The more they fought against Randidly Ghosthound, the more he looked less like a living being and more like an avatar of violence. Beatrice could feel it; she could see the way his form had been designed and streamlined in a thousand life or death situations.

Any one of those could have ended him. A single failure would have meant his light was extinguished. But a thousand successes? A thousand moments of death deferred?

There was something almost magical about the improbability of it. Magical and dreadful. That he could face their strongest strikes, clash again and again against their most powerful images, and grin like the experience had only whetted his appetite.

Beatrice felt like a hand had reached into her heart and mind and scooped out most of the important decision-making bits. She felt herself falling to her knees underneath the pressure that the Ghosthound threw out, but she was still conscious. Her fingers twitched but it was difficult to imagine gathering enough Willpower for another burst of image.

Essentially, she could watch.

The group clustered around the Ghosthound’s form, now warped with the power of the Grey Creature. His movements became alien, shifting between stillness and completion of a task without much concern for acceleration between two points. His spear swayed and flexed, the rapid physical movements he executed straining even the living weapon.

Alana and Kimpap surged forward to counter him and strike at the emotional weakness of the Grey Creature. The Expiran’s spear when high and the Tellus warrior swept low. Once again, Alana activated her Mortal’s Anguish for a third time, her evolved Revelation curling out rust-colored flames from her body. More weeping specters of death flitted out from Kimpap. All together, the Ghosthound faced off against a dozen spear users.

That horrid smile stretched wider. His mental pulse stilled Beatrice’s heart.

The Ashen Doors to Pandemonium Unlock. Revelation of the Atramentous Threshold. Darkness Withers the Horizon and the Waiting Carrion Grins.

Beatrice could barely catch his movements. Mostly, she just saw the shattered remnants of his opponents crack and collapse. She heard the rustling of the canopy of Yggdrasil and then what might be a laugh and might be the shriek of a raven.

His body jerked forward. From stillness, execution. A death phantom took a spear to the chest.

Another had its throat slit but a whirling sweep that positioned the Ghosthound to fight Alana directly.

After deflecting Alana’s fiery thrust, and sending the whole of her image momentum staggering backward, the Ghosthound chopped and severed her left leg in the shin. He jerked the butt of his spear backward and cracked the real Kimpap in the sternum while she floated just a hair too close. The Tellus warrior watched with bulging eyes while being tossed backward, unable to believe what she was experiencing.

These two moves gave her created death phantasms time to strike, but the Ghosthound twitched and avoided the strikes effortlessly. Then his spear reaped left and right, demolishing the remaining foes. Alana’s shortened leg hit the ground and she grimaced. The flesh skidded over the stone and left a trail of blood. Opposite her, Kimpap crashed onto the ground and grunted.

Beatrice wondered why they had ever thought they could challenge him. Her remaining will to fight died. Her head and heart ached.

However, the rest of the team of eight hadn’t given in yet. With the small opening granted by the two spear users, Hank Howard and Drake moved in to engage in close combat. Hank, in particular, burned with a strange whistling song that reminded Beatrice of hopeless standoffs and sweaty gunfights underneath the desert sun. Due to the context, the Ballad of the Last Cowboy rose to a fever pitch that manage to briefly restrain the pressure of the Ghosthound’s image.

She could feel how this was all connected, all these struggles built tension, but it would be worth it. In a way, hearing the Ballad of Hank Howard injected a little bit more hope into Beatrice’s body.

Hank raised and fired several bullets from his repeater. The Ghosthound’s spear cut them down as they came, throwing off a few sparks but completely crushing Hank’s image when it dared move too near. Drake gripped his sizzling sword with both hands, his emotional force tightening into a near physical form in the weapon. The two circled closer, moving out of the restrictive Nether into the eye of the storm.

Beatrice knew Drake was shifting the form of his Chimeric Fate to a new, more dangerous form. It had been one of the methods that they had strategized to actually wound their target.

“Yur scary as shit,” Hank laughed as he holstered his repeater. The Ghosthound chuckled in response. Both blurred into motion at the same time. Drake’s eyes flashed and the light from his weapon grew increasingly clear.

Even with the boost of the narrative, facing off against a monstrous villain, Hank Howard was barely able to prepare for the Ghosthound’s offensive. He raised his fists into a boxer’s stance, his pistol gripped in his right hand. He didn’t even appear to want to use the revolver as a projectile weapon. He threw a one-two with blistering speed, boosted by the narrative power of the confrontation.

