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Soundlessly, without much bling, the crulean aircraft glides off north over the ravaged city and vanishes into the clouded afternoon distance, like it was never there at all. Things have stopped exploding and an unsettling, heavy silence falls over the ruins of Nikéa like a thick, suffocating blanket. Like dirt shoveled on top of a coffin. The total stillness of air feels disorienting after all the shaking and quaking and noise. Every citizen with a working pair of legs has left this side of the town by now and those few who remained make no show of themselves. As if a pop-up zombie apocalypse swept by, the neighborhood lies still.

But with how peaceful it's become, it's easier to tell: we’re not alone.

I try to keep up with Sephram as we hurry through the tight, rough streets of the slums towards the western wall. Then another black knight steps up from behind the corner ahead to block our path. Considering the trouble we just had with one of their number, we’re not looking forward to meeting the rest of the family, but take a sharp turn left and look for a way around. Following the next turn, we find another black knight posted at the end of the street. We turn right from there and run on, faster. Again and again we bump into steely obstacles and slowly realize we’re led like bulls at San Fermin.

And then comes the arena.

We stumble out of the shadow of the brick houses to a wider clearing, a plaza where multiple streets converge. In the middle of the clearing stands a round fountain. Not the kind of fountain that’s there to please your eyes and invigorate your soul, but the simpler kind from which horses can drink and where drunkards swim on Friday nights. Or, I assume it was something like that once, in the now distant past. By today, the fountain is long dried up and crumbling, the horses sold or eaten, and the drunks—whatever.

The houses framing the plaza watch over us silently, their windows black and empty.

On the edge of the fountain sits a knight in bulky, ornate armor, like a fortress on two legs. Next to the knight rests a ginormous, two-sided battleaxe forged of black metal. Left and right from him are two platoons of more black knights and there's a pair of them posted at every road out of the clearing too. There are more coming up behind us. We’re bagged like foxes in the games of English snobs.

“I see you’ve bested Thirteen,” the big knight speaks up. “I considered her one of our best. I’m impressed. Now hand over the core, and I might let you live.”

“Stop this, Marshal,” Sephram says and steps forward. “Since you know about the core, you should also know it can't be taken from Nikéa. A lot more depends on it than our own lives.”

“Huh?” The knight lifts his head. “...Mansoix? Now, now, isn’t this a surprise! I could hardly recognize you! I thought you were still rotting in the dungeons of Lincastle, you worthless rat. Now I see. So you are the one who has been making business difficult for our friend Maohen? And it was you on that rooftop the other day too. How careless of you! You should know I don’t need magic to tell when I’m being watched.”

“The core has to stay in the Heaven’s Pillar. The Gods didn't put it there so we would kill each other for it. Don't ruin the peace we and our forebears have fought for, just for your selfish ambition. No treasure is worth throwing away so many lives.”

Hume's tone grows grumpier. “What do you presume to know of my motivations? It’s to save what's left to save of our people that I need it!”

“What do you mean?”

“Think! We live at the mercy of the Immortals and their lapdogs, while the majority of us doesn’t even know it! Nor care. As long as there’s alcohol and sex and drugs and whatever mindless noise to distract them, humankind is content to stay cattle forever. If only they wanted to, the other realms could wipe us out in a day! And what keeps them? The Accord? Promises made to old deities, long gone? No. The only thing that can protect us is power. True power, that’ll put us on equal footing at last.”

“Is that how you would prove humanity’s worth to the rest of the world?” Sephram retorts. “By threatening mutual destruction? Through boundless violence and war? Instead of having us walk side by side, you want them to fear and despise us? Don't you see that's exactly why we're not ready!”

“And what else would you do? Pick flowers for them? It’s only when they fear us that they'll listen.”

“They’ll listen when we find words worth hearing. When we change our ways and start building instead of breaking, and come up with things of true value. When we learn to look past ourselves and put the good of the many over the good of the few.”

