The truck roared around the corner. It was moving slower than the smaller passenger cart, by virtue of its size. As soon as Hirrus locked eyes with the driver - as much as he could lock eyes with someone wearing a mask - the engine roared even louder as they poured on the power, obviously in an attempt to use the cart’s momentum to crush him.

That only meant they weren’t trying to avoid what he was about to do.

With Going Ape active, increasing his BUR, Hirrus jumped up at the perfect moment to plant both feet on the front of the cart. The Hiden Sokyaku Arcana pounded enough damage into the vehicle to disable it instantly, and the knockback jolted it hard. It wasn’t enough to bring the cart to a full stop, but it counteracted enough of its momentum that Hirrus could get out of the way easily once his feet were back on the ground.

Hirrus came away from the exchange entirely unscathed. His ankles tingled from the incredible impact, but the power of the Arcana behind the kick shielded him from the steel-shattering blow. After the strike, he found his feet and got out of the way as the cart lost power and skidded to a stop.

The cart and its occupants suffered a much different fate. The jarring impact had slammed everyone in the cockpit of the cart into the front of it. Anyone in the back of the cart would have suffered a similar effect. The driver and the person seated next to them in the cockpit hadn’t hit the front window, but when the cart finally came to a halt and one of the front doors opened, the masked driver didn’t clamber down, but dropped to the dirt much in the same way that the driver of the previous cart had. As Hirrus stomped his way towards the cart, he heard someone inside the cargo compartment scrabbling against the door, trying to get out while similarly dazed and disoriented.

The passenger in the front of the cart fared better than his companion. The man leaped from the vehicle and ran at Hirrus, though he was staggering from side to side as he went, not entirely unaffected.

Rage swelled in Hirrus. These people - these monsters - thought they were going to circle around him and threaten an innocent woman. They dared to attack his only remaining friend, and thought for some reason that there would be no consequences? Hirrus activated Pumped Kicks and Iron Typhoon for the fight to come. In his anger, he activated Electric Field as well, and the metal of his hooked sword crackled, reflecting the crackling energy even as it empowered him. It only did two thousand damage to him. There was a similar effect from the metal of his gauntlets, dealing another, separate two thousand damage to him. The pain only sharpened his focus. It was a trivial amount of damage in the grand scheme. The extra movement and attack speed was worth it at this moment.

Hirrus' axe rose and fell, the combined Arcana letting even the massive weapon reach blinding speeds. It crashed down on the masked man for several thousand damage at a stroke. The blow sent him to the ground on his face before he could even cry out. Hirrus' hooked sword slashed back and forth across the man’s back in a blinding flash. Axe and sword came down together as one. The man was dead before he could even begin to comprehend what he was up against.

“Jesus Christ,” the driver said. “What the fuck even is that thing?” He had started to charge to join his companion, but pulled up short now. Instead of continuing towards Hirrus, he turned towards the cart, fumbling for a second to open the cargo compartment and hurl open the doors for those inside. “Get out! Scatter!”

There were several people inside the cart. Five more masked figures, and three without masks. Hirrus guessed that they were more ordinary folk who had been relieved of their decision tree, but none of them were armed and armored. They had not been brought as combatants. They were disease vectors. The masked people never intended to just grab Dahlia and hold her hostage. Their plan was to kill her on the spot and make her a monster.

Before Hirrus was even aware of what he was doing, his axe struck the driver in the ribs from behind. His fury had driven him forward heedless of his own thoughts, and the icy greataxe landed a critical hit, dealing over ten thousand damage at a single stroke. His enhanced speed and strength sent the man slamming into the open door of the cart’s cargo compartment. Hirrus was about to step up to finish him off in a few more devastating cuts, but the figures within the cart had recovered enough to rush him now, and he had to turn his attention to them as they came.

The civilians were trying to just escape and get out of the way, while the masked figures were actively using them for cover.

But nothing was going to be an effective cover against Hirrus, enraged as he was.

“What did you think?” he roared. “That you could commit such cowardice unpunished?”

