"Deceptive bastard!" King Torc cried. "King Torc can play these magical tricks, too!"

The beast-king lifted his head, motes of energy gathering at his throat.

A moment later, the room was filled with a squeal as deep and powerful as a fog-horn, and, at once, everything froze, including another arrow mid-flight.

King Torc, using a similar spatial magic to that which'd created the wormhole, was the only physical entity that could move.

The beast-king, turning away from Henry for now, charged for the Skeleton Archer.

Behind the wolf corpse pile that the skeleton was standing on top of, the donkey and the regular-sized boar watched the charge with terror.

Henry, frozen in place, was thinking that this squeal stun must have been an evolved form of the normal Horny Boar's leap-stun, boss-monsters often having advanced versions of the same spells.

The stun faded after three seconds, giving enough time for the donkey and the regular-sized boar to dive out of harm's way.

Henry tapped another Spelltome. “BUR!"

Just as the boar rammed into the pile of dead wolves, the Skeleton Archer was lifted away by an invisible force. The movement was comically janky, like a toy soldier being picked up by a child's hand. The skeleton, soaring high as rotting wolves scattered in all directions beneath, landed on the chandelier beside Henry, from which it mindlessly continued shooting arrows at the humiliated beast-king beneath.

Pew. Pew.

– a Tier-2 Necromancer spell.

King Torc tossed its head in rage, flinging off the wolves skewered on its crown of horns. "Brat! Ye think yer safe up there?!" The horn in the centre of its forehead began to glow. "Take this and stuff it up yer and yer skeleton's bottom!"

BOOM!

Loud and fast as a cannon shot, a horn blasted off from its head. Towards Henry it sped, a several-dozen-kilogram missile of flying ivory sharpened at the tip.

The Skeleton Archer, protecting its master, jumped in the path of the projectile, even though its paltry mass didn't seem sufficient to negate a fraction of the momentum.

Henry, yawning, tapped a Spelltome on his chest. “TARR!"

The skeleton about to sacrifice itself was surrounded by a glowing layer of golden energy.

– a Tier-3 spell for Miracleworkers who worshipped Hekvantu, the god of protection. The ability granted a shield and weight.

As the horn-missile collided with the glowing skeleton, both hovered, neither moving, sparks of gold being thrown out at the point of impact as the game determined whether the power of the horn had been enough to overcome the shield.

It hadn't.

After half a second, all momentum from the attack dissipating, the horn and skeleton plummetted.

Of course, Henry'd predicted the boar might have had a horn-shot ability like its smaller kin and that it had perhaps refrained from using it against the previous crafter stuck up here due to a lack of perceived threat.

King Torc, seeming somewhat derelict with the middle-prong missing from his crown, tried to at least take a small comfort in destroying the skeleton, charging at the falling creature.

But the beast-king was denied even this pleasure. Before the charge could finish powering up, the skeleton stopped falling, a rope tied around its bony ankle.

Henry, being on cooldown, had resorted to a ghetto solution.

As the Skeleton Archer, dangling upside down, took another shot, the beast-king's horn landed with a sad crunch, the enamel surface shattering.

King Torc—struck by the heart-breaking sound, struck in the lip by an arrow, struck in the stomach by a second assault from the spear—squealed in despair.

Meanwhile, an arm-width spinning saw made of sparkling lightning joined the assault, his monkey-headed foe on the chandelier completing another channelled ability.

King Torc, discarding his stubborn pride, turned and fled, but the blade continued tracking him around the confined room, and the arrows started hitting his legs, slowing him down and allowing the disc to gain on him.

In this moment of desperation, the beast-king spotted the donkey hiding in a corner, spotted a chance for salvation.

"Human," he cried, "call off yer attacks, or I’ll gore yer mount!"

“Vat. Tu...” Henry, once again not interrupting his casting, replied with a dismissive click. "Mate, I picked that shabby thing specifically because it's disposable. Go right ahead." In the crime-riddled Slums, in this awful game in general, one shouldn't be too attached to one's material possessions. "...Min. Nal..."

King Torc, seeing no other hope, prayed the human was bluffing and charged at his mount. Alas, as he was about to rocket forward, another spinning blade, one made of Arcane energy, snuck in from a blind spot and attacked a leg, the spinning blade gliding right through the shoulder.

He squealed in agony as the rear half of his mass, sliding off the glistening meat of the severed limb, tilted over and smashed into the floor.

But the wound took only half a second to heal, a new leg bursting from the amputation site. King Torc didn't take long to mentally recover either, his thoughts replaced by a searing hostility directing him forward, down the singular, undistracted path of killing. Whatever had given him this feeling, he would obliterate, whether that be the human or the trace of the human present in this donkey trembling before him.

Renewing his charge at the mount without any clear plan for what would follow, King Torc tipped over again, the lightning blade arriving and severing his other leg.

The two magical saws proceeded to alternate, taking turns at amputating his legs and immobilising him permanently where he'd fallen. When his time-stun had refreshed, he cast it attempted to use the space to lift himself up and escape, but yet another magical saw, hovering above his back, chewed through his spine, severing the nerves inside and causing his legs to splay out limp beneath him.

His foe—despite how hopeless the situation had become already, unwilling to forfeit any advantage—continued to escalate, expanding his magical arsenal one spell at a time.

“...Tum. BAK!”

A spear of blackened fire blasted a hole in King Torc's rump, the blood surrounding the wound igniting.

“...Ra. JA!”

Another fire spear.

“...Nga. DA!”

Another.

When the spears stopped, King Torc thought the human might have exhausted his magical energy. But no.

“...Blixt. Bult. Slar. Ho. NOM!”

The back of his skull was zapped by lightning bolt, his mind turning white and his body seizing.

"...Ta. NGAM!"

Another Skeleton Archer burst from a wolf corpse and flew onto a different chandelier, adding to the first's arrow harassment.

King Torc, defeated, his saga concluding, gave up the last of his resistance. He bowed low, laying down his head, the weight of his horn-crown pressing the ground back upon him, as if the earth were reaching out to embrace his carcass that would rot like the wolves in his throneroom.

Closing his eyes, an arrow puncturing one lid, he accepted the call and awaited the corporeal emancipation of death.

Henry observed the beast-king's forfeit in his collapsing body, the fight finished, the danger having passed. Nevertheless, he didn't stop, life having taught him how often and abruptly a dying enemy would seize upon a last flash of hope. Sometimes, it seemed that they lashed out for no other reason than to guarantee you didn't forget them.

While his hands mechanically moved between Spelltomes and constellations to orchestrate the beast's dismantlement, his mind used the lull to sort through many fractured thoughts - past enemies, other strange quests he'd finished and hadn't finished, the uncanny coincidences of this morning, this tutorial rapidly slipping off the rails, his recruitment tournament looming ahead. Although it remained a bit further out of his reach, he knew he'd almost grasped the murky thread connecting everything, the story within these fragmented episodes.

It was a tragedy, really.

Due to the tournament's gear standardisation rules, he wouldn't be able to exploit these Spells in the tournament ahead. Imagine how much less effort it would have been if he could've just waltzed into each match, equipped one of these Tier-5 Spelltome, and nuked the little noobs to pieces like the showers of meat erupting from this boar's pelted back. During the negotiations with Alex, he'd wanted to secretly remove the tournament's restrictions; alas, the beaver-head had anticipated this move and cut him off.

Perhaps that was the story, then, a retirement bogged down with more difficulties than reasonable.

How tragic...