You aren’t the only one with a second phase, motherfucker.

  Elias gave the order, “Full charge!”

  Cracks of shattering crystal rang all across and a wave of magically sensed pressure erupted from our squad as we overcharged every single piece of low quality gear we had.

  I spoke fast, “Individual smaller lasers from the tail ends, big beam was them combining. They stretch and retract too, probably.” It was pristine. “Very hard target, I think the dive attack hit it but there’s not even a scratch.”

  “Clear,” Elias said, “the firebombing attack remains unused as well. Noah, take Kwame out of combat.”

  Neither argued, the many tails whipped and wavered in patterns, quick and unpredictable. We’d be taking hits, probably loads of them. A quick check of my bracer coins, forgotten in the frenzy, told me a little over 7500 energy had gone down the drain. Plenty left. I’d brought 20k as usual, plus 8k for overcharges.

  Elias continued since the endobeast wasn’t in a hurry from the looks of it, “Jill and Gabriel, you two are our offense. The rest of us are purely support, I doubt we can harm it. Breaching strikes, like the fortress wall. Kim, can you keep up?”

  He had his own wounds and scrapes, but with mages you never knew if that meant they were fine or on the verge of death. “No need, I’ll retreat and support from a distance. The haven is skintight instead of trying to suppress us.”

  Killer kitty gracefully pounced off its former shell, tails meticulously clearing the gore off it.

  “A few more seconds,” Carlos said, “I’m almost done.” Paying attention now, I heard ever so faint crackles and pops coming off him. The same sound fifties made. Subtle. “Ready… Now!”

  His plan failed spectacularly, the endobeast didn’t even stop its grooming as rays lanced and cut the binds before they even arrived. It continued to ignore us.

  “What the hell? We might be screwed here.”

  Elias disagreed. “It is slower than the reflection, but not by much. We need to overwhelm it. At least it considers the traps a threat, so we know they will be effective.”

  Carlos didn’t however. “I might have to retreat as well. That was too quick for me to follow, and the strips lower my own durability. One bad hit will bisect me.”

  “Go then,” Elias said, “I will manage. Cleo?”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “Good. We stall until Noah returns. Jill and Gabriel are our offense and the three of us occupy it. Go.”

  Cleo and Elias casually sauntered towards the endobeast while Kwame hopped on Noah’s back and Kim followed them at a run. Carlos opted to spider-man himself away instead. The only reaction was an end to the self-care and a tilt of the featureless head. It actually sat down, despite the full bar I fired at it as the familiar motion began. A sharp clink resounded, but otherwise my blade did nothing. Worth a shot.

  Cleo thought the same, “Hello? Can you communicate, understand us?”

  Two sneak attacks and she’s going to try diplomacy? Well, it’s working. Wait, why is it working? This makes no fucking sense. How would it converse anyway? She kept talking through the standoff, to no apparent effect. Once Noah returned, it got up. Yeah, it understands. The tails spread out in a half-circle, only bending at the ends to point at us. Noah opted for the right, so I walked to the left with Jill only slightly behind.

  She whispered, “How hurt are you?”

  Good question. “Can’t really tell until it’s over. But the opening nearly knocked me out. So pretty badly, but I can move. You?”

  “Lightly bruised, I can take a few more hard ones.”

  That was Jill-speak for hanging on by a thread, even if it was a steel one and thicker than my thigh. Or actually true, it was hard to say. “Not to be a dick but what happened? I can’t tell whether you’re dying or fine.”

  “It stepped on me.”

  “So… dying then?”

  “Worry about yourself. How will we coordinate?”

  “Sheath range is touch, so three centimeters. As long as I’m near a swing, aim-assist will take care of the rest.”

  “It compensates for the bootprint?”

  “It does. Worry about yourself.”

  “Hmpf. Fine. You can shoot if I’ve had two seconds, aim for me. They’re starting.”

  Noah made it all the way to behind the unconcerned endobeast and formed the points of a triangle together with Cleo and Elias. I knew this one. It was supposed to close off possibilities, guaranteeing Elias’ cantrip activation - against humanoid opponents. They all took a step forward at the same time, only to immediately retreat when the tails formed a metaphorical showerhead, curtaining lasers around it. The planned tri-attack turned into a ridiculous dance as spreading and converging beams forced them every which way. Cleo aborted a twist, purposefully taking a ray against a spike of her armor. It held, sort of. The protrusion glowed like heated metal, for a moment at least.

