There were times, in battle, for thinking. For strategy. For sussing out the strikes of one’s enemies and planning counters. This was the sort of fighting generals taught, the sort of fighting found in textbooks: clean, direct, predictable.

Then there was whatever the hells Dorian found himself in now.

No time for thought. No space to execute. He let the thinking part of his brain go silent.

Pure instinct enervated his limbs, and he acted. The Javelin soared, his Chains rippled to and fro, and he was lost in a storm of shadow and teeth. Slap down an earthen dragon; deflect the tail of another; leap into shadow, re-appear behind the fleet, ram the Javelin into the small of a frostdragon’s back; relish its splintered howl; vanish again into shadow as smoldering claws rent the air; weave across a cobweb of qi beams; cut, stab, crush—

A spear of pain down his left side. A claw, raking him up the back and gouging out its pound of flesh. A week ago that claw would’ve driven straight to his heart. He whirled, found the offender—tiny black spiky dead-eyed thing, a Sky Realm dragon with a mouthful of Death Laws, Laws which lingered in his wounds—he fed the beast his Javelin. His blow struck true, piercing the chinks of its neck. Down it went, speared through, batlike wings spasming uselessly. Dorian laughed.

He rent and broke and strangled and danced. He was cut, sliced, pounded by the clubbed ends of massive tails, had his jaw broken and re-aligned and broken again; he left it hanging there. He was unhinged. The world had become a confusion of torrid feeling. He let himself burn up with it.

And one by one his enemies fell before him, great bodies sundered from the skies, crashing into their own armies. The air was choked with dust and screams, lit up with blasts of qi, torn up with expressions of Law.

But slowly, at its higher strata, it began to clear.

Three dozen became two became one. The neat thing was that the start was the roughest; from there Dorian’s work only got easier. He could see, through blood-filmed eyes, that he’d put the fear in the rest of them. Six left. Three shamans coaxing their dragons around, three more on their own, all sporting a crushed limb or poked-out eye. They circled round him. They made to pincer. Their hearts weren’t in it.

He laughed again, blood spurting from his open lips, and descended upon them again.

So he finished off the rest of the appetizer. Head cooling, breaths heavy, blood slowing, he took inventory.

Limbs—mostly intact. Cuts—too numerous to count. Ribcage crushed. Most of teeth missing. Shadow-leaps had eaten up another chunk of his qi. So had sustaining his Chains.

There was one left, one he’d left alive, the runt of the bunch. An thunder-dragon scarcely into Sky. The Shaman on its back looked nearly juvenile.

Dorian looked him in the eye, saw the youth flinch. “Tell Jez that we both know who really decides the winner of this war,” he said. “Send more men and I’ll decimate them in turn! Is this his so-called love? Is this compassion? Tell him to stand behind his ideals and come himself. Let’s end this bloodshed for good.”

The young shaman nodded quickly, spun his dragon about, and raced off.

Dorian breathed out.

Eh! Probably a useless gesture. Probably Jez would keep throwing lackeys at Dorian until he’d whittled him down totally, then finish Dorian off. It was the smart thing to do. He shrugged. Whatever the case, his body was scarcely holding itself together at the seams. His reserves were hardly inspiring either! He squinted—no new wave of Sky Beasts on the horizon? Good. Perhaps he’d have a little breathing room to recover some—

A din of screams below, an eruption of golden light. Frowning, he glanced down. His eyes widened.

Wait. Is that…?

Kaya was there, cackling madly, streaming all over with gold. So much gold she could’ve been a statue cast in it. Every time her fists connected it was like a cannon’s blast; Azcan warriors were sent flying like dolls. There were no Laws, but the force was comparable to a Sky-Realm Technique.

And she was inflicting it on Azcan warriors.

…

Dorian blinked. He swooped downward, treading on air. “Kaya?” he shouted. “Sis! What in the Nine Hells are you—“

She didn’t hear. She seemed as he had been, in fact—she was utterly lost, in some other dimension. She only had the mind for violence. Her eyes were so gold he could hardly see her irises.

Except this shouldn’t have been possible. He was quite certain her brand was atypical; it was a Blessing! It should’ve granted Jez no control over her.

Then why…?

…Ah.

It wasn’t that Jez was controlling her. She’d ceded control utterly. She’d given herself over to the madness. In a way it was similar to what he’d done in battle, but she was so knee-deep in it she couldn’t pull herself out of it. Or maybe she didn’t even wish to. Looking at her now Dorian saw euphoria written plainly on her face. She had in this moment achieved what all living things needed—happiness. Somehow this violence made her whole. How could she quit it?

Dorian sighed. While it was cute, in a way, her discovering her meaning in life and so forth was proving quite the inconvenience to the Azcan forces. Already his soul contract was starting to sizzle in his mind. A warning. Alright, alright!

He dropped down, landing before her in a plume of dust and sands. She blinked up at him, stunned. There was recognition in her eyes. The sight almost seemed to shock her out of her berserker frenzy. So not all gone, then.

It was good news! There’d be something to recover, hopefully, once this whole thing blew over. For now he could hardly waste more time on this. He punched her in the face faster than she could react.

A little too hard—he heard a bone crunch sickeningly under his fist, winced—oops? She dropped. Casually scooping her up, he vanished into a pool of shadow.

He re-emerged at the lip of the Sinkhole and unloaded her. Then he took a moment to think, staring down at the smoldering ruins.

There’s just too much to recover. Too little time. He groaned. Even going close-combat, forgoing the use of qi techniques, he still had too little for comfort. Given the sheer amount of qi he needed to recover even top-grade Elixirs—which were meant for Earth-Realm Azcan fighters—would take hours to fully heal him.

