The Path of Ascension

After the failed ambush, the army resumed its siege of the Fall fort, which quickly fell under the pressure from Winter’s superior numbers. Meanwhile, the Fae army gathered itself under Primus’ leadership and was ready for the march by the time the fort fell, allowing them to continue their march once more.

Matt and the representatives, on the other hand, were already in their mobile meeting room, discussing the previous ambush and what it actually meant for their attack on Fall.

While they plotted their next move, the other cultivators of Winter analyzed their losses, which, all things told, weren't bad. Most of their casualties were walking wounded that just needed a few minutes with a healer to be in fighting condition. A few hundred people had ultimately died, but considering that they’d just fought through a two-pronged ambush, that number was quite light.

As it turned out, their forward scouts were part of the dead. The cultivator army had positioned and then hid themselves in a way that allowed them to take advantage of their forward position, which was what allowed them to pull off the ambush.

That meant they needed to both double up the scouts and pull them in. This would limit their range and slow them down, which was probably the Fall army's intention with the move.

It put them in a bind. The cultivators who had made it out of Spring had already proven that their other opponents were watching, so if the second the army moved without the proper precautions, they would be ambushed once more. On the other hand, if they moved too slowly, they’d be giving Fall and Summer more time to reinforce themselves.

Shamus, the representative of the Clans, thought the Spring contingent would be doubling back to try and reclaim their city, but Matt and the other representatives doubted it.

Their city was well garrisoned, and without their own Fae troops to soften the defenders up, few would be willing to siege down those city walls. Their lives were too valuable when they could simply hide in the forest and ambush the Winter army, whittling away their opponents and slowly retaking their territory.

And most importantly, they wanted to get to Fall before they were able to produce their own General.

Even with nobody directly attacking him, the latest estimate for Primus’ kill count in the last battle was in the five to six hundred range. Nobody wanted to fight a General after that.

They all had already accepted that there was no chance they could take down Summer before they spawned a General, but by then, they hoped to have two Generals to oppose Summer’s first.

Matt had done the math, and they should have already spawned a second General, but he had no idea why Queen Winter had chosen not to create a second. He suspected that she was reinforcing her position by creating more lieutenants and below, as reports had said that a large number of Fae had come out and reinforced both cities. Though, he couldn't be sure of that unless he went all the way back to the city and asked her himself. It wasn’t like he could just use their relay system and ask her, but it made sense from her perspective, as her focus was warring against the seasons rather than racing to open the gate.

All of the Winter cultivators would have preferred the second, but they weren't the ones in charge of making Fae.

From their estimations, they should begin receiving reinforcements once they settle in and initiate their siege, but that only brought them back to the initial problem.

They needed to start besieging the city sooner rather than later.

As they discussed various plans, Matt noticed Dexter, the Federation representative, looking at Bradley and the now reinstated Tiffany multiple times.

Eventually, Matt called him on it.

“Dexter, you seem interested in Bradley. He’s already married, so I don’t think he's looking for anything casual.”

Dexter just smirked at Matt before saying, “Oh, nothing much. I’m just wondering how two sides as weak as the Empire and the Guilds are still standing after your pitiful display this afternoon. Frankly, it's embarrassing to be on the same side as you. I even hear your teammate got ambushed and nearly lost her life. What a shame.”

Matt could tell from the wry smile on his face that Dexter considered Susanne’s survival of the ambush the true shame, rather than her being attacked.

Under the mask, Matt just stared at the man.

He was tired of the bullshit and backstabbing games that the representatives were playing with each other. They should be focused on winning this floor as quickly as possible and moving on, but they would rather put knives in each other's back instead of focusing outward.

Matt knew it was unrealistic to expect the cultivators of the eight Great Powers to work together perfectly, but he had hoped for better.

But after seeing Dexter reveling in their misfortune, Matt was tempted to teleport over the table and squeeze his smug face until it was deformed and destroyed from his anger. The only thing that stopped him was his awareness of the futility of the action.

Dexter wasn’t the strongest person in his faction, and killing him wouldn’t bring the others in line, which was the only reason why Matt didn’t give into his impulses and kill the man. Instead, the others would use his actions to further isolate the Empire and its people, and the neutral factions that he had just wrangled into an actually neutral position would be pushed away.

The next floor.

If he could get through this, he could find Dexter on the next floor and show him how he really felt.

Young Mistress Diamond Lotus, the Sects’ representative, joined Dexter in his provoking. “One representative was nearly killed, and one was killed. Now his predecessor, who was already removed, again stands back in his place. It's a miracle your factions still stand.”

Bradley didn’t get angry as Matt expected, or he hid it better than Matt thought the usually expressive man would. “Yes, and you have room to talk, DL—”

“You will adre—”

“Yeah, go fuck yourself, DL. It takes too long to say your pretentious title, and I only go out of my way for people I'm at least cordial with. I just think it's interesting no one had seen you during the fight. Everyone here was confirmed to be somewhere in the fight, except, strangely, you.” His smile was condescending as he finished. “If you fear a fight, DL, there is no reason to hide it. The weak can be protected. The Empire is kind enough to shelter someone with your tendencies without reproach.”

Young Mistress Diamond Lotus started turning red as Bradley spoke, and actually started to vibrate as he finished, an illusion of a lotus threatening to shimmer into existence. She tried to repress whatever she was thinking, but she was like a vessel under pressure and about to explode.

Before she could, Matt turned to Shamus, the Clans representative. “And wrangle your people better. If you’re too tall for the task, we can find someone shorter who might be able to handle the weight.”

That caused the human man to immediately explode, as Matt knew it would. Part of their preparatory training had been cultural, and he knew how much it must mean to Shamus to be a human in a position of power over Dwarves.

Implying he was both incompetent and too tall were the worst insults Matt could hit the man with, and he ignored the man's subsequent tirade before saying to the rest of the representatives. “Do we really want to set a precedent that attacking the enemies without worry for our allies is acceptable? If we do, we’re happy to play along. Just say the word. I’d love to stop worrying about friendly fire.”

That got the rest of them to distance themselves from Shamus, and even his outburst sizzled away like water poured on a fire.

If that happened, there would be more deaths from their own side than the enemies, which would paralyze the army as a whole. No one would risk their own gains for something so stupid, as it would only take one Great Power to unleash their attacks without care to inflict crippling injuries.

William, the representative of the Corporations, nodded and agreed for everyone. “That's sensible, and no one wants to tread down that path. At the same time, I hope that any revenge will wait until after this floor?”

