The creature in front of me was an Inculid, a real one, whatever that meant, for I hadn’t felt the power it wielded from any other creature. A true deep one, I felt, should know the Flow.

Its smooth, faceless, eyeless chitin head tracked me as I raced along the edge of the roof. I condensed my battleaura as hard as I could, committing a significant portion of my power to augment my body. I twisted the currents as much as I dared to increase my agility, coaxing the Flow to enable my movements far beyond human capability.

As I ran, I reached into my cubby and withdrew my sword, discarding the wrappings. Armed and ready, I turned back to the enemy and raced in.

The second my path changed in its direction, it exploded into motion, dust and debris kicked up into a cloud behind it. I caught its vicious slash dead on, locking its sword in place with my own.

It loomed over me, at least a head taller than me, trying to leverage its greater size to its advantage. I empowered my lower body even more and swept its legs out from under it, slamming into the shingles below.

I kept it pinned, using the edge of my weapon as a lever to keep it down, and swiftly drew a rune in the air. Finishing, I went to empower it, but the creature bucked and threw me off, sending me flying a dozen feet through the air.

It didn’t immediately pursue me, choosing instead to circle around the rune, keeping me in its sights but not neglecting the piece of glittering power hanging in front of it. I let it circle. I had lost the initiative. The rune, while complete, faced the wrong direction for it to be useful even if I activated it.

The assassin, for I was convinced that was exactly what it was, stepped sideways through the air… and into the void, disappearing from my sight. I tensed but didn’t sense an immediate return.

Not wasting a second, I drew and completed another rune, leaving it hanging in the air near the first, leaving a few body lengths between them. Layering runes, my favorite pastime. If you mess up your first attempt, adjust and come at it from another direction. The Inculid wouldn’t know what hit it.

I felt the void a split second before a rent opened nearly on top of me, the creature emerging sword first on my offhand side. Ducking straight down into a tight crouch, I let the sword rip through the air above my head, then empowered my legs and lunged up in a shoulder tackle knocking the Inculid onto its back.

While it still tumbled, I grabbed the currents connected to it and fed them power, augmenting them to encourage the tumbling motions to continue.

It lunged forcefully out of its tumble and shredded my hold on the Flow around it in a sphere, killing the snowballing effect I’d created. I grinned, sidestepping, looking for another opening.

It lunged at me across the roof and I moved to meet it in a clash that sent shockwaves through my body and into the wooden support beneath me. We separated, then traded a series of rapid-fire strikes and parries that blasted away chunks of wood. I fed more and more power into my strikes, the Inculid matching me blow for blow, until the force of our blades striking blasted us away from each other.

I landed in a crouch, sword ready, but the Inculid slid out of view into the void. I took the opportunity to draw another rune hanging in the air, keeping my eyes and senses peeled for another sudden attack.

I understood why the Iflid had called them shadows, now. Imagining these creatures using this void power in the darkness of the Labyrinth tunnels and caverns, I could see how terrifying it would be to have an Inculid pop out of nowhere, seemingly right out of yoru shadow.

Circle around the roof, not staying in one place, I empowered each rune in turn, altering their function just as I always did, changing them and making them my own. My own little tricks.

I felt another rent open and ducked away, but it had opened on the oppose side of the roof near the second rune I created. The assassin stood there, watching me. It swept its sword through the rune next to it, of course having no effect.

“Nice try you juice brained insect!”

It whipped up the Flow and the currents, trying another approach to destroy the rune. Much as I had discovered long ago, you couldn’t directly attack a rune and expect to have any effect, you needed to attack the power it held, drain it away so that it collapsed on itself.

I grinned at the depths damned bug, showing it my unconcern. That is, assuming it could understand human expression anyway.

Before it could continue to tamper with the runes, I grabbed the Flow and the currents connected to the Inculid and crushed it with my willpower, slamming my intent into it like a meteor.

The assassin fell to its knees, but before I could capitalize on its state, it overcame its lack of agency and stood up, severing my grip on the currents on its way. I definitely outmatched this thing in terms of power in the Flow, but its willpower was honed enough that I couldn’t directly affect it. But the same was true for me.

As it stood, it opened a rent and thrust its sword and arm through.

A sharp pain tore through my shoulder and arm, and I screamed in pain, I leapt back as far as I dared on the roof and saw its disembodied arm withdraw back through the void. It switched its short black sword to its other hand, shaking out the original as if numb.

Damn, that was the trick I wanted. I couldn’t help but admire the deeps damned creature. I wondered if their ability skip through space was inherent, or learned? I looked down at my left shoulder, at the bloody gash and stained cloth. It would be fine for the moment. It looked grisly, but it hadn’t severed anything major.

Catching me off balance, the assassin jumped through another rent and I didn’t duck away in time, catching another shallow slice across my back.

