With Rumi dead, Hirrus wanted to relax. Killing the man who would have caused GM Dave’s counterparts to obliterate him did take a lot of weight off his shoulders. But Rumi’s death didn’t change the facts of his current position.

Hirrus was surrounded by hundreds of angry combatants, and he’d just butchered their messiah.

It seemed what he’d done had a massive effect on those who remained in the camp. A number of them fell into a howling despair, turning tail and fleeing. Others were simply stunned, either falling to their knees or standing and staring, openmouthed, at what had become of their leader.

The majority, though, surged forward towards Hirrus and Nidra. Weapons and Arcana came at them seeking revenge, heedless of the danger the two of them represented.

Hirrus almost laid down his weapons and let them.

He’d achieved his goal and killed Rumi.

Hirrus had faced oblivion and clawed his way back from it. When the reset came, he would be returned home.

Julissa wouldn’t be alone.

Everything would be alright.

Of course, that was if he ignored Nidra. She had been intent on them surviving this, and had baited the hook with answers. He worried that it might be a trap, but he couldn’t discount the idea that it was another threat to his existence. What if she knew of someone else who was making Merciless? What if she knew of someone who would seek revenge against him after he was bound by the decision tree again? Could he afford to turn his back on that?

His weapons came up, ready to fight.

Hirrus had only used a couple of his physical damage buffs when he’d changed from magical to physical damage. He hadn’t had the time to stack up all of them. At the time it had felt like a missed opportunity, since the more he had active, the more they would improve each other’s contributions, it was a blessing now. He activated Ravening Burn and a second stack of Fleetness of Tonner, and while he didn’t like having to suffer the jolt of damage from Electric Field for wielding a metal weapon, he activated it as well. The extra speed would help bridge the gap between the duration and cooldown of Pumped Kicks.

That was all he had time for before the crowd collapsed on him. His hooked blade flashed out, moving with the quick efficiency that a lifetime of drills and practice had imprinted on Hirrus’s brain, slicing through one foe after another. The icy greataxe whirled in a giant swing on his other side, carving a huge arc through the attackers on that side. The effects of Ravening Burn filled the air with the smell of burning flesh, both human and reptilian.

Weapons hacked away at Hirrus from all sides, chipping away at his health, and he raised his arms up and brought them down. It was impossible to swing the weapons without cutting through foes, but that wasn’t his focus. He unleashed High Caterwaul, and electrical energy pulsed out of him in a short-range wave. With his stats focused on the physical, it didn’t do fantastic damage, but that wasn’t what he was after. The electric shock pulsed and crackled on the foes around him, slowing down their attack and cast speed. Not to mention the sudden restoration of his health thanks to the Cosmic Barrette.

He stomped towards the direction where Nidra had been - back towards Rumi’s cart. His arms moved of their own accord, following the patterns of a dozen combat forms that had been drilled into him since his hands were big enough to close around a weapon’s haft. The hooked blade flew in quick and efficient cuts and thrusts, each one dishing out thousands of damage and leaving behind a searing wound. More often than not, leaving the target dead within seconds. The greataxe was much closer to his more familiar weapon of choice, and with his enhanced BUR and the boost from the Gere Ring, it swooped, sliced, and chopped with the brutal efficiency of a much smaller battle-axe, backed up by the indomitable weight of the weapon’s actual size. Most enemies started to avoid that side, scrambling to get out of Hirrus’s way, and those who didn’t usually didn’t survive long enough to suffer the added burning effect that would finish the job.

Hirrus lost count of how many fell before him after the first charge.

Those who attacked now had no regard for tactics or survival. They threw themselves at him, as if their plan was to bury him with their corpses and drown him with their blood.

His body knew what to do, though.

He didn’t need to know if he’d slain a dozen or a hundred just for his hands to keep moving.

Even as they fell at his feet, he stepped over or on top of them, when he didn’t have to kick them out of his way.

Nidra was being overwhelmed. She had gained the high ground by killing several foes in the same spot and standing atop the mound of corpses, but she didn’t have the raw power Hirrus did. Her foes didn’t fall away shrieking or dead at a single blow. Her wide-bladed dagger could only menace one attacker at a time. And while she had the advantage in level and gear on almost every other fighter on the field of battle, she couldn’t match Hirrus for pure indomitability.

Hirrus smashed the ground at her flank with Low Caterwaul. Electrical energy blasted the enemies who were hacking at her back, and while it didn’t kill them at a single strike, the energy rebounded back to Hirrus, infusing his arms with power, and his attack speed increased beyond the realm of reason. His arms went from inhuman speed to impossible speed. His weapons blurred, the head of the axe and the hooked tip of the sword moving too fast for the human eye to follow.

Hirrus stepped into Nidra’s space, putting his back to hers. She didn’t even look. It was as if she knew it was him, and she relaxed a little at the support.

