I thought frantically, mind racing down new avenues of possibility with every moment. My mana was under my control, but the woman with the startlingly white robes lifted her gloved hands my way after ensnaring Vera once more. It was a lazy motion, a swirl of her wrist and a waggle of her fingers, and then the strange affect that bound me started to twist.

  Pain ripped through my body at multiple points along each limb, and I panicked. I activated Break-Step, searching for some way out, and time slowed instantly. It was uncanny, the world creeping by far slower than ever before. I saw the woman’s cowl flutter in the breeze, and it looked like a geriatric snake rippling its way across a rock in the hot sun – slow and rhythmic.

  I realised why a moment later; I was bound fast, not even my eyes able to move, and so my momentum was almost nil. The skill had said long ago that momentum was a twin god; ‘time and movement are two sides of the same coin’, and when I had a bare sliver of momentum, time was mine in abundance.

  It wasn’t a particularly reassuring thought when I could feel the magical tethers that ensnared my body pulling tight, and it was tempting to lose what little composure I had left at the thought of an eternity of pain as my body was pulled apart in slow motion. But I had time, and I would spend it wisely.

  I knew I had a bull-headed tendency to attack problems the same way each time – if the approach isn’t broke, why fix it, after all? But even I had limits to my stupidity. I had learnt from previous experiences, and this time I didn’t hesitate to acknowledge the system prompts that had filled my head with a constant ringing ever since the seed had hit me.

  Title gained: Herald of Change.

  Skill ‘A Frozen Pyrre’ has gained in level. A Frozen Pyrre – level 10. Passive.

  Skill ‘Axis Shift’ has gained in level. Axis-Shift: Level 10. Active.

  Skill ‘Stride The Edge’ has gained in level. Stride The Edge: Level 10. Passive.

  Skill ‘Break-Step’ has gained in level. Break-Step: Level 10. Active.

  Skill ‘End Of The Hunt’ has gained in level. End Of The Hunt: Level 10. Active.

  Skill ‘Myrmiddion Spear’ has gained in level. Myrmiddion Spear: Level 10. Passive.

  Skills ‘Shatter Point’ has gained in level. Shatter Point: Level 10. Active.

  Skill ‘The Mountain’s Gate’ has gained in level. The Mountain’s Gate: Level 10. Active.

  It seemed that the seed had refined my skills such that the system acknowledged their refinement as well, all my skills reaching level 10 simultaneously. I would need to speak to Jorge about it later to understand what it meant.

  I brushed aside the errant thought, knowing that I would be lucky to get out of this alive, and also knowing that even if I did, this would be so far down the list of importance that I would likely never ask.

  I skipped past the death notifications for those of the Crimson Company I had slain, as well as the white-armoured soldiers in our mad rush over here to Vera’s side, but I had received two levels for their deaths and spent the attribute points directly into agility. I didn’t know how the white-robed woman worked her magic, but it was a good bet it came from or was at least directed by her fingers – nobody would wave their arms around like a Blood-Bear without good reason.

  Ancestry: Titan-Forged Human (evolved)

  Level: 71

  Class: Blood Of The Mountains

  Titles: God-touched, Herald of Change

  Attribute allocation:

  Strength: 210

  Agility: 160

  Endurance: 85

  Perception: 85

  Cognition: 75

  Available attributes: 0

  Current skills:

  A Frozen Pyrre: Level 10. Passive.

  Axis-Shift: Level 10. Active.

  Stride The Edge: Level 10. Passive.

  Break-Step: Level 10. Active.

  End Of The Hunt: Level 10. Active.

  Myrmiddion Spear: Level 10. Passive.

  Shatter Point: Level 10. Active.

  The Mountain’s Gate: Level 10. Active.

  That done, I spent a few moments taking stock of the situation in the world outside.

  Vera stood alone against the mage, her muscles straining and her teeth bared in a snarl as she cut through and otherwise overpowered the magic she was bound by. She was in the midst of taking a slow step, but I had little hope in her success. The mage was done with both Jacyntha and I, her fingers already splaying apart.