Matt let his mask smile. “Oh, worry not. The scales will be balanced once we leave this floor. None of us are friends, but we all want to move on as quickly as possible. We can’t stand such blatantly self-harming actions. If it comes down to that, we should probably just accept the infighting and slaughter anyone who we don't agree with.”

And he meant it. No one else at the table knew what Matt knew— that with his mana fueling Winter, he could win this floor all on his own. These people were nothing but a way to make the floor go faster.

Shamus still looked angry, but smartly kept his mouth shut, and the meeting was able to continue on towards settling the final details about their attack on Fall.

***

Matt looked at the city of Fall and sighed in relief.

As it turned out, they hadn’t been too slow.

It was a close thing, though.

Half the city had a small berm, with the other half having a thirty foot tall barrier still under construction, with both Fae and cultivators abandoning the walls to fall back to the city.

As the army started to spread out and begin their encirclement, orders came down to proceed slowly and watch out for mines or other traps laid in wait for them.

Matt relayed the information to Primus and the Fae before moving over to where the mages were beginning to destroy the half built walls.

None of them were willing to trust something the enemy built. If Matt had been in their position, he would have rigged every square inch with traps the moment he realized that they’d lose it, and then set the structure itself to either explode or collapse. And that wasn’t even accounting for any Talents which could be put to the task. This early in the cycle, they didn’t have any idiots present, so there was a silent consensus that the construction just wasn’t worth it, and definitely needed to be destroyed.

It turned out to be the unquestionably right decision.

When the first earth mage tried to sink the raised wall back into the ground, it exploded, sending stones flying in all directions.

A few people were wounded, but that didn’t stop their approach.

Seeing that the first trap was triggered, Matt sent his [Earth Manipulation] deep into the ground. Unlike the other floors of Minkalla, Courtly Warfare had miles of earth beneath them before they reached the untouchable shell of the planet.

While he didn’t find anything, he knew that if he was the one to set up such an ambush, he would have hidden something extra beyond the obvious.

It turned out he was right, but he was looking in the wrong direction.

The ambush came from the air.

A thousand cultivators on various flying devices used the unreachable ceiling to their advantage to fly high and then drop bombs on the advancing army.

It was a good plan… it almost even worked.

After the first wave of explosives went off, Primus unleashed the Great Working.

A fell breeze whipped across the ground, carrying with it a dusting of snow as it snaked through the ranks of Winter, and a chill more spiritual than physical.

Not harmful, but distinct.

Then, the wind blew harder, picking up speed and generating more ice and snow until it was a full gale, racing across the ground and spreading Winter wherever it touched.

Then the winds took to the skies and the dropped munitions were storm-tossed away from the army of Winter. Some flew back up into the sky, detonating among the flying forces of Fall, and others were blown to either side of the army. But most were tossed at the city itself, accompanied by whatever else the wind picked up. Hail. Snow. Sleet. Trees. Anything that wasn’t bound firmly to the ground was pulled up and whipped around.

Winter Fae and cultivator alike took to the skies, untouched by the nascent blizzard, and began to engage their Fall counterparts. The enhanced wind affinity of that faction proved insufficient to weather the Winter storm, and the Fall cultivators began plummeting to the ground shortly thereafter, leaving the airspace clear.

A few made it back to the city, but the winds fought them there as well. They would have no reprieve anywhere within the icy reach of Winter.

Within two hours of encircling the city, Winter began its counterattack. Mana cannons, functionally invisible within the blizzard, fired in a constant rhythm. Trebuchets loaded with enchanted projectiles, ice elementals, and snow golems let loose at and beyond the city walls. Cultivators and Fae turned the eye of the storm into a battleground, pushing Fall’s influence back, steadily herding them closer and closer to their city walls.

Nobody involved was truly weak, yet even here, there were still strata of power. Matt and the other elites mostly stood in reserve, as many of the weaker cultivators spent their mana at the vanguard. They were eager to get the first claims on Genesis Energy and Favor, but just as many cultivators were content to wait until the first wave were forced to rotate out. In the meantime, they served as the rearguard, intercepting ambushes from Spring before they could strike.

As the siege progressed, Fall seemed to settle in for a protracted siege, but Winter had other plans.

On the second day, they brought out their trump card.

The first step was just ramping up the power of the Great Working, until the whiteout extended to very nearly the walls themselves, well past where Winter technically controlled and into the anti-flying zone. Past their territory, Primus couldn’t directly control the winds, but at the same time, those winds wouldn’t just stop. They were powerful and wild, yes, but they were consistently strong and surprisingly smooth, making for strangely good flying weather.

Or, in this case, gliding weather. The anti-flight effect didn’t extend to mundane methods, and with the storm and nighttime, masking their approach, the Winter forces wouldn’t be spotted until they were practically on top of the walls themselves.

Someone from the Monster Collective had come up with the plan, and all of the representatives… Well, all the representatives except Dexter anyway, had agreed to it fairly readily. So, as darkness crept across the land, Matt and one hundred thousand others of Winter’s strongest cultivators took to the skies with the howling winds gently aiding their ascent and approach.

They were out of Winter’s airspace quickly, and within seconds, the alarm was raised. Arrows and spells began bombarding the aerial assault, but the response was staggered and slow.

Of course, the defenders swiftly found themselves dealing with a ground assault as well, and the ensuing chaos only further threw the Fall forces into disarray. But even while uncoordinated, the defenders’ powerful spells forged trails of light as they sought to pick off the unwieldy gliders.

Matt intercepted a swarm of buzzing projectiles with a carefully angled [Bulwark], protecting him and his team, but not everyone was so capable of defending themselves. Their gliders, in particular, were especially vulnerable. The constructions were quite fragile as such things went, and it didn’t take much to send their riders plummeting to the ground, thousands of feet below.

The falls were unlikely to be lethal, but they certainly wouldn’t be enjoyable for anyone who landed awkwardly.

As they passed over the walls themselves, Matt smiled as he saw the rest of their forces engage the defenders directly, pulling away much of the pressure that the air strike was facing. Odds were good that at least one of the two assaults would work, and he was hopeful that they might both break through.

Then, he turned his attention to the city itself, and immediately got the sense that something was wrong.

It took him a few moments to pinpoint the exact problem, but as soon as he did, his stomach dropped to the ground oh so far beneath them.

There were far, far too few Fae soldiers inside the city. From their estimations, there should be at least half a million Fae to defend the city, with at least twice that many cultivators.

But once they had a better view, he saw that there were only enough Fae to fill the wall and give the illusion that the city was well defended by the replaceable troops.

At first, Matt feared that the majority of the army was outside, but the number of cultivators seemed correct… and then he felt it.

