“You thought you were one of us,” Malcolm gasped for every excruciating breath. The fist-shaped dents in his breast plate pushed into broken ribs. “Just because you fought in the arena sometimes.”
The Slaver King cast Thousand Cuts aside like a dirty rag.
The Broken had never been more like her name. She sat in a small crater, limbs twisted in every direction.
Seconds.
That’s how long it had taken.
The rest of Malcolm's allies were too far to help.
It seemed like they ran in slow motion.
“Time’s up, Malcolm,” the Slaver King raised a thumb and pointed it to the ground.
As a gladiator, he was at his best fighting inside an arena in front of tens of thousands of screaming fans. He rode the ebbs and flows of their collective energy like a wave, pushing beyond limits and pulling moves off that would’ve been otherwise impossible.
He was far from his home… unless he changed his perspective.
The floor beneath him was polished hardwood, not gritty sand and dirt.
No audience aside from his allies and the handful of slavers trying to remain hidden behind broken tables or underneath dead bodies.
And yet, blood and bodies littered the ground.
They fought for their lives.
One Skill.
A champion’s Skill
He could bring the arena to him.
The great hall seemed to fade.
Wooden walls wavered and ceiling vanished, replaced by an open sky and bright lights.
Malcolm stood in the stadium.
The ghosts of cheers caressed his ears.
Bloody hands tightened around weapons.
The Slaver King’s eyes narrowed as he gazed around. Recognition bloomed. He snapped his fingers.
Malcolm was slammed back to reality.
He wasn’t in the stadium.
There were no fans.
“I giveth and so I taketh. Or something like that. I’m sorry, Malcolm, but you’re just not working out. Not being a team player. I need people that are a hundred and ten percent on board. You’re not my champion anymore. You’re fired.”
“I’m still the Undefeated Champion of the Hard Rock.”
“We’re not there, are we?”
The king was on him in two blinks of the eye.
Malcolm struck quickly, reacting through muscle memory.
Short, stabbing blade slipped underneath the king’s ribs.
It was like stabbing a steel plate, but the Skill pushed it through a few inches.
Spiked gloved tore the side of the king’s face into bloody strips.
The ghostly hands of the soul tithe pushed the blade out and knitted the ruined cheek.
In a second all that remained on pristine skin were red smears.
The king’s strikes landed an instant after.
Fist crushed Malcolm’s face.
The last sensation Malcolm felt before his vision went black was the wind whipping past him.
One of the magus’ eyes flashed, catching the dark-skinned gladiator.
“He’s breathing,” she said as she directed the eye to deposit Malcolm out of the way.
She’d have preferred to carry him to safety along with all the other wounded, but that just wasn’t an option.
The Slaver King smirked as he pulled a few teeth from his knuckles.
He bounded into their midst, ignoring the hundred slashes criss-crossing his body.
The mouthy ranger was his target.
Power Strike combined with Weight of My Grief drove him into the floor underneath the head of her flanged mace.
The tithe spent souls to heal broken bone and torn muscle in less than a second.
The ranger struck again.
This time he caught the mace in one hand.
It felt like he was trying to hold up a small hill.
A one-eyed girl caught his attention.
One side of the scrawny thing’s face was a patchwork of ugly scars surrounding an empty socket.
Not pleasant to look at, so naturally he was drawn to her eye.
The blue pupil flashed.
His elbow and knees buckled, strength suddenly sapped.
He pushed the mace to the side, spinning to land a kick into the ranger’s breastplate.
The clang deafened the closest fighters.
He lost sight of the ranger tumbling through the piles of corpses and broken furniture.
The one-eyed girl was on him in three blinks of an eye, stabbing into his gut with a sword.
She actually lifted him off his feet.
He reached down and slapped the side of her head.
Down she went, like a puppet without strings.
Still breathing.
Good.
He hadn’t wanted to kill her.
She’d be useful for his breeding program.
Dark gray blade whistled toward the side of his head.
He slipped it, losing part of his ear in the process.
A hundred cuts sprayed blood.
