Alistair took the stairs, where he narrowly avoided an explosion of mana-laced bubbles that tore through a portion of the wall. Inside the expansive dining room, or whatever it was, Lionel, Ziggy, and Noctarii raised hell for the two rogue battledeck mages, the sounds loud and amplified due to the nature of the walls.

Alistair huffed. “I’m going to meld with Hooty.”

Ghost: Do it, but save Felix for me. Let me toss my sword into the room first.

Alistair: You’re sure?

Ghost: At this point, yes. I want my blade to be available if Lionel is somehow incapacitated.

Ghost, who had been crouched behind the base of a statue that had miraculously survived the battledeck mage attack, slid his sword into the room. Taking over, Alistair smashed Hooty’s card in his hand and morphed.

Get ready! he thought to his owl bear as he exploded into the space, Alistair’s instant transformation nearly complete.

An umbrella-shaped object filled with light momentarily blinded him, yet Alistair stormed through it and slammed down onto a battledeck mage wearing a dark cloak. She’s a traitor, he told Hooty as the woman conjured a stone fist.

We will deal with her!

The woman swung at Alistair with a sword made of mana.

Squish! Ziggy, who had been perched near a window, jumped toward the rogue battledeck mage, the slime picked out of the air by an eagle-like summon with a mohawk of red feathers. As Alistair came smashing down with his winged fists, he spotted Felix at the front of the room, hand on the hilt of a curved blade, the rich asshole watching all this take place with a mad look in his eyes.

Ghost growled in his head, yet Alistair ignored the vengeful assassin as he avoided the battledeck mage’s mana blade. Her next strike, which came from a fist cased in stone, actually landed, but Alistair as Hooty practically shrugged it off. He was much larger than the woman, which inspired him to merely pick her up and slam her into the wall several times until he was certain she was done for.

That’s how to do it! Hooty told him. Who’s next? The man at the front?

That’s for Ghost. The other mage!

The potential issue with the other mage was soon solved by Lionel and Noctarii, the fae finally distracting the mage enough for Lionel to get a vicious attack in. The sound of the man’s top half hitting the ground, his lower torso severed by a strange horizontal portal, forced Alistair out of his melded form.

Ghost: Get hold of yourself!

“I…” Alistair sucked in a deep breath as he looked ahead to Felix.

Felix’s eyes twitched as he spoke: “I’ve known for a while now, Ghost. You know that, right? You must know by now.”

Alistair was on his knees when Ghost’s influence took over, the assassin agitated to the point that their entire shared body shook. He didn’t ask Lionel for a sword, which was on the ground near them, nor did he say anything to Ziggy, who squished angrily off to his right or Noctarii, who buzzed just behind them, ready to act.

Ghost merely picked up his sword and brought it to the ready. “It doesn’t matter any longer what you know, Felix.”

“You think I’m that stupid? Do you think I’m really stupid enough to face you on my own?” He laughed again and took a step backward to a table with a wine bottle on it. The doors that surrounded him opened and trainees spilled out, all with swords, all masked.

Yet Ghost could see in their eyes that they were scared. And they should be. There might have been what appeared to be a child standing before them, but inside was a man who wouldn’t stop, who wouldn’t change, who would extract the revenge that he had come here to extract.

“Lionel, Senka’s sword,” he finally told the Abyssal summon.

A pool of shadows formed next to Ghost and a withered hand produced Senka’s dark blade. Ghost sent Alistair’s wand into its sheath and took the blade from the dark summon.

Alistair knew better than to question him at this point. He knew who Ghost was, and what the assassin was capable of, especially when he was focused like it was now.

Ghost had a one track mind when it came to death, a killer instinct tattooed onto his soul, and branded onto his black heart; Alistair knew Ghost would cut through a thousand men if it meant reaching his goal, a goal which stood at the back of the room, that same wild look on Felix’s face that Alistair had seen numerous times like he was almost enjoying this.

The audacity.

And if Alistair was being honest with himself, the stupidity.

