Yeah. I have no idea how he broke out of that stun. Pretty impressive though.

Dan jumped to the side and rolled away, somehow managing to avoid most of what was coming at him, but he still lost his Block charges right there.

He jumped up. A few invocations were still coming at him. A couple were areas of effect, so he dove and rolled again, getting closer to the female. As he got to his feet, he batted a few missiles aside with his shield and hand.

The female was now in his Lava Stomp and STORM range, so I thought he was going to kill her with one of those.

Instead, a strand of lava zipped out of his hand and wrapped around her. He yanked and flung her from behind him around in front of him. Two big invocations got her right in the back.

Blood sprayed all over as the lady screamed out her final cry. She should’ve listened to the old man with the wispy beard and kept her distance.

Dan yanked the woman’s corpse to himself, grabbed it, and used it as a shield to close the distance with three mortals standing closely together.

Two of the five missiles from a STRIKE invocation were powerful enough to penetrate right through the corpse, and he got lucky catching them on his mana-shield, though those missiles shattered it to pieces.

Those three guys he was running at didn’t have any real ranged Orbments either. The old man with the beard yelled for them to retreat. They didn’t. One charged forward and the other two followed.

One of the guys had CROSS CUT, and as soon as Dan was in range, that guy drew his sword and slashed. Dan threw the corpse forward to take some of the invocation, then he dove between the slashes of energy.

CROSS CUT’s a great Orbment. It does a lot more damage than STORM, but STORM can’t really be defended against.

The energy of CROSS CUT travels extremely fast. It’s pretty hard to avoid. I never saw someone jump between the slashes before, so I was surprised to see him do that. I must give credit where it’s due – that was kind of amazing.

One of the three guys was lagging a couple meters behind the other two. Dan zipped a strand of lava at the laggard’s leg, yanked, and as soon as he was about even with the other two, invoked STORM.

Little images of lava-strands imposed over all three of their chests, and Dan went from facing eight mortals to facing five.

Some infernals were closing in on Dan from behind. They had been hitting him with fire invocations, which did nothing to damage him, of course. Stupid idiots.

The really skinny guy had also been using fire invocations. Dan ignored most of that guy’s invocations too. I didn’t know why he was even there until he went stealth.

The lead infernal chasing Dan slowed as CROSS CUT bit into its chest and thigh, but without doing enough damage to take it out. It reached forward to grab its prey, but Dan dove forward, rolled, jumped up, and reformed a shield of lava.

He blocked an invocation, spun to block a couple missiles, and spun again. That last one got him.

He was a millisecond too late blocking the old guy with the wispy beard’s invocation. He took some big ball square in the face and got knocked right on his ass.

Whatever that ball was, it did a number on him. His face was a bloody mess. He rolled on his stomach to spit out blood and chunks of broken teeth.

He hurriedly wiped blood from his one remaining eye, blinked that eye a couple times, and rolled again, barely in time to avoid a bath of some kind of dark energy from the giant mortal he sent those three balls at earlier.

Then he rolled again to avoid being pulverized by the lead infernal trailing him.

When Dan rolled away from the infernal’s attack, he rolled right at the super skinny guy stealthing towards him. The guy jumped over Dan. A moment later, as Dan jumped back up to his feet, that guy attacked.

This sort of situation is where SIXTH SENSE really shines. Dan violently threw himself sideways, and instead of the blade going into his back, it hit only air.

Dan twisted as he fell to the ground and lava sprayed from his hand. I’m not sure if the stealth guy died before Dan hit the ground. It was too close to call.

Now he was only facing four participants. A couple infernals pounced at him.

Right at that moment, Bob, Az’ga, and I crowded Dan with dozens of images, hoping his anxiety would freeze him up or he’d get confused and not see the infernals. It kind of worked, but not good enough.

What it did do was remind the other techs they could do the same. Hundreds of images crowded Dan, and his anxiety spiked into the red.

For images, we select the participants that’ll see them beforehand. Unless the other techs were idiots, they would’ve only selected Dan so their participants’ sight would remain unimpeded.

Dan crawled forward on all fours. He barely managed to roll away from an infernal making a grab at his leg.

And rolled forward right into another powerful invocation.

The old geezer’s ball clocked his head again. Side of the head. Really rang his bell. Enough so he didn’t even try avoiding the invocations of the giant man or the one with the massive beard. He screamed and rolled around trying to smother the dark energy that covered him.

Things were looking pretty good for us!

Dan was down an eye, a big part of his nose, and a bunch of teeth before this. Then he took a major hit right to the temple. Big-beard managed to take off one of Dan’s hands with his Missile invocation, and the giant bathed him in some type of dark and burning mana.

Now, the old man, the giant, and Big-beard hadn’t been hit at all yet, but they were all bleeding from the damage-return aspect of Molten Armor. They weren’t hurt or bleeding nearly as badly as Dan, of course.

The other living guy, the super pale one, invoked Beam. I was certain that would kill Dan, but an infernal actually saved him by grabbing his leg and yanking him upwards.

Dan went high in the air as the infernal prepared to smash him into the ground. Before that happened, with his one good hand, he wrapped a cord of lava around the arm and head of the infernal and pulled.

