It was unfair.

In open terrain things would’ve been more even. There would’ve been room to maneuver. To strike back with explosive Techniques. But here, trapped in such close quarters, there was no getting away. Especially not with Gerard on the other end, whipping up a literal storm.

His fists fell upon them the way a rockslide falls upon a herd of unsuspecting deer.

Knuckles. Sinking into cheek of a lizardman. Feeling the bones groan and bend and give, seeing an eyeball squish, flatten to a veined pancake, then burst in its socket. Then the head whipping back and the body keeling helplessly after.

Lances struck him. Qi sharpened to a killing edge, tipped with Poison Laws. They hissed as they met his scales, tried to sink in but could find no purchase. This was the body of a Third Form Torchdragon! Usually only Empyrean legendary beasts had physiques like this! These little tries had no bite to them; they could only nibble at the edges of his scales, making meaningless white scratches on the surface.

Then he struck.

He caught one in the gut. Another to the jaw. A third to the nose. So much of bodies is fluid. In his moods Gerard was obsessed with the idea. Just sacks carrying fluid. Push down in the right places, with the right force, and it all came bursting out.

There were only four Empyreans left. The trouble was they’d gotten their bearings. Now bright green qi-shields orbited them, and when Dorian tore into them they flared against his fist, crackling but not breaking. By their pained grimaces the effort did seem to drain them—

He hissed. Something stinging, horribly sticky in his eyes. An acid? He pawed at his face. Then it felt like he’d been hit by a battering ram; he was drivenhard into the wall, sagged to a crouch.

“Dorian!”

It was Gerard, standing at the other end and beckoning wildly, eyes still bloodshot. Sun stood by his side. “Come!”

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Quantity] 1582 -> 1832

He remembered his objective then.

The point was not to beat up these guards. Of course.

The point was to escape.

He dashed for it. But just as the guards made to follow—

He turned, and threw them a little parting gift. Specially made for occasions like these.

Supernova Fist!

The world went painfully white. There was a shockwave of shrill sound, endlessly ringing. Eyes and ears were instantly knocked out.

He was delighted to hear the wild screeches behind him. Then qi pinging off the ceiling as he ran, attacks gone awry, astray. They wound their way through the corridors of the dungeons, moving so fast the upwelling of air sent stray chairs flying.

Moments later they burst into the light.

The dungeons had been dark. The overground was surprisingly not much better. All the light fixtures had been shot out, the chandeliers hanging limp above them. The work of qi bombs. The only light was the twilight filtering in through the window-frames, pooling eerie purple on the floor. In the distance there was a chain of BOOMS, like growling thunder. The sounds of more qi bombs going off. The sounds of warehouses full of weaponry blown out.

They’d emerged at a chaotic scene. The tall narrow stained-glass windows had shattered. Party guests were clambering through them to freedom. And then there was a host of what looked to be the King’s Guard—a handful of high-Tier Empyreans in swankier gear than the fellows down in the dungeons—looking hopelessly lost trying to direct the traffic. And failing. And there were two at the head that seemed strikingly familiar...

“Nujia,” breathed Gerard. And there she stood, nine ethereal tails fluttering behind her. A wildfire of red hair framing two hungry golden eyes.

“And is that the Sky Wolf?” croaked Dorian. He stood arms at his hips, head cocked a little, mouth twisted a little, looking just a little amused. “Well… shit.” .

“The prisoner!” a guard shrieked. Entirely unnecessarily, at this point. “Dorian! He’s escaped!”

“Damn,” hissed Gerard, and he spit out a gob of black blood.

Between them and the open doors, and the blown-out windows, were a half-dozen Empyreans. Plus two of the Multiverse’s best Empyreans, both ranked well in the Top 10. Against a wounded retiree, a God, and a monkey-girl whose combat value was…questionable, to put it kindly.

“I’ll take Nujia,” breathed Dorian. “You take the Wolf. Sun—I don’t know—try to harass the guards?”

“On it!” said Sun. She had on her determined face, cheeks puffed out.

“Very well.” Gerard winced. “Most of my energies are spent holding a Spatial Lock over the palace. To stop wraiths of the Shadow Realm from coming to their assistance. I shall hold him back—at least. Any more I cannot promise.”

“That’s alright,” said Dorian. He breathed out one thin stream of steam. “I’ll do the rest.”

He had just one advantage as he charged the lot of them. The element of surprise. One God-level creature against their masses was unthinkable.

Before they knew what’d struck them he’d crushed a head and liquified a gut. Whatever he was now God was insufficient to describe it. He must be the #1 ranked God by sheer power. That was a given. But even among Empyreans—this body? With this amount of qi?

Dragon’s breath!

An explosion of black laced with red. Someone screamed, and the scream was one of three horrific stages. High-pitched, then mid, then crackly and low and warbly, as the vocal chords melted in real time.

But then there came a humming. A second fire met his own. A blossom of red-gold and just as fierce, holding his to a stalemate.

“You are not the only one who likes to play with fire!” It was Nujia, her nine tails cackling bonfires behind her.

To one side, knives whirred and talons flashed. Metal slithered on metal as Gerard and the Wolf began their duel in earnest. To the other there was a bonk! and a yelp, and flashes of gold as two Empyrean guards stumbled after a screaming monkey-girl.

“Dorian, Dorian. What a delightful stroke of Fate! I have scalped many a legend in my day. But never a name as big as yours.”

And she licked a purple flame off one curved nail.

He dashed at her.

And she was gone. She burned up. Vanished in a smoking pyre, and he felt a vicious tongue of flame lash him up the backside.

Grunting, he whirled around. She studied him impassively.

Sunshine Steps!

He was a handspan from her in a blink. It was his single fastest attack, faster than any qi strike. Pure brute fleshy force.

