The ray of flames shot out, lancing the hound in the lead and sending it tumbling over. Pitiful, high pitched shrieks and flailing limbs both served to slow the pack behind it. In that moment, Bayler Shrike had the advantage of reach and the enemy had no momentum. He waded forward with reckless, furious strikes.

He brought his lantern swinging up into the underside of a hound’s muzzle, feeling bones bend and break as the impact smashed the beast’s lower jaw into the upper with enough force to crack teeth, the wave of force continuing up to throw the hound’s brains against the inside of its skull. It was a concussive, lights-out hit.

He swung a wide haymaker at the next hound to leap at him, the creature’s entire body twisting around as its head was snapped to one side.

He swung down, brutalizing another enemy. Cracking another skull. With every swing the world faded out into a blur of motion and violence. With every impact, blue flames leapt from his weapon and spread across the enemy’s bodies. His rational self was left in the dust, barely able to follow the whirl of swings, the snap of teeth, the sound and the weighty, crashing sensations of fighting. Instinct filled the gaps, moving his body like a machine.

Bayler had always had the talent. More than anyone he’d ever known, he thrived under pressure, when the conscious mind loosened up and everything beneath took the reigns. Fighting felt cold and clear, even as the world around him turned into a blur of fangs.

One dived at him over the fallen bodies, aiming to knock him down so the rest could swarm. It caught him by the arm he lifted to shield his face, teeth sinking down and chipping against his bones, but with a furious howl Bayler turned and twisted so that instead of bringing him to the ground, the momentum fed into a brutal throw that dashed the beast against the streets. A second later and he brought the lantern down overhand to finish the job.

But it was a second he spent with his back turned to the horde. One slammed into his legs at the back of the knee, another leapt onto his back to rake claws across his shoulders and sink teeth into the back of his neck.

Neither met anything but black slime.

They tore him apart as they crashed into him, scattering his transformed body into the river flowing underfoot. He reformed downstream, water flowing off his back as he lurched up, grinning. Five of them were dead or down. In exchange, the meat on the back of his left arm had been stripped away, blood spilling over the bare bones. Nothing to worry about. Painful as hell, but useless against him. They would have to bleed him down to nothing before they stopped him. More troublesome was the fact the lantern’s light was almost gone, spent with each incantation, each ray of flame.

They rushed him. He brought the first one down with a wide hook. The second one was on him before he could even draw his arm back, going for his left leg. The third was an instant behind, leaping for his right arm, pincering him. He gave up the leg, intercepting the one to his right with a hard swing and a satisfying crack-

- and then they dragged him down.

His back splashed into the river as his leg was pulled out from under him, his head going under the water for a split second. In that moment, the world was drowned out, and he felt the shock of cold saltwater hit every wound on his body. Above, shaggy, foul-smelling bodies crushed against him, teeth sinking into his arms, his gut, his neck. He felt with agonizing clarity as fangs pierced into his windpipe, and dragged back, tearing his throat open with a meaty, gargled gasp.

That’s where he would have died, if he was anyone else. Instead he jabbed his thumb into the hound’s eye. It let go with a howl and he headbutted its snout, grabbed hold of the raw gristle of its neck, threw it aside. With his right arm pinned down now, he couldn’t do more than punch, push, lash out with his bare hand. They were eating him alive.

Grabbing his own neck, he covered the gaping hole of torn, pink flesh and shouted -his voice craggy and broken- “Kesslith!”

Fire erupted without direction. The hound holding down his arm took the brunt of it, roasted instantly by the surging wave of blue flame, and then that fire rushed up Bayler’s arm and caught hold of his chest.

It was the worst pain he’d ever felt. The fire sank through his skin, piercing down into the muscle, the fatty tissue, making them sizzle and burn. It was like every particle of his body was being torn apart individually. He roared and grabbed a hound with a flaming hand, seizing the panicked animal and not letting go until the fires had torn their way across its body and set light to its fur.

His arm free, he swung the lamp around and caught a back leg as the survivors retreated. He swung again and again, pulping the beast as its remaining two brothers fled into the night.

And then he threw himself down into the floodwaters, rolling, the cold river rushing over his burned skin and stinging worse than anything he could describe. Pain saturated him, filled up his capacity to feel at all. There was nothing that didn’t hurt.

But his enemies wouldn’t feel anything, anymore.

Staggering up, his skin charred, his eyes blurry with pain, he swept his hands through the water seeking what the spider had asked for. The bodies were starting to dissolve. A light shone out from within them, hollowing them out, until they burned like paper; holes lined in orange embers spreading across their thin surface until there was nothing left but a drifting ash.

