Melisune’s Eye was one of Hirrus’s most powerful Arcana. Its incredibly large area of effect and ample multipliers were nice, but the real benefit was the debuff it applied. In order to circumvent the tremendous slow on him, he used Rapid Rip, launching himself across the battlefield before turning towards the scattered group, finding the direction and angle that would strike the most foes.

“Turn,” the woman in black-and-red barked, darting clear of the Arcana with her peculiar flickering speed amplification.

As one and without hesitation, the entire group turned to face away from Hirrus before the Arcana blasted out from him.

But Eyes On Me meant that turning away did nothing.

Two thirds of the group took fourteen thousand damage and were Calcified, stopping them from contributing to the fight.

Shockingly, though, the group survived the blast. None of them were felled by the blast. But the power of his Cosmic Barrette meant that all the damage they’d done to him in turn was instantly repaired.

“Fucking hacks!” the man in heavy blue armor shouted, still pelting Hirrus with red dots of energy, each one tickling for a few hundred damage.

“Survival phase,” the woman in black-and-red snapped, charging across the battlefield to close with Hirrus again. “Healer cooldowns! Go!”

The scantily-clad woman in red raised her arms, completing her Arcana cast. It created a large area of blue energies, and glittering teardrops of energy fell from the sky within. It encompassed most of the people Hirrus had Calcified, and while they remained stilled, the energy was slowly closing their wounds.

Hirrus realized had a choice. He could blast the area again to try and kill the adventurers he had frozen, or he could turn his attention to the few still moving around. As the woman in black-and-red closed the distance, blasting him with that same 50% movement speed reduction, it seemed unlikely that he could ignore her successfully.

And while she wasn’t Cerberus, she seemed to be in charge. Her death might break the carefully-maintained order that kept the group working as one. And while he was still hammering them with magical Arcana, he had plenty of tools to take her on in that arena.

He cast out Resplendent Orb against her. It dealt a solid five thousand damage to her, forcing her to dance back a bit. But the golden glow that surrounded his hands was the true goal. He needed more power. These adventurers were on another level from what he’d faced thus far. If he was going to kill them, he couldn’t dance around. He had to hit them as hard as possible.

“Heals on me,” she said calmly. “Tank buster incoming.”

“Raid and tank healing at the same time?” the scantily clad woman in red cried. “I’m trying-”

“I’m givin’ ‘er all I’ve got, cap’n!” the man in the burlap outfit snapped, “I just cannae do it!”

The woman grimaced, using an Arcana of her own. It surrounded her with a glowing purple aura that spread out from her. Hirrus felt the aura trying to apply a debuff to him, but his legendary gauntlets were suppressing it.

Hirrus flung his next Arcana at her. Ioun Flechette. The dart of purple energy crashed into her for three thousand five hundred damage before returning to Hirrus’s side.

His next Arcana was going to be devastatingly powerful.

“Is someone going to get me?” the woman asked, “I can Hallowed this, but I need to know now.”

The man in the burlap outfit flung a glowing golden fruit at her. It looked like a pineapple, streaking towards her like a comet. On striking her, it surrounded her with a brilliant golden cloud, and as she inhaled, her wounds closed.

Hirrus suspected that she was employing a large number of defensive buffs. The golden cloud lingering around her warned that even her allies were applying defenses to her as well. It was likely that she might survive what he was about to do. It would be a tremendous waste of resources if he poured his attention into her and she survived. If this attack didn’t kill, he might be overwhelmed before he could try to punch through the defenses again.

So he didn’t just target her.

Flames of the Apocalypse roared up out of the ground in a giant ring. The woman in black-and-red was just close enough away to be caught, and several other adventurers were burnt by it as well. She survived the blast, taking only nine thousand damage.

But the others who were struck took over seventeen thousand.

The woman in black leather died before having contributed at all. A man in blue armor pelting Hirrus with damage burnt to a crisp in seconds. And the scantily clad woman in red died as well. Others who were struck survived, but all of them were afflicted with the steep GLE debuff, even if their Calcification effect was broken by the damage.

Hirrus didn’t hesitate. As the enemies freed from their effect started to move in, he dropped down and slammed his hand to the dirt, unleashing Trembling. Its multiplier was lower, but with the Apocalyptic Sear debuff he’d just applied, and the damage he’d already dealt, the ten thousand damage he dished out in the immediate area slew several of the attackers outright. The man with the twin handaxes fell dead before actually getting to use the huge cloud of buffs he’d amassed. Hirrus saw the woman in black-and-red drop to one knee, still alive, but stripped of her buffs and visibly bleeding out. The man in green and purple robes staggered and fell, stammering incoherent curses.

“I’d say wipe it up,” the woman in black-and-red announced, her form still now that her buffs had been stripped by Trembling. “But we don’t get a second chance, do we?”

Before Hirrus could finish her off, the surviving adventurers rushed in again. The shirtless man let out a high-pitched howl and smashed the ground, applying another movement speed debuff - though a weaker one. The woman in yellow zipped around him at inhuman speeds, punching at his kidneys repeatedly. A man in ice-blue armor unleashed a blast of cold air, dealing a good six thousand damage, though Hirrus’s gauntlets suppressed the added damage-over-time effect.

Even as their allies were obliterated with just a few hits, they were still fighting.

