Our signal to begin was the darkening of the sky. The glow of the fg cast shadows across the valley, and I used the bond to make sure Callie could see through the fog easily as Moonlit Night consumed the space below us, covering the entire group below us in a thick bnket of stealth.

  I triggered State of Grace, nodding to the others as Callie melted into the dark. Bethy flicked her fingers and her cats melted into the mist, circling around. I grimaced as I felt a strange tearing pain through my connection to the fog. Below us, I saw entire sections of it begin to burn away as Nathaniel and my sister started pouring their fme into it. Chelsea's fme burned through it far less quickly, but both of them were opening up space.

  "Callen." I murmured, tapping his shoulder and connecting him to the skill. He nodded, bent his knees, and hurled himself up into the air.

  As he came down, he smmed directly into the fme Nathaniel was using to clear the fog feet first, and where his feet hit, cracks formed in the flickering white fire. Callen stopped like he'd nded on rock, then his foot shed out from where he stood midair on the fire and smashed Nathaniel in the face.

  The red haired papal descendant screamed in agony, blood gushing down his face, and Chelsea turned on him, focusing her fire into a column of shimmering white. Callen drew his short sword and zily flicked it to one side, sshing the column in two and splitting it before it hit him.

  With that kind of strength and power he was obviously capable of crushing the two of them easily. The fact that he was starting a fight meant that my guess about his intentions was right. He was more concerned with Chelsea's growth than anything. I assumed he was starting a fight so she didn't get too dependent on him. I wondered what his Path was, because that fire stomping thing didn't seem like a skill, but I was quickly distracted by Abel nding on the other side of the fg and wading in, fists smashing into anyone in range.

  Stepping forward a few times, I kicked off the air with Ripple Running, nding gently in front of Mel. I let the fog between us thin so she could see me as I brought up my staff, my body already in my Belial form. "Mel." I said cheerfully. "Good to see you. Fancy meeting you in this ominous foggy valley." Just for effect I let Nathaniels screams tear through the fog behind her, making her jump.

  "Very nice." She chuckled. "I love the ambiance. Of course, you realize that it doesn't matter? You're here, alone, and unless Callie is about to jump out of my shadow and backstab me, you're not winning this fight. I realize I'm lower profile than my lunatic boyfriend, but don't forget I trained you too. I'm not someone you can just knock aside."

  I shrugged. "I'm not the same person you trained. Not really. I've been through quite a bit here. I've learned and grown more than a little. So, go ahead and show me what you've got. I promise I can take it."

  Raising her hand, Mel curled her fingers, each of them sparking with a candle fme, then she opened her hand, leaving the five flickering fmes dancing on her palm in midair like golden fireflies. "I've picked up some tricks too. Here, watch." She waved her hand expansively and the five fmes shot out into the fog, stopping in various points around me. Then she blurred forward, hands coated with gold fire, and shed out with a punch.

  My staff came up to deflect, guiding the punch to the side as I stepped out of the way to let it flow past me. It was a fwless move, nearly perfectly in line with my overy, which was why I was so surprised when my back hit one of the dancing candle fmes and it ignited into a massive explosion of heat and pressure.

  My danger sense was what saved me. I triggered Mountain Stance even as the fme touched me, and the defensive energy let me tank the bst, if only because my body was va rock right now. Still, my feet dug into the ground, and I was forced to tank another blow as my Danger Sense triggered a second time when Mel's foot smashed into my ribs in a brutal spin kick.

  "Ouch." I panted. "Ok, that was pretty clever. You know my overy works by focusing on possible attacks from the person I'm using it on. You used the little fme wisps to create multiple points of attack to confuse the issue."

  If my overy tracked every possible attack or motion anyone could make around me it would be so much input the ability would be useless. The overy worked best on one person, though it could be used on two or three if I split my focus. That said, I hadn't know those wisps were counted as attackers, so I hadn't done that.

  Luckily for me, my actual strategy had also worked though. Her punch that I'd deflected had released a fme burst as well, and my staff had corrupted it as it was deflected, bsting toxic fme off into the fog. No one had been hit, but it was proof of concept at least.

  She shook out her hand. "You've gotten a lot more precise with your hits. That caught the bone in my wrist perfectly. I take it this va golem form is new? It's certainly very interesting. Did your poison get stronger?"

  I spun my staff slowly, keeping it ready for an attack. I left my feet pnted and stayed in Mountain Stance. It would be a problem if I hit another one of those mines when she attacked me next. Staying still and tripling my defense seemed like my best move. "It is. Part of my Path." Expining Goetia to her would be complicated, as would expining the way it's control and manipution aspects worked with my Fatewalker build.

