In the first instant after he emerged, Nic killed three. The prison cube had exploded into a wide and billowing rift of blackness, and Nic was spat out in a wild tumble, hitting the floor with his palms and somersaulting up onto his feet.

"Gwungo! Sword!" From his wrist formed a long, bladed spike of crystal that he swung through the air in a leaping crescent, decapitating the nearest Ascended devil in one stroke. "Leash!" Before the body had time to fall, he aimed the spike upwards and shouted the next command.

A sticky lasso of slime fountained outwards from his hand, snapping hold of the ceiling and yanking him upwards. He released the lead and let his momentum slam him against the wall, his feet taking over, running him sideways across the edge of the chamber. The nearest sand devil was turning, trying to follow him-

He dropped down and cut through its raised hand, tearing off three fingers and hacking into the skull below. Another devil was in motion, rushing towards him, but Nic twisted and planted his feet against the dying devil's midsection, kicking it towards the attacker.

As the two bodies - one alive, one dead - tangled, Nic spat forth a wave of petrifying mist. It swept across the living devil and turned its body to a gray, ashen statue, already beginning to crumble to nothing.

Nic exploded forth out of the cloud, his backfoot leaving the earth with cannonshot strength. But the remaining devils had closed up into defensive formation.

Two of them brought out defensive Shards, summoning blazing chains and a floating lantern that repelled him with blazing green light. His fist slowed and slammed into the chains, breaking through the first few layers, but it did nothing more than rattle the inner defenses.

And just like that, the battle turned.

Nic cricket-kicked backwards and tried to escape, recognizing the moment was lost. The chains snapped out and pursued him through the air.

"Leash!"

He swung his momentum aside with a well-timed lasso, snagging ahold of the ceiling and twisting his arc, swinging himself to land against the wall and bound away, ricocheting through the chamber like a pinball. A spear of blazing red light slammed into the wall where he'd been seconds ago, detonating with a force that shook the polished onyx walls.

Behind him trailed a banner of mist, dancing with illusionary images. The power of the Mistwater Step wove through the space, and now Nic was everywhere, fading in and out of view. The formation of the five sand devils had no clear angle of assault anymore- Nic had slipped their sight and now seemed to be everywhere, his next attack waiting to materialize from the ether.

The mist billowed. Nic erupted out, hand raised, unleashing his palm technique. The devils flinched and conjured their defenses, lifting their collective powers into a shield. A spear flew for Nic's throat-

Nic suddenly reversed course and vanished back into the mist, being pulled elastically as he hit the end of the Gwungo-tether he'd anchored behind him. As he was yanked backwards the tether unwound, giving him the freedom to hit the ground, brace, and kick forward again, bounding off the wall to come at them from the exact opposite angle.

They couldn't move their shield in time.

Nic brought down one with a two-fold Hand of Ash, hammering down into its chest and shoulders. As be dropped to the ground amidst them he roared-

DEATH!

That single word became a wave of force, sending them into disarray. They had stunned, glazed expressions in their black-faceted eyes. From his open mouth poured waves of gray mist, enveloping them…

Two stumbled free from the cloud.

One, Nic snatched up with Gwungo’s leash-form, dragging the beast back into the deadly mist as it clawed at the earth and tried to escape.

The second one made it out of the chamber, running down the hallway at top speed. Nic was behind it in a heartbeat. His first blow crashed into the back of its leg, sending it to the floor. Then his Hand of Ash descended against its upraised arms and torso, cratering them in, hammering down again and again until all that was left was a shadow of yellow blood extended from its mangled lower body.

Eight down.

The Antares runes poured from his hand, enveloping the body. They consumed it down to glittering shards of glass and flowed back into Nic, granting him a rush of Essence…

Nic cracked his neck. Not so hard.

Now, he needed his bag back. He needed that map. And he needed to live long enough to leave this place.

Ahead, he felt the billowing threat of Seoona fill the air, sweeping outwards in a wave of unbound aura. Nic felt the prickling at the back of his neck and changed directions, heading away, moving fast. Whatever he did…

He wasn’t going to tangle with her until he got his weapons back.

As he ran through the chamber, he unleashed the Antares runes again. They moved like a serpent, coiling over the bodies and consuming them. His Essence stores grew and grew. Already at bursting, his cultivation was being expanded slightly as his Essence brimmed past its usual limits, in the way that rushing water will expand the banks of a river.

What mattered now was that he had enough to burn with Sacrifice. No matter what, he had to end his fights quickly.

Choosing a random hallway away from Seoona, Nic began to run. He emerged out into a chamber full of greenery, cultivated plants growing in massive urns full of soft, wet soil. Not here…

“Sofia?” He called out.