He unleashed Low Caterwaul into the back of the cart. Its range was less than he expected, and it only caught two of the masked figures and one of the infected civilians, doing three thousand damage to the two masked figures and five thousand to the infected man, killing him instantly. He was truly a civilian, then, as fragile as any other non-combatant despite the potential power the transformation offered.

“Get back; don’t int,” one of the masked figures said, their voice commanding enough that Hirrus immediately identified them as Fire. “We can’t afford to feed here. There’s too much on the line.”

Hirrus tried to note anything of substance about the person who had spoken, but everything about their appearance was nondescript. Average height. Average build. Hair and eyes hidden by the masked cowl. It made it all that much clearer that they were the leader. Amidst any number of those wearing the same identity-obscuring uniform, they would blend in more than anyone else.

Before Hirrus could charge them, they unleashed an arcana on the side of the truck. A rending shockwave whirled out of their hands, and with a shriek of metal about half of the side of the compartment tore free of the cart and flew, spinning, into the nearest tree.

The group inside the cart leaped out through the new exit, Fire leading the way with one of the infected civilians in tow.

The cart’s driver found his feet again, and when Hirrus lunged around the corner to give chase, the man was in the way with a raised sword. The blade thrust into Hirrus’ shoulder, but only did one thousand five hundred damage. Hirrus had done far more than that to himself with Electric Field.

Hirrus’ hooked sword wove a web of steel, each blow hitting for over seven thousand five hundred damage, amplified by Crushing Blows from the earlier critical strike with his axe. The man was dead in three hits, though the fourth landed on the corpse before it even fell, slicing the dead man’s chest open to the bone.

The damage was done, though. When Hirrus came around the cart, the fleeing figures had a big head start on him. They were splitting into three groups, two of them were one masked figure with one civilian, while the remaining three masked figures were armed and ready to try and stop Hirrus from giving chase. Two of them activated Arcana that created orange-red glows around their bodies. The third used an Arcana that made her fists glow with a yellow radiance on the grip of her spear.

Nothing was going to stop Hirrus from giving chase, though. Those infected civilians represented a threat that could obliterate a city with a single bite. Even a city the size of Inoha could descend into flaming chaos if the Merciless Plague was unleashed there in just the right way.

Not to mention that only one of them would need to reach the city to threaten Dahlia.

Hirrus wasted no time against the three would-be blockers. He unleashed Peppered Breath from where he was standing, letting the cone of flames envelop all three. Fifteen thousand damage blasted across them. The trio staggered under the blow, and Hirrus punished them for their hesitation. Gritted Breath enveloped them in bright orange sand for fourteen thousand damage. The two Arcana together killed the man on the left. The other two recoiled in pain and sudden panic as the two DoTs that afflicted them were busily finishing the job. They were dealt with, and Hirrus ignored them now in favor of the two fleeing pairs.

One of them was running for the trees, looking to break line of sight and vanish into the forest. The other was just keeping to the road, maintaining the highest possible speed to get as far from Hirrus as they could as fast as possible. While he had the tools for speed to catch up to the runners, Hirrus lacked the ability to track at speed. The ones going for the forest might actually slip away if he let them out of his sight now.

Split second closed most of the distance. The combined move speed of his active Arcana meant that he was on top of them before they could yelp in surprise at his sudden approach. His hooked blade whipped out vertically at the masked figure, who ducked. The infected civilian was too slow, and the blade sliced them open from their collarbone down to their hip. Nine thousand one hundred damage obliterated their paltry hit points.

“You can’t!” the masked figure stammered. It wasn’t Fire. This person was too broad in the shoulders, and had a distinctive dueling scar across his chin. Despite having the appearance of a scrappy fighter, he threw up his hands in surrender. “I give up! You can’t kill me! It wouldn’t be right when I’ve surrendered!”

“Have you ever honored a surrender?” Hirrus demanded. “Would you have honored Dahlia’s?”

Hirrus didn’t wait for an answer. With blinding speed, Icy Greataxe and Crushing Blade ripped him apart. He hit the ground in five pieces.

“Fire!” Hirrus bellowed after the last two figures as they sprinted up the road. “Face me! Face me and learn the meaning of despair! Because if I have to catch you, I will show you what it truly means to be without mercy!”