Kang was dying.

He reached down to where the roofing tile had punctured through his breastplate and into his chest.

He laughed and coughed, blood dribbling from his lips.

Killed by a roofing tile. What a joke.

He was choking on his own blood, surrounded by the bodies of his underlings, while a battle raged mere meters away.

But he was not discontent.

It was a better death than he’d thought he’d receive but a few months ago, before the Lady An found him in that bar. And it was a better death than he thought he might garner even at the height of his career.

For what man would not wish to die striking a blow against the great enemy? And in defense of his home, no less!

I even saved the Lady An…

Yes, it was a good death, better than an old fool like him deserved.

As he started to slump, his body failing him, he was surprised that he did not fall. Two powerful arms gripped him, holding him up. With eyes that had begun to blur, he turned to thank his helper, only to find himself staring into the eyes of Gao.

Ah, that boy. Ever a source of stress for him. Always full of questions. Impertinent. Yet without even the grace to be careless or undutiful.

A serious boy filled with anger and dissatisfaction.

“It’s alright sir, I’ve got you.” The boy, who was old enough to have a wife and kids, said. “We’ll get you to the healers.”

It was a struggle, but Kang managed to shake his head.

“But sir…”

There was no point. He was done. He could already feel a coldness seeping into his fingers and toes.

Still, he favored his favorite sergeant with a smile.

“I got her,” he croaked. “As sure as the sun rises in the east, this old man wounded that monster.”

Gao’s eyes widened before he nodded. “Aye sir, that you did.”

“Is Lady An alright?” With numb hands, he gripped his rifle.

“She is.”

Liar. Kang could still hear them fighting. Still, he smiled.

“That’s good.”

She was a good one, that Lady An. A little stuffy and standoffish, but she had a good heart.

Not unlike the hidden master.

That Johansen is a queer one, but he was…

Kang coughed, more blood dribbling from his lips.

…kind.

Even through the fuzziness that pervaded him, he could feel Gao’s grip on him grow tighter. The boy was trying to speak, but Kang couldn’t hear him. Instead, he dragged his rifle toward the boy. It was a bit difficult, his limb didn’t quite seem to want to obey him, but he managed to get it done.

“H-help… them.” He couldn’t quite finish the words, his tongue as insubordinate as his arm, but he felt Gao stiffen.

Slowly, he felt the rifle pulled from his fingers. The boy said something, but Kang couldn’t hear.

Then he was gone.

And Kang was alone. Alone but for the others of the militia who had already gone on ahead of him.

He’d be joining them soon.

And the militia was in good hands. That Gao was a good lad. A smart lad. Much savvier about all this new stuff than Kang himself. He hoped they found the letter in his desk. It had instructions for when this happened.

He hoped they found it.

He wanted to be… buried at home. With his mother and father.

He smiled at the thought of seeing them again. Not as they were when he left them last, all burned and blackened, but healthy and whole.

His mother would scold him for not settling down. His father would scold him for not ducking.

Practical man, his dad…

Still, it was a good life. And a good death.

----------------

While An and Ren were discovering both the utility of mortal aid and the power of teamwork, Jack was discovering just how woefully low on the food chain he really was.

Yin was strong. And old and experienced.

And her recent transformation into a mutant abomination had only doubled down on those traits.

And while Jack was quite sure that his suit was stronger, that meant next to nothing when he couldn’t even touch his opponent.

“Gah!” he grunted as he raised his arms just a tad too slow to intercept a hoofed foot.

Pain rocketed out from his chest, and the force of the blow sent him stumbling back. Only a last minute flaring of his rear thrusters kept him from being knocked on his ass.

Fortunately, while they’d landed outside the walls, they’d also landed in the same area Yin and her companion had run through to leap at the wall, which meant that Jack wasn’t in too much danger of being blown apart by one of his own mines as he stumbled about.

“Slow." Yin’s warped voice noted as she slowly lowered her extended leg. “Is this truly the limit of the ‘Hidden Master of Jiangshi’?”

He fired off a stream of lightning in response, but the woman simply bulled through it to headbutt him with her curved horns, sending him stumbling back again. As she did, a message on his HUD flickered to life, warning him that the capacitors in his hands were in danger of burning out if he continued abusing them.

Oh, and that continued damage to his suit would result in his pay being docked.

“Weak too. I barely felt your technique that time.” Yin gloated.

Jack boosted backwards, soaring into the air on his thrusters. She chased after him, using one of the girders he’d ‘fired at her’ earlier in the fight as a steppingstone to leap at him. He tried to dodge, but his thrusters were intended for prolonged flight, not dogfighting. As a result, he could do little more than watch as he was literally punted into the dirt once more, the thing landing on top of him and driving the air from his lungs.

“Did you really think to challenge the Marble Cloud Sect with such measly strength?”

He tried to summon a portal, only for another warning to flare to life informing him that an ‘organic being’ was too close.

