"Before we begin, I'd like to introduce you to someone."

I followed Grandpa Lich's gesture to the shadows pooling at the edge of the clearing, where a porcelain hand breached the umbral shores to grasp the grass-like moss and pull a gleaming head of polished bone from the abyss. It was uncannily doll-like, with shadows for hair, tied in a tight ponytail to expose the contours of a gaunt visage I recognized at once. Encased in bone like an insect's exoskeleton, the contours of the biceps and deltoids never bulged as the body followed, covered in a sleeveless robe of darkness like that of my devils.

"This is the Bone Boy," Grandpa Lich- Ev said. "Your father's doppelganger, encased in enchanted armor. And behind him, a fraction of his army."

Shifting my gaze behind the skeletal doll, I saw several companies of anatomically correct skeletons stepping from behind the trees, each radiating my father's bone magic, infused and fueled by his sorcerous darkness.

"Do you remember what they called you at the end of your awakening ceremony?"

"The Black Magus," I grinned, turning back to Ev. "I admit to liking the moniker."

"Moniker." He harrumphed. "While granted by the Associations, it's more than a mere name or rank. It is a title! And titles come with perks!"

"Perks." I tilted my head.

"Release your undead and observe."

I did as asked and opened my shadow, spreading an umbral pool that spat out my skeletons, zombies, higher undead, and undying shadows; each saluting me with reverence until something within them pulsed. Their salutes fell as the necrotic wave ebbed toward Ev, mixing the vibrant color of my arcana with the smoky color of his mana before it flowed back into them, straightening their postures into more regal states.

"While the rank is given by the Association or another of equal stature in recognition for your actions, the title is granted by mana itself. Yet, the perks reflect both the reasons for gaining the rank and the title itself. I, for example, became a magus by sharing the knowledge the Youteran elves gave to us. So, while being called the Necro King makes all undead in my presence become worthy of serving a king, it also cements the knowledge the elves gave us in my mind. Down to the finest detail."

"I see." I nodded, wondering what sort of perks would be granted from the title used for me.

"That is not what concerns you, however." Ev grunted. "Getting there is. To become a Magus, one must change the course of history and master the fusion of magic and might. Considering the fate of this Tree, I'd say you're well on your way to changing history. If not in the coming years, then certainly when you return to Maru. And so, it's time for you to show the result of your training at Corvus Tower and begin fighting like a Magus. You and your Legions."

Grinning madly, I clasped my fist before my chest and bowed. "I accept the challenge."

"I will test you first." He growled.

Nodding, I waved to the others and felt them streaking through the forest, spreading themselves across the surrounding several kilometers. But none more so than Ed, Jaimess, and Toril. Even then, however, Ev's words echoed in their ears. "Those who bear our mark must be accepted by death and dark. In darkness, we dwell; in death's embrace, we develop. Observe and then prove my great-grandson has taught you this lesson."

The words had hardly been spent before the ground shattered beneath Ev, and his visage flickered from sight. Drawing the ambient arcana into myself to cycle through my paths and bolster my cells, my perception of time ground down and I rushed forward to meet him, crossing dozens of meters before his form flickered into view just before me, his massive fist poised overhead like a meteor. Stepping in, I grabbed his arm and pivoted, casually flipping his bulking form onto the ground with my fist in pursuit, compressing a bow shock of air before my knuckles until it impacted Ev's dense flesh with a ground-cracking boom.

It was a blow that would've downed most people I've faced thus far. But against my great-grandfather, it may as well have been a slap. Despite the cloud of dust and pollen surrounding the crater I'd made, I could see Ev's bear paw of a hand clenching my fist just as easily as I could feel my fingers being crushed in his grasp.

Cackling madly, Ev pushed against the ground with his free hand and launched himself upward, hurling me into the air with ease. "You've gotten much stronger!" His maddened laugh plagued my senses a moment later. "But you've still got a long way to go!"

