Hirrus was unsure of how to proceed. He didn’t know how to defend himself against her choking attack, and it seemed to be healing her. It was a problem he needed to solve, and if he didn’t come up with something, it would only take her five or six more uses of it to kill him, considering that his Cosmic Barrette’s healing was dramatically reduced with only one available target.

Cerberus seemed to be enjoying herself.

She started towards him, swinging her maul like a pendulum forward and back. Hirrus took a careful step back, and then lunged, hoping to catch her off-guard.

Rapid Rip tore through her, but right as he lunged, the ring of fire formed around her. His dash attack passed through her harmlessly, though the dash carried him far away enough to avoid the column of flame that followed.

“Come on,” Cerberus said in a sing-song voice, giving him a rude gesture that showed off the bone-inlay visage on her bracer, “you wanted to feel the noise, didn’t you?”

Instead of approaching, she flung another of those shimmering rings at him, forcing him to dodge, and then again when it bounced off the wall behind him. As soon as he dodged, she lunged with her maul, and despite himself, he backed off again, trying to get some space to form a plan.

She was moving as fast as he was, and her maul swept in at him twice, the sheer weight of it - and her high BUR - forcing him to parry with both weapons to avoid getting his skull caved in. Stopping short suddenly let him get some space, but only enough to fling another shimmering ring of energy at him. The unexpected attack caught him full in the chest for another five thousand damage.

“You came all this way for little ol’ me,” Cerberus said, putting on a pouty face. “And now you’re just gonna dance around? Not going to give me a proper fight?”

Hirrus needed to overcome her all at once, before she could grab him again and recover from what he could throw at her. But for that, he needed time. Something she was not going to give him. He had to force her to give him an opening.

He flung out his hand, going back to his first hard-fought victory over an adventurer. The SnowBarrage Arcana flung a cluster of ice and snow at her. It wouldn’t do much damage, but it would slow her cast speed, giving him a moment to-

Her maul came up and met the cluster of projectiles.

A ribbon of rainbow hues followed the weapon, and where the snow struck it, it rebounded at Hirrus. He suffered one thousand eight hundred damage from his own attack, and his casting speed was slowed instead.

Cerberus cackled with glee, her grin wide and her dark eyes dancing.

Hirrus could read in her expression that she had a joke ready, but had to get over it herself to choke it out without laughing even harder.

Hirrus fixed Cerberus with a glare.

And then he fixed her with a glare.

His vision flashed red as Jettatura blasted from him and struck her. It only dealt one thousand five hundred damage, as his stats were fixed towards physical attacks now, but it didn’t need to hurt her.

It just needed to stop her for a few seconds.

The attack had only stopped Hirrus for a moment, and he had to assume that it was all the time it would buy him.

The first thing he did was channel Meditate. It rapidly ticked down the cooldowns on his Arcana, refreshing the abilities he would need to deal with her. It just took a couple of seconds, and once it was done, he re-applied all of his physical buffs, making sure that if his plan failed, he would still be able to fight.

The next step of his plan demanded his approach. He reached out and touched the paralyzed Cerberus on the cheek, ignoring the look of amusement in her still-moving eyes. Voracious Strike stripped one of her buffs, and Hirrus was shocked at its potency. It was called Mighty Guard, and increased TEN and GLE by a startling 100%. He suddenly felt indestructible. But more than that, the amusement in Cerberus’s eyes was replaced by surprise, and, unless he was very much mistaken, a little fear.

Hirrus dashed through her once more, and the Paralytic debuff meant that she couldn’t erupt into flames to avoid it. Instead of Rapid Rip, though, this was Saurian Slide, dishing out thirteen thousand damage to her, and reducing her stripped defenses even further for a small window.

The Paralytic debuff finally ended, and despite Hirrus’s best efforts, her hand clamped to his throat as if drawn there by a magnet. She roared in his face as the red energy crackled between them, damaging him and healing her.

