Hirrus' fourth Echo haltingly forced its way up the stairs of the half-burnt building. For whatever reason, the fire hadn’t badly damaged the structure of the building. The place was actively burning, full of smoke and embers, but the supports were still sound, and so he didn’t fear the stairs collapsing under himself.

Not yet, anyway.

The building creaked as if offering a dissenting opinion.

Even so, he moved fearlessly. This body didn’t matter. Being an Echo meant that he could run into a burning building, and his own safety wasn’t a concern at all. The only thing he had to fear was that he would fail to save whoever was in there.

Not that that was too much different from Hirrus' normal behavior.

At the top of the stairs, the brief hallway was dense with smoke. Hirrus wondered, even as he coughed and covered his mouth, if the Echo had to breathe at all. The only way to figure that out would be to stop breathing and see if the Echo passed out, and it was rapidly approaching the point where smoke inhalation would answer that question anyway. Considering his goal now was to figure out if someone was trapped up here, he dropped down to the floor and crawled up the hallway, trying to stay below the smoke.

Outside the burning building, in what was now a big clearing of ash and debris, Hirrus' actual body was facing down the giant monsters whose battle had flattened so much of the town. By his estimation, it was going to take more serious firepower to handle both foes if he didn’t want the fight to take all afternoon.

And if there was one thing he had in spades, it was firepower.

As Kodetlan, the giant metal lobster god, whirled around to face Hirrus, it dragged one of its claws across the ground, swiping at him with the equivalent of a giant haymaker blow. Hirrus leaped back and let the cloud of ash and debris the attack kicked up obscure his next move. He had an external set of eyes to guide him, and the monster had revealed before that its poor eyesight couldn’t penetrate its own ash.

Hirrus could use that cover to give himself time to prepare.

He started by using Eyes On Me, as it was the longest-duration boost to his magical stats. Immediately, Hirrus noticed that the Arcana seemed to only affect his real body. The Echoes didn’t appear to benefit from it. That probably explained why Fidelis had employed no other buffs or abilities while fighting Hirrus with his army of Echoes. The glowing effect that accompanied such Arcana would have given away which one was his true form.

Hirrus was forced to duck to the side as an antennae swept through the cloud of ash, searching for him. The Echo acting as his eyes watched as the monster seemed entirely stymied by the cloud that it had created itself. In thinking of those who were powerless before problems of their own creation, Hirrus elected to approach this fight using some of the other tools provided to him by the officers of Last of the Strong.

Logarius Shroud was one of Andrew’s Arcana, and was another increase in his magical stats, along with a little cast speed boost. It had a very short duration, but it only needed to last for the next couple of Arcana before its purpose was fully served. As Hirrus evaluated his next move, he realized that Andrew had done all the work for him. Despite the library of options Hirrus had accumulated, the Arcana that Andrew had accumulated for the purpose seemed optimal.

The next was called Resplendent Orb. Hirrus flung a glowing golden sphere of energy straight up and in front of himself. His Echo outside the cloud saw it strike the metallic lobster right beneath its face, and while it did just barely more than one thousand damage, Hirrus' hands began to glow with the same golden light, and he enjoyed another boost to magical stats, though this one would only persist for a few seconds.

A giant claw came down at him, and Hirrus ducked back. Instead of slamming down, the claw snapped shut right where he had been standing, hard and fast enough that the wind of its passage dissipated much of the cloud of ash. Now he could look up and physically see his target using his own eyes instead of his Echo’s. He used the opportunity to aim his next Arcana more carefully.

Ioun Flechette sent a dart of purple energy at the giant monster. Despite the name and appearance of the Arcana, it didn’t bite into the foe, and simply smashed into it like a hammer for just under one thousand eight hundred damage. As soon as it struck, it flew back to Hirrus, orbiting around him. The next time he cast a damaging Arcana, the mote of energy would join with it, empowering the attack dramatically.

Now that he was visible again, the claw that snapped for him was much better-aimed, and more insistent. Hirrus had to break into a proper run to avoid it. But he was able to use the next Arcana as he ran. Mystic Dexterity caused a blurring cloud of energy to engulf him, dramatically reducing the cast time of his next Arcana.

