Hirrus lunged at the man in the robes. The adventurer managed to cast another Arcana before they could collide. Another bolt of green energy lanced at his chest.

It struck him for fourteen hundred and sixty-six damage.

The impact made him stumble. But without any added effect, it didn’t give him pause at all. He swept his axe in at the man’s leg, hacking into his thigh.

The attack dealt a devastating three thousand one hundred and fifty-seven damage.

“Holy shit!” the robed man yelled. He stumbled backwards, putting distance between himself and Hirrus. But rather than stand and fight, he turned tail and broke into a full sprint across the room. “Get him away from me!”

Hirrus lunged again, this time looking to collar him and keep him from running further.

The woman with the pike approached during the chaos, even though she only had to take about three steps towards him to be able to slam the tip of her weapon into Hirrus' ribs. The blade of the spear barely slipped in behind his breastplate and dealt another paltry one thousand and eighty-eight damage to him. The physical impact set him off-balance, which meant that the Arcana-slinging adventurer managed to completely evade his grasp.

“Where’s Juri?” Hirrus demanded with a growl. He tried to suppress his frustration and his evasive and long-reaching opponents.

“Upstairs,” the pikewoman said, the words given a slight tinny sound by her helmet. “But you’re not going to get to her.”

“Yes he is,” the robed man said, his words an octave higher than before. “He just hit me for three-fucking-thousand! That wasn’t even a tankbuster! How the fuck are we going to deal with that?”

The woman with the pike shook her head. “If you don’t believe we can fight him, just leave. Getting help is going to be more productive than your attitude.”

The Arcana-slinger didn’t even hesitate. “Yeah, okay. Fuck this,” he said. He bolted for the door. Hirrus moved to run around and intercept him, but he found the glittering head of a pike in his face, stopping him.

“I didn’t think he would actually leave,” the pike-wielder grumbled as the door slammed open and then closed.

Hirrus turned to face his last-standing opponent. “We do not need to do this. Just let me go speak my piece with Juri.”

“Yeah, no. Sorry. Not happening.”

“Do you know what Last of the Strong has done? What you’re defending?” Hirrus asked.

“I don’t know why you’re here from your perspective, but from mine? You’re gonna give me a chance to prove myself. The chance to be a hero and climb the ranks.”

“I’m here for justice,” Hirrus said in a firm tone. “To make Last of the Strong pay for what they’ve done. If you would choose to protect them despite their crimes, you’ll pay for what they’ve done, too.”

The woman paused for barely a moment, and Hirrus took the opportunity to charge. His axe whipped up and slapped the head of her pike out of the way as he closed the distance. She dropped the oversized weapon almost reflexively, and whipped a gladius out of her inventory.

The woman was fast. Faster than he’d expected. As she stepped up to meet his charge, Hirrus realized she must have activated an Arcana at some point.

Her blade flicked at him so fast her arms blurred. The first strike lashing across his breastplate for one thousand and fifty-six damage, with a second strike seeming to happen at the same moment, adding another seven hundred and ninety-two damage. She whipped the weapon back at him in a backhand, but Hirrus had time to parry it with the head of his battleaxe, sending the blade up above his head rather than across his face.

Hirrus slammed his axe at her, putting the momentum of the parry into a diagonal slash that ripped across the front of her brigandine. She tried to twist to let the blow glance off of her armor, but Hirrus was too familiar with the technique to allow it to be effective. The blow dealt three thousand two hundred and seventy damage to her, even through the armor.

“Fuck,” she cursed before dancing to his left. As if trying to get to his weaker side. “You really are doing shitloads of damage.”

Her sword lashed out at him again, scraping up the side of his breastplate for less than half of his damage. The phantom second strike didn’t follow this time, not immediately. Before Hirrus could raise his weapon the gladius danced back across the front of him with lightning speed. It carved across the armor over his stomach for nine hundred and forty-four damage, with a second strike of seven hundred and eight damage right on its heels.

She was trying to wear him down. A battle lost by a thousand smaller cuts. But Hirrus had hit points to spare, and if she were anything like her companions, she did not.

Hirrus whirled to follow her movement. He smashed his axe into her shoulder. It cut into the padded armor there, dealing thirty-two hundred and thirty-six damage. She gasped and staggered back, grabbing at the wound with her free hand.

As she backed off, he saw her movement patterns change, becoming more sluggish.

