Daniel and the drifter exchanged blows as the minutes passed, and one thing became clear very quickly. Daniel wasn’t winning.

Not to say that he was outright losing, but nearly all the damage that the drifter took seemed to heal at a visual rate, and that was creating problems.

Daniel shifted in and out of Limbo slashing it with his spear and occasionally using his revolver before retreating back to safety, but with each successful hit Daniel landed on the drifter the damage was minimal and it had begun to land glancing blows on Daniel in turn.

The worst of which was a cut on Daniel’s forehead that dripped blood down into his right eye. It was annoying, but nothing a quick bandage applied in Limbo couldn’t fix.

Though it was quickly reaching a point where the situation was getting much worse. Molten rock continued to fall from the ceiling, and if it hit him while in Limbo he wasn’t quite sure what would happen. They had the same chitinous form that everything else in that dimension had, and as far as he could tell was immovable like everything else.

Which begged the question of what would happen if some of it fell on him while he was in Limbo? Would it bounce off of him, or would it push down on him regardless of its small size, making its way to the ground at the same rate it would in the real world uncaring of if he was in the way or not.

The last problem he was facing was perhaps the most bothersome and was the reason for most of the shallow cuts covering his body.

The drifter’s card, Reversal of Fate seemed to only have one function from what Daniel was able to piece together. If the card was activated and the user was hit with an attack while simultaneously missing an attack of their own, the damage they received was completely transferred to the attacker.

Which helped it tremendously since Daniel was continuously ambushing it. Most of the wounds Daniel had were caused by that card, as it seemed somewhat forgiving with the timing of the user.

The only good thing to come of the prolonged fight was that the drifter seemed like it was slowly being affected by its inability to breathe. Which was good, because he’d need every advantage for what he was about to do next.

Daniel watched as the drifter scratched at the ruined chunks of its head, sending bloody bits down onto the floor below. The madness seemed to also be getting progressively worse, which was causing it to make mistakes.

Like the one it was about to make.

Daniel switched Foundation of One to two parts reaction speed and three parts strength before gripping his spear near its tip and thrusting it towards the drifter as he left Limbo.

The drifter to its credit noticed the attack immediately, swinging its knife in an arc towards Daniel that would go wide over his head.

Daniel grinned at the sight, dropping his spear and lunging towards the drifter. It panicked, trying to change the arc of its knife midswing, but Daniel had gotten in its face in that instant. Purple lightning flashed across the drifter's skin as it moved to step back, only to trip as the floor itself bit down on its leg and Daniel gripped it by its midsection, not giving it time to process what was happening before lifting it up and sprinting toward the portal.

Its knife buried itself into Daniel’s shoulder, who ignored it for the moment yelling out as he reached the portal and tried to push the drifter through.

It grabbed onto the edges of the portal, clawed hands digging into the edges and not letting any more than half of its body go through.

On the other side Daniel could see eldritchian monsters begin to rip into the drifter. In the next instant one of the had their head explode as it bit down on the drifter, one of the drifters arm’s letting go of the portal for a moment to swing wildly in the air, striking nothing and allowing its card to activate.

Daniel’s mimic took advantage of the momentary weakness, leaving Limbo in its entirety and grabbing onto the arm, wrapping around it like a snake made of stone.

Daniel held it there for a moment, as the monsters on the other side tore away at the drifter though none seemed actually capable of killing the thing. Chunks tore away from its neck and chest, but regenerated in the next instant sending blood and gore floating around it on the other side.

Daniel eventually just tried to throw the entire creature through the portal, but it activated another card that stopped that plan in its tracks.

“A Stone’s Momentum.”

It sounded out in the same disembodied voice that everything the drifter said did, and Daniel cursed as the creature stuck in place like he was rooted there.

‘Fine, have it your way,’ Daniel thought as he mentally ordered his mimics to shut the portal. He had no idea how to go about doing something like that the right way, and even if he did Daniel reckoned there would be failsafes in place to stop it from shutting it halfway on top of somebody.

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Which meant it was a good thing he wasn’t planning to do this the right way.

The remainder of Daniel’s mimics tore away at the portal, picking out bits of the stone and runes with their teeth and causing it to hum ominously.

The drifter, despite its madness, seemed to realize what was about to happen to it and its struggles redoubled.

It screeched inhumanly from the other side despite its inability to breathe as it called down the miniature sun burning in the ceiling. Causing it to leisurely float towards Daniel, a snails pace through the sky that increased the heat Daniel felt substantially with every inch it came closer.

