Ten seconds into his transformation, and Silenos estimated he had eighteen remaining. He’d gotten faster. That was interesting, and logical. He supposed he’d never practised Fleshcrafting at any great speed before, never felt the need to grow better, there had always been other Shaiagrazni to buy him time or fight in his place. It was promising to know he’d be less reliant on such guards with time. But not immediately helpful.

Seventeen seconds remaining, and Swick the Swift, the translocating man Silenos now realised had freed Galukar, made a second appearance. This time he lunged, the man’s knife came down with a furious haste upon the shackles holding Arion. Those, Silenos saw, were by far the frailest, focusing on simply immobilising the magus’ arms and fingers. Without those he could not focus his magic, and thus cast. It didn’t take long for the metal to be eroded by the newcomer, and he was leaping from the wall amid a wall of thrown air, scattering several nearby undead that had not yet turned to brace themselves.

Twelve seconds, and Swick the Swift had disappeared again. Galukar was backing away from a trio of towering undead, fending off weapons with his bare hands, wincing as trickles of blood wept from every finger-deep cut left in his meaty arms by scraping blades or rebounding maces.

The King had impressed Silenos, in regards to strength alone, but even his might was not inexhaustible, and without a weapon there was little he could do against three enemies of such calibre simultaneously. His fist caught one, tossing it back with a dented helm even as the remaining two marked his body yet again, and Silenos’ eyes were snatched to Falls by his latest idiot apprentice’s scream.

He was running, the imbecile, towards Ensharia. She was of course the last of them to remain bound, and her restraints looked perhaps as thick as King Galukar’s. Even with three limbs free Silenos was unsure she’d break them. Falls had come within a few metres of her when he caught the sight of Necromantic magic building from the corner of his eye.

It was the Necromancer, of course, and her power was flowing from where she hid behind a pair of enormous, six-limbed reanimates clad in black plate armour. The distilled darkness of shadestuff congealed between her palms for just a moment before she cast it after the magus.

Falls was still running, his hands held together and gathering magic in a way Silenos knew must have spurred on the enemy’s attention. He turned just as he came to stand before Ensharia, revealing his face to Silenos a moment before the shadestuff impacted.

He had expected to see terror, panic, fear. Instead he saw only victory. Arion Falls projected his wall of air out at a sloped angle before himself, letting the shadestuff impact, then splash just as Silenos’ had when he’d cast it at magus Walriq. This time the substance was deflected into Ensharia’s binds, at least one globule hitting each band of steel and melting them through like piranha solution being doused over meat.

Nine seconds, and Ensharia’s bonds were breaking as Falls redirected the mach-zero-point-one winds from the breached wall into cleaving blades bouncing jaggedly from what was left of the metal. She dropped down, landed hard on her feet, then turned as the Necromancer’s bodyguards joined the fight. Their master was leaving, and Silenos missed his hasty attempt to destroy her with his cannon before she could turn around a corner. The room was nothing but undead and allies, at that.

Eight seconds. Ensharia had seized a piece of steel from her destroyed bonds, perhaps five centimetres wide, three thick and thirty or so long. It was not jagged enough to be a knife, but the sheer weight made it a serviceable bludgeon as she swung at the enemy, backing off from them while Falls provided aid with his winds. Jets of air knocking them from their feet, blocking swings, occasionally channelled from the breach to add power and speed to his magic. It was clear, regardless, that their fight was a losing one.

Six seconds, and Silenos expanded his arcane sight to search the castle, desperately peering past its ambient magic for any sign of that inexhaustible power he’d seen in Galukar’s hands. The Godblade made itself known quickly. Their weapons, of course, had been confiscated upon their capture, but if Silenos’ guess was correct, the “divine” weapon that gave King Galukar his strength was likely stored along with the others. He called out its location, just before his throat finished reconfiguring past the point of speech.

Three seconds, and Silenos saw the others reacting to his words, turning. Falls managed one step towards the door that led to their weaponry, Ensharia four, Galukar five. There was no sign of the captain, Swick the Swift, until an undead looked to be in-line to intercept Ensharia. Then he dropped beside it, knifing the thing just as unexpectedly as any others and disappearing before it could retaliate.

One second. Silenos had to fight the urge to move, now, knowing his body’s reforming state would be delayed and prolonged if he exerted any great force upon it prior to its finishing.

Ensharia was at the door first, Falls second, Galukar third a moment later. The three of them disappeared down the hall pursued by one undead after another. But only four managed to actually follow, the fifth was slammed against the wall as Silenos’ combat form finally reached completion and he lunged forwards like a striking viper.

Almost ten thousand kilograms of keratin and muscle pinned it in place, crushing metal plates inwards and bursting the undead’s body like a grape between molars. Then Silenos spun, his whip twisting around to take the head off of another as it hurried to strike from behind. While the weapon reared back, he raised his cannon, letting its bell-shaped multi shot exit in a spray that eviscerated two more undead. From the corner of his eye he saw animated armour spilling into the room, suits charging him by the dozen.

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Good, he thought. All the more enemies to finally vent his true power against.

Leading the suits of armour was a figure which practically glowed with magic, most of which was not Necromantic in nature. The reanimated Sir Olstick, he imagined, moving in with a two-handed sword that came for Silenos like a guillotine blade. He didn’t even bother blocking, just let the metal bite into his shoulder.

Back in the lands of House Shaiagrazni, Silenos’ war form would come into battle equipped in armour made by other Named more specialised in metallurgy and crafting. Alloys able to weather the screaming heat of a star’s surface, or mountain-cracking detonations. He could not make them himself, but in their absence, Silenos’ combat form would be charging into battle naked. He had put the six thousand additional kilograms of mass suddenly freed up by that to good use.