Eyes gleaming, the Ghosthound stalked closer. His tails flicked back and forth and his weapon turned into a serpentine form that wrapped around his arm as he took his own fighting stance. Almost as soon as he settled, his leg blurred upward. Hank ducked below the strike, seeming to have predicted it. He used that momentum to step forward and bring around a vicious left hook that slammed against his opponent’s side.

His image funneled itself into a tight spiral, almost a drill, ripping into the Ghosthound. This was the moment that things all began to turn, the song promised. The rising crescendo swore they would pry open a possibility of success.

The Ghosthound didn’t even seem to notice the strike. All that image power scraped against him and dispersed, unable to overwhelm his Chimeric Impunity. Hank swore quietly and stepped back, bringing his revolver up for an up-close and personal shot. The interaction was blindingly fast; one moment the two images seemed equal, the next one had expended itself and the Ghosthound remained unphased.

A half-second too late, Drake stepped forward to try and help.

The Ghosthound used that massive left arm to catch one of Hank’s brutally fast draw. A tug pulled Hank closer. The Ghosthound squeezed and broke the back of the heroic, rising song of his image and then crumpled his opponent’s wrist and weapon. Drake arrived just as he was tossing the cowboy to the side.

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Drake’s weapon had become positively incandescent; whatever emotional training he had done with Azriel appeared to have paid dividends. The Ghosthound rounded, boldly wearing the face of the Grey Creature to face their assault. Acri blurred into motion in a vicious thrust to skewer Drake through the stomach.

Alana came roaring back from the side in a blast of golden flames so bright that Beatrice lost all but movement and silhouettes in the light. Yet Alana’s determined voice remained clear. “The Fourth Revelation: Seeking Divinity!”

This is the chance. Beatrice blinked. Some more life seeped back into her limbs. Hank might have been tossed away, but the seed of hope he planted remained. She forced herself to kneel. A small kernel of a note began to roll around in her chest. With Alana and Drake striking at the same time, this is the moment we need to wound him.

Within the light, there was movement.

The impact of Alana and the Ghosthound knocked Beatrice off her knees and onto her back. Her skull cracked against the pillar and she rolled over backward several times. When she tumbled to a stop, she coincidentally was looking back toward the action, suddenly about twenty meters away. Alana was falling backward, her light smothered. Drake’s bright tipped sword sought the Ghosthound, but the monster slid sideways.

Every movement of his was hyper quick and polished. While the Ghosthound danced his horrible waltz of violence amongst them, the others looked ungainly and pained. The sword thrust hit nothing but air and the Ghosthound raised his spear and demonstrated the proper form. But a new voice interceded before the attack could land.

“Titan Slaying Fist!”

The ground ruptured, the stone pillar beneath them all exploding in a mass of debris chaotic force. Suddenly, Beatrice tumbled through the air. It took until a fist-size piece of rock knocked against her forehead for some wakefulness to return.

The crippled Paolo had brought his fist down on the pillar, right before Drake had been stabbed. Azriel made one thing clear- Drake was the one with the largest chance to successfully wound the Ghosthound. The rest could be overcome physically or worn down with a superior image from the Ghosthound. Only the emotional intensity possessed by Drake could pierce forward.

However, that goal felt suddenly very far away right now. Everything fell to pieces. The air around Beatrice was filled with chunks of stone of different sizes. Nether howled through the small gaps between stone, masking all other images or movements. Honestly, she didn’t even know where-

A body crashed downward a few meters to her right, obliterating some stones and sending others careening in random directions with the force of its passage. Mostly it was a blur of stone dust and momentum, but Beatrice was able to make out Paolo before he shot off, crashing loudly into the ground of the Little Moon below them.

Suppressing a shiver, Beatrice looked up through the cleared path left by Paolo’s body. The Ghosthound floated there, his eyes so vicious their emerald color bled into the surrounding space. His two tails flicked back and forth as he measured Beatrice with his eyes. It felt like he would come for her next.

