Emerson paced his tavern setup. Everything had to be refactored—nothing constant in this era of the machine. Worldpiercer wanted more space to play. Bot-lover’s phase-sword would just adore the walls of trash and bodies packed around him. Re-assessment: no time to reassess—entrust himself to fate, God, and the weapon.

He alternated through Worldpiercer’s length-changes, fingers recollecting the shifting centres of gravity. Side-arm check: shield one out, hatchet at the belt, two fresh daggers.

Worries about the boy’s first ambush with the phase-sword: could come from anywhere, a quick touch of the jugular like against the black monster (NAN: a reference to Henry’s duel with the death god’s shadow). He jumped on a table, centre of a greenzone. Accepted the butcher fest—the demon you know, as they say. (NAN: On these green/healing zones and ‘butcher fest’: they restore health, stamina, and magic on 3-second pulses; cooldowns are not refreshed, nor is the game’s boost resource, used for sense-amplification and bullet time. Miller voluntarily occupying one here is a notable shift from the earlier preferences of himself and the other intruders. These zones are avoided by the match’s end outside of emergencies because Henry has dominated them using a technique, explained by Miller’s girlfriend, to have developed out of Broken Skull; Tranquil Mind, a style mastered in Chapter 244. ‘[Practitioners] would learn which specific segments of their skull and the brain beneath could tolerate breakage, how the rupturing of different inches of their cortices translated to temporary sense losses or muscle seizures. The entire body would be subjected to this demonically-thorough examination. A practitioner mutilated themselves until they knew the subtle changes in grip strength or hip mobility depending on which ligaments, tendons, muscle fibres, or bones were severed.’ Combining this niche anatomical expertise with the greenzones’ healing magic, Henry has been throwing himself into aggressive mutilation trades that, no matter how close they might seem, always conclude in victory. Miller’s girlfriend reveals to us that he’s intentionally edging towards death for practice, since no better opportunities have arisen in the tournament to calibrate the technique. Unfortunately, for his opponents, not informed that it’s just practise, the effect is a morbid devastation of morale. After watching him revive from too many disembowelments, amputations, and incomplete beheadings, they eventually become convinced that he’s an invincible zombie, alien, asura, demi-god, ghost, cyborg, etc. The zones thus acquire a paranoid connotation, as both bastions of recovery and horrific death.)

Purple flickers from the west wall—they begin. (NAN: This is the light effect of Henry’s Legendary.) Emerson shot. Worldpiercer spiked out—20-feet long. The tip punched a hole in the wall, missed—Bot-lover’s sprinting form, his legs, chest, and head, sank into the tavern floor like an imitation Jesus trying to tread water.

The boy, no pace lost, bobbed back up. Grabbed the edge of the table under Emerson—shoved it—Emerson launched forward first. A shield-bash to the boy’s head—another sneak shot, through the shield, Worldpiercer perforating it, clipping bot-lover’s cheek, gashing open tongue and teeth. Emerson, manipulated in descent from the table, caught one back in turn—a stiletto through the eyeball—seizure lights—memories: Williams skull-popped mid-run, feet going jello underneath, G-Ville Gee with half a face spasming beneath a pine.

(NAN: That was not a lethal strike for either of them, and the recovery will be near instantaneous. I believe the game has a uniform 0.5-second healing time, regardless of wound severity, just as long as health points don't drop below zero. I'll also note that Miller, like the rest of Henry's opponents, is not able to track most of the greenzone pulses, so there are times when they just appear to be stacking wounds endlessly.)

Lights around him, too, the swarm returning.

Emerson dropped his shield. Frantic one-handed shoves, Worldpiercer retracting for the body shots. Plugged the boy twice in the shoulder, the neck. One returned: phase-sword sawing through his throat—he B-timed (NAN: bullet-timed) out of it. Plugged a gaper into the boy’s chest, blowing apart the heart—ignored by bot-lover during a downward squat.

A mace blow at his helmet bounced off a spellshield.

Heat invaded Emerson’s belly—memory: Cricket with his stinking guts in hand, babbling off a list of names, promises to contact never carried out, Peach Something, Waylon Something, Lincoln Something, Kinsley Something...

