[Poison (Neurotoxin) Resistance unlocked]

Serenity didn’t have time to check on Ita while fighting the swordsman; he was actually stronger than Serenity. Serenity was a little faster, but he wasn’t just watching the swordsman; he had to block the firebolts that would have otherwise hit the others.

Several of his feathers were scorched, but other than that, they weren’t particularly a problem for what they did to him. They were a distraction, which meant he’d taken several slices on the arms instead of being able to dodge or block; being restricted to the doorway hadn’t helped.

He’d only hit the swordsman once.

The sounds from his left were gone. Serenity braved a quick glance and saw that there was only a single Sterath left; Katya would be free to help with the swordsman momentarily.

“Why are you still moving? Die already! You should be slowing down by now!” The swordsman hacked at Serenity; he managed to grab the Sterath’s wrist and force him to miss, but it was a close thing.

Serenity didn’t have the time to make a huge fuss about it; he couldn’t stop moving long enough. That didn’t mean he couldn’t say something. As he ducked under a high swing and cut towards his opponent, opening only a shallow slash as the Sterath mostly avoided the blow, he forced a chuckle. “If you’re waiting for me to fall to the poison on your blade, you have a long wait ahead of you.”

The swordsman actually jumped a little, interrupting his own attack, but Serenity could only use the time to fix his own positioning; it didn’t last long enough for him to really take advantage.

“Poison? So proud of being a soldier you are. How many of your honors are tainted with your dirty little secret?” Ita spat the words at the Sterath soldier.

The swordsman roared wordlessly, took a solid hold on his sword with both hands, and slashed it at Serenity, giving up the protection of his own body to seriously injure Serenity. Normally, Serenity would have taken advantage of the opening, even if it required taking some damage himself, but he didn’t need to do that this time; he only needed to keep the swordsman occupied. He moved to just outside where the blade would hit, giving up his chance to attack.

The other door sprang open into the room. Katya dashed through it and sliced a serious slash between the Sterath’s chest and hip armor. When the Sterath turned to attack her, he found that the small upright between the two doors when they were closed blocked his way. He hit it instead of Katya, destroying it but also ruining his own slash.

His distraction was his undoing; as he turned, he left his back open to Serenity. Serenity had all the time he needed to set up his attack, severing the Sterath’s spine above the legs instead of at the neck. If he was unable to hop, he was much less of a threat and from the honor-marks on his carapace, he was the most senior Sterath Serenity had seen yet other than Tranquil Conviction himself. Serenity didn’t have time to interrogate him, but he was fairly confident he could get Lieutenant Smith to pass on anything important.

Katya and Serenity moved into the large room. Serenity tried to keep the Sterath’s attention while Katya moved around the room to try to block the way to the fire door at the back. It wasn’t going to be an easy task; if they wanted to run, all they had to do was decide to go before she got there.

“Surrender. You can’t win; you’ll be treated well.” Serenity called out to the three mages. So far, they seemed to be straightforward elemental combat mages, probably low-to-mid Tier Two. Since Serenity had ridiculously high elemental defenses for a mid-Tier Two and Katya was Tier Three herself, dealing with three mages wasn’t likely to be all that difficult.

The Sterath looked at each other. One of them said “At knife’s point,” then crouched low. It was a position of submission, lowering oneself to be below another, even though it was also a position where movement could happen quickly.

The other two took longer to decide. Fortunately, they simply stood there, indecisive. One of them kept glancing at the fire door and finally made his decision when he looked and saw that Katya had arrived between him and it. He also crouched. “I surrender to your greater force.”

At that, the third Sterath lowered his head and followed suit, but didn’t say anything. Serenity started to relax until Ita entered the room.

Ita looked like she’d completely worn herself out; she was covered in sweat and looked exhausted. “You must surrender. I will not let you be silent.” She hopped slowly towards the last of the Sterath mages.

The mage stared at her for a moment, then muttered “Shameless.”

Ita seemed to perk up at the insult. She stopped moving forward and seemed to stand taller, no longer letting her exhaustion make her slump. “Yes. Yes I am. I am Shameless and proud; my Lord has more honor than yours, for all that mine is a Shameful One and yours is one of great station. Why do you think you are being permitted to surrender? He treats those who have surrendered better than your Lord does those who have served him loyally! Surrender or die, I do not care which you do, but I will not let you be silent.”

The third mage quickly looked at the floor, but when he looked up, decision made, he called out “Firebolt!”

Ita was just in front of Serenity, so he pushed her to the side as quickly as he could. It was almost fast enough; the firebolt hit his hand, but the nimbus still scorched Ita’s flank. Serenity didn’t have a fast spell he could use in response, but his ax was flying through the air moments later. It cut through the Sterath’s carapace, injuring him but not killing him.

