Sorry to say this, but you are Dragan Hadrien.

You're in a pretty bad situation, truth be told. Poison is ravaging your body. Your limbs are shaking so much it's all you can do to force yourself into a sitting position. Your nausea is such that it feels like your brain is swimming around in your skull -- like a goldfish. It's a wonder you haven't vomited yet.

Still, the poison is spreading rapidly -- technically, it seems to just be a tranquilliser, but the thing it's putting to sleep in this case will be your lungs, so the distinction is fairly meaningless.

And that's without even mentioning the hole in your throat. You pulled that arrow out roughly, didn't you? There's a gash in your neck like someone's slashed it open. If you were a normal person, that by itself would be enough to kill you.

Good thing you aren't a normal person. You made sure of that a good while ago.

So, Dragan Hadrien… this is how you make a miracle happen.

Gemini World, Shotgun and Railgun are forbidden to you -- so long as you're holding that massive paleo-beast inside Gemini Dominion. All you have access to is your basic Aether usage, and yet this is a situation that cannot be overcome by basic Aether usage. But you'll work with what you've got.

First thing first.

An Aether ping -- not radiating out of your body to scan the area around you, but pouring inside your body to scan the damage. Where is the poison, what areas has it ravaged, what is beyond saving? Hurriedly, you scrawl each answer on a chalkboard in your Archive, trying not to sweat as you see the list getting longer and longer.

With each new confirmation, you dread it -- dread the idea that you'll find yourself writing down a vital organ. Something that cannot be survived without, even for a few seconds. If that happens, the plan gestating inside your head will never be born.

But the fatal words are not spat out from your hand. If nothing else, you're lucky.

Rubble creaks -- someone is running this way. Hazmuth, most likely, coming back after being blown away by that roar. Him reaching you too soon is another losing condition. As you are right now, you won't be able to dodge or block another of his attacks.

You need to execute the plan before he gets here. No hesitation. You already killed that, after all, didn't you?

Deep breath. Your timing must be perfect. If it isn't perfect, you'll be dead before either the poison or Hazmuth can finish you. Right now, a dozen different conclusions are fighting for your attention. Don't let them win.

You open your mouth, say the words silently, lock yourself into the correct headspace.

Gemini Dominion.

It reappears, above you, in the spot you designated as the exit. The beast. You don't look. You can't afford to look. You don't have the time. All you can do --

Gemini World.

-- is record those parts of your insides that cannot be saved. The chalkboard is wiped clean, but you don't have time to celebrate. The paleo-beast falls down towards you…

Gemini Dominion.

…and vanishes once again into your domain. So long as it's moving in a straight line directly toward or away from you, you can trap a target in Dominion. Falling towards you fulfills those conditions just fine.

That's not your concern right now, though. The only thing that you're worried about is time. Do you still have enough seconds?

As soon as you reactivated Dominion, the parts of your body you recorded into World were banished into nonexistence. You are a bag of skin and bones, and that skin hangs loose over your reduced frame. You're barely recognisable as your skull presses against your face, distorting it. Even with the poison gone, it seems you're still practicing for corpsehood.

How long until your comrade can fully regenerate your insides? How long until Hazmuth arrives? These are the questions that will decide your fate.

Needless to say, Hazmuth will get here before you can fully regain yourself. For that reason, you decide to prioritize certain parts of your regeneration. Just the things you need to move and fight. Longevity beyond that can be put on backorder.

Move and fight… move and fight… yes. That's the reason you're here. That's the reason you're alive.

Hazmuth leaps over a massive chunk of rubble, already running, machete clutched in his massive hand. His bow is nowhere to be seen. Lost or broken by that roar, no doubt. It's a good thing.

Shakily, you begin to rise up, feeling like a balloon slowly being inflated. You're coming back to life. You can feel it. The triplet shakiness -- first born from cruelty of poison, then from lack of muscle, then from pain of regeneration -- has vanished. Your hand grasps some of the stones scattered on the floor as you stand.

Hey, kid.

Almost upon you, Hazmuth raises a machete coated in brilliant red Aether. He's too late. You've already done it. You've already performed a miracle.

Make this stick for me.

You move, and you fight. There's nothing more to be done.

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You are the one they call Hazmuth, and this is one of the best days of your life. Perhaps the last. If so, even better. A worthy death is what most dream of when they're old and feeble. Most never get it.