He twisted hard into the heat. The point of a two-handed sword eviscerating his organs veered away from his heart and scraped against a rib—

Sword gone, bot-lover diving for a leg takedown. Emerson ditched his mace. The freed-up hand repositioned bot-lover while Worldpiercer angled for a shot through the top of the head. Bot-lover slumped dead, the ground beneath them swallowing his corpse—the shot missed, tore open the meat of Emerson’s own thigh—memory: Fox without her legs, shrieks for assistance, no volunteers for the scoop, him neither, her head popping in a mist of pink fragments—he panic-rolled to dodge the coup de grace. (NAN: This is an instance where Miller appears to react to the flashback duel of his girlfriend instead of the current one. He’s done this many times. So far, it’s yet to have any apparent negative consequences, and there was actually a previous sequence where it saved him from a finisher.)

Came back up to nothing—solitude, the drunken vertigo of memory.

Shake it off. Quick—relocate before the next round. A spot centre tavern, outside the greenzones. His confidence was rising against the ambush—bot-lover’s pace had fallen.

(NAN: Miller’s observation about Henry’s speed seems to be accurate. Even if the previous sequence seems quite messy, it’s much more coherent than anything preceding. Most of the now-dead contestants were not able to identify Henry’s empowered attacks, their injuries appearing in their confused state to manifest from nowhere, to suddenly teleport from one presumed wound to another. The most severe cases fail to track that they are injured. Their fights end goro-comedically as they celebrate supposed finishers only to discover their sword-hand missing or their body no longer obeying the orders of their detached head.)

A thicker shot from Worldpiercer opened a new path through the body of a lion-reptile thing. He shoved a smaller monster off a barrel, kicked the barrel rolling to a corner. (NAN: These random rearrangements are probably part of his anti-pattern style.)

Fight sounds to the north, from dragon skeleton. (NAN: Dragon Skeleton – an arena map adjacent to theirs). Checked it through a crack—dreadlocks spellkiting the knight. (NAN: This appears to be the other semi-finalists, Justinian and The Third Gate, a Somalian with dreadlocks. I have no clue if this is them sparring or an official match. Even in the lost material, neither of them have been mentioned after The Third Gate martyrs herself to the giant snake, nor are they mentioned again in this epilogue duel.)

He tuned his ear to the crowd noise. Wasn’t synched for this side action—cheers for him and bot-lover. They were being watched—camera goons stealthed about. (NAN: This seems to be a logical deduction from the fact that the tavern’s interior is mostly concealed. The presence of cameramen is a change from earlier, where, after the initial dismissal by Henry when he first agrees to Miller’s deathmatch, the fighting is only televised from outside the arena's protective bubble.) Boss-kid had turned craven, called security in case of a slip-up. (NAN: I interpret this as an allusion to the cameramen’s dual function as guards. However, they never interfere in this duel.)

Emerson liked it. A sign of bot-lover’s falling confidence—a chance to advertise his comeuppance.

The boy reappeared, phasing through a wall. Emerson held back the shot, waited for him to enter a range he couldn’t dodge. Bot-lover, in turn, jogged a perfect circle teasing that limit, phasing through the maze of furniture and monster corpses, out of the building, back in. He paused in a greenzone, his phase-form cancelled. Stared at Emerson—focused, excited, no signs of tiredness. Motes spilled out of the bracelet—oddly—Emerson shot—flicked the sword at the last instant to change direction—the point clipped bot-lover in the side—a clean hole through plate armour, ribs, and meat.

“Ah, you practised up to that one,” said bot-lover, continuing to bounce in place on his toes. “Good…more to reminisce about…’

A pulse of the greenzone erased the damage.

Weapons finished condensing around them. Not in the form of the juggle. The oddity: they were dumped around the tavern, an axe on a chair, a two-handed sword perched against a wall of corpses, random daggers, random hammers. Reason? A simplification of the juggle—bot-lover compensating for fatigue. (NAN: Henry’s weapon juggle is typically dynamic, any weapons unused being instantly desummoned. While I can’t recall any previous instances of this ‘simplification’ Miller is describing, I do note, that SaNguiNe’s main technique lifted from A Thousand Tools was to wrestle in a memorised circle of daggers. The weapons scattered about might accordingly be interpreted by Miller as an intermediate stage between juggling and that beginner’s circle. We’ll see, later, however, that Henry is unloading them for another reason.)

Wrong. A stranger purpose lurked—too many blunt weapons out.

Possible responses? Knock some off their perches, spoil bot-lover’s scheme. Emerson stayed firmly put instead. An intuition warned of the boy’s deeper machinations: a trick to make him concede ground. He wouldn’t give this son of the machine what it wanted. Let them come to him on his own human terms.

