In the first few moments of the renewed fight, Olivander summoned a rain of icy blades, and Burtrum blasted out with a wall of earth enhanced with force. The Bloodhunter dodged the blades and activated a technique that enforced his body, absorbing Burtrum's attack with little effort.

Then it was the Bloodhunter's turn to be on the offensive. A massive spear of dark blood manifested next to the man and shot towards Burtrum. The big knight had to dodge lest he lose one or more wards to the savage blow.

With precise timing, Olivander opened a portal where Burtrum fell, and Burtrum pulled back his hammer as he fell towards the Bloodhunter. The man scowled and dodged instead of trying to catch the hammer once more. Olivander knew Burtrum was stronger than the Bloodhunter, and the only reason he caught his previous blow was due to an expensive enforcement technique.

Olivander began drawing a ritual to freeze the man in a column of ice when the Bloodhunter revealed his first trick.

It wasn't what Olivander expected. He expected to see the winged stone figure Kevek had used the last time they met. It was a powerful artifact that had suppressed Olivander's portal techniques completely.

Instead the Bloodhunter donned an amulet affixed with a large milky white orb.

Olivander's half drawn ritual shook, and then broke apart, the constituent mana drawn towards the Bloodhunter and into the amulet's orb.

"Damn, I didn't expect that one."

Olivander hadn't had time to study the orb much. He didn't know about all the things it could do. It might be possible for the Bloodhunter to repurpose any mana drained for his own ends.

Red energy flowed from Burtrum and into the outstretched hand of the Bloodhunter, who had set down a sword to drain the knight. Olivander could see the burns that were all over his body begin to heal immediately.

This was the problem with dealing with Blood magicians and their ilk. Potent regeneration and self healing abilities. It was almost impossible to wait them out too. Olivander had hoped that would be the best option the first time he fought one. Then he found out they aren't as reliant on mana as he is. Many of their spells are powered by life force and health instead of mana.

Burtrum ignored the draining effects, pressing the smaller man with his hammer and the occasional punch. Olivander tried out a few quick rituals, experimenting with different magic types and mediums. He wasn't very good at glyph rituals. That had been his friend Baelish's area of expertise. He could draw them, but his intent didn't fill in the gaps in crafting as well when committing a ritual to the page. The thought of Baelish made his chest burn with buried rage.

He tried carving a ritual into the packed dirt beneath his feet, but when he started powering a simple ritual, the power was drained away as easily as before.

He confirmed his skills worked by calling a towering inferno down on the Bloodhunter.

The man endured the fire under a dome of blood that Burtrum had been unable to penetrate.

"Looks like we have to do this the old fashioned way."

Once the Bloodhunter emerged from his dome, Olivander began blasting the man with elemental bolts from his staff and death bolts from his wand.

* * *

Raz was running away when the wave of blood domination hit him. His ward cracked and he could feel himself start to bleed. The compulsion failed, and he made it into the fort as the battle began in earnest behind him. The power of the attack that had only caught him on the periphery pushed him even faster.

* * *

"There!" Cooper overloaded the last required bar on his cage. When he squeezed onto the unlit side of the cage, he could feel the power suppression lift.

A minute later, and he had enough mana to blast Gregory's cuffs with a lighting bolt.

Gregory braced himself to get shocked by an off target bolt, but Cooper's aim was true. Gregory's cuffs flashed and then went out.

"Nice job bud."

Gregory listened carefully for any sound from the prison around them, then he hit the chain holding him in place with a mana bolt.

"Good to have my powers back."

It took two to break through, but then he was free to get Cooper out of the cage. The latch on Cooper's cage hadn't even been locked, though the dog wouldn't have been able to reach it on his own.

"Now we just need to get out of this cell."

Gregory tried pushing the door, and it swung right open.

"I guess he didn't expect us to escape. Can you watch for traps?"

"Yep."

They made their way out of the prison block without finding any traps. The whole place was deserted. As far as Gregory could tell, the run-down building was long abandoned.

"Does it feel like we're about to get ambushed?"

"Definitely. I think I can smell something…"

A man cloaked in shadows walked around the corner ahead of them.

"There you two are, we need to get out of here!"

Gregory looked at the man with suspicion, and neither he nor Cooper went further down the hall.

"Who are you?" Gregory asked.

"Ah, I'm sorry," the shadows fell away, revealing a sharply dressed man in dark colors. "My name is Raz Hafsen. Olivander sent me to get the two of you out of here."

"Oh did he? How do we know you aren't just here to capture us for someone else?"

