It was obvious that he needed to reassert control over this situation.

These reborn adventurers had an advantage that no foe had ever exercised against him. They recognized and respected his power. Had seen him fight before and knew what he was capable of doing.

They were not trying to measure their strength against his. Instead, they were avoiding his strength at all costs. Their cocky attitude was tempered by caution, and he was going to have to return that respect, or face his death.

Fortunately, he had more than enough tools to accomplish that. He only had to use them.

Adventurers he had slain had doubled down and tried to muscle past Hirrus’s advantages. Hirrus had to admit that more than once he had ignored an adventurer’s feeble threats and battered them down. But now that he had met true resistance, he needed to use his intellect.

Before he could defeat these adventurers, he needed to defeat their strategy.

That strategy was centered around avoiding feeding him healing through Cosmic Barrette.

He had plenty of sources of healing besides that.

Hirrus started to cast RE:Generation II. The Arcana would heal him for an obscene amount over its long duration, but he didn’t choose it for that. He chose it because it had a long cast time, and the cast speed slow aura only made it take longer.

There was plenty of time for them to stop him.

As expected, Juri rushed in at him. She bodily slammed him into the semi transparent barrier, and this time the Arcana dealt six thousand damage. The TEN debuff didn’t stack, but its duration was refreshed, and its potency was increased. Hirrus also found himself briefly stunned, his Arcana interrupted and unable to act immediately. The red energy pulsating off of her seared another thousand damage into him as well.

But now she was in reach.

Hirrus’s blades lashed out. With his active buffs, the attack speed slow from the Akatosh Grip debuff was outmatched, and his strikes connected before Juri could react.

Both strikes scored critical hits, dishing out over eight thousand damage each, and applying a hefty damage over time effect from the Ravening Burn buff. By his reckoning, the burns would kill her if they were allowed to run their whole duration.

“It’s fine,” Clive said when Orlina cursed. “Weapon attacks don’t heal him. We’re still fine.”

Juri backed away from Hirrus with surprising alacrity, but only got out of melee range. The pulsing red energy struck him again, and when he took another one thousand damage, Juri’s smoldering wounds started to close. Her sustain was reliant on that pulsating energy, which had a limited range. Unfortunately for Hirrus, her speed combined with the slowing of Akatosh Grip meant that he wouldn’t be able to catch up. He could try and force her to close in on him by moving towards Clive, but Orlina was right there beside him, no doubt with the ability to shield Clive while Juri kept herself out of danger.

He needed more speed.

Activating Animating Wail required Hirrus to let loose a high-pitched howl. It had a very short cast time - too quick for any of his foes to react - and a negligible cooldown compared to its duration. The speed it conveyed was tremendous, and when Hirrus moved again, his lunge startled Juri with its speed, and left the next ghostly bladed missile from Clive hitting nothing but air behind him.

Juri managed to lean back to slip under his first attack with her own speed, and when he reached for her with Glacier Freeze she threw herself into a roll, avoiding the attack.

But he was right on top of her when she came back up to her feet.

Hirrus’s hand clamped down on Juri’s throat. Despite her physical size, he lifted her off the ground.

Bloodrake didn’t care much for little things like weight.

The blast of searing energy that the Arcana hit her with dealt over ten thousand damage, even as it healed a significant chunk of what they’d taken out of Hirrus thus far.

Juri’s corpse hit the ground as a withered husk.

“Easy, easy,” Clive snapped before Orlina could lunge forward. “We knew this could happen. Don’t throw away our lead just because one thing went wrong.”

Orlina’s lips were peeled back in a snarl, and with a gesture she threw up another semi transparent purple wall between them and Hirrus. Clive raised a hand, but did nothing, no doubt trying to predict another of those exploding laser blasts when Hirrus started to move.

“This is over,” Hirrus said. He kicked Juri’s body at the wall of force. The impact of her heavy armored form wasn’t even enough to rattle the impenetrable barrier. “You’ve made fools and corpses of yourselves again, and unless I’ve misunderstood, you’ve done it in front of an audience this time.”

