Levi stood, then almost fell onto his ass as the bones shifted under him. He threw out his arms and barely caught himself. Slipping and sliding, he made it to the bottom of the bone mound with a proud “aha!”

“Man. That looked cool, but tactically speaking, it was a real throw. Thank you, skeletons, for doing your job! If they’d got past you, I would’ve been fucked for real.” Levi tossed a salute toward the battling skeletons, then threw the skull at a stray cultist. The cultist ducked, and a skeleton immediately jumped on him, digging into his flesh with its bare finger bones.

Lifting his head, he scanned the room. “Speaking of doing your job, slombie, c’mon, man! There’s flesh to dissolve! You sleeping on the clock, or what?”

The slombie lurched up from where it had been lurking against the wall. Moving slowly, weighed down by the slime on its bones, it approached the cultists from the side. One of the cultists lunged for it. Their sword flew out, only to slow as it hit the slime. The slime perked up. It leaped from the slombie’s bones and sunk into the cultist’s limbs. In a matter of seconds, nothing remained of the man’s hand but sheer white bone.

The man shrieked in shock and pain. The slombie, hungry as always, drew the man into a bear hug and enveloped him in its goopy arms. Slime coated the man. He melted into the slime, screaming the whole way.

Levi winced. “Ooh, nasty.”

Behind the muscular men, Sean stared. He hesitated, lost somewhere between joining the charge and fleeing for his life.

Levi’s eyes flashed. He darted in, unspooling the Spinal Cord as he ran. “Not letting you get away!”

One of the muscular women lunged at him. He flicked his fingers, and a skeleton took the blow in his place. Sean saw him coming and turned to run. His foot lifted, and that blur appeared.

“Not this time.” Levi threw his hand out, sending the Spinal Cord shooting ahead of him. Before Sean took a single step, the Spinal Cord lashed out and wrapped around Sean’s lifted ankle. Sean tripped and fell flat on his face. The Spinal Cord wrapped him up, holding him tight.

Levi walked over, tutting. “You fool. Shouldn’t have killed those three. I didn’t really have a grudge against you, until you killed that party. But now I’ve gotta kill you, all because you went out of your way to kill those three. Next time, think about cause and effect before you run off killing people.”

Sean spat at him.

Levi sidestepped it. Shrugging, he raised his sword. “Or, you know, don’t. Because you’re about to die.”

Silver flashed in the corner of his vision. A surge of sharp killing intent assaulted him. Levi threw himself to the side, barely dodging a sword thrust.

He jumped up and whipped around. “Skeletons! You guys sleeping on the job aga…oh. Hi, Kai! Been too long!”

Kai said nothing. Eyes narrowed, he slashed at Levi.

Levi jumped back again, dodging the slash rather than parrying it. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Last time we met, Colin saved your shitty little life! What’s the big idea, huh? Shouldn’t you thank me?”

“I owe you nothing.” Kai’s form blurred. He flashed in.

The Armalgam threw its arms in front of Levi. A sword slashed into them, faster than Levi himself could react. Kai clicked his tongue again and jumped back.

Levi subtly flicked his fingers. The Armalgam drew its swords. He pushed mana into the construct, healing it. “Okay, so maybe you don’t owe me anything, but you owe Colin something. So maybe go easy on me?”

“No.”

“Fair.”

Kai slashed again. This time, Levi jumped in, parrying the blow with his and the Armalgam’s combined strength. The second his blades took the weight, he whirled around, spinning into Kai’s reach, and punched the man on the chest. Kai staggered back. He huffed in pain and looked down. A small puncture wound dug into his chest.

Levi grinned and tossed his knife back into a close pocket. “Whoopsies. That’s bad duel etiquette, isn’t it? My bad!”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Kai’s expression soured. His knuckles turned white on his hilt. He stepped forward, transferring his weight to his lead foot.

That’s bad news. Levi hopped back preemptively. At the same time, he blocked with all four of the Armalgam’s swords and pushed his mana into the Armalgam, empowering it as much as he could.

Kai struck. His arms blurred, moving too fast for Levi’s eyes to track. His blade hammered into Levi’s defenses. Two of the Armalgam’s swords shattered, but the blade caught on the last two swords. Levi swayed backward with the hit, barely soaking it. His shoulders ached. He winced.

Gaining a good class in Necromancer didn’t make Kai any less overpowered. His immense stats were still tough to deal with. Levi pursed his lips. His advantage in knowing how to fight a little better than Kai wasn’t going to last forever. Eventually, Kai would clue in and figure things out. He still had to get stronger. Strong enough to laugh in Kai’s face.

Though I feel like my strength and brute strength are not going to be the same.

