So. It sounds like the ascendant is looking for me, but he’s not expecting me to arrive so early. That lines up with Holiday’s surprise at our good fortune of finding a veil vulnerability within a day of flying.

“Now, as I was saying, you chose the wrong way,” Messeras continues, the enemy’s attack failing to force his retreat. “The veil is weak enough to pierce a few minutes South of my house; for reference, that’s just about opposite the direction you went. Meet me above the canopy, now.”

Though my wyrm is currently acting as a diversion, I now have enough bones in my void storage to create another. I manually control the assembling bone pieces to send the wyrm–and myself–toward the tree line. By the time I crest the trees the wyrm is complete.

Messeras appears like lightning, seeming to teleport to my unaided eyes. I didn’t even catch him entering my range: One moment he’s hundreds of feet away, the next right in front of me.

Ascendants...can be terrifying.

I gesture to the wyrm. “Can you speed this construct up?”

Messeras blinks, then hops next to me on the wyrm without a word, raising an eyebrow. “Is that even a question? Are we going or not?”

The wyrm flares with violet light before zipping back toward the bungalow. Almost as soon as it starts moving, it surges forward on a pinpointed tailwind that accelerates us so fast, I nearly pass out.

Unlike before–when I went at a slower pace under the canopy–I’m unable to extend my bone-studded vine through the trees. While I know we’re traveling over ground I’ve already covered, eventually we’ll fly past the bungalow. At that point I’ll have no way of trying to control my constructs from a distance if I die and revive far away.

No use worrying about that at this point. I try to stay conscious as the wyrm flies, urgent questions forgotten. We must have flown past the bungalow already, passing far into southern territory. When we decelerate, the tailwind petering out, I breathe a sigh of relief.

“Are we–?”

Messeras’ grim expression shuts me up. “Damn.” He cranes his head skyward, eyes narrowing. I follow his gaze and feel my stomach grow cold.

In the sky far above us, barely a dark smudge against the light of the setting star...is the ascendant. He’s so far away that I can’t sense him with my vitality. I only notice him because he’s the only blemish on the cloudless heavens.

“This...isn’t good,” Messeras whispers.

“I know you told your friend to set up a decoy to get away,” the enemy ascendant bellows, his voice barely audible. “But what are the chances your friend, and the person I’m looking for, are both necromancers?”

“Not good, not good at all...” Messeras shoots me a concerned, questioning look as he hops off the wyrm’s back, all the while sending a harsh blast of wind at our opponent. I’m still not sure what Messeras’ angle is: He’s clearly helping me, but I refuse to believe he’s going all out. Is he trying to avoid damaging the jungle?

Thanks, Messeras, I think to myself. Helpful. What can I do in this situation? I could try to get away, get as close as I can to the bungalow so I can try to reclaim my items after I die.

The enemy ascendant’s eyes flash red and his hand stretches out. His fingertips begin to fizzle with scarlet energy, his hand visibly straining against Messeras’ wind assault.

I don’t want to get hit by the same kind of fiery blast that cut through the forest earlier. He didn’t just set the forest on fire: He created a horizontal laser that sliced the tops right off the trees. With that kind of control, the man can easily disable me while keeping me conscious. And if he disables me, he’ll be able to knock me out and bring me anywhere.

If Euryphel were here, I would know exactly what I need to do; the prince leaves no room for error. But Euryphel isn’t here. You chose not to bring him. Considering Maria’s fate, it was absolutely the right choice...but as I stand in the crosshairs of two powerful ascendants, I can’t help but wish Eury were by my side. A bittersweet vision flits through my mind: the two of us, unstoppable, simultaneously taking on a foreign country and an ascendant.

“You need to get out of here now,” Messeras whispers. “I’ll try to hold him off again, misdirect him. I know it might be hard, but it’s probably best you–”

Messeras has told me everything I needed to hear. The bats swoop in to take my loose soul gems, swallowing them whole. The riftbeast soul gem is barely able to fit down one’s gullet, but it’s able to artificially unhinge and expand its jaw to get the job done.

I grasp the one with the riftbeast gem with my hand, circling its throat. It’s not yet time for that one to fly off with the gem. I smile grimly to myself, knowing how this confrontation needs to ultimately end, but willing to experiment first, test the limits of both the enemy and myself.

“Who are you?” I shout. I’m not sure if Messeras chooses to project my words, but my pursuer seems to hear them.

“There will be time to talk later,” he bellows, flexing his fingers.

