It is the End of the Beginning, Waking from a Nightmare...

Movement rate, 110. I could run faster than they could fly... if they could fly, which they couldn’t. A hundred yards in under six seconds, no magic aiding me to be dispelled or countered.

+X True Death in my hand screamed about a Ravager of Queens and his poor choices in life, especially his appellation. My Waveskating Step sent me swaying back and forth as they braced to receive me, that flaming Whip drew back, the burning Sword was raised, and taloned hands spread wide.

I swayed right, my feet moved left, and I veered off from the lashing Whip as the balor stepped forward. Tremble drove a x6 charge modifier into the lilitu’s eyeless face.

I ignored the sharper-than-razors claws tearing at my sides as I smashed her back off her feet, and brought that blank head around to my hip and the last succubus-powered Mark there. I was well out of range of the balor before he could reach me, and I totally ignored his outraged bellow.

She burned in vivic fire, and I fed her to the Mark.

I felt her influence swelling the Mark, making it stronger. As the queens of succubi, the Marks the lilitu handed out were stronger, and they also exerted greater influence over their recipients. Now, that power was resonating among all the Marks, and I could feel the potential being unleashed there.

Yeah, I could improve them in the future. I might have to kill a lot more succubi or something, however... which I was totally okay with. A last parting gift from Nightmare...

The lilitu burned as I skated away from the balor, easily faster than him even while dragging her burning carcass with me. He tried to grab me Telekinetically, and that went a whole lot of nowhere. He could only watch impotently as his lover was fed into the Mark at my hip.

The Constitution Mark, of course...

The last of her burned away, the white around that Mark was also translucent. “Ah, I imagine you can see now why I’m glad you arrived,” I told the outraged balor as I drifted to a halt.

“You dare take what belongs to me!” howled the balor, advancing now that I had stopped.

“You came into my Nightmare, YOU BELONG TO ME!” I replied, staring back at him, and even the oversized manifestation of overweening pride that he was the incarnation of was checked at the pure chutzpah of that statement.

And then I was coming for him, Tremble out and Singing for his soul, letting him know right up front that a certain Ravager of Queens hadn’t been able to stop me.

He stopped, and raised the Whip to lash at me. I knew that it was Vorpal and could take my head clean off my shoulders with one hit.

His arm came down, and as it did, a Sharding struck out.

The Whip was perpendicular to the cut. Even without my Sagedom behind it, the Sharding slice bit into the demonic iron threads, and chopped clean on through.

Yeah, I was really, really good on Sunder rolls after all the Jotuns using oversized weapons. This was so totally not as hard as chopping through a six-inch wide saber.

The burning Whip flailed out uselessly, missing completely as I pulled up exactly one inch beyond the reach of his Sword, and it swirled past, just missing my chin, and Stand slammed it up and away.

He was surprised despite himself at how hard I hit, even as he gawked for a painful second at the stub of the Whip held in his hand spitting black and puke-green sparks. But if he thought surrounding himself in demonfire was even going to slow me down, he had a different think coming.

I kicked off, was inside his reach, and as he struck at me with his flaming fist, I ducked under it and chopped off two of his fingers with Sword Beats Fist, then spun a 360 right up to and against the returning Sword.

+X beats +I Vorpal.

The flaming Sword screamed in a way that steel simply doesn’t as I used his own strength to carve through it. The chopped edge slammed into the broken ground, already burning unwhite with frightening speed.

I continued the spin with Improved Sunder, moving in as he abruptly looked at the flaring stump of the Whip in his hand, cracks spreading along it as the souls used to empower it burned en vivus...

It blew up in his hand, and the rest of his fingers went flying. Tremble ripped across the layered muscles of his belly as he screamed, and he threw away his Sword’s hilt before it could follow the Whip. Since his hands (well, one hand) were so far out of position, I cut back across the same chop, and a three-inch slice through skin tougher than steel became six inches deep, igniting a vivic feast in his guts.

He kicked out, Sword Beats Fist activated again, and I chopped into the back of his knee as a leg much bigger than I was crossed in front of by dose. Pew! Brimstone tyrant’s foot...

His wing hurled forward like a moving wall, trying to sweep me up and hurl me away. I bent down backwards, firing Fall up into the root of his wing as Stand deflected the trailing razor edge away. I braked, and with my free Arakne Arm shoved myself upright before hopping onto his back.

I hacked his right wing completely off, and Doc and Stand chopped down to do the same to his left.

He bellowed and grabbed back for me, stepping back reflexively, totally forgetting his burning Sword hilt was right there... and that he was missing a bunch of fingers.

Its explosion sent him stumbling right into the direction of the severed Blade, even as I inserted Tremble into the side of his neck. He screamed as the second explosion of vivus streaked his burning body with even more white, and I let it propel me off his back... as I opened his throat in a great gouting arc that helped render his screaming bellows of defiant unbelief in burning two-tone stereo.

I kicked out and slid away, not afraid of what was about to follow. Vivic flames from his belly reached up to the ones falling down from his throat and piercing in from his wings, then combined with the ones dancing all over his skin.

Ignition. Burn.

Balors pop like profane propane tanks when they die, they don’t just burn out and go all charcoal. When that’s by vivus, it’s not actually harmful, but it is still very big and impressive.

The vivus was so thick it was almost tangible. It rocketed out into the landscape, which boiled and churned and began to collapse.

The cracks in the ground and sky grew wider, and they began to spread.

---

I turned to look at my Ironblood, at the mists now white and churning that were sweeping forwards towards them, taking this all away as the Nightmare was destroyed.

They silently raised their glowing Spears, Swords, Axes, Bows, and Lances one last time. I raised Tremble in return, watching as the clouds, shining and pure, swept over them, and took them away into true dreams once more.

They are free of me...

I turned, and I ran into the crack of Reality.

My Nightmare was over.

Let’s see what life has in store before I kill you, Hagmother...