He wasn’t slowing down.

But I wasn’t going all out either. Despite pulling the weapons out of him, he wasn’t holding on to them, preferring to try to hit me with his bare hands. So far, he hadn’t managed to touch me, but there had been a few close calls.

The good news was that all of the Elves had been evacuated. Now the rest of the crew was standing near the entrance, watching our weird bullfight. If they joined in, I could wear him down faster, but there would also be less room to dodge. While I might be able to resist him, they definitely couldn’t, which would negate all the work I’d been doing.

“Why won’t you show me your neck???” Despite his reckless charges, he wasn’t giving me a chance to cut off his head. So far, nothing else I’d tried so far had worked.

The enraged man stopped charging and blinked a few times, then straightened up. Something changed in his eyes and they didn’t look quite as wild.

The next time he charged, he sidestepped as I stabbed, slicing a deep cut on the bottom of his arm. My miss wasn’t the only bad thing this time. He also grabbed me.

The energy that hit me when he wrapped his arms around me was like being dunked in the ocean, but I could feel him trying to give me the cut I’d just made. I started pushing back against that wound, trying to push it back to him. He fought me for a moment, then let go and added some scratches to my leg. I started to give those back and he started pushing a stab in the shoulder. I looked around at what he was physically touching and while he had me on the floor, he was grabbing dead elves and trying to give me their wounds.

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That gave me an idea.

I started squirming towards Alessa while we played hot potato with wounds. The moment that I was able to grab her hand I started pulling. She was like a sponge for his sea of power and I was sweeping it into her. I couldn’t give her back the life she’d given me, but maybe I could give her another one.

“NO!!!” The king tried to get up as soon as he realized what I was doing.

“No you don’t!” I grabbed his right arm with my left. I had Alessa with my right hand and was trying to channel his power into her while he was fighting me both physically and with his power. I was only able to hang on to him with one arm and he was strong. My fingers started slipping, then the king slammed into me as four arms wrapped us in a bear hug.

“I’ve got you!” Vin squeezed the two of us together.

“NO!” My mind switched to grabbing the king’s power, keeping the wounds off me, and keeping the king from draining Vin dry. “He’s going to drain you!”

I felt another presence being added to the mix as Garm joined the huddle.

The King was frantically trying to grab something as I focused on slapping his focus away from wherever he put it. Instead of focusing on one thing, he just tried to absorb everything.

Vin was starting to stagger as he was feeling the drain.

A sixth mind entered the mix as Storbek joined, giving Vin some more energy and adding another presence. Then Talia was there. Phlek, Wizz, and Zist joined at the same time, then Uziah, Hyer, Frosu, Forst, and Minx.

It was like the king was completely boxed in. There were too many linked together for him to grab a single person and everything he’d stolen was being fed into Alessa.

“NOOO!!!” The King tried muscling his way out, but he was overwhelmed in every way. “I’M YOUR KING!!!”

I felt a spark start burning as the last of his power flowed into his daughter, then he was gone.