How annoying.

If he threw out another Technique he risked getting it ripped from him, turned on him.

If he tried close combat—frankly he didn’t fancy his chances against that sword in close quarters.

So what’ll it be? [Galactic Inferno]? He scratched his chin.

Now didn’t seem like the right time to unleash his trump card. Not when his enemy was stood there, a safe distance away, and inviting him to strike.

No. He ought to unleash upon Jez in a moment of weakness, up-close, for maximal effect.

He chewed on the problem, frowning.

Meanwhile Jez cocked his head. Below, hordes of his beasts poured through the Azcan walls like floodwaters through a broken dam.

“I eagerly await! You do not have the luxury of waiting, I’m afraid…” Jez said.

Don’t I? Dorian squinted at the horizon. But alas! No sign of the creature he hoped to see. …Fine. I’ll go it alone.

He turned his gaze to Jez once more, and started to plan.

The god seemed oddly content to let him do it, like he was observing a curious specimen in a laboratory. There wasn’t a hint of hatred in his gaze—the sort Dorian might expect when confronting his family’s murderer. It was all slightly unnerving. Usually Dorian was the one doing the unnerving.

A model of the battlefield materialized in Dorian’s mind. An idea branched out, cohering, playing out into a grand strategy. He saw it all laid out step-by-step—a web of Techniques, counters, counter-counters…

Yes, yes—this will do. This will do quite nicely!

His eyes flashed. If he can keep a straight face after this I’ll eat my own core.

They stared each other down, neither moving. Dorian feigned calm; Jez looked calm. Yet an incredible tension hung between them. There was a gravity to this moment, like the feeling a man has as he stares into an endless abyss—the feeling before he leaps. It verged on unbearable.

Then Dorian broke it. He struck.

He raised his hand, and the world grew black. Darkness Laws sullied the air like a shale of oil spilling into water.

[Darken the Sky!]

Shadows swam up from the sands. Shadow streamed down from the clouds. Jez blinked, watching them coalesce around him, a cage formed of the Laws of Darkness—not so close that he could touch them. Not so close that he could slice them, and make them his own. But they fenced him in in a loose sphere.

The arrogance of this Jez—letting him set up on the battlefield, for free! Not raising a finger to prep! Why, I’m nearly insulted! In a duel it used to be that no-one, not even the Saints, could afford to take me lightly. Have I been away so long the world has forgotten who I am?

Time for a reminder.

He whirled into shadow and vanished—

—and came out right above Jez, spraying a tongue of flame at him. Jez glanced up, brow furrowing, sword hand reaching up to slice—

—and Dorian cut it off. Vanished it before Jez could strike it. A feint. In the same instant he dove into another hovering pool of shadow, and was gone—

—and came up under Jez, his Javelin spearing up at the man at lightning speed.

Jez glanced down. Up came his hand again, sword hand whipping down—

—but Dorian threw a Yama’s Chain into the shadow-pool beneath him in the same instant. It came out through the pool above Jez. Yama’s Chain smashing down, Javelin spearing up. A pincer.

Now he saw Jez frowning in earnest. But the god had fast reactions; Dorian would give him that! The golden Chain, the one Jez stole from him, flew up to block his own. Jez’s sword flew down to block the Javelin.

And then both Dorian’s Chain and his Javelin retracted. Vanished to smoke.

For they, too, were only decoys! Techniques to bide time. Time for more Techniques.

Four Chains struck out from shadows all around Jez. There was no time to slice each of them Jez threw up both hands; golden, veined shields like the chrysalis of a butterfly ensconced him neatly.

But the Chains never met them. They, too, vanished. For they were also feints. Jez laughed, delighted.

He was forced to cut himself off an instant later as nine tongues of Fire-Laws rushed at him from all sides.

Laws which also vanished as soon as he threw up another shield. Soft sparks of qi splattered against it, useless.

And then the attacks poured on in earnest. Streaming in from all sides, one after another, a rising storm of Fire and Darkness—

A storm of fakes. Jez looked faintly amused at it all.

Then Dorian threw in a real strike. A super-charged Yama’s Chain thick with Darkness Laws that did not vanish with the rest—that gored against side of Jez’s Chrysalis. The shield shattered. Jez whirled around, eyes widening. The sword flew up in a slash—

The Chain smoked away before he could touch it.