"So you think!" I sneered, releasing a burst of ki from my feet as I kicked off the air, rocketing me towards Ev just as his uppercut raked the ground on its path to me. Our punches collided like an explosion, burying Ev's feet into the ground and bouncing me high into the air, where I flipped to kick off the wind and skip around to Ev's flanks, only for a distant pressure to envelop my leg and crush it as vertigo overtook me.

I poured my will into the ambient mana and my arms went into action as I arced over Ev's head, displacing a pocket of air to merge with my mana cushion and lurch me to a halt just above the ground; and right in the path of Ev's boot. Though I blocked, the power of his kick still fractured my arms on its way through my body, flinging me across the clearing with graceful flips until I righted myself and slid to a halt to see Ev's boyish grin shining like my moon.

"Lesson one!" He boomed. "There is no such thing as collateral damage, for anyone who opposes a Magus should make the same preparations as when fighting a great nation. More importantly, you are the Sovereign of Death for all mortals on this Plane, and a Grandmaster Artificer to boot. The lands you destroy can be rebuilt as easily as the dead are raised." Punctuating his words was the flaring of his affinity core, akin to an abyssal lake that spread through his physiology like a toxin, rather than flowed, causing hot, bubbling tar to seep from his blackened fist. And with a feral roar, it fell like a meteor, cratering the ground with a web of cracks that gushed a sea of bubbling tar, morphed into countless reaching hands that grimly reminded me of Death's Yard.

Leaping into the air, I sent arcana flowing through the electrical side of my EM core, jabbing out four bolts that struck harmlessly against the ground as they chased Ev's afterimage.

"Lesson two! Cast proper spells!" The sound reached my ears an instant after Ev's hulking form appeared before me, his bubbling, boiling fists poised high and low.

Shifting the flow of my arcana, I withdrew gravitational mana and sent it down the paths to my fists as I slipped through each meteoric blow, letting the grazing tar slide off my mana skin before I lashed out with Terminal Ferocity. Accelerated by the relentless pull of gravity, my fist fell into Ev's forearm and collapsed his deformed limb into his chest, spreading the arcana through his body in an instant.

His body lurched uncannily from the blow and rocketed away, pulled into the canopy at an increasing pace, chased by me. His cackling rose to a crescendo as the overbearing dark forest of Vruria enshrouded my peripherals. His form, littered and impaled with sticks and other debris, danced behind the brush with increasing frequency until, without warning, his maddened scream erupted from my shadow.

Caught in mid-skip atop a branch, I turned to see the hulking clone of my great grandfather floating above me, his eyes glowing with a gray malevolence that partially matched the energy infused into his fist, held high and sparking with a necrotic power that reminded me of those great doors in that deep pit I envisioned in Nydorden.

My block was nothing against the Necro King's smiting blow. My arm collapsed into the right side of my torso, crushing ribs, shattering organs, and spreading a pain like I'd never felt before as the shockwave reverberated throughout my body, eventually overloading the limits of my flesh and releasing the excess energy out my back, launching me into the ground to leave a deep crater with me at the center.

"Goddamn!" I gasped, feeling my mangled jaw swinging beneath my skull, the cold air rushing through my blown out back, and the mangled bits of my arm as I staggered to my feet. "That fucking hurt!"

"Impressive!" he beamed. "You too have become a living lich!"

"Yeah." I grinned as the necrotic fires of ki surged through my chest and back, acting as muscles and ligaments to regain and enhance the functionality of my broken body.

"Lesson two. A magus always fights at full strength! For using cannons to hunt lions is how you keep rats in the corner!" Rolling his hand, Ev taunted me as if he wanted to see what I so often hid. And so, for the first time in my life, I obliged.

