Dr. Arseniev was perhaps the man I feared most, more than any other in the LCS. More than Doublerift.

As I beheld the west of the city engulfed in flames, I counted my fear justified.

Arseniev could do many things, but above all else he reigned as this world's supreme alchemist. A few explosions, triggered across that end of the city by oil barrels, was all the help he needed. Once the initial flames built up, all he did was wave a hand towards the sky, and force the air to gain an ignition temperature of 60 degrees Celsius.

I still did not understand the full extent of his powers. But I knew, he could just as easily set fire to a human.

A terrible rumbling shook the ground, accompanied by noise like unending thunder. They radiated here from the west end of the city, where the skyscrapers stood tight together. Buildings toppled into each other, one after another, raising plumes of smoke into the sky. My previous home, the abandoned hotel where I stayed, was among those edifices. Mei the Champion Ascendant had been stationed there. Her palm strikes, resonant with astral waves, could split open the bowels of the earth. Kevin the skull knight was ordered to give her aid. Together, they made short work of swathes after swathes of buildings.

To the north, in front of us, a massive, hundred-headed worm towered above the skyline. I knew it to be Gosu the Embodiment of Pestilence, the third of Doublerift's champions. With its many maws, it spewed out jets of corrosive bile, reducing its surroundings to fluorescent green sludge. Gosu could take on many forms through his advanced shapeshifting. But for destruction, this monstrosity that stood hundreds of feet high ranked second to none.

On the south of the city, Doublerift stood watch over the destruction, on top the tallest spire there. Hei and I took shelter inside his pocket dimensions, watching over his shoulders as the decimation unfolded outside.

The south was the only part of the city that remained intact. At least for now.

Through the streets, dozens of residents fled towards us. Many bled, and many suffered burns. But they were all alive.

In this world, it was impossible to kill without killing intent. And it seemed like the Champions had left everyone alive. I wondered how much those poor, lost players running in the streets below knew what was in store. There would be no next Challenge for them. No future here.

I felt sick.

They were far away from us, and we could not hear them scream. We simply watched, alone, as the world we knew crumbled to pieces.

The destruction in the rest of the city raged on and spilled towards us. Entire sprawls of the cityscape had already been leveled. The fraction that remained intact, around us, shrank by the second.

Lightning struck to the west, near the edge of the safe zone. Then, lightning struck again in the same spot. And again, and again, in immaculate rhythm.

When lightning struck the ninth time then faded, a lone man hovered in the path of its trail.

Lightning struck a tenth time. In that instant, the man had moved in front of Doublerift. So close, I could see the strands of his curled, blonde hair.

A purple robe, thick and billowing like thunderclouds, clad his body. A crown of golden antlers sat upon his head. His face was youthful, and a thing of utter beauty that made me lightheaded. And his eyes - they had been sewn shut with threads of gold.

"I'm sorry," the man said to Doublerift with an empty smile. "Could you please explain the meaning of this?"

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Wait.

That face, and that voice.

He had changed and grown, but this was a man I knew. Back when 6E12 unraveled Alice's memories, and I saw her past as a student and game developer, I had heard the same voice.

"Alice, Alice," it had once said. "I've looked up to you since the day we met. So now…don't you dare give up on our dream!"

This was Alice's friend, who worked on her game by her side, after school at the library, and late into nights together at her house. He had shared his vision for their game: that a million fans would play it, that they'd hold tournaments, with uncountable seas of cheering audiences. And when she'd given up on herself and on their game, he'd be there.

I knew who he was. I had seen it all, through 6E12's ability. Together, he and Alice had shaped their video game into something truly amazing.

The two of them enrolled in the same college, where she studied computer science, and he studied computer animation. By the time they graduated, their game was finally polished, and ready to be released.

But it never was. For he had died in a traffic accident, and Alice died months after.

What I didn't know, was that he had come here after death.

"Where is Alice?" Doublerift asked.

"Sorry to disappoint you," the man said with a shallow, elegant bow. "But tonight, you'll have to settle for yours truly."

A wreath of golden ivy grew out from his palm. With a flick of his wrist, he flung it at Doublerift.

The air between us distorted, for a moment, and the wreath slowed to a stop mid-flight.

"Viscosity multiplier twelve million," Dr. Arseniev's voice came from behind us. "Please save your strength, I will handle Dionysus."

Jets of blue flame propelled out of the doctor's hands and feet, keeping him aloft in the air, not far from us. Doublerift silently leaped off the spire, leaving Arseniev with Alice's companion.

The man with eyes sewn shut, Dionysus, scrunched his nose. "Know your place, mortal."

He pointed a finger at Dr. Arseniev, then curled it. The doctor's back arched; his limbs contorted. Dionysus then flicked sideways. Like a ragdoll, Dr. Arseniev followed the same trajectory and careened through a skyscraper. He tumbled out on the other side, then cratered into an adjacent building.

He had softened the impact at the last second, by transmuting the building to mud. Even then, Dionysus had made a bloody mess of him. One of his arms hung at a limp, unnatural angle.

He raised his remaining hand up against Diyonysus. The robed Legend burst into flames, but only for a second, before he conjured an airborne wave of red liquid to extinguish the flames.

Dr. Arseniev's eyes glowed. A gray sheen crept over Dionysus's skin, and in a matter of seconds his body had turned to stone.

"Radiant dipole," Dionysus' disembodied voice boomed across the sky. "Yggrasil's diseased topology."

Color faded from the world around us.

"Thou Nine Maidens of the measureless sky, sacrifice the accursed singularities upon thy altar, and blot all potency with ichor. Mana Pyre."

Dr. Arseniev's gagged, and retched. A wave of black flames spilled out of his mouth, mixed with smoldered blood. He doubled over, peeling off the cratered building, and collapsed into the streets below with a muted thud.

His HP had fallen to a mere 25. And his MP…had gone down to -200.

He was no longer moving.

The stony sheen vanished from Dionysus, and he had recovered to normal. With his own lips, he recited a second chant.

"Whispered untruths of creation, sever the binds of fate. All flesh, all beauty, all desire, be my arrow."

Countless shafts of light, pointed and barbed, jutted down from the sky. They pulsated in every color imaginable. Something was horribly wrong about them. I squinted my eyes, for I instinctively knew, that fully looking upon them would've been my undoing.

The point of a sword breached out of Dionysus's chest.

Behind him was a knight, and her blood-red cape. She was our trump card, and the one counter Doublerift had planned against Dionysus,

Sylvie, the Knight of Anomalies, had arrived. A pair of wings on her boots kept her aloft.

Dionysus turned his face back towards her. The golden stitches upon his eyes snapped open.

"How rude," he chastised.