“We’ve gotta do something,” Chilly whispered. “It’s...winning.”

“Pack it up!” Gar-Khan’s low rumble sounded behind him. “We march home. Double time.”

“Y-you...” Chilly’s eyes bugged out as he spun to face the purple Yawm.

“I wo—”

“You can’t be serious.” Chilly interrupted, turning his gaze on Rahlin. “Come on, we won’t get a better chance than this.”

A conflicted grimace darkened Rahlin’s Dragonborn features.

“Fine!” Chilly snarled. “I’ll do it myself.”

Chilly dashed forwards, but stumbled to a halt when a pair of penguins manifested in lotus positions before him.

AvidSeason opened its eyes, a gleam of ancient knowledge played across the surface.

“Supernatural creatures from the Seasons,” Mr. Season pointed a ponderous flipper towards the cataclysm in the distance. “Often take harm from most metals, silver the most damaging. Smelt and bequeath—”

Mr. Season choked, grasping at its throat as a portal of black and gold spun into existence behind it. Through the hole in reality, a distant outline of a penguin with an eyepatch and a beard of burning flames gestured with a flipper. Mr. Season’s eyes bulged then the penguin burst into a swirl of rapidly dissipating smoke.

Chilly blinked, “he ok?”

Mr. Dynamo giggled, nodding its head. “Smelt and bequeath, ahem, yourself.”

“I see,” Chilly frowned. Mr. Dynamo shrugged then pointed to the side where a pair of giggling penguins hugged an invisible ball at roughly head height. Chilly squinted, then gave the penguin a firm nod. In a flare of bright fire he vanished and reappeared right beside the floating penguins and leaned down to look them in the eyes.

“You want levels?” He whispered. “I’ll power level you to nineteen if you help me here.”

The penguins jerked around, letting out whoops of joy as their ride spun around.

“I’m not going to ask you to jump into that.” he continued, gesturing at the battle of titans. “Just stay close and assassinate it once it’s low enough.”

He paused.

“Please.”

Before the invisible Chaeli could respond, Chilly dashed away and reached for Flame Dash but balked at the nearly ten-second combined cooldown-cast time that Torpor and Lethargy had induced. Luckily, with Second Wind he didn’t need to ever cast the skill directly, and after a second of awkward running, he teleported out front of the gathered villagers.

Chilly slammed into the frozen tundra mid-stride that rapidly accelerated to a full-on sprint as he furiously waited for Second Wind to come off cooldown. Up ahead the two titans continued their concussive battle as the weeping sore in the side of the Endless One grew larger as the Wendigo consumed and healed.

His augment list flashed before his eyes as he ran forward. He had two unallocated skill points from his level seventeen and eighteen level ups. Upgrading Flame Dash further was pointless. Even with both his cooldown and cast time reducing augments it would still take more than four seconds to cast the ability and by then he might as well rely on Second Wind to do the heavy lifting.

Chilly teleported into the Endless One’s domain and a wall of frigid cold slammed into him. It nibbled at his life, tickling the tips of his fingers with the memory of frostbite. His life was unmoved. His prodigious regeneration was an immovable bulwark in the face of the paltry degen. Ahead, the Endless One slammed its entire frame on top of the Brine King, shaking the earth and nearly dislodging the Wendigo stuck in its hide.

Chilly’s eyes narrowed as he neared.

He would need two things to win. The first was to get close to the Wendigo, and for that he would need some way to prevent himself from getting dislodged like an errant fly. A quick glance through his augments revealed Imposing Presence which gave knockback resistance, but he quickly passed over it in favor of Inescapable Grasp which Hindered any enemy chained by the Chains of Subjugation. The logic being, if the Worm slowed down then its random thrashings wouldn’t have as much force to knock him off.

A detonation caused Chilly to stumble but he quickly regained his footing and resumed his sprint, struggling to focus on his menus and the rugged terrain at once.

The second requirement was staying alive. For that, all he had to do was keep his distance. More damage or more life regeneration were options, but if he had more space to work with for both Chains of Subjugation and Star Fuel then it would be vastly easier to take down the Wendigo. Any of his augments that increased his area would do, but Jailer’s Patience granted the greatest increase.

With that, Chilly slammed both of his skill points into the augments and then vanished in a burst of purple fire to land on the thrashing tail of the Endless One. He latched onto the numerous long bristles as he was accelerated up high into the air. His eyes watering at the prodigious speeds, Chilly summoned a glowing steel chain that slithered down and wrapped around the humongous creature with ever-expanding links.

The boss slowed, its movements turning sluggish as the hinder effect of the Chains took hold and it let out a mournful bugle as its fight against the Brine King grew even more hopeless. All along Chilly’s domain, smoldering embers caught fire, blackening and charring the thick hide of the great beast.