  A few potshots lanced at us, but my shield trivialized them while Jill blocked with her weapon. She counted ‘one’ and dashed ahead. I counted ‘two’ and put a full bar behind my dragonsteel blade, aimed ever so slightly downward at Jill’s lower back. Right before it impacted, she nearly teleported and spiked the pommel with the flat of her axe instead of the hammer. She didn’t quite catch it off guard, but the nearly gliding dodge nonetheless failed to evade it completely and my eyes narrowed when a chip of dragonsteel flicked off a tail-tentacle, dousing the gathering glow at the end. One down.

  Unfortunately, it severely pissed off the endobeast. Noah stuttered, sending my dragonsteel back in an underhand toss, almost causing me to fumble the sheathing. Our opponent bounded out of our encirclement, discharging fist sized miniature suns of flame or maybe plasma, leaving them afloat and surrounding us instead. Not this shit again. Kim had us covered though. Slightly larger barrier orbs enveloped each one. After a few seconds, they homed in regardless and shattered their containment, but became slightly smaller as a result while the endobeast finished circling.

  Why are they all coming for me? I dodged right, thinking to avoid the closing spiral pattern. Too predictable. An L-shaped wall of lasers swatted in from the other side and cut off upward escape. Jill chased the bastard, trying to hit the tails but somehow it danced around her and positioned the lattice regardless, herding me into the approaching barrage. There were dozens of them, it constantly added more. I blinked my overcharged shield and shouldered through the net behind it, tailed by an ever increasing stream of white hot aerial mines.

  The beast loped, pulling Noah, Jill and me away from Elias and Cleo, who couldn’t keep up. It sniped, forcing out my shield. Kim intercepted a few of the rays at the source, aimed at anything uncovered by my barricade. Lights strobed and hits landed, my sheathing and unsheathing couldn’t keep up with the running battle. My elbows and ankles smoked, the toe box of my right boot glowed, roasting my foot, hindering my steps despite a lack of felt pain for the only moment the endobeast needed.

  It swerved and stopped. It created parallel grills, and then sent them forwards, destined to intersect and pass through me. No glance was needed to show me scores of chasing spheres. My shield saved me again from being turned into barbequed mincemeat, but obscured my sight. No one could talk quickly enough to warn me. A many-clawed paw hooked over the edge, a panicked sheath failed to activate. Tremendous force tugged violently, throwing it towards the river. I saw the shoulder coming. Barriers sprang up in front of me, aided by flats of three desperate magical swords. Some part of my senses registered explosions intercepted by friendlies behind me.

  My head rang, my bones creaked, and my breath was knocked out of my lungs, careening me backwards. An odd moment of stillness accompanied my witnessing a staccato stream of descending slashes, leading slightly ahead of my involuntary flight towards certain death. Cleo, suddenly slightly ahead of me, bodyblocked stabbing beams. Somehow she seemed satisfied. Her splaying smoky red tinged daggers wide explained why.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  The dreamlike instant stretched, Elias made eye contact with me as we passed each other, his unwillingly propelled situation similar to mine. I noticed he had overcharged his now damaged triangular shield, even though it was quality 100. What a waste. Finally, my brain stopped shaking in my skull and a full bar launch soared me towards the sky while the beast, seemingly calmed down a little, switched its attention to my allies.

  The parade of orbs formed a dome around them, reorienting constantly in parallel with my flight. A notification popped up. Telepathy link request?

  “Jen, what the hell are you doing he-”

  “It’s me,” Breathless disembodied voice said in my head. I saw him standing on the artificial ledge, with what little remained of the railgun behind him. “Float for now, I need you to listen carefully.”

  Two swords carried my weight.

  “Look, this really isn’t the time f-”

  “For once in your life, shut the fuck up and listen.”

  Jill passed her weapon to Noah, who ditched his sticks.

  “Yes, sir.”

  She wrapped her arms around a bundle of tails, possibly because it refused to target her.

  “Good. Sorry. You can’t win unless you understand this. But first, go back to basics. Magic against magic. Physical against physical. You’re doing it the other way around. I already called back Carlos and Kwame to help. ”

  Cleo swatted and batted at whatever formed at the tips in a blurring flurry of chain activations. Elias backed off. He pelted the ground near the endobeast with his sling, the feline constantly slipped as its footing dissolved. Noah wielded the halberd, landing solid hits - but they barely scratched it.

