“NO!”

  Eric’s scream was a howl of primal terror and furious despair as he tore through the air so fast he’d bend spacetime itself, if he could, while pushing his gifts...and himself, like never before.

  So desperate that he paid no heed to prudence or caution.

  Not even when he sensed the hideous weight of a Half-step Silver.

  And no mindless titan was this. But a sapient being. No. An actual fellow Contender who could only be here for one reason.

  To claim his head and his twin sister’s as well.

  Horror transformed to white-hot fury worthy of the phoenix as he pushed Speed Racer II and Battletime to their very limits, everything and everyone slowing to an absolute crawl save for the monster coldly smiling RIGHT AT HIM!

  Drawing his blade, shimmering with higher order concepts just like… FUCK!

  He looked so much like Leonide Augustus that Eric could only assume the absolute worst.

  Blood for Blood.

  Sibling for sibling.

  This monster was dead set on killing Elonia in retribution for Eric having cut down the fucking psychopath who had been so eager to kill him.

  In an eyeblink, he took in the battlefield, its ramifications and permutations, and he knew EXACTLY the move he had to make.

  Roaring and howling in subsonic frequencies that he knew his opponent could damn well pick up, the mocking salute with a rose of all things becoming a blade instantly raised to tierce as Eric roared and charged… before abruptly shifting every ounce of his inertia RIGHT to cleave off the head and hand of the absolute FUCKWAD of a power-armored asshole that his interface marked as a Vendetta-declaring Red Scorpion in flashes of crimson fire.

  Congratulations! You have successfully decapitated opposing Bronze-tier Mercenary!

  Red Scorpions have declared vendetta against all your allied factions!

  You have committed a Righteous Kill!

  Eve approves of this battle!

  (Note! Potency INSUFFICIENT to evolve past strained foundation bottleneck!)

  You have claimed 1 Destabilization Crystal!

  Note! This is a CONTRABAND weapon Illegal under all circumstances within this system!

  (Smooth Criminal Perk & Spoils of War mitigate death sentence to seizure of all contraband upon capture.)

  Destabilization crystals are capable of destroying any rigid object, up to a 20 meter diameter bubble of Adamantium Strength or its inferior! Any material below Silver-tier potency can be disintegrated with this device!

  Eric didn’t even have time to be alarmed by the horrific nature of the device he had claimed, that would have either disintegrated the reinforced hyper-alloyed tank that his sister and Caliban and a handful of others were hanging onto for dear life within… whereupon they would have been sitting ducks for a hundred streams of overlapping blaster fire… or the bomb would have disintegrated both AFV and the occupants within.

  Either way, that bomb had been a death sentence, and one he could never forgive.

  “You want war, motherfuckers? I WILL GIVE YOU WAR!” Eric roared, glaring at the swarm of irregulars moving so damned slowly before he gave them reason to move as if their feet were on fire.

  Because they were.

  “Hell Vines! Hell Vines! Hell Vines!”

  Eric didn’t even flinch at the 420 Mana & Qi expenditure as the broken blacktop road beside the ruined buildings where the explosive device had gone off suddenly erupted in massive blazing oaks and fiery clusters of hungry vines covered in thorns that began eagerly grabbing and crushing and squeezing the life out of the shrieking low-level fools who thought for even one moment that Eric would ever allow them to harm his sister!

  Ernest Edgelord Slaughter has declared personal VENDETTA against Red Scorpion Syndicate! No quarter will be offered! No pleas for clemency shall be granted! ALL Red Scorpion Allies will be PURGED from Terra!

  Oath has been System acknowledged!

  You now have 1 year from the time of this oath to successfully purge Red Scorpion Syndicate and all allied factions (at the time of this oath!) from Terra.

  You now have +2 to all saving throws and resolve checks in pursuit of this oath!

  You will now automatically sense upon your Dominion Interface Map the locations of ALL agents affected by this oath, unless enemy agent stealth checks can best your MONSTROUS Perception!

  Eric’s lips curled in a furious smile as he glared at the smirking Contender gazing at him before the dozen Bronze-tier mercenaries who were the true threat. But none so much as the Half-step Silver, even as Eric did what he could, the fiery vines now, besides burning and crushing his enemies, served as a fantastic distraction so that the AFV was the last thing on the flankers’ minds.

  Everyone was either focused on the vines, of if they were the elites, on him.

