He stopped running about twenty miles from Wintervale. I wasn’t surprised. He was trying to get away from the situation more than me. I suspect he’d partially figured out what I was doing, and had brought me out here to counter it. The little flurries of snow on the tundra would stick to my clones even in stealth. They could hide still, but there would be disturbances.

To my amusement, he looked enraged when I caught up. “Do you know how much effort I had to put in to make this happen?” He asked in a voice as cold as the hard packed snow around us. “How much influence I burned, how many favors I had to both use and promise? This was my shot. My big break. And you’ve turned it all to fucking DUST.”

His breath was billowing in the air, like he was literally steaming at the injustice. I laughed. “Am I supposed to feel bad?”

“Do you think I give a fuck how you FEEL?” He spat. “I had goals. Plans. I WORKED for this. I didn’t just have some divine bloodline fall into my lap. I dedicated my fucking life to the vanished gods, I sacrificed, I waited. And when I finally pulled off that double cross at the academy, I took full advantage. And now all of it is gone, wasted because of some little godspawn dilettante.”

“If you were someone I liked, I might argue.” I said after a moment. “I might go on about how I’ve worked hard too, about how much time I put in making my own Path instead of just relying on my wish power. But you know what? I’m not going to do that.”

I made sure he could hear my vindictive grin in my voice. I was buying time for my clones to arrive. I couldn’t let them get too close because of the snow, but I could still use them as an early warning system.

“I’m not going to argue, because I want you to feel humiliated.” I continued talking, eyes tracking him. “I want this to HURT. You’re a failure. A waste of meat. You ruined the only thing of consequence you’ve ever tried to do, and I’m proud to have played a part in it. You’re going to die alone and embarrassed and ridiculed. I’m going to spread the word. For the rest of eternity people on this planet will remember you and what you tried to do, and remember that you fucked it up.”

He looked ready to attack me, but I saw his eyes darting around, still worried about the clones. So he didn’t know exactly what was up then. Good. “Fuck you.” He spat.

“No Travis. Fuck YOU.” I shot back hotly. “Forever. I’m going to fucking ENSHRINE your failure in the legends of Callus. In every planet I ever get control of, in the whole fucking WCP if I can. There will be holidays where people walk around dressed like you and get pelted with rotten fruit. People will burn you in effigy on cold nights, I’ll hold FESTIVALS where people will compete to see who can create the most humiliating Travis costume. Stories of your pathetic waste of a life will echo across the fucking universe. You’ll be such a laughing stock people will never use the name Travis for another child, because they’ll be so ashamed to have it associated with you!”

I was panting now. I MIGHT have gotten a little overly emotional there, but I was just so angry. Killing Perit, stabbing me in the back, ruining my wedding, almost breaking my cousin’s heart. He’d done so much to me, and I HATED him for it. I’d never felt anything like it before. Not really. I’d never felt real, pure, undying hatred for anyone. Not until now.

He stared at me, rage flaring in his eyes, and then he vanished. I could have attacked from behind, had my clones move in, but that felt…impersonal. I left them there, watching from a dozen angles so he couldn’t sneak up on me, and when he appeared, my elbow flashed up and shattered his fucking nose as I sidestepped the mace.

I spun, following up, and he blinked again, using bits of snow to swap places with. I didn’t panic, didn’t rush. I lashed out with a kick, and when he vanished again I waited. He tried to get behind me again, and Danger Sense told me before he even appeared. I let myself fade into the rhythm of the fight, opening my mind to try to forge the clones perspectives into one whole.

The obvious choice was using the overlay, and I did, and the Danger Sense, all the clones, and the predictive lines sort of blended together into a song of perfect violence.

I took hits, but just glancing ones, giving ground to slow him down enough to grab hold, and I realized I wasn’t holding my staff anymore. Black flames licked my knuckles as I beat him into the snow, slapping aside mace shots where I didn’t need to tank them and sinking my fists hard into his ribs, throat, face.

Eventually, he stopped teleporting himself, letting his rage take over as he matched me blow for blow. With the explosive power from Mephistopheles and my enhanced Impact I was able to match him despite his obviously higher Might stat.

It wasn’t fluid, or pretty, it was brutal and nasty and stupid. We weren’t in battle, we were just fucking BEATING each other. It was more of a brawl than anything, and blood flecked the snow as we bashed each other about, my nose broken by my mask, his eye swollen shut as his own nostrils dripped blood.

I could have healed, could have done a thousand things, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to stop. Every thought, every breath, was dedicated to HURTING Travis. Any time my knuckles weren’t mashing into his flesh was unconscionable.

