Hirrus expected Nidra to hurl Rumi’s head out of the back of the cart and into the crowd. He couldn’t have imagined she would waste any time in taking the opportunity to kill him. Instead, though, when Rumi fell out of the back of the cart, he was alive and intact. Despite their fervor to protect him just moments ago, the crowd backed away, presumably threatened by something Nidra was doing within the cart, outside of Hirrus’s line of sight.

There wasn't enough space for Hirrus to hurl an Arcana at him and strike Rumi alone, but now those who would be caught in the crossfire would not be innocent civilians. He still had a little while before his breath Arcana would be ready again, and even Civilization Buster still had a few seconds, but he did have options.

A bubble of blazing goo flew from his clawed hand, and the Oil Sear Arcana turned into an inferno when it hit the ground at Rumi’s feet. It only dealt four thousand damage to Rumi, but the real prize was the slowing effect.

Rumi looked up at Hirrus and for a moment there was nothing in those eyes but fear.

He tried to turn and run, to shove his way into the crowd and vanish, but he hadn’t expected the slowing effect of Oil Sear, and his feet slipped and skidded, nearly sending him to the ground.

Hirrus lunged. He wanted to hold onto Split Second for its defensive potential, since he didn’t know what Rumi had coming for him, and so Rapid Rip was the ability of choice to cross the distance. The high SUP multiplier of the Arcana meant that its damage was unreliable, but it seemed he hit it in just the right way.

Eight people who had stood between Hirrus and Rumi were dead in an instant, suffering over fifteen thousand damage from the single cut. Several others were badly wounded, and their screams filled the air as the Arcana deposited Hirrus just in front of Rumi, not quite reaching far enough to strike him as well.

Hirrus reached out, using another Arcana before grabbing Rumi by the collar. Icy Grief had been used by Orlina’s group of defenders when he’d attacked her home. It didn’t do much damage - only another two thousand to Rumi - but it applied the strongest slow effect he had access to, with a duration much longer than its cooldown.

Once struck by it, escape would be impossible.

“Is this your savior?” Hirrus bellowed, his voice rendered deep and gravelly by the Merciless transformation. Someone hit him in the ribs with an Arcana, doing just a few hundred damage with a negligible green beam attack. He lifted Rumi’s feet off the ground. “Is this your leader? You revere him for torturing you to death? Turning you into monsters? Destroying your homes? Killing your friends and family?” Someone on the other side hit him with an Arcana-conjured stone, and he ignored it as well. “This coward? This weakling?”

“Kill him!” Rumi shrieked. His hands clawed at the icy grip on his collar, and his dangling feet kicked at Hirrus’s shins. “Somebody fucking kill him!”

Hirrus lifted Rumi up high and slammed him to the ground. The oil still burning there seared another four thousand hit points out of him. As Oil Sear was his own effect, it did nothing to Hirrus, except for the activation of his Cosmic Barrette, restoring the damage done by the paltry resistance of those who were trying to help Rumi.

“Stand up!” Hirrus said, letting go of Rumi and taking a generous step back. “I am here to take your life! Stand up and fight for it, or die the cowardly monster I know you are!”

Rumi scrambled, clawing at the oily mud beneath him. He didn’t stand immediately, but he crawled to the edge of the oil and flung himself clear of it. The mob of his followers backed away, giving him room as he clutched at his burned body with a whimper.

Hirrus’ heart sang with bloodlust, but not for Rumi’s death.

It called for his torment.

Satisfaction flooded him as the target of his ire sizzled and writhed.

A hand closed around Hirrus’ shoulder, but before he could react, a blur shot from the back of the cart. Nidra pounced on the would-be interruption, and there was a noise like the roar of a cart’s engine, ratcheted up in pitch and intensity to sound like a wildcat’s shriek. He didn’t take his eyes off of Rumi to see what the Arcana did, but the crowd took a meaningful step back from Hirrus.

Behind Rumi, someone fainted dead away, and somewhere nearby there was a retching sound as someone vomited at the sight of whatever grisly end Nidra had dished out.

“Rumi!” Hirrus barked, drawing the crowd’s attention back to him. “Die on your back or die on your feet! I offer you what you never offered any of these people: a choice!”

“Someone fucking help me,” Rumi barked as he struggled to get to his feet. “I thought I told you all to kill that motherfucker!”

Nidra roared. She sounded absolutely bestial. Hirrus wasn’t sure if she’d said “Try it!” or only bellowed a wordless threat.

No Arcana sailed in at Hirrus, though an Arcana went to Rumi. A white light shaped like a flower pulsed and popped above his head and petals of glimmering energy settled around him. His burns faded as his skin knit together, repairing itself until it was smooth. Hirrus couldn’t tell where it had come from, but the effect was clear. The crowd dared not take shots at Hirrus for fear of whatever Nidra had just done, but they could give Rumi their support, even as they backed away to give them a proper arena.

Rumi cast his hand towards Hirrus, and little bits of glowing red metal started to rain down around him. They hadn’t been that big of a threat before he’d turned into his Merciless form, and they were even less impressive now.

He made no move to step out of it, letting them pelt him for a few hundred damage each. Striking Rumi with a single Arcana would undo it all in an instant.

Rumi raised his sword arm, clearly intending to use an Arcana in response to Hirrus moving out of the rain of glowing metal, but seemed either confused or intimidated by Hirrus’s choice to ignore it.

Instead, Hirrus stomped forward, letting the mass of his Merciless form make every step land heavily. Just because he was offering Rumi the chance to fight for his life didn’t mean that he was going to just stand there and be pelted with damage.

