Stiff-arms pushed Kayla in the back.

A shoulder charge jostled her to the side.

Officers, soldiers, various staff created a crush at the door in their haste to escape room.

She heard the general’s voice, high, but clear, cutting through the cacophony.

“Damn cowards! No Retreat, No surrender! I command you to Stand Your Ground and Defend Your General to Your Last Breath!”

Every single one turned and rushed back.

She didn’t feel the same compulsion, but she stopped and turned to watch.

It was like a giant monster attack.

Intellectually, one knew that one should focus their attention on getting as far away as possible. Emotionally, one couldn’t tear their eyes away.

The eidolon looked like an adult in them middle of a children’s playground as he broke bodies with his shield and spit them on his spear.

“I. Am. War!” he roared. “Not Salla’s weakness, but Sesre’s strength! War in the only way that matters! Death and destruction!”

The Phoenix Princess finally joined the fray, bathing the eidolon in plasma strong enough to spontaneously ignite the plants, walls and carpet in the boardroom.

“Absorb,” the eidolon said.

The snarling mouth on his shield seemed to open wider, sucking in the flames and even the heat.

The remaining soldiers gasped in relief at the breaths returned to them.

“Take him outside!” the general gasped.

“I don’t take orders from you, honored elder,” the phoenix princess sneered.

“Only the callow speak in the middle of a battle,” the eidolon hurled his spear.

The princess screamed.

“Oh, sh—”

Kayla gaped at the bloody barbed spear head sticking out of the wall.

Undaunted, the princess sent a stream of burning plasma at the eidolon, who ate it with his monstrous shield.

He drew his axe and sent it flying with one smooth motion.

The spinning blade cleaved through three soldiers.

The last had given his life to shove the general aside.

“Oh sh—”

Kayla got her dragon poleaxe up just in time.

Intense cold filled her limbs as the axe blade collided with her haft.

They struggled for what seemed like an eternity before the eidolon gestured, recalling the axe to his hand.

He regarded her.

She wouldn’t be ashamed to admit that a little bit of pee came out under that intense stare.

The feeling he engendered was familiar.

It reminded her of all the other times an overwhelmingly superior killer, monster or man, had looked at her with interest.

“I smell dragon. I haven’t slain one in nearly two centuries. Ocean or sea? It doesn’t matter, it depends on the dragon’s choice, after all.”

Was he speaking to her?

He was definitely looking at her.

She felt hot underneath the usually cool dragonscale armor.

“You demonstrate tactical intelligence in wrapping scales around the haft. A dragon of the depths is resistant, if not outright immune to the frost enchantment,” he examined the edge of his axe, “no chip. That suggests a young dragon. You, child, tell me where this dragon lives and I will grant you a place of honor in my army. You will learn at my feet. The knowledge of centuries of warfare for a simple location.”

Kayla didn’t hesitate.

“Never!”

She only wished that it hadn’t come out in a quivering voice.

“Perhaps something can be divined from your equipment after I accomplish my aims. General, enough delay. You are out of loyal soldiers to order to their deaths. Will you die like a man? On your feet? Or like an animal, cowering in the dirt?”

“The dynasty is eternal,” the general stood tall. “And I am not nearly out of soldiers. Emergency Reinforcement: 1st Army, 3rd Brigade, Tiger Company.”

Soldiers suddenly appeared.

Squad by squad.

They acted as if they had been briefed prior.

Gunfire suppressed the eidolon.

Grenades exploded at his feet and in his face.

Soldiers pulled the half-conscious princess from the spear sticking her to the wall, while others ushered the general out the door toward Kayla.

She felt a whole new world of possibility open with her mind from seeing the general’s Skill in action.

If he could do it then why not her once she was at a higher level.

“Gaze of the Gorgon.”

Kayla recognized the words, she shut her eyes and turned her back.

She missed the shield’s eyes flashing. Missed soldiers turned to stone in an agonizing instant.

