Nic was weighed down by the assault of countless sand devils. They poured towards him, clawing at him, and Nic’s six arms swept down in a fury of blows. Carapace crunched and the soft flesh beneath spurted out yellow blood. Before he’d barely been able to scratch them- now they broke like dolls.

He smashed one aside with his tail as it leapt for his back, coiling it up and squeezing down. With a satisfying crunch the neck snapped and the body went limp. Another slammed its blade into his side, managing to drive a shallow wound through his scales. He counterattacked with a hiss, seizing the back of its head and smashing it facefirst into the ground with a force that pulverized the skull to yellow mush.

His body was low to the ground now, and he swept forward, using his long tail and the lowermost set of arms to propel his body in a lightning-quick circle that enveloped three unlucky devils. With a sudden squeeze his coils tightened around them, lassoing them together for a brutal, bone-crushing death.

But the Ascended one was coming. It rushed towards him, a broken greatsword raised to its shoulder in an actual swordsman’s pose. It knew how to use the weapon- its brothers were clumsy despite their speed but the Ascended devils could match raw force with equal skill.

It rushed him down with a blinding fast sweep of the blade, and Nic barely dodged back in time to avoid the blurred arc of silvered steel. His tail flicked out, dealing a brutal hit to the beast’s hip and making it stagger back. Lesser devils clung to him and slowed him down, but Nic’s hand shot up, making a fist, making the soft earth rise to his command.

Pushing energy through his damaged meridian channels was agony, and much of the aura he spent was wasted, blazes of pale fire appearing on his skin as the power escaped and bled into the air.

But he made the mud sweep upwards and knock the the Ascended devil back, buying him time to deal with the swarm before it could tear itself free of the mire.

He grabbed two that were crawling up his back and slammed them together, tossing them aside. Another was caught with one hand on its arm, one on its leg, and ripped apart. The Sandrider Blade made a zigzag blur in the air, cleaving off two heads in a single breath.

But Nic was approaching his limit.

With a sigh, he unleashed Redjaw from his left arm. The centipede curled around the limb and raised its toxic feelers, its bright red teeth, high. As the centipede leapt from his arm its form filled with light, and expanded outwards.

Redjaw landed in his Warform, transformed into a massive Lindwurm. His body was wide and flat with centipede-like legs running down the length and flat plates of armor across his spine, but he had the foreclaws of a dragon, thick and powerful with muscle. His head was eyeless, bright red antenna extending from the empty sockets. Mandibles that could cut a man in half pushed out from either side of his toothed mouth. Part slug. Part centipede. Part dragon.

His roar deafened them and pushed them back, poison venting from his open maw. It filled the air with a deadly, stinking mist, pitch-black and turning the plants sticking out of the muddy earth into black rot. His massive lungs gave the Poison Mist more reach and spread than Nic could have ever achieved in his axolotl shape, but the effect was diffused, creating a toxic swamp rather than a focused killing beam.

But it was still a dense, black mist.

Nic released his Warform and shrank, dropping down into the cover of the fog. He struck the Sandrider Blade into the ground and drew out his centipede hatchet, sized for his small hands.

Redjaw was still bellowing, meeting the sand devils with sweeps of his tail and broad, crushing blows from his two-fingered claws. His strength was already greater than Nic’s had ever been at F-Class, although his speed was almost nothing by comparison- it was a matter of sheer size that let him bully the sand devils back, crushing and oppressing them as they labored in the rotting fog.

Nic appeared like a shadow and ripped through the back of a devil’s leg. He hammered the axe’s blade down into its skull as it fell, and then vanished, retreating, summoning a wave of mud to splash against the legs of the devils as they tried to chase him. They stuck fast to the binding mire and toppled forward, bound together as their own struggles spread the sticky adhesive from one body to the next.

Reaching into his bag, Nic flipped a pyre-lob into the tangle of bodies and grinned maniacally as a burst of fire and shrapnel tore the fog away.

That smile faded as a piercing shriek of danger warned him a second before the Ascended devil’s black hand shot through the mist, reaching for his throat. The devil moved so fast it drew the smoke and smog of the battlefield around its body in a swirling torrent like a black cape. Its hand burst free of the mist and swept towards him, slashing down, and Nic raised his hatchet to block.