This was Dorian’s route of attack. Feints, misdirection, unbalancing. And they did draw out an effect from Jez—even if he still seemed strangely pleased as he reacted. The idea was simple! Feints were false attacks—attacks he merely pretended to commit to. So they also cost him little in the way of qi.

But they served a critical purpose. They made the enemy feel like a leaf in a howling storm, and that made all the difference. They made it impossible to tell fake attacks from real—to even discern where and when the true strike would come!

And more than that, they forced the enemy to dull their own senses. To second-guess their own reactions.

It was clear it was working. As more and more illusions bore down upon him Jez was struggling to keep up. Normally this was where the panic would set in. But he was still smiling. Like this was all some grand game to him, and he was playing along. Dorian frowned.

“A wonderful display,” said Jez. “As frenzied as legend says! Yet you won’t defeat me with mere lights and shadows…”

He sounded amused. “Are you stalling, Dorian?”

Dorian snorted. Of course not. Well—mostly. There was, to Dorian’s great annoyance, still no Dweller on the horizon to spice things up—what the hells was taking that thing so long?—but no matter. At this point he hardly needed the Beast! All this feinting was more than a light show. It was a setup.

Four Yama’s Chains rushed out, coiling around Jez, constricting fast. Jez blinked. Instantly his sword whipped out, carving a line of pure light. But Dorian let it carve into his qi, cleanly cleaving his Laws of Darkness. His Chains went limp, quickly felled, falling away. Jez looked surprised that Dorian had let it happen so easily. The Chains shivered, taking on shades of gold…

But of course those Chains were not the true attack. They were only very big, visible distractions.

The instant Jez committed to his slash the Javelin pierced out at blistering speed from a shadow right behind his head, a spear laden with Darkness and Fire, howling with qi.

Jez whirled around. Then he saw he was a fraction of a heartbeat from being gored by the Javelin. He grimaced, serious for the first time this whole fight. His hands shot up, and from them poured a sheet of shining gold qi. A sheet which layered onto him like a second skin.

But of course this Javelin was not the true attack either.

The feints bought time for this blitz of Chains.

The Chains bought time for the Javelin.

And now the Javelin bought time for the strike Dorian had been charging this whole time.

If he’d thrown it outright it would’ve been obvious. Easily blocked, easily anticipated! Jez would’ve had all the time in the world to dodge.

But at the highest levels tiny margins made all the difference.

One by one the strikes flowed, granting him a little more momentum—a little more time. Time that added up slowly, surely…

Dorian smiled savagely. Gotcha!

He let loose, and so much qi left his body at once he nearly blacked out.

Jez was still throwing up his defense for the Javelin when the [Galactic Inferno] poured out from the shadows behind him with the force of a falling star.

Then things happened very quickly.

Jez felt it before he saw it. It must’ve been hard not to—like feeling the heat of the sun on his back. He knew instantly. Dorian saw his eyes go wide. The Javelin drilled into the shield furiously; a shower of gold light flew up. There was no time to cast another as the [Inferno] fell upon him. There was not even time to turn! In that moment Dorian saw Jez’s tiny body silhouetted black against the shining mass of qi behind him, a mass rarely ever seen wrought upon this Realm. The only bright spots were his eyes.

They locked on Dorian’s. They softened. He looked grateful.

Dorian was struck then by how calm his eyes seemed. This was not the look of a god about to lose his prime avatar in a Realm. This was the look of a man who’d had a grand time playing a fun game—and had lost like a gentleman. Graciously.

Then his eyes hardened.

It was the look of a man who had decided he was done playing by the rules of the game.

A horrible premonition came upon Dorian.

Then it was like the whole plane gasped. Time slowed to a crawl. But there were no Laws here. No; it was a dilation of space and time, caused by the influx of an amount of qi so huge it distorted the fabric of reality.

Then Jez burned. There was suddenly so much qi in him that his body could not hold it all. Then the image before Dorian switched colors. It was Jez who was the beacon in the dusk, his body shining so bright it was dissolving before Dorian’s very eyes—so bright it was blinding even for his enhanced eyes—so bright it made the Inferno behind him seem a dark backdrop in contrast.

At a speed no creature under Heaven should have been capable of Jez whirled around, raised his sword, and slashed.