Thom was surprised to have been unmasked, but he appeared neither concerned nor troubled that his illusion had been stripped. He seemed more relieved to finally be free of the constraints he had been living under. I, on the other hand, was surprised by as his power blazed forth ferociously. He had martialled a level of power much more intense than should have been possible for a Ranked Duke. But with all the illusions and glamour stripped, my perception was able to get a complete look at what he had been hiding, and his power level soon made sense. He was relying on artifacts, powerful tools that he was employing to boost his abilities. [Those tattoos around his neck and upper arms,] Cedric said drawing my attention to something other than the ring and armband that was blazing with power, [Those are totems of power. They are enchantments Priests of the Egyptian Pantheon employ to imbue their God-King with access to the Divine.] [He has been sanctified and given access to two in that Pantheon. Those tattoos are the symbols of Osiris and Isis, they are infused with the magic and energies of death and soul destruction. It must have been where he funneled the energies from the destroyed Sidhe souls during his ritual slaying.] [This is the first time that the Egyptians have been linked with Olympus and Asgard. The ring is an artifact crafted by Hephaestus and contains the fires of his forge. If you look closely, you will see an earring that has been imbued with illusion, a construct created by Loki, the Asgardian trickster God.] [Three Gods have gifted him with their totem. As a Ranked Duke, his power would have been easily overwhelmed a Ranked Prince. The artifacts were given to give him comparable power, perhaps enough of a boost to destroy you at some point.] [But those totems were gifted with some other plot in mind. There is something else going on here besides Olympus and Asgardian schemes to gain control of the Summerlands. The souls that were destroyed increase Isis and Osiris' power, which is remarkable. Of the Gods, those two are considered fair, above scheming and revenge and retribution. Why this was done makes no sense, and I wonder if the destruction of our soul was part of some event, we are unaware of.] [If so, they may be too late. Even if we aren't sure what the reason behind conscripting the Egyptian Pantheon into their machinations was, even without claiming your land. You are now a Ranked King, crowned by System, and imbued with the blessings of Danu, Beleros, and Cyronax.] [Thom and his backers are going to be very angry when you once again foil whatever plot they had orchestrated.] Cariad's confidence was liberating. And perhaps the impetus for the bad luck that quickly followed. Thom may not have known of my elevation in Rank, and even if he had, I doubt it would have affected his strategy. He began systematically killing. Anyone that came within the sword's length was struck down. I didn't have time to understand the reasoning, other than his contempt for life, and his desire to make me suffer. Because my perception illuminated his evil as he attacked. His weapon was the ritual tool he had used to destroy the souls of those he had murdered. The body placement, the double pentagrams. All had been spurious artifice to confuse and obfuscate. The sword was all that was needed to destroy the soul of those he killed. There would be no pontification from him, no evil villain speech that revealed plans and promised retribution. He would simply kill. I had to act, but I wanted my people safe as I did. "Gil! Get these people out of here!" I ordered. "Ril! Help those people that have been injured!" The words were almost a precursor to movement. A sword that I had stored in the Ring of Hidden Depths springing to hand, movements and Kata's that I had studied relentlessly using the Rings training space triggering muscle memory, sword skills that were intrinsically part of me now flowed like water as I moved effortlessly to defend and block Thom's next blow. There were too many innocents around for me to unleash the power of my Aura's, something Thom was counting on I thought. Even as I moved to block and protect, the powers of the totems and tattoos that Osiris and Isis had gifted were made clear. A sword strike of mine was ignored, no attempt to block the path. A strike that should have cleaved him in half from top from bottom, instead passed through him leaving no mark, causing no harm. His physical form esoteric, assuming soul form, a gift from the God of the Underworld. Thom's ability to phase back and forth between physical and spiritual was going to increase the difficulty of this battle. And then the gift that Isis had bestowed kicked in, and he didn't just blur, he vanished as he moved from in front of me to behind. If my perception hadn't been engaged, tracking not only what he was doing but monitoring the people that remained in the garden, he might have gotten in a potentially deadly strike. But I had learned that awareness was key to success in both duels and war. I didn't have the gifts of Osiris or Isis, but I had the bonuses from the System elevated Rank. My agility and dexterity were at the Ranked King level. Just as Thom seemed to teleport from in front of me to behind, so too, was I able to make use of my abilities. Sidhe were quicksilver, elemental in nature. The sun empowered me; lightning blessed me. And like the rays of light and the speed of lightning, I too competed for position, flowing behind him, my sword striking his soul body infusing my strike with Danu's blessing. Where Osiris and Isis were the Egyptian rulers of the Underworld, Danu was the fountainhead for life and creation. Life and death. Opposites. But they balanced each other. It was impossible to have one without the other. Just as death could end life, life could be renewed and confound death. The strike I had made was not enough to do any real initial damage. That hadn't been my intent. My strike did do damage, my sword opening a