It was almost commendable, if they weren’t acting in defense of the subjugation of the kingdom.

Even as their numbers thinned, their damage was still ramping up. It was clear that their buffs were on another level from what Hirrus had amassed so far. He couldn’t keep stalling if he wanted to bring this encounter to a quick end.

Hirrus turned to his newest Arcana, stomping the ground and unleashing Nectarous Deluge. The purple puddle forced his foes back unless they wanted to be trapped, giving Hirrus some space to work. Not to mention that if they were stuck in the bubbling purple ooze, the tremendous damage over time effect would kill them in seconds.

With the space he’d gained, Hirrus canceled X’ruhn’s Balance.

It was time to bring to bear his fiercest weapons.

The woman in yellow blasted him with electrical energy from a distance, and someone far away blasted him with a giant icicle from the sky, but the damage was nothing to him. A few thousand damage was so small compared to his overinflated health pool.

And what he was about to do was going to bring this to a swift conclusion.

The rapid-fire buffs he stacked up took a moment to assemble. But he held nothing back this time. Pumped Kicks, Iron Typhoon, Terminus Grip, Fleetness of Tonner, Ravening Burn, and Polar Bulwark - with Going Ape still active - represented an impossible collection of movement speed, attack speed, BUR and SUP bonuses.

“Ruh-roh,” the woman in yellow said blithely. “We’re gonna-”

Peppered Breath blasted her, the shirtless man, and the man in the ice armor. Twelve thousand damage killed the latter two instantly.

He turned and unleashed Gritted Breath next, this arc including the shirtless man and the dying woman in black-and-red armor. Another twelve thousand finished them both.

The woman in the white robe and the man with the spear were charging in, trying to fill the breach after avoiding the previous attacks, and Twistered Breath mortally wounded them both - the Choke debuff ticking away on them would finish them in seconds.

In that brief moment, the woman in white lunged, her curved sword sweeping out of its sheath. The energies around her reminded Hirrus of Andrew and his massed power.

Despite himself, for a brief moment, Hirrus saw death in that woman’s eyes, reflected off of the blade of the chisel-tipped sword. With all of his power active, he’d killed his foes too fast. The Cosmic Barrette activated per hit, and so after all of the damage he’d taken, this wound might be too much for him to handle.

Split Second spared him having to find out. The blade passed through him harmlessly as he darted past her, using the tremendous move speed bonus to lunge at the next enemy. He didn’t even turn to watch the Choke debuff finish the job.

“That’s not fair!” the man in the green silk snapped, slamming out an Arcana. Hirrus was still invulnerable from Split Second, but somehow the Arcana struck him through that effect, even if it only did seven thousand five hundred damage. “Fuck you! Fuck this! Bullsh-”

Hirrus didn’t even bother using an Arcana to deal with the man. The icy greataxe cleaved him across the front, dealing a critical hit for fifteen thousand damage, and leaving behind a burn debuff that was likely enough to finish the job. But with Hirrus’s tremendous attack speed buffs made another backhand blow from the greataxe trivial, decapitating the man with another eighteen thousand damage critical strike.

Even as his power was increased by the Crushing Blows buff from his sword, he didn’t want to get sloppy in dealing with these enemies.

Rushing at the next target, Hirrus oriented on the fruit-throwing man in burlap. He tried to run, but between Pumped Kicks and Fleetness of Tonner, there was no escape. Drenched Breath dealt just shy of fifteen thousand damage, and while the Drown debuff would definitely finish the job shortly, Hirrus knew this man was a healer, and might be equipped to remove the debuff and survive. The hooked blade lashed out as Hirrus rushed past, slashing up the man’s back to finish the job with a single stroke for another eight thousand damage.

“My cabbages!” he screamed in his last moment, no doubt rendered delirious from the pain.

“Alright, enough of this,” a man bellowed.

A purple obelisk appeared right in front of Hirrus, and a shimmering purple chain lanced out from it. Hirrus easily ducked to the right, avoiding it, but the enormous shackle on the end of it curved with his impossibly fast movement, clamping down around his waist, the chain pulling taut immediately, stopping him from moving more than ten feet from the glowing obelisk.

“Got him!” the man in purple robes covered in golden stars announced triumphantly. He had apparently avoided all of what Hirrus had thrown, waiting for his time to strike. “Now then, stand aside, noobs, and let the best among us land the killshot and earn the spoils!”

The man started to call up Arcana to empower him, no doubt planning another large blast just as Andrew had thrown his way. Hirrus wasn’t sure if he should be afraid, with nearly sixty thousand hit points of his seventy-two thousand total. But something the man said had grated on him.

“The best among you?” Hirrus yelled. “You dare to stand in defense of Cerberus and claim such a title?”

“What are you gonna do about it?” the man said snidely. Despite his wizened appearance, he stuck his tongue out at Hirrus, reaching up with one finger to pull his lower eyelid down. The juvenile display from such an old man was slightly jarring.

“I’ll show you what killed the best among you,” Hirrus said, reaching out towards him. “And we’ll see if you are truly better!”

It turned out that the man in purple had no more response to Zair Tether than Alric had.

Though he said that F-word adventurers seemed so fond of a shocking number of times in the second it took for the Arcana to draw him within reach of Hirrus’s blades.