"I saw an opportunity and I took it." He laid his head back into the dirt and laughed. “I don’t regret that.”

Something close to interest seemed to flare to life in those warped inhuman eyes for a second. “Fool.”

Despite her words, there was almost a hint of… respect in her voice.

Jack fired his boosters, throwing her off him as he skidded along the ground. Kicking his feet down, he managed to use the momentum to roll to his feet. “Probably. Still beats the alternative.”

“Submission to your betters?” The goat-thing continued in an almost conversational tone. “That is the natural order of things. The strong rule. The weak serve. Had you simply come to us, we would have made use of you. You would have survived.”

Jack summoned another hand cannon into his palm. The thing was preloaded, so he needed only raise it and fire.

Which he did.

Though Yin easily dodged the shot.

“Is that really living though?” He threw aside the weapon and summoned another. “God knows, I’ve felt more alive these past few months than I've ever done in my life before.”

Freedom was addictive? Who knew?

"A short-lived rebellion." In moments, the thing was right in front of him, slapping the gun from his hand and driving a fist into his face, causing the servos around his neck to whir in protest as they fought to keep the blow from snapping his neck. “Brought about by ignorant arrogance.”

This time he summoned a cloud of glass dust laced with an industrial acid, an improvement he’d made since he tangled with Men. Not that it mattered, given that Yin’s insane reflexes allowed her to leap back before the leading edge of the cloud even got close to her.

Still, it had bought him a little more space and time.

He glanced at the loading screen in his HUD and scowled as he saw that the bar hadn’t budged an inch since he’d last seen it. Which wasn’t too surprising.

Fights felt like they went forever, but they didn’t. They were quick.

Obscenely quick.

“We’re all going to die someday,” he snarked. “Might as well live like it.”

He summoned and fired off a few sharpened javelins at the beast, which she effortlessly dodged as she ran at him.

Jack took to the air, and once more she leapt at him. He was ready this time though. A deluge of orange flame jetted out from his palms as a stream of gasoline mixed with styrofoam erupted into existence and came alight as his palms sparked.

Unable to dodge in flight, Yin was bathed in the deluge of sticky oily fire. For just a moment, Jack’s vision of her was completely filled by the inferno.

Then the breath was driven out of him once more as the flaming and screaming weregoat emerged from the fire and slammed into him. Still alight, as the burning substance clung to her blackening fur, the flaming demon thing rode him to the ground as she pounded on his armored exterior with her clawed fists.

He tried to raise his arms to defend himself as they hit the dirt, but even while on fire Yin was faster than him. Even if her skills were suffering from it.

Instead, he used his superior strength to buck the creature off and clamber to his feet, though Yin leapt straight back at him. What followed was a stupidly fast stream of strikes from the creature, an unbroken combo that dented metal with every hit and caused the warning claxons in Jack’s suit to flare all the louder.

Even Jack’s attempts to summon another cloud of… anything only bought him a few moments, as Yin would dodge to the side before leaping back at him.

Eventually though, it seemed the pressing need to not be on fire caused the woman to back off and… stifle the flames burning around her with a gesture.

Fucking magical bullshit, Jack thought, even as he winced at the innumerably aches coming from his abused body.

A quick look at his HUD also told him that suit was also pretty torn up. Exterior armor was compromised in places. Servos were burnt out. Sensors weren’t responding.

“Interspatial storage, offline.” The solemn words of the suit’s AI felt like the final nail in his coffin.

Fortunately, Yin hadn’t been left unscathed either. Her fur was now a patchwork of burned flesh that was covered in spots by a black oozing sludge. Likely the burnt remains of the impromptu napalm she’d just somehow extinguished.

More to the point, there was now a certain amount of wariness in her posture as she circled him.

He’d hurt her for the first time since the fight had begun.

Still, Jack conceded that he really couldn't win this one. His suit was already in shambles, and all she needed was for a single plate to fail and she’d make mince meat of his poor squishy insides.

He glanced at his HUD and was relieved to see that it was now at ninety-nine-point-nine percent.

Just a little longer, he thought tiredly.

Unfortunately, it seemed that Yin was out patience for his antics.

“Enough.”

She leapt at him and she was fast. She let loose with fists and kicks that Jack could barely see let alone block or dodge. He stepped left, he ducked right, he miraculously managed to block an uppercut, only to receive a side blow that had him stumble.

He tried to fire his jets to compensate, but received nothing but an error message in reply.

He instead tried to straighten himself again but was thrown off balance as he received a deluge of blows, sparks erupting from his torso as buffers, servos and electronics within failed. Some of them must have been connected to his left leg as the limb suddenly went limp and he went down to one knee.

He didn’t fall though – his flesh and blood limb strained with all its might to keep him upright and in this fight, old instincts coming to the fore.