He pulled so hard I thought his one good eye was going to pop, but he managed to pull the arm holding him in the air to the infernal’s head.

More invocations screeched towards Dan while he was tied up with the infernal. He pulled, twisted, and forced himself down so the two invocations that landed hit the infernal instead of him.

A lava-blade into an eye killed the infernal as he jumped away from it, and he landed with a thud on the ground.

The infernal’s corpse fell right on him. I have no idea how he got out from under it with how damaged he was, but the fat prick somehow managed.

Ashen Ruin was a real beast and was still going strong against half the infernals. It had killed three. Only six were following Dan.

I’m not counting the two that lost limbs. They were crawling towards Dan, but not making very good progress. If he stood in the same place for a few minutes, then they’d be a problem. As things stood, they weren’t.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Those six infernals chasing Dan were now blocking the old man and the giant’s view of him. He got on his feet, created a shield over his missing left hand, and charged through all the images right at the pale guy who was trying to invoke something while backing up.

Big-beard sent two missiles at Dan, but fatso whipped both out of the air with a thin cord of lava.

The pale guy gave up on whatever he was invoking, turned, and began sprinting away.

Dan, with an impressively expert use of an advanced mana technique, shot three little balls of lava right at the guy’s back, one right after the other. The first one killed the guy. The other two just made more orifices in the falling corpse.

Then Dan turned towards Big-beard and started sprinting.

The old man moved north and eastward to clear the infernals and sent another ball at fatso.

Dan turned, knelt, and braced himself. The ball clanked off his shield but still knocked him on his ass. He quickly got back to his feet, spit blood out of his mouth between ragged breaths, and yelled out, “I can tell when those are coming at me now! All y’all fucking traitors are dead!”

CROSS BEAM has a much better range than its physical Orbment equivalent, and since Dan was much closer to Big-beard, he was now in its range.

Without even looking, Dan knelt, grew his lava-shield larger and thicker, and blocked one of the strongest invocations I know of. His shield held for the duration.

That should’ve been impossible. A mana-technique blocking a Legendary Orbment. But he did it. I saw it with my own eyes. Keep in mind, it’s instant cast, so how’d he even know to prepare for it?

When CROSS BEAM finished, it took Dan a second to get back on his feet. He looked around as if he was confused before diving and rolling away from another dark bath of energy sent by the giant.

I knew from earlier that Big-beard had Meteorites slotted. At Second Rank, it has a four second cast time, so even making the attempt was stupid.

Big-beard tried but didn’t come close to getting the invocation off. One of Dan’s little lava balls blew a hole right through his face.

Keep in mind, wherever Dan went, we kept flooding him with new images. The infernals were almost on him again, and I hoped the images were confusing him and causing him enough anxiety he wasn’t noticing.

Instead of going for the giant or the old man, Dan turned and ran right at the infernals. He slid through the legs of the first, sent a lava whip at the neck of the next, and used that to swing around and past the rest.

Now, right then, as soon as he started swinging, some of those etceteras you mentioned earlier came into play.

As I said before, discounting Hector, it was determined only these nine participants were strong enough to stand against Dan. All but one of the 23 waiting infernals were spawned by them.

But the other 40 or so participants working for us teleported to that area a little earlier. When participants arrive in an area that way, they don’t spawn creatures.

As soon as Dan entered the Crucible, every tech hit their Sortilege. Well, besides me, Bob, and Az’ga.

Then the rest of our guys teleported back to the fourth area to set up an ambush.

Dan had killed seven of our mortals. You probably think he was doing pretty well. Maybe you think things were looking up for him, with only two left to kill and all.

But he had already taken significant damage, and there were a shitload of Sortilege creatures he didn’t even know about yet. A super shitload. It was just taking some time for all but the fastest moving creatures to reach him.

And if he ran back to the Court, we had an ambush waiting.

Okay, so Dan started swinging. As soon as he did, a byca flashed in and chomped the air right where Dan’s head had been a microsecond before.

We didn’t see it at the time since it moved so quickly. We only saw it when we rewatched in slow motion later.

The byca that just chomped on empty air joined another waiting for Dan right about where he’d land. Since they were standing still, of course we could see them waiting.

And so could Dan. Instead of landing nicely, he released his strand of lava and crashed into them. They both tried jumping over him, but he took out both their legs before he hit the ground tumbling.

He dug his one good hand into the dirt to stop his momentum, twisted, slammed his foot down, and caught them both in Lava Stomp before killing them with a longish spray of lava.

That was kind of amazing. How he did that. Infuriating, but amazing.

As Dan was scurrying back to his feet, the old man had sent out a new ball of whatever that was.

Dan noticed it at the last second and tried batting it away with his damaged arm. The one with the missing hand. He tried covering it with lava, but he wasn’t fast enough.

His forearm snapped like a twig, and he got knocked on his ass again, but he did manage to deflect the ball. Then he had to roll away from an infernal slamming its arms down on him.

At this time, he was gasping and sucking air through the bloody nubs of what teeth remained. Sucking air hard.