A stone hand gripped the general’s arm like a vise.

“That bastard ran,” the general muttered as he struggled to free himself. “He was supposed to protect me.”

The old white beard cultivator guy had indeed gone missing in the chaos.

Where were the other cultivators?

The building was supposed to be swarming with them, not to mention the thousands of soldiers in the vicinity.

How long did it take to get to the ninety-something floor anyways?

One of the few remaining soldiers hammered at his stone colleague’s wrist until it broke.

They pushed past Kayla to get to the elevator.

Soldiers carrying the princess shoved her aside as well.

“Shit…”

She was the only thing between them and the eidolon.

He ducked and turned sideways to fit through the doorway.

The axe flew.

She blocked, then realized it had spun around her.

Screams cut short with a wet sizzle followed by a thud.

“You’re coming with me, child. You and the princess.”

The eidolon had a soothing voice.

One couldn’t help but want to obey.

That was until her armor warmed and the dragon poleaxe vibrated.

Before she had consolidated to captain, one of her classes had been mage.

As with all things spires, there had been a trade-off.

Things gained and things lost.

She had lost all ability to cast spells outside of the basic beginner ones without the gear provided by her great dragon-president.

In return she had gained even greater spells and abilities that let her fight at levels higher than her actual one.

“Crashing Wave Hammer Blow!”

She struck the floor with the hammer head studded with broken bits of the dragon-president smallest teeth.

A mighty shore break appeared before her.

It crested to nearly six feet in height before crashing into the eidolon.

He stood unmoved.

She spun the poleaxe directly into a second attack.

“Cutting Gale Axe Slash!”

The axe head made from one of the dragon-president’s larger scales sent a curved arc of wind cutting through the walls and furniture in its path until it broke against the eidolon’s golden breastplate.

“Icy Depths Thrust!”

The tip from one of the dragon-president’s spines shot a thin lance of ice that shattered against the eidolon’s shield.

Kayla gasped for air.

Too many, too quickly and he didn’t bother to do more than slightly move his shield arm.

“There is potential, but I fear that your class is a dead end. Without your benefactor you are nothing.”

“Says the guy whose whole thing is having a whatever god’s juice in him.”

“The divine gift doesn’t replace. It enhances.”

“Alright, good for you… um… I’m just gonna go then, cause you’re here for…” she glanced back.

The general was stuck in the far wall.

The eidolon’s axe was stuck in the general.

The soldiers were in two pieces with their open ends frozen, which she supposed was nice of the eidolon to spare her the sight of loose organs flowing in rivers of blood.

As for the phoenix princess?

Kayla’s last hope was face down in the carpet bleeding from the ragged hole in her shoulder.

“Right… okay,” she knelt slowly. “All hail… uh… Sesre—”

Dragon Pounce!

A dozen feet without a run up while in armor and carrying a poleaxe amongst other weapons.

He parried her weapon with his sword.

It only looked small in his hand.

The snarling face on his shield crushed her into the wall.

Her dragon-president’s scales meant bruised ribs and organs rather than broken and exploded.

A lazy slap with the flat of his blade knocked the poleaxe from her iron grip.

She drew sickles made from the dragon-president’s curved claws.

Dragon Claw Combo!

She moved with faintest conscious control.

Slice and cut.

Hook behind the knees where there was only bare skin.

Get under the armored skirt for the groin.

Up into the armpits and underneath the chin.

She struck true, but drew no blood.

“You lack strength. A stronger warrior would be capable of marking me with the inherent magic within those claws.”

He stabbed his sword into the floor to seize her by the front of her chest armor.

“Have you progressed far enough in the bond to manifest wings? If not then this will be a good lesson.”

He drew her back like a ball, aiming for the gaping hole in the boardroom and open air.

Metal screeched, setting her teeth on edge.

The eidolon screamed and cursed, dropping her in his struggle to pull off his helm.

She scrambled away, searching for her weapons.