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  By the time Vera finished her step, we would be little more than headless, limbless torsos leaking blood into the churned mud below. Jacyntha was in a similar situation to me, though I saw a faint green glow entering my vision from the left, the magic creeping past my periphery with aching slowness. I doubted she could overpower the magic here, but perhaps she had a plan.

  I still hadn’t received an arrow or spear in the back though, and that I found strangest of all. Clearly, this mage was not one for fair play, having her army surround Vera with the clear intent on finishing her off while she restrained The Butcher.

  Our arrival had somewhat changed things, but I would have thought that I’d be a pincushion by now when I considered how many able-bodied soldiers were massed behind us and our complete lack of movement. I had all the time in the world to wonder at why that might be, but no answer would help me right here and now, and so I refocused.

  I could try a Mountain’s Gate beneath her feet, but I suspected she would have no trouble supressing it with her aura alone. While it was an almost instantaneous activation, I didn’t have the time it would take for the earth to rise even if she didn’t quash it in its infancy. My limbs would be long-gone by then and I’d not call that much of a victory.

  Axis-Shift was my only other ranged skill that I could activate instantly, and I doubted it would have the power to affect her much given her capacity to stand toe to toe with Vera, but it was all I had. I marshalled my will, and then found myself distracted.

  Something was causing the air itself in my periphery to writhe and shimmer, and I watched as an arrow, black as the night had once been and jagged like the edge of a wound, shot through the air in something akin to normal speed.

  It was slowed significantly of course, but as I watched the mage’s fingers slowly pull apart, this arrow moved dozens of feet in an instant, making the air scream as it ploughed towards her head. The pain was slowly ramping up as I felt the strange magical restraints pull apart my body over agonizing moments, but the arrow continued its flight, and I realised with a flare of hope that it would hit its target soon. Very soon.

  I desperately re-considered my plan, visualizing my core and the skill constellation for The Mountain’s Gate. I would only have a moment’s distraction, but all I needed to do was break her line of sight if Fandar could break her concentration.

  I watched with stinging eyes as the arrow found its mark, slicing into and through the slender neck of the mage, and her hands dropped. Instantly, I felt the magic holding me vanish, and my skill was active before I’d even fallen to one knee. A thirteen-peaked mountain range sprung from the earth between me and the mage, obscuring Jacyntha and I from view as it reached nearly a dozen meters to the golden sky above.

  I heard cries of pain and the crackling discharge of many magical attacks, and darted to my left, grabbing Jacyntha as I did.

  “We need to flank her!” I yelled at her as we ran. “Get her hands spread in different directions and then come at her from the front or behind. I’ll go right, you go left!”

  I didn’t wait for her acknowledgement though and sprinted off towards the other end of the earthen defence. A quick look back showed Jacyntha waiting at her side, great axe held in her hands and eyes fixed on me, waiting for the signal.

  I gave it.

  We burst around the edge of the skill at the same time, Jacyntha’s heavy footfalls distinct from my own faster, lighter steps. We emerged to a confusing scene.

  I ran out right, arms and legs pumping as I tried to gain as much distance from Jacyntha as possible, she strafing out to the left so that we would encircle the mage and come at her from two opposite sides.

  Vera had once more gained some ground, now straining not fifty feet from her foe, limbs wreathed in an outline of fire. Leering and screaming faces formed in the wisps of the ethereal flames and disappeared in moments before forming again as another. I guessed it was some sort of empowerment skill, as she seemed to be making progress once more, wading with gritted teeth through whatever magical restriction the mage created with her waving and dancing hands.

  The arrow that had nearly decapitated the mage was now sliding out of her neck at a crawl, picking up speed with each moment until it left her neck and began to fly through the air, back the way it had come. By the time I had made it parallel to her, the arrow was emitting a shrill whistle at it flew at a speed I couldn’t track, and the woman’s wound had sealed itself shut, not even a scar to mark where it had once been.

