Fire and their ambulatory payload of Merciless Plague had a huge head start. Hirrus also had just used Split Second, and so it would be a short while before he could use it again. He still had the boar charge, but it could only be used when the target was within range.

Thus, Hirrus was forced to fall back on the old fashioned way of catching up: running after them.

But with Pumped Kicks and Electric Field active, Hirrus had move speed in spades. His accelerated strides ate the distance between him and his quarry. Their sprint away from him had bought them a few seconds, but they couldn’t escape. Even if Fire had some tricks of their own for movement speed, it was clear now that the adventurers hadn’t wasted any resources on building up the plagued civilians they’d brought with them.

The only way Fire could use an Arcana to escape was if they were willing to abandon any attempt to bring the Merciless Plague to-

Fire vanished.

The civilian with them stumbled briefly as if confused at suddenly being alone. He stopped running for just a second as he looked around, bewildered, which quickly gave way to terror when he saw Hirrus practically flying up the road at him. The man scrambled for a moment to get running again, but it was too late. That brief hesitation brought the civilian in range of the boar charge Arcana, and Hirrus slammed into him in the blink of an eye. The Arcana itself did physical damage with a low multiplier, but with Hirrus' stats, it still dealt over three thousand damage to him.

There was a sickening snapping noise of shattering bone, and the corpse hit the ground with force, tumbling across the logging trail like a bundle of sticks.

Hirrus wanted to find Fire. He wanted to track them down and exact retribution for their threat. He almost just started hurling Arcana around and hoping to hit them by blind luck. But he took a moment to gather himself. Just throwing Arcana away could put himself in danger. Putting a bunch of his abilities on cooldown might be the opening Fire wanted to counterattack.

As a leader of adventurers, they might be a fighter on par with Fidelis.

Giving them the advantage could be suicide.

“Alric,” Hirrus said, calling back to his ally. “Do you have anything that can reveal them?”

“No, of course not,” Alric yelled. Hirrus hadn’t even noticed where Alric had gone, but now saw that he had broken away and run into the forest to hide behind a tree during the fight. “And if I could, I would definitely announce it loudly now, where an invisible fucking assassin could hear me and use that to plan their next move.”

“Then this is finished,” Hirrus said, slowly lowering his weapons. “They have nothing left here to fight for. And neither do I. Their Merciless Plague carriers are dead, and so they have no way to infect Dahlia.” He looked around, speaking loudly to make it clear he was not addressing Alric alone. “If Fire is smart, they will run as far from this place as possible, so that I never set eyes on them again.”

The forest made no response. Hirrus wasn’t confident that he could take that as agreement, but he supposed that the only way Fire could voice an objection was to reveal themselves. When there was no attack for a few more seconds, Hirrus figured that they must have left. He wasn’t going to fully let down his guard, but that wasn’t a new development.

It wasn’t until he started to walk back towards the badly damaged cart that he realized he’d overlooked something.

The masked figures who had tried to stand and fight to screen for Fire’s escape had used Arcana to prepare. Hirrus hadn’t acquired any of it yet. Nor had he been awarded experience points for their defeat.

The fight wasn’t over. It was possible that Fire simply hadn’t yet gotten far enough from Hirrus to disengage and end the battle. Perhaps whatever Arcana they were using to avoid notice required them to remain still, and so Hirrus would have to leave before combat would end.

But perhaps they hadn’t given up yet.

There was a flash of movement. It slashed across Hirrus’ right side and vanished into the forest on his left. It left behind four thousand seven hundred damage. It was a joke against what Hirrus could inflict with a single weapon attack, but Hirrus couldn’t identify his foe’s location.

He whirled to look at where the attack had come from, but there was nothing behind him. Looking back at the forest, there was nothing there, either.

“Oh, that’s just fucking cheating,” Alric cursed from his hiding place. Hirrus looked over, expecting to see him being held hostage, but he was apparently fine. “They’re messaging me again! They want me to tell you that you’re a monster like any other, and they’ve never been afraid of monsters.”

“That’s one way to indulge their ego without giving away their position.” Hirrus sighed. “Why are you adventurers all like this?” he asked, raising his voice. “Why can’t you simply fight without making it a big dramatic production?”

“Is that a question for me, or for them?” Alric asked. “Because I have some feelings about that, but I don’t think this is the time.” He paused for a moment before adding: “and Fire says that you started it with your bold declaration about the definition of mercilessness or whatever.”

Hirrus shrugged. He had to admit that he got a little carried away with that remark.

“If they want to fight, just fight,” Hirrus said, yelling around himself. He still was unsure of where Fire was attacking from. “The outcome of this battle is already decided. Face your fate, and perhaps enjoy a moment of proper excitement before the end, instead of all this hiding in terror.”

The forest made no response, and Alric didn’t say anything. Hirrus assumed that the fast-moving attack was the only thing Fire had that wouldn’t leave them open to Hirrus' counterattack, and they were being forced to wait for the cooldown to be ready again.