And Jez might arrive within minutes. No. …Fine! He gritted his teeth. He’d been hoping he wouldn’t have to, but… I’ll do it. He tapped his Interspatial Ring and pulled out his last remaining vial of Devil’s Promise. He measured out the necessary amount, then downed it in a gulp.

[Bloodline Density]

[100% -> 98%]

He could feel his heart throbbing as he watched the number go down. …Or maybe that was from the blood loss? Regardless, this time there was no Bloodline Essence influx to replenish the burned Bloodline essence. Each percentage drop meant his qi got that much less powerful.

But—

A good tenth of his qi rushed back into him, like that.

[Bloodline Density]

[98% -> 96%]

Another tenth. Now he was up to 80%.

[Bloodline Density]

[96% -> 94%]

90%… He frowned. Given the amount of Devil’s Promise left in his system he was going to overshoot, it seemed, by about 10%. What to do with it? He supposed he could try to use it to increase his Star’s capacity. But it’d only yield a marginal increase in usable qi; most of the qi would be expended in the enlarging.

Then a really dumb idea came to him like a hammer blow to the head.

An idea so dumb it simply had to be done.

He nodded, grinning. If he had to bet in the battle ahead he’d put his money on Jez. He was not at all certain of his prospects—plus, who knew what other hordes the god had in reserves? He had to complicate things. Make this not a straightforward head-to-head.

And one way to do it was to add in a third player. A chaos agent. Something to wreak havoc, make openings, and maybe—just maybe—make things messy enough for Dorian to capitalize.

The only issue was, to bring this third player in Dorian would have to spur it to action! Which meant antagonizing it. Which also meant this could easily turn on him. This could easily end up in a very sad two-on-one.

Eh. What’s another risk? He’d taken so many this run he could scarcely believe he still lived! He’d been twice as cautious in prior runs and died far earlier. It was almost as though there was some quirk of Fate this time.

Shrugging, he dropped into the darkness of the Sinkhole. The wind screeched by him; a smell like brimstone enveloped him; sulphur stung at his eyes. Seconds later he dropped to the ground.

[Bloodline Density]

[94% -> 92%]

He was up to full power now! And there was still qi coming in; it’d come for another 10% or so. Time to make good use of it.

He stepped into shadow, stretched his Nightwalking as far as it could possibly, go, and leaped.

He emerged in a tunnel filled with brimstone and sulphur. The walls were all glowing molten rock. In other words, almost exactly like the place he’d just left. It was tough to tell how far he’d gone—probably pretty far? That had been one Hell of a leap.

Then he made another. Exited at a similar-seeming spot. Hotter here, though—closer to magma? A good sign.

Another leap. Rocks glowing brighter, veined yellow rather than red. Hotter still.

Four more leaps.

And then at last, just as he was starting to think he’d overestimated the range of his upgraded Nightwalker, he stepped out of shadow and came face-to-face with the Dweller in the Deep. Literally. He stood not ten strides from its massive head. That sleek arrowhead face was as ugly as he recalled! Its shocking yellow eyes went wide; its nostrils flared in surprise, sparks swirling mid-air. Dorian noted this was not the space he’d found it in initially. This seemed to be the heart of the volcano; islands of molten rock floated amid a boiling lake of lava. The Dweller stood on one such island, staring at him in surprise. Above was the mouth of the volcano, leading to open air.

Dorian had, what, 4% qi overrun left? Not counting the qi it’d take to jump back?

He opened his mouth.

A [Galactic Inferno] poured out and slapped the baffled beast in the face.

Dorian was gone before he could witness the aftermath. Laughing—he made sure the beast could hear him—he dashed upwards, Cloud-Treading, and was out the volcano in a blink. Behind him came a roar blistering with fury; and then a crashing, thundering sound as the beast gave chase.

Excellent!

With his new Nightwalking abilities even dim light could serve as an entrypoint. And under cloud cover, studded with shadowed rocks, the side of the volcano had plenty of shadow to work with. But he hesitated, waiting. He felt a furious glut of Bloodline rising from the bowels of the volcano. In seconds it had breached the open air, body rising like a giant column of swirling smoke. There was an earth-shattering bellow; a challenge. They locked eyes. He gave it a shit-faced grin.

He stepped into shadow and was gone before the inferno of Fire Laws could scorch him.

He re-emerged far along the underground tunnel. It really was a convenient road for him—drenched in shadow, linear, an easy route straight home. He heard another roar, softer now that there were so many layers of stone between them. But this one sounded even angrier. Excellent!

And then it moved closer. And closer. Flying toward him, tracking him via his Bloodline.

He grinned.

So it was pursuing. Over land—even better! Before it encountered him it’d first meet the back of Jez’s army. Some delightful chaos ought to follow.

Preparations were made. This contingency was set into motion. He was hale as he could reasonably be, with a full stock of qi to boot.

He could only hope that Jez really would choose the silly option—that he would forgo throwing his minions at Dorian. That he would answer Dorian’s challenge. No other military leader would, of course. It was bad strategy. But something about the man made Dorian think he truly did hold to some childish idea of honor, and virtue, and love. That if he could end this war early, he would.

Ten heartbeats and a handful of shadow leaps later, Dorian was back at the Sinkhole. Two quick leaps took him to the top of the Oasis walls, where he could sight the battlefield.

Against the sunset, wreathed in a corona of gold, was a familiar figure. Stridingleisurely across the air toward the Oasis. Toward Dorian. Thousands of strides apart, they locked eyes. Jez’s eyes were pools of molten gold. He smiled at Dorian with a warmth so genuine he nearly believed it.

…Well, shit! What do you know? Dorian smirked. Let’s do this.