Nic had already slipped below the waters and disappeared, wrapping the second form of his Mistwater Step around himself to truly vanish. He glided like a shadow as the chaotic fight above twisted and turned in all directions.

Behind him he heard the crash of Talqua colliding with the old slave. Above him he saw the giant reflection of Rakdhat struggling to catch the pesky assassin, as poison darts and gouts of fire landed against his impenetrable skin.

Nic paid attention to neither. His goal was the injured priest, finishing off another variable before it could join the battle. Every other fight was going to plan; his enemies were weakening themselves against one another, wearing themselves down for him to finish off.

He emerged onto the island like a silent murdered, bearing his paintbrush-weapon in hand.

The old priest was coughing blood in violent, repetitive spasms as he desperately tried to read from his prayer book.

Nic lifted his hand to deliver the killing stroke…

A hand of ash struck him in the back, throwing him down against the earth. Nic didn’t even have the impression it was a full-force blow. Just a giant casually swatting a fly aside.

Nic rolled, coughing up his own blood; the priest turned and threw himself back in fright as he saw what had crept up behind him.

The corpse of the beheaded ogre had sat itself up, standing in a low crouch, knees bent. “Finally!” The head croaked, as the hand blindly groped across the ground, seized it by the hair, and lifted it into place. “I’ve been waiting for you, boyo…”

Shadows of ash poured out of its skin, forming a specter of smoke and dust that drifted behind the corpse, steering it like a macabre puppet.

“Recognize me now?”

“Blackleaf…” Nic croaked out.

“Since I can’t understand a word you say, I’ll assume you had the brains to say ‘Oh no! Li Blackleaf, scourge of three planets and wicked in all his ways, has come to wipe me from the sight of the gods!’”

“But how did I survive, you ask?”

Nic rolled onto his arms, gasping. If the old bastard wanted to talk, well, that was fine by him; every second was another chance to fight his broken ribs and get air back into his lungs.

“Simple! I hid a portion of myself away before the fight even started. When you wiped me out, that lone shard was able to regrow, slowly, feeding off all the cute little critters of the meadow…”

“Soon enough I had regrown my husk, but I needed a proper body. Some useful skin to crawl into. None of the feeble idiots from that nearby town appealed…”

“But wasn’t I lucky? Soon enough these fools came, and I crawled into one of their skins at night…”

“I hope you appreciate I did all of this to kill you! Once I destroy everyone who’s touched that scroll, the System will owe me, and I’ll have a chance to rebuild my clan to glory.”

“Yeah yeah.” Nic mentally suppressed the words. “Keep talking old man.”

But the old ghost had exhausted its urge to speak, captivated by the thoughts of glory and treasure. It raised its right hand, the corpse-puppet copying the motion clumsily, preparing to strike Nic down.

Reluctantly, Nic rose up and prepared to block. His bones felt heavy in his skin by now, his muscles one thick layer of bruises.

The first blow - from the corpse-puppet’s hand - slammed into a nexus of steel, all his weapons coming together to weave a defense. The second, from the shadow’s hand, whistled towards his throat.

Nic had one defense left.

His bare palm swept out, performing the Hand of Ash.

The two palm-strikes collided. Nic was forced back, barely holding on, a deep sense of exhaustion making his arm shake. The old ghost only took a single step back-

And seemed utterly confused by what he’d seen.

“But- but that’s-”

For a moment, Blackleaf seemed truly stunned.

Nic didn’t have the time to waste on hesitation. Whatever worked, worked. He stabbed his weapons into the earth, clutching his paintbrush in the ruined remnants of his jaws, and struck out. Six hands joined together to unleash palm strike after palm strike in relentless sequence, the shadowy ash streaking behind each blow like a comet’s trail. For a moment the corpse puppet was able to hold, crossing its arms and absorbing the impacts with dead flesh, but its footing was collapsing- one last blow and it was thrown free of the island, crashing down into the dark waters to sink like a stone.

The shadow of Li Blackleaf sank with it.

Nic didn’t believe it could be that easy, but he didn’t waste time either. The priest was still struggling to stand, his body betraying him as his organs failed from the poison within. He was a helpless and hapless target…

Moving like a lightning bolt across the earth, Nic rose over him, ready to finish things.

The old man lifted a hand and a barrier sprang into being. A shield of light absorbed Nic’s first blow, preventing him from claiming the kill. With a snarl Nic drove down again, sending cracks spiraling through the golden runes that drifted across the shield’s surface.

“Eleven! STOP HIM!”

Yet again, someone tried to intervene.

There was a flicker and the goblinoid slave appeared behind and above Nic, carving a blow towards his neck as it fell through the air. Nic’s danger sense warned him just in time, and he turned, catching the blow across the back of his arm and letting it rake through to the bone.

His enemy was already preparing to teleport again, to vanish away and come back with another pestering attack from the shadows. Nic wouldn’t allow that. His hand swept forward and became a vast shadow of ash, channeling the Concept of Desolation to lock down against his enemy’s aura.

