As Jonathan decimated her forces, Slothari fought to rein in the excitement. For the first time in her long life, she had something to look forward to. One of her insectile clones zipped down to the battlefield and took the form of a nondescript soldier among her legions, nondescript save for the intense power suffusing her form.

Meanwhile, Jonathan picked his way through the army like a hyena through the bones of its prey. Each punch was enough to either kill or incapacitate his targets, and his projectile attacks took out hundreds in one go.

With the lack of their leader, the enemy forces were weakened to the point of being an easy victory for Jonathan. At least, that was what he thought.

He sent his fist hurtling towards a nearby soldier, but with a blurring motion, the fighter’s sword ripped up through the air and knocked his hand to the side. Jonathan froze for a moment, not sure what had just happened. The other fighter moved again, the speed far higher than it should have been for the average level of the army. Jonathan’s enhanced mind made a swift deduction.

He smiled beneath his helmet. “Slothari. I was wondering when you would slink out of that hole you call the Oozing Bastion.”

There was only silence in response, but Jonathan could tell that his words had been taken into consideration by his opponent. He sighed, and attacked in earnest, using his Blessing for the first time. The motions of Slothari left a series of tracks upon reality, letting him detect where the monster’s sword was aimed for. It was at that moment, against an opponent just as fast as him, that Jonathan could appreciate the power of his Blessing. Meeting Exal’drin might have seemed like a coincidence at the time, but it was a supremely important moment in his history. Had he known the actions taken by the chained god after his freedom, he would have thought this doubly so.

His fists darted out, parrying the blows with ease. As he fought, he gauged the might of his foe. This was most assuredly not the entirety of Slothari’s power. Much of it was likely kept within the rest of her various clones and constructs. However, it was at least more than half. Jonathan was sure he could defeat her in this state if he really let loose. That gave him hope for the future. After all, killing Granath had nearly killed him in turn. This was nothing like that.

As Slothari fought with Jonathan, she found herself with a grudging admiration for his skills. Even in this form, the vast majority of the realm’s inhabitants would have been nothing more than ants. Not only was the upstart able to fight on an equal level, but he seemed to be a little bit stronger than her diminished form. After a minute of back and forth sparring, at least in subjective time, she finally spoke.

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“I must say, you do not disappoint me. My lieutenants have painted a picture of you, one I believe to be unnecessarily flattering. Perhaps there is truth to it after all.”

“Now you speak,” Jonathan said. “After I have you on the back foot.”

“The back foot?” Slothari exclaimed as she ducked under a punch. “This mortal shell only contains a fraction of my power.”

“So? Ninety nine percent is still a fraction of a hundred,” Jonathan replied. Had his helmet been off, Slothari would have seen a slight smile steal over his face. Ever since he had watched his first anime, what felt like in another lifetime, he had wanted to say that to someone who bragged about how little of their power they were using. What had been an idle daydream on Earth had turned into a slightly absurd reality here. “Anyone can say something like that. For example, I’ve been holding back too.”

Jonathan closed his eyes for the briefest of moments, and stopped breathing. He connected with the primal power of the Void, and brought it into reality. Wings of ethereal purple flame erupted from his back, and his fists exploded with the flames of the nadir itself. He slammed both of them forwards, and a pulse of consumption screamed its way into reality, tearing through the air.

Slothari’s subordinate vessel discorporated, turning into a tiny insect that contained a bare spark of her power. However, it was the first actual concession in the fight. Slothari had no wish to fight Jonathan here, outside of the central zone of her control. While she could share her power among her vessels, its full extent could only be accessed while occupying one of them. As she still had interests in the Oozing Bastion, that was not an option, unless she wanted to render her citadel vulnerable to attack. As to who would attack it, she had no idea, but one did not live for eons without some degree of paranoia.

She sent the remainder of her split consciousness back towards the loose congregation of insects buzzing above, and continued to watch the Hellbraker aspirant carve through her forces like they were nothing but cows before the god of butchers. It was time to muster her forces in earnest. This was a true threat to her reign.

With a buzzing noise inaudible to anything but the most sensitive of ears over the battlefield din below, Slothari recalled her vessels. When Jonathan came knocking on the doors of the Oozing Bastion, she would be waiting there, having mustered her true strength for the first time in millenia. The Slothari infamous for titanic feats of strength would sit upon the throne of Mire, not the weakened version of herself that necessity had demanded. She was Slothari, the Ooze Queen of Mire, Circle Lord and chosen of Angranor. Unlike Granath, her strength did not come from the ephemera of souls. It came from the cold certainty that when evolution came into play, all paths were better than one.