The small man lunged at Hirrus, swinging his iron-banded cudgel in an overhand blow that was so badly telegraphed that Hirrus sidestepped the attack with ease. His sturdy weapon smashed the room’s stone floor with enough force to crack it, sending chips of rock flying.

It was a powerful but clumsy attack that left the small man wide open. Hirrus prepared to blast him with Melisune’s Eye. In these last few moments of his assembled buffs, it would likely kill the man before he even knew what happened.

Even if it didn’t, it would leave him on death’s door.

Melisune’s Eye had a cast time that was slightly too long, though.

One of the warriors who had accompanied the man threw herself in front of the smaller man. A glimmer of an Arcana suffused her body, and though she took fifteen thousand damage from the Arcana, killing her instantly, the small man was shielded by her Arcana, untouched by Hirrus’s attack.

“Holy shit!” one of the other adventurers cursed. His hand had been outstretched, glowing with a faint blue-gold hue that Hirrus had come to associate with healing Arcana. He’d been preparing to save her from a follow-up attack that had proven to be unnecessary.

“Boss!” another yelled. “Get out of there!”

Instead of taking the advice and moving to escape, the small man snarled in rage, whirling his club to try and strike Hirrus again. The heavy weapon moved faster this time, going for a more effective blow rather than a dramatic one. It struck Hirrus solidly, but only did two thousand damage. A solid hit for an adventurer, but nothing to be afraid of.

Hirrus’s magical buffs were only a few moments from starting to drop off, and so he needed to prepare to switch to physical attacks. To that end, he used Low Caterwaul. The ability did magical damage, but would apply a physical buff to him once used. Though it may not be necessary. With his stat advantage, he might-

The short man reached out with an open hand. A swirling ring of energy surrounded the palm strike as it hit Hirrus in the gut. There was a strange pulling sensation, though no damage was done. It didn’t stop Hirrus from calling down the power of the Low Caterwaul. The air filled with the shrieking roar of electrical energy blasting the man before him.

The attack did less than two thousand damage. Only one thousand four hundred and fifty-seven.

“Ha!” the short man barked a nasal laugh. “Is that all you got?”

The man smashed his cudgel into Hirrus’s shoulder, though the attack did less than five hundred damage this time. He backed off quickly, looking at the weapon with similar confusion to what Hirrus felt. It seemed they both realized what had happened at the same time.

“Tricky bullshit,” the man said, whirling his club in an unnecessary flourish. “How about we fight man-to-man instead?”

The man’s Arcana had stolen Hirrus’s buff. Right before Low Caterwaul came out, he’d lost X’ruhn’s Balance, changing his magical stats back to their much lower default values. At the same time, the man had swapped his own physical and magical stats, causing his attack to falter as well.

The man could cancel the buff if he wished, though. Hirrus couldn’t re-apply it to himself for over a minute. The fight would be long over by then. Of course, he’d been preparing to switch to his physical arsenal, anyway, as the buffs from Logarius Shroud and Resplendent Orb had been about to fade.

Before Hirrus could bring his weapons to bear on the man, his allies rushed to his defense. It had seemed they were going to stand by and stare in horror at what was happening instead of helping, but the small man surviving one of Hirrus’s attacks seemed to give them the mistaken impression that this might be a winnable fight. He would have to dispel that notion shortly.

“I said get out of here, boss,” one of the adventurers repeated. He forcibly shoved the small man away. “The guild can’t afford to lose you today!”

“Upkeep is due tonight at midnight,” another said. “Let us handle this. We can’t afford the penalty for the guild leader’s death!”

Weapons came in at Hirrus, but the attack speed imparted by Low Caterwaul let Hirrus’s arms fly. Blades, maces, and axes swept at his head, neck, and shoulders, but his icy greataxe and hooked blade caught and turned them aside one after the other. Even so, the number of attackers forced some distance between Hirrus and the short man - who he now knew for certain was his target, Ontario.

Hirrus activated Pumped Kicks to give him a little more speed. He wanted to boost himself a bit more, but the attackers were starting to push themselves to break through his defenses now. They were ignoring their own defense, and he wanted to capitalize on the many openings they left before they realized how foolish they were being. Still, Fleetness of Tonner was instant-cast, and would give him a modest boost that would just have to do.

When he reversed direction, changing from pure defense to full attack, he accepted a few blows. A thousand damage here, a thousand there. Very little of serious worth. One of them had a buff active that made the attack apply a poison debuff, but the debuff instantly fell off, dispelled by the legendary property on Hirrus’s gloves.

Meanwhile, Hirrus’s strikes dished out over five thousand damage each. As soon as he got a ctricial hit for just under eight thousand, his attacks increased in potency from his Crushing Blows buff. These foes were hardened fighters, and these attacks weren’t instantly fatal, but everyone he struck yelped in surprise and fear as he ripped through their ranks. They quickly cleared the path ahead for him, trying to escape his reach to heal themselves, or whining loudly for someone else to heal them.

Despite the tremendous damage he was dishing out to those who stood against him, Ontario was struggling against his own allies, who were trying to usher him out of the room. He seemed intent on facing Hirrus himself.

Hirrus flung the Ascension’s Sands Arcana across the gap, aiming not for Ontario, but for the nearest adventurer who was trying to shove him back out of the room. Six thousand damage wasn’t enough to kill him, but the shock of the sudden blow from a disembodied blade of sand - combined with the temporary blindness effect - meant he lost his grip on the smaller man. Ontario easily overpowered the others, shrugging them off to rush to meet Hirrus in battle.