  “I’ll tell Jill to remember her transfer skill in a moment. Neither of you need help to hurt it, especially you. I figured it out. You’re built for this, understand? Why does the System give us dragonsteel? It knows about the inner creature, Gabriel. It gives us dragonsteel so we can make weapons. It’s why the weapons don’t become brittle, so fighter types aren’t helpless.”

  Their dance continued, a rear leg kicked Jill away and raked her at the same time, drawing blood through her breastplate, which she immediately overcharged, dooming more irreplaceable gear. Noah tried passing the weapon back to her, but snatched it from the air before a snaking tail could reach it. Some of the air-mines retargeted to Elias.

  “But you’re a specialist, Gabriel. A weapon mage! You were right. The Greatbeast is the tank. Dragonsteel is the bullet. You are the rifle. It’s scared of you, because it knows. You’re the fucking predator here, start acting like one! Tell me you understand.”

  Elias needed several hits to detonate a single micro-sun, so he retreated further and further, sliding backwards like an ice skater, throwing low walls of ash all the while. The given breathing room forced Noah on the defensive, barely blocking all the stabbing and whipping tails, cut off from Cleo who kept getting shoved. Even Jill clearly wasn’t strong enough to overpower the main body.

  “Loud and clear.”

  “Good, join in once the rest arrives. Over.”

  The link broke. Kwame, Kim and Carlos approached carefully, hugging each other like they were trying to fit in a trench coat. Kim’s suppression aura covered them, decoys in the distance cowered behind overcharged enchanted deployable barriers, as if watching from safety.

  Close enough. Predator, huh? Well, I know how to do that.

  It sucked, my sense of self slipped a little more from giving in, each time. The addiction worsened constantly - the escalation actually helped keep it under control, with every battle a little less intriguing. Because I held back, it remained manageable. But the river battle showed me embracing the rush multiplied the degradation of my psyche and the need for ever more dangerous fights.

  Damage, recklessness, even death… Those didn’t scare me. How could they with this undercurrent, always present in the back of my head? But truly losing myself? We were no longer human, not really, forged into something else. Ascendant implied becoming more, yet we became lesser. But me… I wanted to stay me. Even now, I barely recognized myself. It pissed me off.

  Jen cared if I broke. She was human after all, sometimes enough for the both of us. I’m sorry, but there’s no other way. The Abyss not only stares back, it has a user interface. If this is the price of survival, then I guess it’s time to pony up. For all of us.

  The System didn’t care if we broke. It congratulated our loss of humanity. Fuck the System. My instincts screamed. More.

  Reality didn’t care if we broke. It wasn’t even consistent anymore. Fuck reality. My rage flared incandescent. More.

  The Greatbeast didn’t care if we broke. It slaughtered for no reason. Fuck the Greatbeast. My mind fractured. There.

  Kwame spammed lines at each orb, detonating all of them.

  I took a last deep breath, blinked and let go. The knife edge disappeared. The rising tide consumed me instantly. The nuances of battle faded away. Madness took hold, insanity merged with competence. A last thought crossed my mind before nothing else mattered anymore. What is this…? Floating blades recalled, I fell, I smiled, and I looked down upon this filth which dared challenge me.

  Lances of light traced my descent, failing by expecting bursts of movement. Instead, my approach followed a sporadic pattern, driven by single launches in rapid succession, each angled differently. This was true mastery. Acceleration tempered by control, greater evasion achieved through lesser movement, perfection born from disregarding all restraint. The impossible turned trivial.

  My feet connected with the false animals back. It tried in vain to shake me off. Pathetic. My balance wavered, but it wasn’t enough to stop me. Nothing was. A dragonsteel blade connected my palm, resting on the pommel, with where tails met spine. Lay bare your weakness.

  A second of stillness, and then everything at once.

  The sheer force, two full bars injected at point blank range, detonated a wave of air, followed by a fingernail sized chip of dragonsteel. A glowing hammer forced me to grip the handle, and drove the blade slightly deeper. I snarled at the interference, but kept my attention where it belonged, on delivering imminent death. Desperate beams raked me and were ignored, only those reaching for my face intercepted by magical swords. My armor smoked, an acrid stench registered - discarded. I cared not, for two seconds had passed. Lay bare your suffering.

  Again.