  So a quick flash of the mental map he shared with a startled Caliban and Elonia... because his Psionic Pool meant more than a good shout, and he didn’t even care how badly his poor brain had been warped if his friends had a way out of this deathtrap while he did all he could to distract his foes and put the focus on him.

  Entirely on him as he dared to race upon the air itself, holding BACK from his furious desire to tear into his foes and SLAUGHTER them to smile coldly down at them.

  Holding BACK his killing rage as his eyes pinned the mocking Contender daring to chuckle his mirth, to smile as if in approval!

  “Well done!” the fucking suave-looking asshole Contender commended, a single negligent wave of his hand cutting off what would have been a dozen sets of no doubt triple-perk enhanced blaster fire that, even if Eric’s Quickness was now over four times his foe’s… might still have killed him if he was a fucking showboating idiot standing perfectly still for their amusement.

  OR really… the ringmaster’s amusement. Because in the end, it was all about embracing his role to the hilt, with all eyes on him, and only a few bucket-heads glancing down at the ground underneath their feet.

  “An excellent feint and bluff, Ernest ‘Edgelord’. Wonderful! I see that rumors of your prowess haven’t been exaggerated,” Commended the renaissance-fair wearing asshole, no matter how fucking hot with magic his too-tight hose and puffy silk jacket happened to be.

  “You may call me Aurelius Imperious Augustus.”

  Eric tilted his head, as if in bemusement, not wrath. Heart racing with something besides fury and fear. Sensing the battlefield and that there were now no neutrals anywhere to be found. Because all the mortals and low Vitality professionals in the adjoining buildings had been slaughtered by the concussive blast of the bomb that had managed to both take out an AFV and stun a full complement of Bronze Sentinels.

  Good.

  “So, you must be Leonide’s Brother! Here to exact a little vengeance?”

  Aurelius chuckled coldly. “Vengeance? Perhaps. Opportunity? Certainly. For I can think of few better ways for amends to be made than your Sister’s hand for my cousins’ life, wouldn’t you agree? But don’t worry. When your Blue Corp puppet perishes just seconds from now, your sister’s territory, my territory, will double and the synergism boons we will get for both industrial production and agriculture will be legendary!”

  Eric shook his head. “Sorry, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to get through me before you touch a hair on either of their heads. And you’re going to have to do it without your coterie of Bronze-tier bucket-head bootlickers.”

  Eric flashed a ruthless smile at the twelve men locking their miniguns at him… Tier-3 miniguns, glaring with such HATE! He suppressed a wince, promising himself that if he survived this, he would be maxing out his Elemental Resistance even if his Qi Pool shrunk painfully, because this was cutting it too fucking close.

  Blood roared in his ears as he waited for the tiniest twist of a wrist or curled lip that would give his foes permission to…

  FUCK!

  His heart spasmed with sudden dread, abruptly sensing the lock of multiple Dead-eye perks, suddenly recalling all too well the one time he had allowed even one expert gunner to get a bead on him... and why the fuck had he let himself just stand there?

  “And to think, I could let my pawns kill you right here and now.”

  Eric tasted the terror suddenly flowing through him with those words. Tasted it and became one with it, accepting it and smiling wide, eyes twinkling, as if a joke had been shared between them.

  “Sure you could. But where would the fun be in that?”

  Aurelius blinked, before his abruptly roared with laughter before saluting Eric with his blade. “Where indeed? No satisfaction… no growth! YES! Let there be a duel between us, as was my intention all along! The victor to ascend along the Path of Peril and to claim the most glorious of prizes. I accept the terms of this match!”

  And before a shocked Eric could even ask if this monster truly walked a path so similar to his own, he was suddenly before Eric.

  Eric immediately snapped his blade to a high hanging guard, never having felt so aware of his environment and the smell of smoke and scalded asphalt and burnt flesh from below as shouts cries and desperate screams assaulted his ears. Yet all his focus was on the deadly being smiling so widely before him. Every pore on his inhumanly beautiful features, Every shift of shoulders, hips, and feet that danced on air, much as did Eric’s own.

  He was aware of all of it, senses extending and encompassing the world entire. Eric now just an extension of the world all around him even as he was aware of his own body, his strength, his coiled power, like never before.

  And with the tiniest of nods, their dance began.

  A windmilling strike, a winding parry.

  A furious rebuttal as the day flashed with razor sharp mithril slicing through the air so fast that the shockwaves sent multiple irregular Red Scorpions crashing to their knees with blood spurting from their ears.