Daniel grit his teeth and willed his mimics to hurry it along, causing them to tear away at the stone outline of the portal with increased fervor.

The drifter didn’t sit idly by while it waited on the suns approach. Its free hand summoned another one of its knives and it plunged it blindly towards Daniel as the upper half of its body was getting mauled on the other side of the portal.

Quick as a thought Daniel switched Foundation of One to four parts durability and one part strength. His grip on the monster feeling less firm than before, but that was okay. Knife blows landed on Daniel haphazardly, barely drawing blood.

He’d given the monster a conundrum. It could take advantage of his lacking strength for the moment to try to get out of the portal, but to do so it would need to deactivate A Stone’s Momentum, stop stabbing him and then grab hold of the portal’s edge.

And the moment it moved to do so Daniel could switch back to a strength heavy build and just push it through the portal, not really accomplishing much for the monster.

Which made this whole endeavor a game of chicken. Where the big question was if the sun making its way towards Daniel would burn him to a crisp before the portal inevitably failed.

Suddenly a small clump of molten rock landed on Daniel’s shoulder and he hissed in pain, cursing internally. He did have a backup plan if all else failed where he’d take the drifter into Limbo and fight it there, but that raised its own issues.

This though, this was simpler. He just had to outlast the monster. It was strong, and it was durable, but the lack of oxygen was getting to it and the frantic speed at which it stabbed its knife towards Daniel spoke volumes of its situation.

Bits of stone pattered against the floor as the mimics tore away at the portal, and Daniel grit his teeth as the small sun made its way closer.

“Your move,” Daniel said through the burning heat.

The drifter to its credit met the challenge. Its arm contained by the mimics breaking free with the sound of cracking stone as the monster scraped its claws across Daniel’s face.

Daniel reached out to grab hold of the drifter’s arm, but before he could do so a knife was in its hand and a card name was echoing out from above it.

“One Simple Job.”

Power emintated from the blade in the drifter's hand, wafting from it like it was some tangible thing that could be touched.

In that instant Daniel realized that this was no longer a matter of waiting to see who would give in first. If he didn’t do something right then and there then that card was going to kill him regardless of his durability.

Daniel let go of the drifter, though he was still atop of it and activated Foundation of One, transferring it all over to strength.

The drifter’s knife arced toward Daniel and in that same instant Daniel’s fist impacted the stone outline of the portal, right where his mimics had made the most progress.

The stone gave way under the blow, showering stone fragments across the room. The portal shut down near-instantly with a low whine, bisecting the drifter in two in a shower of gore, but despite that the drifter’s knife continued to fall downward in a sharp deadly arc. Uncaring that its wielder was dead.

In that instant Daniel flicked Foundation of One entirely over to reaction speed and made a quick decision. Several mimics lunging into the arc of the knife and blowing up into clouds of white dust as the blade went through them like they weren't even there.

He could quickly go into Limbo, but that wouldn’t help the situation when the blade affected him just as much in the other dimension as it did here.

So he took drastic measures.

He didn’t have time to get out of the way of the blade, but he did have time to try something desperate.

With his heavily enhanced reaction speed Daniel slapped his right hand in an arc toward the hand holding the descending knife, and the second he touched it switched the entirety of Foundation of One over to strength.

In the next instant it felt like when a train flashed by him while he was standing next to the tracks as the force of the blade shot by him, burying itself into the ground beside him and sending spider webbing cracks throughout the stone.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Daniel thought in astonishment, staring down at the dead drifter. ‘The arm isn’t even attached to it, and it was still that dangerous.’

The blade itself may as well not even exist anymore, with any of the weapon that wasn’t buried in the stone floor dissipating into dust.

Taking only a moment to gather himself Daniel got up from the ground, wincing harshly as he put weight onto his left hand. There were definitely some broken bones there. He hadn’t been enhancing his durability when he’d struck the portal and he was really feeling it now.

His right hand though, the one he’d used to parry that last attack from the drifter wasn’t faring much better. There were no broken bones in that hand as far as Daniel could tell, but it looked like he’d held it against a belt grinder for more time than was probably recommended.

Neither of those things were what had Daniel’s attention though. Healing cards were some of the most common types around and he’d be able to get himself fixed up once he got himself out of here.

No, what had Daniel’s attention was the shimmering golden card glowing with the radiance of an inferno poking out of the drifter’s corpse.