Bot-lover confirmed the ploy. He desummoned one of the weapons—a rapier—transferred it to his belt. The next plan’s change of rhythm rippled through him. His steps hastened. A sway in his shoulders decoupled from his feet. Breath slowed. He sank into the floor, vanishing again.

Emerson keyed his mind to an invisible pulse and—breaking it—he dashed forward—knocked over a shield balanced in the lap of a decapitated ape—dashed back to his former position.

Glow behind—he snapped around, deflected a feint.

A quick parry exchange, metal singing.

Bot-lover advanced dual-wielding. Rapier to the fore, controlling Worldpiercer.

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Emerson tried to generate distance. Bot-lover glued to him with dainty strides: an adjustment, bot-lover's armour no protection, needed to dodge the vital shots.

Emerson scored first—chopped a piece of bot-lover’s ear. A counterattack pierced his own kneecap.

Bot-lover followed through with a shieldgrab and attempted to bind Worldpiercer. Emerson debuted a weapon trick: contracted the rapier out of the bind, thrust it short—bot-lover ducked it, legs sinking into the ground, his own weapon trick.

The boy came back up to resume the shieldgrab—Emerson, in a moment of inspiration, stepped right through him.

“Hah.” Bot-lover snuck back underground fake laughing.

A few seconds later, back to it. Another struggle over distance.

Harder and harder for Emerson to shake him. The maze was useless: the boy just phased through everything. Bot-lover’s confidence was growing. He slackened the pace, transitioning to blocking the attacks with spellshields and weird-fuck dodges. The phase-sword comboed with lunges into odd-speed elevation shifts, with bizarre, diagonal lines of descent—made targeting vitals impossible. (NAN: Interestingly, this multi-dimensional dodging is completely novel. It’s not demonstrated ever in the previous fight, not by Fenrir when he brings in the sword, nor by the interplanar assassins after taking out Fenrir, nor by Henry himself after killing them and using the weapon to eviscerate several monsters from inside their organs. It thus seems that he’s invented the technique on the spot.) But Worldpiercer had its advantages, too, and Emerson the quicker fencing reflexes. He managed to trade two for two. A close shot plugged bot-lover through the guts. The second took a chunk of face from eye corner to ear. The shots back weren’t with swords. One swap into an axe broke a parry and cleaved Emerson’s collarbone. A billhook (NAN: This is a hooked-shaped polearm with a sharpened edge along the concave side. There are no previous instances of one in the rest of the saga, although Henry has studied both polearm arts and hook-swords. YouTube research suggests the hook was useful for dismounting cavalry and clearing enemy polearms before a follow-up thrust from a spike.) yanked as it materialised behind him, chewed into the back of his neck, almost secured the knife-grapple send-off.

Situation even enough—or so Emerson thought. Bot-lover, when the last trade approached, backed off at a quick trot. Emerson's pursuit instantly failed—boy phasing through a pile of roof-spilled rubble. A greenzone on the other side. He dipped into a pulse, returned a few beats later, refreshed and smug.

This war of attrition: easily won, no man outlasting the machine.

Rage. “Traitor fuck rat!”

Emerson retreated into the tavern’s opposite greenzone. Getting back out of it as bot-lover tried to re-initiate the guts-exchange was costly. Two B-times burned. (NAN: Two of five. If memory serves, players get one back per minute. Miller gives no explanation for why he’s valuing these so much, but the deficit does seem to be critical in a later play.)

The fencing continued out of it without break. Emerson fought more aggressively. The fact was dawning. This was a one-shot fight. Anything less, bot-lover could phase off and heal. Him lingering between shots was a show of confidence—or arrogance. Emerson dismissed the second, true or not. He wouldn’t stake his chance on enemy psychology—his enemy had no psychology, just a shell of life-hating calculations.

Next shot—bot-lover caught the telegraph, B-timed a lunge, shoving hard to deflect the rapier and set up for the counter. Emerson braced against it—bot-lover phased through him.

Heat in the right shoulder—memories: Charlie with her arm part gone, the limp meat dangling, Harper The Lesser with his full arm gone, terror-eyed as he bled out in the hole to visions of abyss, proclaiming to see God, God was real and talking to him but God's arm was an ugly red thing, God didn't know his right arm had been replaced by Satan's, God wasn't listening as he pointed out the theft, Emerson would have to tell God later that he was real but his arm was not real—a clean scimitar slice.