Fall had forsaken creating troops for the army in favor of creating a single General.

Matt barely had enough time to send out a warning message to everyone before the General showed himself.

The winds stilled and began to blow in the opposite direction. The steady gusts they’d been riding on began to fight them, and a solitary figure stepped forth from the palace. He was unnaturally tall, with yellow-orange and impeccably smooth skin the color of dead leaves. He carried a massively oversized scythe in one muscled arm, and was clothed in an outfit that wouldn’t look out of place on a farmer, if not for the exceptional quality. His garments gleamed in the dim light of the moon, even from this distance.

He swung his scythe, and the blade reaped its first victim. The foremost glider was completely bisected by a blade made of winds, with the General having no heed for petty, mortal things such as contact.

His own team’s glider was vacated a second later, with its former occupants falling to the city below, not willing to be anywhere near the large target.

They crashed through a roof to break their fall, and jumped out of the resulting hole to survey the situation. They were just in time to watch night turn to day as a massive fireball took to the sky, illuminating the city in defiance of the dark and ominous storm still raging all around them.

Liz and Susanne took point as Matt spent a bit of willpower to scan everyone’s status with his AI. Aster had a splinter in her paw, but she was already taking care of it.

“Do we retreat or fight?” Liz asked the question on all of their minds. All across the city, Fall cultivators converged on the invading forces of Winter, wherever they had dropped into the city.

Even as that happened, the General stalked forward in the distance, each swipe of his scythe sending out another deadly blade of winds.

If they ran now, they had a better than even chance of escaping.

Susanne was the first to cast her lot. “Fight. The longer we wait, the worse this will be for us.”

Matt nodded agreement.

Aster, on the other hand, asked a pertinent question. “Can we even beat him?”

“I think so,” Matt replied, with his eyes fixed on the distant Fae. “We have about as good a chance as anyone, and if we’re keeping him busy, he’s not crushing any of the invasion forces. At the very least, we should be able to keep him occupied until Primus can match him. Don’t know how long that might take, but all we need to do is not die.”

Liz didn’t officially vote, but her preference was made clear as she led them deeper into the city, towards the sound of explosions and spellfire.

The Fall General awaited, the first true obstacle to Winter.

At least it had been the stronger cultivators involved in the aerial assault, and that included a bit more than half the representatives. Dexter, William, Bethany, Lotus, and Bradley were all among the strongest of their respective factions, and had all jumped at the opportunity provided for Favor and Genesis Energy. Meanwhile, the representatives from the Guilds, Clans, and Collective were more so chosen for their political and tactical acumen, and had stayed behind to direct the ground assault.

A cultivator team tried to attack them, a [Mana Slash] sent flying at Liz, but Matt intercepted the attack and responded with [Flamethrower], manipulating the torrent of flame into a snake of fire. It didn’t kill the offending team, but it cleared their path enough for them to get past the minor ambush. Once the attacking cultivators realized that they were heading to the General, they abandoned their pursuit.

By the time the four of them reached the General, a good three city blocks had already been leveled. Rapidly dissolving corpses were scattered haphazardly throughout the razed area of the city. They were in enough pieces that it was hard to recognize them, let alone count their number, but Matt ignored the carnage.

Dexter was already on the scene. The Federation cultivator was unleashing his signature barrage of crystalline daggers, but none even came close to the General. The Fae’s defensive swipes of its scythe intercepted each projectile and detonated them early.

Matt didn’t even pause in his stride, having already withdrawn his halberd from his storage ring mid-step, and swung the glowing weapon at the General’s head.

The General barely even paused, spinning smoothly to bisect an unfortunate newcomer to the fight in the same motion it used to block, before deflecting the halberd with the butt of the weapon.

Matt’s weapon crashed into the flagstones, cracking the damaged ground and sending rubble flying.

The General continued his implacable sweep, cutting apart a blue [Blood Spear] even as it sought to reap Matt, and Susanne moved to block the massive attack, glimmering with what Matt recognized as [Counter].

Susanne went flying in one direction, and half of her sword went flying in another, dissipating into motes of energy before it could strike anything else.

Matt poured as much power as he could spare into an angled [Bulwark], and that finally sent the attack on a trajectory other than directly at him. However, wherever the scythe directly contacted the shield, Matt could see and sense a sickly, muddy green energy lingering on his spell, trying to rot it from the inside out.

He dismissed the shield and took advantage of the General casting some wind spell at the newly-arrived Bradley to unleash a full-strength [Mana Charge] directly at the monstrosity before him.

Matt hoped that the attack, channeled through such high-quality equipment, would do some notable damage. He expected to at least leave a minor wound. He certainly wasn’t prepared for armor to manifest over the General and grow a tangled knot of wood that intercepted the halberd without so much as leaving a scratch.

Liz crashed into the fight proper with a wave of blue blood that prompted the Fae to move directly into the path of Aster’s [Frost], and even as Liz twisted her blood into a massive tether, an arrow lanced in from outside of Matt’s attention.

All three attacks seemed like they’d connect at the same time, but the Fae launched himself into the air, leaving behind a torrent of wind strong enough to scatter Liz’s blood, even as its scythe cut both the arrow and Aster’s spell in half.

Matt stabbed up at the airborne General as it came back down to earth, pairing his strike with a [Fire Bolt] for good measure, but both attacks were blocked by the Fae’s wooden armor. Neither blade nor magic left so much as a mark, even without any growths of the General’s living protection intercepting.

Throwing caution to the wind, Matt launched himself forward and brought the halberd down as the Fae landed, activating the weapon’s voidflame enchantment. Black flames erupted from where Matt hit the scythe, bathing the General and Matt alike in corrosive, all-consuming fire.

Matt repaired [Cracked Phantom Armor] in the next instant, then cut his mana for the spell in half to escape the inevitable counterattack. The flames hadn’t done nearly as much as he had hoped, but it left scorch marks all along the formerly-shiny scythe and armor.

It wasn’t much, but it proved that the Fae wasn’t completely invincible, and the attacking cultivators took the morale boost to heart.

Matt paid the expected price for drawing first ‘blood’, and he backpedaled as fast as he could. It was all he could do to keep the Fae at halberd’s length as each blow from the scythe cut chips from the weapon, and the rot it carried threatened his own weapon’s integrity all the more.

Matt wasn’t about to let himself even be nicked by that scythe. Not only was it chipping into the insanely durable halberd like it was green wood, the effects from the decay mana were nasty. He’d caught a glimpse of what they did to a person, and didn’t particularly fancy the idea of the mana eating and rotting his limbs while he was still using them. [Cracked Phantom Armor]’s second layer might be able to block it, but that was assuming it wasn’t already broken from the scythe itself.