Focusing a sliver of my mental power into two points above, I condensed and congealed the ambient arcana into a pair of dexterous hands before unsheathing my scimitars and tossing them skyward. The hardly perceptible arcane hands settled around my shoulders a moment later, flourishing the blades tauntingly as I tossed the original Shadowsteel Reaper to my right, mirrored by the Owl, flipping off my left shoulder to discard his cowl and mask and land with my old daggers in hand, raised in a fighting position. Simultaneously, my fingers flicked to the right, willing my pocket of shadow to open and give rise to the Phantom Armor, assembling itself piece by piece from the gauntlet gripped around the Shadowsteel Reaper.

After settling into my stance, I let the floodgates open and felt my ki surge, wreathing me in a robe of sea green ethereal fire that oppressed the ambience with a wave of malevolent pressure.

"Scary." He grinned madly. "Or so you think!"

Stomping into a wide stance, Ev raised his fists high and clenched into a squat, erupting a feral roar that sent his spirit ablaze. The veins on his brow bulged as his eyes rolled into the back of his head, as if pushed by the nefarious heat of his rage billowing off his form. His body shimmered akin to a mirage as his scream simmered to a growl, and then he lunged, flattening the surrounding flora and barreling through trees as his fist raised overhead.

Backpedaling with haste, I launched into the air just as Ev's fist slammed into the ground, cratering it with another cracked pit of tar that gushed as his fist plunged deeper with his momentum. Kicking off the air, I front flipped into an axe kick and watched in disbelief as Ev's form flickered to match my superpowered pace, lifting his arm in the path of my kick while ignoring the arcane hands, going into action with gouging sweeps across his back.

The blades of my scimitars met geysers of simmering tar that ground them to a halt mid-stroke, veritably closing the window sought to be exploited by my clone and the phantom knight, rushing in with low sweeps of the Reaper and crossed daggers aimed for his neck. But Ev stood fast, ignoring the Reaper raking his legs and outright tanking the shanking blows to his throat, instead purging the raging heat of his spirit with a ferocious roar.

"RAH!" As if wielded by Jonet, the war cry compressed a dense wall of air to oppose us all. My clone, Numa, was sent tumbling into a quick recovery while the phantom knight gouged deep trenches in the ground as it fought to stay upright. Pulling a hand out of aunt Etyl's book, only I landed in a low stance, knife hands formed into a wedge I thrust into the shockwave and cackled as the bow shock tore the skin off my fingers, then cackled more once an idea raced through my mind.

Parting my arms to disperse the shockwave and backpedaling, I formed a bull sign in my left hand as my right fist cocked back, gathering ki while the mental image of a raging bull sent gravitational arcana surging through the circuits into my left hand, surging it through the bull sign before it cascaded down my right arm as it lashed out.

While the punch itself didn't make contact at this distance, it wasn't meant to. The sea green ki within my fist released like a loose fireball and congealed with the gravitational arcana that followed, manifesting as a skeletal bull of violet bones and necrotic rage that dipped, poised its swept-forward horns at Ev, and charged.

For the second time in my life, I saw the Necro King's eyes widen in surprise before those violet horns pierced his chest and the bull surged, vaporizing itself into a cascade of energy that sank into his body to send him flying comically through the dark forest, neither flipping, rolling, yawing nor spinning as his cackles grew more distant. "Now that's a spell! Well done! I- ough!"

I glimpsed a great tree toppling on its side as I darted behind him, bobbing and dipping as if the bull was still thrashing him, spewing ectoplasmic blood across greater parts of the forest as his speed increased further. Yet he still did not spin. Ev faced me, grinning as he barreled through the brush with fists dripping tar. Cackling madly, he swung out wild hooks in all directions, releasing bundles of necrotic tar to morph into buzzards and vultures as they soared and rolled, arcing around to my flanks to explode like flak and create a thick bombardment as I darted him, Numa at my side and my arcane hands above, chased by the phantom knight.

Being reminded of Ev's words, I opened the cap on my cursed well and threw 100 souls into the ancient armor while willing a pocket to open from his shadow, allowing a horned horse of umbral fur and sea green hooves to rise and lift the empowered knight onto his saddle and rear on his hind legs as the phantasmal wisps funneled into its rider. Numa donned the Owl's vestiges as the phantom knight assaulted my great-grandfather, relying on Carbury's use of the druidic arts to skip through tree after tree until the Owl's sweeping slashes allowed him to charge.

