Nathen had never felt stronger, the ground shook every time he launched off, his sword seemed to be ripping the air apart. It was actually hard for him to leverage this immense strength, the loose dirt of the gardens sliding underfoot slowed him down and gravity felt slow enough that too much upward force would cause him to hang in the air for what seemed like hours. More concerning, however, was that the large man he fought was keeping up with him physically.

“Are you truly willing to die for some god, boy?” the man asked as they fought, continuing when Nathen didn’t respond, “did your god put ideals of freedom in your mind or something? What good is freedom anyways?”

“Freedom is everything,” Nathen responded despite himself.

“Freedom is a lie!” the man snapped, “a story we tell ourselves to justify ignoring others. It is the duty of the strong to guard the weak, and the duty of the weak to obey the strong!”

“Is that what you call this? Guarding? This is slavery!”

“Without me they’d all be dead!” he replied, pausing as fist met blade several times in quick succession, “they owe me their lives! They should be happy to do anything for me!”

“So you force them into slavery?” Nathen growled, “why not teach them to fight for themselves?”

“It’s not up to me to make them strong.”

“No, it’s up to you to deliberately keep them weak!” roared Nathen, sparks flying every time his sword met the gauntlet covered fists, “you force them to accept your ‘assistance,’ and use that as justification to keep them in chains!”

“So what if I do?” the man replied angrily, “if they don’t like it they shouldn’t be so weak!”

With his last word the man threw a massive punch that sent Nathen flying back, even though he’d blocked it with his sword. Because he blocked it, however, he managed to land on his feet and came to a stop a dozen feet away. The hit had knocked up dust from the dirt around them, momentarily obscuring the large man before he emerged with an angry look on his face.

“Face it boy,” the man snarled as he slowly walked towards Nathen, “you cannot win this without killing me, and you can’t kill. You might be willing to die for your so called god, but you aren’t willing to kill for it.”

“You’re partly right,” Nathen said in a soft voice, lowering the tip of his sword, “I don’t want to kill anyone.”

“Then give up.”

“But you’re wrong about something,” Nathen continued, lifting his blade into his first counter based stance, “I’ve killed before.”

The man didn’t reply, pausing as he caught the look in Nathen’s eyes, the new stance also seeming to provoke some caution from him. So far Nathen had stuck to his second, mobile, form as he could use his sword non-lethally with it. His first form prioritized stabbing over slashing, which made it impossible to use the flat of his weapon.

He hadn’t wanted to kill anyone, after realizing what he’d done he’d been afraid of his own judgement. That was part of the reason he’d been so eager to leave the kingdoms behind, an adventure away from other people with only monsters to fight was exactly the kind of simple black and white struggle he felt he could handle. But even here things hadn’t been that simple, from the moment he’d left that vault things had become complex once more. The Kobolds, who he’d thought might be intelligent, but seemed beastly, clearly had more going on. Now here he was, fighting another man who refused to back down and he couldn’t simply overpower.

Perhaps the man had a point, many people would trade their freedom for security, as foolish as Nathen thought that to be. But it would be better if they could remain free and still be safe, but unless they were strong enough to protect themselves that couldn’t happen. Nathen had found himself in possession of a large amount of power, if there was one thing he wanted to use that power to accomplish, it was to allow people to become strong enough to free themselves.

If this man was so against that he was willing to die, then maybe he deserved it.

The large man charged at Nathen with a roar, throwing another massive punch. With calm skill Nathen shifted his sword, pushing the attack out of the way before lunging forward to stab the man in the chest. To his surprise, even with the massive strength behind his stab it didn’t penetrate the man’s chest. A couple rings of his chainmail were snapped but the man had begun to retreat as soon as Nathen began to counter, avoiding most of the force of the attack.

“That actually could have killed me,” the man said, sounding surprised, looking at the hole in his chainmail before looking back at Nathen with a glare, “you brat, guess I’ll have to kill you.”

Once more he charged in, this time more carefully, his fists met Nathen’s sword again and again. Nathen’s counters tore more holes in the man’s chain, even drawing blood a couple times, but he was clipped by several of the man’s blows. By now those punches carried enough force that, even with his improved durability, they’d likely break bone if he took an attack head on. And with how careful the man was fighting now it seemed unlikely he’d get another opening.

Nathen began to despair, had he missed his chance in his naivete? Was he going to die?

Maybe he would, but he wouldn’t simply give up, images of the Custodian Golem standing behind him with a sword drawn flashed through his mind. The only way out was through. A thought that made the spirit of his sword quite happy for some reason.

Unfortunately, unless something changed, he was running out of time. Even with the divine buff his mana, or Vituss, he corrected himself, was limited. And with his Focused Momentum stacking to unheard levels it was draining away faster and faster. His aura could help, stealing energy from those around him, but a single glance in the direction of the cowering slaves and he dismissed that idea. He refused to sacrifice others to live, even if not doing so meant death.

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So he fought, his spiritual energy rapidly running out, his body cried out in pain from the multiple bruises, his vision narrowed in as he pushed himself to his absolute limit. At this point the large man didn’t even need to beat him, simply out last him. How the man had so much energy he had no idea, but it didn’t matter.

He had seconds left before his energy ran dry, when he felt the spirit of his sword reach into his tired mind and activate something.

“First gate of perfection,” the words came to his mouth unbidden, they weren’t in any language he recognized yet he understood them regardless, “mastery of air: Breath.”