Rumi immediately raised his free hand. Hirrus didn’t have to let him finish the Arcana cast, with Split Second ready to go, but he found himself enjoying the growing terror in Rumi’s eyes.

He was doing whatever he could, using his best tactics and calling for aid from an army of supporters.

And Hirrus was so unimpressed he was just stalking forward, weapons down at his sides.

More of that glittering ivory-white thornbush erupted from the ground at Rumi’s call. It sprouted at impossible speed, forming a brambly wall to Hirrus’s left. Rumi’s sword arm came down immediately, and a spinning blade of blood-red energy thrust up out of the dirt and tore through the ground towards Hirrus at breakneck speed.

Hirrus could see Rumi’s intent. Blocking his left with the thorned wall would force him to step to the right to avoid the spinning blade. No doubt Rumi had another Arcana primed for that dodge. Instead, Hirrus stood his ground. True to his expectation, another spinning blade appeared just behind it, angled to the right, covering that direction as well.

The blades were fast, but not fast enough. If Rumi was about ten feet closer, there would be no avoiding the blades without casting himself into the thorns on the other side. From this distance, though, Hirrus was able to quickly evaluate the attacks’ paths, and step slightly to one side. The angle of the blade going right meant there was a tiny wedge of safety at this distance, letting the blades pass harmlessly on either side of him. They were each only inches from his sides, due to the expanded mass the Merciless Transformation gave him.

Hirrus expected a moment of stunned despair from Rumi, but the man was wasting no time. He darted to the left, towards the protection of the bramble wall. As Hirrus resumed his advance, a second bramble wall grew out of the first one, angling to guard Rumi’s retreat. He wanted to yell some mocking comment about Rumi’s cowardice, but the man was working with the tools he had. When Hirrus either closed the distance or got his breath attacks back off of cooldown, the fight would be over in literally an instant. It was cowardly, but it was the most realistic chance at survival. It wouldn’t be honorable for Hirrus to begrudge him his only real chance.

There was the high pitched machine roar of Nidra’s Arcana somewhere nearby, out of Hirrus’s line of sight. Someone had tried to interfere, and from the screams, it sounded like her objection was as violent and bloody as the first time.

Hirrus didn’t know if Split Second could get him through the brambles or not. But he suspected he had a tool that would work against it. Another wall began to sprout out of it, and as Hirrus stomped towards it, he started to see Rumi’s plan. He was trying to encircle him in the brambles, presumably to pelt him with Arcana until the fight was over.

Civilization Buster blasted out of Hirrus, showing Rumi the utter futility of that plan.

The enormous blue-white beam evaporated the bramble wall just as it had obliterated swaths of the town when the monster had used it. It dealt over ten thousand damage to Rumi, and smashed through a huge chunk of the army behind him, killing or near-fatally wounding scores of foes. Revealed by the destruction of the bramble wall, Rumi dropped to one knee, nearly killed by that one blast alone.

As before, someone in the crowd cast an Arcana at him, a stream of blue-gold energy from their hands rushing to Rumi and soothing his wounds. Since this Arcana revealed its caster, Nidra was there in a flash. Her free hand grabbed the caster, and that machine roar came again.

Now Hirrus saw what happened.

Her hand glowed with silvery energy that spun at impossible speeds.

The person’s body shuddered and shook, as if they were struck by dozens of attacks in the space of a breath.

Before the Arcana ended, they were struck dead by the ongoing damage, and - like when Hirrus had cast Hopworth’s Rend - the Arcana tore through the dead flesh and sent gore spraying into the air. Nidra’s hand dragged the Arcana over their body once they were dead but before dropping them to the ground, carving them into blood-spraying chunks in a display that made it perfectly clear what she thought about the interference.

“It’s not fair! This isn’t fair!” Rumi yelled, pointing his sword at Hirrus. The red rain began to fall again in the space between them, and Hirrus stomped forwards, ignoring the attempt to ward him away. “This isn’t fucking fair! I can’t do anything! I can’t do anything to this fucker! This isn’t allowed! It’s not fair!”

Closing the distance slowly, with methodical intent, Hirrus raised a hand to retaliate with another Arcana of his own. SnowBarrage pelted Rumi with three thousand five hundred magical damage, but the true intent was reducing his cast speed dramatically. Rumi raised his hand to call up more of the bramble, and it did start growing off of the existing wall of it, but the delay in casting meant that Hirrus stepped past it before it could block his way.

Rumi started to stagger back. Fear overcame sense, but he kept shouting. “It’s not fair! It’s not fair!”

Hirrus turned his plodding advance into a charge.

His hooked blade stabbed into Rumi’s gut, dealing seven thousand damage, and proccing a double strike for another five thousand. Rumi screamed and writhed on the end of Hirrus’s blade.

“No,” Hirrus said.

He didn’t roar. He didn’t bellow. There was no need for that now.

“It’s not fair. If it was, I wouldn’t be here in the first place.”

The icy greataxe in his other hand swept around.

Rumi was dead when it hit his side, just under his arm. A critical hit for over thirteen thousand damage. The head of the icy axe came out of Rumi’s other shoulder, cleaving him in half.

Though his foe was dead, Hirrus spun, bringing the axe and blade around again. His unearthly BUR stat gave both weapons the power to carve through meat and bone like they were mist, one across his first cut, from shoulder to far hip, and the other across the tops of his thighs.

Rumi hit the ground in six bloody pieces.