"Cowardly as it is, I must give you credit for this suit of yours. Whatever protective enchantments you have imbued it with, they are most formidable.” He felt a clawed hand close around his head, winced as he heard metal strain as Yin’s grip tightened. “Would that you had only invested that effort into your Dao, rather than cheap trinkets, you might have stood a chance.”

“Fuck you,” he coughed, feeling something warm and metallic dribble from his lips as he did.

Some part of him knew he might die here. Had known he might die from the moment he’d shown up on this world.

He’d had no illusions about that.

These last few minutes had only made that possibility grow from a mere chance to an almost certainty.

Fortunately, death was an old friend. Something he’d lived with all his life.

Where other men might have been paralyzed by it, he soldiered on.

He glanced at his HUD, the display flickering before his eyes. Whether that was a result of damage to his suit or his vision fading, he didn’t know.

Ninety-nine-point-nine percent.

The number seemed to taunt him. To have salvation be so close and yet so far.

A mental finger hovered over a mental button as he deliberated.

…Fuck it.

If he was to die, he’d go out swinging.

He pressed the button.

His entire left side was no longer responding to his inputs, but his flesh and blood limbs strained against servos that no longer functioned to force him to move. He managed to stand, swiping aside the hand on his head with his still functional right arm.

Converting all the pain and frustration he was feeling into action, the Scandinavian miner roared as she charged at the amused monstrosity.

She was back to toying with him now – and it showed as his first punch was easily sidestepped. As were the second, third and fourth. By the fifth, she seemed to have tired of the game and caught his fist in her hand.

The unpowered one.

Jack winced as the bones within were ground against each other by her inhuman grip.

Still, he grinned. He powered the capacitors in that hand, that single pathway surviving where the servos had failed. Yin flinched in surprise as the fist she was holding erupted with a deluge of sparks.

Just long enough for Jack’s right arm – which was still functional – to swipe out at her.

She dodged.

Easily.

He sighed.

Then he struck out again with a punch that was deflected. He tried to strike again, but a backhanded blow from the weregoat rattled his head and left him open for a hoofed blow to the stomach that dented in the armor there even further. In fact, if Jack’s abused body wasn’t lying to him, said armor plate was now jutting into him.

The warm wet feeling that accompanied it certainly reinforced that notion.

“Fuck!” He roared as he tried to tackle his tormentor.

All his body wanted to do was fall over and not get back up ever again. His muscles burned. His spine ached. His insides felt like mush.

But he would not give up, not now, not ever.

He was a fool. He was selfish. He was greedy and callous. But he was no coward.

Nor was he a quitter.

So he forced his body forward again, slowly at first, but eventually building up momentum.

"Why do you keep fighting, male? It's obvious you can't beat me, so why prolong the inevitable?" The monster honestly sounded confused as she stepped back.

Jack hadn’t the energy to respond as he tried his level best to land at least one blow on the creature.

He didn’t. He was kicked onto his back.

And yep, that plate is now lodged a little deeper in me, he thought woozily.

Yet even then, with nearly all his strength spent, he clambered up once more. He was rewarded for his tenacity with a hoof strike to his knee, with enough force behind it to send him sprawling once more.

This time on his front.

Which lodged the shard of metal just that bit deeper.

The pain was enough for him to roll onto his side, which coincidentally had him looking back at Jiangshi.

What would the girls think of him now - presuming they’d won their own fight? Would they see that he was a fraud or would they just assume Yin had been stronger?

Either way, Yin would kill them. And a lot of other people. Even before she’d turned into a monster straight out of pulp horror, she hadn’t struck him as a forgive and forget sort.

He felt guilty about that. Which surprised him.

All these people were going to die. Because of him.

Because of his ego.

It was funny. He’d tried not to think about that.

It had always been about him.

He was the one taking the risk. He’d never… had people who relied on him before.

For some reason, he tried to crawl back up on his feet, that thought stuck in his mind. He didn’t get very far. A hoofed foot shoved him back into the dirt.

“Stay down!”

She actually sounded irritated.

An idea that was further reinforced as something yanked on his arm. Something strained for a second and then gave way. Along with some skin.

Ah, she just tore my arm off, he thought absently.

His suit’s arm. Not his real one. Though his actual arm might have gone with it if Yin had pulled at a different angle. Fortunately, the suit’s limbs were designed to pop off if they were put under enough pressure.

Not unlike how safety glass was designed to shatter rather than crack.

“So there is a man under there.” Yin mused. “Part of me was beginning to wonder if you weren’t really some kind of clockwork doll. Even now, at the moment of your death, you hide your ki from me.”

Huh? How long had it been since he’d felt the open air on his skin? Months? Years? Even before he’d arrived here, he’d spent more time on dying worlds than back on civilized planets.

It was… a rather pleasant sensation.

He’d have to make an effort to enjoy it more if he survived the next five minutes.

“A fool to the…” She paused. “What’s that sound?”

And as he heard a distant clicking sound, one that grew louder by the moment, he realized that he just might survive the next five minutes.

His backup plan had finally arrived.