Her breath was locked in her chest from his attention. So quickly they had dwindled down. Hong Li had been crushed almost immediately, with Alana sustaining progressively more injuries over the course of the challenge. Kimpap had been beaten back, Paolo had been smacked away, Hank’s arm and revolver had been shattered to pieces. Drake, the intended attacker, still remained relatively uninjured. But on his own, it would be almost impossible for him to land a decisive strike on the Grey Creature.

Beatrice felt that single note rolling around in her stomach. The Ghosthound rolled his shoulders and she felt alarm building within her. The crumbling debris of the destroyed pillar tumbled in slow motion around them. She felt weightless and unmoored. It had to be her. For a single moment, she needed to pin him down and create an opportunity.

Nether squeezed her, threatening to pop her fleshy body open. Yet she resisted. She wanted to know the feeling of power. And to Beatrice, the ultimate power seemed to be able to accomplish something when you set your mind to it.

She would do this-

A shadow flickered sideways, making a beeline for the Ghosthound. Illdan, blood still leaking out of the holes in his side and thigh, raised his spear. An enormous specter spread out from his person; his image shimmered with power and determination. The Ghosthound finally moved his gaze away, focusing on this new threat. Beatrice sucked in an instinctive breath and that was all the time it took for the Ghosthound to shred Illdan’s image and bring his massive left fist hammering down on Illdan’s skull.

A single spear thrust to demolish this young man’s accumulation. A fist to knock him out of the challenge and keep him from rising again.

“Protect!” Beatrice shrieked. Her image ripped itself out of her chest with all of her remaining strength. With more strength than she could spare. It was everything she possessed, all her dreams and long glances and small miscommunications with Illdan. For a brief moment, the Ghosthound’s fist slowed, just slightly. When his fist encountered the barrier, it did provide some protection.

Illdan’s skull didn’t crack open like a bloody egg. But his body did shoot backward like it had been hit with a baseball bat. Very audibly, he crashed into the ground and dug a deep trench.

Drake slashed sideways out of the rubble. In terms of opportunities, this was the best they would get right now. That searing note lingered at the tip of his bastard sword. The Ghosthound glanced sideways. Then a few of the spines on his left arm shivered and split open.

A wave of shadowy fire, keening with a horrifying funeral dirge and gathered around a withered flower, exploded outward. Drake’s emotional affect flared to its highest degree, cutting its way through this sudden and unfamiliar attack.

But after ripping his way through the curtain of shadowy fire, the Ghosthound was gone. Drake whipped around, but the Ghosthound’s spear took him in the back. Before he could even respond, the Ghosthound’s lower tail snaked out and wrapped around Drake’s bastard sword. With a soft crunch, the weapon was broken and tossed aside.

Beatrice must have lost consciousness because the sensation of bouncing off the ground suddenly dominated her body. Every joint ached and several large chunks of stone smacked against her as the rest of the pillar collapsed around her.

Coughing, she pushed herself up through the cloud of stone dust. The Ghosthound floated down some distance away, riding on a gust of wind that blew the dust away. But to Beatrice’s surprise, someone waited for him there, standing upright.

Alana Donal, standing on one leg with blood oozing from the stump of her severed shin, propped herself up against her spear. Her eyes burned. Two pure white wings spread wide and flapped. With the rising cloak of golden fire around her, she seemed about to ascend to Valhalla. “We aren’t done. Not yet. I’ve waited too long for this chance.”

The Ghosthound just looked at her. His eyes were so intense that Beatrice had to blink and look away.

“The Fifth Revelation-” Alana said through gritted teeth. But when she opened her mouth again, she just coughed out blood. Bewildered, she looked down at her chest. The shaft of the Ghosthound’s spear was embedded in her torso. The monstrous opponent they all faced studied Alana’s face.

Beatrice hadn’t even seen him move. Neither had Alana.

He shook his head. “You aren’t ready to adjust your image again. Not yet. For today… you’ve lost. All of you.”

Something changed in the air. When he said those words, he made it true.

He pivoted on his feet, his eyes finding them all. Beatrice noticed Kimpap and Hong Li pushing themselves out of the rubble nearby. The others all wearily rose to their feet. Then he turned his sharp gaze on some of the floating drones.

“Do you see? Can you feel the gulf between us?” The Ghosthound spread his arms. His lip curled. "Without me as a shield, the entire Alpha Cosmos will be devoured by someone more powerful than me. Until someone out there manages to track down these eight and defeat them all... let's put these complaints to rest."