But they and the ear had healed by the time he bobbed under a horizontal slash to land an uppercut on the Sword of Freedom’s shield.
He was rewarded with a dull thud and the woman launched into the ceiling.
Somehow, she twisted around to plant her boots into the once pristine mural of the king and his duel with the demon. Pushing off, she shot toward him sword point aimed like a missile.
He moved out of the way at the last instant, almost a blur to the vast majority of his enemies.
A bounding leap carried him to the Blackstar 3.
Blackstar pounded his flesh with accurate blasts all along the high arc, but he powered through them, letting his dead subjects take the hurt away.
The big, tanky warrior swapped places with Blackstar to take the blow on his large, round shield.
Fists battered the shield with a flurry that overwhelmed the warrior’s Skills.
As a Gold Division fighter, the man was at least Level 40.
He lasted seconds.
The Blackstar 3 became the Blackstar 2 with one final blow.
Blackstar’s eyes widened.
The punch crashed against a magic shield.
The mage behind her cried out as the feedback popped something in her head.
Star-shaped blasts peppered the Slaver King’s face.
He grinned through it.
Cuts, bruises, broken teeth and nose… all healed almost as fast as Blackstar inflicted them.
On her knees, the mage fired off one last spell before her face hit the floor.
He fell back, vision swirling in nauseating confusion.
Warm metal wrapped around his neck, lifting him.
He kicked his legs.
Vision darkened as Hammer squeezed her massive arm.
“Fuck this ghost shit,” she closed her eyes, being inside the swarm of wailing ghosts coming out of the king’s back was wrong. It touched something deep inside her. Like, she could feel what the poor bastards felt, see some of what they had gone through, how they had died. “Don’t worry about me. Nail this fuck!”
Bullets and spells peppered the Slaver King.
“Hold fire! Melee in!” Rebekah barked.
Hanna’s blade blurred.
Fingers, arms and legs flew.
Ghostly hands pulled them back into place.
Hanna’s eyes narrowed.
She cut the ghosts with the same feeling in her heart that had freed her and the enslaved from the collars.
Face purpling, the Slaver King’s eyes widened.
He punched over his shoulder with such ferocity that his hand blurred.
Hammer’s face deformed like steel being worked on an anvil.
Her massive strength wavered.
Hanna cut through a dozen ghosts in one sweep, freeing them.
The king kicked, knocking her a dozen feet away.
He swung his legs violently, catching purchase on the floor to flip Hammer’s heavy form over him. He spun and kicked her across the hall and through a wall.
He caught up in a single bound, punching and kicking her through several walls until she crumpled a large, industrial fridge in one of the kitchens.
“I’m going to have to take you into the shop. Those dents are going to take a lot of work to hammer out.”
She remained silent.
Her jaw wasn’t moving right.
He picked a meat tenderizer and hurled it at her face.
It plinked off.
One arm hung loose.
One eye had closed.
Metallic skin was bruised, battered and split in places.
“You bleed blood. Good to know. What’s wrong? No more talk? Jaw broken?”
For an answer, she ripped the fridge from the wall and smacked him back toward the hall.
Spent, Hammer fell into that long dark hallway despite struggling to hold on.
“Incoming!” Del warned.
Megaera timed her fire pillar perfectly, blasting the king into the ceiling. Her face was frozen in fury at the death of her daughter. She willed all her grief and hatred into the man she held responsible for all of it until nothing was left.
She collapsed to her knees gasping for breath.
The Slaver King burned like a meteor falling through the atmosphere.
Flames covered his naked body, while the souls of his subjects contained to wail as they worked to douse the magic flames.
It was not done easily, nor quickly for they contained Megaera’s rage.
After what felt like an eternity he landed on his feet and sprang like a tiger.
An old woman blasted him with ineffective spells right until the moment he put his fist through her bony chest.
“Deirdre!” a young man launched himself with axe poised over his head. “Power Strike!”
The axe never reached the back of the king’s head.
Wailing ghosts wrapped a dozen hands, a hundred around it before wrenching it from the young man’s hands.
