Scrambling, Aiden threw himself to his feet and ran towards the territory’s end as fast as he could. Two steps later, an unimaginable weight slammed into his back, and he was facedown on the ground again.

But he didn’t stay down, never would.

Pulling on all the power he had caused the air to bristle with a chill so deep that frost radiated around him in a large circle. The Prowler snorted from somewhere behind Aiden, but he didn’t have time to think.

The time for thinking had passed already, had been passed ever since he made the choice to step down this path and cross over to Earth instead of into Halla.

The time to fight for his life had come, to fight for the lives of all those he cherished.

The Prowler was a threat he couldn’t let live, and he didn’t care about the difference in their power. Because he wasn’t alone this time. The two presences connected to his soul screamed deep into his soul, fueled by his wrath, and poured their own power into his being.

When Aiden stood, he bared his blade towards the monster, resolved. Turning his back on the exit, he faced his foe. Only one of them would leave this place alive, and he didn’t know how to give up and die.

“What a curious sight,” the Prowler growled, hackles raised and looking all around it. “What is this… presence? This feels like one who has claimed a spot for Succession, but,” the Prowler snarled and charged Aiden, “why does it come from you?!”

A smug sense of superiority washed over him from Blizzy, then he could feel her cheer him on. Leyla too. They both kept him company, even from worlds away, supported him.

He wouldn’t let them down, nor the fallen he wasn’t in time to save.

Similar to how Olivia had blasted him with wind previously, he did the same thing, but far more powerful. Launching himself forward with his thin, long blade pointed forward, he clashed with the Prowler in an explosive match of unyielding power.

Their speed was unlike anything Aiden had ever experienced. He trusted his armor, empowered by aspects of crystalline hardness and a law of absolute will. Claw and tooth found purchase, but the armor didn’t budge.

Exactly what Aiden expected of a Mythic-grade ability.

The image of the man splattering and all the destruction heated up his core and churned a battlelust he could no longer control. As if blinking forward through the space between, the Prowler came for him again, but Aiden was ready.

Crystalline Titan encompassed Silver’s sword form and clashed against the slashing claws that wished for his life. The attack didn’t threaten him as he was now, but the Prowler was clearly testing the limitations of his armor.

Things had only just begun, Aiden was sure of that. He could see the excitement bubbling in the eyes of the monster, see the thrill it found from hunting something that didn’t fall in one blow like the others slaughtered around them.

“You’ll die here,” Aiden said, voice guttural and sore from barely contained emotion.

“Try me, human.”

So Aiden did. He gripped the forces of dense water propulsion and ripped a wind tunnel between him and the Prowler. When he blasted forward, only a split second passed before Silver stabbed forward.

The attack landed, but its effect was severely limited. Even with the augmentation of Crystalline Titan, Aiden didn’t have the piercing power to punch through the many layers of armor hide the feline tank carried so casually.

In the next few seconds, they exchanged blow after blow as Shards accumulated around Aiden. They were dozens of times larger than usually, augmented too by his Paths. His hope rested on Glaical Fang being enough to punch through and give him the upper hand.

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Hoarfrost exploded from his hand and whistled through the air. The Prowler snapped it out of the air with its three tails, two being pointed and dangerous and the third launching some kind of hard to see projectile.

As it did now.

The impact was about what he expected. Unavoidable and heavy, the very thing that had slammed into his back earlier. But seeing it happen was a different situation.

The tail pulled at the edges and widened, a ball of dense air circulating in the center of its triangular flaps. The air hissed as the attack charged then disappeared instantly.

Flung through the air hilter kilter, head over heal, he did everything he could to orient himself before the blurred form of the Prowler reached him. But there wasn’t time.

The Prowler chomped down on his leg with the force of a compactor, putting enough pressure on the leg to make Aiden groan in discomfort. But then the Prowler wrenched Aiden to the side, shaking him like a ragdoll in an attempt to rip his leg free, and then smashed him on the ground.