The eidolon’s enchanted helm deformed as if in the crushing grip of an invisible hand.

He ripped it off with a great shout.

The whites of his golden eyes filled with red.

It leaked wetly from his nose and ears.

Kayla caught a dash of movement out of the corner of her eye.

Soft, slippered feet scampering across the carpet.

Followed by the sound of a gunshot.

A comically large spiked mace cracked the side of the eidolon’s face.

“Ha! It is I, the Meteor Hammer, that struck the first blow!”

The cultivator was short guy made to look even smaller by his impossible weapon.

The eidolon kicked him back the way he had arrived.

More arriving cultivators dodged their foolish ally.

Spears struck like vipers.

Swords slashed like claws.

Fists and feet that could break bricks and dent iron pounded eidolon flesh.

A tiny, lithe form slipped, flipped and rolled through the fierce melee.

She was the only cultivator not clad in silk robes with an appalling lack of actual armor beyond the occasionally mail shirt or steel breastplate.

The lack of helmet wearing was the most egregious aspect of cultivator combat attire.

Iron-like hands lifted Kayla to her feet.

“Bei’s grandma?”

“Peh, it is ‘Grandmother’. It is good to know that western children still don’t know how to properly respect their elders.”

Things were spinning too much of Kayla.

There were two Grandmothers, which was disconcerting.

At least they knew the wisdom of wearing full armor with a helmet.

“Come, we are to escape. Go, lift her,” Grandmother gestured to the fallen princess, who was moaning.

“Huh? Okay…” Kayla took a thin, dainty looking wrist and struggled to lift the princess’ arm over her shoulder. “Heavier than she looks,” she muttered, “hey, aren’t you like extra strong cause of your cultivation whatever? Why don’t you carry her?”

“Because I must fight. The invader wants her and we will all be needed to keep him occupied if we can’t defeat him.”

Grandmother kicked Kayla and the princess into the elevator.

The doors slid shut.

Her last sight was Grandmother doing a crazy double twisting flip to avoid a silk-clad cultivator’s crashing body.

Grandmother snatched Radiant Liu Mei’s Spear of the Heavens as the old woman went flying into the gory remains of the general.

“Hrm…” she mused.

The spear was a plain old spear.

Disappointing.

“Not even a spiritual weapon.”

Her estimation of Radiant Liu Mei went up a few notches.

She didn’t believe in overspecialization.

It was like placing all one’s eggs into a rickety basket then storing it in a snake’s den.

Take away the one thing a cultivator was great at and render them as deadly as a toothless cub.

She preferred being great at many things rather than just one.

Stork spears the fish carried her to the eidolon.

The steel tip thrust into the back of his knee.

Perfect form.

Perfect technique.

Strengthened by a carefully controlled application of her Qi.

Gave her less than an inch of penetration.

The eidolon whirled and stomped through the spear’s wooden shaft.

She thrust the jagged end into his face as a distraction.

Her diminutive size allowed her to dive and roll between his legs with an axe kick to his most treasure possessions.

She’d teach him to wear proper protection.

Who wore skirts without underwear?

It was good to know that debased cultures existed on other worlds.

They were alien, but still people, which brought her comfort.

She could understand them and they her.

The impact rang out like hammer on anvil.

A wince crossed her face.

That had hurt her more than it had hurt him by the angry look on his perfect face.

“Like kicking iron,” she muttered as she continued her roll before he could crush her beneath his massive boot.

“Out of the way old cow!” the finely-robbed young master leapt in with tiger swipes the tall grass.

Twin, curved sabers carved an intricate dance against the eidolon’s fearsome shield.

“Fool! He welcomes your blows!”

Her warning was too late, not that the arrogant young master was likely to pay heed.

“Listen to your elders. Wisdom is earned with experience. Reflect Damage,” the eidolon smirked.

The young master cried out.

His white robes stained with the blood from dozens of cuts.

The eidolon front-kicked the young master in the chest, shooting him out of the building like a missile.