  Finding ways for my Path to harmonize with my skillset was the whole point of the staff art, so I felt it was working out well so far. I'd come closer and closer to quantifying exactly what about my first form made it synergize with the Fatewalker build and the Path of the Doom Sovereign in general.

  For Belial it was obvious. Control. Belial demonstrated the maniputions of fate, the path that others took during battle and how as the Fatewalker I could reshape those paths. I was still working on the connection for my next form. Belial had shown me the elements needed to make one, and I had some ideas, but for the moment I only had the one.

  Obviously done with her waiting, Mel blurred forward again. I'd shifted the fog to dampen her sight again. She had a rough idea where I was, but only based on where I had been a minute ago. Being Might focused (as all fire Ascendants were) she was faster than me, but State of Grace and the fog combined with Danger Sense and the overy let me counter the speed difference.

  I shifted in pce, leaving my feet on the ground, and redirected her kick toward one of the floating candle lights. Her leg was corrupted by Belial, and when it hit the floating fme, it detonated, corrupting the explosion and consuming her in a ball of green fire.

  When it cleared, she was standing gingerly on her other leg, the one she'd been leading with burned and unusable. She gred off into the fog. Just to make sure my pn would work, I shifted the fog to allow sound again and scuffed my foot loudly. "Ok, that was annoying. Those aren't supposed to detonate for me. Might be dangerous to attack head on even if I COULD move." She raised her hands, conjuring a pair of golden fme serpents. "Guess we'll try range."

  Then she started to HURL the things at me. I grinned, because I'd been waiting for this. Between Danger Sense and the Overy, I saw them coming from feet away, and I began to move. My staff spun, hitting the snakes at the perfect angle to offset and deflect them, each one corrupted by toxic green fmes as I knocked them off course and sent them shooting into the fog.

  One hit a rge man with an axe, another a smaller woman with pigtails, and a tall woman with short hair and a rger sword. Snake after snake flew at me, and since I could see and she couldn't and I'd cut the sound to her again as she attacked, she had no clue I was using all the Might to take out her own teammates, just putting a little english on it and sending it smming into an enemy.

  While I worked, I checked in on the others. Abel was terrorizing a rge group, Callie was sneak attacking a trio of people in sequence to draw attacks and try to get them to attack each other. They were all deeply injured, those bck sshes of abyss energy or whatever doing some serious damage where they hit.

  Chelsea and Nathaniel were getting demolished, and the redhead was cradling a broken arm and trying not to stand on a knee that looked crooked as my sister hurled waves of powerful white fme at her body guard to keep him at bay.

  I was yanked away from the distraction by the feeling of a fucking fire snake biting into my calf. I gnced down and realized that there was a hole melted into the ground. She'd been using the barrage as a sonar to map where I was and wasn't.

  Cursing, I smacked the damned thing away. Mel ughed. "I felt that. Where did it get you? All I got was fangs in meat."

  Slipping to the side, I circled around her silently. I had taken out easily a dozen of the team one bystanders, and leaving Mel around would be a problem. When it came down to it though...I didn't want to actually kill Mel. This was a rare opportunity for her, and the further she went the better she could make her soul. Still it wasn't like I could just leave her here to attack us.

  I summoned a shadow clone. Then shed out with my staff, using the two times multiplier from stealth attacks in Moonlit Night to my advantage as I shattered both her elbow. I used Mercy Kill, then smashed in her knee from the side, and had my clone pick her up and throw her over its shoulder. I pointed randomly. "Run in that direction until you fall apart or something kills you." It saluted me, then took off.

  Breaking all her limbs might have been a bit harsh, but at least she would live, and she'd heal from that...eventually. Once the poison wore off. And he limbs healed. So...hours. Oh well. I turned to help the others. I caught sight of Chelsea retreating under the cover of a series of bsts from Nathaniel, who looked like he was going to actually stay behind and die for her. That was kind of nice.

  I waited for her to get clear, then left him to Callen as I checked on who we had left to kill. Once I confirmed everyone with them was either dead or gone, I headed over and grabbed the fg as I let the fog dissolve. Grabbing it, I felt a massive rush of soul energy, and all the wear of the battle just melted away as my soul progressed a full ten percent of the way into yellow. The next fg probably wouldn't be as much, maybe five percent, but still that was fast for yellow. I just hoped I could break my second shackle in time to hit green while I was here. For now though, I decided to go check on the others.