Her speed had, in fact, been an Arcana. And it had just worn off.

Hirrus lunged again, following her retreat. She focused on defense, clearly trying to buy time for her Arcana to be ready again. Her gladius danced into the path of his axe as he attacked, filling the tall room with the clang of metal on metal.

Once, twice, three times, their weapons met.

The fourth swing went through her defenses. There was a click and a scrape of her sword catching the curve of his battleaxe’s blade too far up, and sliding off. The weapon smashed into the middle of her chest, and she crumpled under thirty-two hundred and fifty damage.

She hit the ground with a wet thud and her gladius was flung from her grip. It skittered across the tile floor, a glittering green gem catching the light as the weapon spun out of reach.

Hirrus took a few deep breaths. No further reinforcements arrived from inside the building, and he wanted to get to Juri Thorpe before she could flee. He couldn’t afford to waste time shucking these adventurers for gear.

He did have time to acknowledge what he’d gained from fighting.

Hirrus was now level three, giving his stats a near-imperceptible incremental increase. He also acquired two new Arcana from the two adventurers he’d felled, now that combat had finished.

High Jump

+3 BUR +85 Critical Rating

Utility

Cast time: 0.125 seconds

Cooldown: 45 seconds

Effect: Launch yourself high in the air, temporarily out of reach of attackers, shedding 50% of current Threat. Take no fall damage on landing.

Iron Typhoon

+4 SUP +85 Attack Speed

Lingering

Cast time: 0.25 seconds

Cooldown: 30 seconds

Effect: Set Double Strike chance to 50%, and add 20% attack speed. Lasts for 10 seconds.

Hirrus' first reaction was to think neither of them were particularly useful, but on second glance, Iron Typhoon looked like it might serve a real benefit to him. His damage was all but obliterating the adventurers he was facing so far, and increasing his speed would allow him to deal with them all that much faster.

Once again he felt a siren song pull towards hunting down more spells to grow his power. If there were Arcana like this, perhaps he could acquire more spells that would give him similar power bursts.

Hirrus shook the thought away. As long as he was a good enough fighter to take on Last of the Strong, he didn’t need more power. He needed his revenge.

And he seemed to be gaining plenty of strength from his fallen foes, anyway.

The stairs flew by beneath Hirrus' feet as he ascended. The pike-wielding woman had said Juri was upstairs, and while he still suspected a lie, he didn’t anticipate it being anything that could stop him. All he had to do was engage in combat with Juri for a second, and his decision tree would track her to her end. It quietly nagged at him about what direction the robed adventurer had fled in.

There was a brief balcony at the top of the stairs, with a black wrought-iron railing letting him safely look over the large room he was leaving behind. Hirrus hesitated. He wondered if he should try and find something to block the stairs in case there were reinforcements coming in. But considering how little fight every adventurer had put up so far, it would be a waste of time.

Even if adventurers flooded in the door as soon as he laid eyes on Juri, they weren’t going to have time to reach the room to help her.

The balcony only had one door. Hirrus slammed his boot into it.

Unlike the front door, it held fast. But it boomed and rattled hard in its frame.

He glared at the obstruction, and then flung himself at it bodily, hammering it with his shoulder instead. There was a crack and a snap and the door flung inwards, splinters of the frame preceding his entrance into the room.

Juri was waiting for him.

Hirrus could tell this was clearly the woman’s bedchambers. All the furniture had been pushed aside to the walls to make room for her to be dramatically seated on the foot of a luxurious four-post bed in the center of the room. She was staring down the length of her longsword at him.

Juri had a slim build, with facial features that looked more like that of a sculpted marble statue than a woman. Long black hair with silver highlights framed that face and tumbled down to the metal gorget protecting her throat.

Her armor was primarily dark metal plates the same color as tarnished silver, with purple velvet accents along her bust and the outsides of her thighs. Her longsword was straight and simple, something Hirrus could respect, even if the rest of her appearance was screaming for attention. There was a square amethyst set into the center of the weapon’s crossguard.

“So you’ve finally found me,” Juri Thorpe said coldly, giving a nod of greeting. She turned the blade of her sword as she held it pointed at him, the tip not shaking or wavering. “Let me tell you what I tell everyone who wants my attention: feel free to tell me what it is you want, but if you make me get up, you are going to make me very cross.”

She narrowed her inhumanly bright teal eyes at him. “And you will regret very much crossing me, I promise you that.”