Felix held the wine bottle now, his sword nicely tucked away. He used his teeth to pull the cork out and took a big swig of the bottle. “Ah, vintage, from my favorite reserve. What are you waiting for?” he asked the the two dozen swordsmen that had stepped into the room. “Kill him.”

“Ziggy, to me,” Ghost said. “Noctarii, Lionel, stay back.”

The slime hopped to his shoulder as the first trainee approached.

Ghost quickly overwhelmed the hesitant man with a double arm strike. Next up was a woman, who came in fast as she wielded a pair of short swords.

Klank! Klank!

The woman went down after a failed attempt to spin around Ghost. Another swordsman came and Ghost drove both swords right to his stomach, Ghost so precise with his actions that he actually managed to push it in a gap in the man’s armor.

It was going to be a bloodbath, Alistair could tell.

And weird as it was, he watched it all play out from the relative comfort of his own mind, some of the trainees easier to take then the others, some with armor, some without, some willing to give it all for Felix, others cowering, all paying the ultimate price.

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A frenzied revelry of savagery, a maelstrom of rage and blood-soaked chaos.

Left and right, Ghost cut them down.

He was a machine of death, Ghost’s intent so honed that he didn’t receive a single nick in the time it took him to move from the back of the long dining room to the front at least twenty-four would-be assassins and mercenaries all dead in his wake, the carpet saturated with ichor, the air filled with moans and gasps and stenched with iron. The world a bloodstain.

The doors around Felix opened again.

A pair of enormous men rushed into the room, the two with shoulders as broad as longswords, thick armor, veins popping off their necks.

Ghost didn’t even flinch.

The first charged and he merely stepped around him, where Ghost did what the first assailant had tried to do earlier by driving his sword through the man’s back. He kicked him away and moved to address the other, Ghost a fury of horizontal cross slashes, a blur of violence.

The man managed to block some of it with his ax, but Ghost got through, first on the underside of the man’s forearms, and finally dropping low to cut his legs, Ghost with the precision of a surgeon.

Blood squirted and the man fell.

Wham!

The man Ghost had stabbed in the back put everything he had into his next attack only to run straight into a wall as the master assassin stepped aside. He drove his blade into the man’s back, twisted his swords this time and held them there.

Ghost yanked his arms back. Blood followed the tip of his two blades as he turned back to Felix.

No more Baronblades came to the door surrounding possibly the richest man in the entire kingdom. It was just Felix and his wine bottle and a sword at his side, a crazed assassin standing before him in the body of a broken youth, a slime that continued to growl, and a pair of dark shadowy summons midway through the room, awaiting orders.

“Then so be it.” Felix lunged at Ghost with his wine bottle. He tried again, this time tripping over one of his fallen soldiers. He hit the ground, and looked up at the assassin. “Aren’t you going to do something?”

Ghost stepped back, both blades at the ready.

“I’m waiting for you, you coward, you weak imbecile!”

When Ghost didn’t attack him, Felix slowly got to his feet. He picked up his wine bottle again, looked down at it, and drew his sword with his other hand. “You have accomplished nothing. Everything is already done, now. Kang is there. Dreadwell is there. The army is ready. It doesn’t matter what happens to me.”

“You are right about that,” Ghost said. “Face me.”

“You won’t win.” Felix smashed the bottle against the wall to forge it into a weapon. “I helped kill you once, and I’ll do it again!”

Squish! Ziggy moved as if the slime was going to jump off Ghost’s shoulder.

“No, Ziggy, he’s mine.”

“I should have hired more battledeck mages,” Felix said as he glared Ghost down. “But most are loyal to the crown. If you had asked me years ago, I would have told you everyone has a price. Now, I’m not so certain.” He glanced over at one of the fallen bodies as a large explosion outside rocked the room. “You certainly didn’t.”

Alistair: I need to check on Juno and Zola—

Ghost: Aware. We’re almost done here.

“It’s funny, really, to think that you would be reborn into the body of an orphan and be able to cause all this trouble,” Felix said with disgust that soon morphed to a strange, drunken clarity. “I suppose that in a way, it’s my fault. I have known about you for some time now yet I didn’t do anything. I should have. I really should have.”