This was a setback to his plan, but not the end of it.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” she bellowed. “You think you scare me?”

She flung him against the near wall instead of across the room, quickly following with her maul. Hirrus leaped to his feet quickly, parrying the attack with both of his weapons and then blasting her with Homaridiation. With her defenses so low, it blasted her for thirteen thousand damage - amplified by the legendary power on his boots. But the real key was stopping her from using Arcana again, either to replace her lost Mighty Guard buff, or to use any of her other tools against him again.

“If you weren’t smart enough to be scared,” Hirrus said as the glowing energy of Homaridiation coated the room, “you wouldn’t deserve to be in charge.”

She hadn’t been able to stop him from getting the Arcana-Dead Zone active, and now she could present no new tricks. It would be steel against steel, but with him enhanced by indomitable Arcana, and her without any of her toys.

Her maul came up at him, smashing against his thigh. It dealt two thousand eight hundred damage, but compared to what she had been dealing to him before, it was barely worth looking down for. Hirrus’s hooked blade ripped across her midriff, tearing into her for eleven thousand damage. She whirled her maul, parrying the follow-up strike from his greataxe, but the Ravening Burn from the sword strike was already chewing through her hit points.

Cerberus screamed, not in fear but in frustration, and he let her slam the head of her maul against his face.

It did almost three thousand damage.

But with his defenses so heavily reinforced, it didn’t even turn his head.

She tried to back away, moving towards the nearest gap in the Arcana-Dead Zone, but Hirrus’s movement speed from Arcana buffs was greater than hers. He cut her off instantly, forcing her back towards the parts of the room that were entirely coated in glowing green.

“This will be the end of you,” she snapped. “You may kill me, but you won’t get any farther than that. Ontario was washed as fuck, and you hit me with some stinky cheese, but your luck runs out here.”

“Keynes will die, same as you,” Hirrus said, “especially when I show up at his door with your Arcana. The Arcana of your whole team. And all the best gear pieces I can strip from your corpses.”

Cerberus paled at that, swinging her maul at him again, though the frustration was plain in her every movement. She was realizing that this was over, but adamantly refused to go down without a fight.

“My guild will survive,” she said, grunting as she swept her maul back again, forcing Hirrus to parry her again. “You can’t stomp out my officers.”

“I’m not here for your guild,” Hirrus said, cutting into her for another ten thousand damage, the burn effect still searing her hit points away. “I’m here for you. I am removing your council, so that you can no longer control the King. I’m not here to bully you; I’m here to reclaim my country.”

Cerberus’s eyes widened at that. She couldn’t possibly have much longer to live. The fact that she wasn’t dead already proved that Nidra had correctly identified her as the strongest adventurer alive. But time was running out, and he’d just revealed that he was here to steal away her most precious method of controlling this world.

“JudoThrow,” she said quickly. “You’ll never get him.”

“I only have to find him,” Hirrus said, ducking under her swing. “There is no adventurer on this planet who can stand against me. Your death proves that.”

“No, I mean, you’ll never get him,” she said. A ghost of a smile crossed her face. “You can’t get him to log in. Can’t make him. You’ll never find him! He doesn’t even have a sleeping body in-world for you to hunt down. He’s not a regular player character!” She laughed. “I might not have my gear when I log back in, but he’ll still have your king, and I’ll still have my seat. We’ll still have your king. And when I find out where you came from, I’ll make sure you regret this. Your boss’s boss’s boss’s boss is coming to town to make you scrub the castle toilets for the rest of your life. And while you’re off doing that, I’ll-”

“A moment ago, you were wrong about being able to do this all day,” Hirrus interrupted, finished with her attitude. He raised his hooked blade high, drawing her eye. “And you will be wrong about this as well.”

With her attention on the sword, ready for its descent, she didn’t even see the icy greataxe sweeping in, catching her on her too-narrow waist, cutting her hourglass figure cleanly in half.