My mind races trying to decide what to do. At this range, I don’t think even he will have the precision to knock me unconscious...which means he’s going to be careful.

I close my eyes in anticipation of a blinding flare of light and intentionally stop cycling the fire-resistant energy of the riftbeast soul gem. With my vital vision, I see the ascendant’s fingers fully extend and feel a slight heat in the air. In a blink a conflagration bathes my lower body in flames, almost instantly incinerating everything below my rib cage.

I don’t feel any pain, at least for the moment, my body unable to process the catastrophic damage. Even for me, this is a mortal blow: I can’t rebuild when so much is missing. If it were just my limbs, I could try to construct more, but recreating all my organs? I can keep myself alive for the immediate future, but I’m on a timer.

At least my gambit pays off: He really wasn’t trying to kill me. Perhaps he hoped the wounds I just sustained would have been enough to leave me unconscious, or at least make it easier for him to get closer and knock me out before I kill myself. It’s true that for many people, especially those unused to sustaining mortal injuries, having half their body charred away might be enough to make them faint.

As for me? Well.

Shaking my head, I grasp the neck of the bat with the riftbeast soul gem and usher the bone wyrm toward the enemy. The wyrm’s midsection was largely destroyed, but it only takes a second to shuffle the bones around.

The rapid ascent hurries my unraveling, bits of carbonized flesh breaking off. I feel myself starting to get a bit lightheaded, insidious gray vitality snaking through my body, but I double down, the wyrm flaring violet as it puts on another burst of speed.

The man is now larger than a speck, the disparaging look on his face fully visible. His fingertips once more glow with light. He’s buffeted from all sides by battering pillars of wind, struggling to keep his arm aimed on my position.

Finally...I get close enough that he falls in my range. When I faced Ari I was nearly helpless, unable to affect her body even when she was mere feet away. But I’m no longer just a half-step ascendant, unable to use ascendant energy. I trace the path of vitality through the unnamed ascendant’s body. Then I swipe my hand gently to the side in a gesture that would otherwise rip the man’s heart. My fingers glow a soft blue, but the ascendant appears unaffected.

That’s not right. Just coating my fingers in energy might work if I’m physically touching my foe, but that’s not what I’m trying to do. Not your fingers, I chide myself. You’re fighting with your enemy’s body, using Death against Life, turning an innocuous pinprick into a gaping tear.

This time I don’t bother making a gesture. I stare down my rapidly-approaching opponent, lips curved into a frown.

The weapon...is within.

When I try to tear his heart, he actually flinches, his hand gravitating to his chest. His pupils constrict, vessels swelling. Grimacing, he motions his arms down and then back up, almost like he’s scooping something.

Almost instantaneously, I hear the crackling roar of an inferno, feel the searing heat on my arms and back. I look down and see a flaming serpent head snapping toward me with molten jaws.

“This is RIDICULOUS!” Messeras shouts, a blast of wind taking out half of the fire.

The other ascendant appears unamused. Without replying, he quickly flicks his hand in my direction. I realize that Messeras stopped interfering with the ascendant’s aim for a moment to launch his wind attack. Now the ascendant is taking clear advantage of that vulnerability.

I tighten my hold on the bat, drawing in the energy of the riftbeast soul gem around me as quickly as possible, inky black energy condensing over my bone armor and around my head like a helmet. It’s time to see how much of his attack I can withstand while circulating the heat-resistant energy.

Suddenly I’m flying through the air, knocked from the wyrm’s back, unable to arrest my own momentum, my left side robbed of all vitality. I’m hit by another blow I can’t even perceive and find myself falling in the opposite direction, my mind struggling to process the surroundings. I can’t tell where the ascendant is, I’m already out of range.

An aching throb on my left side and right shoulder rapidly turns into an agonizing burn. The pain is comparable to Coronus Kiehl’s torturous mental assault when I entered Selejo, like my flesh is not just burning, but being dissolved in acid.

This definitely should have knocked me out, I reason. The chill of the riftbeast soul gem’s energy is my only comfort as I contemplate what to do next.

I’ve discovered a few key points. First, I can actually hurt the ascendant with my practice if he enters my range. Second...is that even with the flame-resistant energy of the soul gem granting protection, the enemy ascendant has enough power to knock me senseless.

I won’t be able to win a direct confrontation. Smiling bitterly, I loosen my hold on the animated bat, foregoing the riftbeast gem’s protection. I give the nearby constructs one last command–return to the bungalow–before I scramble my brain, everything turning black.