Hissing, I ran for the edge of the roof and leapt off, using the Flow and the currents to guide me as I created some space between the two of us. The currents around me froze, the Inculid trying to wrest control from me to interrupt my power, but I just shredded its attempts and for good measure, threw a spark of power that raced back and consumed everything in the currents leading to it.

It made the first sound I’d heard out of it so far, a high-pitched hissing whine. I grinned at that, that nasty little treat I’d throw at it would have been a harsh backlash to walk into.

Using the buildings nearby, I circled around the warehouse, staying on the move, mobile, to keep it from easily targeting me with its tricky void moves. Every once in a while, it would slide into view from an unexpected angle, but the trouble with using an attack repeatedly in front of an enemy was that the enemy could learn your tricks.

Every time it stepped through a rent, it got a little easier for me to sense, to guess at its location, and more importantly, sense how the assassin directed it. It taught me its tricks unintentionally, and each time I was a little closer to grasping the hidden methods behind it.

It had shown me its trick, but I’d only shown it part of mine. I kept circling, buying myself some time as I continued to observe it slide through the void. There wasn’t a lot I could do while it could move freely around me in any direction at any location, so I watched and waited.

I bounced from roof to roof, almost completing a full circle around the massive warehouse. Stopping, I drew a quick and dirty healing rune and slapped my shoulder into it. It would be just enough to close the wound and keep it from ripping open any further, but not quite enough to heal it fully.

Another rent opened near me, but at this point the assassin may as well have been telegraphing its intent from across town for how many times it had shown me its trick. I dodged aside and continued to run, circling back toward the warehouse. It was time to spring my own trap.

I leapt up toward the third story roof, dodging another rent as an arm and sword reached out, and bounced my way onto the roof. Maneuvering around, I found my way to the very first rune and stopped, drawing one final rune, taking my sweet time about it as I formed the precise shapes needed.

Sure enough, just as I completed it, the assassin’s rent opened up next to me and it rushed out swinging. It anticipated my duck, but that wasn’t where I wanted to be, so instead I jumped straight up, the edge of its blade ripping down my leg as I flew past.

I hissed and gritted my teeth but activated the second and third runes at the same time, waited a beat for the effect to take hold, then slung my sword through the very first rune.

Sensing the activation of the runes, the assassin opened a rent to the void to slip away. A small, nasty grin took over my face as I jammed my razor-sharp willpower into the connection between the void and normal space, severing the thread of its intent that controlled it, trapping it in place.

“You’re screwed now, asshole!”

In quick succession the roof gave way as the two outside runes forced the roof to collapse in on itself. The sword collided with the include, transferring the crushing effect directly onto its body as it was thrust straight down into the distant floor below.

With no leverage of my own, I tumbled out of the air after it, falling into the hole I’d created, laughing the whole way down. Just before I crashed into the warehouse floor, I flared my battleaura as hard as I could, pumping a massive amount of power into a condensed form around my body.

I slammed into the ground, the air whooshing out of my lungs and my vision going dark. Rolling around, struggling for breath, I reached up with my senses to the final rune I’d set up right before I’d sprung my trap. My vision cleared and I struggled to my feet, trying to put some space between me and the Inculid as the effects of the force suppression rune that pinned it to the floor gradually bled away as its effect was consumed.

I activated the final rune with a huge dump of power and a giant force vortex tore down through the remains of the ceiling heading straight for the pinned assassin. The approaching catastrophe made the one I’d created the night before look like the pitiful efforts of an apprentice, the twisting monstrosity shrieking through the air as it approached.

I laughed out loud, but something latched onto my ankle. I looked down to see the assassin’s hand vice gripped onto my leg, and it yanked me back, pulling my feet out from under me and dragging me back under the effect of the approaching vortex. I panicked, clawing at the ground, but it was too late; no time for another rune, no time for grappling, I pulled with all my might gaining a bit of ground, but the creature maintained its steel grip.

The vortex struck, instantly shredding the assassin into tiny pieces and flinging them off into the shadows of the warehouse. Along with the Inculid the bottom third of my right leg disappeared with it.

I shrieked in pain, as the collateral effects of the vortex whipped me around, slamming me into the ground over and over and twisting me in ways that tore ligaments and muscles and broke bones.

The effect ended and I laid still, my throat emitting a silent shriek of agony as my body refused to obey my commands. Before the pain consigned me to unconsciousness, I struggled to lift my mangled arm to draw one final rune, one last healing rune. I couldn’t lift my leg to come in contact with it, and there was nothing around me to use to try to transfer the effect. Darkness slowly closed in around me, the pain pushing my consciousness under. Right before everything went dark, I spit through the rune, right at my leg, then everything went dark.