Axehand smacked Arotaron with everything he had before looking to the side. A few dozen stone islands away, the skies were filled with transparent, glowing fish and a whale, along with armies made of mist. The two forces entwined and clashed mid-air, forming a magnificent spectacle that Axehand disregarded.

Master would win.

Axehand chased after his opponent, who was by now focused on defending. It was irritating. No matter how much he smacked him around, Arotaron was sturdy enough to take it with minimal damage, and his mist-covered face was even twisted in hateful mockery.

At least, Axehand had his little revenge.

“You pathe—”

Slash.

Every time the opponent tried to stop and say something, Axehand hacked at him with all his strength and sent him flying. Arotaron seemed profoundly irritated at this, for reasons Axehand could not understand. This was a battle; why talk?

However, Axehand was growing tired. Attacking like this was exhausting. Why didn’t the opponent fall?

A triumphant feeling appeared through his connection to the Master, followed by a far-off, scalding pain. It wasn’t much, but enough to understand the Master was in trouble. Axehand risked a peek and saw the whale entangled with a green-spotted hyena made of black smoke.

However, no feeling of urgency reached him. They were winning. This pleased Axehand, but also irritated him; he wanted to deal the final blow, not be stuck fighting this plate-armored turtle that called itself a—

A greatsword lunged for Axehand, and he barely had time to defend before getting sent flying. He released a surprised grunt. Arotaron was no longer defending; in fact, he was filled with urgency. Master was indeed winning.

Axehand bounced off a stone island to land on another, then cracked it as he launched himself forward. Two axes swung hard, and so did the greatsword. They collided mid-air with a colossal bang, but Axehand was sent flying back the furthest. His previous relentless attacks had come with a price; he was now exhausted.

Still, Axehand did not for a moment consider changing tactics. He was a lumberjack, and lumberjacks struck until nothing remained. So what if he was exhausted?

By the time he recovered, Arotaron was already there. Axehand blocked but was sent flying to the lake bottom before jumping back up.

He was prepared to fight until either side fell, but something changed. Panic came through his bond to Master. The aerial battle was within Axehand’s line of sight, and he saw a bunch of snakes tear the flying lake water apart. That couldn’t be good. They were going to eat Master.

But Axehand was here.

He locked glares with the enemy death knight, who had, by now, given up on talking. The mist dissipated, revealing a handsome face covered by a long scar, with a large, gloating smile painted on its lips. Arotaron assumed a guard. His intention was clear; he would defend until Arakataron won.

Axehand knew that the Master depended on him, and he decided to help. For a lumberjack of his stature, and facing such an idiotic opponent, it should be easy. He couldn’t escape this fight, of course, but he didn’t need to.

Axehand rushed at the knight and struck at full force, sending him flying back. They had run over the entire lake twice by now, but Axehand had an idea of where they were, and his mind had registered one detail that his opponent, stupid as he was, had definitely forgotten.

He launched off the stone island and kept smacking Arotaron away in seemingly random directions. The death knight kept the gloating smile on his face. With their current physiques, getting sent flying counted as a successful defense, as the stone islands couldn’t support a full-on block.

Axehand kept close to Arotaron as they fought.

Right as the snakes tore the water apart and attacked Jerry, Arotaron landed on a seemingly random stone island, his back turned to the aerial fight. However, the moment he landed, he noticed that something was wrong. The stone islands were supported by formations below, so they were sturdy. This one wasn’t.

At the beginning of their fight, while Axehand and Arotaron still experimented with their powers and each other, they had landed on a stone island hard enough to tilt it but soft enough to let it remain whole. It was now only supported by the central part of the stone formation underneath, and it could tilt in any direction.

Axehand had remembered this, along with the island’s exact location.

When Arotaron landed on one side of the island, his weight tilted it down. Axehand crashed on the other side with an amused grunt, reversing the island’s tilt abruptly and sending Arotaron flying upward before he could recover his footing.

For a moment, Arotaron was simply hovering in mid-air, waiting to land. He never did. Axehand rammed into him like a cannonball. Arotaron defended, as he always had so far, but he wasn’t conscious of his positioning.

