A wave of relief washed over Ajit as he saw the endless horde of zombies, some several tens of thousands of them, fall in one synchronised motion, a long second of booming thuds confirming it. It was over; they had won. Kuraim was no more. He idly watched the defenders close in on the last members of the horde sandwiched between them, meanwhile these same horde members scrambled away for their lives. Likewise, Zafeera escaped on her motorbike into the sky.

From nearby, Klope blasted a small tsunami’s worth of water high into the sky. There appeared to be no sense to her action as it wasn’t aimed at Zafeera - perhaps other than to terrorise those directly underneath when the torrential rain fell - but this changed as the water reached the peak of its arc. It formed letters visible from miles off, and Ajit took a moment to read it, Hold your positions. He frowned severely while the letters fell out of shape again and fell.

He floated towards Klope, who was besides a shaky Baerl, with his barrier up and said, “What’s this about? Once they clean up the last of the horde, we’re done here.”

But the Hydromancer was already shooting another load of water into the air, even though the defenders hesitated to follow her first orders. They looked to their commanders to hear whether they should charge ahead anyway or listen to this drakkar Magi. Fortunately, this pause allowed the second message to reach its peak and become readable, Enemies incoming through teleporters!

“What?” Ajit asked, his frown giving way to surprise. “Lucian’s coming right now?” Then after a second. “How do you know this?”

While Klope regarded him carefully, Baerl beckoned him forth, which Ajit followed with prudence. While the drakkar were allies, he wasn’t going to be tricked by them into a trap. They weren’t too fond of him, and he wasn’t too fond of them.

“My class allows me to see the future, but only once per day,” Baerl said when he came close enough. “I have just come from a dead-end, where we all lost and Kuraim won.”

Ajit spat back his response, face twisted in anger and confusion and humoured contempt. “Him? I don’t know if you fucking noticed, but—”

“Shh, shh,” Baerl quickly urged, beady eyes worriedly watching his surroundings. “He is not truly dead, simply acting.” Before Ajit could interrupt, he addressed the Warlock’s questions. “I do not know how, and we will not have the time to discover how to properly kill him as Lucian will arrive soon in a dozen teleporters. Kuraim ambushes you then in his faux-dead state and kills you.”

Ajit’s various emotions converged on shock, and he backstepped while softly shaking his head. Of course, he could die, but hearing that a corpse would kill him sounded ridiculous. Yet there was no trace of wry humour or guile on the Chronomancer’s face, his tone so serious and honest. It made Ajit wonder, would he truly die like that in a few moments, or was this all an elaborate trick for the drakkar to get a one-up on him, perhaps even kill him? “Well, I know now, so I’ll keep my guard up,” he said, attentively watching Klope, Baerl, and Broken Scale who was nearing now in hope for something that would give their game away.

“No, you must not be here,” Baerl said, making Ajit all the more suspicious. “Your friend, Silas, is currently drugged up beyond any sense. You mu—”

“You must answer to his backstabbing now,” Broken Scale demanded, looming over the trio, glaring at Ajit. He looked one insult away from swinging his giant sword at the Warlock.

So, Ajit responded sensibly. “Fuck off, or I’ll butcher you on the spot.” He was unconcerned by this clown’s threats, especially when his shades could tear the enraged Titan apart in a heartbeat.

All the same, the Barbarian tipped past his breaking point with a mighty snarl, lunging forward with his blade held above. However, before he even clashed with Ajit’s barrier, he was slapped by a giant water hand, causing him to back off more in shock than pain. “What? Sister? Why?” he asked, the pangs of betrayal raw in his voice.

“A moment, and then I shall explain,” Baerl answered for Klope, gesturing for Broken Scale to stand a distance apart. There was some hesitation, but the Titan listened in the end, trudging away. “Now, as I was saying,” Baerl started again, “you must go to your friend Silas. In his present state, he is the most powerful Sovereign but completely mindless. Do not attempt to fight him as he will kill you, and he will attempt to kill you even if you keep peace. Instead, guide him here and let him tear into them.”

“Why should I trust you?” Ajit asked, but he was quickly distracted by a disturbance of mana over the battlefield. He followed it with his eyes and noticed a dozen focal points, four by the rampart, half a dozen on the battlefield itself, and two by his current position. Mana was being sucked in at ridiculous rates, and he knew something big was coming, something like giant portals. There were a dozen of them, too. Could it be?

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“Now, you must go!” Baerl said, no, begged. The aged Magi seemed on his wits’ end, his entire body shaking as if it threatened to collapse any second.

Ajit waited a moment, before sighing and plugging in the coordinates of Silas’s position. His man-sized portal ripped open ahead of him at the same the dozen focal points stabilised at the height of their volatility, the threads of space tearing open from bottom to top as if great void beasts were pulling their way out. It was an impressive sight, but he had no time to idly marvel at it, so he stepped through his own, coming to some random field and spotting Silas a mile away.