Naturally, the General wasn’t so considerate as to not attack him, and it took every ounce of spare mana that Matt could muster into his channeled buffs to stay barely ahead of the questing weapon. Matt silently wept as the halberd took its last blow, cut in half and crumbling to dust in the wind as its magic was broken. He withdrew a greatsword, unwilling to use any smaller of a weapon than he needed, and channeled his Concept to further push him away from the vengeful warrior.

His salvation finally came in the form of a glaive attack that managed to slip through the Fae’s otherwise impeccable guard. It broke through the Fae’s armor, scoring the first true wound and earning the cultivator responsible, the honor of being the General’s new primary target. She didn’t survive much longer, but the Fae found himself suddenly onset by a half-dozen cultivators all working together to keep the scythe occupied. Matt was pretty sure that he caught a glimpse of Young Mistress Diamond Lotus using a pair of bright blue, ribbon-like [Water Whip]s to hold back the implacable weapon long enough for Bradley to blast the General in the face with a mass of lava.

Like a speeding arrow, Susanne rejoined the fight, her reformed blade glowing with every skill she could apply to it, and slammed her weapon into the Fae’s chest. Blinded and restrained, the General was powerless to block her, and Susanne’s attack cut through the wooden defenses that sprang up from the General’s armor, leaving a deep gash in the pseudo plate. Two more attacks hit the exact same spot in the same second, and golden blood began to seep out from the resulting wound.

Around the General, other strikers were finding similar success. Matt saw a [Fire Bolt] burning bright enough that Matt couldn’t look at it directly, a swarm of metal fragments flying like a flock of birds, a massive bolt of green lightning, an exploding crystalline dagger, and a hail of arrows all flying towards the Fae. Not all managed to draw blood, but for the first time since they started, they were connecting.

Matt took the opportunity at hand and jumped backwards, consuming a strength potion and slapping a general boosting talisman on his chest.

Power flooded through him, but he didn’t immediately run back into the fight. Instead, he cast [Sword Twin], absorbing one of the copies into his sword and moving the other ahead of him to block an arrow from hitting Susanne. Three more arrows flew from somewhere else in the city, each aimed at some of the key fighters. One killed the mage responsible for the swarm of metal fragments, another on a trajectory to take Diamond Lotus was deflected by her Concept to strike her shoulder instead, and the third was shot out of the air by another arrow an instant before it would have hit Bradley.

Diamond Lotus controlled her response to the wound admirably, but it was enough of a disruption to her focus for the General to free his weapon from her grip. That was all the Fae needed to break free of all of the other spells attempting to restrain it in short order. Matt thought he caught a glimpse of Liz wincing as some of her blood was forcefully severed from its connection to her, but he couldn’t be sure. Newly unrestricted, the General shattered the cooling metal encasing his head, and moved on the cultivators with deadly intent.

Even fully boosted, Matt was barely able to match the General’s speed, and he used every bit of it to withdraw, alongside most of the other cultivators engaging the Fae. Some weren’t fast enough, and he saw Dexter lose a leg to a [Wind Cutter] just as a set of Dwarf twins were bisected.

Meanwhile, Matt found himself engaged with a more chaotic melee happening just beyond the reach of the General, past the outer ring of ranged attackers. Here, there were plenty of Winter forces working to hold back Fall’s own cultivators. Jill seemed to be engaged in some kind of intense hit-and-run archery battle with an unseen sniper, intercepting arrows with her own shots and occasionally knifing opponents when she had a moment to spare. William was locked in a mass-scale [Earth Manipulation] battle against a stone mage, fighting to keep the ground under their feet stable.

Aster was also running around, leaving ice sculptures in her wake and yipping directions to a squad of Fae lieutenants.

Satisfied that he could shift his focus back to the General, Matt steeled himself to re-engange. His efforts would be wasted paying attention to anything else.

He linked up with Susanne, and the two of them, armed with their respective greatswords, lunged together with their Concepts pushing them forward as swiftly as they could muster. They struck just about the same point at the same time, sneaking through as the Fae was overwhelmed by dozens of similar simultaneous attacks, and pushed into the armor, trying to draw blood…

But they hit a wall.

The Fae’s nascent Intent pushed back, unyielding and implacable. While not fully formed, and therefore a fraction of the power of a true Intent, it felt focused on the internals, and was more than strong enough to stop everyone in their tracks.

But they kept pushing. Inch by inch, desperately trying to overpower the implacable force.

He and Susanne, further supported by Bradley and Liz, Diamond Lotus, and everyone else, pushed with all of their being.

And the immovable object yielded.

Bradley, in full [Lava Body] form, worked to restrain the scythe. The blight affected his limbs, but it was less effective, and he easily shunted it first away from himself, then discarded it altogether before it could take hold. Liz and Diamond Lotus summoned vaguely matching blue whips to try and tie down the General’s other arm, and while he was restrained, Matt and Susanne chopped at the Fae like he was little more than a dead tree.

Other attacks flew hard and fast. Even missing a leg, Dexter didn’t let up on his assault. Jill managed to sneak a couple of arrows their way, a [Wind Lance] empowered [Ice Spear] cracked the air as it flew past, courtesy of Aster, and even more came in an unending barrage of ranged weapons and skills.The hopelessly restrained General had little choice but to take them all, leaving his face half rimed with frost, half soot-stained, and covered in myriad scratches and cuts.

With a wave of power, the General broke free from their bindings and rose into the air upon a column of wind. The gusts were so powerful, Matt needed to use his Concept to just stay stationary.

In a voice like the end of life, the General spoke.

“I am Fall. You are my harvest.”

He raised his scythe above his head, and with a slow swipe through the air, spread a green dust across the battlefield that began slowly drifting to the ground. Beneath and behind him, an illusion of a tree in full, glorious fall coloring faded into existence, radiating power and pressure.

Matt reached out with [Air Manipulation] to try and blow the dust away, but found the air stiff and unresponsive. His Concept was met with a similar fate; the General’s presence prevented him from repulsing anything at all. The other delvers all encountered similar results, and the area around the General was evacuated in seconds. No one wanted to find out what the dust did through experience.

It seemed like the powder was rendered inert once it hit the ground, but the General managed to recover in the time that it took to drift to the ground, leaving his armor fully intact and shining. He kept a few of his wounds, but all of them had been massively healed.

