The moment Res pulled in aether, he felt his arms growing back, his wounds closing, and his mind clear. Despite all that, in this moment of clarity, he knew that if he were to fight now, the result would stay the same. He would give his best once again, but with so many elite palace guards around, he wouldn’t stand a chance. The deep despair roiling inside him reminded him of that fateful day when Serafina had died in his arms. In excruciating detail, he relived being torn apart and the agony of failing to protect a friend.

Only a wisp of his consciousness had remained in his body. Yet, when the prince had picked up his head, it was enough to set the despair on fire. At the moment his despair was set ablaze, he influenced the world around him with his own will. A will forged in the fires of despair. When he recalled that recent fire, he realized that there was the same despair roiling inside him. Yet, all the moments he had shared with Serafina, and even the guard shift with Adrian, contrasted the despair. He tried to light this mixture up as he had done on the goblin battlefield. It only flickered shortly and died out. The prince’s sword was now only a meter away.

He shoved the despair to the left side of his body and took one last deep breath. It virtually took no effort to find that tiny spark of flame and his entire body lit on fire. Every fiber of his being was filled with such mad rage that his surroundings reacted to the influx of power. Res’s eyes locked onto the prince and he launched himself at him like a wild beast. Before the prince could react, Res had landed a devastating kick to the groin that catapulted the prince into the air. He couldn’t actually see the ground. But he could outline his surroundings from when his cultivation pipes met solids. An enormous aether push leveled him again with the dazed prince.

Without emotion, Res pummeled the prince’s face. Left, Right, Left, Right, Left. The prince stared at him dully at first. Only when Res broke the prince’s nose, did the prince put on any fight. The prince tried to fly away, but Res only man-handled him and enveloped him into a bearhug. When the prince bit off his finger, he didn’t flinch. His being was now dedicated to one task - Killing. Judging by the prince’s expression, he was close to passing out. The armor could survive, but the prince’s organs wouldn’t withstand the continuous force. Through cracked lips, the prince blurted out: “Save Net.”

An artifact in the prince’s bowls glowed, and he vomited onto him. Suddenly, Res’s connection to aether stopped for several seconds, but he didn’t put his eyes off his prey. In a flash of aether, the prince zipped off and, after several seconds, Res could access aether again. “Bro, watch out for that next time. That wasn’t all the artifact is capable of. Don’t give second chances.”

Jason was right. His prey was getting away. Res pushed himself towards the prince who was heading to a rectangular array of people. His mind categorized them as elite palace guards.

“Not prey.”, Res murmured, reassured.

By the way that his beams couldn’t penetrate the surrounding forest, he concluded that the stalkers had completely closed in and had only left the meadow untouched. Outside of the clearing, he could hear stalkers feasting on the countless dead participants. Through the rattling of the wind, he heard the prince hurriedly talking with the commander. Five seconds before impact, the commander bellowed out orders, and the formation scattered. The moment that Res impacted the prince full force, he felt the first aether tentacle shatter. If his aether extensions met a physical object, they would extend or shrink, but that tentacle had shattered completely.

The problem wasn’t the loss of power, but the fact that the poles were part of his own cultivation system. It felt like someone shattered his knee. His sheer determination alone helped him to overcome that hiccup. When he pulled back to deliver another punch, his entire body was racked by tens of the poles being crushed.

The pain made him instinctively curl up into a ball and his entire leg muscles cramped up from the agony. With tears in his eyes, he looked up to see the bleeding prince standing over him with a sneer on his face. The prince waved to someone behind him and he felt how hundreds upon hundreds of his tentacles broke off. Instinctively, he created new ones that were destroyed again. It was too much. Pain was a concept he hadn’t understood before.

“How ignorant I have been”

He released an otherworldly cry of pain and let himself fall onto the ground in hopes of making it stop. Yet, it continued on and Res began to cry as he huddled on the ground and the prince rained down lightning spells at him. Finally, the prince shouted out: “Stop, we broke him!”

Looking at the husk of a being lying on the floor, it seemed true. Res’s eyes had glossed over and foam was coming out of his mouth. He even had reverted to biting off his own fingers as he could cope with that pain. That was rational pain. Pain without reason was true torture.

The prince picked him up by the scruff of his neck and Res didn’t move an inch as he surrendered. He would do anything to stop this and Jason agreed in the back of his mind. The commander tried to interject something, but the prince waved him away: “I want to show him something one last time. He will be the only one to die after this and I can’t let such a unique opportunity go to waste.”