“Fodder,” he struck lazily.
The young man closed his eyes.
The blow didn’t land.
Three arrows sprouted out of the Slaver King’s arm, deflecting it just enough.
“Move, Lance!” a bald old man barked next to the archer.
The Slaver King leapt at the two fodder.
Vines slammed him into the floor.
“The Watch,” he scoffed at the man with an arm of earth and wood. “The arm’s cool though, I’m taking it,” he grasped the vines wrapped around his leg.
An electric-sheathed whip pulled his left wrist, while one on fire pulled his right.
“Furies or Heartfuries? Honestly, I’m having a hard time telling you apart with all the blood and how busted up your faces are.”
Hands grabbed his head, fingers dug into his eyes and mouth.
“Why not both?” Hayden flooded him with every last bit of her power.
Enough to light up a city.
A smoky, pork-like scent filled the air.
He bit down involuntarily, through a few of her fingers.
Iron tang splashed his tongue.
His loyal subjects shoved her away.
He healed without her power flowing through him.
“You don’t get it!” he roared. “I am the king! They serve me in life and they will serve me in death! Forever!”
Ghostly hands ripped at the bonds holding him.
The tension went slack.
He whipped Megaera and Alecto into the floor.
He’d have done the same to Max, had the man not abandoned part of his arm.
The tithe of souls continued to flow from every direction.
“All your little plans… were for nothing!”
He felt his links to every remaining slave, out to hundreds of miles.
Some failed, but the vast majority allowed him to siphon everything from them.
He had the strength of thousands and it kept growing.
“There is no forever for them. Not while I’m around,” the Sword of Freedom cut a handful free with one slash of her blade.
He moved inside her guard in a blink, ripping her shield off her arm. He grabbed her wrist, squeezing as hard as he could.
The strange armor groaned as the metal slowly, but surely deformed.
“What is this made of? Diamonds?”
A hundred blades cut him, sending red sprays flying in curved arcs.
He lifted the Sword of Freedom by her throat and cast about for a good target.
“The Watch, eh?” he smirked. “Here, why don’t you take your precious back,” he hurled her at the haggard-looking woman clad in the same dull, gray armor.
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A teary-eyed man, gaunt, deep circles under his eyes visible through his helmet pushed the woman out of the way.
The Sword of Freedom hit him like a speeding car.
They tumbled together in a ball of flailing limbs until coming to a stop fifty yards away.
Hanna gingerly disentangled herself.
She was mostly unharmed aside from the white dots in her vision.
Del, however…
“Why did you do that?” her vision blurred, she opened her faceplate to wipe her eyes. “We were safe in our armors.”
“I… saw…” Del choked as red bubbled form his mouth, painting his chin.
“Shhh, don’t— I need heals!” she cried out.
The remaining Watch rushed to their side.
“Why, Del?” Rebekah said softly.
“The king,” he coughed, “I saw him take your sword and… stab it through both of you. This way… he’s far… others… keep him busy.”
“I only have a weak H.O.T.,” Max said.
“Where’s Jake!” Hanna snapped.
He had to have a few heals in one of his phones.
“Out,” Alexa said, staring at nothing, “he had to use everything to stop Amber from bleeding out. We pulled them to the bathroom. Trevor’s watching them.”
“Okay, we’ll have to set your bones first. Hang on, Del. This is going to hurt,” Rebekah said.
“I don’t feel anything,” Del coughed.
He wheezed a handful of wet breaths before falling silent and still.
Hanna didn’t stick around, she threw herself back into the fray.
Luther Collins, a mix of man and machinery, emptied two assault rifles into the charging Slaver King. He cast the guns aside and thrust a mechanical hand out into the king’s bare chest.
The force spell punched the king across the great hall’s expanse.
The one shot spell unit fell smoking to the floor.
Together with Jake and his son they had figured out how to let it draw energy from the power source in his chest that drove his mechanical limbs and organs.
Luther, Gearlok, sagged as the ever present hum of his internal engine weakened.
The king didn’t give him time to recover.
