Revenge bears no fruit save for that of a bitter satisfaction. A flavor that lasts for many a year.

- The Human Question by Gideon de Salavia 378 AC.

I opened the visor of my helmet, giving Fen my best and bloody smile. “You let your guard down and paid the price for it. Not even you, oh mighty Fen, can best me now…” I declared gleefully, enjoying the moment for what it was.

Despite my desperate predicament, I took some joy in seeing that my Health, Mana, and Stamina were slowly ticking up thanks to my Drain spell and Minor Regeneration. Also, despite the frost and ice around me, I felt little of its chill, thanks to my stolen warmth.

I had now the barest glimmer of hope. For without her fearsome mithril blade, I now had a chance to slowly whittle her down in our struggle for supremacy.

The Weaponmaster shook her head slowly. “Bravo! Bravo, young Gil. You are a tough one and are truly full of surprises, I’ll give you that. But you underestimate me at your peril,” she replied, slowly clapping her hands.

I knew firsthand that even without a weapon, and especially with her resistance to my offensive magic, Fen still presented a very real and present danger. Still, I had to try and buy time.

My mind raced to find a solution to the seemingly insurmountable problem that was the Weaponmaster Fen Vaigorus. Magic had, for the most part, failed me, and victory could not be achieved through the very forms and moves she had taught me herself.

For Fen had meticulously perfected such techniques over a lifetime, and I had yet to make them my own, making the difference between us as night and day.

However, the Mimic’s stolid defense reminded me that I was not alone, even in this strange place. Though my companions were not here, their memories remained with me. And in this realm built from the blocks of remembrance, these memories could also be forged into a weapon.

Kidu, the savage and noble giant of the North, perhaps in the memories we shared was the solution. Visions of the man fighting, his skill and ferocity a thing that could inspire legend came to me with an almost crystal clarity. Perhaps in his spear, unburdened by doubt and possessed with all swiftness of a striking serpent, could an answer be found.

I raised my Halberd into a high stance, echoing my friend’s style. The balance was different from that of a normal spear, but the principles were very much the same. Stick the pointy end in.

Confidence and fresh adrenaline surged through me as I launched myself at Fen, going on the offensive with a series of thrusts. I envisioned Kidu fighting alongside me, and for a moment, I could almost hear his roar of approval. I shadowed the way he moved, the way he fought.

Without a weapon, Fen could do nothing more than dodge the blows, her face a mask of fixed concentration. To my satisfaction, I noticed the faintest blue tinge creeping into her features, a sign that the chill of my magic was slowly overwhelming whatever mystical defenses she possessed.

Breaking away from my series of thrusts, I aimed a sweeping blow at her unarmored shins. Fen, sure of her skill, would loathe to simply do the most expedient thing and just move back out of measure. No, she would seek to move within my circle, as she liked to call it, to dominate the flow of combat.

Dispossessed of originality? I’d show her originality.

Predictably, Fen leaped towards me and I could not help the savage smile that stole across my face. Dropping my main weapon, I scrabbled to throw four knives at once in mimicry of Elwin while adding something unique to me.

The Weaponmaster looked unconcerned as the sharp blades of metal flew towards her and moved her hands to swat them aside. Until, of course, they started to grow white with released exothermic energy.

Inferno Bolt worked on anything that was projectile. Take that for originality.

The burning hot metal splashed against her mail hauberk, but, to my grave consternation, did little to impede the woman. Of course, cheating again. Her armor was of no doubt of the Godmetal, too.

I started to draw the short sword at my waist, but it was too late. She struck at my breastplate with an open palm, and where flesh met metal her Kai was transmitted deep within me. Internal organs were ruptured by the insidious energy I had failed to master, bleeding within.

Like a puppet that had its strings cut, I fell unceremoniously to the ground.

Coughing blood as I lay there on the grass, my eyes tracked Fen as she walked slowly to pick up her sword. For the oddest of reasons, my ears caught her blathering about me failing to learn even such a basic technique.

Death advanced upon me, its chill slowly spreading throughout my limbs. Cold… what an ironic thing to feel considering the nature of the spell that I had recently unleashed for the first time.

My Health continued to plummet and my Minor Regeneration was unable to keep up with the mounting damage.

Thinking me already dead, the woman in her arrogance had her back turned to me. She had not even bothered to finish me off and I thanked my lucky stars for that small mercy.

I had yet a few cards to play still. With almost agonizing slowness I formed one of my greatest spells. The voices could not aid me here, and it took all of my remaining focus to channel it successfully. But channel Greater Heal I did.

The voices of angels rang loudly, filling me with the golden light of raw healing. The flesh of my body was once again made whole. Fen turned around just as she picked up her sword, but it was too late. The man she had thought defeated, was once again standing.

I stood to my full height, the energy of great magic still singing in my veins, crying out against the injustice that I had faced. How dare this mere mortal strike Avaria’s chosen?

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Shaking my head, I punched the side of my helmet with an armored fist. Such thoughts were suicidal.

My Mimic and I were both more or less back to full Health, but Fen was once again armed with her deadly blade of Saint’s Silver.

The situation was now, I finally admitted, truly hopeless.

A spark of defiance remained and I cast about my memories for a way out. A possible path to survival.

I found one.

“Iasis,” I croaked in a voice full of bitterness and defeat. “Help me.” I expected, like all those who rely on prayer, to be met only by silence.