It's all you can do to hide the grin on your face as you leap over the rubble, charging at the Cogitant. The paleo-beast that sent you flying had already vanished. No doubt it has been swallowed by this man's Aether. Will it emerge when he is dead? You hope so. It is the next one you wish to hunt.

The Cogitant's arm whips -- he is fully healed -- and a volley of Aether-infused stones are hurled at you. It's almost like a manual version of the ranged ability he was using earlier. Not as strong, though, and not as fast. Avoidable.

You kick your feet back and slide across the floor on your knees, the projectiles narrowly passing over your head. You smell burnt hair. Not as fast and not as strong doesn't mean they are not absurd. It's just that your own absurdity is enough to keep you alive against them.

The machete passes from one hand to another as you reach melee range -- and you swing it at the Cogitant's neck.

From observing him, you now know that his regeneration is separate from his recording abilities… unlike them, it is not disabled when he captures an enemy. Even so, though, decapitation is something this young man cannot survive. A death so quick it cannot be recovered from. A death so quick that shame cannot reach you in time.

A good death.

The man who raised you did not have a good death. He burnt his way across the galaxy, formed a sizable cult of personality around himself -- and lived to enjoy the fruits of his labors. He lived, and lived, and lived. He lived so long that he finally passed away in his bed, blinded and deafened by time, barely able to even move his mouth. Only you had been left to watch him go.

A bad death… but why are you thinking of it now? Why can you smell the medicine? Why can you hear the distant beeping of medical equipment? Why can you feel that same shortness of breath?

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Ah… this is that thing, isn’t it…? They say your life flashes before your eyes. How curious to find that it is true.

The Cogitant caught the blade between his teeth.

You barely even have time to admire the maneuver before he bites down, shattering the blade between his infused jaws. You go to leap backwards, to put some futile distance between yourself and your opponent, but it's too late. The Cogitant's bright blue eyes flick over to make contact with your own --

-- and he spits.

It's like a shotgun blast -- countless fragments of sharp metal propelled towards you in an instant. One slides smoothly through your jugular. Another punctures your eye. Mingling heat and cold battle within your body for supremacy. Blood oozes down your collar.

You're still mid-leap, but you will never hit the ground. By the time your body hits the ground, ‘you’ will no longer exist. The hands of your life are already halfway through their last tick.

Hospital bed.

Medicine.

Whispering.

The last shard sinks into the space between your eyes. It penetrates your skull. It skewers your brain. The last thing you experience in the moment before you are turned off are the strange smell of burning toast…

…and the satisfaction of a worthwhile hunt.

----------------------------------------

“Three.”

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You are Victor Nezhel, riding upon the backs of the dead.

They form a wave that crashes through the front wall of the mall, washing through the promenades and taking you directly towards the enemy. Individuality has been lost to the dead, at least for the time being, their bodies becoming an indistinct and singular mass. Countless arms drag the strange conglomeration onwards like some unknown and unearthly insect.

Once, you would have thought using the dead in such a way was disrespectful. Now you understand there isn't enough time for respect.

Gravekeepers -- those who return bodies no longer needed to the dirt -- are highly respected among the Humilist faith. Even among them, you stood near the top. You had buried countless, rich and poor alike, your shovel and soil the greatest equalizer of all. You had believed in your work, believed it just, believed it necessary -- but it wasn't until recently that you understood why it was necessary.

The blood. The fires.

Again and again, across Supremacy space, you would see it. The corpses left behind by their relentless expansion, their indomitable brutality. Torn apart, crushed, shot, sliced… men, women, and children, desecrated in every way desecration could occur.

There was no end to them. Your digging was meaningless. When you buried a body, all you were doing was finishing what the Supremacy had started. Early conclusions and ignoble ends.

You hold your shovel in both hands as your mount cascades into the mall, towering over your adversary. The Cogitant. That hunter Umbrant lies dead before him, face-down, blood spreading out from his head.

Unsurprising. This is not an enemy that can be defeated alone. But you are never alone.

The Cogitant looks up at you. He narrows his eyes. His calm voice echoes through the ruins.

“Are you going to surrender?” he asks.

Slowly, you shake your head.

Indeed, surrender is not an option for you. You've already left everything behind. Your duty, your pride… all of it abandoned where it fell. You aren't even a Humilist anymore.