Strong hands overpowered Luther’s mechanical arm, ripping it with contemptuous ease.
The king grabbed his flesh and blood arm.
“Think of how much better you’d be with two of them,” he grinned. “Double the firepower. I’ll make use of you after we reprogram your brain. No idea how, but we’ll figure it out, right?” he glanced back.
Colin ran to the aid of his father, spraying bullets with desperation rather than skill.
The king kicked Colin aside.
“Where was I?” the king stared into Luther’s eyes.
“You’ll have to fuck with my head to make me serve you.”
“That’s… that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Like, I told you.”
The arm tore at the elbow with wet sound.
Luther didn’t give him the satisfaction of making a sound.
A dozen dark-skinned young women suddenly appeared around the two.
Blades sliced and pistols fired.
“This is new,” the king cast Luther aside. “Did you level up, ‘Shootystabby’? Terrible name by the way.”
They all remained silent.
Mouth closed, eyes focused.
Twelve blades scored twelves thin lines through the ghosts sprouting from the king’s back like blades of grass.
Twelve pistols didn’t miss.
96 bullets struck the king’s body.
96 bullets were pushed out a second later.
The king clapped his hands.
A shockwave washed over the twelve young women.
Eleven flickered.
“Found you,” the king pounced.
Dayana flickered.
Too slow.
The king caught her by the back of her neck and lifted her to his face like a wriggling kitten.
She flickered, but his grip remained strong and steady.
He spun her around to block the incoming spray of sharp rocks.
The caster canceled the spell before it could hit her teammate.
“Punchy, you’ve looked better,” the king said.
The fair-skinned young woman shrugged. “Lost the arm,” she waved the blackened stump, “killed a vampire lord or is it vampire lord or maybe vampire lord or mayb—” she punched the floor.
A wall of earth shot up between him and Dayana.
He held on as the wall broke around his arm.
A hundred cuts suddenly spiraled up his arm to his fingers.
His grip loosened.
The instant was enough for Dayana to kick off the wall to free herself.
She flickered around to his back, stabbing deep into a kidney despite ghostly hands trying to hold her blade back.
The hands grasped, but she flickered out of their reach, gasping for air a few dozen yards away.
A young woman clad in steel armor rushed the Slaver King.
Small arcs of blue-white electricity played across the battered and blood-stained steel.
“Looking tired there, Sparky. You gave it a good shot, but, as you can see,” he gestured to his head, “skin’s as fresh and smooth as a baby’s.”
Hayden lunged with a wordless shout.
“While you’re running on empty,” he slapped her clumsy tackle aside and spun her around, slipping an arm around her neck and sticking a finger through her helmet’s eye slit. “You should’ve worn something with thinner openings,” he slipped his finger into her eye.
She screamed as her eye popped like a grape.
“As easy as slipping into a wet pussy,” he laughed. “That’ll be a reminder of what it means to go against your master. Every time you look in the mirror you’ll remember your place. Hmm… that’s a good idea for the participants of the program. Every chick loses an eye… nah, needlessly cruel. I’ll have to save it as a serious-level punishment. A stick, not a carrot,” he tossed her over his shoulder like an empty burger wrapper. “Stay down or I pop the other one.”
He turned to take care of the last of the trio only to stare down the barrel of a .50 cal rifle.
“Eat dick, puto,” the tats on the glowing skin with the man’s skeleton visible made for a fearsome sight.
A grieving ranger braced her hands against the glowing man’s back. Blood leaked from her mouth, but she glared at the Slaver King.
Thunder cracked inside the great hall for what felt like the dozenth time this night.
The impact struck the king like a falling mountain.
The barrel exploded.
X-Ray and Mouthy went flying back despite the superhuman strength the former had taken from dozens of spells and the latter’s Skill.
“Get up, taint! He’s not done!” Mouthy snapped.
X-Ray groaned.
The glow had faded almost to nothing.
“You’re going to take my grief and use it to fuck him up!” she jabbed a finger at the king, who was pulling himself out of a distant wall.
