I did not have to venture far from the battle; following the line of V’s blurred departure, I quickly came upon a tree, splinters and bare wood evidence of an impact. I glanced around, looking for the tell-tale green glow, making sure to look up, but I saw not so much as a verdant glimmer through the hammering rain.

I crouched down to see if I could see any tracks, but my nature-craft was probably one of the least impressive traits I possessed and quickly gave up on it. Turning, I ran back towards the fight, hoping the cunning torturer had doubled back. I knew that even if my blow – or blows – had not outright killed him, the combination of so much force into such a small place and time should have grievously injured him, and though I had certainly seen him retreat from defeat before, I hoped he had not left. Twice I had escaped him, and twice he had escaped; our score was even, but I still remembered the flesh being grated from my legs, and the metal spikes hammered through my flesh. I owed him, and while I had no plans to torture him – no real plans – I most certainly did not want him escaping again, and perhaps come back as a Pinnacle.

No more than a tenth of a second had passed in real time, while I searched fruitlessly over the course of what had felt like several subjective minutes. I was half way back to the fight when my Instincts howled and threw me into a mad one-handed dive, half flip and half cartwheel. Landing on my feet a short distance away, I saw the green glow I had been looking for, now pulsing sporadically, almost guttering out before flaring bright again as energy sparked away, like drops of blood falling into the sky.

V did not look good; his left arm seemed to be broken in several places, white bone sticking through the skin to shine eerily bright in the mouldy luminescence. Blood – painted brown by the combination of colours – matted his hair and ran down his face to vanish into the burgundy robes he worse. Even with the intervening distance, I could see clearly that one of his pupils was significantly wider than the other, and while I did not know what that specifically meant, knew it was not good.

I jumped at him again, not wanting to give him more time to plan and he came to meet me; we exchanged blows, but unlike our first engagement, there was little control to V's attacks, it was all savage swipes. While the wild attacks were easier to predict and dodge, the increased speed with which the torturer made them compensated for that somewhat. Surprisingly, the werelion even made use of his broken arm, the shattered limb encased in green energy as he seemed to simply ignore the pain. But even so, with my edge in speed and reaction times, I stayed well ahead, not taking a single injury from the leonine claws, stepping ahead and turning away at just the right time and angle, even as I peppered his uneven green armour with punch after punch, even finding the occasional gap wide enough to deliver kicks through.

Despite my clear advantages, and the vindictive joy they brought me, I knew something was wrong. As I landed blow after blow, the injured man’s smile only grew, a wide, mad grin that was reflected by the lion’s head, revealing not the normal teeth one might expect from large cat, but instead thin, razor-sharp needles. I could not tell what was driving the torturer to smile so, but whatever it was would not prevent my victory; after another subjective minute or two of fighting, I landed a blow right as his energy form flickered out, a punch to the temple that landed unexpectedly, but hard enough to stagger the already damaged cultivator. Before he could recover, I pounded my fist into his temple twice more and then, grabbing his head I clenched myself into a knee-strike to his face.

As my foot touched down on the ground, I saw wisps of green sparks begin to flicker, as if he was on the verge of recalling his protective layer. Unwilling to give him the chance, and still holding his head gripped between my hands, I concentrated my lightning on my hands, letting it run free, and as it surged I threw it at him; I could feel his Veritas rise to protect him, but he was already struggling with his concentration, and his attention was split between his own defence and rebuilding his armour, and while he almost brushed it aside, my Praxis surged. While it was finding its way to the earth, it burned him from within with a pale blue flame, his body lit with a fleshy red for a long moment before I cut it off, and let the corpse fall to the ground.

I felt my Praxis, concerned that I was well below my half-way mark but knowing I could not afford to let up yet, as there was still potentially at least one other Foundation stage enemy in the fight. Turning back in the direction of the battle, they were easily spottable, even through the rain by the dull glow of Reff’s Mega-form and Toria’s brightly lit fire cables.

In no time at all, I was back where I had started, and was relieved to see that everything had gone well in my absence; Reff stood over the very burnt form of the Diamond Titan, while Riffa’s clones were just putting down the last of the Risen Throne cannon fodder, with Toria’s scintillating cords weaving through the battlefield as she spun about, seeming to be on the lookout for other enemies.

With a relieved sigh, I let my Focus drop and stepped off my Path as the world lurched into normal motion. I shouted waved at my companions, and seeing me, they each dropped their own abilities in turn. As the giant faded from existence and Reff placed his rocks back into storage, I walked over, crouching under a now-vanishing line of sparks, scratching idly at my right hand.

“With firm admonition, we agreed not to leave each other’s sights, Hunter.”

“Sorry, Reff. I, uh, accidentally knocked V out of the area and went after him.”

“With impressed curiosity, did you succeed in defeating him, or did he escape once more?”

“I beat him. Crazy bastard was grinning the whole time, and it took something like three quarters of my Praxis, but I did it. Cored him out with my lightning. Smelled awful, I think I’ll remember the smell of burning hair for the rest of my life.”

“It can be tough to take a life, but when Justice demands it, only the weak shy away.”

I turned to see Toria and Riffa approaching; the clones had vanished into storage once more and the lines that propelled the religious apprentice around were completely gone, leaving us stood in the dim rain, mostly soaking and very definitely wasting the effort of staying dry earlier.

“I don’t like killing, but when it’s me or them, I’ll choose them. Still, sometimes I wish I’d taken a less lethal Focus. But the past is past. I’ll go get V’s body, do you guys want to search these lot? Also, is this guy going to turn back, or is he just diamond? Is he even alive? He looks more like charcoal than diamond.”

“With keen regret, the Diamond Titan’s body was such that I was unable to defeat him without ending his life, and such is the nature of his transformation that he has remained as you see.”