Claws followed, descening in the time Aiden still tried to find his bearings. The weight of the Prowler alone was enough to make him nearly pass out from sheer pain and a distinct feeling of his entire existence being snuffed out. Not to mention the claws that raked chips of crystal off his titanic form.

And the speartails bombarding his head. All in all, bad experience.

Aiden! Leyla’s voice shouted across their connection, exploding. Their lavender and gray powers merged together to create something more, and Aiden felt a physical connection to something in that bond. Use this!

Unsure of what Leyla meant, he gripped the buzzing energy in his left hand and wrenched it free of whatever metaspace he interacted with, and then stabbed forward with Leyla’s weapon in sword form.

The Vorpal Blade.

It cleanly stabbed through the Prowler’s armor and vibrated with its chaotic destructive force as the monster roared in pain and leapt away. The Vorpal Blade hissed at its prey’s retreat and vibrated for Aiden to pursue.

He happily obliged, wielding Silver in the right and Leyla’s blade in the left. With the introduction of the Vorpal Blade, the Prowler looked terrified. Acidic ichor dropped from the open wound that attempted to seal closed, threading together hopelessly. The remnant magic left behind by the Vorpal Blade spread like poison from where it had begun its total consumption.

But if that were enough to take down the Prowler and bring the fight to an end, Aiden would’ve almost been disappointed. He groaned as he pushed himself up from the crater the Prowler had made with his body and bared both weapons at his foe.

“Not feeling so confident now, it seems,” Aiden goaded, earning a guttural hiss in return. “Thought so.”

The more he fought the Prowler, the more a feeling nagged him. Something felt so close to falling into place, an understanding he’d been headed towards for awhile now. But he couldn’t pinpoint where, how, or why the feeling occurred.

Aiden grinned and took a step forward, and the Prowler shrank back, eyeing the Vorpal Blade. Seeing as Silver was highly ineffective against the monster, Aiden let the sword form drop in trade for the whip.

An oddity occurred as flecks of ice mixed with the air, causing an isolated blizzard in the length of the whip, but Aiden didn’t pay much mind to the phenomena. He had bigger things to worry about for the moment.

Lashing forward with the whip, the Prowler batted it out of the air. Aiden then called two Ice Walls to summon under the monster’s back legs to throw it off balance. A minor success, one that allowed him to get close with the help of a wind tunnel and explosive water jets to propel him forward.

The Prowler was already dodging away by the time Aiden got in range, so the Vorpal Blade only grazed the monster. But it still shrieked in greedy elation as its tip seamlessly cut through the layer of armor.

This would be his win, Aiden knew. He wouldn’t—-no. He couldn’t let the lives of those lost here be in vain, no matter what. A fate where this monster didn’t fall was one he refused to accept. And his will of unacceptance pushed him relentlessly forward, Ice Shield blocking the next condensed air attack launched his way.

Another Hoarfrost aimed at the Prowler’s eyes gave Aiden a fraction of a second to explode forward, summoning another Ice Shield to leap over a defensive claw swipe, and land on top of the Prowler.

With as much force as he could bring to bear, he stabbed the Vorpal Blade into the Prowler’s spine. At the same time, the wind ruptured behind him. Glacial Fang slammed together in its multitude of oversized shards, buzzing with a primal frost energy that promised destruction.

Wrenching the Vorpal Blade down the Prowler’s spine caused the monster to howl. It could do nothing as Aiden wreaked havoc on its body. The tails failed to dislodge him, no matter how hard it tried.

Locking onto the exposed back with Arctic Gale, Aiden leapt away as Glacial Fang sundered the air and ripped into the Prowler’s exposed insides. When Aiden landed, he didn’t need to turn around to see the Prowler had been slain.

Unceremoniously, he collapsed forward and lost consciousness. In the last few moments of clarity, he could feel the Vorpal Blade hungrily attempt to consume him, but Leyla forcefully dissolved it back into their connected bond as his Crystalline Titan ability ended.

Even though his body ached, he wore a triumphant grin as darkness claimed his mind.