Chilly emptied his lungs—

>

—and sprinted up the length of its spine; his intuitive grasp of the beast’s form due to Quantum Connection making finding his footing trivial despite the ever shifting landscape. He dodged around bristles and divots in the great beasts hide, while abusing the forest of bristles to keep his footing.

Suddenly the floor bucked, tossing Chilly up despite his prodigious knockback resistance. Midair, Chilly grasped a nearby bristle and threw himself back to the floor with a clang of clashing armor.

He rolled with the random shift and was back on his feet in moments. Despite the worm’s great size, Chilly’s domain was sizable, and even after only traveling up a tenth of the beast’s length he suddenly felt the Wendigo enter his domain.

A savage grin spread as he became aware of every injury that still plagued the undead. Despite the relatively significant time it had to recover, it was still in bad shape. A viscous pale yellow liquid covered it, releasing faint plumes of steam, while the frigid air crystallized the corrosive substance, further slowing down its recovery. He hurried his stride, growing reckless with his foot placement as the smoldering embers in the distance gutted the Wendigo’s regen.

The floor rocked, and he stumbled, but this time he teleported up and forwards which gave him enough time to land on his shoulder and roll back to his feet. Just as he landed, a beam of fire entered his domain from above. It screached down and immolated a wide bald spot onto the surface of the worm.

Chilly blinked the red spots from his eyes and grabbed at a severely burnt bristle sticking barely a hand's breadth out of the rough hide. More red beams flew overhead from the direction of the Brine King and scorched all along the length of the Endless One.

Chilly jumped to his feet, only slightly singed, and used a brief moment of stillness to dash to the next stabilizing bristle. He took a gasping breath—

>

—to bring his ailment under control before continuing his mad dash. He continued running and used Flame Dash every four seconds to get closer to the Wendigo who had sped up its consumption in response to the damage over time eating at it.

Chilly ducked around more bristles that were steadily growing taller the closer he got to the worm’s head when he encountered the fizzing boundary of consecrated ground fighting the desecrated ground in between him and the Wendigo. He looked farther and spotted the Wendigo feasting in a weeping sore up ahead.

“Goo-od me-me-nion,” the Wendigo gurgled, “aiiii-id me-eeh.”

Chilly blinked, then cast the odd words out of his mind as he teleported forwards and unleashed all his skills on the Wendigo.

Chains of forge-wrought steel encapsulated the beast as streamers of glowing plasma joined the numerous embers sizzling along its skin, to initiate a conflagration. All the skills combined to form a pillar of dark fire whose chaotic properties broke down even the smoke and ash radiating off the undead.

The Wendigo flinched, fluid gurgling in its throat only to vaporize a second later as the gains it had made began to immolate under the assault.

“Trrrrai-ai-aitor!” it stammered, ripping more meat from the hole with its claws and horns as its boney lower half emerged from the viscera-covered depression.

Chilly silently strafed on the edge of his range to a denser segment of bristles that would prevent the Wendigo from lining up a charge with its horns. His augments were such that he was almost a full ten meters away from the dangerous beast.

The Wendigo snarled, finally getting free, but noticeably slower as the glowing red chain around its bones pulsed a bright red, and the plasma wreathing its form intensified. The flesh that had been regrown sizzled, and charred under the onslaught while the tough bones underneath began to develop hairline fractures due to the heat.

Realizing this, the Wendigo halted its struggling and turned back to the fresh viscera at its feet. Ignoring Chilly, the undead grabbed its lower jaw and with a sickening crunch, ripped it out. Then it jammed its wide-open mouth into the red meat while using its razor-sharp claws to shove pounds of shredded meat down its gullet.

Chilly narrowed his eyes, but then dashed forwards. The Wendigo halted its feast, and raised its claws almost instinctively to catch his charge. Before he could get in range, however, Chilly vanished and appeared on the other side of the undead, spawning a trail of burning ground at its feet.

Fire engulfed it, as the black embers doubled in intensity.

It roared in pain, only for its voice to get silenced as the Endless One bucked. Chilly flew up, only just catching a bristle before pulling hard to send him crashing back to earth. He rolled, preparing for a charge by the Wendigo only to be a second too late as a sharpened red horn accelerated by streamers of silver severed his right arm at the shoulder.

Chilly hissed as a faint twinge of pain wracked him. He backpedaled, using his domain’s omniscience to slip past the numerous bristles while a freshly formed nub of bone erupted from his shoulder as his impressive regeneration overwhelmed the bleeding.

Out of the corner of his eye he spotted a lifelike miniature replica of the Brine King carved with exacting care out of a rich maroon mahogany. Chilly did a double take, as he spotted a pea sized penguin struggling up the side of one of the hand sized replica crystal pillars with an ice pick in either hand.

“Fuse the hearts, unite the sisters!” came a tiny squeaky voice, which was almost immediately overwhelmed by an ear-shaking detonation when the Brine King slammed its pincer into the Endless One.