A finely-robbed old master abandoned his sneak attack to give chase, cloud-stepping for all he was worth.

“Are you not wanton destruction?” Grandmother said.

“I am… but what I am not is a mindless beast prone to rampages. There is a time and place for everything. Plus, I have yet to face a challenge to bring out that best part of me,” the eidolon said.

“Hrmm… I have heard it said that Sesre is no true god of war. He is but a pretender. There is only one god of war and her name is Salla.”

The eidolon’s gaze hardened.

“You know more than you should, old one.”

His amiable tone grew cold.

“Unfortunate for you, but I must know what else and how.”

“Then you must catch me first,” she turned to run.

A feint.

Cultivators dropped from concealment.

“Gaze of the Gorgon.”

A handful turned to stone.

Only one was strong enough to halt the effect.

“Inflame the Fires of War.”

Grandmother sought inner peace to combat the sudden frothing rage in her heart.

Many of the others failed to even try.

They attacked without heed for their personal safety or of their allies.

The eidolon blocked, deflected and reflected with his fearsome shield.

He parried, cut and thrust with his sword.

Fists and feet escaped from their owners’ possession.

Heads joined them.

Bodies were pierced and carved open.

A spear thrown from outside the building like a falling star exploded against the eidolon’s golden breastplate.

Grandmother was blown back, only quick hands and an exposed cable saved her from a short flight to the street hundreds of meters below.

She used the whipping cable to slingshot back into the boardroom.

Booted feet planted into the stunned eidolon’s perfect face.

Qi application let her hit with power that rivaled a cannonball.

A satisfying crunch filled her ears.

She flipped and cloud-stepped away from the eidolon’s hungry blade.

Like a serpent, that thing was.

So quick for such a giant.

The Verdant Viper darted in like her namesake in billowing green robes.

Her thin blade cut an almost imperceptible line across the eidolon’s exposed bicep.

The iridescent substance coating her blade’s edge went into effect quickly.

The eidolon grunted as the gold-tinged skin on his bicep blackened and bubbled.

“No mere poison or venom can harm me when Sesre’s divine gift flows through my veins.”

Light flared around the cut.

He flexed his bicep.

The bloodless cut remained blackened, but it no longer spread.

Grandmother glanced to the open sky where the winged eidolon remained locked in a deadly aerial duel with the fledgling phoenix prince.

She questioned the empress’ motherhood instincts to allow a boy not yet old enough to shave to face a deadly alien invader said to have the power of a god flowing through his veins.

Such recklessness, such shame.

She flipped, inverting and planting her boots on the ceiling, at least on what remained.

Green robes billowed in the wind as the Verdant Viper was sent falling to the ground by a single kick.

The eidolon fought without art.

His strikes were straightforward. Efficient.

She knew that most of cultivators would deny him the title of a true martial artist.

Such was their arrogance and foolishness.

What possible greater martial artist was there than the representative of a god of war?

The question of said godhood notwithstanding.

If anything one simply need look at the carnage surrounding the eidolon.

How many soldiers and cultivators lay dead at his feet?

A hundred?

It was difficult to count since many bodies were in pieces. While more had surely fallen through the many gaping holes in the floor.

Cultivators struck with balls of fire and arcs of lightning.

The eidolon’s fearsome shield swallowed them or he cut them out of the air.

The sword just like everything else he carried thrummed with power.

She could sense it as clear as she had felt the bonfire warming her hands with on the cold winter days of her youth.

“You!” the eidolon thrust his blade toward her.

An enterprising cultivator leapt in with spiked fists only to be shield slammed into the wall.

The sounds the young man made while the fearsome mouth sucked him dry until only a withered husk remained would stay with her for weeks.

“You spoke to the dragon follower. You know her. Where is she taking the princess? Tell me and I will let you live to serve Sesre.”

“No,” she said flatly.

“Come now, you only live because my aim isn’t destruction. Look around you. These are your best and I’ve rendered them into piles of meat.”

