Pirin hoisted his sword up off the ground and flourished it. Wind now blew through the cracks in the blade, but it held together, even as he pumped more Essence into the Charge and strengthened its cracks.

  As soon as the predictive model activated, he used it and charged. If he waited too long, Lord Three might get an inkling of what he was doing.

  Pirin used the first solution the model granted him. He followed in its footsteps, understanding where Lord Three was going to step and where he needed to move to counter it, understanding where to hit to deal the most damage without charging Lord Three’s tattoos and greenblood too much.

  He might not have known exactly what he was capable of as a Wildflame, but the Memory Chain did. It’d served thousands of wildflames before him, and it’d keep serving afterward.

  It understood how much stronger he’d gotten.

  One step with the Fracturenet active could carry him across the plaza if he wasn’t careful. Unrestrained, each footstep cracked the ground and shook the buildings around him.

  When he switched to his gnatsnapper Essence, his sword practically flashed through the air, moving in bursts of speed that his mind was still trying to catch up with. Yet, movements of Lord Three’s that had previously seemed to blur now seemed like a regular fighter. Fast, but not unstoppable.

  And when Pirin had an opening, with the last of his pure Essence, he drove a Shattered Palm into the Lord’s chest. Instead of just a handprint, talons appeared at the tip of the enormous palm-strike outline. It smashed Lord Three’s ribs and stripped away the flesh of his chest.

  This time, he didn’t let Lord Three stagger back. He couldn’t recover from the hit. He’d engage in blind jabs and throw out as many techniques as he could.

  But Pirin anticipated them. Switching to gnatsnapper Essence, he ducked and pushed himself away from the attacks. It was out of the predictive model’s scope, but it recalibrated and provided him a new solution.

  It assumed Gray would attack from behind, and she did. She struck Lord Three with her newly-enhanced talons and pushed him toward Pirin.

  And then Pirin snared his last trap.

  Lord Three unleashed his heaviest strike, conjuring an enormous dragon of greenblood on his arm and flinging it at Pirin’s left side, assuming Pirin wouldn’t see it coming.

  Pirin slipped around the side with a push of wind, dodging the technique perfectly. A wireframe dragon of greenblood shot past his nose. It cleaved through buildings and halls. It ripped roofs off and shattered windows, then bashed open a section of Northvel’s outer wall, sending stone and debris raining down on the Dominion army below.

  Pirin grabbed Lord Three’s wrist.

  “You…saw.” Three’s eyes widened. Pirin gripped the man’s arm, then, triggering the Charges in his armour, flung the man along the channel the technique had just created. Lord Three’s body flew out over the sheercliff, and, for a brief moment, hung in the air.

  But Pirin and Gray chased him, launching themselves along with a burst of wind. They appeared above him.

  Pirin pulled off his mask, and, using the pure Essence his Charge had just converted, launched a Shattered Palm into his chest. It flung him down to the ground fast as a comet. A basket of fire erupted around his body before he struck the ground. The impact sent a shockwave across the entire battlefield below, toppling Dominion soldiers and throwing Aerdian riders off their mounts.

  That wouldn’t be enough to kill an Unbound.

  Pirin reactivated his Reyad and held his sword in front of him, then pushed from behind with wind and thrust himself down to the ground. He spent nearly all the gnatsnapper Essence he had left, and strengthened it with Essentia. Flakes of gnatsnapper Essence manifested in the air around him, and the Essentia gave it shape.

  The shape of a sparrow’s head.

  He held his sword ahead of him and launched himself downward. Lord Three lay in a crater, trying to push himself up. Pirin split the dust and, without slowing down, slashed through Lord Three’s neck with a burst of Reign.

  The Unbound Lord fell still.

  All around, Dominion soldiers poured over the ridge of the crater to stare at the carnage. Pirin flicked the blood off his sword, then deactivated all his techniques. Gray fluttered down beside him and spread her wings, then squawked angrily at them.

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  Pirin cycled Essence as fast as he could, drawing in more of the Eane and desperately converting it. Without any techniques, he was in the middle of enemy territory. Vulnerable.

  The soldiers approached with spears. One charged him, and he slashed its spearhead off, then ducked around, and cut the man down. It spared him just enough time.

  When the other soldiers approached, Gray flapped her wings, and Pirin had just enough Essence for a Winged Fist. He launched it down at the ground, kicking up a wave of dirt and launching the soldiers back and away from him.