Matt took the forced breather to assess the situation around them. People had cycled in and out of the chaotic melee surrounding them, with skills still flying in every direction as Fall fought to assist their General, and Winter fought to keep them off of their elites. Off in the distance, Matt thought he caught a glimpse of Primus engaged in his own battle, but it was too far away for him to make out details. With luck, their General would arrive soon and turn the tide, but Matt was worried that it would take too long. If he were Fall, he would do everything he could to prevent the other General from engaging their own.

Further away, Matt could see portions of the wall flying Winter’s metaphorical banner, and it definitely looked like they were winning the overall siege.

Their fight, on the other hand, wasn’t going nearly as well.

Matt could sense that their morale had taken a hefty blow with the General’s recovery, but the cloud of dust hadn’t stopped the barrage of ranged attacks. Though, without anyone in melee distance to run interference, the implacable scythe blocked and cut each spell in turn.

As the literal dust settled, some cultivator Matt didn’t recognize was the first back into the fray, wielding a pair of swords as they engaged in an intricate dance with the reaper. As everyone else closed in, they were met with a different presence, and Matt noticed Aster using [Ice Body] and standing tall on top of one of her ice sculptures. Behind her, cold stars winked into existence, casting the battlefield into a fell light.

From where she stood, a wave of snow and ice crashed into the melee, glittering with starlight and pushing back the imposing presence of the Fae General. The battle turned into a winter wonderland, hiding the dismembered and rotting bodies that were scattered around under a carpet of snow. Even the mighty tree at the General’s back lost some of its luster, its leaves withering and falling as the Fae’s presence waned.

Matt could already feel how much the effort was straining Aster, but she didn’t stop there. As the wave of winter crashed down, a blue-white orb of light manifested behind her. It glowed brightly, yet no matter how Matt looked at it, it didn’t burn or twinkle. Even moving his head from side to side didn’t change the starburst pattern it left on his eyes.

It was completely still.

Frozen.

Then, the star began to die. It remained fully static, but its light steadily dimmed until it appeared to be just a cold, dead ball of iron.The glare remained, and it still cast its frozen light on the battlefield, pushing the last few leaves off of the General’s tree, leaving it barren. A [Fireball] struck the iron star, but it didn’t so much as waver, and Matt noticed a spear of blue blood deal with the outside attacker. Despite the Fall cultivator’s failure, others were still motivated to try and attack the iron star.

If one attack didn’t break it, a hundred just might.

Matt found his own limbs shaking slightly as some of Aster’s strain bled through their bond, but he didn’t allow it to stop him as he joined the assault upon the suppressed General. He pulled a staff from his ring as he advanced, brandishing it alongside his sword.

Susanne landed a blow on the Fae’s hand, coming away slick with blood, and a hail of arrows struck the side of the General’s head. The next stream of attacks carried a torrent of dart-shaped [Water Bullets], which dented and cracked the reaper’s armor. Matt channeled a [Cracked Mana Spear] through his staff, careful to not overload the skill and turn it into a beam, and launched the single spear of mana towards the General, scoring a solid blow on its chest.

For the next few minutes the fight settled into a stalemate while Matt took the brunt of the Generals attack opening the monster up to the combined attacks of the others.

He was Endless and used that portion of his Concept to take and then keep the Generals attention.

While they scored blow after blow the General never seemed truly wounded despite all of them attacking and landing hits. Either the attack did no damage or the damage was healed seconds later.

When Aster trembled under the General's counter strike, he made a snap decision.

He was already a target, and being outed as Quill wouldn’t make much of an impact in that respect.

With just a thought, a wave of parchment, crystal, and metal fragments swept out from Matt’s storage ring and swirled around him. The talisman array was the most complex that he had, to the point that he was only able to make three of them before they entered Minkalla. Each represented millions of mana, all focused on a single effect, and no less than six talismans in the array were needed just to control it.

He called it Aurora Lance.

With a flex of his hand, the talismans crumbled to dust as their magic flowed from one to the next, empowering a few key nodes before focusing the power into a single, overwhelming beam of iridescent black ice.

The General, occupied by a dozen other attacks, didn’t have the chance to block the ray-like lance of ice mana. Instead, for the first time in the entire fight, the Fae twisted, allowing the leading spike of ice to strike and coat its forearm with frost, but dodging the nigh-instantaneous remaining portion of the attack.

While the Fae's arm disintegrated and then reformed allowing everyone to land more attacks, Matt’s final trump card carried on uselessly, obliterating a distant Fall cultivator too slow to move out of the way, and coating those in its wake in a thick layer of ice. After the initial projectile landed, it exploded and obliterated a swath of buildings, replacing them with a looming mountain of black ice.

Then Aster faltered, and her star began winking out as she collapsed under the strain of holding back the Generals Intent. In the next instant, the winter wonderland was replaced with a thick carpet of leaves as the General drew back his scythe and spoke once more.

“I reap what you sow.”

The Fae’s Concept shook the world, with its winds carrying deadly, invisible blades of air that slammed into them all. Two of the wind blades hit him, one shattering his greatsword, and the other breaking [Cracked Phantom Armor] to leave a deep gash in his upper arm.

Even then the winds didn’t relent, and the pressure of the General’s Concept washed over them like an unstoppable force. Diamond Lotus was swept away in the wind, tossed beyond the battlefield, followed shortly thereafter by Aster. Bradley’s lava body nearly turned to solid metal under the sheer power of the chill wind. Matt threw his Concept out to resist, supported by many of his comrades, but they were brushed aside like so much chaff.

To his left, someone unleashed a pulse of power, and green lightning crashed into the General, completely swallowing the Fae and leaving much of him smoking when it subsided. A dragon made of flames swooped from the sky, grabbing onto the General and unleashing a torrent of fire breath hot enough that Matt could feel it from inside his armor.

But the General remained undeterred. Without Aster to keep him in check, the great and terrible tree rose once again. With a single swipe, he dispelled the fire dragon as easily as the Fae drew his scythe back and swept it forward.

Everyone retreated, now used to the limits of this attack, but they hadn’t been expecting the leaves drifting down from the tree above. The decaying foliage suddenly turn into their own miniature scythes, just as sharp as the original.

Nobody was safe, and while most of the survivors were fast enough to dodge, a few were tired enough that the leaf scythes found their marks. The lucky ones were killed instantly, while the rest found cuts turning black and rotting their flesh in front of their very eyes. Screams filled the air, and Matt saw Dexter unleashing a shining, exceptionally potent dagger at the General, with a look of intense concentration on the man’s face.

The General was already moving to block the blow, and Matt couldn’t allow that.

With a flash of [Bulwark], Matt managed to delay the scythe just long enough for Dexter’s final attack to strike the Fae’s head.