Just as Baerl had said, Ajit too could tell the Duellist was out of his mind. Clearly he had overdosed on Transcendence and it was now tearing his body apart from inside as he looked a bloody silhouette. “Silas,” Ajit shouted, getting his friend’s attention. But the attention was anything but friendly.

Silas zigzagged madly towards Ajit at breakneck speed, thunder and lightning announcing his movement, blood evaporating from his body every second. He looked a handful of minutes from death, yet he moved like someone who had all the energy in the world. No wonder Aengus, Dying Light, and even Dahlia had fallen to him.

Before Ajit even knew it, Silas was on him, sweeping his spear in a wide arc towards the raised mana barrier. Despite how thick and reinforced it was, it shattered from a single hit; if this was anyone else, Ajit would have been surprised, but this was Silas, and the Warlock knew one-tapping barriers was a trick the Duellist used often to get the upper hand on mages. With the electricity-cloaked spear sweeping in to decapitate him, Ajit acknowledged what Baerl had said; he truly would lose if he tried to fight Silas in this state.

So, instead, Ajit shoved Silas back with his telekinesis, rapidly and forcefully forcing him further and further away into the still-open portal. Just as Silas was about to be pushed through, he fired a thick stream of white electricity to Ajit as thanks, and it buried into the Warlock’s body as the Duellist disappeared into the swirls of purple and blue.

It burnt Ajit’s insides and caused him to collapse onto the ground, mind reeling from the sheer force of the attack. The world was a blurry spinning mess around him, and his sense of smell vanished while the hard ground below vaguely felt like he was falling through a cloud. It was some time before he climbed back to his feet, slowly, muscles still randomly tensing and slackening. He forced a potion down his throat and failed to taste the familiar sourness. Ajit rested awhile, shaking his head at the power. Silas had always reacted ridiculously well to Transcendence, which had in turn always made him susceptible to overdosing on it. If anything, this had only been a matter of time.

Finally gathering himself, Ajit stepped through the portal, not sure what to expect on the other side. Despite this, he was all the same stunned when he saw his surroundings. There were corpses everywhere, thrown around like broken toys, smoking and white-eyed. Little zaps of electricity crackled and danced over blood and piss, and although he could see the battlefield was congested, the immediate area around him was clear with allies and enemies alike having fled the raging bull out for their blood.

Silas was fighting Sophie and Lucian at once, and their attention became briefly distracted on Ajit’s entrance. However, Silas was beyond things like caring about his surroundings, and so he used this opportunity to slip past Lucian, moving so quick with his strike that his spear batted off Sophie’s head in a splatter of gore.

Silas Wycliffe (human), the Duellist, has killed Sophie Chandler (human), the Demolitionist.

23 Sovereigns remaining.

Lucian struck him with a flurry of attacks, likely an ability, which he parried, before going all-in on the Warlord. Meanwhile, Ajit figured Silas was fine for the moment and glanced about, recalling what Baerl had said about Kuraim faking death. The horde was still down, like when he had left, so he had doubts, yet this changed as he looked upon the Necromancer’s corpse. Although decapitated, it was pointing its finger at him, a deadly force building up on its tip.

Ajit leapt out of the way and just in time too as the shot zapped him through the side of the belly, penetrating his barrier and flesh without the slightest of resistance. If he hadn’t moved… The corpse beckoned and its head flew to it, attaching in place. Kuraim crookedly grinned.

“You motherfucker,” Ajit said, reforming his barrier. Kuraim had waited all this time, even when Silas and Lucian had been fighting, to break his dead-act now when Ajit had come. Clearly he was the top-priority target, but why? He didn’t have time to ponder on this as Zafeera plunged down from above, bisecting the sky with red before jumping off her motorbike, allowing it to crash and explode on the ground. Simultaneously, Kuraim’s zombies were rushing over here, fusing into twisted abominations on the way.

Unfortunately, Ajit was running low on mana, having only a third of his total capacity now. His remaining shades were fighting fiercely, as were Hokul, Bobby, Klope and even Broken Scale, who surprisingly hadn’t charged Silas yet. But the fact remained that Ajit couldn’t shoulder the win anymore. However, Silas could, if he survived for long enough.

“Elisha, focus your healing on Silas,” Ajit shouted, telekinetically tugging at the Primal Healer to immediately shift her healing stream.

Kuraim must have acknowledged the same fact - that Silas was the win condition here - as his abominations headed for Elisha instead of the other Sovereigns. Simultaneously, Ajit’s shades headed there to stop them. The Warlock bared his teeth at the Necromancer. “You should have just stayed dead instead of going through all this trouble to die again.”

“And miss out on this? I wouldn’t dare,” Kuraim replied.

Zafeera bolted away from beside him towards Elisha, no doubt intending to kill her. Yet she was only halfway there when Katerina leapt out from nowhere again, ambushing her and driving daggers into blood.

The war raged on, and the tide tossed and turned.