As my Reactive Armor hit its valley and my defenses were at their lowest, it became clear that Ryxariel could kill me in ten seconds or less. Cuby, combining her own abilities with the super-fast spells that I fed her through investiture, could at least keep Nerien and Haroshi busy.

Ryxariel kept laying into me with her two swords, and the pain of the blades as they passed through my body was an afterthought as my heart thundered in my ears. My Hit Points were dropping fast….

But I still had a missile stored with Fragmented Spell. I invested myself with a Telekinetic Hammer….

And then Haroshi broke free of the fear that had been holding him just as Nerien sprung up from the knockdown of our last grenade. Cuby threw another Hardlight Tether at Haroshi—but this time Nerien broke it with a throw of her weapon. Haroshi leapt for me, coming down on me with a Drop Strike that brought me down to 40% Hit Points, almost surely within killing range of a miracle or some powerful combo.

So I spun, took a few steps, and launched myself off the edge into the ravine below. Ryxariel, seeing me flee, barked out a laugh and launched a stunning bolt into my back, but Cuby cleared this with the last of our Rousing Commands. I fell through the air, the stairway beside me, casting a Charm of Gliding just before the bottom step and landing in the same place I’d stood while we fought the boss.

Ryxariel didn’t appear right away: we’d guessed her teleport had a small cooldown, perhaps not as big as that used by the other devils but still there—and it wouldn’t matter if she did appear, anyway.

I hit the stone floor hard, kneeling and spinning in place to see Haroshi gliding in after me—and I threw my Telekinetic Hammer once he was within 15 meters of me.

But Haroshi spun in the air, performing the same sort of miraculous dodge that I’d seen Cuby perform before—either a Moment of Mastery, or something else. He swooped in toward me, canceled his glide, and landed in a crouch like I had.

But in this time I’d cast a Sudden Hex of Chains—a 0.9 second cast—sure to hold him for maybe a second, or a second and a half. And just as the spell hit him, I saw him see it—saw his eyes widen in utter terror as he realized that he was about to die.

He had landed on the runes I’d set when we’d fought the last boss—the Supercharged Implosive Missile Rune Traps that I’d lain there just in case they tried to ambush us.

I triggered both as I loosed the missile I’d stored with my Fragmented Spell, cutting away his health bar in three clean, even strikes. He had resistances, of course, to my divine damage: for all I knew his main stat was Spirit, like me—but my missiles, which dealt more than a thousand each, were only brought down by his resistances to about 650, and the spellsword / priest before me just didn’t have the Hit Points.

For killing a mass murderer, you receive 78 virtue points.

Haroshi fell, and my candle-flame healed me for just under 200. I stored a Hardlight Tether even as I looted his body and took the two cards there….

Above us, Nerien screamed. Cuby leapt to the edge of the platform and fired her grappling gun straight downward, and I leapt into the air, then tied my tether to my arm and Cuby’s grapnel.

Nerien didn’t even try to launch Cuby off the edge with Telekinetic Hammer—had she taken Moment of Clarity instead? No matter: Cuby had faked not having the abilities to control them before, and hit Nerien with a knockdown strike to prevent her interference. I was casting an Intuitive Fragmented Supercharged Haste as I furiously climbed the tether hand-over-hand, winding it around one wrist as I did so just in case—

Ryxariel appeared on the stairs beside me and let out a terrifying howl, and I flailed in uncomprehending terror as I was dragged up the side of the cut stone cliff. The fear didn’t wear off until Cuby retracted her grappling gun’s cable the entire way and yanked me over the edge.

Nerien let out a howl of triumph as she threw herself to her feet and lunged for me with her two-handed sword… but I didn’t quite understand why. Yes, I was at 54%, and all my spells were spent—but did she really not see it? Cuby had equipped her second sword. And Nerien’s only other ally—the boss—had gotten so greedy that she’d used her teleport to put herself halfway down the stairs: a quick glance showed me that Ryxariel was indeed running up the steps at that very moment.

Not yet, I said, finishing the Supercharged Haste and investing myself with it. Timing was everything… and I started casting a Sudden Hardlight construct and investing that too.

Now.

Cuby let out a Jolting Shout, leapt straight into the air with Mighty Leap, used a Drop Strike in conjunction with her Blinding Strike, swapping from Saint’s Purity to Saint’s Wrath and activating her Flurry of Steel as soon as she struck her enemy. I loosed the haste, and suddenly Cuby was hitting for far more damage and at almost triple her usual attack speed, releasing a Vilefire Strike to stopper any attempt at healing just as I put both of them into an admittedly weak box of hardlight. But it didn’t need to be strong—it just needed to hold up enough to keep Ryxariel from targeting Nerien with a miracle.

Ah, Cuby. I could somewhat see how our opponents had underestimated her—they’d only ever seen her with one class before now, and she hadn’t been trying to hurt them until this very moment. But if Haroshi and Nerien both hit like trucks, Cuby hit like a freight train. With her flurry on, she dealt almost 500 damage a second to Nerien—who managed a pitiful, half-strength heal in between an Unnatural Terror and a Hex of Chains, then died to an Opportunistic Strike and a Murderous Strike that both came at once with the aide of the warrior’s Double Strike passive.

