The puppets attacked the backs of their targets. Bymor used his most powerful defensive skill to create a shield between the attackers and himself and then used his most powerful attacks at the weakest Champions. Aaron also focused on the weaker half.

Of the four targets attacked by his puppets, only one died immediately, while the others defended themselves. Of those, two barely survived and the other one suffered light injuries.

Bymor focused on ten Champions. He was a Master, and he was much more powerful than them. The gap between each level increased the higher the levels were. Five Champions died at once, and the other five suffered different levels of injury. That spent almost all the energy he had remaining.

Aaron focused on six people. His Arcane skills focused on piercing their defenses. He succeeded with all six.

His Psychic Energy was next, taking control over all fourteen weakened Champions. He felt the Psychic Champion that was giving him energy cry out in pain. As much as Aaron's psychic attacks relied on his willpower, the energy was still needed to start the attack and keep it going.

Still, he succeeded. Together with the two others, he now had sixteen Champions under his direct control. Of those, only two were crimson warriors. The other four betrayers were dead.

Suddenly, the fight turned from forty-one people against two, to nineteen against seventeen — Aaron included, the spent Bymor excluded.

Well, it was actually eighteen against sixteen, for Aaron would have a personal showdown against the Master while the Champions fought.

"Kill the Champions!" Aaron sent mentally to his puppets, then turned to Bymor. "Have the Five Stars help attack the Champions, but tell the other troops of the weak troops to scatter even more." The crusade wasn't getting attacked, so he might as well use that untapped resource.

He looked at the Great General.

It was time to kill a Master.

"Why is he here?" Lika asked, her beautiful voice filling the place. It was bad enough that Ren, the God of Darkness, had tried to use a Vowcher against her herald, but to have him in on her secret was too much.

"He found out about your herald," replied Yue, the Goddess of Deception, with an old female voice. "I used him because he's too dumb to find out the truth; alas, the same Devout who lost the Vowcher to the herald researched the subject to atone for his sins. Ren was informed."

Lika didn't believe a single word of it. The Goddess of Deception was too good in doing what she received her title for. Ren was dumb, but there were many more reasons he had been used, Lika just didn't know which they were. She also didn't know what Yue's endgame was, nor did she believe Ren had just happened to send a smart follower against Ironblood.

It didn't help Yue's cause that Lika had a visual reminder that nothing was as it seemed with the goddess. The Domain of Deception was whatever she wanted it to look like, and currently, it looked like intertwining rainbows. Lika couldn't even see her own body and even feeling it was difficult.

"Such a big secret," Ren said provokingly with a childish voice. "Why keep him all to yourself?"

"What do you want?" Lika asked Yue, ignoring the god.

"I want the former Immortal, of course," Yue said.

"Never."

"Don't be so quick to deny it to me, dear sister. You can't keep him anyway, not after he witnessed a time beast use Spiritual Energy to bypass the Divine Limiter and become a Grandmaster without a god's approval. Oh, you didn't know? This is the talk of the pantheon. Ah, but you were chained, weren't you? Yes, chained by Shalar, the same one who didn't kill your precious herald yet, but you know how overzealous he can be about that strange energy. Who knows how his mind may change tomorrow? You would need support to speak for the herald then."

Lika's face twisted. The threat was obvious: she might help, but she might also just have the herald killed. A single word about him being a former Immortal and Shalar would intervene even if it went against his own rules, no matter the damage that may cause to him. Ironblood was too tempting as a potential source of unimaginable knowledge. Who knew what an Immortal from elsewhere might know?

"Kill him if you must," replied Lika. "I'm not giving him to you."

She knew the truth: that universe was dying, and it was dying fast. The others denied reality or believed the creators of the system would intervene somehow. She knew better, for she was one of the five still living people of that world who had been alive back then. The creators of the system had come from outside the universe, invaders the lot of them, then changed everything despite the damage it caused the Core. They left uncountable corpses of Immortals behind, her late husband included.

They weren't merciful, they didn't care for the universe. Whatever the system's purpose was, it was no good thing. The denizens of that universe had to save themselves, or they would die.

Shalar knew it too. He had been an Immortal even back then, and he had confessed to her that he also heard the desperate calls of the Universal Core. But he didn't care. He hadn't cared enough to fight for the universe back then, which had allowed him to survive, and he still didn't care now. He was happy ruling this world until the day both the world and he died together.

She resented him for it. She had claimed the merciful Light to learn the very concepts she preached, else she would have died on an attack against Shalar or done something stupid to herself. But now, Ironblood was a chance of release. The Core itself had whispered to her to trust him, and she would. That whisper had cost the Core too much, and the following cries made her sick. She wouldn't betray her universe like the other gods.

If Ironblood died by someone else's hands, so be it. But hers wouldn't be a helping hand in having that happen. She would do what she could to keep him out of harm's way, and that definitely included keeping Yue's hands out of him.

Yue had expected that answer. "There's a way for you to keep him, but you won't like it, sister." Lika didn't even reply. Ren snorted. Yue continued, "I want the eye."

"What eye?" Ren asked, confused.