  Now the mutt flinched, pushed to a knee as dragonsteel dug deeper. My senses caught the unusual glow as a tail-tip exploded to my left. Roiling flames ejected me off its back. Futile. The ground never neared, for a second later my aerial maneuvers resumed. The rush of air cooled my molars, dimmed the heat radiating through my mouth, exposed by the obliteration of my left cheek. Once more my right hand held the dragonsteel blade like a cane. While waiting, I used my left to extract the fragment stuck in my left eye, unwilling to let this inferior trash mar my countenance. The loss of vision meant nothing when my true senses were magical. Lay bare your inferiority.

  Again.

  The shockwave pulsed. Several of the thin extremities were severed. Another hammer blow struck in the wake of mine, removing more. A crack spread. The fissure forked in a lightning strike of vulnerability, leading straight to the base of the vermin’s neck. Perfect. Unnecessary barriers shielded me against engulfing streams of flame. A strip of fabric reached for me, intending to pull me away. Yet I severed it with a fired blade. Why delay the inevitable? Meaningless words filled the air.

  I waltzed, I danced, and I made my way. The head twisted around, showcasing more evidence of this creature’s foul nature. It jumped, it twisted, and it bucked. It swung, it batted, and it used its head like a wrecking ball while my armor caught alight. Rather than put out the fire, I leaned in. Both of my hands rested on the pommel, my full weight atop. This was the killing blow. I knew it in my heart of hearts. How could it not be? Lay bare how you die.

  Eternity compressed as power surged. Crystal shattered, coins dissipated, the System strained. A notification appeared, pointlessly informing me of a rate-limit. The electricity in my veins signaled such well enough. Thousands of energy propelled my dragonsteel blade, spearing through the so-called Greatbeast. The damage proved too much as the downward force embedded splinters deep underground, pieces fractured and the creature fell apart, now still. Disappointing.

  And then I collapsed.

  Elias

  From eight to six.

  Twenty five percent losses were barely acceptable by military standards. Our offensive capability required replacements now. Kwame’s death had been inevitable, rejoining the fight already heavily wounded. Gabriel’s savage assault, while undeniably effective, stretched our coordination and defenses too thin. The latter guaranteed the former. A waste, Kwame’s potential spiked in fits and spurts. In time he could have become our greatest asset.

  Morale was likely to suffer significantly. Yet more issues. The psychological failure clearly belonged to me. I simply could not understand how they functioned, not beyond an intellectual level. No, not quite right. Gabriel was always destined to break. Whatever trauma guided him, the writing had been on the wall. Well, it was done now. The others fussed over the dead. After approaching the corpse, a thought brought up the customary screen.

  Infant Greatbeast? What madness is this?

  I quickly selected the only option, manual harvest, before the others could see. No, I could not allow this. They were too unpredictable. The potential knowledge of their greatest victory being that of killing a babe, it was likely to be too much. They needed hope, not even more despair. Two dead and a hollow victory… I spat on the corpse. But things were not always as they seemed.

  Cleo shouted, kneeled over Gabriel’s brutalized body, “He’s alive!”

  How? But more importantly, is he really? I doubt it. Whatever killed the dragon, it was not Gabriel.

  Gabriel

  I woke up. An opened eye revealed concerned faces surrounding me, yelling at me to mend. Too weak to question them, an intrusive thought did as they told. The spike of pain sobered me up, drawing forth a wailing anguish. The healing remained incomplete. One eye was blind. My tongue felt odd, diminished and claustrophobic between all the blisters lining the inside of my mouth. Gritting my teeth fragmented them further. Reflex tried to trash and shake, but movement proved impossible.

  The flood of pain and paralysis was one thing, yet nothing compared to the other. My compartmentalization unwound, accumulated experiences and strain flooded. The constant horrors, the inhuman suffering, the primal fear, the warping disbelief, the insistent reluctance, the deep-seated guilt, the storm of panic - everything coalesced and congealed at once.

  A whirlpool of emotion bore down, depositing its weight on my very psyche, and I broke.

  Tears sprang, I cried for help, for someone to save me, for anything to fix this, to go back to how things were. Cleo’s hand brushed my cheek, she whispered, “Shhh, shhh, it’s alright. We won, you’re safe, and you’re okay. It’s over.”

  Amidst the labyrinth of feeling, something dark nestled at the center of it all. It was alien in its profound emptiness, a hole where it shouldn’t be. A sliver of my being reached there, finding nothing. Despite everything, a stray thought wondered - what could this be? It reminded me of loss.

  Fatigue overwhelmed all else, and I drifted away.