The teleportation faltered.

The goblin’s eyes widened in shock as it was left helpless, mid-air, without a chance to escape.

And the blow hammered into its gut and folded the wiry creature in half. Before it could recover, Nic had seized it by the throat and the lower leg-

Pulling-

Bringing all his strength to bear-

Until the goblin’s meat and tendons broke apart, and the creature let out a miserable scream as Nic pulled it into pieces and cast them aside. Blood and gore rained down from his bare hands.

He turned back, not deterred, unwilling to let the priest escape death for a second longer.

There was nowhere for the priest to run now, but he didn’t seem to realize. The ogre was wading into the water, hunched nearly double as he coughed and spewed out blood; his fight for survival had become doomed and somehow pitiable.

He lifted his hand and conjured the barrier once more, desperate to buy even one more second.

But the barrier only protected him from one angle.

Nic saw it before the priest could. A shadow rising from the foaming roll of the lake’s waters, which almost seemed to boil up with tides of froth as the creatures below fought. Nic called out- but why would an enemy listen?

A massive hand rose out of the water and seized the priest. As the ogre screamed in alarm, the rest of the creature surfaced-

It was a red-skinned giant, its body covered in scars and open wounds that dripped fiery blood. Its armor of burning stone wrapped around its massive, raw-muscled form, covering its vital points with thickened scabs of magma. The beaked muzzle on its face had changed shape, flattening across the top to resemble an anvil; it had a mouth, a freedom not given to the beasts below E-Class.

And with a single bite it tore the head off the priest, tossing the body aside like a ragdoll.

Nic froze.

Everyone did.

A triumphant, chuckling groan passed the beast’s mouth, and then it bent over, its body twisting in pain. Two enormous bulges rose from the meat of its back, and then the flesh tore away as skeletal wings drenched in fire ripped themselves free. They unfolded in a rain of burning gore, the splatter of chunks of flesh falling into the lake echoed by hissing steam as the flames were extinguished; beneath that ran a symphony of fleshy, crunching noise, the sounds of the wretch-knight’s body being twisted into a new shape, growing longer, leaner, more insectile…

“KILL IT!” Rakdhat roared. “EVERYONE! WE MAY BE ENEMIES, BUT WE CAN’T LET IT GROW!”

But Talqua only lifted her sword towards him in defiance. “Don’t you DARE order me about! I’m going to throw your damn head over the horizon, you loudmouthed princeling!”

The dhampir didn’t move either.

Only Nic moved; only Nic was close enough; only Nic could see the threads of amber energy twisting around the beast’s body. It hadn’t gone into a cocoon for its evolution, but the energy of the bloodline sea was still there.

And it could be taken.

Nic lunged forward, abandoning his warform to slip below a swipe of those massive, bone-breaking arms, the blow slashing overhead as he shrank; the next two blows he dodged with the Mistwater Step, evading left and right as the illusions the ability conjured were torn apart in his wake.

Flesh was growing between the bones of the creature’s wings. Those wings swept down, creating a thunderclap of wind in the enclosed cavern, lifting it into the air. Nic clenched his fist and created a wave of mud, launching him upwards…

“Lasso!”

He vaulted past the beast and turned, sending Gwungo shooting for its back. The tether pulled him aboard, hiding him between its wings where the arms couldn’t reach.

The moment he made contact, he knew he’d pay for his hunger. The skin of the creature was burning hot, bleeding off a heat that made the air twist and bend like a thousand snakes; Nic’s hands burned even as he wrapped them in sticky tar and conjured water to coat his own skin.

Nic clung on as the beast shot upwards, heading for open sky. The dark of the underground valley was torn away in a moment, replaced by bright morning light, the clouds, the blue expanse-

Amber energy was pouring in through his fingers. He could feel it gathering in the secret nodes within his heart, accumulating into a new evolution.

And at the same time, the beast itself was changing. It had already shed much of its weighty, solid appearance, favoring agility and flight. Spines with blunt heads like nails had grown out from the back of its long, warped arms, which ended in three-clawed hands. Its head resembled a tick made of volcanic, fire-tinged stone, wide and flat and rounded with a series of grasping mandibles at the front. From the bulbous, swollen sack at the back edge of its skull grew scorpion tails, jet black and tipped by burning stingers.

Galvanic Wretch-Queen. D-Class // Sapient. Long ago, a single shard of living stone crashed into a primitive world. That stone came from far away, an elemental mountain that met its end in the cosmic sea; the stone retained the will of that mountain and its need for vengeance. It corrupted the world it came into contact with, growing into the flesh of the inhabitants and driving them mad with pain. This being is one of the very few apex lifeforms to emerge from the melding of flesh and elemental stone.

Nic held on tight, feeling the flesh of his hands burn and deform. As it was…

Holding on was the only option that gave him a path to survival.