Carliah didn’t hear him at first.

You can’t hear something that defies all logic.

So when Artorious not only spoke in a voice tinged with evil intent, but then stood and leveled his blade against her, there was a split second in which she didn’t even turn to see what was coming for her.

And that was all the time he needed.

The Onixia blade was thrust into her back, ripping through her spine. It was then driven up, through a gasp that spoke of rage that couldn’t even be given voice in the moment.

And the Hybrids, as well as all the residents of the City of Illusions, watched as the devastation to their Delve was avenged in the only proper way it could be: through a trick of the eyes.

The old, withered face of Artorious slowly bled away.

And revealed the smiling face of Valgraiva, and the demon hat beneath.

Mimic (Grade D)

You assume the form of a foe you can see, gaining all basic skills and stats of the target.

While in Mimic Form, your HP is set to 1.

If a successful attack is made against you, Mimic Form instantly ends.

Duration: 5 minutes

Spirit Core Cost to Upgrade: 1200

The moment of Ethan’s triumphant strike was punctuated by a cry of victory from his Hybrid companions, who immediately rose to their feet, shaking off their wounds and abandoning the pantomime performance Ethan had told them would be their best line of defense against the hubris of the Greycloaks.

Because that was their weakness: their stubborn belief in their own invincibility.

Carliah spat up blood as she twisted her body impossibly, contorting her limbs so that she grabbed the throat of Ethan’s undead Host and twisted, ready to tear him apart right then and there.

“Don’t. Think. You’ve. Won!”

Ethan’s Appraisal told him what he feared – that even a blade imbued with the blood of his own kind wouldn’t be enough to slay this mad woman.

CARLIAH ARGENT:

HP: 1000/3000

He’d combined his sudden strike with a successful sneak attack that had finally managed to rip through her armor and the adamantine muscle and bone beneath. But the strength that surged through her arm was still more potent than all of her foes put together.

“You…you…”

Ethan felt her clench down, hard. And she completely ignored the arrows and spells of Tara and Fauna that washed over her. She and the Archon were bound now. In fact, as Ethan twisted the blade and tried to withdraw from her grasp, she held the thing there with her free hand.

“I am…Carliah…Argent!” she growled. “The voice…of the Greycloaks! Sword of Kaedmon. I learned how to die a long…time ago. I learned to master fear itself. I am your reckoning. I am the solution. I am the vengeful blade of my Lord, and Krea, and the triumph of humani-TAH!”

The epic speach of the Greycloak Commander was suddenly and abruptly cut short as the Archon slammed a fist into her mouth.

“You know something?” Ethan said. “You gotta learn to stop talking sometimes.”

Carliah bit down on his hand without warning, chewing clean through Valgraiva’s gauntlet in a display of pure animal rage. Ethan finally came away from her, his left hand a bloody, gooey stump of teeth and gore.

Meanwhile, the Hybrids stood back, watching as the Greycloak commander reeled up and drew the Onixia blade from out her gut – just below her heart.

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She spat a piece of bony finger out and swept the blade over them all, laughing in triumph as black blood gargled and ran down her chin.

“FOOLS!” she screamed. “Why do you resist the destiny laid out for you? Kaedmon’s Law is absolute! Your kind were chosen to die – die and writhe in agony till you draw your final breaths!”

Ethan sat up, seeing that his companions had rushed to his defense. They’d seen just how low his HP was now.

He didn’t even bother checking, anymore.

“How…noble,” Carliah growled as she stalked towards them. “The valiant last stand…if Artorious is too much of a weakling to end you, then perhaps someone else will.”

“Guys,” Ethan murmured. “Start…running.”

The three of them didn’t even turn round as the bloodsoaked commander marched towards them.

“We fight and win together, or we fall together,” Klax told him. “I will not serve another Master, Ethan Hawke.”

“And I ain’t gonna leave until I wipe the smile from this bitch’s face.”

Tara aimed her next shot at the advancing Commander’s forehead.

“We can take her, Ethan,” Fauna said as she turned to start healing him. “Super special magic awesome, right?”

Ethan groaned, waving away her healing hands.

“Faun…she’s already done.”

The air of the City suddenly changed. Around Carliah, something was happening. Something that everyone could feel who walked the earth as a sentient being.

The warrioress stopped in her tracks. Her shoulders twitched, and the veins down her throat began to pop and pulse.

“Wh…what…”

Her hand clawed at her gullet, feeling something that was lodged in there.

Something that had already traveled down into her gut.