If Fire was going to make him wait, then Hirrus was going to make them regret it.

Hirrus hadn’t used a lot of healing Arcana before. It relied on magical stats, and when his Magical Stats were boosted into relevance, the healing from Cosmic Barette was usually enough to keep him upright, as it activated on dealing damage with Arcana. For now, though, he wasn’t doing anything else with his time. Ancient’s Pledge was the healing arcana he’d acquired from Orlina, healing for a very large multiplier with the stipulation that it could only be used after four consecutive seconds of taking no damage. With his current stats, it only healed him for just over four thousand damage, but that still almost entirely undid Fire’s previous attack.

“Fire says that’s not fair,” Alric remarked with a laugh.

“They’re the one hiding in the trees, refusing to fight,” Hirrus yelled into the forest. “If you want me to stop, do something about it!”

Hirrus could already imagine them telling Alric to parrot the same back to him. If he wanted them to stop cowering in the forest, he needed to make them stop. Before such a remark came in, there was another sudden movement. The flash of movement came straight at Hirrus this time, slashing across his chest for over five thousand five hundred damage, and then vanished into the trees behind him on the other side of the logging trail. That was information, then. The Arcana was letting Fire move at extremely high velocity, dealing damage along their path, both starting and ending well out of Hirrus' physical reach.

With no further recourse, Hirrus closed his eyes and focused on his hearing. Slowing his breathing and calming himself, he focused outward.

He was immediately disappointed in himself that he hadn’t done this before. Even from this distance, Hirrus could hear Alric’s breathing: shallow, quick, and panicked. He identified the rough location of about three different birds in the trees within forty feet of him who had not been scared off by the sudden din of violence. There was an unidentifiable animal somewhere past Alric, snuffling through the undergrowth towards the scent of death that was growing around Fire’s cart.

Hirrus also heard Fire.

Something was muffling the noise their body made as they invisibly crept through the forest, but not enough to completely evade notice. It made it difficult to judge the distance, but it was more than enough to gauge their position.

Eyes still closed, Hirrus activated X’hrun’s Balance. He heard Fire go still, presumably concerned about what Hirrus was doing, but their options must have been limited, because they took no action during the Arcana’s cast time. After that, Hirrus didn’t wait to activate more. He raised his arm and unleashed Civilization Buster into the forest towards Fire’s position.

The brilliant beam of energy blasted into the forest, scorching trees, burning away plants, and sending dirt and rock flying in its wake. Fire took fifteen thousand damage from the blast.

With his eyes closed, the cracking of debris against trees, and the groaning protest of weakened wood drowned out any sound from Fire.

But Hirrus just had to wait.

There was another Arcana he hadn’t used yet. Meditate. Activating it caused thrumming energy to pulse in his chest, and he could sense his Cooldown Reduction Stat increase dramatically. A couple of his buffing Arcana had fallen off now, but with Meditate, they would be ready again much faster. Even Civilization Buster, with its extremely long cooldown, would be ready again in just a few deep and even breaths.

“I’m not fucking saying that,” Alric yelled from his hiding spot. “You’re just pissed he’s kicking your ass!” Hirrus didn’t have to open his eyes to look to hear the smirk across Alric’s face as he taunted in a sing-song voice. “Mad because bad?”

Hirrus could hear Fire coming.

They were suddenly much closer and clearer than before.

That must have been what they were focused on. It wasn’t the cooldown on their dashing attack, it was the duration of their stealth effect, and likely its associated cooldown. They felt they could attack now because they could vanish immediately after again.

There was an easy solution to this that would bring the fight to a swift end.

Fire launched themselves forward.

And Hirrus thrust an Arcana towards them.

Hirrus took another four thousand five hundred damage from the hit, but he got what he was after.

He didn’t need to know where Fire was to re-activate Seeker’s Spike.

The world flickered around Hirrus as he teleported to an empty spot in the forest. He couldn’t see Fire, but he didn’t have to. Seeker’s Spike was a delayed blast Arcana that allowed him to teleport to the target before it activated. Fire was right in front of him.

In lieu of attacking with his weapons, Hirrus used Trembling. Fire took eight thousand damage from the shaking that radiated out of Hirrus' feet. Suddenly, they were visible as the Arcana stripped them of their buffs, stealth effect included. Shortly after, Seeker’s Spike exploded for seven thousand five hundred more damage.

Hirrus willed away his X’hrun’s Balance effect, dismissing the buff so that his BUR and SUP would return to normal. Reaching out he grabbed Fire by the collar, whirling them around and slamming them bodily against the nearest tree. His axe came up in his other hand.

“Wait,” Fire said quickly. “If you strike me down, I will become more powerful than you could imagine. When I respawn next week, and your king is in my pocket, I’ll be remembering what you do next very clearly!”

Hirrus wondered what kind of threat that was. It reminded him of Orlina, claiming to have killed his king for fun. Adventurer gibberish, nothing more.

Before any further argument could be made, the head of Hirrus' axe was buried four inches into the wood of the tree behind Fire, coated in viscera.