“Rissa! Ita needs healing!” Serenity yelled as he dodged around Ita. He didn’t know how bad it was, but Rissa would be a better judge of that anyway. He needed to kill the Sterath mage; a false surrender couldn’t be permitted. He was grateful Ita had caught the subtlety that the mage hadn’t actually surrendered; he might or might not have in time, but while he knew a good bit about the culture it wasn’t his own the way it was Ita’s.

It was better that the attack happened here to Ita who could handle a hit than catching a human soldier off guard and possibly killing him, but Serenity was still pissed at the Sterath. He needed to die.

The Sterath threw two more attacks at Serenity in a panic while Serenity closed the distance - one cold, one lightning. He’d clearly decided that if fire didn’t work, something else might. He was both right and wrong; Serenity’s Heat resistance was far better than either his Cold or Shock resistance, but they were both still high enough that all he felt was a slight chill and a weak shock worth little more than static electricity.

By the time the lightning hit him, Serenity had recalled his ax; moments later, it swept into the Sterath mage’s neck. The mage made no attempt to defend himself physically. He was attempting to cast another spell, but failed to complete it in time.

Not that it would have mattered. He was an elementalist; they were the most common offensive mages, and Serenity’s former existences had fought them many times. Serenity still had all the resistances he’d gained, and nothing the elementalist could do was a danger to Serenity.

Serenity shook the blood off his ax; he’d have to clean it later, just like everything else. “Should have surrendered,” he muttered. “Then I wouldn’t have had to kill you.”

Serenity turned back towards Ita and found that Rissa had already reached her. “How bad is it?”

“Mostly superficial,” Ita answered. “But it hit the edge of my upper leg plate.”

“There’s a deep burn there,” Rissa confirmed. “I could definitely heal it on a human. On a Sterath … I’ll try. At least I know the difference.” She winked at Serenity, reminding him of the first time she’d tried to heal him after his transformation. It’d done more damage than the original injury, but she’d learned something about how she was being lazy in her healing.

While Rissa attended to Ita’s injury, Serenity texted the address to Lieutenant Smith. Moments later, he had a reply.

How many?

Two surrendered. Leader is paralyzed from the waist down.

Serenity didn’t want to say more than that. That would tell the Lieutenant he needed to send someone to take control of them first; he’d likely also send an ambulance for the leader. The dead could wait, and Serenity was confident there would be people doing triage to find the injured yet living as soon as they saw the place. The city wasn’t really prepared to deal with as many dead as there would be soon, but that happened in war. It wasn’t Serenity’s problem to solve.

“Will the showers still work?” Katya tapped her blood-spattered armor.

Serenity shrugged. “If it does, it’ll probably be cold, but we can try.”

“Cold is fine.” Katya headed off towards the women’s locker room. Serenity wished he could join her, but he needed to stay where the prisoners could see him until they were handed off. At least he could shift to human shape and not be covered in sticky blood - though he was certain it would return when he shifted back.

Serenity was grateful that the hotel had a very large hot water boiler; it took a long time to get all of the blood off. Even once it was all gone, he spent time in the shower’s heat. He hadn’t had a series of fights like that since his return. Dungeons weren’t the same; the monsters were created by magic and therefore somehow less real.

He’d taken lives since his return, but it’d been personal. This wasn’t personal at all; it was simply something that had to happen. They’d attacked his city, his nation, his world. If he didn’t do something about it, they’d kill his parents.

It felt like he was the Final Reaper again, justifying carnage. “They attacked me first” happened to the Final Reaper dozens, possibly hundreds of times. And he’d felt justified in killing the attackers over and over again.

That wasn’t who he wanted to be. How could he draw the line?

It wasn’t an easy question to answer; he knew there wasn’t a single answer.

The one thing that was different was that this time he took prisoners. The Final Reaper didn’t. Leaving people alive was simply a recipe for them to attack again, or for their descendants to attack.

Was that enough of a difference? Serenity didn’t know.

When Serenity finally finished his shower and left the bathroom, Rissa met him with a warm hug.

Ita was sitting on the floor of the common room; he’d borrowed the shower in the other room of her suite, instead of running his parents’ house out of hot water. She looked up, grinning. “It finished healing! I think I’ll lose the armor plate over the next few days, but Rissa kept it from being a problem anywhere that matters.”

Serenity smiled in response. “That’s good to hear.”

The second difference was right in front of him. He wasn’t alone this time.

Perhaps that was the key.