Hirrus wasn’t sure which foe was the larger threat. If his assessment of the armored captain was accurate, he was the closest thing to an even match Hirrus was likely to meet, one-on-one.

But the Gley was a beast of legend. Its near-immunity to Arcana would force him to deal with it physically, where its extra arms and size put it at an advantage.

The Gley would have to be his focus. If he beat down the captain, there was a chance he would activate his Merciless transformation and he would have to deal with the true threat while the Gley threatened to smash him into the ground. Meanwhile, he had reason to believe that the Gley might not be a powerful example of its species. Unlike the other foes the masked adventurers had loosed, this one did not have a name. It was simply a Gley. It displayed physical strength suitable to its reputation, but it might not be as indomitable as the stories said in terms of total power.

Hirrus feinted at the armored man. He’d started the fight with an obvious focus on defense, and so it wasn’t surprising that the man stepped back quickly to avoid a blow that wasn’t coming. Using Split Second, Hirrus covered the distance to the Gley in a flash. He slammed his axe into its thigh before its roaming eyes could register that he’d moved.

The creature’s throat made that same rattling hiss sound as the icy greataxe carved into the monster for two thousand eight hundred damage. Its pebbled hide split open under the ice-blue blade, and a trickle of ocean-blue blood started to flow. The blood reacted with the air in seconds, turning from deep blue to sickly yellow-green.

A huge hand came down, seeking to grab him by the shoulder to manhandle him like the masked adventurer. If he let the two-thumbed hand get a hold of him, it might have been the last mistake he ever made. He lashed out with the hooked blade, slicing across its palm instead of seeking a more vital area. The attack managed to score a critical hit, dealing four thousand damage and giving him a stack of Crushing Blade. The beast flinched just enough for him to duck aside and let the bleeding hand close around empty air.

There was the rattle of armor plates running up behind Hirrus, and he quickly strafed around the Gley. Pumped Kicks gave him the movespeed he needed to easily evade the captain as he tried to join the fight. As Hirrus ran past the Gley, he let the hooked blade lash out again. The blade connected for two thousand five hundred damage, and the Gley instantly took an additional one thousand seven hundred damage from a double strike. Blue blood sprayed across Hirrus’ neck and shoulder, and the heat of it turned icy cold by the color-changing reaction.

The captain snarled, starting to follow Hirrus around the grey-skinned beast, but he had made a critical misjudgment.

To him, the Gley was an ally.

But the Gley recognized no such allegiance.

Just as Hirrus had evaluated the situation and chosen his first target, so had the Gley. Neither could afford to entirely ignore the other target. Gley weren’t known for their intelligence, but they were smarter than beasts. If a foe stepped in front of it while obviously ignoring it, that was an opportunity it wouldn’t squander.

The bleeding hand swept out at the captain, and the sound of crumpling metal filled the air as the fist collided with the man. It didn’t send him flying, but he still stumbled back a good distance with a grunt of surprise.

It stepped sideways, moving to keep both Hirrus and the captain in its line of sight. Hirrus was glad for its divided attention, as it let the next swing of his greataxe smash into one of its right elbows. The strike was a critical hit for four thousand two hundred damage, giving him his second stack of Crushing Blade. The rattling hiss in its throat took on a keening tone of pain as its blood flooded down its arm.

Hirrus almost felt a pang of sympathy for the giant monster. It promptly proved that a foolish sentiment as its uninjured right hand crashed down on his shoulder. It was a closed fist and not an open hand, so he didn’t suddenly get flung around like a ragdoll, but it still hammered him for over two thousand damage. He brought up his hooked blade and raked the edge across its forearm, opening a deep wound for three thousand damage in return. The same hand whipped around in a backhand, and Hirrus ducked under it, just barely avoiding the blow.

There was a bellow of fury as the captain charged in again. The Gley let out a warning hiss and leaped back a few feet to give it space to react. Despite the monster’s hostility, Hirrus remained the armored man’s target. The mace came down in a diagonal blow, and Hirrus barely managed to interpose the haft of his greataxe before the heavy weapon could hit him. The force of the impact was enough to rattle his senses, but he managed to keep his feet.

The Gley lunged in, bringing both of its left fists across at the armored man’s back in a wild haymaker. Faster than Hirrus expected, the captain threw himself to the ground in a roll that left him the only one in the path of the sweeping strike. Hirrus braced for the blow using Penitent Shell, but was unable to evade the impact. He could have tried using an Arcana to get him out of the way rather than one to endure the strike, but he knew the real fight was coming when the armored man used his transformation. He needed all the tricks he could muster for that fight when it came.