"Hah!" Just like your father!" Ev cackled.

Speaking of the skeletal devil…

I had just landed on a branch and leaped off when I spotted it- the doll-like face of my father's clone, poised to strike at my neck.

Though I noticed, I couldn't block the thin shard from sinking into the crook above my collarbone, nor could I negate the surge of mana that followed as the rogue's Stealthy Strike perk activated, injecting a sharp, searing heat into my heart that seemed to explode as the mana rippled through my body, silencing both the attack and the gushing sounds of blood and air spewing from the wound.

Another shock came as I tumbled to the forest floor, born from the thin bone shard burrowing deeper and splitting into jagged hooks that splintered and burrowed evermore. I bounced to a halt in the sorriest state I'd ever found myself, debilitated and immobile by the countless splinters in my chest cavity, growing and splintering and growing and splintering, meekly watching Ev beckon the troupe to engage him while the feelings of pride, surprise, wonder, and reassurance roiled within my spirit.

Accepting the challenge, I sent a surge of entropy through my flesh to void the bone needles embedded within me, bolstered my flesh, drew my fangs, and released a surge of ki to Skip with the Wind, dancing across the air on a matching trajectory as the Bone Boy to see how fast my old man could go.

I reached my top speed within moments, and he remained beside me with ease, keeping pace with my leaping and vaulting through the flora to sweep, thrust, and strike at me mid-step. Carried by our momentum, we were comparable to a pair of vessels in spaceflight, the way we focused only on our velocity, relative to each other. Our agility and dexterity, superpowered to their bolstered limits, reduced the blurred environment that would have been into a lazily moving backdrop that served as stepping stones for our rapid dashes, hasty dodges, close blocks, and immediate counters, clocked by outside observers at speeds exceeding 2 kilometers a second.

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Though I could match and even give more than my father's clone threw down, the small bone splinters of his dirks still grew, split, and dug into my body to disrupt my movements. But with the woodline of eastern Vruria in sight, I had my chance.

Flipping to invert myself and land on the ventral side of the last passing branch, I kicked off, slashing my scimitar down from overhead to clang against the blade of my father. Adding force to the follow through, I felt my body lurch as my momentum reversed and I effectively jumped, rising away from the child of bone with a horizontal swipe of my left blade to cover me, but he was faster, slipping through my assault to thrust his dirk in my shoulder.

The growth expanded in a flash, throwing me into a cartwheeling spin while I sent a surge of the void through my body once again. The bone child was upon me the moment the infinite night waned, however, poised above my shoulder to stab me in the eye the moment the void was cleared. Swiping behind me and flipping, I voided the injuries once again and sent a surge of ki through my feet and kicked, propelling myself toward my father's doll with a larger mass of ki gathered in my core, ready to shoot down my arm at first contact with his bone-plated chest.

The sum of my strength coupled with the lack of footholds on my father's part saw the bone child rocket across the plains of Vruria once my fist slammed into his sternum, even without the aid of ki or gravitational mana. With them, he fell and tumbled and hurtled away at an increasing pace until he was forced to dip into the night. But by then, I'd gained the bearings to realize we'd traveled thousands of kilometers, being just beyond the border of Ligin and the raging storms Toril emplaced above them, conjuring an idea in my mind just as my old man disappeared.

Taking a page out of Grandpa Azrael's book, I visualized a feral wolf pack as lightning mana was merged with a stream of darkness and poured into my throat, fueling the power of dark lightning into me, incanting. "Purple Pack."

As if chasing the words, a dozen vacuoles released from my spirit, ejecting from my head to arc up and shift into a pack of snarling wolves as they fell. Their bodies were like black leather with open bellies and exposed ribs that glowed with the same violet radiance as their open maws, akin to Toril's gaseous lightning, only darker.