But this was after minutes of fighting, so not like before when he’d get out of breath just looking at something 10 feet away. Figured I should tell you. He was still a fat too.

Dan was up and sprinting towards the old man, but the guy was way far off in the distance. Whatever invocation he was using had a long, long range.

We assumed a Slot Bonus in conjunction with an Orbment-Effect Charm was modifying some Orbment so much that Bob, Az’ga, and I couldn’t recognize it.

The old guy wasn’t just going to let Dan close the distance. As soon as Dan started running at him, he took off running too. He’d turn and cast the ball thing on cooldown.

Dan blocked it with his shield the first time, but he was tired and injured and it knocked him on his ass far more easily than it had before.

After that, he tried stopping the ball with a lash, but that didn’t work too well. It barely changed its course, and Dan still had to dive out of the way. Every time after that Dan just dove away from it.

Oh, Ashen Ruin had died a little before this, so those other infernals were now chasing Dan. Man, that summons was a real beast for its tier. It put up one Heaven of a fight.

Dan had put a good distance between himself and the four infernals that were hot on his tail.

[I thought there were six.]

There were a while ago. Dan killed one but another had joined that group too.

The…let me explain. Spawned monsters don’t attack mortals working for our side. That is unless the monster is attacked by one of our mortals first.

With his big splashes of dark mana, the giant had hit a couple of them by accident. As soon as Dan got a certain distance away, those two turned on that guy.

And the giant wasn’t far away from those infernals when they turned on him. He was chasing Dan too.

Being such a giant, or maybe from the return-damage Dan had caused him, the guy wasn’t moving all that quickly. And he wasn’t prepared for those infernals to turn on him.

He managed to kill them both with BOMBARDMENT, but he wasn’t in great shape after. Instead of chasing after Dan, he treated his injuries and set up an ambush.

The old man had made it to the Trial of Conquest. He sprinted around the side of it after tossing a big shiny ball of mana a little away from the corner. He was in great shape for being such an old but was still breathing heavily.

Dan, on the other hand, was gasping air like there was no tomorrow. Completely out of gas. But even after taking that hit to the temple, he still had the sense of mind to slow and carefully approach the corner of the Trial.

The old man could see Dan. He was using the shiny ball as a mirror. We easily recognized the Orbment he used next. STRIKE.

Since he could see Dan’s reflection, he could target him. Five missiles streaked out of his hands and curved around the corner, homing right in on Dan.

With five missiles, that meant STRIKE was at Third Rank. So, the old man was most likely Silver tier, level 61 or higher.

SIXTH SENSE proved its worth again as the missiles met a shield. Except the shield shattered and a few missiles hit Dan.

One went in his belly and another tore right through his lower-left chest and exited his back.

Dan coughed up blood as he fell to the ground.

Thanks to the damage-return of Molten Armor, the old man coughed up blood too, took two steps forward, and fell down himself.

Dan crawled around the corner. The old man raised his hand to invoke, but Dan beat him to it with a small ball of lava that hit the guy in the shoulder.

“Piece of shit traitor,” said Dan before sending another ball of lava at the man’s head, killing him.

Dan really struggled to get back on his feet. It took a while, but he got there. And not a moment too soon, just as an infernal rounded the corner.

Dan ducked under a swing as the infernal charged past him and he quickly turned to meet his enemy. Thankfully, the infernals were all out of mana so they had no choice but to only use physical attacks.

As the infernal turned and faced off against Dan, another infernal rounded the corner and swung its massive arms.

Now, this part was crazy. For the second time that day, an infernal saved Dan.

That second infernal smashed a tariaksuq that had snuck up behind Dan. Those things are great at stealthing. They’re practically invisible.

That was some bullshit luck. I had never seen a tariaksuq this early on. Those monsters don’t show up until participants hit Sovereign tier. That thing, even at such a low level, would’ve torn Dan apart.

Just some bullshit luck.

But his luck had run out. Most of the Sortilege creatures weren’t all that far behind the tariaksuq, and Dan was on his last leg already. He could barely stand and was bleeding out. His vitals indicated he could enter shock at any second.

Some techs had gotten lucky with their Sortilege. A lot of great stuff was coming for Dan. I could see a big swarm of locusts, so there was at least one abaddon.

If Dan planned on escaping into a Trial to do some bullshit grinding like he had before in the Trial of Scouring, the only Trial in the Crucible area he could possibly do so in was the Trial of War.

But that Trial was way on the other side of the area, and he’d have to fight his way through all the Sortilege monsters to get to it.

And there were a shitload of creatures coming for him. The remaining infernals were on their way to him too.

Dan was right near the Trial of Conquest, but if he entered that in the shape he was in, he’d 100% definitely die. No doubt at all.

There’re no creatures to grind on in that Trial. It would initiate after about five minutes, and he’d have seven back-to-back boss fights with only two minutes in between.

If Dan was fully healed and prepared, maybe he could complete that Trial if he selected Nightmare instead of Hell difficulty. Maybe. But he was practically dead already. He had no chance in the shape he was in.

We finally, truly, and actually had that fat prick now! There was absolutely nowhere for him to escape to. Finally!

Ha!