When the fist came in, it only struck for two thousand damage, but the force of the impact was enough to send him staggering. He kept on his feet, but the momentum the strike imparted didn’t run out until he slammed into the wall of a burning building. The wooden wall held against the impact, but cinders filled the air around him, and his chest burned as he inhaled a lungful of smoke.

The wooden wall hadn’t broken when Hirrus slammed into it, but it couldn’t stand up to the next impact. The armored man threw himself into Hirrus in a tackle that didn’t do damage, but smashed the two of them through the wall and into the flames.

The wall started to collapse behind them after the damage their passage caused. The flames that surrounded them were mundane, borne of no Arcana, and so Hirrus was at least comforted that the armored man was suffering the same burning that he was. Hirrus had gotten his first whiff of the smoke outside, and so he was prepared to hold his breath in here. The armored man, though, got a lungful of it, and was choking on it.

Hirrus stepped up and slashed him across the chest with the hooked blade, dealing over four thousand damage.

The captain’s mace swept up at him in a clumsy attempt to ward him off, but Hirrus was too fast, dancing back from the blow and coming in quickly, putting his body weight behind both weapons coming in at once. The hooked blade struck for three thousand five hundred damage, and the axe smashed into the man’s shoulder in a critical hit, delivering six thousand seven hundred damage and earning Hirrus the final stack of Crushing Blade.

The mace swept out again in a furious flurry of attacks that seemed too fast for the heavy weapon, and Hirrus was forced back to wait out the man’s defensive maneuver. Outside, there was a tremendous crash, and the ceiling started to come down on them. Over the crackling of the flames, Hirrus could hear the rattling hiss of the Gley outside, and he quickly guessed that the monster was trying to knock the building over on top of them.

Split Second would be ready again in just a few more seconds, and would easily get him out. But it was a gamble that the fire-damaged structure would hold that long.

If it was to be a gamble, then he had to make the reward worth the risk.

“Hold!” Hirrus barked at the captain. “Hold a moment!”

The armored man leveled his weapon at Hirrus, but didn’t immediately launch another attack. His face was twisted into a scowl, but that might have just been him trying to hold back dry heaves from the lungfuls of smoke he’d taken in by now.

“We can’t ignore that thing anymore,” Hirrus said, gesturing at the next thundering impact of the Gley’s fists against the wall of the building. “We kill it together, and then we can fight each other properly. Honorably.”

The man lifted his chin and spat on the floor near Hirrus’ feet. The spittle visibly steamed from the heat inside the burning building. It was a clear refusal to work together, but Hirrus saw doubt in the man’s eyes. The Gley had probably dealt as much damage to the captain than it had to Hirrus. And the prospect of an honorable fight was no doubt appealing to someone used to spinning pretty speeches about honor and nobility.

It was just enough of an opening for Hirrus.

Purple-blue sparks flickered around his vision for a brief moment before Melisune’s Eye blasted out of him. Without any of his Arcana buffs, it only dealt three thousand seven hundred damage, but that wasn’t what he was after.

The Arcana afflicted the man with Calcification, holding him in place.

Split Second came off cooldown, and Hirrus used its speed to launch himself out the opening in the burning wall where they’d come in. The air was still smoky outside, but compared to the building’s interior, it felt cool and clean to Hirrus’ aching lungs.

There was a cracking sound behind him, and he turned to watch the building collapse. Smoke and cinders erupted into the air, and Hirrus raised a hand to shield his eyes from the debris. There was a cry of pain from within, and Hirrus wondered what kind of damage a collapsing building would do to the armored man.

He had more immediate concerns, however, as a giant four-armed creature emerged from the smoke, six glowing aquamarine eyes oriented on him. The Gley stomped over the ruined building, four two-thumbed hands flexing and unflexing in and out of being a quartet of balled-up fists.

It was pretty badly wounded now. In addition to the wounds he had dished out on it before, it looked like it took a decent amount of damage from the flames as it knocked over the building. A splintered chunk of smoldering wood stuck out of its forearm, either from its strikes or the collapse. Hirrus might be able to bring the fight to a swift end in just a few quick strikes.

The fight was brought to a swift end when a figure exploded out of the ruins of the building. There was a wet slap of impact and a snap of bone and the Gley’s head suddenly jerked to the left, going slack with a broken neck.

The figure hit the ground, singed and breathing heavily. The familiar armor of the captain had shifted and stretched. Most notably, the front of his helm had buckled outwards to make room for a giant scaled snout. The hands gripping the mace were now cruelly clawed.

The captain had used his Merciless transformation.

Now the real fight would begin.