Suddenly, the ground shuddered as a sky-encompassing black rend tore through the heavens as if the very fabric of reality had torn. Both the Wendigo and Chilly blinked, studying the strange phenomena in the sky before the ground beneath their feet erupted in a flare of purple and black fire as the Smoldering Embers caught.

Chilly winced, stepping back as his flames scorched his feet and the once hard flesh beneath his feet softened as it decomposed under the balefire's influence. Up ahead, the Wendigo spun around, its beady eyes growing wide as saucers. Then it leaped to its knees and ripped out a chunk of meat to jam in its mouth. Before it could swallow the small handful of meat vaporized in the purple fire, to reveal a blood-soaked penguin cowering in its hand.

“Brother of Bale!” Mr. Chaos exclaimed. “I am FREE.”

The Wendigo shrieked in disappointment, tossing the hapless penguin to the disintegrating ground, as it summoned the silver wisps around its hooves.

“You will win!” Mr. Chaos winked, urging Chilly onwards.

Chilly flashed a brief nod, then teleported onto its back, abusing the instant cast time granted by Second Wind, and locked his arms around the diseased flesh before the Wendigo could react. Just as he latched on in a death grip, the Wendigo jumped and he was nearly ripped off of his impromptu perch by eyeball-squishing g-forces.

They flew through the literal wall of purple and black flames towards the next large source of meat. The Brine King.

The Wendigo spun mid-flight, gnashing its teeth at Chilly as he jammed his shields into the Wendigo’s needle-filled mouth. The shield cracked and chunks vanished down the undead’s gullet before the magical equipment regenerated only to be chomped at again.

The glowing red chains pulsed again, and the plasma surrounding the two flared like a living star.

They crashed into the gem-encrusted surface of the Brine King, and Chilly was dislodged in a tumble of flailing limbs. Midair, frantic to prevent the Chains from breaking, Chilly Flame Dashed in the Wendigo’s general direction and reappeared right as one of the Wendigo’s boney feet slammed into his stomach.

He wheezed and grabbed at the foot and twisted, causing the Wendigo to slip and fall.

With a beastly snarl, the Wendigo ripped into him with animalistic intensity.

Chilly gasped as his life plummeted. Massive plumes of blood erupted from his open wounds that struggled to close before the Wendigo ripped into them once again. Starfire Aegis and Aegis Aurora flared as each blow landed, reflecting damage and healing him respectively but neither was enough to stem the maddened beast’s assault.

Chilly thrashed, struggling to escape as Second Wind’s cooldown ticked down with agonizing lethargy. A hint of fear clenched his core just as he noticed a strange flying object enter his domain at mach speeds. Before he could fully process what he was feeling with his perception skill, a blast of air bowled him over and separated him from the Wendigo in an instant.

He shot to his feet, coughing up black blood as he turned, and froze as he beheld his rescuer.

A buff Dragonborn covered in steel gray scales and sporting abnormally thick fists landed on the other side of the Wendigo. He spun, and landed a roundhouse kick on the Wendigo’s exposed nape before vanishing around the undead’s sweeping horns to reappear on the other side of it just as six dragon claws ripped into its back.

“Ha!” Rahlin roared, “Feels good to be back!”

“W-what are you doing here?” Chilly asked.

“Never said no kid!” Rahlin smiled, revealing rows of sharp incisors as he spun around the Wendigo and unleashed skill-enhanced punches that knocked the Wendigo a foot back with each concussive detonation.

Chilly grinned and ducked forwards to prevent the Chains from snapping as the Wendigo retreated from the Dragonborn’s relentless assault. Suddenly, it feinted back, only for a wisp of silver wind to swirl and it reversed its momentum and lashed out. Rahlin ducked back with startling swiftness but failed to completely avoid the sharpened horn. A cascade of orange sparks washed over the point of impact, dulled as a flood of black-specked blood gushed out. Rahlin bobbed back, a movement skill activating and evicting him from the half-moon of desecrated ground around the undead.

His arm dangled bonelessly as a huge rend nearly separated it from the Dragonborn’s shoulder. It spewed black blood far faster than it had any right to, but the moment he stepped onto the consecrated ground, the bleeding slowed and the blood lost the diseased speckles of corruption.

“Ha!” Rahlin roared. “Almost go—”

The world turned red as artillery beams fell from the sky. Chilly gasped and rolled to the side, using his domain to dodge the beam only for two dozen more to smash into him and slam him to the ground.

Ahead of him, the Wendigo also tanked the projectiles before using his ultra-sharp horns to begin digging into the Brine King’s tough shell, as if seeking shelter from the bombardment beneath the surface.

Chilly’s life twitched, pinging from full to slightly less than full as the Aurora around his armor shone brightly. Rahlin, however, struggled. The blows hit him hard and even with the full power of the consecrated ground at his feet, wounds manifested on his iron-hard scales from the onslaught.