Emerson’s arm clunked off the floor. Worldpiercer, too.

Frantic shoving. Many goals contending in the struggle: resummon the weapon, survive to reach a greenzone, kill, kill, kill.

Bot-lover rammed forward with a shield, the rim smothering his eyes—hiding the phase-sword waiting for the kill-shot in his abdomen. Emerson heaved his own shield around the cover, aimed at the boy’s head—clipped air. His foot made a better connection kicking out a knee, adding some chaos to mess with bot-lover’s combo. A knife, pulled by the regrowing arm, slit the boy’s neck—ignored for the feint it was.

Emerson, aborting the greenzone retreat, death too imminent, stabilised his footing with a squat—his mace unclipped from his belt—swung hard, centre mass of bot-lover’s shield, just to dislodge him. (NAN: The basic attack of Fighters, ‘Heavy Blow’, carries additional force.)

The mace dashed through desummoning motes—a rapier thrust pierced Emerson’s Adam’s apple, missed the spinal cord going out the other side—memori—a window of opportunity—bot-lover: six seconds down, wall at his back, no shield—Emerson: Worldpiercer at the hip—sequence: all-in, a stab to pop the bubble, return to a replacement mace for the KO. (NAN: In my best attempt to decode this, ‘six seconds down’ refers to Henry’s basic attack cooldown, which is—critically—twice as long as Miller’s, the proper melee-attack for Earthfriends being a shapeshifted move called ‘Gorilla Strength.’ Miller thus plans two attacks to Henry’s next, the first used to waste Henry’s spellshield, i.e. ‘pop the bubble’. Of course, this won’t work because, somewhere in his franticness, he’s lost track of Worldwalker.)

Emerson feinted a shieldcharge, B-timed to pivot, closing off bot-lover’s exit. Shot one—bounced off the bubble. Their rapiers wrestled over the setup for the second. Bot-lover’s backsteps pressed him fast into the wall. Emerson withdrew his rapier, feigning another through-shield shot as he dropped the sword and unclipped the mace. (NAN: Dropping the sword here seems to be a trick, avoiding the visual effect of desummoning.) Emerson’s hit clunked against the wall—bot-lover stepping outside the tavern.

DEATH, DEATH, DEATH—Emerson turned heel and sprinted, shrinking from an instinct of danger.

Comprehension chased after him. Bot-lover’s fencing, plus the phase-sword, plus the wall, added to a death trap. The wall threatened more than blocking: a screen to hide side-steps, stutters, weapon swaps, a ladder for extra elevation shifts, and other stranger things.

Bot-lover’s head phased through, grinning. “You sure, bro? ‘The 7-D Whack-a-Cripple finisher’ – it’s way more fun than the alternatives, especially once you remember that yours goes through it, too.’ Side-eyed the stabhole from the duel's opener. “Don’t you want to learn my counter-counter-counter? It’s a good laugh.”

Crowd laughter—the old sitcom backing track.

Emerson heavy-blowed a path clear, slid into a greenzone.

The tips of bot-lover’s shoulders shrugged through the wall. “Such a joyless generation...”

Backed out again. Spell-syllables outside announced a change-up of his Earthfriend charges.

Emerson re-scanned the scene. Bot-lover’s weapons still about the tavern. Their configuration had been altered on the sly. How? He couldn't decipher it. But still too many blunt-weapons—a discrepancy with the fencing, a deception.

On a hunch, he stayed in the greenzone, reshuffling the wood debris of the tavern’s former bar. A wall was close enough to bisect this zone. Still, he committed to it. The fencing should be negated by the healing—the hits too superficial.

Nearby, a warhammer had been planted beside a dead cat. Its head draped the animal’s splattered brains, as if it’d been dropped by a different person after use. A trick to hide it? No—boy was a freak, would’ve reconstructed from the pattern how the cat’s skull had been crushed via fingers, Emerson’s own. Real function: taxidermy art to provoke thought, distract, amuse. To respond: bot-lover knew Emerson knew something was off, didn’t care.

He used the warhammer to the clear planks barricading a window, heaved it outside. A gopher hole ate it.

Re-equip Worldpiercer. Active footwork. The boy would be listening to the steps beneath the ground—that’s how he was coming up on him so close, assuming the goons weren’t relaying info.

Glow behind again—Emerson twisted ready. Found nothing.

Glow still behind, growing stronger, rising—the boy was running up his spine.

