Nic poured down the tunnel, pursuing his prey like an arrow shot from a peerless bow. He was already strong, but the immense size and massive muscle of the Sarradur Naga allowed him to leverage that strength into pure speed, his long tail pushing off against the ground to propel him like a missile across the ground. Using his lowermost set of arms to haul push forward and further increase his speed, Nic rotated the massive flow of energy surging through his body and channeled it through the Sandrider Blade.

The thin coating of sand along the floor was cut in two and sent out of his path, sweeping away the tiny insects and pestilent bugs the fleeing sand devil had left behind; it had hoped to lure him into a living minefield and cover him in crawling explosives.

No such luck.

The chase was brutal- Nic was able to twist around corners with ease, flowing like a river of strength to overrun his enemy. But the sand devil was no slouch. It had long, bent legs like a cricket, and each time they kicked off, the devil would vanish into a brilliant blur of emerald motion, only reappearing when it landed and had to brace for a split second before leaping again. It was able to hold its lead by fractions of an instant, escaping split moments before Nic’s hands crashed down where it had been.

Behind them, the sand devil monarch roared with a fury that made the earth shake. She was fully untangled now, and the ground began to shiver, dust raining from the ceiling, as her thousands of legs began to drag her bloated body in a revenge-mad chase for Nic.

It was on. Either he caught the sand devil- stopping it from making stealthy, opportunistic jabs while he tried to fight the queen- or the queen caught him.

And Nic would bet on himself, always.

In one hand he carried his mystic bag, and digging down with another of his six limbs, he grasped a featherflight grenade. He just needed a clear shot- one moment of carelessness- and he’d leap forward to finish the devil.

But his chance wouldn’t come easy.

As they burst into a central cavern, tunnels leading out from the chamber like the spokes of a wheel, Nic’s danger sense screamed and he caught a glimpse of thousands of glass knives growing from the floor. He flung himself to the ground, shielded his eyes-

And the cavern detonated. Each cluster of glass spines exploded outwards, spraying the long, razor-sharp blades in all directions. They struck each-other midair and shattered into smaller blades, tumbling in all directions, the world briefly obscured by the sight of light flashing along a million glass edges, all of them thirsty for blood.

Nic’s back was torn apart, bone-deep wounds lashed against his scales and his muscle. If he’d been a soft-skinned axolotl, this would’ve torn him limb from limb.

Instead, it made him angry.

As he rose back to his full height he saw the green-shelled devil, the Puppetmaster, crouching near the feet of the tall, hunched devil with the skull-like head, the one who controlled flames. The Pyromaniac. The last of the trio was the Glass Cannon, the one who could speak- who’d taken on elf-like features after feeding on elven flesh.

They stood together, ready to take him on. The Pyromaniac raised its dark hand and a dark red fire erupted between the trio and Nic- and tore across the walls of the chamber, covering all the roads out with a flickering, skin-searing barrier of flames.

They had closed all his exits- and the queen was coming, building speed as she chased him into this dead end.

The Pyromaniac stepped forward. Fire covered its body like armor, and its mandibles split open to reveal a purple, toothless mouth, hissing in anger as it approached Nic. It wielded a long spear of glass, and its eyes were full of malice.

Nic’s entire body dripped with blood, but he rose to meet the enemy, gripping Scarseeker in two hands, and the Sandrider Blade in another. He held the featherflight grenade ready, waiting-

The devil shot towards him, spear striking through the air. Nic twisted his agile body, parried the strike aside with the Sandrider Blade with enough force to make the Pyromaniac stumble, and swung Scarseeker at the beast’s side.

The entire exchange lasted a heartbeat. One motion happened in the time it took the heart to squeeze down- the parry- and the counterstrike followed before the heart could even expand again. A single pulse, and Nic swatted aside the enemy and tore into them.

His whole body was lithe and able to twist, to move bonelessly. That serpentine form became an extension of the weapon in his hands as he brought his torso sweeping along the ground to feed strength into the crescent-moon sweep of Scarseeker’s glowing blade.

Almost effortlessly, he cleaved the glass spear- and the right hand holding it- apart. A ringing crystal note filled the cavern as the spear exploded, tearing open the palm of the severed hand. As the glaive continued upwards, following its arc, Nic shifted his grip and reared upwards, bracing to stab the point downwards for a killing stroke.

The Pyromaniac’s wings flickered, and it managed to hop aside, Scarseeker spearing the earth where it had been. Nic ripped his weapon free with one hand as he flourished the Sandrider Blade in another, conjuring a long whip of sand to lash for the Pyromaniac devil’s legs.

It caught, tripping his foe, and Nic tried to surge forward-

The Puppetmaster kicked off and intervened, flinging itself into Nic’s path and throwing a high kick with its powerful leg towards his shoulder. Nic twisted, rolling with the blow and managing to absorb the force rather than be knocked off balance; his empty hand shot forward and swatted the devil aside like the insect it was, sending the emerald-coated beast rolling across the ground.

Nic’s glaive swung down, and an arch of glass intercepted. The Pyromaniac was back on its feet, blood oozing from its stump, and as the Glass Cannon shielded her allies the fire-devil slammed his hand into the ground and sent a long, billowing road of fire shooting towards Nic.