“It is said that when a true master fights mountains crumble in their wake. I don’t give the saying much regard. It stinks of arrogance and exaggeration. However, a building is nowhere near a mountain. I don’t know how you’d fair against a true master, but even the most blindly arrogant of the lot should’ve found some measure of enlightenment from observing you fight.”

“These aren’t your best? Then I call them craven and idiotic. They just watched as I killed,” he scoffed.

“Cultivators,” she shrugged, “care only for the advancement of their Dao. Lives are meaningless. Non-cultivators might as well be sheep. Not even a general matters to them in the end.”

“Such selfishness will lead to your world’s subjugation. I will grind you beneath my boot and teach the survivors the proper way to act.”

“Boring…”

The word was spoken with the same energy that Bei and Bai had whenever they complained about chores.

It sent a chill down Grandmother’s back even as her helmet beeped rising heat alarms.

“Yes, computer. I don’t need you to tell me!” she snapped.

“Another one,” the eidolon sighed. “I suppose I won’t have to track down the one I wounded since you’re so kind to present yourself as my new hostage.”

“Boring… and lame…”

The First Phoenix Princess, the empress’ only daughter, the same age as Bei, hovered outside the building.

A flaming corona of plasma in the shape of a bird that gave their dynasty its name surrounded her.

Silently, four other plasma-wreathed girls flew down to join the first.

The remaining cultivators fled, cloud stepping across the sky.

Grandmother cursed.

“Your cousin, sister, is still in the building!”

They gave no indication that they had heard.

She was a peasant to them.

Her existence wasn’t worth acknowledgment.

She leapt at the eidolon.

His blade lashed out, but it was more reflexive rather than deliberate when his attention was on the five fledgling phoenixes.

She stepped on it and ran up his massive arm, kicking him in the face, flipping over and using the back of his head as a springboard to launch herself to the elevator.

She pried the doors open and leapt down the shaft just as the phoenixes began their attack.

Personal duels had never been the arena in which he shined.

He had been a warrior and a mage once. At home in the thick of battle. Dealing death with a weapon in one hand and magic in the other.

In time he had become a warmage. Death came in larger quantities as he rained spells down on the enemy’s lines.

Decades had seen him rise through the ranks all the way into the command tent.

Sesre noticed him for victories won, acclaim garnered and the widespread devastation and destruction in his wake.

Eidolon of Sesre.

The true god of war, not that soft, dithering Salla.

And this so-called empire dared to send mere children at him.

Their blasts weren’t flame, though they created heat and fire. They were more akin to what one could find within the great burning orbs that brought light and life to the planets circling them like insects around a candle.

The semantics didn’t matter.

Only the effects.

His enchanted armor cracked.

His enchanted clothing burned.

Even his God-given endurance began to falter.

His skin smoldered while the children denied him the very air to breathe.

The gorgon shield was at the limit of its absorption powers.

The floor beneath him burned to ash.

He hopped back, sheathed his sword, pulled his spear from the wall and hurled it within two blinks of the eye.

The burning children cried out as one of their number plummeted to the street with the spear in her chest.

Four left.

He cast a dome of ice.

It cracked and melted almost immediately, but he grasped the moment to gulp down a deep breath that’d last him half an hour.

He stomped and dropped down to the lower floor.

Obscuring fires and smoke made it difficult to sight the children, but also made it difficult for them to see him.

He reached down and grabbed the corpse of one of the soldiers he had slain earlier.

The crack of broken air.

The brief tunnel in the smoke in the wake of his throw.

The children scattered.

One turned her so-called phoenix flames on the corpse.

She burned it to ash, but missed the axe behind it.

The frost-enchanted axe cut through her aura. Cut through her arm at the shoulder.

He shook his head.

His aim had been off.

Perhaps, he had been pushed harder than he’d willingly admit.

The child placed a hand on her bleeding stump, burning it closed.