rift in Thom's soul-body that refused to fuse back together. A seed of life that settled in the space of his soul and began to send out roots, tendrils, and feelers. A new life that was bathed in the Sun's rays as I released the healing aspect of Beleros' Aura. With the Aura active his movements slowed down. He still attempted to use the blessings of Osiris and Isis, phasing in and out of reality, repetitively. His form seeming bathed in the effects of black light. A Stanley Kubrick effect that in the right circumstance may have been terrifying. The seed of life that I had planted in his soul removed his ability to make use of the advantage of Osiris' totem. With Beleros Aura active and at full healing intensity, every wound and attack he made on those he considered pawns was instantly healed. As Ril and Gil moved to usher and help those leave the gardens, their wounds were healing at a prodigious rate. Even those that had fallen earlier, not killed in a single strike, those that still had not been examined for signs of life, healed enough that they were able to stand and flee. Thom chose to ignore me, making use of Isis' gift to attack those few retainers that had yet to escape his attempts at a sacrifice. I didn't understand why he was still attacking those that were so much weaker; it wasn't affecting our battle, what it was doing was giving me time. And that was when I realized what he must be doing. The powers that we were unleashing were formidable, his flickering between soul and body had to take an amazing amount of energies, soul energy that he would need to replace. His attacks on those he dismissed as beneath him were feeding him, replenishing his soul power restoring his reserves and allowing him to stave off and mitigate the growth of the seed of life I had planted. His offense was effective. It was impossible for me to block every attack. As we dueled the cuts and wounds he opened, I healed, they would be sealed quickly, but still, the number of attacks and the number of wounds that were being administered lessened as more and more people reached safety. It reminded me of Blayney and Haygan's battle, one of attrition. Something I wasn't willing to endure. My own attacks were just as effective as Thom's. Each wound steeped with the energies of life, perverting the death domain that Osiris had gifted from fully engaging. Finally, the last person had been evacuated. Thom could no longer restore his soul energies by farming the innocent or bystanders. Even the guards had withdrawn, watching from doors and windows that had been slammed shut. Wards of protection engaged as the speed of battle between the two of us intensified. We became flickering shadows of riposte and parry. Our attacks and defenses increasing faster and faster. Footwork empowered by movement techniques or soul power that allowed us to trade position in a flowing dance of exchanges. Beleros Aura was damaging his soul, infusing it with life and creation, but the damage was slow the soul responding to the infusion of energy reluctantly, forcing Thom to fight the natural inclination of the soul to live, evolve, and grow. He had embraced death's domain, but he was Sidhe. A creature of nature and fertility. His choice did not suit his natural talents. If not for the artifacts that he had been gifted, as well as the tattoos, he would have fallen to my blade within our first exchange. He responded by expanding his domain. The garden, a space of life and bounty, became a miasma of death and corruption as Death subsumed life with the laws of entropy and chaos. While life and death both embraced aspects of entropy and chaos, death was more aligned with those universal constants. Life could destroy the bounds and expanded the limits; death embraced those limits. Beleros Aura was hard-pressed to protect that life, the cycle of life bowing to death's inevitability. But Beleros was not my only heritage. And Cyronax was the God of Winter's bite. His power was formed when the Universe formed and comprised the vastness of space, the cold expanse of eternity. Winter too was a harbinger of death, not as all-encompassing as the Osiris' purview, but familiar with Law. If life and healing were not enough to constrain and defeat Thom, then I would battle him with his own weapon. His soul yearned to grow and evolve. I would encourage that catalyst, that imperative to live or surrender and rejoin the cycle of life. My dance of weapon and magic began to weave the three disparate attacks into a seamless whole. My sword to part the soul and give a path for Beleros Aura. Beleros aura to heal and restore life to the soul corrupting the powers of death that Thom was borrowing. Finally, Cyronax Aura to destroy and give true death to those pieces of life and creation that I had injected. Those seeds of life and energy transforming into a barren waste of lifeless stillness as Thom's soul was slowly, inevitable, torn to shreds. I knew the fight was won when he phased back into his mortal form for the last time. Unable to transition back to his soul body, no one left to siphon or steal energies from, his ability to restore his flailing and flagging reservoirs neutralized. Two quick attacks, one separating the ring that Hephaestus had gifted, the other the earring that Loki had donated removed the last of the powers that he was borrowing. My speed, strength, and magic were too much for him. He had not earned his Rank as a Duke; it had been gifted so he had no experience, no testing to help him understand those powers. He had hidden his ability behind an illusion, never training those talents he gained when Ranking up. He was a paper tiger at this point. Swinging madly trying desperately to stave off my attacks. I would have none of it. He had killed those I had offered succor and protection too. I could not bring them back. But I could make sure that he would no longer be able to play his sick and twisted games. Thom A'Kel would no longer able to harm or harvest those I considered mine.