Kai lashed out again. Levi retreated one step at a time, using the retreat to soak some of the weight of Kai’s blows. He watched silently, following Kai’s feet. Subtly, he leaped back a little further this time.

Kai stepped to match him, and stepped a little too far. Levi jumped forward. With a vicious kick, he swept Kai’s ankle. Kai stumbled, trying to recover. Levi lashed out, slicing at Kai’s ankles. Blood spurted. Kai fell backward.

Levi followed him down. He pinned Kai’s arms with his legs and sat his weight on the man’s sternum. “Stop.”

Kai struggled. He fought against Levi’s hold.

“Why are you fighting me?”

“Fuck you!”

“No, seriously. I’ve pissed off a lot of people in my life, but I don’t remember pissing you off. Maybe I just forgot, so fill me in. Why are you fighting me?”

Kai wrinkled his nose and shook his head. He struggled harder. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Levi spread his arms. “If it was obvious, would I be asking you?”

At last, Kai narrowed his eyes. “You’re one of them, aren’t you?”

“One of who?”

“The Champions.”

Levi widened his eyes. His mouth turned to an O. “Wait, that’s why you’re trying to kill me?”

“If all the Champions are chosen, the world ends,” Kai said.

“Don’t give me that. You don’t give a shit about this place.”

Kai twisted his lips. “The last Champion standing gets everything they ever wanted. Don’t you want that?”

“Well, yeah, obviously. But do you really think that’s true? I mean, there’s an obvious problem with the whole thing, isn’t it? Namely, the fact that this is the world’s apocalypse. When all’s said and done, and one Champion’s standing at the top of everything, the world’s over. How can we get our wishes if there’s no world to wish them into?” Levi pointed out.

It was the obvious way to persuade Kai. He wouldn’t use such a technique on an ordinary person. On someone normal, who had normal emotions, it wouldn’t work at all. Of course, in the first place, someone normal wouldn’t haul off and decide to kill someone else because of something as vague as a rumor of a prophesy of a wish. But it was precisely because Kai was abnormal, that he knew this tactic would work. Kai wasn’t killing him for emotion. He wasn’t killing him for any real reason. He was a psychopath, and he was killing Levi because he thought it would benefit him. Thus, the way to prevent Kai from killing him was to point out that there was no benefit to doing so.

The bonus to persuading Kai this way was that as long as the conditions remained true, he had no reason to fear Kai. So long as Kai accepted his reasoning, he could effectively ignore the man until the apocalypse actually started. Expecting Kai to wait until the very end was unrealistic, but expecting him to wait until there was some benefit to killing Levi was.

Fucking murderhobo.

Though I can’t throw too many stones. It’s only because I lived that way for so long that I know precisely how to persuade him.

Kai opened his mouth. He thought for a second, then closed it. His brows furrowed. “How did you think of that?”

“What? What’s that supposed to mean? I think like everyone else does. I have a normal brain,” Levi pointed out.

“Doubt that.”

Levi gave his shoulder an affectionate pat. “So? What do you say? Shall we postpone the killing-one-another thing until we figure out the whole world-is-ending thing? Plus, the apocalypse hasn’t properly kicked off yet. I kill you, you kill me, who knows if it counts, or if we just postpone things until the gods pick their next Champions.”

Kai raised his brows. “How do you know?”

“Huh?”

“How do you know the apocalypse hasn’t kicked off?”

Levi rolled his eyes. “C’mon. Has it rained blood? Has the moon descended and turned the color of blood? Has day turned as dark as night? Apocalypse ain’t kicked off yet. Some god is still being picky.”

He nodded slowly, then struggled again. “Let me up.”

“Nah. I’m enjoying this.”

Kai’s eyes turned deadly.

Laughing, Levi hopped off him. “Jo-king, joking. Hey, you don’t mind if I kill these cultists, right? I have a bit of a personal grudge with them.”

Kai shrugged and fell back against the wall. Crossing his arms, he watched.

“Taking a passive stance? I always knew you had it in you. I bet the fangirls think you’re an aggro super top type, but I can see it. You’re actually—”

Eyes narrowing, Kai dropped his hand to his sword.

“Whoa, big boy, keep that thing in its sheath. I’m just kidding.” Levi turned half-sideways to Kai and shimmied back toward the melee. He passed the squirming figure of Sean, and casually slit the man’s throat. As Sean writhed, bleeding out on the floor, the Spinal Cord unwound and returned to its usual spot around his waist.

At the edge of the fight, he turned back. “How’d you know I was a Champion?”

Kai scoffed. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Levi stared at him. “No…?”

“Blind.” Kai turned away and refused to explain any further.

Clicking his tongue, Levi shook his head. “I’ll have to ask Isa.”

He spun his sword and charged in, rushing toward the cultists again. “Hey, fuckers! Time to die!”