He gave her a slight nod before the smoke obscured their sight once again.

These children had the grit of warriors decades older.

He relocated, plowing through a wall and headed deeper into the medium-sized structure.

Streams of burning plasma burst through the outer walls.

He dodged with the agility of a much smaller man and blocked with his shield when necessary.

Planting his shield into the floor for cover he dropped to one knee, drew shortbow and arrow and loosed.

Enchanted steelwood, slyph’s hair and a null heat arrowhead.

It broke the air, streaking through one of the holes burned through the wall.

Another child fell away, clutching the arrow in her gut.

He emptied his quiver, but the remaining children had already scattered.

He stomped down several floors until he reached a much larger space filled greenery and a gaping opening to the sky.

Many tables and chairs sat amidst the lawns.

He hadn’t expected to see such a sight within a structure of metal and glass.

He supposed having eateries this high up would save the humans of this world a longer trip down to the ground level.

The space was empty.

Half-eaten plates sat on the tables amidst spilled cups.

He took a small measure of pride that he alone had caused them to flee.

A child came burning around the corner of the gaping opening.

The one-armed one.

He saluted her with his sword. “Respect,” he nodded.

She replied with a wordless cry and a stream of concentrated plasma.

He blocked with the gorgon shield.

Threw his sword.

She dived under.

He kicked a table up, knocking her to the floor.

The sword returned to his outstretched hand.

He had to be mindful of his remaining weaponry.

His spear and axe were too far away for the recall enchantment.

He strode like an Unstoppable Colossus toward the downed child.

She spat blood, struggling to rise.

He raised his sword.

“Brave child. A true warrior. Under other circumstances I’d take you as hostage. Turn you to our side, but things have escaped from my control and I must return to my command before it falls completely apart. And so, I grant you a warrior’s death.”

A bright, burning beam of plasma took him in the back, sending him flying into one of the small eateries set along the edges of the space.

“Peasant! How dare you strike at a phoenix!”

Another child.

Older.

Her clothing was torn at the shoulder revealing burned skin.

Ah.

The one he had intended to take hostage at the beginning of this whole debacle.

“As you can see,” he clambered out, brushing broken glass out of his hair, “your indignation is too late,” he nodded to the downed child’s missing arm. “Beyond that, I believe I’ve felled two of your sisters. Black hair, younger then you. But, I must confess. Standard humans do tend to look the same to me regardless of the variance across the infinite worlds.”

Juggernaut’s Charge!

The floor broke beneath his boots.

He moved much quicker with the Skill.

The wounded child screamed as she poured plasma over him.

The gorgon shield kept him alive.

The stream cut out.

He saw the whites of her eyes as his shadow loomed over her like a toppling building.

Fitting.

He suspected that he’d need to bring the building down to cover his escape in any case.

“Dragon Leap! Dragon Dive!”

Great weight on his back bore him to the floor.

The child dived to the side.

Stinging pain entered his back through his cracked golden armor.

“For the president!”

The dragon spike topping the child’s poleaxe slipped between his ribs and entered his lung.

He roared, shaking her off like a behemoth does an annoying giant blood shrike.

“You shouldn’t have returned. I no longer have the time to indulge in mercy.”

“Yeah… well… um… I didn’t want to… she made me do it.” The child clad in gleaming cerulean dragonscale shot a dirty look at the older phoenix child.

He moved in a blur.

She closed her eyes and swung her poleaxe with all her might.

He stopped just outside the wild swing and cut with his sword.

To his surprise, she parried it with a spin of her poleaxe.

He raised his shield.

“Gaze of the Gorgon.”

She turned away in alarm.

“Foolish child. Titan’s Strike.”

He shattered the scales protecting her chest with a single blow.

She bounced off the floor, spitting blood.

“Give me your name. I will add it to my history. Not for your skill or ability, but for your bravery.”

“Fuck… off… weirdo…”

“The choice was yours.”

He raised his boot and brought it down with the weight of an entire army.