The resulting explosion knocked back those closest to the General, including Susanne, and threw a cloud of leaves into the air, but Matt could sense that the General remained standing.

He wasn’t unharmed; the blood coursing down his face attested to that. But solid blows like the one Dexter had achieved were far too rare in this fight. Matt tried to stash his staff in favor of his club, but found that the General was locking down space hard, stopping him from accessing his storage and preventing Susanne from cutting her way back to the front.

Liz came out of nowhere, charging up to the Fae and striking it with her spear and drawing a drop of blood. She then kicked off the General and somersaulted backwards, quickly escaping the decaying scythe’s reach. Another cultivator copied her stunt with a pair of daggers, leaving two deep gashes in the General’s armor, but the third cultivator to attempt the stunt found himself headless before his attack could even land.

Matt reflexively tried to grab for a set of talismans, but when they failed to materialize, he mentally kicked himself and instead sent off a pulse of [Cracked Mana Spear], darting in to lay a [Cracked Mana Trap] at the General’s feet before withdrawing.

The Fae set off the trap as it cut some Monster Collective beast in half, and the ensuing waves of force knocked it off balance enough that it was momentarily unable to block the constant hail of arrows pelting it. Two, then four, then a dozen arrows lodged themselves in the tree-like armor, then a blast of ice hit the General squarely. The resulting chain reaction made half of the arrows explode into giant chunks of ice, further restricting the General and sapping its lifeforce.

Bradley was back in fighting shape, and lava caked itself on the General’s scythe, taking off some of the deadly edge and turning it into a massive club instead.

The metal began to crack and rust almost immediately, but blunting the weapon was already paying off, as three cultivators who would have otherwise been cut in half instead merely found themselves thrown into the air. No doubt most of their skeletons had been shattered, but they were alive and uninfected.

Matt could feel energy from the tree above them being sucked in to heal the General in both body and equipment, but he was too otherwise preoccupied to really pay attention.

He was watching and studying. His AI was running at full tilt as he diverted almost half his mana generation and a considerable amount of willpower towards running it, looking for some kind of opening.

Then, he spotted it. Weirdly, the General’s constant dance to intercept most of the attacks headed its way made it predictable, and as the blade came down to slice into a blue [Blood Chakram], shattering the construct into blackened, rotting liquid, Matt saw his chance.

He charged in, grabbed the haft of the scythe, and pulled. As soon as he touched the wood, he felt his armor start to degrade, so he moved the entirety of his armor’s second layer to coat his hands, pushing as much mana as he could into the skill. That slowed down the degradation to a rate he was comfortable with, and allowed him to push most of his remaining mana into his gauntlets. When he felt himself lock into place thanks to their influence, he maxed out the item’s mana capacity, becoming the center of the universe.

The Fae locked eyes with him, and struggled to reclaim his weapon. But his gauntlets were absolute, and the General’s own spatial lock paradoxically felt like it reinforced Matt’s own grip.

Matt smiled despite everything. The Fae was just as unwilling to lose its blade as he expected.

With his hands utterly unable to move from the scythe, Matt pushed against the General with his Concept, focusing on repulsing the Fae with all his might. It didn’t work, as the Fae’s own Concept overpowered Matt’s comparatively pitiful willpower.

From behind him, Matt could see most of the surviving fighters preparing to unleash their own strongest moves, even as Bradley sought to permanently secure the scythe to the ground beside Matt.

From just feet away, Matt watched the Fae’s eyes track the incoming attacks and make a choice.

Before he realized what was happening, the General released his scythe and brought his leg up for a kick to cave Matt’s chest in. He reactively tried to teleport away, but the double spatial lock held him firmly in place as the foot came to end his life. Every drop of mana he had went first into Bulwark, then when that shattered, into his armor and [Barbarian’s Hide].

Now that he was no longer fixed in space, Matt became aware of an insistent tug, and felt himself being pulled back by a darkness-shrouded tether wrapped around his arm. It didn’t pull him out of the way, but it did comparatively slow down the impact of the General’s boot on his chest.

Matt’s world still imploded into white pain as the Fae connected, and it was only thanks to inhuman amounts of reflexive training that allowed him to redirect his mana from [Cracked Phantom Armor] into his durability boosts as the former shattered. His chest caved in, and he didn’t need his AI to tell him that most of his ribs were broken and that both of his lungs were punctured.

He was hurtling through the air, and eventually divested a bit of mana from his buffs to use [Blood Manipulation] and [Air Manipulation] to slow his flight, and he eventually skidded to a stop against a non-destroyed building half way across the city from the General’s fight.

Matt limply called a healing potion to hand, but his arms were non-responsive, so he had to use [Earth Manipulation] just to get the bottle right above himself, where he then shattered the glass. He couldn’t even take a deep breath thanks to the damage to his lungs, so he was forced to use [Air Manipulation] just to get them to inflate, violently inhaling the potion.

Because potions worked best when applied directly to the damaged area, Luna had insisted that he and Aster practice breathing in healing potions for this very kind of situation, but it was still one of the most thoroughly unpleasant experiences he’d ever had.

As soon as his lungs were functional again, he found himself hacking up bloody mucus, and as he ran his regenerative skills at full blast, he slowly recovered enough to stand up on unsteady legs, then immediately collapsed again.

That was enough to attract attention, and even lying on the ground, Matt found himself beset by Fall cultivators eager to finish him off.

Typical.

***

Liz cursed as Matt went flying. She wished that she had been able to pull him more out of the way from the General’s kick, but he had just barely been within [Blood Whip]’s range, and before she could pull him into effective [Blood Manipulation] range, the attack had landed and her boyfriend was literally kicked out of the fight.

Newly divested of his weapon, a few attacks landed on the Fae before he simply reached into the tree Manifestation and plucked a branch from a lower bough. The stick immediately transformed into a replacement scythe, and the old one- stuck in a mound of incandescent metal nearly as big as the General itself was, instantly burst into flames as it reverted to a normal stick.

Newly rearmed, the General resumed his harvest of Winter’s cultivators, and their forces continued to be slowly whittled down. At least most of the Fall cultivators that had been trying to interfere with the fight had either been persuaded to leave, or ended up dead themselves, but there was this one archer that-

Liz snatched an arrow out of its flight path with a glob of blood.

There was one Fall archer that just refused to leave them alone.

Liz leaped forward, bringing her spear around in a powerful blow, striking the General’s side where his armor had been weakened under the latest barrage. Her attack broke through, and she twisted the barbed weapon and pulled out, giving her a bit more of the insanely potent blood for her use. With space still locked down, she couldn’t filter it through her glove to allow her Concept to apply itself. Still, the Tier 14 substance carried quite the punch, thanks to being at the same Tier as the rest of the Fae.