Chips of bone showered against his face as the hatchet nearly broke, flying out of his hand as he was knocked across the earth in a tumble of limbs. Blood spilled into his vision, a trio of huge cuts ripped across his face.

He rolled onto his feet-

And his heart nearly skipped a beat as he saw the same black hand already reaching for him again, already slashing down. The Ascended devil had barely taken a single heart-beat to close the distance and attack again.

Nic slammed energy through his Mire-Caller Shard and swept a wave of mud into the way, but even that barely knocked the beast off balance. It ripped free, shaking off the clinging mire before it could fully take hold, and lunged on all fours across the ground like an animal. Its dark eyes blazed with reflected light.

But even in his original form, Nic was E-Class now. He had energy to burn, and more ways to fight than head on.

He launched himself up atop a wave of mud, landing braced with one arm and leg against the trunk of a tree, and grasped a pyre-lob from his bag. As the devil crashed towards him, vaulting into the air, Nic kicked off- and used Mire-Caller to seize the earth underneath the tree’s roots.

With a lifted fist, he brought the tree crashing down. It swept the Ascended sand devil from the air, slamming it down, and for a moment his foe was pinned. The devil pushed its hands against the ground to lift the crushing weight from its back, but Nic turned that ground to soaking wet mud, giving it nothing to brace or push against. It sunk deeper and deeper.

Nic threw a pyre-lob against its side, sticking the grenade fast.

As the Ascended devil tore its way out of the earth, fire and poison blossomed around its armored hide. Shrapnel formed from teeth and glass sank into its flesh, tearing apart its carapace, leaving its lower leg shredded apart.

It staggered, and shifted to moving on all fours to compensate for its wounded limb. It dove forward, chasing after him, and Nic was forced to retreat farther and farther from his axe. In the distance Redjaw was struggling, swarmed by enemies and being steadily worn away as they managed to get their claws into him- they were fighting him like ants fought a spider, wearing him down by sinking their fangs in and holding fast.

Nic needed to rescue Redjaw- and fast.

Between the ring of Day-Into-Night and his cracked meridians, he was burning through Essence at a far, far accelerated rate. There was no winning this as a drawn out confrontation, playing cat and mouse till the centipede venom in the pyre-lob wore away his enemy’s cultivation.

But Nic had one card left to play.

As the enemy rushed towards him, Nic braced his feet, drawing up the power of mud and muck to anchor himself firmly. He drew out his tiger-claw, and braced with both hands wrapped around the grip, shoving his cultivation base hard to summon all his strength and activating the Inner-Sacrifice Cauldron Technique. His body erupted into white-hot pain, his skin glowing red like a burning skillet as the power of his blood was burned away within him to fuel his physical body. Power surged through his limbs, and he burnt Essence with the Concept of Sacrifice to give him the fuel to overcome the cracks in his meridians and burst out with full strength.

He rocketed forward and met the beast head-on. The push of his limbs against the bracing wall of hardened mud underfoot let him shoot forward, diving past the blow that swept overhead. His fist slammed into the side of the Ascended devil’s head, twisting its neck away as it was sent stumbling back. The tiger-claw shattered into pieces against its hard carapace.

Just for a moment, the devil was forced onto the back foot.

And Nic opened his mouth to spit out all the power he had built as a wave of Primordial Mist. A swirling white fog exploded from his throat in a rushing wall of mist, swirling with strange inner patterns, moving fast but seemingly without effort across the ground. It enveloped the beast, wrapping around its limbs-

The Ascended devil managed to stand, fighting to get up onto its wounded leg. Blood leaked from where he’d broken the claw and left Regent’s teeth pierced into the yellow flesh below.

It staggered forward, hand raised, and fell. The mist was pouring into its body. It was eating away from within, hollowing the beast out even as the outer layer of carapace turned to stone, petrifying it. By the time it toppled over, the Ascended devil was nothing but a hollow statue.

It smashed into pieces as it struck the ground.