“This isn’t over yet,” Orlina snapped. She moved to walk around the wall to the left side, curved Katar in hand.

“Actually, it is,” Clive said, letting a smirk cross his face. “But not the way you think.”

Hirrus leaned to the left to feint towards Orlina, but neither of them took the bait. Clive was still holding his Arcana, and Orlina didn’t flinch at the threat of his approach.

“JudoThrow isn’t logging in,” Clive continued. “You’ve been trying to play global thermonuclear war with him, but you tipped your hand and now he knows that the winning move is not to play. He’s not coming. You can’t kill him. There’s nothing you can do to free the king from our control, and first thing in the morning tomorrow, Last of the Strong is coming for revenge. And you won’t have the capacity to stop it.”

“Your wife means a lot to you, right?” Orlina added, her scowl turning to a smug grin. “We’ll start with her. You can fail to protect her from us again. And again next week. And the week after that. You will get to watch her die every week until they shut down the servers. Because I’m not letting go of this grudge until I’m dead in the ground.”

Hirrus let out a roar and charged.

The Trace Arcana was a trio of short-ranged teleports, and the use of all three let him hook around the edge of Orlina’s semi transparent wall in the blink of an eye. Orlina lashed out with her weapon, but Hirrus’s hooked blade caught the attack in a parry, and he thrust his hand out, blasting the ground at her feet with Nectarous Deluge, surrounding her with a purple pool of sticky poison.

An immense poison debuff gripped Orlina, along with the tremendous slowness of the Encumbered debuff.

The delay offered by the slow cast speed meant that Orlina had time before his next attack.

Just as Hirrus had, she vanished and reappeared about fifteen feet away - outside of the glob of sticky poison - with what he assumed was a teleportation Arcana. This one seemed to undo the poison debuff as well.

But it wasn’t near enough to escape Hirrus’s ire.

Clive let loose his laser blast, and the initial laser hit Hirrus for two thousand damage, but he wasn’t going to stick around for the coming explosion.

Hirrus activated Fleetness of Tonner for a second stack of the buff, and charged at Orlina again. He flung his hand out, launching an Arcana at her.

Right as it landed, she flung her hands up again, calling another of those semi transparent purple walls. Hirrus slammed into it with both weapons, letting out a roar of fury.

He found Orlina’s flinch at that roar supremely satisfying.

Almost as satisfying as the naked terror in her eyes when he activated Seeker’s Spike the second time, tepelorting through the wall to her side.

Orlina hit the ground in three pieces, the cuts at her neck and waistline sizzling from the effects of The Ravening Burn.

Hirrus made eye contact with Clive as he planted a foot on Orlina’s severed head, pressing down until he felt it pop under his weight like an overripe melon.

“Jesus Christ,” Clive said in a breathless voice. His hands were raised to present another Arcana, but he just let them fall. Presumably as a show of surrender, he dismissed the bladed barrier floating around him. “I guess she should have known better than to bring your wife into this.”

“I would imagine that you could have learned that the first time around,” Nidra said, her voice coming from the empty space behind Clive.

Before he could respond, a thick-bladed dagger jutting out of his breastplate. An inhumanly disproportionate spray of blood erupted from the wound, nearly reaching to where Hirrus stood ten feet away. When Clive fell, Nidra was standing behind him with blood and gore covering her hand halfway to her elbow.

Hirrus had to concentrate very hard for a moment on his breathing. That flash of rage had overtaken him so fast he hadn’t even known it had a hold of him until there were no more foes to fight.

As he focused on calming down, Nidra poked around the corpses. Hirrus guessed that she was looking at their gear, but the truth of it came when she let out a heavy sigh and shook her head.

“Nothing,” Nidra said bitterly, spitting on the ground next to Juri’s shriveled form. “Nothing about JudoThrow. This is truly over, now.”