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  Swords flickering so fast as Battletime roared to life, Eric weaving and dodging past double Zwerches that could have decapitated so effortlessly, Zornhau then countering Oberhau in a single deadly beat, the air suddenly alive with the brilliant crimson drops of his foe’s blood.

  Purple eyes widened. Not with surprise, but bemused satisfaction as Aurelius’s chin was sliced open.

  Yet Eric’s smile was cut off by the fierce jolt of pain in turn when a winding blow slipped right past his guard to plunge just below the lip of his mithril hauberk, Eric jerking away before impossibly sharp mithril could gouge and tear.

  As one, the pair leaped back in the air that was their pristine dueling ring, panting with instantly abated fatigue and, yes, mutually felt exhilaration as they embraced a dance free of power and potency, embracing martial skill with their blades alone.

  Lunge, parry, rebuttal.

  Windmilling strike, winding counter.

  A kick so fast it broke the sound barrier, Eric’s 300 Physical Resistance the only reason why his knee hadn’t shattered.

  He snarled as he leaped back, before forcing himself to salute Aurelius.

  “Point,” Eric acknowledged, earning a cool nod from his opponent.

  “Monstrous resistances. How intriguing. Perhaps this explains how you managed to survive so long? As for your swordwork...” the man flashed a bemused smile. “Acceptable.”

  His sword then flickered so fast that the light flashed and scattered like a prism across both their blades as Aurelius’s bemused smile turned to cold focus as he met Eric in the bind and wrenched Eric’s blade off-line to PLUNGE it into a wheezing Eric’s breastbone which gave out with a CRACK as he was sent flying back, mind screaming in shock as his opponent, his coldly smiling opponent...floated towards Eric.

  You have been struck by Piercing Strike!

  Two Soul-Bound Essence of Dominion infused Mithril Rings have been punctured!

  Aurelius his head with a mocking smile. “Come, child. You only managed twenty deflected strikes and three failed feints before I delivered what could so easily have been a killing blow?” He licked the crimson tip of his blade and smiled. Shivering with visible delight. “You can do better than that, surely?”

  Eric took a wheezing breath, backpedaling and drawing in a coldly sauntering Aurelius walking so casually through the air toward him.

  “Fuck! What is your Strength? Your Quickness? A thousand?” Eric gasped.

  The air rang with the monster’s cold laughter.

  “OF course, boy! Of course it is!” His smile turned to a sneer. “But don’t mock me like a fool. You can do more. I KNOW you can do more. I heard all about your duel with my cousin from those not tied to my uncle’s bootstraps. How easily and effortlessly you MASTERED poor Leonide. There were even rumors that you had accessed arts that were tied to the true fundamental nature of reality itself!”

  Unified Restoration Potency Surge in effect! Knee and Breast Bone have been fully repaired! You are no longer stunned! You are no longer impaired!

  Eric gave desperate wheeze, groaning as if still injured, before forcing a smile. “Maybe that’s true. Maybe I can do more. But I thought it was important that I level the playing field first. That makes sense, right? You understand.”

  Aurelius furrowing his brow before his eyes widened with surprise.

  Yet not even his monstrous Thousand Quickness could stop the massive tri-fold maw of a World Eater the exact same half-step Silver rank as he from lifting out of the blacktop like water, crunching effortlessly through the piles of rubble and what was left of the ruined buildings in the area now completely free of innocent Professionals before snapping shut around the dozen Bronze-tier Mercenaries who wasted a single precious second gaping in awe at the enormous maw closing around them as effortlessly as a shark snapping its jaws shut in seawater to affect anything like the immediate escape that might have saved their lives.

  And when all their triple-tier Bullseye perks shifted from a now fast-moving and no longer easily locked-on Eric to firing at the maw of a creature infused with Tier-2 Essence of Invulnerability instead of using their 200+ Quickness and jetpacks in a last-ditch effort to flee… that was the last mistake that most of them would ever make, only two managing to slip free as Eric’s Underlord sunk back into the earth with its prize, the blacktop flowing like water back into its ideal shape once more.

  The two remaining Bronze mercs soon became one lone Red Scorpion when his companion was sent crashing to the ground, spasming his last when a full half dozen Blue Corp Sentinels burst from their ruined AFV Vehicle to embrace a unified Focused Fire feat that tore through their foe’s low-tier Power Armor helm before turning his brain to superheated mist in the blink of an eye.