Considering the giant metal lobster was very disinclined to ease up on its attack, Hirrus understood why the reduced cast time was a necessary part of Andrew’s sequence of Arcana. If he had to take the time to use Andrew’s finishing move - Z-Cutter - for the full five second cast time, he would be smashed to paste before he could use it.

The combination of cast time effects - along with the cast time reduction on his own gear - meant that he raised his hand and created the spinning disc of golden energy in under a second. As it formed, the purple mote of energy from Ioun Flechette leaped of its own accord into the disc, giving it a purple core at its center.

He flung the golden disc straight up at the monster’s center of mass.

Considering the name of the Arcana, he entertained the idea of seeing if it would dismember the beast, removing a claw or several legs, but the investment required - and the cooldowns that were now ticking away that would prevent him from doing this again as powerfully for several minutes - he simply aimed for center of mass.

It felt like hitting an adventurer.

The spinning disc slammed into the metal shell, striking sparks and leaving behind a huge gash that sprayed blue-gray blood. The whole creature bucked under the blow, a gush of green ooze accompanying the high keening noise that escaped it.

But the damage was what caught Hirrus’ breath in his throat. The attack dealt over ten thousand damage in a single stroke. It was more than Archaeotitan’s blast had done by a significant margin. Added with the attacks he’d chipped away at it, Kotdetlan was at just about 40% total hit points. He could finish it off with just a few more choice Arcana attacks, without investing more of his long-cooldown buff Arcana.

Of course, the distraction of all that preparation and calculation meant that his attention on his Echoes was lapsing.

Archaeotitan roared and unleashed an Arcana that Hirrus was too distracted to anticipate. The bloated monster’s horns glowed red for a moment before a red ring of damage boiled up out of the ground. It encircled Archaeotitan, starting about five feet away from its body, and extending to about twenty feet away. The fifteen-foot band of roiling energy didn’t reach Hirrus or the metal lobster, and wouldn’t have harmed Hirrus' Echo if he had been able to split his attention well enough to engage in close combat with it, but keeping the monster at arms’ reach meant that the searing energy engulfed the Echo.

Searing pain touched Hirrus' mind for only a moment before the already-damaged Echo took over seven thousand damage, far in excess of even its maximum hit points.

The image vanished.

Hirrus learned a valuable lesson from this, though, as the hit points he’d invested in the Echo returned to him. Apparently the dying Echo hadn’t cost him health when it died, which made sense from his fight with Fidelis, and had come back to him in the state he’d imparted it.

But Archaeotitan, no longer distracted by his Echo, was now returning to the melee, its charge directed pointedly at Hirrus.

Meanwhile, his other Echo discovered what survivor he sought, despite how halting and distracted his movements were.

He’d seen movement through one of the upper windows of the building from the outside. With the distraction given by the other Echoes, as well as the smoke, it was a challenge to reach and open the door he suspected led to the room where he’d seen it. But all he had to do was think of Dahlia trapped under the ruin of her own home, and how Hirrus had been her only chance at rescue. Imagining someone else in that situation drove him on, even if it meant his split focus might put him at a disadvantage in the fight.

The survivor was curled up under the table beneath the window. Even through the smoke, Hirrus could see the scratches on the window frame near the latch where they’d been unable to open it to get fresh air, before either dizziness or despair had driven them to lay down and try and take cover.

It was a little black cat.

Hirrus felt foolish for risking his life for a flicker of movement that had just been a panicked pet, but he was here, and he didn’t intend to leave it here to die. The little animal panicked and lashed out at him as he scooped it into his arms, but the combination of the miniscule offensive statistics of a housecat and the titanic defensive statistics of a guild-destroying anomaly meant that the damage it dealt being rounded up to one point was on the generous side.

“Easy,” Hirrus said hoarsely through the Echo’s smoke-clogged throat. “This is going to get worse before it gets better, little friend.”

Hirrus stood up, trying his best to comfortably cradle the cat before turning around and hurling himself shoulders-first at the window.