"Happy hunting." I grinned, sending mental images of my father's clone in the same way I would my undead. A gamble, yet they took off in streaks of lightning all the same. As did I, in a different direction, and in a different manner.

Riding the high of battle, I sent a stream of electrical arcana arcing down to my feet while my eyes canted above, creating an imbalance in the roiling clouds that sought correction through a massive bolt of lightning I flipped onto at once, landing with my feet centered on the bolt to be sent rocketing upwards like a skateboarder grinding on a rail.

With the rolling plains receding behind me and the striated clouds looming ahead, I cast my senses out to the wider peninsula and caught what I assumed would be the final stages of Ev's fight against my Troupe near the Ligin border. But what I found was Ev, on a knee with a pleading face aimed at Iris. "Wait!" His hand rose as if in surrender.

Scowling in disgust, Iris rose into the air on her winged arms and transmuted gravitational mana into her feet before lashing out with both talons, causing her to fall into his face feet-first, and at tremendous speed. But of course, Ev laughed in the face of the small shockwave.

"Wahahaha!" He roared, swinging a back fist that hurled her through a tree before leaping after her.

As quickly as he faded into the woodline, however, the hulking form of my great-grandfather's clone came hurtling out. And walking him down was none other than Ed, emerging from the woodline with the crimson eyelets of his Grim Gear shining brightly.

Noticing my father's clone engaging the troupe, I invested my full attention on the battle below; and just in time to see Ed summon his new weapon in hand; a gear-axe with a hammer on the side, ingrained with F=MA.

Grinning wide in the face of the challenge, Ev dipped low and charged, his great axe reared back for a fatal blow. Ed surprised him and me alike with his speed, augmented to the nth degree and enhanced further by the comically large torch roaring to life from his hammerhead.

Their blows battered the countryside like a great gong banged triply in quick succession. Yet that was the extent of Ed's training against my great-grandfather's centuries of experience. Much to Ev's soon to be surprise, however, his experience meant little in the face of my technology.

Blown back from Ev's gut punch, Ed tumbled against the ground, raking the dirt with his hands until his momentum halted and he stood to plant his axe firmly in the ground. Ev tilted his head with interest, and I leaned forward in anticipation while Ed reached for his right wrist and pulled as if he were taking off a glove. While Ed's gauntlet remained on, his hand glowed with an arcane light while the arcana between them congealed, condensing into a massive arcane hand that followed Ed's movements as he raised his hand and snapped.

A draconic screech trailed in the wake of that echoing snap, rising in pitch with the blazing light of Ed's torch magic, imbued into that same hand before it slammed down on my great grandfather in one swift motion. Ev, however, was undeterred. Even as his skin charred and flaked off the bone, he squatted against the oppressive conflagration, condensing mana in his core until it ballooned into a roiling bubble of tar, hissing and spitting as it vaporized corruptive noxious fumes.

Rising and reeling back his hand, Ed snapped again, snuffing the flames into a hand of pure ash that exposed Ev to the air for the split second it took Ed to snap and swing out a back fist.

The so-called Master Hand shimmered as the transformation took hold, turning it into a giant's fist of pure tungsten before it slammed into Ev's body, flinging it high into the sky, where it was intercepted by a gleaming bolt of cobalt-blue light erupting from the mountains.

Chasing the blade of his axe, Toril descended upon Ev with a smiting roar that blew apart the clouds entirely, snuffing out Toril's storm in favor of the dark clouds billowing from my great-grandfather's cowl. From those clouds came a familiar sight. A semi-rotted serpent that coiled high and fast through the skies on looping passes around my paladin, poised with his axe held high, for his storms could never be snuffed, no matter how calm it seemed.

Toril's Undying Tempest released with no crack of lightning or righteous roar, but a ghostly wail that withered every thundercloud above the peninsula, charging the stilled air with a cobalt-green energy that popped, sparked, and discharged without end.

