"Mister Black," Blood River pleaded desperately, "what do I do now?"

Mister Black sighed. "My young friend... you need to escape here."

"No!" River snarled, "Not when I am so close... not when he's in my grasp, dammit!" He started sobbing. "You promised me the strength to defeat him! You promised me!"

"No, you probably wouldn't make it through all this anyway..." Mister Black backhandedly agreed, strangely calm and collected. "Well then... I suppose there's nothing else I can do for it, River. There's only one option."

Hope bloomed for River. "What is it?"

Mister Black sighed again. "I was hoping we'd have more time together so I could teach you everything I know, my young student. But fate twists even the best-laid plans... you will have your strength, my friend. Or, should I put it, you will have some of my strength."

"What?" River was confused by his mentor's roundabout commentary.

"I can't push your cultivation base further, nor can I break through the barriers of your physique tempering," Mister Black replied. "When you asked me about the Blood Devouring Universe, do you remember what I told you?"

"Mister Black, now's not the time for me to be remembering something like that!" River protested even as he grasped and devoured another expert nearby him.

"No, I suppose not," Mister Black agreed. "I said you couldn't use it because you couldn't understand it. I do understand it, however, and I'm going to give that to you. But it comes at a price."

"Yes, okay," River was impatient with the old man's rambling, "spill it already!"

"That price is the rest of my soul, River," Mister Black replied somberly, unperturbed by the outbursts. "I won't be able to go with you any farther than this."

River, in the throes of Passion Amplification, couldn't discern precisely how he felt about it. He owed so much to Mister Black, but he also feared the old ghost, suspected the old ghost... was this a trick? Was the old man making his move? And even if he was, did River have the option to refuse? Had he ever?

"I'm so sorry, Mister Black," River said, letting his concern be the primary emotion he displayed.

"It's okay, River, my young student," Mister Black comforted him. "You've come a long, long way in the short time we've been together, and you'll no doubt shine brightly in the future without me." Mister Black paused a moment, perhaps in reflection. "Well, that's enough talking, I suppose. Might as well get started."

At that moment, the world around River seemed to freeze; it was a stasis of the soul, not a physical chill, but it was nonetheless just as potent. For the first time since they had met, Mister Black materialized in front of him, a wise old man with eyes that carried an entire starry universe within. Some of those stars appeared to be at their end now, even as others were brightening. Expanding to a size comparable to that of River, Mister Black turned and melded into the young man.

River shuddered as the cold void between the stars seemed to pierce his bones. This was very unlike the previous impartation of techniques he had received from Mister Black; those had been simple arts that he could practice and improve upon for himself. What he was receiving now was an understanding of the inner workings of the universe far beyond what any dweller of a Mortal Realm should have known. With that also came information on the profound technique most suitable for River to call upon: the Blood Devouring Universe.

River didn't have much time to ponder the deeper meanings of everything as the frozen moment soon resumed, and he was back in battle again. At this moment, though, everything was nonetheless different.

Facing five men -- all Meridian Circulation experts -- who were coming at him, River decided that the blood in their veins should no longer move. As though his thought was law, it was instantly so, and the men froze in place, unable to budge a muscle. The very blood within their bodies was now their shackle, their restraint. In front of him, all those with weaker cultivation would share that fate.

River frowned. This power was useful, but he could feel a frightful expenditure in using it this way. He needed to do more than just handle clusters of five or so men at a time. He needed to deal with them all.

And the Blood Devouring Universe provided a way for him to do just that.

The five men exploded in showers of gore as he directed their blood to his Blood Devouring Palm, replenishing some of his strength. He slowly stepped forward into the middle of the courtyard battlefield, every man that tried to raise a hand against him suffering the same instant, gruesome fate.

It wasn't enough. He needed more.