“Ha! Fair words!” Hume grunts. “But none of it sounds like you. You were never much of a thinker, Mansoix. I see your new masters have done a fine job indoctrinating you. Doubtless there are elves, witches, and other monsters in their ranks. A puppet though you may be, at least you have grown into an adult who can understand speech. So for your former knighthood’s sake, I’m giving you one last chance: hand over the core and come back to us, to the side where you belong; the side of man.”

The way he phrases it makes the point clear: anything else but yes and it's back to killing.

No second chances. No conditions. No arguments.

I glance at Sephram. He's got the ball. What is he going do?

I don’t know, it’s a pretty compelling argument. There are big pros and cons to both choices. As a human being, wouldn’t you rather fight for your own, instead of dying for universal, platonic love? For creatures most of which don’t even like you? Sure, there’s the minor problem of the world potentially ending if you go that way, but nothing's set in stone. At least you’ll have like-minded friends with you when the lights go out. Not that I’m even invited.

I'm pretty sure 99 people out of 100 would choose to save themselves.

Sephram—draws his blades.

“I was never any good with politics, anyway.”

“Don’t worry,” I tell him and pat his shoulder. “You did great. I mean, I hate the Kingdom and even I began to question if I’ve picked the right side here.”

“That was not the goal of this talk!”

“Hm…?” A sound of surprise sounds through the black helmet. “...Is that you, unbranded?”

At the sound of that cursed word, I slowly turn to the big guy.

“What did you just call me...?”

“Ha! It is you! I knew it!”

Hume grips his helmet and pulls it off to show us his face.

The coarse, bristled face of a middle-aged human warrior.

From above the right brow stretches out an irregular, pale scar that runs across the scalp, as if burned. Or—frostbitten.

“Oh shit,” I mouth as the memories come back to me.

It’s that guy.

The asshole who sent us to die in battle on that island, and nearly choked the lights out of me in the ruined city. What, is there a class reunion for my nightmare villains in this town tonight? It’s just trauma after trauma around every corner, and it's not even Halloween! Only tricks and not one treat.

“Yes, me,” Hume says. “The moment I heard them mention an albino witch with odd ears, I knew it was you they were talking about, unbranded. Nobody else like you. Not only did you survive that day, you’ve made new friends too. Not such a defective product, after all. Never would've thought Yaoldabath could make such a critical mistake! For that, if nothing else, you’ve made my day, you little shit.”

“Hey, asshole,” I call out to him and raise my finger gun. “I hope we’re done reminiscing, because I owe you hell for all the shit you and your buddies put me through! With a big fat VAT!”

“What we put you through?” Hume repeats and fits his helmet back on. He leans forward on his knees and stands. “We gave you life, you ungrateful cretin! To be born through the Mirror is quite literally a miracle of the Gods! We gave you power most men can only dream of, the instructions to its use etched directly into your brain! If you understood anything at all, you would hand me the core out of sheer gratitude. Not that I mind if you resist. I am completely fine with taking the artifact from your cold corpses.”

Fucker.

Hume picks up his greataxe. No ordinary mortal should be able to lift such a slab of steel, but he grasps it like a ferryman his oar. Both the weapon and the armor are loaded with spells to make them easier to use. As a muggle, Hume doesn't generate a lot of mana, but if you can halve sixty pounds, it's not that huge a burden anymore.

All the black knights in the plaza draw their weapons in unison and get ready for battle.

You don't think we could settle this one-on-one, no?

“The scar you gave me still aches, unbranded!” Hume growls. “No spells or ointments could fully remove it. The cold oozing from it keeps me awake at night. If anyone here is owed vengeance, it is I!”

“Listen to me, Zero,” Sephram whispers to me. “You have to stay calm and work with me now. These troops aren’t as seasoned as the girl before. If they depend on Hume to direct them, we'll have a chance if only we take him out. Do something flashy to distract the others, while I take him on. That’s the only way this is going to work. Are you with me?”

“Alright, alright!”

I can do the math. And I’m not dumb enough to lose my cool now and get killed because of that.

“If I die,” he adds, “promise me you will take the core and run.”

“Whatever. And if I die, promise me you’ll kill every last one of these dickheads to avenge me.”