Before they could react in any conceivable way, a second of silence stunned them into inaction just as a black X-shaped rend bisected the Brine King's thick shell.

Chilly blinked, only having a second to process the development before the floor erupted in a conflagration of balefire that softened the once-hard shell.

“The Wendigo!” he roared, stumbling to his feet, as chitin melted beneath him and threatened to slide him down the sheer side of the shell. He kicked off the disintegrating ground and launched himself towards where the Wendigo had stumbled. It shot him a hateful glance and prepped its silver wisps around its hooves. Chilly teleported forward to grab onto it, but the Wendigo kicked off at the last moment and spun its horns in a motion that lopped off both of Chilly’s forearms.

Chilly roared in frustration as his two hands hosed down the Wendigo in black-speckled blood and gravity sank its merciless teeth into him. The Wendigo chuckled, bits of broken bone and charred flesh making the sound more grating than frightening. It kicked high into the air and the Chains snapped with a mournful ping.

As Chilly fell, a penguin manifested on the Wendigo’s shoulder.

In its diminutive flipper, it held a wooden corgi with a baseball bat clasped tightly in its paw. Chilly blinked up at the scene and couldn’t help but release an incredulous chuckle. It was just so—

A pair of madly giggling penguins appeared right behind the Wendigo’s back, and Mr. Chaos raised the corgi high and slammed it hard onto the Wendigo’s skull.

“Get bonked!”

Reality tore in a great black X as dual blades eviscerated the Wendigo into four sorry quarters.

Purple flames engulfed Chilly’s vision as he fell. Through the flames, he glimpsed the smoldering embers catch on the four pieces of the undead and consume them entirely.

“Chaeli!” Chilly called.

“Here, here!” Chaeli skipped over. “That was epic! I even got a level outa it.”

“Well done.” Chilly said, but couldn’t keep the stress out of his tone. “Could you get the hearts, please? Quickly, before they vanish on us.”

“‘kay, kay!” Chaeli blurred away, just as Rahlin lumbered over.

“You still planning on giving the hearts to the guardian?” he asked, crossing his thick arms.

“Yeah,” Chilly said, a penguin popped onto Rahlin’s head.

“Your helmet!” the penguin admonished. “Go save Ria's heart!”

Chilly nodded, ripping off his helmet, and began stuffing dirt into it. He packed it as tight as it would go, then shot the looming Dragonborn a pleading glance. “It's worth it man. They’re people too.”

“Mhmm,” Rahlin rumbled, then grinned, “I’m willing to let you try. Can’t be too bad, considering.”

Chilly huffed in exasperation, then dashed over the still partially molten crust supporting the remains of the Brine King’s corpse. Near the center of the depression, Chilly found a pile of essences, a rotting ship’s steering wheel, a glowing semi-transparent octahedron and a red broken heart pendant.

Chilly grabbed the heart and jammed it into the dirt of the helmet, then dunked the helmet into the molten caldera for good measure. After a moment’s hesitation, he also grabbed the octahedron.

As soon as he touched it, a shimmer scintillated over its surface. The outer casing cracked, releasing a viscous opaque liquid onto his palm that began to seep into his palm while releasing silvery sparkles into the air.

Chilly shook out the shiver’s in his arm and gathered the rest of the loot and made his way back to the others.

Chaeli hopped up and down in excitement while balancing a glowing octahedron on the tip of one of her blades.

“The heart? You got it?” Chilly said.

“Yup, chucked it in my essence vault,” she replied, unfazed by his curt question. “What d‘you want to do with this glowy thing?”

“I believe that Chilly should have it.” Rahlin rumbled, “it will not do you much good, but you deserve the reward for this battle.”

“You sure?” Chilly asked, but reached out and caught the octahedron Chaeli tossed at him anyway. The moment he touched it, the object melted and absorbed into him with a spray of silvery sparkles.

“Huh,” Chilly said, reading the notifications. “You were right. This is useless for me.”

“It is the gesture that matters.” Rahlin rumbled. “Plus, if you’re gonna go and wreck the desecrator in ‘is boney snout, then you’ll need all the blessings anyways.”

“Sure,” Chilly agreed, “what about the heart, will it be fine in the essence vault?”

Rahlin nodded. “For a day. Yes.”

“And the Named?” Chilly asked. “It's dead right?”

Rahlin chuckled, clasping Chilly’s shoulder with his meaty palm. “Peace human. The battle is over. You’ve done it.”

Chilly gazed at the Dragonborn for a second with wide pleading eyes, then like a doll whose strings were cut, he slipped to the ground. The Bosses were dead. The Wendigo was dead.

The Wendigo was dead.

A great weight slipped from his shoulders.

Chilly laughed, bright and loud, as joyous tears carved furrows into his grime caked cheeks.