However, though distant, a voice answered in a thunderous whisper, “Look within…”

Fen was approaching, but time stretched and reality warped itself to fit the will of the goddess, the Mother of Monsters.

“Spare me such useless…” I began in protest, only to be cut off by a divine command.

“Look within! The answer you seek lies within your very blood,” Iasis commanded.

Suddenly, my perception was thrown back to a time before the annals of mortal history, to an ancient era when humans had just begun using simple sticks and rocks as weapons, even before mastering fire.

I saw the true purpose of humanity. We were a thinking weapon, designed to kill. Against any foe, we were ultimately invincible, murdering and despoiling everything until only the dominant race of man remained. Yet, there was one thing we were better at killing than any other race: ourselves.

For when nothing remained we would turn against one another.

We were a tool, intrinsically designed to clear the board, growing unfettered in rapacious and all-consuming numbers until we ushered in a new Cataclysm to start the cycle anew.

It was our very self-destructive nature that was the reason why Iasis the Mother of Monsters cherished us above all others. We were a paradox of creation and destruction made mortal and incarnate.

And with this knowledge, divine purpose settled in the hollows of my very soul. It was a thing that no mere echo of a soul long dead could ever hope to aspire to, no matter how powerful.

The faintest of brushes, a caress, played across my mind from the Mother. A sign of her satisfaction.

I picked up my halberd, drawing comfort from its solid weight. It had served me well. In the top right of my vision, a bar of green-flecked gold was slowly filling. It was the fruit of revelation. The fruit of knowledge.

It was time to do what man did best. To kill, no matter the cost.

Anger grew hot. Grew into a blaze that began to consume me. Gladly, I let it. Look within Iasis had advised and I did so, casting Identify with some of my remaining Mana on myself.

More, the blaze demanded in a siren song. The fires of anger demanded more, so I fed it all of my frustration, all of my rage, all of my bitterness, and all of my spite in an explosion of climactic release.

Dash. I closed the distance between Fen and I. Lightning swift, the warrior woman struck at me, but my Mimic blocked her attack. Again it screamed, but it did not matter. Did not matter in the least.

Adrenaline coursed through my veins and I could picture now with rage-fueled clarity the space between life and death, the circles that Fen had repeatedly spoken of. I saw where they brushed upon one another and where they could cause harm.

I am invincible, I heard myself whisper and knew it to be true.

“Frenzied Strikes,” I snarled, letting loose all of my savage rage.

With no other enemies, the skill was solely focused on the individual before me. My weapon sought an ending for Fen, uncaring even of the possibility of my own.

For every four strikes of hers, I could but land a single glancing blow of my own. This would have spelled almost certain death for anyone else. However, for me, it was an acceptable ratio.

I am unbreakable, I heard myself whisper and knew it to be true.

For now, lost in the throes of the Berserk, I became a machine of a singular purpose. There was no longer a need to block, parry, or dodge. All that was left was for me to quench my weapon’s crimson thirst. Every drop of blood, every fragment of pain both received and inflicted filled the chalice of sacrifice.

The green-flecked gold bar was filling rapidly as I offered myself to devotion. I had become a living prayer, my every action an offering of praise to my purpose.

I am power without equal, I heard myself whisper and knew it to be true. The mantra complete, I surged with energy.

I battled Fen head-on, uncaring but not unthinking. Every ounce of my being tightly focused on a singular goal. For the first time, we fought as near equals and I saw disbelief and real consternation cross her face as she was forced to fight seriously.

My heart sang with joy at her discomfiture and together we began to sing the final refrain of our song of struggle.

The chalice had finally been filled to the brim and now overflowed.

Text appeared, mysterious at first and in a language I could not read. However, next came understanding, the magic of Identify opening my inner eyes.

Path of the Asura

Mentally, I selected it, letting myself loose in the flow. I swelled with new power as a wild untamed energy filled me, boosting my attributes to almost indescribable heights.

Fen who had moved before with almost lightning’s quickness, seemed slow to me in my enhanced state. Her blows which had shaken me to my very core, seemed now as light as babe’s breath. The deadly mithril blade which had once been the focus of my attention seemed now to be just a slender stick of blunt metal.

This is what you get for cheating. This errant thought rose unbidden to the fore of mind, overriding almost anything else.

There was a poetic justice to all of this.

The halberd fell from my hands, I did not need it. Now, I held a Strength and speed that no amount of mortal skill could ever hope to match. Almost casually, I entered my once teacher’s circle, grabbing the grip of her sword. With my raw Strength, I wrested it away from her and threw it far away.

She darted away before dashing back in to launch another palm strike at me. But this time, I was more than ready and caught her by the wrist, snapping it as if it were a twig.

Fen, yes that was this bug’s name, howled in delicious pain, and how my heart soared. Oh, won’t you sing more notes of joy of me? But something intruded upon my joy, the barest iota of worry as I felt my newfound power start to rapidly fade.

Panicked, I launched a simple punch at her navel, feeling something break with a satisfying crunch even underneath her near-mystical armor.

Warrior-philosopher Fen Vaigorus lay utterly broken at my feet, paying now the price of her hubris of challenging me. Through bloodied lips, she started to utter, “It has been an hon…”

I did not let her finish, cutting her off, “Not bad for a girl. Good game.”

My armored boot caved in her face and ended her life as I left the Path of Asura. As an aside, I spat on her corpse. The affronted expression, her last, was a treasure I would ever hold dear to my heart.

The sky exploded into fractals of light and I was pulled back into the waking world.