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Sephram faces forward and twirls his daggers.

“Fair enough.”

It's go time. We're not waiting for the enemy to start us off. Sephram dashes forward without a separate signal, runs low like Naruto, and beelines for Hume. He gets to have a dramatic duel, while I have to watch his back and take care of all the extras, how is that any fair? I'm being worked like a dog today.

Well, I am the trainee.

Undaunted, Hume raises his gauntlet and orders the dark knights. “Kill them and retrieve the core.”

Like pigeons at gunshot, the shadowy troops charge forward at once.

The lion's share of them heads for Sephram to protect their commander. Those nearest to me head my way, less enthusiastic. They're not taking me seriously at all, are they?

A big mistake.

Had they all charged at me together and thrown every skill they have at me, they could've won this.

Let’s see. A quick scan shows there are a total of twenty hostiles, if we exclude the boss himself. Every black knight save Hume is branded. Of course. The recruits are deadly from birth, unwaveringly loyal, they know no fear, and they don't talk even under torture. Bringing ordinary soldiers from Alberion would've only been an unnecessary liability for Hume.

But this is a really bad matchup—for them.

On top of subjugating the person, the brand also serves as a handy magic bar code that tells you their specialization, if you know how to read it. And processing information structures so happens to be my one and only strong point. I count fourteen close combat types, two mage types, and four ranged types.

I close my eyes and make a few calculated finger gestures even as the blades close in behind my back.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

I may not have deciphered the brand's eidos completely yet, but my trial run with Thirteen gave me a solid feel of how it works. What makes it tick. Just sit back guys and girls, I’m going to save you all—Oh, like hell I am.

All brand types have a slightly different layout, with uniquely branched skill trees. As the person gains experience, the brand also grows apart from the others of its type. There's no feasible way to apply the same deactivation function to all of them, even if I'd charted the full formula. I'd have to unravel each one individually and it'd take time. Time that we don't have. Which means...

Helping these people is impossible at my skill level. Either they die or we die.

That said, I'm sorry about this guys and girls, but I've resolved to kill you all. Let's just say you were born under unlucky stars.

“Connecting.”

As soon as the words leave my lips, the black knights collapse together mid-step, writhing and howling in pain.

“What?” Hume grunts in dismay. “What is this…?”

“This,” I answer, “is what happens when you outsource your super soldiers.”

Embedded in every brand is a trap mechanism to ensure they tell no tales. If a recruit is caught by an unusually competent wizard, who would try to dispel the curse and make them reveal what they know, the curse will kill the trooper and probably the caster too. That isn't to say dispelling it is completely impossible, but it's very easy to get wrong. And the designer didn’t care enough to plan for a scenario where somebody would start unwrapping the brand—and then get it wrong on purpose.

I don't need to make close contact or expend my own mana to interfere with magic constructs, so there's no direct risk to me in it. And as long as I don't need to worry about the target's well-being either, linking to multiple brands at the same time isn't too hard. Fifty or more would be tough, but just twenty is still doable.

You can guess what happens next. I'm in the china shop with a baseball bat and somebody else's credit card.

I boldly plant my mental boot on twenty trap wires, open my eyes, and snap my fingers.

“Bang.”

A heavy, muffle thud sounds out in stereo, when the head of every knight in the vicinity explodes.

In a fraction of a second, the mana charged in each brand is converted to pure thermal energy. The erupting pressure rebounds off the helmet interior and pulverizes anything inside. Death is fast and it's certain. In the following moment, pots of black steel shoot off here and there in the clearing like lazy cannonballs, spraying colorful streaks of gore in every direction. The ground and nearby house walls are painted bright crimson, like after a spirited tomato battle between the townspeople.

Then the torn corpses stop spasming and silence returns, while red stuff still flows, flows until its spent to the last.

Well, that was ugly.

It wasn’t a fight to be proud of. Definitely not a memory to pass to your grandkids. But it's a battle won.

I spit.

“I think I got a piece of somebody in my mouth.” Ew.

