Hirrus only had a few more moments of enhanced magical power. That suited him fine, as he was running out of Arcana that would crush large numbers of foes. He’d eradicated at least two score of the enemies immediately arrayed against him, but the alarm was raised in truth now, and he could almost physically feel the earl shaking with the oncoming charge of all of Rumi’s underlings.

Every adventurer, guard, and awakened soul in the expansive camp was rushing to the defense of the monster they’d chosen to follow. With a thousand voices, their actions said: “you’ll have to go through me, first.”

And so Hirrus was going to go through them.

The Trembling Arcana rocked the ground in turn, dealing a few thousand damage to everyone in a wide area - ranging from three thousand to nine thousand - and stripping them of any buffs they had tried to accumulate before approaching. Weapons and projectiles had been chipping away at him still, but the power of the Cosmic Barrette meant that a single Arcana undid all of their work, even as a handful of them were killed or rendered unable to keep fighting by the damage he’d dealt.

The attack didn’t do much to clear the way, but it would be a few seconds before his larger Arcana started to come off cooldown again, so Hirrus would need to start picking off the wounded who were still in his way. Though his larger area of effect Arcana were spent, his arsenal of single-target damage options remained untouched.

It would be slow to use them to cut his way through to chase after Rumi, but he knew how to make it count.

Resplendent Orb blasted some poor soul to death with a little over four thousand damage. The glowing energy of it settled around him afterwards, enhancing his RES for more power. A burly man with a curved blade rushed at Hirrus, but his mask marked him as one of Fire’s crew of adventurers. Too weak to waste a more potent option. He slammed his hand out, unleashing Slow Toxin into the man before giving him a physical hip throw to cast him to the ground and out of the way. The damage-over-time effect ripped through his hit points, and Hirrus moved on before the man was dead, knowing the Arcana would kill him before he could get to his feet and catch up.

Hirrus managed a few more steps before the crowd started to close in on him again. Weapons were raised against him, but he was entirely unconcerned. The only threat they represented was as physical bodies blocking his path as Rumi escaped. Flamesplash and TK Bullets took out two more targets, obliterating them with the raw power of his inflated stats, but there were so many.

Near at hand, he could hear the screaming as Nidra eviscerated one foe after another, but she was doing so one at a time, and slower than Hirrus could manage. Considering the situation, he understood why she had needed him. He had thought she could have dealt with Rumi herself with her abilities, but he fully understood the situation now. Unless she could catch him alone in private, the literal tide of foes ready and eager to die for his safety rendered any attempt she could have made impossible.

The only way to succeed was with the ability to sweep the foes aside by the dozen.

To that end, Hirrus couldn’t keep using his magical Arcana. With only his single-target options off of cooldown, he was staring at the same losing proposition that Nidra was.

But he had two more options before turning back to physical effects. He hadn’t wanted to use Civilization Buster when it would have engulfed the cart and killed the innocent townspeople inside, but as the cart was escaping, Hirrus could still use the powerful Arcana and angle it to avoid the cart.

A handful of foes tried to tackle Hirrus, physically weighing him down with their raw numbers. With his BUR stat having been swapped out for his much lower natural ATT, it almost worked. His legs couldn’t support their combined weight, and he found himself forced to his knees. Someone was grinding the blade of a dagger against his back, chipping away with damage that barely broke three digits, but they just kept worrying at his armor, unrelenting.

Neither their weight nor their distractions could stop him from using Arcana, though.

Hirrus unleashed Civilization Buster.

The giant blue-white beam of the Arcana ripped through the people weighing Hirrus down. The high RES multiplier on the Arcana meant that the damage output was highly variable, but he must have hit a lucky break, because the damage was so intense it shocked even him.

Three of the people physically on top of him took over fifteen thousand damage and turned to ash. A huge swath was cut through not just the crowd before him, but the camp well beyond where he actually wanted to go.

His awareness registered at least a hundred foes struck by the Arcana. The strongest among them still took over thirteen thousand damage at a single stroke. One poor soul suffered thirty-five thousand damage. Hirrus hoped that it wasn’t an innocent townsperson just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Shrugging off the remaining foes, Hirrus sprinted down the corridor of ash and burnt dirt he’d just created. He got about halfway to the retreating cart before someone stepped forward with arms outstretched, barring his way. He wasn’t the only one, as others were filling the breach as well.