While the unpowered eye couldn't see it, I could easily see Toril appearing in a shower of sparks along the sky serpent's body, his weighted axe poised to transfer his giant-like strength into explosive energy targeted at a single scale; and in another shower of sparks he was gone, hundreds of meters away from the missed swing of my great grandfather.

For what it was worth, Ev skipped along on compressed jets of punched air and umbral clouds, giving chase to Toril while evading the paragon tempest griffon at his heels. But not even he could surpass Toril in his divine domain, aided in power by my Divine Sea to increase the potency of his explosions and dismantle the sky serpent piece by piece, all while switching with his tempest griffon to engage Ev.

Their last engagement saw Ev fall, with Toril rising to meet him in a thunderous clash of adamantine on adamantine. But then the wind took them. The dispersing clouds of Toril's gas magic yielded to a great geyser of air spawning from below to pull Ev skyward. He hardly fought against the turbulence, instead carelessly tumbling and rolling above the clouds, proudly cackling in the face of Toril's waning domain until he was brought face to face with Duke's predacious beak. Then he roared.

Ev's raging scowl spat tempestuous clouds of shadow and tar that took to the raging winds in a flash, dispersing a deluge of undead across the stratosphere. Skeletons showered and zombies hailed amidst clouded conglomerations of undying shadows, scattered by the raging winds born from another sky serpent. The umbral veil of the wraith form overtook Ev as he lunged, his cruel axe charged with that familiar necrotic energy. Eyes widening in mid-flap, Duke somersaulted into a kick and launched off the wake of his sonic boom, distancing himself from the divine domain with the quickness of lightning; just as Ev planned, much to his detriment.

Relying on larger versions of his homing buzzards to keep Duke occupied while his domain, a bubbling, semi-transparent cage of death and tar, usurped the skies from the Thunder Strider, he remained unaware of Duke's Raphew, clutched in his talons as he dove, rolled, and dodged the assault, glowed with subsequent waves of cobalt, white, and blue as a war spell was crafted within its core - an arcane lightning bullet, shrouded in a shell of air and covered in a veil of water that froze into a sabot of ice as it was aimed at my great-grandfather. Then he grew curious.

It released like a cannon shot rather than a rifle, screeching like a dragon as it arced through the air to burrow into Ev's domain. Shards of ice dispersed at the threshold while a spear of air sent the spell's core streaking to its target, the former sacrificing themselves to negate the necrotic buzzards sent to hinder their flight path, until all that was left was that ice sabot, oversized and imbued with enough electrical energy to harm even a magus.

For once, I heard my great-grandfather cry out in apparent pain - apparent, if only because of his fickle nature, for an endless stream of cackles chased the lightning bolt that erupted from his form, carrying him higher and higher until he was released at the sky's edge, another bolt in flashing pursuit. His cackles yielded to the thinning air as he focused on Duke, riding the lightning to drive his charged talons into Ev's spine with a crack that echoed to the ground.

Exposed to evening sun, Ev could only be carried into the void above by his momentum, relegating him to watch the more altruistic of my first two clerics, poised before Mani in prayer to guide its silvery blue light into her mace while she screamed with the zeal of an immortal fanatic, echoing across the void until she dispersed into a cascading stream of glimmering light that flowed in the wake of her weapon, falling toward Ev like a great comet.

The ensuing shockwave would have surpassed all those I'd heard thus far combined, were it in the atmosphere. But all there was were a dazzling display of light, coupled with the illusory remnants of moonlight persisting around Ev's frame as he shot down to the mortal plane like a meteor, comical stars and other motifs orbiting his skull as if to keep him in a daze.

Like a spacecraft in reentry, Ev's return to the Mortal Plane's skies was announced with a ground-quaking boom. But unlike those craft, another boom echoed its sentiment. Wreathed in a veil of celestial light, Lucia chased him. Through his wraith form and by simply attacking the air, he pushed himself through the deluge of her bladed feathers while she used her speed to engage him in short combos and distance herself in a dizzyingly elegant display, lasting until the upper layers of the clouds stroked her wings, wherein she spread them to ascend once more.

