Locating Reff’s giant figure amongst the multitude would have been easy even at his normal size; as a true giant my friend stood out like a lonely mountain – or volcano. Assuming he would be around my other friends, I ran towards him, dodging between fighters where I could, and moving through them when necessary. The fighters in bloody grey, whom I had assumed to be Risen Throne at first, seemed woefully inept for cultivators, displaying none of the unique traits or abilities I had seen from others; instead, they seemed to focus on overwhelming people with numbers. Each of them seemed about on a level with a Core cultivator, after some more observation, though that was after the increase that had been provided by whoever had arrived through the portal.

I wonder briefly if the Risen Throne were simply desperate, or over-committed in some way, and had simply scraped the together a force of the least motivated cultivators they could fine. Each of them wore a mask with a single slit through which to see, and they were attached securely enough that despite hitting several of them hard enough to instantly snap necks, they had not come loose. I found this curious, as this seemed like a pretty overt action for a group that was apparently really focused on staying anonymous.

As I moved almost lazily through the crowd, one of my seconds equalling more than a thousand normal ones, I checked my Praxis reserves, experiencing a raw surge of vindication when I discovered that, despite my prolonged use – as well as my more costly red lightning – I was still only down about 20 percent.

Grinning, I stepped into a gap that proved to be a clearing, like a crack in the melee that ran from me to Reff; around his feet – along with many bodes – I saw my friends. Darina wore her now ubiquitous bone plates and was currently driving her head into the face of a cultist in red and black, while a dozen sand puppets appeared to be in the process of expanding the gap around the glowing, molten form, each of the conglomerate sculptures holding one of the masked fighters in each hand and using them as clubs to knock yet more aside.

Toria seemed much better, the signs of her injuries on her skin barely visible; Darina must have been putting in some major work, along with more healing pills while I concentrated on my channels, and it showed in the way the religious disciple fought. There was some hesitancy, though that could have been my imagination; these things can be difficult to gauge when you’re moving so much quicker than the people you’re observing. But despite any hesitancy – real or imagined – she was still more than a match for the blood cannon fodder arrayed around them.

Stepping out into the gap, I was on the brink of stepping off my Path in order to say hi, when I found myself taking a quick step backwards, Instinctive Precognition yanking me out of danger with a mental yelp. Before my eyes, missing me by inches, a stone fragment moved about fast enough that even would I would probably been hit without warning. I felt the tearing air as it passed by, and I turned my head to follow its path as it hit the massed ranks of the gathered assault like a cannonball, sending pieces of people scattering, though there was surprisingly little blood.

Turning in the other direction to check where it had come from, I saw dust crawling its way out of the Stone’s entrance on the other side of the triplicate gates. As I watched the cloud expand with agonising slowness, I felt myself draw a deep breath, realisation hitting me all at once; the Stone had been breached, and that meant two things. It meant that the stupid blood pool was at risk, but more than that it meant all the sleepers were at risk of getting murdered in their sleep.

With a grunt of frustration, I turned away from my friends and set my sights on the Stone’s entrance, with its massive weight still suspended above it. My friends would be fine; they seemed to be handling the situation without much issue, and the Blood Guard appeared to be more than a match for the cultivators on the other side, though I had seen the occasional member bogged down by numbers.

Heading inside, with only a momentary twinge of guilt at leaving the fight, I passed through the almost stationary cloud at a dead run, knowing that if I was going to smash into a wall, either I would have warning or the wall would give way.

Inside I came to a stop – as expected - Instinct warned that I was about to swat myself against stone. Waving my hands around fruitlessly, to clear the air as it eddied oddly, passing inside the barrier of my tightly wrapped aura and then leaving it, making strange gaps in the dust. Groping blindly, I tried to find the gap in the wall I knew the rock had to have emerged from, but after several subjective seconds of searching, I found nothing.

Confused, I stood for almost a minute of my time, trying my best to see but not wanting to go too far in case I got lost. After another minute, I felt shivers in the ground, like slow ripples in the stone as they passed under and around me, originating in the same direction as the stone. It was only when I caught a brief flicker of light that I reached up and found the gap in the stone wall. Mentally slapping myself, I climbed into it and began to work my way slowly – for me – towards the source, even as slow shivers continued slip past me within in the stone.

*

***

*

Going proved tough at times as I made my way in the wake of the rock; I found myself having to drop into rooms and climb out again, crawl over jagged edges and move collapsed rubble; none of this was hard though, just irritating. Both my body and my robes were too tough, even at the Path stage for such simple things to bother me. It was also the case that even though it felt like it was taking a long time, that was an illusion, brought on by my time dilation. Normally, I had something to mark my progress around me, but in the cramped confines, time seemed to drag.