“Come on, then, fucker!” Ontario shouted with glee. “Let me show you how we do things around here!”

The iron-banded cudgel swept up, and Hirrus caught it deftly with the head of his icy greataxe. His hooked blade came down and the man shifted his grip, catching the edge of the weapon on the grip of his cudgel, right between his hands. It was a bold move, and well-executed. Hirrus was almost impressed. If this had been his fight, he might have let Ontario live for a few moments more in an attempt to tease a satisfying battle out of the experience.

But this wasn’t his fight. Hirrus knew he had other tasks ahead of him. The sooner Ontario was dead, the sooner he could move on to his next target. He reared back to roast the man with Peppered Breath.

There was a sudden flash. Ontario’s forehead cracked into Hirrus’s nose with a loud thumping sound. An extremely fast Arcana from the smaller man hit Hirrus for three thousand damage, stunning him briefly and fouling the use of Peppered Breath.

“That’s how we do it downtown!” Ontario crowed triumphantly. His cudgel thumped against Hirrus’s hip in the moment the stun held, dishing out another two thousand damage. “Now get on the ground and stay the fuck down, or you’ll get another just like it!”

As soon as the stun wore off, freeing Hirrus to act again, his hooked blade swept out with blinding speed to slash Ontario across the face. Before the strike landed, though, another of his officers lunged. They didn’t lunge for Hirrus, though, but to throw Ontario to the ground. The officer suffered nine thousand damage as a result of the attack being a critical hit. Hirrus wasn’t sure if he’d struck the man earlier, or if he was just lower level, but the man fell atop Ontario dead at that one strike. The dead adventurer was heavily armored, and his weight pinned the man to the ground, leaving him easy pickings for Hirrus’s next strike.

Except that three more adventurers jumped to the guild leader’s defense. As Hirrus’s greataxe came down, two swords and a halberd interposed themselves, three warriors putting their strength against Hirrus to stop the strike, and stepped up to bodily force Hirrus back. Ontario seemed completely unaffected by the near-death experience, and struggled to shove the corpse off of himself to rejoin the battle.

Hirrus quickly removed from the fight two of the three fighters who were shoving him back. A critical strike against one capped off his Crushing Blade buff and sent them reeling back from the melee, and a double-strike to another sent them to the floor in two pieces. Even so, three more officers moved to take their place. Hirrus began to use Gritted Breath, but one of Ontario’s defenders used an Arcana that called up a giant semi-transparent yellow hand. The sweeping strike of the hand dealt no damage, but had a knockback effect that put a few yards of distance between Hirrus and Ontario, and when the Gritted Breath Arcana completed, it only caught one adventurer on the corner of the cone attack. They were, of course, killed by the attack, suffering ten thousand damage due to the amplification offered by his legendary gloves for hitting only one target with the AoE, and then falling to their knees in horror as the Rasp debuff finished the job an instant later.

“Fuckin’ power creep bullshit,” Ontario barked as he tried to get free of the heavy corpse. “Fucker would be deep sixed hardcore if the devs didn’t ruin this game with this crap.”

“Are you trying to die?” one of the officers yelled, moving to help. “We’re telling you to get the fuck out of here!”

“What’s he gonna do?” Ontario snapped back mockingly as he finally got back to his feet. “Kill me? Fat fuckin’ chance.”

Hirrus was unsure if Rapid Rip would reach Ontario from where he was standing. So he used Split Second for its tremendous move speed bonus. Another giant yellow hand swept through the space where Hirrus moved, but Split Second’s invulnerability meant that he was not stopped. He appeared at Ontario’s side and activated Rapid Rip instantly, angling the attack to strike at least six officers after passing through the guild leader.

Ontario took nineteen thousand damage.

His iron-banded club hit the ground just a half-second before the top half of his head.

Ontario’s jawbone landed somewhere across the room.

The rest of him was rendered relatively indistinguishable from the remains of the other six officers Hirrus slashed through.

“Oh god,” cried the officer who had been scolding Ontario. He was covered in blood and gore, his face completely covered in red. “My mouth was open and everything!” He turned his head and started to make retching sounds.

“Shit!” another officer cursed, “we’re gonna lose the fucking house!”

“Not if we kill him!” another bellowed, raising her two-handed falchion and charging towards Hirrus. “As strong as he is, he’s gotta drop a fucking boatload of gold, right? Get the loot, save the mansion!”

Hirrus almost wanted to reverse course. He had hit enough enemies with Rapid Rip to reset its cooldown. He could have instantly cast it again and shredded a few more of the officers before finishing the others off with steel. For a moment, he almost did it.

But he wasn’t here for them. While these people were complicit in what the Shadow Council was doing, the actual council member was dead now. And from what he’d heard, these officers were only a fraction of those in the Intricacy guild. Even if he wiped them out, the guild would still stand.

Once more, Hirrus had to acknowledge that he didn’t have the time to waste here. He had three more foes to fight. If he dawdled now, he might not have time for the rest.

Instead of using Rapid Rip to go back into the angry mob of officers, Hirrus directed it away from them, tearing across the room to the giant hole he’d opened in the back wall with Civilization Buster. It was a long way down - and a long way around to the front gate - and there was already a crowd of adventurers peering up at the tower in response to the blast that had opened this escape route.

But the job was done. It was time to leave. Hirrus jumped.