Rather than Toril awaiting Ev in the clouds, it was Jaimess, using his blistering speed to surpass his Tengu's prowess by delivering six rapid blows compared to their two each. The flurry of blows, banging against the air like drums, blew Ev away in the same way as Jaimess when he faced the tengu. But unlike then, Ev countered with wild swings of compressed air that threw himself around as much as Jaimess, attempting the same close and long range, hit-and-run tactics as Lucia, until Ev's tempestuous punches launched him on an intercept course to Jaimess.

Caught by a ferocious hook, Jaimess rag-dolled against my great-grandfather's fist before being blown away, his body whistling through the air until it dented a deep crater in the Rharian Mountains. And while he was seen moving amids the rockfall thereafter, an eruption in the background caught my attention.

The verdant peak bled from all sides before it erupted with a roar, ejecting a meteoric volley toward Ev that contained Roheisa's unbridled rage, bellowing with the throbbing tune of her spiritual heart. As her weapon drew back at her apex, her helm slammed on her head, forcing her spirit to release a torrent of molten steel and magma from her body. Those fluids engorged her body like a slime while the crystals erupting from her spirit contained them, forcing them to flow within the winged form of her armor and be sent undulating from her legs as she fell, crashing her blades down into Ev's axe.

With the surprise and advantageous position, Ev had no choice but to hold his block and fall while cackling madly in the face of Roheisa's prowess. The magma, steel, and crystals still undulating off her form flowed from her legs as they plummeted, forming a gargantuan serpentine tail to crash and burst atop the Rharian mountains once they finally made landfall. Great floods of molten steel and lava oozed down the mountain like heavy rains on a staircase, the massive crystal deposits floating atop it like leaves while the relatively small beings within remained devoted toward fulfilling nature's demand for dominance.

Bolstered by her rage and her volcanic domain, Roheisa stood toe to toe against Ev in the same way I had, battering the air and lands with their superpowered displays of strength. But against a living lich who fought alongside her father for centuries, Roheisa's efforts were hardly enough.

Uncaring of the blistering heat, Ev allowed his flesh to burn and be replaced with boiling tar as he knelt low and charged, disappearing in a flash that blew fanning waves of lava, molten steel, obsidian, and igneous rocks over the lands, nearly occluding the crack of his titanic blow knocking Roheisa across the Rharian countryside. But much to Ev's surprise, her lava went with her.

As if carried by the winds now picking up, Ev's gaze snapped toward Peter, putting his fans in an elegant dance that swept the heat away from Roheisa's lava, turning it into a sadistic wind that cut against Ev as he turned his momentum toward Peter. Rising, dipping, and flourishing in his dance, Peter's ki and arcana took hold of the surrounding earth, pulling and molding the upturned boulders into a menagerie of bears, badgers, and horses that hurled themselves at my great-grandfather with wild abandon.

For his part, Ev kept his distance, relying on the same tactics he used above to punch and kick destructive shockwaves at Peter, Skipping with the Wind to evade and redirect his projected shockwaves into tempestuous winds, snaking streams of water, and raging beasts of fire, eventually creating a war of terraformation until they reached the base of the Rharian mountains.

The great crash of Ev's landing was lost in the mix of stone beasts and whips of dust and mud, acting to conceal Peter's descending axe kick. Yet Ev's experience was boundless. As if on instinct, he casually backpedaled away from Peter's ground-cratering blow, grinning madly as the fires of Peter's ki fed the shockwave's energy into the earth. Fed by the synergy, Peter's Boulder Magic flowed into the ringed herd of elephants rising from his crater's lips to charge in every direction. With that aid of energy, the herd raised their collective trunks and spewed a muddied cement-like mix amidst the shockwave as if to cover Peter's zenith while he rushed behind them. Yet when the stone beasts broke and burst, Peter was far more surprised than I to find Ev's fist punching through the dust, catching him cleanly in the sternum.