Eleven centimetres of keratin composites caught the sword, leaving its edge stuck fast. Silenos dragged himself to one side, forcing the undead to twist and turn as his weapon was dragged along behind him, then suddenly reversing his motion. The nacre lance engulfing Silenos’ right arm ate the metal around Sir Oltick’s right side, barely missing the reanimate’s innards as it dodged back with all the speed of a whip. Suits of armour closed in around them as the undead Knight retreated. Silenos had no time to be dealing with them, and certainly not pinned down. He crouched and jumped, firing jets of explosive gel beneath him as he did and managing to propel himself almost to the five-metre ceiling. When he landed, it was like an artillery impact.

Steel was not a match for the kinds of forces his reunion with the ground induced, and Silenos saw several of the animated suits actually topple over around it. Balance broken as the ground shook. The Knight was back, however, and well timed in his return. Leaping over his shoulders, grabbing the handle of his sword and wrenching it free in one swing. He dragged its edge across Silenos’ back armour thrice before even landing, then lunged back out of range before Silenos could turn again.

More undead came in to replace him, cudgelling and striking at a frenzy.

He ignored the impacts, less than pinpricks against his armour. Easier to breach the hull of an ironclad warship than Silenos’ combat form, easier to kill its crew than wound the mind beneath. Everywhere Silenos swung, another enemy was disabled. His cannon belching storms of bony projectiles to rip apart bodies and detach limbs, killing a half dozen enemies with every other second. Whip, lance, sheer muscularity all proving weapons deadlier than any other present.

And then the bolt of lighting struck him.

Silenos stumbled, mass somehow sent off-kilter by the sheer exothermic impact of electricity bleeding into heat and pressure against his shoulder. He did not feel pain, but his Fleshcrafting senses had been deeply infused through every cell of his body, and he was well aware that centimetres of his armour had been charred and sheared from the point of contact.

Lightning was a deadly thing. Unlikely to kill in nature, largely for the fact that most who were struck by it did not catch the main, inch-wide fork of plasma that composed the stuff’s body. When something did, the results were spectacular. Burning keratin filled Silenos’ nostrils, and he sensed the proteins denaturing around where he’d been struck. Heat in the order of twenty thousand kelvins was bad enough, the fact that megapascals of pressure were induced immediately around it as air was forcibly displaced only worsened things.

Righting himself, Silenos exerted his will and forced muddling thoughts into a state of coherence. The Knight, Oltick, was charging again, and Silenos considered his other enemies. The Belladonnan Puppeteer he’d seen dancing with the Necromancer was clearly the one responsible for the lightning, no caster short of that could conjure such a potent bolt, which meant that he likely had a good few moments before being struck again.

A morning star caught the plate he’d felt struck by lightning, and Silenos spun to snatch the wielder’s unlife. It was out of reach by the time he did, then a sting caught him. Sharp, intense, not the mere cerebral alert of damaged armour, his actual body had been wounded. Silenos found the Knight’s enchanted blade lodged between sheets of keratin about his leg, and once more Oltick was back before he could crush him. Silenos waited for the Knight to retreat further, then unloaded his cannon. It missed, but took a satisfying chunk of metal and meat from one shoulder.

Then the second blast of lightning came. It was aimed perfectly, and timed even better, striking the exact same place as the first. Silenos felt the armour burned and crushed until it was so thin that he felt the heat upon his skin beneath it. More undead, more armour, and the Knight. They struck from all sides, and more than one caught the new vulnerability in his body. He killed and killed, then killed some more. Conjuring shadestuff to melt apart several at a time, dousing more with flames and watching as they fell apart under their own high-speed movements, even simply bifurcating one when it avoided his swing by one moment too little.

Silenos fought so violently, that it fully slipped his mind he was merely buying time.

King Galukar let his presence be known by taking off Sir Oltick’s arm from behind, Godblade cutting so forcefully that sheer strength compensated for the bluntness of its edge. Before the limb had even hit the ground, its owner was kicked and launched high overhead to clatter down at the far side of the room. Before he could rise, Swick the Swift was dropping down once more upon him, knife thrust through his eye slit and making short work of the enfeebled enemy before he blinked out of sight again.

A gust of wind was thrown from the outside, knocking several more suits of armour down, just as Ensharia fell upon an undead and stove its knee in with her mace. Silenos took the opportunity to conjure another wall of shadestuff and let it drop down over several more, watching them disappear beneath the abyssal touch.

Within moments the room had been deprived of most that formerly inhabited it, and those that remained did not look like they would for long. Silenos took one step towards the Puppeteer, reading his whip to strike the head from its shoulders, and then Castle Edmari tilted.

He had moments to realise what was happening.

He studied the surroundings, recognised the ambient magic thinning as it drained away, and concluded that their flight had turned into a fall. Silenos thought back to their altitude, did the necessary calculations, and hurriedly transformed his throat even as he unravelled his armour into a sheath of fibre.

“Oo Maahhh!” He roared, words garbled by the abominable hybrid his half-transformed vocal chords had become. Fortunately, their message proved coherent enough for his allies to close in on him just before the sphere of tissue could close. Silenos hurled them to the breach, almost jumping as the skypirate ran into the folds of his exit strategy, then the last point of it was sealed up.

With a sphere spanning several metres filled with air, he could only hope drag force would slow their impact enough for all present to land after the castle.

If they were caught beneath the million-tonne ruin as it struck the earth, there would be no surviving.