Axehand was, and his attack had been extremely precise, as every lumberjack’s axe should be.

Arotaron was sent flying backward at tremendous speed. Mid-flight, he realized where he was headed, but there was nothing he could do. With a desperate roar, Arotaron slammed into Arakataron’s flying form, sending his master flying back like a pool ball. The Archmage’s energy shield had been broken instantly.

Arotaron’s invasion in the aerial battle, and against his own master nonetheless, was completely unexpected. The Archmage survived the impact, but his concentration had been broken.

The soul soldiers faltered, and half were destroyed on the spot by packs of ravenous fish. The snakes lost their shapes, blowing forth by inertia for a bit before dissipating like the mist they were.

This all took place within one second, and everyone was left staring speechlessly. Just as it seemed Arakataron was about to win, Axehand had turned the battle around with one brilliant move!

He landed on an island and grunted. If he could, he would have winked at Jerry.

“Axehand…” Jerry said, touched.

Arakataron was the first to recover from the shock. “NO!” he screamed, staring at his stumbling soul army and destroyed mist snakes. His undead could still fight, but he had thoroughly lost in both other battlefields. If they simply attacked him in the energy and soul domains simultaneously, he wouldn’t even last a minute. He couldn’t recover. He had lost.

His soul turned darker. “NO!” he screamed again. He pointed a finger at Arotaron, who was still falling and apologizing, and the death knight shook. Streams of dark mist left him to head for Arakataron, and he could only stare at his master in disbelief before his body dissipated into dust, including his armor and weapon.

“Why, Master?” was all the previous third general of the Astralis Kingdom managed to mutter before disappearing forever.

Jerry stared in shock, and even Axehand was surprised by this change, as was Ozborne.

Did he go insane? they all wondered.

Arakataron pointed at his undead army, that was still fighting Jerry’s undead. All the death knights and monstrosities collapsed like puppets with cut strings. Everyone stared. In a single breath, Arakataron had voluntarily destroyed his entire undead army.

What the hell is he doing? thought Jerry. At the same time, the whale’s deep voice rumbled.

“Stop him!” he shouted in a voice full of urgency. “Stop him!”

“Axehand, stop him!” Jerry repeated immediately, summoning as much death water as he could at the Archmage. He didn’t know what was happening, but he had a bad feeling. Axehand’s feet crushed the stone island beneath him as he shot forth, and Ozborne’s entire soul army lunged for Arakataron as well.

However, the Archmage ignored them all. Unleashing a burst of death energy to fly faster, he whistled through the air to arrive at the center of the lake, almost directly below him. The death beam was still there, surrounded by three perfectly triangular stone islands, as Jerry could now observe from above. In the heat of battle, he had disregarded the beam as part of the background. That was a mistake.

Arakataron arrived at the death beam before anyone could reach him. In a voice full of madness, he dove into the beam and shouted, “RISE!”

The rumbling lake water reached the death beam at the same time as Axehand, with the soul fish only a second behind. Axehand hacked at the beam with all his newfound strength, and Jerry provided him with as much as energy as he possibly could, forgoing almost everything else.

They needed to stop Arakataron.

They did not.

Right as Axehand’s axe was about to strike the death beam, the entire world shook. Magic itself fell into disarray for a moment. Axehand faltered as he missed a step and tumbled away. The death water dropped like regular water. The soul fish shivered and almost dissipated. Jerry fell from the sky.

This lasted for only a moment. Then, everything returned to normal, but something screamed inside Jerry. Something had changed. The air around him was different, but why?

Ozborne was silent. Arakataron’s mad laughter cut through the air, shaking them all with its intensity. It sounded relieved, free, like the laugh of a person who succeeded after a very, very long time, or someone who finally achieved their life-long dream.

“I did it!” he yelled like a child, and the sight of an Archmage doing that was most disorienting.

Jerry didn’t ask what he’d done. He had understood. The ice-cold terror that flooded his soul, along with the limitless, titanic presence that ascended through the death lake, were indications enough.

Even those who hadn’t seen the black dragon realized something extraordinary was happening. Arakataron hurriedly flew aside to make way, and nobody attacked him. Everybody stared where the death beam used to be.