Wrapped in the throes of Passion Amplification, his hatred and fury for the Dragon's Den and for Brave Dragon stood at the forefront. He had little compassion for the coalition warriors around him, little care for their fate; they were part of the system that had oppressed people like him for so very long, another piece of the edifice he would sweep away. Since they couldn't possibly fight this battle, they would have to assist him in another way.

Standing in the middle of the courtyard, bathed in the red glow of the last rays of the setting sun, River shook the world around him, and all of the men felt it.

"Blood Devouring Universe: World of Blood!" he intoned. He didn't speak loudly, and yet all around him for at least a hundred meters men could hear those words, and with them, their doom. Bandit and warrior, a loyal clan member or a minion of the Dragon's Den, it didn't matter. The ripple of the spell coursed through all of them.

They all exploded, a sea of blood washing out over the courtyard.

River took that sea, bound with his words, and all of the blood rose up into the air and pulled together until it formed an enormous globe that hovered behind him and gave off an eerie red glow of its own. This was the World of Blood, a territory that surrounded him and placed all blood under his control, compressing it into the orb. A trickle of Mister Black's comprehension gave River the wholly irrelevant information that many worlds were, in fact, spherical like this.

River laughed maniacally at that tidbit, as though it was the most hilarious joke he had ever been told.

Having cleared the immediate vicinity, River proceeded towards the central palace. Anyone who entered the range of his territory exploded like the others, and soon everybody on the battlefield retreated in abject terror of the devil in their midst.

Running away didn't help them, though. Spears of blood shot out from the World of Blood, still connected to the sphere with bloody chains, and they skewered the fleeing fighters and dragged them into the territory to explode and die and add to the accumulation of blood.

Inexorably he approached the grand archway of the palace until he was only a dozen paces away. Smiling, he directed the World of Blood in a new attack.

From the sphere emitted a baleful ray of bloody light that pierced the palace's door and blew it to smithereens. Several men who were behind that door were speared and dragged to their gory, explosive ends as River entered the palace.

It was time for a reckoning.

--------

Five felt sick to her stomach, and not from the pregnancy.

She had watched as River waded into the forces of the Dragon's Den and cut a swath through them, opening the way for the coalition to continue pushing, turning the battlefield into a meat grinder for both sides. Her concern for her lover overrode all else, and she kept watching without feeling ill then.

She had watched as River was surrounded, visibly exhausting himself as he continued to fight, and panic rose in her stomach, but she remained strong, believing in the man who made miracles happen.

But this... this was beyond anything she could have imagined in her worst nightmares. Pushed to the brink, overwhelmed by a seemingly unending number of powerful foes, River closed his eyes, and she despaired. She didn't understand that when those eyes opened again, her despair would only rise.

The red eyes that were something of his signature as River, the Devil of Flowing Water, had again changed. While the irises held their crimson color as before, the whites had wholly gone pitch black, a darkness that no light could penetrate or contain.

And then, and then, he had... Five felt sick at the casual disregard for human life he put on display as he mowed down the entire battlefield around him, a bloody reaper, a mass murderer. What he did there was a sheer massacre with no regard or pity or remorse in those red-and-black eyes. It was as though he no longer even understood what he was doing.

Bathed in the ruddy glow of that gruesome globe, a rictus grin distorting his features, his eyes transformed that way... was this the man that was the father of the new life within her? The one she had just prayed would make it out of this alive no matter what? She despairingly was torn on whether she could handle the price of her wish, now.

At that moment, watching him hunt down the stragglers and deserters and feed them to that grotesque sphere, she made a choice.

She had to flee.

There was no more Five. After this battle, no matter who won the confrontation in the palace, there would be no more coalition, no more Dragonslayers. Without the Dragonslayers, there was no need for there to be a Five.

Grabbing as much as she could carry on a journey, angrily brushing away the tears that threatened to overwhelm her, Celia fled to the north of the battlefield as fast as she could, leaving behind the Dragon's Den, the Dragonslayers, and the shattered remnants of what could have been love.