Peter crumpled like Roheisa and was blown into the distance like a human cannonball, but not before the fading embers of his ki pulled a biblical flood from his spirit, and without hesitation, Hogaz dove into it, coming upon Ev in an instant by virtue of the Lunarian Crown. With his relatively limited manipulation ability, my great-grandfather's clone could hardly fight against the raging current sweeping him further east; much less the half-orc, putting his falchion through dexterous motions as if he were on the surface.

His dance ended when Ev's roar corrupted the river with boiling tar. Drowning in the scalding liquid, Hogaz dispersed himself into a lunar mist and teleported above the roiling pond, where he fell with his blade reared back to clash against Ev's axe. It cleaved straight through his falchion and proceeded to dig through Hogaz's armor with ease, causing a spray of silvery-blue mist to consume Hogaz's form and see Ev's blade pass harmlessly through. The mist condensed around Ev in the next instant, flowing through his flesh to fill his eyes with the illusory essence of my light.

Knowing the real Hogaz was somewhere within the deluge of illusory visages, Ev did was any barbarian or paladin would do and released a potent shockwave to decimate his surroundings. But Hogaz wasn't as ill-experienced as Ev seemed to think. With the moonlight within Ev acting as a beacon, Hogaz, floating high above, pointed his blade at the darkening sky, opening a conduit that turned the light to a sparkling rain.

The tar, once seeping and boiling, dispersed in scattered spots as gleaming puddles replaced it with increasing ferocity. Ev, impressed by the display, cratered the ground as he leapt away, aiming for Hogaz with no knowledge or care for the puddles of lunar water rushing into the newly formed depression to change phases and erupt as a spear of semi-solid light.

As the blades of my light impaled Ev's body from below, the Legion's lord of lords descended from the clouds, mounted atop his draconic beast of blood and shadow with a great sword of similar likeness poised overhead. Roaring away the burning cold of my radiance, Ev released his umbral clouds in bellows, spawning a horse fit for a death knight that rode toward the sky on plumes of shadow, supporting an equally great sword on its path to clash against Elijah.

Again and again, they looped and clashed on sweeping trails across eastern Rhar, raining umbral ichor and gloom amidst the soon to be tarnished lands until one clash triumphed overall.

Akin to his peers, Elijah felt the breath of despair as he watched his guard crumple beneath Ev's seemingly infinite strength. Then he was thrown, rocketing toward the ground like a missile deployed from a fighter. A missile that exploded into a cloud of darkness, bearing several motes of light.

The center-most light, bright and radiant like a star, ejected from the darkness as a veritable beam; a spear, long enough to act as a hyper lane for the armored shadow ave and the vampyr riding him, guiding the bolts and bullets orbiting her stellar lance like a fleet of asteroids aimed at Ev's readying stance. The more wicked of my first two clerics sang her praise for the Owl as her lance shone ever brighter, pulling a swirling vortex of shadows around the greater spear as Karu leapt from its edge, cawing with the crazed zeal of a battle-crazed beast, uncaring or unfearing of my great grandfather's great sword rushing forth to meet him.

While their clash was hardly thunderous, Ev's ensuing scream surpassed all those I'd heard thus far combined, for it was not born from his wrath. Instead, our darkness worked to buffer his blade while my divine light skewered his umbral frame from end to end. Though the buffer was hardly wide enough. That great blade, buried in a dense pillow of darkness, carried its momentum through to Opal's armor with devastating force, flinging her back to the ground at half the stellar speed at which she ascended. And yet, the moment she was blown into the shadows below, I appeared from above, spear in hand and hastily poised to strike my great-grandfather's prideful expression, fearing what would come after his palm raised in response.

"HOLD!" he bellowed, bringing about the subduing waves of disappointment as I landed before his wide grin. "Well fought."

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