“Fuck you, sergeant!” he spat blood. “I ain’t about to get all your feelings and shit. Hey, princess! Hit me up with some of that magic.”
Swan Princess regarded him like a turd on the floor.
“Do it, but save some for yourself. We’re the only rangers in here and I’m fucking sharing.” Mouthy regarded the few fighters remaining standing. “Listen up! If any of you got any magic left, I need you to shoot it into this power bottom,” she pointed at X-Ray.
The two remaining furies, half dead, hit him with fire and lightning.
Alexa’s blast of pale, pink wreathed in unsettling black disappeared into his back.
The Watch emptied the last of their spell phones.
Blackstar raised a fist.
“Hold up! Not you!” X-Ray waved his hands.
The glow intensified, radiating a kaleidoscope of colors from the mingled spell energy.
X-Ray resembled nothing less than an irradiated skeleton wrapped in glowing light in the shape of a man as he thundered toward the king.
“Underestimated you,” he had time to get out before X-Ray knocked him back into the wall with a lowered shoulder.
Booming punches rocked the king and sent broken debris tumbling in the shockwaves.
Ghostly hands tried to block X-Ray’s fists.
The two traded furious punches for a long minute until X-Ray faltered.
The king caught his fist. “How’d you fit that big ass gun in a phone?”
“Fuck if I know,” X-Ray spat, headbutting the king.
They traded until X-Ray wobbled after one clipped his temple.
He staggered back.
The king rushed in, but was forced to retreat when a spell orb zipped past his face, spitting acid.
“Princess,” he nodded as the melted flesh healed.
Swan Princess used the last of her mana on a handful of spell orbs.
Ghostly hands snatched them out of the air before they could do more than spit a few measly spells at the king.
He bounded across the distance.
Dozens of yards with frightening speed.
Mouthy met him with a bent mace.
The blow broke bones in the kings face and her hand.
Only one of them healed.
His hand darted out like a striking viper, grasping her face, crushing the metal of her helmet. “Grief huh? I’ll save it for the interrogation.”
She punched him, shattering her other hand.
“God damn,” the king pushed his jaw back into place. “You hit a lot harder than you look like you should,” he shifted his grip to her throat and squeezed.
Mouthy’s legs kicked. She pounded broken hands on the king’s extended arm while her eyes rolled into the back of her head.
The blade cut.
The arm fell… until ghostly hands pulled it back into place.
Swan Princess tried to drag Mouthy back.
Glowing arms wrapped around the king’s stomach.
The blade flashed across his neck.
He went for a ride, head cratering the hardwood floor.
X-Ray held on.
Up and down.
The king crashed again.
Twice more with the floor breaking suplex.
The glow faded.
A burst of strength broke glowing fingers.
X-Ray scrambled to his feet.
The king clapped his hands with the ranger’s head in the middle.
“Like a ripe tomato,” the king wiped the red mess off on X-Ray’s chest, marring the tattoo.
The glow cooled and faded.
“I cut your head off,” Hanna said.
“Did you? I’ll take your word for it,” the king shrugged.
Rebekah advanced from the other side, firing her last magazine, using the last of her Skills.
The king was too powerful, too high level compared to her.
He shrugged of her suppression.
The bolt clicked on empty.
Hanna danced in behind her whirling blade.
Each cut freed a soul or at least a piece of one.
“They are mine!” the king lashed out.
The blow was a blur even to her.
Her vision went black for a moment despite the Threnosh-made armor’s anti-impact systems.
Time enough for the king to reach Rebekah.
She had discarded her empty carbine for an axe.
He caught her power strike like it was a light tap.
Grabbing her wrist he punched her in the face.
The blow cracked the faceplate and made her see stars.
Another blow cracked her ribs and stole her air.
The Threnosh-made armor let the wearer walk away from being hit by a speeding car with nary a bruise.
The king was going to punch her to death.
A baseball streaked through the air, carving a long cut through the ghosts as it curved down his back.
Alexa had returned with Trevor in tow.
“Shit! He’s got a final form! What the actual fuck!”
