Daniel watched the smoky figure of the drifter while he stood in Limbo. Beneath his feet, and coating the walls and ceiling was the hundreds of bricks that made up his mimic. They clicked beneath his feet like some kind of bug, yet he couldn’t help but feel positively towards them.

It had saved his life on its own. Nobody had told it to come help, and yet it had. That meant something.

Moving past that he could this entire battle right now if he wanted. It wouldn’t be hard. The creature’s knives seemed more real in Limbo and could certainly cut him, but the drifter itself only seemed to have a faint idea of where he was and couldn’t actually see him.

But if he left now then Vadim would need to fight a second leader on top of the first, and if by some miracle Jonathan was alive then the leader would certainly kill him if it didn't need to deal with himself.

Which left the responsibility squarely on his shoulders.

This creature was strong, and while Daniel may not have had much practice with the upgraded versions of his cards, he’d certainly had a lot of practice with Flicker Between Worlds. It would have to be enough.

With his decision made Daniel changed Foundation of One to three parts strength and two parts reaction speed, before he rushed toward the drifter, stabbing downward with his knife and reappearing in the real world at the last second.

His father’s blade bit into the drifter’s back, piercing all the way to the hilt as the drifter twisted around, swinging its knife towards Daniel’s throat, but striking nothing but empty air as he reentered Limbo.

Daniel watched as the monster ripped the knife from its back and tossed it aside. It’d already healed all the wounds that the mimic had given it in such a short time, which meant it had a healing card, and the lack of fog meant that it probably wasn’t Jonthan’s. Not yet at least.

Daniel reappeared in the real world and fired two shots at the monster before retreating back to Limbo. The first shot ricocheted off the creature’s metal frame, and the other pierced into its shoulder, if only just.

The smokey form of the monster seemed to have been enraged at that, because it began slamming itself against wall and hitting its fists against the floor, up until it seemed to realize something and pointed towards the ceiling.

Sensing something was wrong, Daniel acted.

He reappeared in the real world right behind the monster and was buffeted by an incredible wave of heat. Up in the ceiling, not three feet above their heads was a miniature sun burning in the rocks. It emitted enough heat for Daniel to switch two parts of Foundation of One over to durability just so he wouldn’t get burned from being near it.

Regardless of this he struck the monster with both hands in a downward arc, slamming the creature into the rock with a loud crash, but as he backed away and moved to activate Flicker Between Worlds, it activated a card of its own.

“A King's Negation.”

Despite the creature's inability to breath or speak Daniel heard the words clear as day as his card failed to activate. That’s when the drifter struck.

A second sun appeared in the floor, just beneath Daniel’s feet causing the rock around him to turn to molten slag and for him to get blasted into the air by its sudden appearance.

Immediately Daniel switched all of Foundation of One towards defense, specifically against extreme heat, but that was what the monster had wanted.

At first, in that split second after being hit by the sun Daniel found himself being somewhat impressed with the monster, but one look at it proved that he shouldn’t have been. The monster was clearly suffering from madness inflicted by his card, and it was all too apparent as it rushed toward him.

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Its legs burned in the molten rock as it ran through with a complete lack of regard for the damage it took, evident by its demeanor.

The molten rock wasn’t especially deep, but as the drifter ran through it the metal coating its legs glowed red hot, melting and cracking with each step it took until it finally reached Daniel.

It’d cleared the distance in an instant, purple lightning trailing behind it as it swung its right knife towards Daniel and activated another card.

“One Simple Job.”

The pressure surrounding the knife suddenly became overbearing, and Daniel was still mid-fall as the knife arced towards him like a streak of iridescent light.

It would kill him if it hit. It wouldn’t matter if he changed the allotment of Foundation of One, it would cut through him all the same.

Just from the feel of it the card was at least rare, and likely had heavy restrictions in order to use. That was the only justification Daniel could find for the sheer power he felt emanating from the blade.

It cut towards him while he was still midair, and despite trying to use it, A King's Negation had left Flicker Between Worlds out of commission for at least another five seconds.

As the blade came closer to Daniel a grin spread across his face.

“Missed me,” Daniel said before being yanked backwards as if plucked from the sky, away from the arc of the blade and sent rolling across the floor.

The blade in the drifter’s hand immediately crumbled to dust upon missing the attack, drifting through the monster's hand as it clenched its fist in clear irritation as Daniel stood back up.

It was a neat trick that he’d thought of in the moment. The mimic he’d been standing on was something he could touch even while it was in Limbo. He’d simply had to take advantage of that.

Daniel looked at the monster inquisitively and found that as the sun in the floor vanished, the one in the roof remained, dripping molten debri like drops of rain that the drifter seemed to ignore. The leg of the monster, now that it wasn’t standing directly in molten rock, had clearly already begun to heal. The metal covering it had returned to its normal tint, with the parts that had melted already were beginning to return to normal.

All in all, he’d made very little progress. But that didn’t matter, he had a plan. Was it a good plan, probably not. Would it work, questionable.

But hey, it was something, and Daniel could live with that.

===

A short while ago.

Jonathan held the wall of fog for as long as he could before he let it fade away, taking a step back and brandishing his short sword. This, what he was doing right now, was sheer lunacy. He was a dead man walking. The honorable thing would be to take his own life so that his cards wouldn’t be added to this monstrosity's power.

But he couldn’t do that, it went against his religion.

Dying Man’s Spite

Rare

Divine/Illusion/Fleeting

When the user of this card is put into a situation in which they believe they will die, this card activates. While this card is active the user’s body will be put into a stasis for ten minutes, preventing it from taking any further damage.

If the user has given up something they value permanently just prior to activating this card, the secondary effect activates.

The user of this card creates a tangible illusion that they inhabit and control as if it was their own body. While inhabiting this illusion other cards in their deck can be used and the illusion cannot be harmed.

Fleeting Condition:

This card can be revoked at any time by the entity Alena, Goddess of Regrets.

Addendum 1: Cards and Items given up to meet the secondary effect’s requirement can be used during the secondary effect.

That card he’d given to Daniel was something he’d inherited from his grandfather, and while it would be missed it wasn’t entirely gone. Not yet at least.

Jonathan’s body froze in place as the wall of fog dissipated, letting through a wave of drifters that stampeded down the hall like raging bulls.

Jonathan though still felt calm as an illusion of himself formed in front of his frozen body, lifting up its sword in defiance.

The leader shot past him before he could raise more defenses, though not without taking a nasty cut from another of his cards, Healer’s Malpractice.

The others though were stopped in their tracks as fog once more filled the hall. One tried to disrupt the card with that negation card of theirs but was beheaded before its card had even activated.

Fog roiled against him, touching the illusion without consequence. The drifters though, they screeched upon contact with the deadly fog. Rushing towards him in an attempt to kill him and get rid of the source.

Sadly for them that would be impossible for the next ten or so minutes, and now that he didn’t need to hold back not one more of the monsters would be getting past him.