You already know that changing the Supremacy is impossible. Even if you were to win this Inner Melee, and somehow went on to win the Dawn Contest, nothing would change. Just look at what happened to Damon the Devilish. Once you are Supreme, the only path open to you is to sustain the Supremacy forevermore.

That was why, the moment Victor slew the Supreme Heir, he would take his own life as well. Before all the people of the Supremacy, he would show them just how fragile their barbarism was. He would spit in the final eye of tyranny.

He would Humiliate them.

----------------------------------------

Victor Nezhel shakes his head.

You sigh, quietly, almost invisibly. This isn't something you look forward to. That first bombardment -- and the deaths out in the open -- were necessary for your plan, but this? In this enclosed space, where no eyes can see?

There's no profit to brutality here. Best to make it quick.

Gemini Dominion.

Gemini Railgun.

You repeat the trick you performed before -- clutching the projectile as it manifests, allowing it to propel you forward. Railgun tears your arm apart into a mess of grisly red-and-white, but the speed it bestows is worth it. In an instant, you're upon Victor Nezhel, your other arm already lashing out in a punch.

A ghost -- the ghost of Hazmuth -- catches your fist, but that's fine. You expected that. It's time.

The paleo-beast has already returned to reality -- and you know you won't be able to recapture it as easily this time. That's why you poured your Aether through the cracks in the ground, down into the subterranean tunnels, and spat it out there. It'll take at least a few minutes for it to get back here.

Enough time to end this.

Gemini Shotgun.

A blast of stone obliterates Hazmuth's spectral head, and you keep going -- seizing Victor by the face and slamming him into the wall. All around, the ghosts tear at your clothes and skin, their resentful hands clawing at whatever they can reach. Again, though, you pay it no mind. You have a plan.

“It's useless trying to kill me,” Victor's muffled voice comes from under your palm. “So long as The Jury --”

You pay it no mind.

Gemini Railgun.

Gemini Railgun.

Gemini Railgun.

Gemini Railgun.

Gemini Railgun.

Just like when you started this fight, you fire in all directions -- some shots striking Victor's face from your palm, the others cutting through the ghosts like so much wheat. The spectres return quickly, of course, their numbers doubling every few seconds -- but that is something you expected.

The thing about an Aether glitch is that, even if the boundaries of your ability become more flexible, you still only have a certain amount of strength you can exert. Theoretically speaking, The Judge would make Victor immortal while The Jury was active -- but, realistically, how many ghosts can he operate while still sustaining The Judge?

There would be a limit. There is a limit to all things. You'll clarify Victor's limit now -- how much he could do before burning.

Walls break. Windows shatter. Brick is crushed into dust. The world of corpses you are creating breaks the mall like a chick breaking free of the egg.

Gemini Railgun.

Gemini Railgun.

Gemini Railgun.

Gemini Railgun.

Gemini Railgun.

They spill out into the street. They fill the gutters. They press down upon the ground.

Gemini Railgun.

Gemini Railgun.

Gemini Railgun.

Gemini Railgun.

Gemini Railgun.

They fall, and fall, and fall, and fall.

Gemini Railgun.

Gemini Railgun.

Gemini Railgun.

Gemini Railgun.

Gemini Railgun.

And finally, the doubling stops. And finally, Victor twitches under your grip. And finally, Victor speaks through what is left of his mouth.

“The… Exe…”

There. That’s what you’re waiting for. That’s the point of this entire exercise. At the very limit of the damage The Judge can withstand, with The Jury taking up nearly all capacity… and, by opening his mouth, Victor has exposed a weak point. The last one he can afford.

Aether flows out through your palm, down his throat, and into the very core of him.

Gemini Railgun.

“You know Aether is a shit projectile all by itself, right?”

Ruth said that to you, didn’t she? When you first met. Somehow it’s become a treasured memory. She was right. It had been a good lesson to learn. But that wasn’t strictly true anymore. Your Gemini Railgun can be fired from any point of your Aether.

No matter where that point might be.

It doesn’t take much charging. The burden of a million ghosts has already done most of the work. You let it go. Blue light flashes -- from Victor’s eyes, from his ears, from his mouth, like he’s swallowed a lantern. Like he’s swallowed blue fire. He retches…

…and, like a balloon, he pops.

“Four.”