“Shut up and throw stuff!” Alexa snapped.
The lanky man hurled his remaining baseballs, cutting and burning through the ghosts to get through to the king.
Max used the distraction to grab the semi-conscious Rebekah with his vines and pull her to him before retreating.
Out of baseballs and projectiles, Trevor resorted to grabbing anything he could reach.
Knives, forks, spoons, plates, glasses, bowls and food filled the air.
The king sliced through it like a shark through water.
He lifted Trevor by the front of the lanky man’s armor.
“Aw, fuck,” Trevor muttered.
“You’re… whatever,” the king carried Trevor over to a pot of soup at one of the side stations. It had been left by the servers when the fight had started. “Still hot,” he dunked Trevor’s head.
Was he being petty and unnecessarily cruel?
Yes.
They owed him for ruining what should’ve been his most triumphant night.
Now he was staring at a long rebuild.
It was a downer.
All the hard work of the last year and a half, ruined by a bunch of sanctimonious weaklings.
How dare they try to destroy something that actually worked.
“The New American Republic won’t fall to the jealous masses,” he said to no one in particular.
The lanky man’s struggles slowed.
The bubbles floating to the surface of the lobster bisque dwindled.
“Just because you couldn’t build something as great as I did,” he shook his head. “You people are deplorable, always trying to tear down those that dare to rise above your mediocrity. Well, this is the spires world. Excellence is rewarded. It is tangible. There is no more ambiguity. The great level. You’re kind can no longer make excuses.”
Metal screamed.
The bottom of the pot emptied.
Trevor puked.
Hanna laid the king’s back open through the wailing ghosts.
She stopped her next strike before it could cut Trevor’s bisque-covered face.
The king pushed Trevor forward like a shield.
She was forced to spin away lest she cut Trevor or allow the king to break his body on her armor.
She flared her aura, cutting at the king’s arm.
“Damn you!” he cursed, forced to let go. “Every time!”
She launched a flurry of cuts and thrusts. Dull gray blade working with her aura.
It was as though an entire company of the greatest sword fighters in the world swarmed over a single man.
Each cut and thrust hurt the king and freed a stolen soul piece.
She noticed it then.
The wounds weren’t closing as fast as before.
The king scrambled for distance.
Jayde tripped him with a low wall of dirt.
Hanna descended like an angry angel.
Fury for those the king had taken from her blazed in her eyes.
He slapped his hands together, catching the sword point mere inches from his face.
Blood dripped into an aye.
Her aura sliced his hands and fingers.
The sword slipped lower as she pushed all her hatred down onto it.
From yards away, Jayde punched the ground with a whoop.
A pillar of earth burst from the floor, pushing the king’s head up.
The blade pierced his eye with a satisfying squelch.
Hanna vibrated her sword, turning his brain to pureed mush.
His arms went slack.
The ghosts wailed.
“It’s not finished!” the magus warned.
The Slaver King came to life with a burst of violence.
Striking Hanna a dozen times in a second, sending her careening into a pile of debris.
“That was not enough damage to destroy the thousands I hold within me,” the king pulled the blade free and tossed it to Hanna. “Do you have anything left?”
The magus’ remaining eyes flashed.
The king endured the minute’s long barrage until the magus had nothing left.
She fell to the floor, clutching her head, leaking blood from her head holes.
“I know you can see it, magus. More than anyone else here. The souls of my subjects flowing into me. You’ve cost me thousands, but I have many more to take.”
“You kill your own people. You’ve sworn to protect them. You are nothing. Just another tyrant. One among the countless small men to have disgraced this world with their existence. You will be consigned to your proper place in history after you die.”
“From where I’m standing it’s looking like I’ll be the one writing all this down. Don’t worry, I’ll be accurate. Unlike you revisionists. If I remember correctly the shithole region of the world you come from is all about tyranny and dictators. Like, going back hundreds of years. I mean, we had to keep going over there to take care of your dictators and you still kept fucking it up.”
“You’re the cause of all those problems. You placed those men in power so that you could take our resources for a fraction of their worth.”