  In the reprieve, he hopped into Gray’s saddle. She took off with a single flap and fluttered up above the battlefield.

  Despite his one success, there was still an Unbound Lord out there—not to mention a whole army, and Lady Neria.

  As they flew, he switched between drawing in pure Essence and gnatsnapper Essence, filling up his reservoirs as much as he could. But, now a Wildflame, his reservoirs were much larger, and though they were filling up at the same rate as before, it didn’t feel like it.

  Just don’t think about it too hard. You’re getting Essence back, and that’s what matters, Gray said.

  “Did you read my mind? Without any intent?”

  I…I guess I did, yeah? Wildflame perk?

  “I hope so.”

  He leaned over the side of the saddle and looked down on the battlefield below. The Aerdian riders were amassing on the west side of the Dominion army, preparing for another charge, but their numbers must’ve been dwindling. By his best guess, there were only about a thousand of them left.

  And, at the center of the battlefield, in a different crater, was a different fight between wizards. Myraden battled Lord Two, dodging venomous techniques while slashing with her spear and fending off strikes from a chain-scythe.

  And then she launched an arc of crimson bloodhorn Essence out, and, shaped like a thousand charging rams, it swept across the battlefield. It caught Lord Two in the chest as soon as he emerged from his puff of tyrrh shrub leaves and knocked him on his back.

  Pirin beamed. She was a Wildflame now, too. He hadn’t been sensing just one, but two Wildflames.

  Should we help? Gray asked.

  “I…” Pirin was about to say yes, but as he watched, Myraden enacted a perfect chain of attacks. With her Tundra Veins, she feigned one direction, and Lord Two launched himself the other way with a puff of flowers.

  But Myraden altered course and thrust her spearhead out. Its tip glistened with Reign, and it pierced through the flank of Lord Two mid-dash.

  Perfect timing. He ran right into it.

  She and Kythen pounced immediately. She struck him in the gut with a smaller arc of bloodhorn Essence, then drove her spear through his heart. Once, then twice, then a third time through his gut—and his core.

  The Unbound Lord fell still.

  But she’d used all her Essence, and Dominion soldiers surrounded her on all sides. She fell to her knees, panting, and her techniques fizzled out.

  “Now she needs us,” Pirin said.

  They dove down to Myraden’s crater. Pirin leapt off Gray’s back and landed in a crouch, then pushed outward with wind, forcing the other soldiers away.

  “Pirin!” Myraden exclaimed. She staggered to her feet, then sprinted over and caught him in a hug.

  She’d advanced to Wildflame. If Pirin had thought the enhancement of Flare had made her more refined, now, reforged in Essentia, she was beautiful. Features refined, symmetrical, eyes large and structure refined, but still…her.

  The same had probably happened to him, though he hadn’t exactly had a chance to look in a mirror. But his scar on the left side of his face had healed more, that much he could sense. It might still have been a white valley, and his eye might still be misty and grey, but it wasn’t as prominent.

  She was already cycling more Essence, gathering more, and preparing herself to keep fighting, but Pirin said, “Wait.”

  At the rim of the crater, more soldiers had approached, and they held their spears and swords at the ready, but they didn’t advance.

  They probably stared at two Wildflames and wondered how exactly they were going to survive.

  Pirin pointed his sword at them and turned in a circle. “Leave. Run, and you’ll live. You have my word. Retreat, and don’t let Lady Neria stop you.”

  The soldiers glanced at each other. None moved.

  Pirin jumped up onto a mound at the edge of the crater and peered above the rest of the army. He used the Fracturenet to enhance his voice, and it boomed loud enough that almost all the Dominion army could hear it. “The Unbound Lords are dead!” he shouted. “Emperor Tarren Har is dead, and your empire will collapse. Run, flee, and you have my mercy. Stay, and you’ll be trampled or otherwise annihilated.”

  For good measure, he launched a Shattered Palm above their heads.

  A troop of archers fired a volley of arrows at him, but he extended the Fracturenet across his whole body, and the arrows barely left scratches in his skin.

  He narrowed down the archers who did it and launched another Shattered Palm into them specifically, breaking their bodies, or killing their mortal souls with the sheer pressure of the technique.

  With that, the Dominion soldiers turned and sprinted.

  Pirin! Gray said. Pirin, Lady Neria! She’s running!

  Pirin glanced back at Myraden. “You ready? We have an Empress to catch.”