Peacemaker’s spirit poured out in a torrent of flame and smoke. Black bones were surrounded by flesh of raging fire; hair of long blue flames tumbled past doubled-shoulders. The spirit resembled a human but with a masked face covered by iron, spikes emerging from each eye, and four powerful limbs.

An asura demon.

It lunged towards the snail-folk. In an instant they were fighting for their lives. The asura’s burning hands reached for their throats, and the slow, heavy creatures could barely respond in time to defend themselves. The wounded snail spat out a spray of adhesive slime, but it burned away from Peacemaker’s flesh in a singe of black smoke. It emerged from that cloud to strike with a three-fingered claw, reaching for the attacker’s throat.

Its brother stepped into the way. The second snail-folk burst forth with power, water spiraling through the air to form a twisting figure that stood behind the warrior and struck out in unison. A skin of liquid surrounded its slimy flesh, protecting it from the asura.

Peacemaker’s hand was caught and stopped by the water-shadow…

But when she pulled back, she ripped one of its arms away easily. In raw strength, the D-Class spirit was simply in a league of her own…

She just couldn’t afford to stay in place long enough to leverage that force.

Because at the same time she was dueling one brother, the second acted. The flying shards of metal that surrounded the wounded snail began to shoot outwards, slicing through the air with a jagged humming song. They slashed at Peacemaker’s arms and legs as she retreated, trying to cut muscle and tendon to slow her down.

They did no such thing. She retreated just far enough to unleash a breath of flame, spewing a brilliant green tongue towards the two.

Again, the first brother answered with his command of water. Spears, swords, and axes made from flowing water appeared around him, pouring out of a jug that hung at his hip. They shot into the way, extinguishing the flames.

Blow for blow, the fight was dragged to a standstill.

Nic’s weapon was D-Class…

But it was only newborn, and only a spirit. It had no Shards and no practice in warfare, only the wild killing instinct it had been born with.

Still.

Nic didn’t need her to kill his enemies; he needed her to slow them down while he pursued the third brother. And for that purpose, her raw strength and unbreakable body were more than enough.

The last snail-folk was struggling to its feet when Nic closed in. Retrieving the resonant greatsword from his bag, Nic slashed the hilt along the ground, gathering a blade of earth that extended from the broken handle in fragments of hardened stone.

With a single blow, he splintered the snail-folk’s crude weapon. His blade continued past, striking it across the neck and opening a bleeding wound. Before it could recover, Nic darted past, using Mire-Caller to trap its foot for a fatal second. Already slow, the snail had no chance to escape as the greatsword bit down and ripped into its leg.

Its fist shot for Nic’s throat.

Nic dodged by allowing his feet to drop through the wet soil, partway submerging himself to duck the blow and then kicking up. Reversing his grip on the blade as he stepped past his foe, he turned, already driving force into a piercing stab that came down diagonally from high at his shoulder towards the snail-folk’s back.

The snail’s pet spider flung itself into the way.

Loyal to the end, the spider died as Nic’s sword cut it in two. The snail struggled away, turning around and spitting out another giant whip of aura in the shape of a serpent emerging from its mouth. Nic split the attack in half easily.

But this time, it grew back. In moments three snakeheads attacked him from three different angles, biting at his arms and legs to cripple him with poison. For the first time Nic was forced to retreat, kicking back to buy himself time to deal with each of the tongues.

One stroke after another of the blade, and all three were decapitated. They retreated into the snail’s mouth for a moment…

And then it began to blaze with power. Black dots of blood oozed up from its slimy flesh as it performed a forbidden technique. They dripped across its skin in dark rivers as the snakeheads multiplied once more, forming a writhing nest of vipers that stretched the creature’s gooey, shapeless mouth wider and wider. It fell to all fours as they poured across the earth.

Nic took the chance. Clenching his fist, he commanded the soft ground to begin dragging the snail under.

But that would take time. He turned the mud underfoot into deadly quicksand, but that was a slow, slow death, and the vipers were fast. They opened their mouths and spat jets of deadly venom; they lunged at him from all sides.

Nic didn’t hesitate.

STOP.

One word hammered into the air with the force of a nail entering a coffin. For a moment the snakes flickered, turning translucent, revealed as nothing but trails of poison aura. In that moment Nic kicked off and sliced through three in one swordblow, landing high on the trunk of a redwood tree.

As the rest turned and spat at him, he shifted his weight, taking off. Higher up into the trees, the serpents chasing him until they could go no further from their host. They retreated and fell back, receding into the snail’s mouth as it struggled to get free from the pit of slimy, grasping muck that dragged its heavy body down.