“Well, that’s going to make it harder to bury.”

“With confused contradiction, the effort of moving the earth will be very simple for my brother and I, hunter.”

“Right you are, Riffa. I’ll be right back.”

Leaving the site of the battle, relief and a certain kind of closure welling inside of me. I all but strolled back to where I had left V, feeling vindicated in the face of my former helplessness. As I approached, I had this strange feeling however, like the body would be gone, maybe leaving behind a cryptic note. The man’s final smiles still made me suspicious, like he had been up to something, and maybe he had somehow cloned himself and fled. But no, the body lay where I had left it, still dead and the stench of burnt hair still hanging heavy in the air. I was glad – mostly - though in amongst the more positive emotions – and some of the darker ones – I felt a pang of regret. I had killed... a lot of people since my arrival, and while the vast majority had been in self-defence, but while I had sometimes felt exhilarated at overcoming the challenge, or from emerging alive, I had never before been glad to have actually killed somebody. But V was different; he was a person who took pleasure in the torture of others, and seemed to have developed his Focus – or Exemplar – specifically for the purpose of inflicting maximum suffering, with his necrotising wounds.

Still, what made me feel the worst was that while I did feel that regret, there wasn’t a ton of it. My previous life had taught me that a person should feel nauseated, wretched after taking a life, but for all of that, I could not force myself to feel it. The world was simply a better place without that bastard running around it.

I quickly searched the cooling corpse, holding my breath to gird myself against the miasma finding a pendant – which I promptly blasted as hard as I could with lightning – and an intricate storage ring which turned out have a great deal of internal space, only a small corner of it being taken up with clothing, supplies and what looked like alchemical equipment if the beakers and strange cauldron was anything to go by. The ring also contained a variety of cruel looking metal tools, which I almost dropped into the ground then and there when I recognised a – if not the – cheese grater like the one that had been used on me. But abhorrence was no excuse to litter; so far, the people of my new home seemed to do a far better job not polluting than my original had, so I decided to keep them until such a time as I could have them reforged into something less sociopathic.

Spotting the tools did however prompt me to check the supplies and alchemical tools for any of the vials or syringes he had used on me. It took me a few minutes to sort through, cycling things out and into the rings, but eventually I did come across a single set. The first three did not really interest me, but the fourth – the temporary immortality serum derived from the phoenix egg – that could prove useful in any number of ways. It could allow me to – eventually – alter my channels, when I had some more research under my belt, and without the aid of a dedicated healer like the Mending Flesh. It could also just flat-out keep a person from dying, which seemed like a particularly useful thing to have on hand.

Slipping off my boot, I slipped the ring onto a free toe, having already switched the phoenix serum to another ring. The new addition to me items-of-holding had even more space than the storage amulet I had purchased, leaving me with enough space that I could probably comfortably live in it, if I could combine them all.

Slipping my boot back on, I went back to searching, finding a much smaller storage device around his neck, this one stuffed full of spirit coins. Deciding not to count right now, I slipped it around my own neck and moved on.

Tucked into his outer robe, I found a small slightly crumpled note folded into thirds. Not wanting to risk ruining it in the rain, I stored the slip of paper and picked up the corpse and made my way back to my friends.

By the time I made it back, still moving at a more sedate pace, it appeared that the others had finished searching the dozen or so mooks, and Reff was poking at the charred corpse. Setting my body down, I considered what he was doing for a moment before realising that the man’s name might not have been figurative – we might have a forty-foot body made from actual diamonds on our hands, if slightly charred.

“Reff, how much are diamonds worth? They’re quite... well, not rare, but expensive when I’m from.”

“In distracted explanation, they are usually not worth a great deal beyond certain alchemical uses, but this body seems to be more than mere diamond. While it still burned, it appears to have been invested with Veritas, and so may be worth significantly more. However, I cannot break it down without burning it further, and my storage device is not large enough.”

I rubbed at my beard, wondering about the sudden trends I had of storing bodies and living inside of people before reaching down to tap the body, storing it in my necklace, and completely filling it.

“I got it. I just bought a new storage device before we left. I didn’t expect to use it quite so soon. Luckily, V had one of his own, so I still have some spare room, in case we come across any more valuable giants. Which reminds me, I owe you, Riffa and Darina money for the hunting on the way back from the Sha Forest.”

I slid a filament into one of the rings on my toes and was about to draw out the pouches I had the coins divided into when Reff held up his hand.

“With firm reluctance, there is no need. Sharing the sand shark’s worth was one thing, Hunter, as we all assisted. But you killed the others on your own. I feel I can speak for all of us, when I say that we refuse to take money for something we had no hand in.”

Pausing, I looked around for Riffa, only to find her a few steps away; I looked up at her head, high above mine and she gave me a firm nod. Reluctantly, I cut my filament off.

“If you’re sure...”

I felt bad, not sharing with my friends, but if they were refusing, there was nothing that could be done. I would confirm with Darina, but I had a feeling she would be on the same page, though it was sometimes difficult to tell with the tiny apprentice.

“Oh, V had a note. We should get inside so we can read it.”

“I will take first watch. It was foolish of us to all take shelter out of sight when we knew there may be enemies about. It was luck alone that... Hunter spotted them.”

Toria joined us, speaking as she walked and I nodded; it had been foolish. I had become used to not requiring a watch again, but I knew it was something we were going to have to get used to again, at least until Jorl emerged from the prison.

“Good idea, Toria. I’ll take second watch.”

With nods, Reff, Riff and I piled into the tent as they pulled out their own alchemical flasks to further heat the interior and hopefully dry us off.

Shaking some stiffness from my hand, I pulled the letter out and began to read.