  I grinned to have made it this far though, and pulled back my arm to throw the hatchet I had drawn. She turned to me then, head whipping my way with a speed that sickened me, her white cowl pointed towards me such that I knew her eyes met my own, though I couldn’t see anything beneath the headdress besides bright red lips, thin and tilted in what might have been a smile, though if so, there was nothing kind in the expression.

  I didn’t see her move her fingers, too focused on my throw, but abruptly I was restrained once more. Her head swivelled to face Jacyntha on the opposite side, and I put the force of my will into Axis-Shift. It had no effect though, and I saw with widened eyes as Jacyntha was halted in her tracks.

  Where Vera was wreathed in flames and making steady, if slow progress, Jacyntha was lit from within by a viridescent glow. I watched as the colour deepened, her scars seeming to shiver and wriggle in place a moment, and then two mana-forged arms burst from her back, ghostly green with bands of grey on the biceps and forearms from some clan signifiers of a type I had seen back in the Titan’s Crown.

  The arms encircled Jacyntha, rippling through the air in front of her and seeming to grip something invisible. Great muscles bunched, and I reached out with my mana-senses to see those arms ripping apart the magical restraints the white-robed mage wielded.

  I felt out with my enhanced senses, able to perceive the hundred strings of steel-hard mana she spread through the world like a master weaver at their loom, plucking strings to bind and snare. It reminded me of the way particularly malicious children pluck the wings from flies or the legs from spiders. The vision of her thin lips quirked in the ghost of a smile flashed through my mind.

  I was amazed to behold the power in Jacyntha’s skill, but it wasn’t enough. Each thread she ripped away was replaced with two more, and it took time to destroy them. I had no skills myself to sever the conjurations, and again wished I had spent more time studying Sadrianna’s skill. Razor Beak would come in handy right now.

  Thinking about my companions was a blessing and a curse though. I felt glad to know that my actions, bolstered by Jorge – in fact, he probably deserved the majority of the credit – had saved both Nathlan and Sadrianna from certain death at the hands of the Crimson Company. But I was also confronted with the reality of my inability to save Vera. And worse, the fact that I had given my own life, and Jacyntha’s, for seemingly no benefit.

  The barbarian had made her own choice, so I felt no guilt there, but I did rue the fact that we would die here uselessly. Vera would still be surrounded and killed, Jacyntha would never become the hero I knew she could be, and I would never fulfil my promise to Nathlan.

  I worried about him the most, to be left alone in a world as chaotic as this one, a new class likely built around his worst impulses. I understood his paranoia and need to know, but I also knew that a lack of trusted companions would lead him down a dark path. I worried for what he might become, without the grounding of friendship I had hoped to provide.

  Still though, despite knowing the futility of it all, I had no doubt that I would make the same decision again if given the choice. Vera had been surrounded and bereft of friends. Never would I abandon a companion in need, and while I would curse my weakness until my dying breath – likely very soon – I would never regret my instinct to help.

  I pictured the faces of my friends; Jacyntha, Nathlan, Sadrianna, Vera, even Jorge. I imprinted their essence on my memory, determined to take them with me to the end, and closed my eyes. I wouldn’t draw out this moment of agony into a thousand such moments with the aid of Break-Step. Let my last breath be one of peace, at least.

  While my chest couldn’t move, I felt something build within me at the thought. My soul quivered, and then End Of The Hunt unfurled its metaphorical wings to shadow my soul beneath its protection. It roared to life, my pathbound skill siphoning mana at an ever-increasing rate to fuel one last of burst of presence.

  It was unthinkable that I might give up on life at a moment like this, that I wouldn’t go out fighting for every breath. To do otherwise was an abdication of my path, and my skill reminded me of that. I would have smiled if I could.

  As I greeted death with a snarl in my heart, I saw a spear appear in my vision. Short-hafted, a white ribbon tied below its slim blade fluttering in the breeze, and a shimmering head emanating a power above any of the skills I could currently muster, feeling to my mana-sense like a bird of prey swooping with sharp beak bared wide.