Time blurred as he limply hung in the prince’s grasp. Only a word that was special to him awakened his damaged mind. When the prince saw him looking up, he grinned: “I knew that I could get your attention with Serafina. She has been very brave and this wonderful young man right here helped her to bandage some of those wounds.”

The prince held up something that Res couldn’t see into the air. His attention wandered back into the cozy campfire of insanity inside his head. Only a faint gurgle of despair kept him from doing so completely. The prince pulled out his sword and played with it: “She doesn’t seem to smile enough. Why don’t we change that? I have studied the arts of cosmetics too, you know? I need to … ”

The prince’s sword turned red as he swiftly made two cuts from the corner of Serafina’s mouth to her ear. He heard the splatter of blood against the fresh grass and the desperate gurgling of the only person he loved. Finally, the wet thump of a body hitting the floor.

“I am sorry that I have no more time to play with you, but my captain says that I need to be quick.” The prince raised his sword and hacked at someone else that Res didn’t see. The person who the prince hit only gurgled out one word – “Friend”

For a moment, Res’s body froze up completely. Res exhaled. Then, he inhaled.

The prince stopped dead in his tracks as Res’s body began to hum. White veins spread from his brain towards his right side and his right eye burned white. Soon, the entire meadow was thrumming in such deep and ancient tones that they could be more felt than heard. All the tubes that were destroyed before, shot again out of his body. The commander reacted by immediately ordering another assault on them.

As before, the pain was unbearable. This time, a powerful feeling stabilized him. It felt like a hot iron pressed to bare skin while also being cool to the touch. He was fighting to revenge, but also to save. The memories of the last days and the wrath of something unrightfully taken. Res didn’t run but calmly walked forward. In his body, he was balancing the two sides in a fragile cease-fire. The prince had taken a step back at his calm demeanor and caught himself doing so. When he saw Res’s emotionless face, he shouted out:

“I don’t fear you, you monster!”

With a knightly battle cry, the prince threw his sword towards him. In an instant, Res hardened his skin to levels that could rival the steel of artifacts. With his right hand, he caught the sword blade-first. Red blood dripped down from the cut that the sword had inflicted despite his hardened skin. As Res had hoped the prince raised his hand to have his sword fly back into his hand. The tiny shred of concentration he could spare from watching over the tentative balance within him was used for walking. He wouldn’t have been able to fight if he had to move, too.

With a jerk, the sword zipped back to the prince’s grasp, but Res didn’t let go. Too late, the prince noticed his mistake and Res crashed into him with the inertia of a mountain. On impact, he clamped both of his legs around the prince and had the prince take the fall. Their tightly entangled bodies slit over the grass for fifty meters before they came to a stop. The prince tried to free himself from his grasp while cursing him wildly.

*BOOM*

Res didn’t hesitate for a single second as he pulled and punched the prince’s face. All the aether in his entire left arm was gone. The pressure wave that emanated from his punch, flattened the grass in the entire meadow. One of the prince’s teeth flying through the air glittered in the moonlight. The prince’s cheek had a fist-size indent in it and blood ran from the corner of his mouth. A gem in the prince’s forehead glowed green and the skin and bones healed within seconds. The prince looked at him with outrage.

“How dare you to … ”

Res had patiently waited for his left hand to grow back and he punched the prince at the same spot.

*BOOM*

This time, a yellow barrier manifested around the prince, but Res ignored it and let it fizzle out. When the prince looked into his dead eyes, he realized the full extent of the trouble he was in. Jason and Res didn’t have to talk as their single-mindedness fed off each other.

*BOOM*

The next punch landed unobstructed on the prince’s cheek and the bone gave in more than it had before. Judging by the prince’s expression, the feeling of a healed bone-shattering wasn’t pleasant. The prince rattled off something in an ancient-sounding language. A dagger made of blood materialized between them. Neither Res nor Jason paid the dagger any heed as their target was right in front of them.

*BOOM* *Squelch*

The prince now cried out in anguish as Res’s punch dislocated his jaw. Hope and mirth gleamed in the prince’s eyes as he saw that the dagger was stuck hilt-first in Res’s chest. The pain that the dagger inflicted would have been excruciating to Res at any other time. Now his entire being was only focused on one task and one task only – Remove the stain. When the prince realized that Res’s eyes didn’t glaze over as victims of the vampiric high king level amulet usually did, he panicked. The prince cried out for help before …

*BOOM*

Bone shards flew in all directions as the bone gave in under all the stress. Res watched calmly as his prey began to scream like a pig at slaughter. He raised his hand and could feel his skin being enveloped by flame. He didn’t care.

*BOOM*