The man pulled a bag from his waist and opened it, turning it upside down and shaking it. A few random things fell out. Some goblets, a serving tray, a book. Then a familiar looking small golem construct tumbled out.

"I do not like it in there! It's very dark and there's no one to talk to! I'd rather be asleep!"

"Sous!" Gregory called.

"Oh hi Gregory, Cooper. I think I'm supposed to portal you two out of here."

A portal opened next to Sous, then a wave of magic passed over the fort, and the portal shattered.

"I don't think that's supposed to happen," Sous said.

* * *

When Olivander portaled Burtrum around their opponent for the third time, the Bloodhunter revealed his statue. It floated into the air, and Olivander could feel the force that allowed portals to anchor to the world become disrupted in a wide area. He appreciated the chance to examine the artifact's effect once more, but he would have preferred to do it while not fighting.

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Olivander had felt Sous reenter the world from the dimensional space of Raz's bag, and felt him open a portal. That relieved his worry. Sous wouldn't have opened a portal if they hadn't found Gregory and Cooper.

He knew the Bloodhunter's timing had been impeccable, and he wondered if the man noticed the portal opening with his prodigious senses.

"You're not going to win here Kevek! You know that. Why don't you just pack it up?"

Olivander didn't want to let the man leave, but he didn't know if he could really beat him without his two primary techniques functional.

"What, Is that the best you have? Are you nothing without your precious rituals and your blasted portals?"

Olivander had a few options. He could fight the man sword to sword. That was a losing proposition. The Bloodhunter was stronger and better suited to melee combat than he was. He could use the spell in his wand. That had a whole host of risks involved, but would eventually lead to victory in a drawn out contest. Or he could use his newest spells.

"You're not the only one with new tricks, Kevek. Feast Golem Chef!"

A dozen feet away from the Bloodhunter, a massive golem wearing a chef's hat materialized. The golem immediately conjured a wall of knives in front of it, and began casting buffs on Burtrum.

The Bloodhunter wheeled on the new opponent, but dismissed it immediately. Olivander knew the man too well. He didn't consider risks. It's the same reason he failed to kill Olivander three years ago. He thought that Amegnon had been a negligible threat beside the Arch-magus. As Olivander himself could attest, underestimating his once-apprentice was a mistake. The feast golem was no Amegnon the Chainkeeper, but the Bloodhunter should have at least tried to interrupt its spellcasting.

Burtrum closed the distance, and as Kevek lifted a casual blade to deflect the hammer strike, his stamina and speed were feasted on by the golem. His blade suddenly moved slower than he expected, and he missed the careful window for deflection. An empowered Butrum slammed his hammer into the Bloodhunter's shoulder.

There was an audible crack as bones were broken. The Blood hunter was tossed away, pursued by flying knives. Olivander called down annihilating flames on the man as he rolled to a stop.

"Sneaky," the burning and broken wreck of a man said, "but you haven't begun to see all of my tricks." Then Olivander's blood screamed a warning.

Blood aura was hard to detect, harder than other kinds of aura. The Bloodhunter's ability drew it forth from everyone, and it had saturated the field. He drew it all in at once, and his body used the additional aura to transform.

Olivander had never seen the ability. Before his eyes the Bloodhunter grew to monstrous proportions. His leather vest ripped apart and half of his body was a hulking red mass of blood and muscle. His other half retained skin, but was no less monstrously large. When the Bloodhunter stood back up, he dwarfed even Burtrum.

The blood monstrosity howled and leapt onto the chef golem. It ripped the golem apart in moments.

Burtrum ran to Olivander as the Bloodhunter destroyed his Golem.

"Any plan?"

"I can't use rituals. I don't have any big spells. I hate to say it, but we should probably get out of here. The boys are inside the fort, Raz and Sous are with them. Find them and get out of here. I'll hold it back."

"Olivander, you can't—"

"Burtrum!"

Olivander's grimoire flashed into existence once more. He flipped to a particular spell, smiled, and then the book transformed into a great blade.

"This beast of a man doesn't have me on the back foot yet. I have more tricks than he can imagine. Get your son and get out of here. Don't let them forget they have a dungeon run tomorrow! Make sure they get some rest."

Burtrum spared a look back at the monster that had once been the Bloodhunter. It was smashing the golem into smaller and smaller pieces, completely oblivious to its previous motivations.

"Argh. Fine! You get out of here if it's too much, Olivander! The family likes you too much to lose you now. Maybe you can come back in a day or two when everyone is sick of you."