The last word seemed to resonate with the world itself, coming just as Nathen felt his Vituss bottom out, his body screaming as his Focused Momentum demanded more energy. Instinctively he took a breath in and he was suddenly flooded by energy. The few plants that had escaped destruction during the fight bent inwards towards him as he seemed to suck in the energy of the world itself.

Torrents of power flowed through Nathen’s body with each breath he took, suddenly he had more Vituss than he knew what to do with. The large man seemed shocked, almost fearful as Nathen relaunched his assault. Focused Momentum continued to stack, consuming more and more Vituss, but it felt like he had infinite energy right now.

“What are you doing?” the man demanded, desperately fending off Nathen’s assault, “how are you still going?”

But Nathen didn’t respond, it seemed the man was finally reaching his limits as well. He’d been hiding his own exhaustion and had been to the last dregs of his Vituss as well. Whatever ability the man had been using to keep up was fading, while Nathen simply got faster and stronger. It was only a matter of time before Nathen’s blade found an opening, and that came less than a minute later. Nathen fully impaling his blade directly through the man’s heart. He only had a moment to give Nathen a look of confusion and fear before the light faded and his body went limp.

Retrieving his blade he stepped back and released the odd skill that had refreshed himself, only to be overcome with immense pain. It felt like lightning was coursing through his body, causing him to cry out and collapse to the ground. Every muscle screamed in agony, his lungs barely seemed to work and he couldn’t focus. Panting, covered in sweat and blood, he passed out on the ground.

\\*

Gregory sat in a private meditation chamber deep within the Temple of the Protector. He’d been too weak to save everyone, and that weakness burned at him. Once he’d recovered he immediately set to training. Scouts indicated that they had a couple days before the Mutts managed to turn their horde around and head south once more. If he wanted to protect people he needed more power, so he sat and meditated on his abilities.

He either needed a new ability or a modification to one he already had. If he wanted raw stats he could always pledge an oath to the city, putting his life on the line in exchange for strength. But that would only go so far, he knew. It didn’t matter how strong you were, when fighting the Mutts, as their mark would stack up upon you with every one you killed, sapping your strength. If there were enough then, eventually, they would overpower you. Considering they were both willing and able to sacrifice their own in those kind of numbers, it made them surprisingly dangerous opponents. But there were ways around it.

Nathen had showed him one, by simply not killing them you wouldn’t be marked. Another option was what he’d used on his little expedition, using environmental hazard like stakes and fire to kill them. It seemed that after a certain point you could remove yourself far enough from the actual act of killing that you didn’t get marked. Driving a spear into a Mutt would mark you, as would planting a spear in the ground and throwing the Mutt upon it. But if you set up the spear and the Mutt threw itself into the spear then you wouldn’t be marked.

Gregory had guessed that the Mutts would be unwilling to throw themselves to their deaths if it didn’t result in weakening their enemies. That combined with their beastlike nature had prevented them from jumping into the flames. At least, it had at first, until the Pack Lord somehow ordered or controlled them to do so.

The issue was that he couldn’t think of a way to exploit that again, Templeholm was too large to completely surround in fatal traps. And even if they could manage that the Pack Lord could simply sacrifice some Mutts to make an opening.

With a sigh, Gregory stood and left the small chambers, unable to come up with anything. They didn’t have time for anything major, perhaps a classic siege is their best bet. At least everyone was helping out, Ascenders and locals alike. Now that his body had recovered he figured he could at least help out.

Unbeknownst to him, in the city below a couple of men met in a mostly empty tavern. They’d ordered a couple drinks to avoid seeming suspicious, but spoke in hushed voices.

“Are you certain?” One of them asked.

“Yes, I saw the girl but there’s no way she’s related to the prince,” the second responded, “I’ve seen them both and been doing this for decades, so trust me when I say that she isn’t his half-sister.”

“So, what, this whole succession crisis is built on a lie?” the first asked.

“No, after seeing her I snuck into one of the orphanages in town and went through their records. Took me a while but I found the one that mentioned the last king dropping a baby off at night, I think that’s where the Counts found out about her, but they missed something,” the man paused, looking around before leaning forward, “there was another girl delivered to the orphanage that same day.”

“And you think they got the two of them confused?”

“It wouldn’t have been hard to mess with their files, their record keeping was rudimentary at best,” the man explained, “I think someone did exactly that, swapping their files.”

“So we’ve been chasing the wrong target?” the first man cursed, scowling into his watery beer, “any idea where this other girl is?”

“No,” the other man sighed, “the reason I’m convinced their files were swapped is that this second girl had vanishingly few details about her. Normally they record where their orphans go after leaving their care, presumably to check up on them and ensure they are doing well or something. But there was no information about where she went.”

“Could have just been a mistake, filing error.”

“Or someone removed it,” he insisted, “listen, you brought me to this world because I’m the best at this kind of thing. I’m happy to help, especially since I can once more do what I love, but I’m not about to kill someone who isn’t a target.”

“I was told you’re stubborn about strange things for an assassin,” the other man sighed, “but I was also told to help you out, so what now?”

“Most orphans end up joining a church as an acolyte if they don’t find a family to take them in,” the assassin explained, “Also common are craftsmen who don’t have children willing or able to take on their craft.”

“Not many crafts that would intentionally look for a girl to succeed them.”

“More than you’d think in this world, but yes, those are the two places to start looking.”

“How far would someone come from?”

“Not far,” the assassin shrugged, “no more than a week by foot I’d imagine.”

“That’s still a lot of land,” the other man groaned.

“I can search the churches and ask around-.”

“No, time is limited. I’ll tell the General and we’ll put together a search, you go after the other target.”