The General didn’t leave her attack unanswered, and after chopping one of Bradley’s lava limbs off again, it turned its newly-formed blade at her. Before it could connect, Aster made her second appearance as the Princess of Frozen Stars, slowing down the renewed scythe while giving a much-needed boost to the forces of Winter.

It even unlocked space, allowing her to process the mass of the blood around her.

Unfortunately, the Frozen Star couldn’t last long, and already its effects were starting to wane as the tree regrew its imposing leaves. Susanne fought side by side with an earth mage, occupying the General at least slightly. Diamond Lotus had made it back into the fight, and her water ribbons had taken on an edge, cutting into the General wherever they connected. Jill shot another arrow out of the sky, with her second shot sinking into the Fae’s armor and further wounding it.

But they were still losing ground.

More often than not, the General killed someone with a swipe of its scythe. Usually, it was some newcomer to the fight, unprepared to deal with the weapon and the instant death it carried, but the latest she she saw was Ember, the Pather mage responsible for the fire dragon from earlier. He lost his arm thanks to a counter strike from the General, and Aster’s Star was the only thing preventing him from rotting to pieces.

Each strike with the demonic weapon cut deep rents into armor, shattered weapons, cut spells in twain.

Liz yelled as she saw the Fall General bat aside Susanne’s greatsword like it was a child’s stick, and bring his blade down to bisect her from head to toe, which he followed up by hewing through yet another cultivator’s mace and arm. She only realized what had actually happened a second later, as Susanne’s two halves faded into motes of light, and then the real Susanne staggered back out from behind the General’s huge frame, clearly shaken by the sudden loss of connection to her Concept clone.

William was too slow and lost a leg and then half of his off arm as the follow up strike nearly took his life, but a bar of ice slowed the scythe just long enough to save his life. Even then, he didn’t retreat, and cut out with a [Crystal Blade] that removed a large portion of the Fae’s armor.

Liz could see Aster straining to hold the Frozen Star. Her ice sculpture-like body was turning cloudy with cracks, visible even past her Mask, but the fox refused to allow even her fracturing body to interfere with her support.

Someone dropped a massive boulder on the General, forcing the Fae into a stagger. Liz and the Sect mage took the opening, each using their whips to ensnare the General’s feet, and pulled. The Fae fell to the ground and attacks rained down on it, but there were too few of them remaining. Lots of people had, like Matt, simply been thrown out of the arena or otherwise retreated, but far more still didn’t even have bodies anymore, between the rot and Minkalla reclaiming their corpses.

The Frozen Star finally faded, and the great tree returned to full glory for a single instant, shattering the boulder that the General had been pinned under. As he stood up, he screamed so intensely, it was a physical blow that knocked everyone back and sent them flying.

When Liz got a good look at the Fae once more, she gaped at the sight.

The formerly pristine and immaculate Fae General was now a wretched thing that only vaguely seemed humanoid.

His once smooth skin was now oozing green puss that bubbled and burst in waves that rippled down his body. The Fae’s armor that once seemed as strong as a mighty tree fell off him like dead skin being shed to make way for something new.

Even his scythe darkened and started to glow with an ominous green light.

As the Fae finished its transformation, Liz took the opportunity to surreptitiously gather blood from around her, siphoning it through her glove to strengthen her connection to it. The steady stream of Favor she’d been earning throughout the fight had coalesced into a new ability- ‘The dark nights of Winter obscures blood you command’- and it was so very nice not needing to use [Blood Camouflage] constantly.

She once more scanned the battlefield as she did so, trying to assess how they were faring and coming to the conclusion, ‘not great’. There were perhaps a dozen cultivators still engaging the General, though a good number more were still fending off Fall’s forces beyond that. Off in the distance, Primus could be seen in his own battle against the Fall elites, and while he was winning and moving closer to their own fight, it would still take quite some time for him to reach them. Fall seemed more intent on slowing Primus than killing him, and they were definitely succeeding in that endeavor.

So the question was, should she retreat? Lots of people had, as the General continued his rampage, and they probably didn’t strictly need to fight him at this point. If they scattered, the General wouldn’t be able to kill them nearly so fast, and if they went to assist Primus, they could let the two Generals battle it out like they were no doubt meant to.

She’d be safe. Even as she watched, someone in Guild clothing seemed to come to the same conclusion, slinking off into the chaotic melee across the city.

But at the same time, they were so close. She’d been earning floods of Favor just from fighting the General. If she was part of the team that actually killed it, she could barely imagine the rewards. A Title for sure, maybe even more. She’d be able to keep up with Matt, and Aster, and she could do it her way.

She could bleed for her goals. She did it every day.

Liz made up her mind as the Fae’s scream finally faded.

The General wielded its now-glowing scythe with deadly intent, but stopped imposing his Concept over the entire area. As the weapon arced towards an exhausted and cracked Aster, Liz intercepted the attack with a shield of frozen blood, but it and [Blood Bubble] alike barely even slowed the assault. While the attack nearly ended up taking her hand off, she was able to use [Blood Manipulation] to move Aster out of the way. The maneuver cost her a lot of her remaining blood, as every time that stupid scythe connected with her attacks, whatever blood was involved rotted away to uselessness. But it was well worth the sacrifice.

Susanne timed her next attack with an axe-wielding cultivator, each aiming for the same leg from different angles.

Blood and corrosive fluids flew as both their attacks landed, the former of which Liz gladly added to her slowly-regrowing blood collection.

While she was slightly surprised that the attacks did damage, it didn't last. The Fae’s corrupted flesh mended with unnatural speed, and his leg regrew.

As the General slashed out with his scythe, a dozen green [Mana Slash]es cut out, forcing everyone to dodge. Liz tried to turn the dodge into an attack, flipping over the energy to deliver a spear to the Fae’s face. Instead of blocking or dodging the attack like she had expected, the General merely raised his other hand and shot a spell at her head.

The sickly green [Mana Bolt] was gleaming with the same Decay mana the Fae had been using the entire fight, and it crossed the negligible distance between them before she could even consciously process what was happening. She reflexively teleported to the side, but that just resulted in a second bolt shot at her as soon as she materialized.

In desperation, she pulled on her blood to block it, first drawing from her nearly empty glove, and then from the many wounds across her body in an effort to just stop the bolt at all. In a last ditch effort, she raised her hand and tried to bend backwards to dodge.