Nic flung the featherflight grenade in the instant before the flames hit him, searing into his injured body and cauterizing the numerous cuts that trailed blood down his skin. That blood was seared away, turning to steam as the fire slammed into him with such fury that it carried physical force, and his scales began to crack under the blazing heat-

The featherflight grenade hit the ground.

Instantly, Nic was elsewhere, escaping the blaze in a flash of lightning-white energy.

The fire itself obscured the fact he was vanished for a fatal instant. The Pyromaniac never had a chance to turn before Nic’s glaive was sweeping down, cutting a scar of white light in the air as it dropped like a guillotine for the back of the devil’s throat.

Once more, the Puppetmaster intervened. It shot forward, and this time there was no kick, no attempt to sweep Nic off balance. The insects clinging to its wings glowed brightly as it gave them all the aura it had, until their little bodies glowed, overloaded with energy and ready to explode.

It threw itself into the descending sword-stroke, and burst apart in a shower of acid and a roar of dying power.

Nic was flung backwards, shielding his face. Acid raindrops pattered across his scales and bit through the fire-weakened surface to open dozens of shallow, cratered wounds. Smoke and greasy, lingering chemical sourness filled the air-

One of his arms was gone.

Scarseeker lay on the floor, bits of his acid-eaten fingertips clinging to the handle. The arm was been torn apart down to the joint, and numerous fingers and bits of muscle were missing from the others.

The kamikaze bomb had worked. Nic was wounded- badly- and the Pyromaniac had survived, its eyes glowing with reflected firelight. It swung its remaining hand and opened up a wall of flames between it and Nic, leaping back, playing for distance.

Nic was too badly hurt to follow.

The one saving grace was that the Glass Cannon was clearly running dry of strength- she’d fought Nic twice now, and she’d spent the greater part of her power to turn the chamber into a death trap. Now she had barely anything left.

If he could reach her, Nic could kill her in a heartbeat.

The Pyromaniac seemed to realize that. It had shifted between them, its wounded arm held to its chest as it took up a defensive stance. Fire burned along its black carapace.

Nic braced to break through. With his enemy down a limb, and him having four more to spare, it wouldn’t be hard. Blood and acid dripped down his skin, and the wounds on his back were tremendous- but none of it was able to slow down the massive Naga-Form. He’d fight until the last breath was gone.

And then, with a roar, the Monarch arrived. She poured through the barrier of fire with a triumphant scream, her thousands of legs making the cavern shake until chunks of stone rained from the ceiling. Dozens of arms clawed at the entranceway as she poured through. She was massive, ugly, a living wave of flesh with a dozen heads merged together by sticky threads of mutant flesh.

Nic knew he couldn’t run now. Couldn’t escape in the relatively tiny confines of the chamber.

So he braced instead, lifting Scarseeker to drive into the queen’s bulk as she slammed into him. Hands grabbed at him from all directions, seizing his arms, his head, his tail. He fought desperately, cleaving down on the grasping limbs with the Sandrider Blade.

All the breath left him as she carried him into the wall and slammed him against hard, unforgiving stone. His eyes flashed white as the impact briefly carried him unconscious, and as his grip went slack, Scarseeker was ripped from his hand and thrown aside.

As Nic’s vision blurred back into focus, he saw her mouth opening. It was a tooth-filled abyss, yawning open between the fused bodies. It was massive, able to swallow him whole, a red pit from which there’d be no escape. The hands began to drag him down.

But this was his chance. His one chance.

He breathed in, cycling aura and igniting his Essence with the Concept of Sacrifice. One single breath of Primordial Mist, given every iota of power he could muster.

One killing strike to end this behemoth.

But as he opened his mouth to unleash it, another foe dropped onto his back.

The Pyromaniac devil had come to the defense of its queen. Burning, too-strong arms wrapped around Nic’s throat, cutting off his breath before he could unleash the strike. He was being dragged into the beast’s mouth, but he couldn’t force the power to rise past the iron-strong fingers gripping his throat. The energy was trapped, with nowhere to go.

Nic faced down oblivion-

And found a last ditch idea. Reaching into his bag, he seized a tiny object and flung it down into the beast’s throat, infusing it with all the power he could- feeding it until it glowed like a star as it vanished into the tooth-filled pit of death.

The beast stopped, cold- Frozen in horror.

Its hands released Nic, going to claw at its throat.

But there was nothing it could do.

It was already dead.

With a massive, fleshy ripping noise, a full-sized ship tore the beast apart as it grew from miniature size while inside the Monarch. Carapace, yellow-blood, and stringy meat flew in all directions as the mast erupted from the top of the Monarch’s skull. The prow tore through the side of her head, impaling one of the fused bodies and carrying it out, dangling pathetically from the spearpoint tip. As the hull ripped through her stomach, there was a rush of power released into the air.

The first of the false gods – the Four Guardians of the desert – had been slain.

And in a landlocked cave that had never known the ocean, a ship stood proudly, its mast brushing the ceiling, its sails coated in blood.