Lika frowned. The Eye of Luck was the only amulet in the world that increased the strange concept that was luck. Things worked out better for her because of it. It had been given to her by the late Goddess of Luck herself before she killed herself in rebellion against Shalar, one of the stupid things Lika wanted to avoid doing herself. It was a dear memento of her precious friend that had been entrusted with love to her care.

She would give it to Yue if she knew it would keep Ironblood safe. But she didn't. She had learned to never trust Yue.

"I refuse," Lika said. "I refuse to do anything, Yue."

"Then why are you here?"

"I'm here to tell you that this is not about me or increasing my power, that I'm not hoarding him for my advantage. There are things of the past which Shalar would kill me if I told you, but believe me when I say this is bigger than us all. I ask this of you: kill Ren and his informed Devout to avoid the word from spreading and let it go. I promise you we will all be the better for it in the end." She left the domain without looking back.

Then the Goddess of Light prayed to the Cage and to luck itself that Ironblood survived whatever happened next.

Fire was a unique element. It was not something that existed by itself, but rather, it was the result of a chemical reaction. Yet, what if there was no fire element? Would those chemical reactions only release heat? Would the universe even exist as we know it?

The answer was no, it wouldn't. Aaron had tested it before, destroying the Fire Laws from a controlled space. It collapsed on itself. Physical energy existed in the Laws of Fire, the vibration of molecules was a consequence of it, and without it, reality crumbled. It had shocked him to discover that all manners of physical energy were there because of a single Divine Law.

Another uniqueness of Fire was how it was the most powerful element of the Divine Six in potential for physical destruction. He affected everything on a molecular level, which meant he could also destroy them at such a level. Its disadvantage was its lacking penetrative power, but that was easily countered by pouring more fire in the area for long enough.

Any kind of Fire could be resisted, but never completely denied without Prime Energy. It burned all things, including shields — they were melted or destroyed because of it. The metaphysical Fire Element burned whatever metaphysical energy stood in its way too, turning it into metaphysical heat that was returned to the universe to be recycled.

Aaron knew it would be a waste of his energy, alas he had no choice but to defend himself as the Great General's black flames came for him from all directions. The same characteristic of her attacks that made it easier for him to escape earlier now worked against him in a head-on fight. She attacked from all sides and there was no deflecting or escaping it unless you were far enough and moving in the opposite direction.

On the bright side, her power was also spread in the entire region her fire affected. Her black flames were powerful, yet Aaron could resist them even without Arcane Energy. He would have no trouble surviving for half an hour inside them before his Qi and Vital Energy ran out.

Warriors like her were common in organized armies. They specialized in doing only one thing, for they weren't supposed to fight duels. They shined in the field, not in one-on-one battles.

"There's a reason I ran from you before," he said with an enhanced voice through the flames trying to consume him. "I was afraid. Afraid of your power, afraid of the combined power of your troops, afraid of the unknown."

He pushed Arcane Energy out of his body in a blast, and the black flames were easily dispelled. He looked at the Great General while he floated back to the ground, a few dozen feet below.

"But I was wrong, for you are weak. I'm also not outnumbered any longer," he stepped on the ground. "You attacked me, Great General, and the penalty for that is death."

Arcane Energy left his body and froze time around her. She broke free almost instantaneously, but not really — a few hundred milliseconds were wasted for her to escape the skill's influence. He froze her again and again. She could only dispel it and do nothing else, effectively locked in place.

Aaron crouched. The issue with being a hand-to-hand fighter at higher levels was that mostly everyone attacked from a distance. Qi didn't make him fly faster, and Champion Arcane Energy couldn't compete with Master Fire Elemental Energy at flight speed. It couldn't even compete with Qi Manipulators running on the ground. So he focused his Qi on his legs and launched himself at her.

Qi Martial Arts: Personal Launch!

At Champion level, the skill left an immense crater on the ground below him. He shot like a missile at her, breaking the sound barrier in an instant. He arrived also almost instantaneously at her, right as she broke through another time freezing skill.

Aaron pulled a lot of Qi in his fist and coated it with an Arcane spike. Its tip was so thin it could split some bigger atoms, leaving a trail of tiny nuclear fission explosions as his arm moved. He punched as he approached.

Qi-Arcane Martial Arts: Atom Splitting Fist!

Her helmeted face was met with his fist. His spike pierced through her Greater Mystic armor with ease, made quick work of her head, and came out on the other side. His fist followed, his Qi-filled fist exploding her head into tiny bits from the absurdly fast collision and the extra power of his skill.

She was no perfect mortal like him. She died instantly as her head was destroyed.

Aaron immediately stored her corpse away and turned to the crimson Champions. They were much more powerful than the ones who had betrayed the crusade. More experienced too. Only four of his sixteen puppets remained, and they had only killed three crimson armored Champions in return.

The Psychic Champion who was giving his energy to Aaron was almost dead though, so he killed his puppets with a thought and faced the remaining fifteen Champions.

He gave them a predatory smile while shaking his gore-soaked hand to clean it. "Who's next?"