Olivander gave Burtrum a grim smile, then the big man sprinted towards the fort.

The Bloodhunter noticed the huge target sprinting away, and tried to jump after it.

Chains of ice appeared around his legs as he leapt through the air, and he was jerked unceremoniously to the ground.

Olivander struck at the prone form. He fell into a careful rhythm. He had a number of spells at his disposal, but only a few were useful against the beast — Chains of Ice, Flames of Annihilation, and Deflecting Ward.

With Chains of Ice he bound the monster, limiting its ability to catch him and driving it into a blind rage. With Flames of Annihilation he released the chains on his terms while burning at the beast. Finally, his Deflecting Ward helped protect him from the incredible strength of the blood monstrosity while he scored hit after hit.

He could feel his sword accumulating power, but the spell he had chosen was expensive, and the blade would need time to gather power from his opponent. Besides, he had ground to cover.

"There's one thing you never understood, Kevek. You were always just a tool. You were a dagger I could plunge into the hearts of the dragons. Though you tried your best to betray us, you were the reason the war ended so quickly. I might not have been able to strike such a decisive blow were it not for the rage you pushed me to. I won't thank you for it, though."

The Bloodhunter roared and renewed his battering assault, a ward broke a moment earlier than Olivander expected and a blow clipped him. Fortunately it launched him away rather than into the ground.

He regained his awareness mid flight and brought the Bloodhunter up short with more icy chains.

"Even here, with all your advantages, you can't defeat me. And what would you do if you could? Go after the Hammer? She would have destroyed you already. I am not the combatant she is. You're nothing compared to her. Flames of Annihilation!"

Even as the Bloodhunter was burned he charged forward once more. Olivander's wards back in place, he dodged and struck again.

"All that power you stole. Have you even improved since then? What did you steal from Baelish, one hundred levels? Two? All that power and you're still just a man relying on tricks to get ahead. I know any number of people who would be among the strongest in the world after such a feat. Do you think you belong in their numbers? I don't."

His sword was finally charged, and his setup was complete. He had already accomplished his goal, now it was time to facilitate the revenge he had always really wanted. The Bloodhunter hadn't noticed that Olivander had been pulling the fight away from his anti-portal relic.

"You are nothing, Casumus!" the beast roared.

Olivander pulled his power together, and opened a massive portal behind the beast. Then he unleashed the spell stored within his blade. It wasn't a complicated spell. In fact, it was dead simple. What it lacked in complexity, it made up for in power. The spell was one of his own devising. He called it Siege Strike, and it did one thing. Found a large object and launched it away.

The Bloodhunter was hurled through the portal, and Olivander walked through after him.

* * *

High above the circular arena, a portal opened in the sky, and a massive blood red figure hurtled out. It slammed into the ground with overwhelming force. The ground was more than strong enough to withstand the impact however, and the form simply sprawled out, groaning in pain.

Lily cocked her head at the figure. When her mother said she should go to the old arena, she hadn't known what to expect. Her mother wouldn't say.

A man emerged from the portal in the sky and then dropped through another one, appearing next to Lily.

"Dearest Sister, it's been too long!"

"Olivander!" She threw her arms around her younger brother, wrapping him in a fierce hug. "Why have you waited so long to come home?"

"Ah well, I'm not here to go home. I'm making my way south on something of a spiritual journey. I have come here to take care of some long overdue business, and when it is done, I will be returning to Du'la'melio."

"Of course you would say something like that. What business have you come to take care of? I assume it has something to do with whatever that is."

"You are correct. Come, introductions are in order."

Olivander opened a portal for them, and they stepped through.

They appeared on the arena grounds far below, where the red monstrosity was shrinking back into the shape of a regular man. He wasn't quite conscious but was waking as his body healed.

"First of all, this won't do at all," Olivander said. He walked up to the Bloodhunter and took the amulet from his neck. He shoved it into a bag, and then drew out a ritual. "Healing Ritual Reinforcement, Deep Recovery!"

Then he drew out another one, "Balance Stamina!"

The spell wouldn't quite bring the Bloodhunter back up to full, but it would prevent him from sleeping for the next day while he recovered from the magic healing.

"What the hell?" Kevek asked. "What are you doing Casumus?"

Olivander smiled.

"Now, we come to it. I have long awaited this day. You see, Kevek, it was never my place to put you down."

Olivander gestured at his older sister.

"This is my sister, former High Magus Lily Casumus. I wanted you to meet, because there is an unsettled debt between you two. Lily, this is Kevek Bloodhunter. The man who murdered your fiance."