“I’m here, Nicolas. What’s the plan…”

“Find my bag. That elven devil will be with it, I bet you anything…” He was already moving, already running down a new corridor.

“That bag has many items you’ve attuned to. If you close your eyes and feel the threads of aura connecting you, you should be able to find it.”

"Right." Nic closed his eyes as he burst into the next junction. He could feel…

A faint twinge of his own energy, coming from the south. He turned and bolted forward.

The dark hallways were empty of life- despite the massive scale of the place, it was nearly empty inside, a hollow husk of cathedral proportions. He ran through a room where a raised bridge overlooked dozens of shallow pits in which sand devils incubated, awaiting their ascensions.

And into a laboratory. A room full of rune-work, descending down the walls in intricate scripts. A room full of half-completed creations, from formation tokens to weapons. The elven devil stood in the middle of it all, his mystic bag floating in a circling orbit of runes behind her. The billowing aura of the runes was slowly pouring into the bag, infecting it, pushing his 'mark' of aura out so a new owner could claim the contents.

Somehow the devil didn't look surprised to see him. Her sharp teeth were bared, but there was something loose, something relaxed, about the way she held her body as she drew a glaive of blue glass from the floor, forming the weapon with the power of her Shard.

“We should never have let you live…”

“Yeah.” Nic admitted. “That was a mistake.”

And then they took off. Nic kicked forward, and she lunged, spear held out seeking his throat.

In that first exchange-

Nic was the one who came out worst. The blade slashed against his shoulder, nicking the bone, a blow he was willing to take in order to slip under the reach of her long and clumsy weapon. But she recognized the danger, instantly discarding the spear and growing twin blades of glass from her hands. As he reached for her neck with a Hand of Ash, intending to crush her windpipe…

She wove aside, and her glass blade whipped against his arm, cutting the tendon. He reversed course, evading as another slash flicked towards his throat.

The discarded spear exploded into a flash of flying glass fragments. Nic took the sudden hot pain of being stabbed in a dozen places without flinching, but it was an opening for her to advance, slashing in a spiraling pattern that left him no openings to move between the darting blades. He was driven back, moving on his opponent’s rhythm.

Her face was a death-mask of fury and concentration, facing off with the demon that had nearly wiped out her race.

His own face… Who knew? Nic could feel a mad smile creeping across his features.

She flung a dagger forward, detonating it midair as a new one grew in her hand. The spiraling shrapnel of glass clawed across his face, but his eyes were made of crystal. They could do nothing to blind his unflinching vision.

He plunged forward, palm striking three times in quick succession. She lifted columns of glass to deflect his ashen hand, but the fragments were sent flying towards her, and now she was being worn down by a rain of shrapnel. Yellow blood dripped from her arms as she backpedaled, trying to keep him out in the moment of blind weakness.

Nic plunged forward. He breathed out a wave of Primordial Mist, spitting it towards her legs.

She rode upwards on a wave of glass, filling the room with glittering reflections as the mist clawed up towards her. It almost seemed to take the form of reaching, spectral hands, trying to seize her and the life inside her body.

Nic was already moving for the cover of a worktable. “Gwungo! Shield!”

On his arm, the slime blossomed into a flower-shaped barrier.

The wave of glass detonated, the sound filling the space and echoing into an endless crystalline scream. Shards the size of spears flung themselves through the air, impaling the walls. Nic reached safety just in time for it to be torn apart, the workbench ripped into wooden splinters that bit into his face. He was a mass of blood, an accumulation of cuts…

But he survived. One arm was ripped apart, torn down to the bone with blood trickling down the limb fingers. A shard the size of a finger bit into his midsection, lodging itself among his guts. Countless smaller pieces impaled him and turned his skin to an aching mask of pain.

It didn’t matter. He ran across a sea of broken glass, forcing his body to accept the pain that came with each footfall.

He rushed for his mystic bag, for his weapons.

The elven devil slammed her palm onto the earth, sending a tendril of glass spines racing across the floor. Trying to reach the bag and enclose it.

It was a race, and Nic was lagging behind by a fraction of a second, the tendril escaping ahead of him-

CEASE!

He unleashed his hidden card, his killing voice. For a moment her control wavered. The glass broke and cracked into pieces, and Nic lunged past, snatching the bag in his good hand. He dropped back down and slung the bag over his shoulders.

The elf-devil’s face was grim. It was easy to read her thoughts.

If he was this hard to contain…

Nic smiled.

Imagine what a bastard he was with all his weapons in hand.