“That’s how the world works. The strong take from the weak. Don’t like it? Get strong,” he shrugged. “Now, I notice that you’re down an eye. Are you the Magus of the Nine Eyes now? Why don’t we make that eight. To show my magnanimity, I’ll let you pick. Which one is your least favorite?”
“I refuse,” the magus willed the dregs of her mana to life.
A red-pupiled monster eye flashed, searing half the king’s torso into a blackened mess of steaming flesh and weeping blood.
As the magus collapsed the eyes laid around her like a pack of puppies.
A wall of earth barred his path to the fallen magus.
Jayde breathed deeply.
“I can just tear this down,” he sighed.
“Distraction,” she muttered.
Hanna cut.
The king roared.
He clubbed her to the floor.
He raised a foot to stomp on the back of her armored head.
A stone pillar punched him into the air, through the broken skylight and up nearly a thousand feet into the lashing rain and whipping wind.
“Send me,” Hanna said.
“All I’ve got left,” Jayde punched the ground and passed out.
Hanna soared.
She cut the king as her ascent met his descent.
He reached out and grabbed her ankle, pulling her close.
She stabbed and cut, while he crushed and punched.
They hit something in midair.
A platform of what looked like hardened water.
Not ice.
Water.
A figure stood nearby, partially hidden by the darkness and curtain of rain.
Red lighting flashed to reveal a towering mass of hard, bronzed muscle holding a massive obsidian axe like a flag.
“No man shall own another,” Tlaloc said.
Lightning pounded the Slaver King into the floor, freeing stolen souls with each strike.
A dozen strikes charged the air inside the great hall.
The axe fell from the sky like a meteor.
The Slaver King screamed as it cleaved through his elbow.
Ghosts wavered and vanished as they touched the axe.
Tlaloc zoomed to the axe and whirled it over his head.
Hanna landed a moment later, sword poised.
They struck together.
“Stop!”
Axe and sword halted over the Slaver King.
Tlaloc and Hanna strained, but they couldn’t budge the invisible hands holding their weapons back.
“Contemptible person,” Tlaloc growled.
“Cal? Why?” Hanna pleaded.
“He’ll die. That is a guarantee, but he needs to do it in a way that’ll at least start the healing process for all his victims.”
“He’s hurt and killed so many!” Hanna’s voice bared her anguish. “They’re gone forever. He did that!” she snarled.
“Then you understand why his death needs to be seen by every survivor. That thing you’re feeling. Imagine how it’ll linger in the thousands out there if you kill him now. It’ll eat away at their souls more than he already has, festering into something ugly that they’ll carry with them and spread to others. His legacy lasting longer than it should.”
“Talking about me like I’m already dead, I’ll—”
The Slaver King’s mouth snapped shut.
Eyes bulged.
Muscles in his neck and face strained.
Silence.
“It might be enough for some to know that he met his just end, but it won’t be like that for all. Would it for you?”
“I will hold you responsible if he escapes the true justice,” Tlaloc said. He pulled his axe back and rested it on his shoulder. He pressed a massive foot on the Slaver King’s chest. “Give me an excuse to crush you like the insect you are.”
“C’mon, Hanna,” Cal pleaded. “The fight isn’t over. Monsters are still out there killing people, some are innocent. People killing people. Not all deserve it. I need you out there.”
“What about him?”
“He’s done.”
The king’s eyes fluttered and closed.
“Trapped in a nightmare of his own making. I told you, he’ll pay for what he’s done from this moment till his last.”
“Fine!” Hanna snapped. “We need healers. Amber’s hurt bad.”
“Me too,” Jayde waved her charred stump weakly from where she lay on the floor.
“They’re on their way.”
“Where do you need me?”
“Rangers need help defending a nursery from monsters. I need to deal with a demon, but I’ll drop you off on the way. Tlaloc—”
The tower waved a ham-sized hand dismissively. “I will protect the wounded and I will make sure this scum,” he kicked the Slaver King, “can do no more harm.”
“Thanks,” Cal floated into the sky with Hanna in tow.