The spell collided with her streams of blood, and Liz could instantly tell she’d messed up badly as it reached her hand.

The Decay effect greedily consumed the mana in her blood, then turned to her for more. She could feel it as it flowed along the unbroken stream of blood, traveling from her Manipulated blood into her actual body. In panic, she activated [Bloody Lesser Regeneration], but that was worse than useless, as it pulled the Decay further and further into her body.

As each second passed her veins were turning black, and her Talents and Concept were fighting the magic, but she was losing ground.

After a few fumbled attempted to stop the corruption she was able to keep the rot contained to her blood, which was a small plus, but no matter what she did, no matter what spells she cast, the Decay just kept spreading.

She desperately cast [Blood Crystal Armor] hoping to block the spread of decay, and while it prevented more of the mana from slipping into her body, it did nothing to stop what had already breached its defenses.

Then, her control slipped for a moment, and the Decay nearly surged into her body, her own blood had turned against her and left her with a single choice.

Liz clamped down on every last drop of blood in her body, and shoved it away. She wasn’t nearly wounded enough to bleed out naturally, but her Talent made exsanguinating herself quick. A torrent of black, vile blood erupted from her punctured left hand, headed in no particular direction other than away. Even that wasn’t fast enough, and she watched in horror as first her hand, then her arm began to crumble away into black dust.

Her vision began to grow dim, and she felt lightheaded. Despite that she grit her teeth and forced her body to continue through sheer force of will.

Even as she did so, embers kindled in her chest. It wasn’t much, but it helped chase away enough of the encroaching darkness that she could think clearly.

She was dying, but so what. She had been closer to death than this before.

The only difference was, there was no healer nearby and pouring mana into her, which caused her Bloodline to try and ignite, but it wasn’t strong enough. Not yet, not before Tier 15.

Which meant she’d have to do this herself.

[Bloody Lesser Regeneration] and [Blood Endurance] burned through her mana, restoring blood to her veins and strength to her remaining limbs. She pushed at her Concept, using the regenerative powers it had picked up, thanks to the last floor’s reward, to stoke the embers of life within her heart into a proper flame. Her heart wasn’t responding properly, so she used [Blood Manipulation] to push blood through her body instead, trying to get her body to keep working.

Her mana was nearly empty when her heart resumed a steady rhythm.

Liz gasped, air flooding back into her lungs, and her Concept sang out through her spirit.

Rebirth Through Blood.

It was like a proclamation made only for her, and she felt herself filled with strength. Her heart rang out, strong and steady, and what little blood she had running through her veins turned golden like the setting sun.

She reached out, feeling for blood to empower herself, and her surroundings answered. There had been a lot of blood shed, and while much of it was useless to her because of the Decay mana, there was still plenty that came to her aid. It rushed to her, first in a trickle, and as she used [Lesser Blood Sacrifice] to strengthen herself, it came as a stream. Blood to mana, mana to blood. And each step of the way, her Talent and Concept were there to help her, pushing her back from the brink.

She tried to push herself to her feet, but her arm refused to work; there just wasn’t any feedback.

She opened her eyes, blinking away dried blood. Her left arm had almost completely rotted away, leaving a black and gold ragged stump at her shoulder, where her Concept and [Blood Crystal Armor] had halted the decay’s advance. She grit her teeth as the pain suddenly struck her, and called upon the blood to help her where her flesh had failed.

Liz rose to her feet as the blood on her body lifted her up. She’d landed some distance away from the main fight, and had spent the last… minute?

Minutes? Seconds? She didn’t know how long she’d been consumed in her internal battle, but the General was no longer paying her any mind, its attention wholly occupied with the last three fighters. Susanne, Bradley, and Diamond Lotus were engaged in a desperate last stand

Aster was at her side, paws on Liz’s leg and eyes wide with glee, surrounded by empty healing potions, “That was a close one. I thought you were going to die!” she messaged, “But you didn’t!”

Liz bent down to give her a pat in thanks for dumping potions on her to assist her healing, but stopped when she realized she was still missing the limb in question. Relief at being alive, and even the bone-deep agony she found herself in, were washed away by a single emotion.

Rage.

“That bastard broke my glove…” she murmured, “He’s gonna wish he had killed me.”

Her glove had been one of her favorite items. Even beyond its incredible utility, it had been a gift from Matt and Aster made just for her, and she almost never took it off. And now it was just gone, rotted to dust alongside her arm and leaving a gaping hole in her spirit where it once had been connected. Her teleportation ring was also gone, but where that could be remade, the glove couldn’t.

Someone was going to die for this.

Her spear had been flung away from her, but she could still sense the blood inside of it, and she recalled it to her hand with a snap. Her Concept was still hard at work, producing blood at a truly incredible rate, and it was all pouring out of what used to be her arm. A part of it she used [Blood Sacrifice] on, refilling her mana, but the rest of it wrapped around her body, covering her in golden [Blood Crystal Armor].

The General loomed over the few remaining fighters, turned away from her and seemingly oblivious or dismissive to her approach, until she slammed into him, spear-first. He was a hollow shell of the imposing figure he’d been so very long ago, and her [Blood Dash] staggered the Fae.

Her spear found its mark, biting deep into the General, and he was knocked off balance. More than that, his spirit was knocked off-balance.

His Concept and Intent were still there, but they were spent, shallow. [Cracked Blood Drain] picked up the slack as her own willpower faltered, empowering her to new heights. [Blood Rage] flooded her limbs, turning her own wounds into strength. A [Blood Chakram] spun into being inches from the Fae and began its bloody work, slowly carving into the General.

But he wasn’t dead yet. The scythe began a slow swing, but Susanne was in the way, keeping it in check with a broken sword. The Fae tried to run, but Bradley weighed its feet down with lava. Diamond Lotus restrained the General’s chest, all while Liz began to extend her control inside the Fae himself.

His nascent Intent and Concept fought her, but they were hollow and frail reflections of what they once were. The General’s Domain was nowhere near the towering might it once had been, and the resistance it offered was far from enough to keep her from shredding the its internals, tearing even the Fae’s heart asunder.

When she had gained control over half the Fae’s body, she caught it.

The Fae was already dead. Had probably been dead since his transformation.

He had sacrificed himself to give birth to a seed that had been puppeting his body.

As she surrounded the seed that tried to flit around in the body, she changed her stance.

The Fae General was probably created around this seed in the first place, and the body was just a meat suit it piloted.

As she took control of the Fae’s flesh, she trapped the seed, and with all her anger, squeezed.

It shattered, and a wash of Favor and Genesis Energy hit her like she took a blow from a Tier 50.

The General had Fallen.