  The final power-armored opponent quickly raised his arms and dropped his Minigun… before being lit up a second later like a Christmas tree by a fully armored Caliban and his crew who were NOT fucking around against foes that had declared Vendetta against them, much to Eric’s fierce approval. And the minute a few streams of tier-1 Blaster fire sprayed at them from their rear… in between the desperate screams and dying gurgles and panicked fleeing of so many irregulars, they were quickly and irrevocably shown the error of their ways.

  Of course a suddenly panicked Eric felt a jolt of terror for his sister and the prone girl beside her who were NOT protected. Until, to his incredible relief, he saw BunBun apport right over them, warding them with a crimson field he was almost positive she had learned from his daughter before lighting the remaining Red Scorpion assholes up with glorious forking blasts of crimson lightning. Lightning that was soon joined by half a dozen streams of obliterating plasma as Caliban’s half-dozen heavily armored sentinels closed ranks around the girls before absolutely obliterating the distracted fuckheads with so much Tier-III minigun fire that they were literally cleaved in half, skulls popping in explosions of fiery mist that filled Eric with a fierce sense of satisfaction to see.

  IT was a frozen moment that Eric savored, even as he readied himself for absolutely EXPLOSIVE retribution, lining himself up to bring everything to bear against the Half-Step Silver who turned around, his wild eyes filled with unmistakable DELIGHT!

  Aurelius roared with laughter, even as his blade grew dark as midnight, radiating the promise of oblivion itself.

  Eric froze, heart quailing, tasting death in the air. Laughing mocking death that reduced his successful counter to ephemeral insignificance. They both knew that if Eric couldn’t best Aurelius here and now, it would be effortless for this half-step monster to slaughter Caliban and his sworn guard just as effortlessly as squeezing the life out of a baby chick.

  And if Eric dared to hold back for even a second… against a blade now radiating 4 Tiers of the essence of Oblivion, wielded by a master who had already revealed Piercing Strike mastery… when Eric had shown no weapon feat mastery at all, just basic Bloodfire Strike, showing just how limited he was beyond an unusually high Quickness... he was done for. And they both knew it.

  “Well done, Ernest Slaughter. WELL DONE! I have recorded that GLORIOUS turn of fortunes for enjoyment and study both. Now come, boy. Show me that you are more than clever tricks and staunch allies. Show me the power of your spirit. The power of whatever strike laid my pathetic excuse for a cousin low. Come, Ernest! Show me the might of your SOUL!”

  Heart pounding, Eric swallowed the lump in his throat that spoke of dread he REFUSED to acknowledge, shifting his stance and balance even as he adopted a high hanging guard with his left hand alone upon the mithril blade now roaring with an extra 4 feet in length of liquid crimson fire and no other enhancements, even as his right hand gently clasped the covered hilt of his second blade.

  The one tied to his class.

  Bound to his soul.

  Aurelius gave him a cool look, before his hopeful smile turned to a sneer of contempt. “This is the pose you would take before your death? This is the attack that laid my debauched profligate excuse for a cousin so low? YOU LIE!”

  Eyes flashing with the fierce intensity of an outraged Silver monster bore into Eric’s own. Freezing him to the quick. Realizing only at that moment how very much his enemy had been holding back.

  Deliberately holding back.

  Seeking instead to forge himself along a path of peril and perfection, honing specific arts that would in turn hone his body and mind both.

  Because he too was walking a dual path. Seeking enlightenment instead of pointless slaughter.

  In his own way, he had paid Eric the ultimate honor in his pursuit of perfection. Pursuit of a fresh breakthrough.

  As far as he was concerned, Eric had just spat in his face.

  Eric’s heart was hammering, a tiny corner of his mind screaming with terror when an imperious glare so like his mother of a lifetime ago cut him to the quick.

  “But if you would make a mockery of our bout, when I could have so easily OBLITERATED YOUR ENTIRE CITY, FOOL, THEN SO BE IT!” He flashed a furious smile. “I, at least, will take this bout seriously till the final flickers of our deadly dance. May Eve grant me whatever wisdom I can tear free from your disappointment of a corpse! Now let me show you the might of someone who knows the true art of projecting his killing intent!”

  Eric felt a jolt of surprised dismay. He truly was facing a fellow disciple. Both opponent and kin. Yet before he could do anything to mitigate what was to unfold, Aurelius was already charging forth so devastatingly fast that Eric’s mind was SCREAMING to react in time when a burst of howling agony erupted within his synapses with such shocking force that he knew that any other elf wouldn’t have just been stunned… their skulls would have outright exploded.

