Hirrus hit the ground like a meteor. As he came down, he turned in the air and unleashed Twistered Breath, the blast of windy energy dealing eight thousand damage to the crowd that waited to receive him. In addition to damaging and blinding them, it also inflicted the Choke debuff, reducing the TEN of enemies in the area, which would make them more vulnerable to further physical attack.

As soon as he hit the ground, he lashed out with his weapons. The crowd had moved in to try and mob him as soon as he landed, and so he had to carve himself a place to stand, but the breath attack had given him the opening, and in only a few moments, he was standing firm, holding his ground against the mob.

He whirled his axe, cleaving through foes, doing nearly seven thousand damage on his weaker strikes, with the foes who were struck critically taking over twelve thousand damage, and every cut left behind wounds that smoldered and burned.

The combined power of all his buff Arcana was immense. Even without his Merciless transformation, he was a force of nature.

His hooked blade caught the attacks of his foes, the speed of the weapon amplified dramatically by his Arcana. Not only was he turning the attacks aside, but the weapon wove a web of slashes between parries. Those who weren’t sent scrambling back by the strike of his axe found themselves sent to death’s door by a flick of his blade.

Each foe that stepped up had potential. Any one of them could have been as powerful as the Captain he’d fought before. Any one of them could have the power of Hirrus himself. But none had done the work. Rumi had not invested in their individual growth. They didn’t have an unstoppable suite of Arcana at their fingertips. They weren’t wearing the combined legendary gear of an entire guild.

They were just an army.

Hirrus, by himself, was so much more than that.

And he wasn’t by himself.

A cry of alarm went up in the direction the wounded were retreating to. Nidra had likely obliterated another of their healers. Either that, or Alric had created a larger distraction, and she was about to. This army’s entire battle plan involved wearing him down. Overcoming him with fatigue when they could not do so with numbers or skill. The healers were an instrumental part of that plan. Hirrus had his Cosmic Barrette, but they needed external help. Once Nidra and Alric had dealt with them, they would simply grind themselves to dust against Hirrus’s weapons, or else disperse in defeat.

But he had to be sure Nidra and Alric weren’t getting overwhelmed. He had to admit that he’d bitten off more than he could chew here, forcing them to get involved. They couldn’t be forced to pay for his mistake. Not so long as he could interpose himself bodily to accept the brunt of it onto himself.

Leaping up and lashing out with his feet, Hirrus’s Hiden Sokyaku Arcana caught a Merciless foe in the chest, dealing seven thousand damage and sending them barrelling back into the crowd, knocking enemies down in a line. Hirrus quickly activated the Charge attack he’d earned from the forest boars, targeting the same foe. The Arcana carried him rapidly behind the enemy he’d launched backwards, and while he only hit them for three thousand damage, the movement had been the point, not the damage.

Just the same, as they struggled to regain their balance, he brought both axe and sword down on them in parallel slashes. The axe struck for almost seven thousand damage, and while the sword only dealt six thousand damage, but activated a Double Strike to add another four thousand right on its heels. Instead of reeling away from the attacks, the Merciless foe hit the ground, bouncing slightly before laying still.

Hirrus lunged at the next foe, weapons ripping through the air at them. At the sight of the death of one of their comrades, the Merciless flinched back, avoiding his attacks by nearly breaking and running. But in the press of bodies massed around Hirrus meant there was nowhere to go. His target tried to shove through the crowd, but nowhere near fast enough. The icy greataxe ripped across their back in a critical hit, dealing over twelve thousand damage, with a double strike from the blow adding another nine thousand damage. It wasn’t enough to take them down, but they still screamed and struggled to escape all the harder, bodily shoving their allies out of the way to try and evade Hirrus.

Hirrus let them go. What were they going to do? Go get healed to come back? Nidra was going to make sure that wasn’t an option. He just had to make sure she wasn’t going to be mobbed and overwhelmed.

Enemies from all sides lashed out at Hirrus, trying to encircle and overwhelm him. He knew he could basically ignore their attacks. It was a testament to how fearful of foes they should have been, that each strike did over two thousand damage, compared to what paltry damage he’d suffered from adventurers, but it would have taken minutes to wear him down if he’d just stood there and took it.