He took a moment to apply Phrase of Luminosity to her, the glittering energies of it restoring a small amount of her health over time. It wasn’t much, but she seemed to be in bad shape. Every little bit would help.

At Nidra’s back, he handled the lion’s share of the crowd that came at them. His weapons flew through the air, and no defense was at all effective. Heavily armored foes could not protect the joints of their armor from the speed of Hirrus’s sword. Shields and defensive Arcana could not stop Hirrus’s axe. No weapons could touch him. Any attack was parried at near-invisible speeds, and its wielder was met with a deadly riposte. Arcana pelted him, but as the fight went on, they became fewer and farther between as the wielders of those Arcana fell, either hurling themselves against the meat grinder of Hirrus’s weapons, or retaliation from Nidra.

Despite Hirrus’s overwhelming battlefield presence, Nidra didn’t let him do all the work. She held her own at his back, and hurled her own Arcana when it was available. Most of what she produced was single-target, but she had that rhythmic knockback move every few moments to buy herself space, and when an Arcana came from the crowd, she returned fire with attacks of her own. She had that electrical jolt attack that she’d used against the Kaitzer Starden, but she also called columns of fire out of the ground, only able to damage one person at a time, but doing devastating damage to them. Her other Arcana were either unsuited to this fight, or she was unable to bring them to bear for another reason.

After a time, Hirrus began to periodically use Low Caterwaul, becoming reliant on the extra attack speed, and the burst of healing it applied kept him at full hit points. He stacked Fleetness of Tonner up to the maximum, and the combined 30% increase to his physical stats nearly rendered all other buffs superfluous. When Electric Field ended, Pumped Kicks was ready again, pouring on the speed he needed to turn the sea of enemies into a pile of parts at his feet. When Ravening Burn ended, Terminus Grip and Iron Typhoon picked up the slack in ensuring that every strike was a mortal wound.

With his objective complete, he didn’t see a reason to fall back on his breath Arcana when they were ready again. He didn’t need to cut a path through these foes at speed. He only needed to stand his ground, carving up everything that dared to approach.

And he was having far too much fun.

Hirrus promised himself he wouldn’t think about it again when it was over, but every fiber of his being sang.

He was enjoying this so much it made the civilized part of him sick.

The bloodlust in his heart felt like it had been silent his whole life, and only now was allowed to cry out in joy. Here, the rough resistance of flesh beneath his blades was a pleasure he had long ignored.

When blood spattered over his reptilian muzzle, the taste and smell of blood was intoxicating.

He was a monster.

They’d called him that so many times, and he’d denied it at every turn, struggling to argue his personhood.

But they were right.

This was who he was.

He’d always feared that he was born to destroy. It was true that Julissa had taught him to love. With her guidance, he had created a life together with her, and he treasured it beyond reckoning. But in his heart of hearts, he knew the truth. Just because he could do other things didn’t change why he was brought into this world. He was created for a very explicit reason. Not to love. Not to create. Not to build.

He was here to do violence.

To cut.

To kill.

He barely even noticed the searing pain as his Merciless form faded and his body shrank back to normal. A part of him had hoped that its fading would break the bloodlust’s hold on him and restore his sanity and reason, but it didn’t. The attacks against him redoubled - his foes believing their victory to be at hand with the fading of his transformation. But the only thing that changed was the numbers that flicked past his awareness too fast to see. To the bloodlust that drove him, the only change was that he got to cut some foes more than once before they stopped screaming.

Amidst the screams was a wild, booming laugh, and it wasn’t until the fanatics charging to their deaths at his hands thinned that he realized it was his own. His voice bellowed for more. Urging them to come. Calling for them to join with their savior in soaking into the bloody dirt beneath the mountain of corpses he stood upon.

The bloodlust didn’t let go of him until he found himself stepping forward. When the attackers stopped, their futility proven, his body forced him forward, moving towards those who stopped charging heedlessly into him.

He wanted to kill them.

Hirrus wanted to kill them all, even as they were struggling to decide if they wanted to die for a cause that had already been thoroughly butchered.

He would have done it, too, but as soon as he moved, Nidra sagged against his back with a pained groan. If he stepped away to press the fight, she wouldn’t last.

Without his protection - and with his violence promising that this fight would only end with eradication - she would die.

He would be sacrificing her. Just like Alric.

The hunger for death within him abated just enough. Hirrus the man got a toehold in his mind against Hirrus the monster. He stabbed his hooked blade into the mountain of corpses under his feet and reached up, wiping at the blood spatter across his mouth.

“Yield!” Hirrus ordered, pointing his icy greataxe as the uncertain foes who remained. “I doubt even this ocean of blood would satisfy Rumi, but he is dead and so is his cause! Cast your loyalty to him aside, and this can be over.”

One by one, those who remained on their feet dropped their weapons. And then they did something Hirrus did not expect or appreciate.

They - along with the others who had already elected not to fight - bent the knee. They knelt down and lowered their heads in submission.