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After about ten minutes one of us slipped, and it took me a second to realize it was him as I bore down on him, raining my fists down on him from above as he turtled up under me, trying to get one arm in the way as the other smashed into my ribs and side. But it wasn’t enough. Not enough pain. Not enough damage.

I triggered Steam Arrow, firing a black flame imbued projectile of superheated water into his eyes at point blank range, and he screamed, clutching his face as I got my hands around his throat and started to squeeze.

He roared in pain and confusion, but managed to translocate away, and I dropped into the snow, scrambling to my feet from hands and knees as he appeared beside me, crying blood and face burned, but still able to see as he planted his knee into my gut and started slamming his fist into me from below.

I stomped on his instep, and he screamed, stumbling back, and I tackled him down to the ground again, my hands going to his face as my thumbs forced themselves into his mostly burned eyes. His grip shot to my wrists and he screamed in agony, and I poured black flame through my hands, into his eye sockets and across his face.

He screamed, beyond words or coherent thought, and I took the distraction as the perfect time to finish him. With a colossal heave I jerked his head up and to the side, snapping his neck, and the screaming just…stopped.

I slumped over onto my side dismissing my clones and letting Mephistopheles fade as I breathed heavily into the arctic air. I was in shock. I’d never been in a fight like that, where both parties just…gave in. That hadn’t been Limbo or recursion. That had been me, my hate, my own pure loathing coming to the forefront.

I stared at the corpse, wondering if I’d done something horrible, but I didn’t feel bad. That had been messy and brutal and hateful, but it had also felt right. He deserved that, and the only thing in the pit in my stomach right now was cold satisfaction. Also probably blood. I was almost positive I was bleeding internally.

A quick scan heal to quantify my injuries confirmed that, and I was a bit confused how he’d managed to injure me so badly, until I checked his body and found the D-rank knuckle dusters he’d been beating me with. I’d been so lost in rage I hadn’t even noticed the heavier blows. Presumably part of that had been my armor.

I was in bad shape. Not critical, just REALLY fucked up. Broken bones, shredded muscles, I’d torn my rotator cuff somehow, I had a vague memory of an arm bar at some point during the melee. I triggered Zagan, then fell back in the snow as I let the healing energy flood my body, focusing entirely on recovering.

No one approached me for a while, and my Danger Sense was functioning fine, so I was able to just lie there and breathe for a bit.

I was on my back, staring up at the sky, when the labyrinth shattered at last, and I felt…the world SHIFT slightly. I considered triggering Eye of Revelation, but it felt like a reckless risk to watch something so massive with my third eye, so I just waited, staring up at the sky as a torrent of meaning smashed into the planet from above.

The sensation of the Impact flowing into the planet was staggering, and the overflow permeated the air, creating an atmosphere crackling with power. I relaxed my soul, knowing it was time, and the renown crashed over me, skyrocketing me up past my breaking point, and the Impact in the air was flowing into ME as my rank up crashed through me. I’d never really bothered ranking up hurt before, but I felt my body being rebuilt as it Ascended, as the new flesh and bone and blood replaced the old, creating something far more than I had been before.

I let Zagan drop, and I rode out the power as it detonated inside my body unlike anything I’d ever felt before. This wasn’t just a quantitative bump in state of being, I was being remade, becoming something completely new, something prepared to be the vessel of great cosmic forces. A foundation was being set for my power, my story, and I knew right then that I’d never be the same.

My eyes were rolling back in a combination of pain and any number of other sensations. I wasn’t sure it even hurt, it was just so MUCH. I heard something beside me, and I turned to find Callie on her knees next to me, eyes clenched tight as her body was wracked with overwhelming surges of feeling. I opened the bond, not realizing I’d closed it, and she collapsed onto me, arms going around me as we clung to each other through our rank up to Mastery.

It felt like forever. Like it would never end and had never started and like we’d always been like this, lost in an endless cascade of noise and fury and power. And then it ended. And we were lying in the snow, panting and twitching as we processed what had just happened.

I glanced around me, and was shocked to see my mom and Zeke standing not too far away, standing guard over us. Chelsea was nearby too, though she was handling the upgrade better than we had, just on her hands and knees groaning.

Slumping down, I grinned up into the sky in triumph and relief. Travis was dead, I was D-rank, I was married, my family was here. The process had been rough, but I felt the weight of sorrow and hardship just dissolve from my shoulders as I took in the results. Things weren’t perfect, a lot of damage was done that would take years to fix…but for now, this was pretty great.