Her eyes bulged as her mind raced to come to a realization that it would not let her accept.

And then those same eyes lighted on the vision of the Archon, who rose to his feet as though he was barely wounded at all.

“You said it yourself, didn’t you?” he asked her slowly changing face. “Monsters deserve to die, right?”

She choked. She tried coughing it up – the thing that she now knew the Archon had lodged in her throat. The thing that had been writhing in his fist when he shoved it in there.

Something that shouldn’t have existed…anymore.

And with one look at her shaking hands, her System screen told her what she already knew:

STATUS: SEEDED

EFFECT ACQUIRED FROM [LEGENDARY] ITEM: DARKSEED

Transformation process…5%...7%

She dropped the blade and let it clatter on the ground, looking on helplessly as her gauntlets broke apart and her nails began to elongate.

Her hair began to fall from her skull, being peeled away to reveal pulsing muscle that was spreading over her eyes and cheeks, until her face was a deformity of steam and slowly contorting bones, so that when she opened her mouth to scream, all that came out where slurred words that she could barely even pronounce.

“I….I’m…I’m…”

And then Ethan was standing before her, the Onxia blade in his hand.

“One of us?”

The blade flashed in the twilit gloom of the city, the power he put behind it cleaving clean through her head and sending a shockwave through the wreckage around them that instantly cleared the fog of war.

Before Carliah Argent fell, she saw the torn remnants of the Lightborn that were starting to piece themselves together across the battlefield.

And with what she assumed would be her final breath, she cursed him, this entire world that she’d sworn to protect, and the man who held the blade that had brought her down.

No…not the man.

The hat.

The fucking…hat…

Ethan stared down at the pitiful, mewling thing that was clutching its bleeding face – its body still growing out of control, out of proportion. His cut had been deep enough to decapitate her entirely, and yet the thing he’d lodged within her chest – the special gift Jun’Ei had given him – was still doing what it was designed to do.

“Take it, Archon,” she’d told him in the final dream world vision. “Take the prize your Sister concocted – the most potent remnant of her power.”

Ethan had looked down at the tiny, writhing thing – it looked like an acorn wreathed in barbed wire. Lethal and evil – something that he instinctively knew could turn the tide of any fight. Or war.

“What is it?”

“It is Gyko’s Darkseed – the font of your predecessor’s power. The thing that allowed her to spawn horde upon horde of monsters from the bellies of the humans who acted as its host. It is a parasite – ingeniously crafted and designed to conquer a world. Before she died, she bequeathed the very last one to me.”

The ancient Lycae had then smiled, looking upon the devious little seed with a strange fondness.

“I think she knew another would come,” she said. “I think she meant this to be passed to you, when the time came.”

“And you’re telling me I can win with this?” Ethan asked. “Even against the Lightborn?”

“Against the blood of Krea? No – it is too pure. But – against any other who breaths the air of Kaedmon, it shall work its dark magic. It shall twist them. It shall break them. And there is only one cure.”

Ethan had nodded, whistling to himself. “That’s one mean little plant.”

“And yet it is just part of nature, as all things are. It may have been designed to kill, but there is a certain beauty to its inner workings.”

“If you say so. Guess Gyko just didn’t know it wouldn’t work on the Lightborn.”

“Humans make mistakes,” the old Lycae said with a knowing smirk. “It is part of who you are. In her old life, Gyko was a Botanist. I think, in a way, it brought her pain to turn something she loved into a weapon. But these things happen in war.”

And before the dream had been banished from his sight, Ethan had rounded on her with sudden understanding.

“You – you mean –“

“Oh yes, Ethan Hawke. All Archon’s once lived on earth. Every Archon…was a human, once.”

Presently he banished the memory from his mind. His head ached, his body groaned, and his companions were tugging at him madly, begging him to run as the monstrous body of the Greycloak woman began to shudder and howl without a mouth.

“Ethan – what do we –“

Klax’s statement caught in his throat as the Lightborn’s mouth opened in a scream of anguish, and all other thoughts were suddenly banished from Ethan’s mind.

Picking up the Onixia blade, he delivered the only command he had left in him:

“We run.”

“Towards – what?!” Tara shrieked, her eyes locked on the screaming body of Carliah that was starting to reach dangerous, explosive decibels.

“Towards the exit portal,” Ethan replied without a second thought.

The hybrids locked eyes with him, knowing that their leader wasn’t out of tricks yet.

“If we can’t beat the old bastard,” he said. “Then we’re gonna bury him here.”