Fist of Falling Star, Rising Moon!

His fist struck air. He blinked in surprise.

And then he was blown off his feet. She’d exploded, blistering his face and arms with stinging embers. And when that fiery ball of qi and Law smote to nothing Nujia wasn’t there anymore.

But this time he felt her coming. He pivoted and held up his arms. Let the flame lash off the scales, harmless.

Nujia was looking at him like an insect that just kept wriggling out from under her boot.

Funny, since he was looking at her the exact same way.

A conundrum. He couldn’t seem to get his hands on her—she literally melted away whenever he got close. But he’d chosen this matchup for a reason. She was a sorceress of fire. And the one creature whose heat tolerance you did not test was a Torchdragon. In his current form he figured he could shrug off most of her strikes.

And so far he was proven right.

She couldn’t hurt him, he couldn’t catch her.

In a real battle maybe she could keep evading him, wearing him down, and eventually bring him to a knee. Maybe. But the objectives here were different, weren’t they? This was not one-on-one.

Now Dorian leapt for the Sky Wolf.

He heard a growl of frustration from behind. A net of Golden Fire bloomed in front of him, and he simply crossed his arms before him and barreled right through it. It hurt like Hells—like he’d run through a burning thornbush—but he gritted his teeth, and ate it, and heard a second growl—this time with a satisfying note of panic.

The Sky Wolf was sporting a thick gash down his midsection. A cut opened up his cheek. Gerard stood on wobbly legs, leaking from dozens of places. Drunk from blood loss, one eye swollen shut. But he was smiling.

They were locked in a delicate and vicious dance. A dance that could prove fatal if just one side misstepped—if, say, a dragonkin broke their concentration—

—Before he could interfere Nujia flared into being before him, hands stretched out, the beginnings of a Technique simmering on her fingertips. Some sort of shield, no doubt. To halt him in his tracks.

But he’d been expecting her.

He’d [Sunshine Stepped] the instant he saw her smoldering into existence.

His fist shot past her outstretched palms and his knuckles learned the texture of her cheek. CRUNCH. A fox’s high yowl. He tried gripping onto her, lining her up for another swing, caught a fistful of fur before the rest of her went up in smoke. Damn!

The Sky Wolf’s head swiveled at the sound, alarmed—

—And Gerard’s talon took his head off. One clean swing.

Or, rather—it tore open that diagonal plane of space on which his head sat. Leaving a jagged, gaping gash in the fabric of reality. A gash which happened to sit neatly between the Wolf’s head and the rest his body. It slid off, still frozen in a look of surprise.

Attaboy!

Gerard gave a warlike screech, full-throated.

Dorian’s smile went ear-to-ear. In his prime he had no doubt Gerard would’ve trounced the fool in the time it took to burn an incense stick. But a few millennia of rust did that to a man.

The Fox was not dead. Just badly bruised, clutching at her cheek and glaring at Dorian, as though trying to set him on fire with the sheer intensity of her gaze.

But her eyes flickered to Gerard, and she did not advance. Instead she turned up her nose and flared out of existence. That’s the thing with mercenaries. Their loyalties are easily bought, yet so easily lost. Warriors for fair weather only.

“Help!”

He’d almost forgot about Sun. Her voice echoed out from under her pan, where she was doing a reasonable impression of a turtle. Three Empyrean guards were trying to blast through it, smash it, and prise it up all at once, and doing a spectacular job getting in each other’s way.

Dorian cleared his throat.

The Empyreans frowned at him at one. Then he raised his hand, still full of Nujia’s flaming red cheek-hairs, and let them fall gently to the floor.

Somehow, you could hear the sound of a guard swallowing. Dorian saw the little calculation playing through their heads. Delightful thing about Ur, too—it was so mercantile, so contract-driven! Even the guards were akin to mercenaries. And they certainly weren’t paid enough for this.

Sure enough. Three heads turned and ran.

Dorian sighed. “You’re can come out now—” He lifted the lid of the pan.

Sun shot out like an arrow and fastened her teeth around his ankle.

She gnawed on it for a good two seconds before her eyes rolled up and saw his unamused face.

“Oh. You won!”

“I wouldn’t celebrate just yet…” A new voice. One Dorian hadn’t heard before, but Gerard stiffened instantly at the sound. A plump man stepped out from a crack in space. Casually ignoring Gerard’s Spatial Lock. Two dozen paces in front of them, blocking their path to the exits. Blocking the paths of the three unfortunate Empyrean guards too.

“The Auctioneer,” gritted Gerard. “Ranked Top 50 Godking in the Multiverse—”

“Forty-one!” the man said, grinning an unnaturally shiny, unnaturally large set of teeth. That was more teeth than any human mouth ought to have. Gave his smile a rather sharklike look. Especially as he gazed down at his own guards, in the middle of deserting.

They must’ve known their fates coming. But the guards struck back anyways. Spears of Poison Law dashed out—

The Auctioneer’s hands grew, and grew, and grew, like balloons inflating. The spears sparked off his palms, made a bright ping! sound like they’d bounced off hard metal. And then the Auctioneer scooped them up—screaming lizardmen three—whose screams were promptly cut off as his hands clenched to fists. And then he started to work his hands around one another, like he was molding clay, and Dorian could only imagine the sheer scale of the pressure at the center of it. Like the forces that made new metals at the heart of stars. There was a sound like bones crunching at first—and then like grains of sand squished about. Fearsome Laws of Metal wreathed his knuckles, gave his hands a gruesome glow.

When he opened his palms again—with a flourish, like am magician performing a trick—a flesh-metal putty slithered out onto the floor. An alloy.

The Godking of Metals loved gold, and silver, and bronze above all.

But he still delighted in playing with the baser metals.

The Auctioneer smiled. “Ta-da!” He said. “Who’s next?”