Instead of standing there and taking it, he turned around and blasted the group behind him with Peppered Breath. Eleven thousand damage washed across a dozen densely-packed targets, and each one he struck triggered his Cosmic Barrette, restoring two thousand four hundred hit points. A single blast of the cone attack turned their numbers advantage into his own makeshift invulnerability. And he had three such attacks, and a dozen others that would do less damage - drawing from magical stats instead of physical - but likely hit so many more of his foes.

Nidra was right. Hirrus was the right tool for the job if Rumi had surrounded himself with an army.

Someone bellowed in rage from the direction where the healers had been. The sound suddenly cut off in a choked gurgle. Nidra was apparently still at work over there, but she was going to make herself a target if the commotion over there was only going to grow.

So Hirrus had to make more of a commotion.

There was one of his new Arcana that he hadn’t turned to yet. He’d develop a habit of conserving his mobility options, giving them high value. They felt worth saving for emergency use. But Fire’s Arcana, Rapid Rip, had a low cooldown. In addition, its cooldown would be reduced based on the number of foes he struck with it.

And there was no shortage of foes to strike.

The Arcana sent him streaking through the crowd. Cries of dismay and pain followed in his wake as he slashed across the crowd, each victim taking over fourteen thousand damage. The Arcana was ready again immediately, and Hirrus was surrounded by an entirely different group of Merciless who were visibly surprised at his sudden appearance in their midst. A couple of them reacted fast with weapons and Arcana of their own. A mace cracked across his back, and a crackling jolt of electrical energy ran up his arm through his elbow. At the same time, someone to his left roared in challenge, and a giant greataxe rose up in the air.

But the damage and threats were immaterial. Before another weapon could come down on him, he activated Rapid Rip again, tearing through the crowd. Each foe struck restored his health, and each foe struck took an obscene amount of damage.

“Stop him!” someone barked. “Someone stop him!”

“Do you know what you’re asking?” someone yelled back. “How can we stop that?”

Hirrus oriented on the first voice, using Rapid Rip to launch himself in that direction. The voice started to yell again, but what started as an order turned into a strangled gasp as Hirrus cut through the would-be commander. It wasn’t enough to strike them down, but if they held some sort of authority here, he might be able to draw more fire off of Nidra and Alric if they continued to direct the crowd to attack Hirrus.

“Grab him! Hit him! Kill him!” the voice barked, now with audible panic.

Rapid Rip rendered him unstoppable. Tens of thousands of damage to every target, and each one activated his Cosmic Barrette, restoring his hit points when someone was fast enough to react to his arrival at the end of each dash. He found it difficult to actually kill his enemies, since the speed he was moving at meant he couldn’t possibly identify any foes he had already hit to try and focus them down, but he was making himself a spectacle, and dealing out obscene damage on the way. He only hoped Alric and Nidra were using him properly as a distraction

“We can’t,” someone yelled. “He’s too fast!”

“What do you expect us to do?” someone else shouted. “Just start flailing around wildly?”

“It’s over! We can’t stop him!” another voice called back, though Hirrus recognized this voice. “He’s a monster! A real monster! He’ll destroy us all! Destroy us all! We need to get out of here! Regroup! Regroup in the citadel!”

A handful of Merciless started to break off from the fight. Someone yelled for them to come back to the fight, but that only let the others know that people were escaping the melee, and they soon joined the numbers of those retreating.

Hirrus found it pretty comical, since the voice calling for them to regroup had been Alric’s.

As a score of foes fled the scene, those with the grit and bravery to stand their ground became that much easier to target. With their numbers thinned, Rapid Rip was no longer completely resetting its cooldown. But they were weakened, panicked, and desperate, with no healer to turn to. Hirrus found himself carving them up with ease.

The last foe fell, and Hirrus almost charged after the retreating group. They were crowded around the gates of the Citadel, forcing their way inside. Hirrus could have caught up to them in a few moments and started to chew through their numbers. But he had to recognize that he’d made a mistake. He’d gotten himself into real, genuine trouble by rushing forward without his allies, forcing them to pick up his slack.

He let the retreating force go, turning to face the only two figures still standing amidst the battlefield with him. There was still work to do to find and cut down Rumi. And that work would begin with an apology to the friends he’d need at his back to get the job done.