“Your hubris blinded you.”

“Perhaps. But you did do something that I have been wanting to do for years in killing Senka, Hilda, and Goran. Your own mother too, you fucking imbecile, you monster. It is truly too bad you couldn’t get Kang.”

“He’s next.”

“Kang has been possessed by a lich by this point. You didn’t see him back in Ruminara. He won’t be easy to kill.”

“Kang and Dreadwell. Then, this is over.”

“You are so sure of yourself, Ghost. So confident. I would say I found that admirable if I didn’t find it incredibly shortsighted. You could have been part of this. But your code—”

“Are we going to do this, or do you want to see what a murderous slime is capable of,” Ghost asked, which riled Ziggy.

Squish! Squish!

Felix laughed bitterly. “Listen to you. You’re too much of a loyalist to your own bullshit to have anyone else do it but you. Alistair’s summons could have already done it by now. You’re pathetic. Everyone despises you, and they always did.”

Ghost turned to a window, where he saw another burst of fire.

Ghost: I’m going to send Lionel and Noctarii to Juno and Zola.

Alistair: Please do!

Ghost gave the order and the two Abyssal summons melted away. “Just you, me, and the slime, now,” he told Felix.

“See? I told you. You are predictable, Ghost. And even given a second chance, a chance where you could have done something truly remarkable, you fucked it all up. Again. Ha! You piece of—”

Ghost had heard enough. He rushed toward Felix, who parried his first attempt with his sword.

Felix tried to rake the broken wine bottle across the front of Ghost’s body. “Stay still, you!” He missed as Ghost jumped back just in time.

He avoided Felix’s next attack with his sword, the leader of the Baronblades just as clumsy with the weapon as Ghost had predicted.

Felix tried to kick at him; Ghost brought both swords down and held firm as he sliced into Felix’s leg. Had he been stronger, he would have been able to cut through the bone, he was certain of it.

Yet the damage was done. Ghost knew it would be a painful wound.

Felix dropped his wine bottle and howled in agony as he fell to the side. “You fuck! You cretin!” He gripped his blade tightly with both hands and thrust it as Ghost, who had yet to approach. “You… pathetic…”

Felix dragged his partially shredded leg away, his blood mixing with the blood that had already stained the flooring from the people Ghost had cut through to get to him.

“You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for this.”

“You always were a coward, going for my leg.” Felix glared down at the wound, his eyes welling. “Fuck! It stings!”

Ghost moved toward Felix, who tried to thrust forward with his blade only to have Ghost cut it out of his hand, severing some of Felix’s fingers.

“Argh!” Felix shrieked as he dropped his sword. He held his hand, which now bubbled with blood.

Ghost crouched near him, just out of Felix’s reach. “Normally, I would watch you die. If I didn’t have other things to do tonight, I would take you apart piece by piece so you could watch you die with me.”

Finally, fear in Felix’s eyes. It was shocking to Alistair how quickly the powerful man went from furious to scared for his life. “You’re sick,” he whispered.

“I pale in comparison to you, Felix. But I have other things I need to attend to, so we’re going to do this now. Ziggy.”

The slime jumped to the floor and looked up at Ghost. Squish?

“Hold him up a bit against the wall, keep him still.”

Squish! Ziggy lunged for Felix and wrapped around him to prevent Felix from moving his arms and legs.

Ghost approached with both swords, his and Senka’s. He bent forward and slowly pressed his blades through the man’s stomach, Felix howling in pain. Ghost put his shoulder into it as he twisted his weapons and finally pulled back, disemboweling the leader of the Baronblades, one of the richest men the Dawncrest Kingdom had ever seen, and making eye contact with him the entire time.

Squish? The slime looked up at Ghost as he let Felix’s body relax.

“Yes, you did good,” Ghost told Ziggy, breathless now. He glanced over the room one more time. “We all did good. You too, Alistair. The people that discover this scene are going to have nightmares. But we did it, and sometimes, that’s all that matters. Now, we’ll finish helping Juno and Zola, check on Kanda, and get to the border. Alistair, summon Lionel back to take my swords, and let’s finish what we started.”