“You have exactly one second to get out of my way,” Hirrus barked.

“Or what?” the man demanded.

“One.”

Hirrus quickly used Mystic Dexterity to increase the speed of his next ability, and then unleashed Andrew’s Z-Cutter Arcana. The disc of force wasn’t enhanced by Ioun Flechette, but it hit like a runaway cart just the same. The defiant man hit the ground in two pieces, instantly bisected by twenty-three thousand damage.

The cutter sawed through the crowd. Hirrus activated Fleetness of Tonner to use the speed boost to rush over the dismembered pieces left in the wake of the flying disc. As he went, it was time to switch tactics. Canceling X’ruhn’s Balance restored his BUR and SUP, and the next person who stepped in his way felt the blade of his Icy Greataxe collide with their face, smashing them for five thousand damage. They must have suffered some incidental damage during the earlier parts of the fight, because they went down immediately, and Hirrus continued to run.

“Rumi!” Hirrus bellowed. “I’m coming for you!”

His bloodlust was rising. He could practically taste it in the back of his throat. As he ran, he piled on more of his physical damage buffs. Going Ape. Pumped Kicks. Terminus Grip. Iron Typhoon. The crowd closed in around him, weapons raised to try and batter him down again, and he met them in kind. His hooked blade lashed out, and the huge bonus to critical hit rate meant that his three stacks of the Crushing Blade buff maxed out almost instantly.

Once he had that 30% bonus to physical damage, it was time to close the gap.

Peppered Breath blasted the crowd. Eleven thousand damage was the least some of them took. The roar of the flames was drowned out by the anguished screams of those who had survived the blast and were now doomed by the burn debuff that accompanied it.

Hirrus shouldered past the dying to step over the dead. As soon as he met resistance again, he unleashed Twistered Breath. The blast of blue-green wind ripped through his foe. Those who survived the thirteen thousand damage it dealt fell to their knees, clutching at their throats as the choke debuff ripped their remaining health bars to shreds.

He was nearly to Rumi’s cart. It had been stopped by the dense crowd trying to rush to his defense blocking the path, and now their aid was going to be his doom.

The last gap was cleared by Gritted Breath. Hirrus belched brown-orange sand in a huge cone over the last line of defenders. The blast clipped the back corner of the cart, and while the metal body of the cart was only polished and scratched, the wheel on that corner disintegrated.

Rumi’s cart tipped back, disabled. There was no escape now, even as Hirrus shoved aside the foes that survived the eleven thousand damage to suffer the aftereffects of the rasp debuff scouring the flesh from their bones.

“Die monster!” someone barked from behind him. “You don’t belong in this world!”

Hirrus barely turned when he saw a glowing green tether shoot out of the hands of a man wearing one of Fire’s masks. Hirrus remembered Nidra being yanked away from her final shot against Rumi by this very Arcana.

He was about to lose fifteen yards of hard-fought progress, while all of his powerful physical breath attacks were on cooldown.

It was possible that he was about to lose his chance. If that tether struck him, then-

The glittering lariat froze in mid-air, right in front of Hirrus. There was a grunt of pain from the empty air.

Alric appeared, caught by the tether. He had been using the invisibility Arcana to avoid the fight while staying near to Hirrus’s side, and now, in this critical moment, he had flung himself in the path of the attack that was going to thwart their entire plan.

Hirrus wanted to reach out and grab him. Fight to keep him from being yanked back into the crowd. The man was not Hirrus. Alric would be ripped to shreds in under a second if Hirrus didn’t do something. But he was too slow. His hands were full with his own weapons. There was no way…

Alric looked back over his shoulder at Hirrus with a pained smile.

He knew he was giving his life for Hirrus. He was not just resigned to it, but glad.

“What is a man?” Alric asked.

Hirrus could make no response before the masked adventurer yanked Alric into the crowd.

He traveled far, deep into the crowd, and Hirrus moved to follow.

A spear plunged into the left side of Alric’s rib cage and out of his back. Someone shouted boldly, victoriously.

The adventurer finally stopped moving, his face frozen in that smile.