He sifted through that soot until he found a hard, round object. A bead the size of a candy, the purple color of a bruise.

Bayler Shrike slept in the loading bay of an abandoned post office, climbing atop a shipping palate to get out of the flood. It was a hard, uneven bed, and every time his skin scraped against the wood he winced, his charred-black flesh starting to crack and bleed.

But he slept instantly, and soundly, exhaustion overwhelming him and sweeping him off in seconds.

He opened his eyes to a familiar forest.

The petrified pillars of the trees had started to crack open, releasing verdant green vines to tangle over the grey bark. A thick mist billowed between the roots, carrying with it a primordial scent of wet leaves, of decay, of new growth.

Enniac, his Gray Lady, sat on a fallen log. Moths fluttered about her, luminous violet things. In the ancient dark of the forest it looked as if she wore a dress of illuminated wings.

“Bayler Shrike. How nice to see you alive.” She rose, her flock scattering, a beautiful explosion of fluttering light. “Are you going to stay that way much longer, I wonder?”

“If I can help it. And maybe you can help me too.” Now that he had a closer look, Enniac seemed less and less human. A collar of white fur wreathed her neck, and the diaphanous gray dress she wore wasn’t a dress at all, but layers of transparent gray wings curled around her body.

“Of course. I’ve already sent you a friend, he should be arriving soon. But we have business to discuss.”

She stepped forward. Her hand touched his arm, her fingers clad in a hard, smooth armor of insectoid chitin. An exoskeleton, giving her the flawless appearance of a porcelain doll.

“The divine tattoo, your Epitaph, marks your progress on the path of the Blessings. But there will come a time to cut your own path.” Taking his hand, she turned it over to show the flowering design printed on his forearm. “On that day, remember you have a friend. That is the cost for my help.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.” And then she laughed. Bayler had enough warning not to flinch as her face split open, revealing tiny, hooked teeth within that fourfold jaw that expanded like a flower. “Trusting me to help you forge your path is no small thing. It will involve a certain amount of putting your life in my hands.”

“When did your world die?” It had nothing to do with anything, but it was the question Bayler wanted to know. His thoughts were on Earth, on the coming war for its remains, on what would be left after the scavengers finished fighting over the scraps.

“Long before I was born. I’ve only heard stories.” She shook her head. “Not even the broken shards remain now. They’ve fallen into the sea, and we remain as a drifting people, aboard countless ships.”

“Will they try to take the Earth from us?”

A sigh, and she drew her hand back, turned away from him. “There is not a civilization in the Underworld that does not look at Earth with greedy eyes. And it’s not just Earth they want, but human slaves. For the same reason I chose you. You have no magic, no stains on your souls, you are pure in ways that rare within the Abyss.”

Bayler paused, unsure what to say, reaching up to scratch his head. If her people were coming to Earth, she was betraying them by helping him. He wasn’t dumb enough to think she was really doing this out of kindness and charity, but still, he was grateful. Having just one ally in a literal sea of enemies tends to leave you feeling that way.

“What’s the next step, then? I need to get as strong as possible as fast as I can.” He said finally, just letting the moment slip by. “You seem to have a plan.”

“I do, although it could be painful. You have discovered your Mana, yes?” Her tone was short and businesslike.

“Something like a fire inside me…”

“Dismat, the fiery power of life. Your perception is good, as I expected. The Blessings will slowly teach you to understand more, but we can take a more direct path-” She turned back to him, setting a hand on his chest. “But when I said this could be painful...”

“You were underplaying it. It’s going to be agony.”

“Worse than whatever you’re imagining.”

“I’ve been set on fire once today already.”

“And yet, it will be worse.”

She whispered a word Bayler couldn’t hear, and a wisp of heat traveled through her fingertips and down through his chest, towards his heart. He braced himself, shooting her a cocky grin-- and as the strand of energy pierced into the beating champers of his heart, it exploded outwards, filling every twist and bend of his veins in a single, all-encompassing moment of pain.

He staggered forward and she caught him. His hands twitched helplessly, his eyes wide. Fire filled him and devoured him from the inside out. It burned hotter and hotter, until he could see his veins glowing through his skin, a thunderbolt-shaped river of fire spread throughout his hands, running down through his arms. He could feel his skin begin to sear down into nothing, begin to turn to ash.

He was dying.

“When you awake, remember this feeling. This is the strength of your Mana, let free.” She whispered into his ear, as she laid him down among the mossy roots of the forests.

He didn’t know how he’d ever forget.

Bayler Shrike snapped awake, gasping. Sunlight trickled through the broken windows. He was alive, and only a little burned.

But the fire of Mana remained in his chest, sleeping, waiting to be let free.