Nic dropped.

Activating the Plates of the Sun God’s Dictate, he wrapped his skin in a golden shield. This foe was E-Class, the same as him, and he wasn’t going to take the chance of dying to a last and hidden card. Nic glowed like the sun as he dropped from the sky and struck down with a single, brutal blow from the stone greatsword.

In the last second before impact, the snail raised a hand and unleashed a black bolt of miasmic energy.

The light round Nic absorbed it, his momentum letting him break through. The sword swept down and the foe’s outstretched arm was cut away, flying off. Nic’s foot crashed into the snail’s head to kick it down into the entangling mud.

One down.

Nic turned and ran back towards Peacemaker.

The spirit was on her last legs. Though she danced and moved like a flickering, too-quick flame, she was under assault by two foes- and her body was tethered to the greatsaber stuck into the ground by a leash of flame. The one who controlled water struck again and again with his double, the water-shadow’s arms stretching and becoming blades. While those kept Peacemaker on the defensive, out came spears and swords flying at her right as she pivoted into a dodge, right as her momentum left her at an awkward angle.

They bit into her fiery flesh and made her singe out for a second, making her vulnerable. In those moments the metal-wielder came into play. The shards pierced through the air with the thrumming song of an arrow unleashed from a bow. They stabbed at her brutally, then pulled back out, ripping a second wound as they retreated to surround their master like an asteroid ring.

Whenever she struck out, metal and water came together into a flowing shield.

Nic came down upon them in the flying arc of a leap. Ahead of him, he threw the Hydra-Mist Gourd, three of the spouts uncorked. Three poisonous clouds burst out as the gourd hit the ground, covering them in a fog that made them choke and struggle and cough.

Three breaths.

Peacemaker was retreating into the weapon as Nic snatched it up, flame and sunlight turning him into a blaze that walked among the dark smoke, coming at them relentlessly. Peacemaker’s blade spun and slashed, piercing through the metal fragments in two places before they could react and form a shield. With overwhelming momentum Nic carved the already-wounded brother apart, biting into the crippled leg and bringing it down, laying open boneless flesh until great washes of blood stained the earth.

Nic swung the haft around and shattered the helmet of the spined, spiral shell with a devastating headcrack, kicking the beast in the gut to send it rolling to the ground. Once more, soft earth entangled the foe as soon as Nic’s efforts brought it low.

The third and final brother lunged for Nic’s back. In its hands it wielded the mace. Its water-shadow lifted two axes of flowing liquid and hurled them, sending them spinning through the air with massive force. Nic was forced to turn and dodge one, parry the next-

But as soon as Peacemaker’s edge met the water-axe, the liquid thing burst apart, becoming an explosion of tiny needles that pierced and punctured his flesh in a dozen places. They drilled deep, striking bone with an explosion of pain that dizzied Nic.

For one fatal moment the fight wasn’t in his favor. The mace swept down at his head.

Nic dropped smoothly into the ground, vanishing, a stone hitting a lake’s surface and disappearing below. The snail stumbled past, unsteadied by putting all its might and balance into a missed strike, a strike that should have been a sure thing.

From the earth, Nic rose. The spear-like point of the greatsaber flicked upwards to pierce the water-shadow with a rising lance-strike, Nic kicking off with his powerful legs. The motion lifted him high overhead.

The snail let out a gooey, wet splatter of saliva, roaring with anger and delight.

Nic had underestimated his own strength and launched himself too high into the air, where there was no way to change trajectories or dodge. His jump had carried him too far and too fast, giving the snail time to turn before he came down to deliver the killing blow.

In that moment the snail unleashed a torrent of spears. One strike after another lashed out, each given barely enough time to form. Instead of clearly defined weapons they were only vague cutting points of water rushing towards him.

Nic ignited Peacemaker, and his strength redoubled.

He flickered in the air. One moment he was left, the next right. As he moved a trail of mist unfolded behind him, and countless illusionary Nics were born, only to die as the water pierced through their vital points. In that mist Nic fell neatly to the ground, unharmed, Essence drained by teleporting so fast and so close together.

With a whip-quick strike he carved a diagonal line across the snails chest. Before it could react, still staggering, he carved another. The point of his blade met its throat with such precise force that he only drew the smallest pinprick of blood.

The snail had been pushed back by the first two blows, pinned against a tree.

“Your brothers are alive.” Nic said. “And for the moment, so are you. How about you stop, and think, and find a way to keep it like that?”

The mace fell from the snail’s hand.