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For killing a mass murderer, you receive 66 virtue points.

Ryxariel teleported in a moment after Cuby had looted the cards off the corpse and I dismissed my Hardlight Construct. She hissed in displeasure at the sight of her ally’s corpse, then grinned as she couched her weapons and began to charge them for the 5000-damage teleporting strike that she’d used before.

But neither of us was interested in sticking around: Cuby, with five seconds of a Supercharged Haste remaining, grabbed me, leapt into the air, then used her Gift of Empyreal Flight, carrying me away even as I started casting an Intuitive Healing Light.

We zoomed away at nearly 160% bonus movement speed on top of the speed that came naturally to flight, and I prayed it would be enough. Ryxariel’s multistrike required time to charge, that was certain—and we were covering huge distances every heartbeat….

Then I heard Ryxariel howl with frustration from her place behind us, her voice reverberating off the walls. Fortunately for us, her spell’s range was less than the hundred-plus meters we’d traveled.

Cuby set me down by the collapsed hole, then—unexpectedly, brought me into a bear hug. “We did it!”

“Probably,” I said, casting another heal that would bring me to full. I wanted to tell her to focus, but I couldn’t hide my own sense of elation—the enemy chosen were out of the picture, and I was free to actually play healer and support like I ought to in a boss fight.

We communicated through the mind link as I cast spells, waiting for Ryxariel to catch up. Her teleport must have had a range limit, because it wasn’t until almost ten seconds later that she appeared.

But it was too late for her. I loosed a Supercharged Psychic Parasite when she started attacking me, granting me an extra 16 Defense Rating against her attacks. I stored a Supercharged Slow for her next multi-strike, then restored my Moment of Mastery and Moment of Solace before healing through her damage. When my Reactive Armor was at its peak, the boss only hit me a quarter of the time. When she finally did use her multistrike again, I loosed the Supercharged Slow, cast a Supercharged Psychic Parasite for Cuby, and then watched as Ryxariel missed 6 out of her 10 hits—my Moment of Solace went unspent.

It was obvious we’d won—in true spellcaster fashion, my toolkit could counter everything she did—but the fight was still agonizingly slow. Ryxariel’s miracles healed her for 30% of her total life—quite literally more than 10 000 damage—and she had more than enough health to wait out the Vilefire Strike that would have halved that. Cuby stayed in Saint’s Wrath, and her attacks almost all crit once I started giving her more Psychic Parasites, but the fight was still a grueling slog.

Soon enough I was low on Energy, but I had a plan for this, too. I opened my quest log and completed Haroshi’s bounty quest, the experience enough to level me:

Congratulations, you are now a level 15 Hierarch/Psychic!

You have a new Passive Slot. Open your Abilities pane to choose a new Passive.

You have a new Passive Slot. Open your Abilities pane to choose a new Passive.

Your Hit Points have increased by 85 and your Energy has increased by 120.

Human Adaptability increases each of your Strength, Agility, Focus, and Spirit by 2. You gain 2 stat points to distribute.

And Ryxariel, seeing this, teleported back to a distance of about 30 meters. “Wait!” she cried. Her health bar was at 30%. Whether she’d run out of miracles or not, she must have realized the futility in going on. “I’m no fool,” she said, looking between us with narrowed eyes. “I can see this little interaction has not gone… favorably.”

“Why did you side with them in the first place?” I asked.

Despite her situation, Ryxariel laughed. “Is it not obvious? I can smell the angels on you two.”

I raised my candle-flame, flared it. “You mean this.”

Her expression darkened as her eyes flicked to the candle-flame. “Why would they help you?”

I laughed. “Because we killed three more of your kind before we came here,” I said, shrugging.

“So they gave you some trinkets,” she said, sneering. “But see: I fought with my allies where the angels gave you only weapons. Surely you can see that I gave more to those two incompetents you dispatched than the angels ever gave you.”

I played with the candle-flame for a second, rotating my hand as the flame flowed over it, soothing and warm. “Actually,” I said. “I’m not so sure about that.” I grinned at the devil. “They gave us some bullshit overpowered classes, see—everything we needed to take both this dungeon, and our quarry.” I looked back at the devil. “Now, unless you have more to offer us than the card I know you’re holding….”

Ryxariel expression faltered, and I saw the hope wane from her eyes. “Did they send you for the knife?” she asked quietly. “Is that it? Are you here for the blade? Oh, they would, wouldn’t they—tell me, who did they blame for this place’s fall? Axxonni? Karlita? I can give you the purified key!”

I stretched in place, my whole body relieved at the absence of the swords that had been slashing through it for several minutes now. My voice mockingly apologetic, I said: “Yeah, see… I haven’t stayed caught up on the story for this place.”

She kept looking between us, panic growing on her face. “Is this all just a game to you?”

Cuby grinned. “Not just.”

And then we attacked. I had to wonder: where did Ryxariel go when she died? It must have been worse for her if she ran than if she died in battle, because she could have easily escaped us. But she stayed and fought until the end, her eyes growing more desperate, more fearful, until we ripped away the last sliver of her health and she dissipated like her brethren before her.

Quest Completed: Liberate Mirrakatetz

I watched her vanish with a feeling that was almost like shock. It was over, all over—and against all odds, we’d won.