Eventually I found what seemed to be the rock's origin, a wide space filled with the broken pieces of the Stone’s roof, with the sun’s light - or what made it through the clouds – shining through the opening. I had been climbing the entire time, but I had not known I had climbed that far; despite knowing that the Stone had likely been breached, I expected them to have made it further into the structure than the top floor, but whatever the fortress was made out of was apparently too tough casually.

I say casually because it was immediately clear that the man in the red crown had been unable to concentrate on penetrating deeper, as they were locked in battle with Badan Tain, the two of them surging back and forth in front of me, among the rubble and occasionally kicking a piece hard enough that it had in fact made it through, and still had the energy to end a good number of people.

I watched the two fight; at my new normal, the peak of the Pinnacle stage was about five times faster than I was, which was certainly better than I had any right to. Each of the combatants were moving faster than I was, though it did not feel like five times to me; Tain appeared to be moving at about three times my speed, and Crimson Crown at about double. Normally this should have meant that Tain was both half-again as strong, fast and tough as his opponent, and the fight should have been ended quickly, in the absence of any games. However, that did not appear to be the case, in the instance; each time Taim seemed on the cusp of a decisive victory, he would either miss or stumble, or something would happen to him that caused his attack to fail. Similarly, the same thing happened on defence. Despite the apparent disparity, it seemed like Crimson Crown was winning, if slowly.

Now that I was closer to Crimson Crown, I could see that it probably was not the Shadow Faced Guy, as he neither possessed the grey suit, the shadows visage, or the same stature. CeeCee was a little over five feet, and was greatly overshadowed by Tain, which made the spectacle even more jarring.

As the fight progressed, fast enough to take place in-between moments, I noticed a certain rictus to the CeeCee’s face, a lack of dynamic expression. As he fought, his pale face remained oddly still, and he had the same sudden motions as the thing I had fought in the Sha Forest. Thinking back to that excursion, I recalled the man Flame Ever Dancing had fought; had had also worn a crown, though his has been made seemingly of iron, rather than bloody light.

There had been many fights I had witnessed that I had been unable to directly contributed to, though I had usually succeeded in adding something, whether it was a last-minute steal or... an annoying dance. A day before, I would have been entirely unable to even begin to think about assisting in the fight in front of me, but that day was not the one before, and I was not as I had been.

Flexing my will, I switched gears, forcing Praxis through my system as hard as I could and watched as the two Pinnacle level fighters slowed, as if somebody had messed with life’s framerate. No longer was CeeCee’s body moving twice as fast as mine, now he was at my level and that meant I could help.

With a manic grin at the exhilaration of being able to take part in a battle at such a high level, I crashed towards the two of them, trailed by my own red streaks as stone broke apart around me, chipped and shattered by pure destructive force.

As I joined the fray, torquing my body around my hips taking a single half-step to redirect my momentum, I felt a curious impulse blossom inside of me, like a stray whim that tried to direct my blow elsewhere, but with a minor effort of will I ignored it and my fist hammered home in the side of CeeCee’s skull.

The man blasted away from me, lifted off his feet by the force of the blow as a crimson flicker filled the room, and I was left standing surprised and frozen as Tain turned towards me, one eyebrow raised in question. I offered him a shrug; I had no idea what had happened. Even as fast as I was, the man should not have been sent so far, as he should have been reinforcing his footing. Not to mention the relative ease with which he had been fighting toe-to-toe with somebody far stronger than I was.

Instinctive Precognition whispered a warning, I stepped back just in time to avoid a thrown rock which whizzed past my head like a bullet, and I turned to see CeeCee coming back at us. Confident, I went to meet him, the Blood Marshall at my side.

As we closed once more, I again felt the strange impulses I had noted before, though they were stronger and much harder to ignore. Tain continued to miss and stumble while I landed blow after blow, though this time CeeCee did not go flying. I wondered if the man in the crown perhaps possessed the same abilities as Cad, the ability to alter fate, but it did not feel like that. It was not Instinctive Precognition pulling me from unseen and emerging danger, but something deeper.

I could feel frustration growing in our opponent; there was no change in his expression but the tempo of the fight rose as I continued to batter his body, and he began to move in such a way that Tain and I would have to dodge each other, to move around each other. We managed it, and though it slowed the pace of our growing victory, it did not stop it.

After several subjective minutes of fighting – I was fast but he was still many times tougher than I was strong – I thought we were finally at the point of victory, or wearing him down. But then the crown flashed like a red sun.

The light filled the room, blinding me momentarily, and in that moment as I glanced away, I felt an answering pulse from below us, like a call to war and I felt the familiar impulses of the bloody aura once more begin to scratch at my mind.

As my vision cleared, I saw CeeCee smash his fist into the floor, obliterating it and causing us all to fall, red light like a river of blood streaming down to breach the Stone all the way to bedrock.