The waters parted like when Ozborne had appeared, but what came through them was incomparably grander.

A black dragon rose to the surface and floated above the water. It was the size of a whale. Its body was covered in interlocking black scales and gaping wounds, some still open but not bleeding. Its wings seemed made of steel, as did its teeth and fangs.

As for its eyes… They were orange, and large, and piercing enough to see through all souls. Simply standing there, this creature emitted enough pressure to make even Axehand buckle. He was so close he could reach its hind leg if he reached out, but he didn’t dare.

Everyone stood frozen.

Desistos, the God of Death, the Death Primordial, had been revived. His eyes surveyed the field, taking everything in almost curiously.

Nobody dared speak. Arakataron was the first. “Welcome back, great Desistos,” he said, bowing lightly. “My name is Arakataron, the last of a long series of Archmages who inherited your power. I have revived you.”

The black dragon’s eyes focused on him, and its voice rumbled forth like the booms of a rolling storm. “What?” it said. Arakataron, facing the full brunt of a God’s stare, shivered.

“I have revived you,” he continued, “and have a deal to propose. During the process of your revival, I and the Biomancy Archmage worked together to plant a slave seed in your soul. Even a God cannot remove it without destroying the soul, as I’m sure you know. It hasn’t taken effect yet since I was forced to accelerate the process, but it soon will, and at that time, you will become a slave to the organization called Wizard Order…unless we can strike a deal.”

The previous silence became ten times deeper. Even Ozborne couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Planning to turn a God into a slave was one thing, but threatening them in their face?

What hubris!

Meanwhile, Jerry’s head was in pain. Not only had he overexerted himself in the battle, but everything was happening too quickly. First, Ozborne the Cursed had appeared out of nowhere, and now Desistos, the Death Primordial had been reborn.

What’s happening?!

Jerry finally realized that they’d barged into an extraordinary setting, where they normally had no business being…but so what? He could stand his ground, so all was well. He’d handle surprises as they came.

Still, he couldn’t help but admire Arakataron. Blackmailing a God took courage. If he wasn’t a skeleton, he’d definitely have huge balls…

Desistos stared unflinchingly, not saying a single word. The pressure mounted until Arakataron spoke again.

“I have come into dire straits. These people have attacked and overpowered me. As long as you can destroy them, I swear on my soul to alter your slave seed so that you are completely free, with the only constraint being that you will be unable to harm me directly. I only offer this because I am desperate, oh great Desistos…”

Desistos frowned, releasing his spiritual pressure. Suddenly, Jerry was filled with terror. The black dragon blared in his spiritual perception like a literal sun, to the point where he was forced to retract it. Its entire body seemed made of death energy, and its every casual movement was able to split the air apart and demand worship.

He knew it was a God but hadn’t comprehended the extent of its power before. Now, he did. If it went against them, could they fight it?

If we all worked together, maybe… Jerry considered, but he lacked confidence. They would try, of course, but his instinct told him it was hopeless, especially with Arakataron beside the God.

Still, not all was lost. Desistos was a God—maybe Jerry’s instinct was just prejudiced.

“We are doomed…” said Ozborne, shaking his whale head with Jerry still on it.

Desistos was the Death Primordial, one of five that had ruled the world for millennia. Though their disappearance was a mystery, there were plenty of records about their personalities. Desistos was a cold, cruel, calculating monster.

Humans were to Desistos what ants were to humans. It had no concept of gratitude, honor, or mercy. It was a being that embodied the core qualities of necromancy, of life and death, of survival.

The deal that Arakataron offered was well thought-out. If Desistos simply destroyed Jerry and the rest, it would be free. So what if Arakataron’s words were an insult? So what if he’d admitted to plotting against the black dragon?

In exchange for a God’s freedom, a few mortal lives and an insult were a tiny price to pay. Arakataron had even sworn on his soul that he would keep his end of the deal, and soul oaths were unbreakable.

In the end, it could only be said that Desistos was lucky, and that Jerry and the rest were unlucky.

Desistos opened his jaws. “No,” he said. He then raised a claw and, in a movement that seemed slow but somehow inevitable, squashed the shocked Archmage into bone paste.