A searing pain spread up his arm as the monster’s ichor spilled through the joints in his armor, touching his flesh. Where it made contact, his body began to roil, too weak to resist such a concentrated expression of the creature’s elemental might. His flesh shifted and his bones creaked, as his body tried to tear itself apart. Even worse, pieces of the monster resisted his elemental power, relying on its own mastery to repel the Void. The mutation spread along his arm and towards his body, fighting to overtake him before he could finish off the Shard. It was too late for him to withdraw.

His elemental reserves started to bottom out, and he found himself drawing heavily upon his stamina and mana. A newly empowered wave of potency spread out from his disintegrating fist, fighting against the obduracy of the Shard’s form.

Jonathan let out a bellow of rage and tore loose almost all of his energy, channeling it through his arm. The limb cracked asunder, but he ignored the ungodly pain. As long as the arm remained connected, he could recover.

The Shard finally gave up the ghost, and with a keening wail, it was blasted into oblivion, its body turning to ash. A tide of essence washed over him, rocketing him up an entire five levels. It was only then that Jonathan saw the full extent of the damage.

His arm looked like a slab of tenderized meat and bone, barely recognizable as human. At least, that was the image he got from his senses. He could hardly see it through his armor. Pieces of flesh stuck out from the armor’s joints in grotesque approximations of metal plate. In fact, he couldn’t even remove his armor the way it was.

He limped back towards the main bulk of the fighting, only to find that it had wrapped up. The abomination lay on the ground in pieces, having been carved apart. Hushar stood on its head, his sword plunged into its brain. He was covered in blood, some his own, but a triumphant smile graced his features.

Jonathan strode over to the massed army of Uthraki, surrounded by the bodies of their fallen comrades. Rather than speak, he simply lifted his fist wearily. That was enough, it seemed, as a cheer rang out from the survivors. For the very first time since Arkanon had set foot upon the battlefields of Tartarus, before he was constrained by his own strength in the duty of defending his capital, the Mimics had been pushed back beyond the fringes of civilization. Not only that, but their leader, or at least one of them, had fallen. In a month, Jonathan had achieved more than the Uthraki had in centuries.

Suddenly bereft of motive power, many of the fighters collapsed to their knees, unbelieving that their life’s work was finally over. Although there were still Mimics hiding in the corners of the world, there were too few now to pose a threat. Their elimination was all but assured. The monsters had been infamous for their ability to corrupt others and create new members of their kind, but because Slothari’s departure had only left so much power within the realm, there was a concrete cap to their numbers. Now with one of her Shards dead, Jonathan knew that that cap had grown far smaller. Even if there were more of the Shards, it hardly mattered. Now that Arkanon could leave his capital without fear of invasion, he could deal with them himself.

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Jonathan headed towards Hushar, a grin splitting his features. “Finally. A month of fighting. I thought it would never end.”

“A month of blessings, sent by the Primal One,” Hushar declared, ignoring the glares that came his way.

Admittedly, they were few, but many of the Uthraki in this realm were disdainful of the followers of their race’s preeminent god. Jonathan still had no idea why, save for some vague treason by the faction in the past. Originally, he had thought that Arkanon was nothing more than a monster, but there was a lot more to the story in the second realm of Tartarus. There were no clear cut heroes or villains, save for the Mimics.

“I suppose so. I feel ready to fight Slothari, as long as I have help. If all goes well, Arkanon will provide.”

“Let’s be honest here,” Hushar said, leaning in. “Do you really trust him? Sure, he has a motive in aiding us, but he does seem like the sort of man to only help someone as long as he can use them.”

“If everything goes wrong, we can always fight,” Jonathan said. “If I can defeat Slothari, I can certainly defeat Arkanon.”

“If.”

Jonathan frowned. “What, you think that’s a long shot?”

“I’m just saying, all of our egos inflate as we ascend the levels. I know yours is certainly merited, but one day, you might run into something that you cannot simply steamroll with your potential. You need to be prepared.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Jonathan replied. “I have noticed a sharp increase in my arrogance the higher I go. I guess I was modeling it after all of the various powerhouses that I encountered. The fact that they all fell to my hand should be a lesson in the dangers of such hubris.”

“Good. Now, I believe it’s time. Arkanon will be waiting.”

The two men helped the cleanup operation, piling the dead in rows. The Uthraki corpses received far more respect than the Mimics, which were simply burned into ash, and then scattered to the winds. In contrast, the bodies of the realm’s defenders were stacked into a funeral pyre, and their remains were consecrated by a series of chants and dances that Jonathan found hard to follow. Then one of the mages lit the pile with a massive upwelling of lava from below, sending them off to the afterlife with a volcanic eruption.

Although Uthraki came back after dying, their memories were gone, so when they died, it was believed that their souls died with them. It was yet another problem that Jonathan aimed to fix if he ever achieved his goal and assumed control of the Hells. The Uthraki had been stuck in what was essentially purgatory for billions of years, living and dying in an endless loop of meaninglessness, only broken by the intrusion of the circle lords.