shape of the meridian lines gave the strength that flooded through them the appearance of a golden bolt of lightning.

Lightning, reaching out for his enemy.

The runes guided him to perfect his form, to control the aura, to align every movement internal and external against a vision of perfection.

He infused the meaning he had learned from Old Goat Li into his palm, filling every drop of resonating power with the single word.

Despair.

His palm strike hammered down like the wrath of god.

De Vega fell, a mountain brought crashing to the earth.