The two gentlemen left standing by the fountain have a timeout to take in the view.

“...Well, that was certainly flashy,” Sephram comments, “though not quite what I had in mind.”

You should be careful what you wish for. If you thought I was going to have them line up and punch all twenty dudes and dudettes in ascending order, it was never going to happen. It's been a very long day and I'm beat. There’s a scratch on my arm too and it smarts.

“How about it, Marshal?” Sephram asks Hume. “Even after seeing this, are you sure you want to continue by yourse—”

ZING—!

Before Sephram can finish his sentence, the greataxe comes whistling at his ribs. Of course, Sephram isn’t a noob who would stand gazing at flowers while in the enemy’s range, but the unnatural speed of Hume’s strike still catches him by surprise. He takes a step back to evade—but can't avoid it completely.

The far corner of the axe catches the strap of his bag and severs it clean. The bag is ripped off his shoulder and plunged into the bloodied ground. Before he can retrieve it, Hume lunges forward and slams the wide axe face down to cover the accessory, and he forces Sephram to retreat.

I fire Flashpoints at Hume from the side, but like Thirteen, his armor is heavily enchanted. No, these spells are of a way different caliber. Of course the boss gets the best stuff. My shots are all dispersed upon contact. I need something that hits harder. I throw a chunk of Frost at him too, but it's too slow. He bats the ice clump away with his axe, and then uses the long handle to flip Sephram’s bag up in the air. It lands right in his grip.

“You seem to be carrying something heavy,” Hume remarks, his voice brimming with triumph.

He puts the axe down, turns the bag around and lets the core drop onto his gauntlet.

“Drop it, buzzard,” I tell him and step closer. “Or I’ll give you symmetrical scars!”

“No. You’re too late, unbranded. Victory is mine.”

“Yeah, you're leading the category of ‘who’s holding most balls’! I admit, I’m at a massive disadvantage there! But not even your armor will help if I bury you in sub-zero mana from top down. What you have there is nothing but a thousand-year-old battery, and it’s worth less than nothing outside the tower.”

“An astute observation. It is a battery, yes. But unlike what you seem to be thinking, there is no real limit to what it can empower.”

Marshal Hume raises the core—and slams it against his breastplate.

Before our dumbstruck faces, the armor swallows the metal sphere while bright light arcs wash over his figure. The metal suit is lit up with glowing red lines and begins to suck in prana from the air and ground. More of the stuff than any human could handle without ripping apart. But he's not making popping sounds. Magical power keeps flowing into him with no apparent limit. I watch it happen with my mouth hanging wide open.

“What the hell's going on?”

“The reactor core doesn't generate power out of nothing,” Hume says. “It converts it from the prana of the planet. And it's expected to keep doing so for eons! The land is certain to undergo heavy changes over time. So the core must have methods to evaluate and change its own performance. It actively adapts to its environment to draw out the best possible output, without exhausting natural resources. After all, it’d be useless if it bled the planet dry when it's supposed to protect it!”

“And how does that explain what we are looking at?” Sephram asks.

Hume laughs. The energy level keeps rising.

“It may be a wise piece of science, but it doesn’t have a mind of its own! It can’t tell the difference between my armor and the tower! It’ll adapt to anything! And the artifact will now kindly rewrite the rituals in my suit to make use of all the prana on this side of the world. Power wizards can only dream of—all in my hands.”

Hey, hey.

I look around and see us stand in the eye of a growing hurricane of dust and blood.

Even now, the wattage keeps building. The tension is something else.

A normal magician is limited by how much prana he can convert to mana in his body. You can’t whip out more than you can take in; always only less, since the conversion rate can never be perfect. That’s the hard limit. But the core handles the hard part for Hume, though he’s not even a mage. It’s limited only by the amount of prana in the atmosphere and its conversion rate is virtually lossless. In other words, as long as it doesn’t suck the earth dry, anything goes.

Oh hell, this could be bad.

Very, very bad.

“Behold!” Hume howls in the middle of the vortex and picks up his axe again. “As I stand God among men!”