Emerson B-timed a roll—dived off-balance as his passenger, legs curled around his chest, unphased and instantly jacked up the weight.

A first jab knocked off Emerson’s helmet. (NAN: The chinstraps of both their helmets were severed in their pre-royal-rumble fight. As a technical aside, the existence of these chinstraps, mentioned also in a chapter 113 duel, is strange to me, because, with Spatial Bracelet summoning, one should theoretically be able to equip a helmet completely sealing the head and supported by its own structure. Since that earlier instance is also a duel between Henry and a low-level player, my guess is that these straps might just be a feature of the official arena gear that the saga never bothered to explain. The set’s chest armour, if I recall, has an in-built weakness of a leather backing to promote more dynamic fights. Chinstraps could follow a similar logic.)

The second, an expanding gorilla fist, connected right as his head struck the floor, smashing out his skull beneath the eyes—nose collapsing, tongue and teeth fragments pulverised into his spine—empty limbs—memory: himself, dropping, body forgetting all memory of the legs. (NAN: Of note, this is the only instance where he recalls his own duel with his girlfriend.)

The digital limbs returned burning for action. Emerson, stalling just a second for the greenzone’s heal, tucked his chin, thrust Worldpiercer randomly—clipped bot-lover’s punch, shredding the fist from an angle—a bath of gorilla blood into his face and eyes. Green pulse of salvation. Emerson squirmed beneath bot-lover, trying to match some of the weight with a stance switch. (NAN: His Fighter Class has stances, their first one at Tier-0 making them heavier.) Another fist came—crunched a blocking forearm against his head. A second caved his ribs into his heart—memories: Smitty bleeding out, Fletcher bleeding out, Baber bleeding out. Emerson’s return shot popped a bubble. Another fist squared him centre skull, unveiling the flashing whiteness of heaven. He came out of that somehow—God rejecting him. A stab back—popped another bubble—bot-lover had a hammer—one of the blunt fuckers spread around—brought it down with his gorilla might, smashed Emerson’s arm, smashed out his cheek, smashed out the shoulder behind a retaliatory feint, smashed out his front teeth and nose with a side-swipe—memories: everyone, pulverised together by this monster swinging the machine's callous hammer.

Somewhere in the blows, Emerson landed one back, trading Worldpiercer’s length for 3-feet of width and using it to shave bot-lover from the naval up—the boy’s chest and head turned to red-mist. (NAN: This would appear to be a lethal strike, but the gorilla form has the following ability, Jungle Endurance: ‘Gain bonus health for one minute by 115% of maximum HP.’)

All weight and control eased up. Emerson B-timed to squirm out from under the legs as bot-lover’s top regrew. He stayed next to the boy recovering, Worldpiercer kept the same width. Bot-lover cancelled the monster form. Emerson fixed the point against his teenage temples, shot. Bot-lover B-time ducked it, lost his scalp but not his momentum.

Emerson, no B-times left, succumbed, the boy speeding around him.

Worldpiercer hit the floor along with three severed fingers.

He struggled to off-balance bot-lover, stances pulsed, random squirming. A heavy-blow-infused punch cracked ribs. (NAN: Henry is wearing chest armour, but it's riddled with holes.)

Intestines splashed against the floor—Emerson's. His boots squished through them, he toppled forward—out of the greenzone, into the finisher. (NAN: One of the main ways Henry has slain people inside these zones has been to maim them on the edges, knock them out before a healing pulse, and finish them.)

Emerson shielded his head with his arms, anticipating another hammer blow.

“Bitch…”

Heat entered his back, his heart—a spear-tip precisely stabbed—memories: Davis dropping, Green dropping, Fox dropping, Augustus dropping, Roberts dropping—Emerson recovering from the drop, span around, came back up with a dagger from his belt—stabbed—stabbed no one.

No one but himself. Bot-lover with the disappearing act again.

Bloody segments of them strewn about the greenzone, glowing neon in the pulsations. Crowd noise for these gladiatorial offerings.

A late comprehension: saved by a pulse between the disembowelment and the heart shot. Bot-lover’s tempo thrown off somewhere. The rib-punch. And/or the accumulations of fatigue—might have exited to rest.

The weapons were gone—resting.

To rest himself? No. Never.

He removed his boots. (NAN: This scene randomly closes on this action. I believe it's so that Henry can't track his steps from underground. Their concluding skirmish in the next chapter teleports them to a completely different map, back to the cemetery arena where they began.)