  You have been struck by Psionic Roar!

  Modified Psionic Resistance (Dense Neurons) of 109 MITIGATES Fatal Blow to Medium Wound!

  Mental Resistance of 139 SAVES against Agony & Disorientation!

  Acting Skill check successful!

  Eric screamed, as any trained killer well versed in studying his opponents would have expected. His flinging of his mithril blade at his foes’ face as he crumpled back? A desperate move that even the best warriors might attempt in extremis, saving enough lives over the eons to be worthy of note. Yet it was absolutely nothing for a thousand Quickness killer to bat the mithril blade aside, shattering Eric’s priceless weapon with the power of oblivion before darting in for the KILL!

  Eric’s kill, that was.

  His foe had time only for the arrogant sneer to be wiped off his face when he realized that, yes, Eric did indeed have access to transcendent attacks, and that Eric permitting his foe a sternum cracking Piercing Strike during the first phase of their fight had been a small price to pay to hide weapon feats that put even Augustus’s killing blows to shame.

  A flash of desperate thought his opponent blared that slammed into Eric’s Dense Neurons that still lacked any sort of protective shell for his thoughts, and always would.

  At least Aurelius didn’t beg as the sky erupted with transcendent ice and fire. Eric would give him credit for that much, at least.

  “No! Impossible! I sensed your weak—”

  DOOM FLURRY!

  PHOENIX STRIKE! 55X DAMAGE MULTIPLIER IN EFFECT!

  Combined Rank 14 Essence Ranks TRUMPS Rank 4 Voidal Mastery!

  YOU HAVE STRUCK YOUR OPPONENT 12 TIMES WITH A HIGHER ORDER POWER!

  Eric blinked when his interface message crackled… knowing that he had STRUCK HIS FOE! OBLITERATED HIS FOE!

  Yet space and time were replaced with odd crackling whiteness, and Aurelius disappeared.

  Eric shivered, chilled to the quick when a fresh interface message popped up before him.

  Imperial retrieval token has been used. Do you wish to dispute this action?

  Eric violently shook his head. Sensing that reality MIGHT very well have bent in such a way that the Phoenix’s fury would allow him to transcend even this bit of System fuckery. But in addition to being powerful, Phoenix were NOT stupid. If the imperial dragon himself was looking Eric’s way…

  Eric’s heart was suddenly pounding, feeling a cold chill like ice against his soul.

  “No,” he said, breath dry and raspy. “I do NOT dispute this action.” He sent his blade back into soul storage for good measure, a class ability separate from ES Space and somehow even more intimate and connected to him, right where it belonged.

  The next messages to flash before his eyes replaced his growing sense of dread with shuddering relief.

  You have successfully BESTED a Half-Step Silver Contender in Combat (who had been deliberately holding himself back as a courtesy to his master… and yours.) - Note! This title boon has already been claimed!

  Eric blinked, feeling a sudden chill at that. Because it implied that there were other serious players here on Earth besides himself, powerful enough to manage what he just had… and not against monsters who had been holding back. Deliberately holding back, seeking to hone themselves along the cultivator’s path, not just obliterate with the equivalent of city-destroying attacks. And those various Contenders were no doubt getting a jump on Bronze-tier titles of their own.

  Monstrous Contenders, who, for all Eric knew, were more than EAGER to have a long talk with the arrogant upstart who had made grabbing three attribute world-titles his priority when other, wiser, powerhouses had perhaps sought far less contentious backdoors to monumental fonts of power. Not that Eric had the faintest idea as to what they were, let alone how to achieve those hallmarks of potency.

  Truth was, Eric was fumbling in the dark as always, eager to claim whatever prizes or accomplishments that he could, serendipity and fierce killing insights far more than planning having guided his footsteps so far. The only thing he could be sure of was that, right now, he had a target on his back the size of a city, at least as Ernest ‘Edgelord’ Slaughter, and that all the Soul Points he had burned fusing his Phoenix Ring to his person had probably been the best defensive choice he had ever made.

  Eric felt shaky with exhaustion, having gone from utter terror for his sister’s sake to feeling like the king of the world to realizing he was still just a very small fish in an even smaller pond that was about to get dumped into the ocean.

  Eve Approves of your battle. (And your common sense!)

  Congratulations! In return for besting, yet NOT killing a fellow favored disciple, you have broken past your bottleneck. (For this level at least!)

  You are now a Rank 49 Cultivator!

  Additional compensation for your prudence has been granted.