If there was one thing that was worse than having your ribs shattered and your internal organs pierced with a unicorn horn, it was fucking nothing because this was agony. Blood filled my lungs as I twitched from the shock. My spotty vision was still able to see the barbarian loom over me, his sword raised.

  “Dead or alive?” he grunted.

  “He is too much of a danger to our cause. Dead,” the Lady replied.

  The greatsword whipped around and lopped off my head—quite impressive considering the angle and me laying on the ground.

  From across the room, snapping the healing charm Ren had left me took me out of invisibility. While I hadn’t had the time to use on the initial strike, he had been slow enough with the follow-up. With how much pain I had been in, I was desperate to use it, so I hated him that much more for the delay.

  “Rude awakening,” I murmured, putting a health potion up to my lips. My magic cards bloomed up around my head, circling me as the man got into a fighting position.

  The Lady stood up from her throne and clenched her teeth. “Idiot. You’d make your queen dirty her own hands?”

  “No, my Lady!” he bellowed, preparing to run at me again.

  Personally, it wasn’t as cool a charge as Wolf’s was. It made me wonder how the bear was doing. My demons hadn’t vanished yet, and I reckoned I could get some out through the door down to him. Oddly, I could hear any sound of fighting either. Something about this room must be soundproofed.

  “Whipped,” I murmured. “Oh, that gives me an idea.” I clicked my fingers and grinned. From my Inventory I drew out a sheet of dark cloth to hold it beside me, enticing the man to charge me like a bull.

  “I’ll make you regret mocking me,” he growled.

  I wouldn’t. He charged, and I saw how he had managed to get his attack off before I had the chance to come back to my body. Not quite as fast as Wolf, but pretty decent. Naturally, I stepped to the side and swept the curtain away.

  Revealing the doorway beside me.

  He didn’t have the chance to react, running himself straight through to hell and landing inside the fighting arena. I waved the door away, the curtain vanishing as I dusted my hands off. If my Champion didn’t kill him, the corruption of hell would.

  “Always one step ahead, aren’t you?” the Lady said, disgust all over her face. “I’ll assume the elf is up top with the rest of the Crimson Shadow, as they aren’t rushing to my aid. Such as shame I’ll have to kill you myself.”

  “That’s your first mistake,” I replied. “I don’t believe that you can.”

  She winced, more of a visceral reaction to the statement than I had expected. “If I needed your acceptance, I’d torture it out of you.”

  “See, that’s where you and I differ.” I smiled as I walked back over to the center of the room. “I also have people who believe in me, but they also trust me. No coercion or threats needed for them to follow me to the death.”

  The Lady snarled at me. “Where do you get off giving me a heroic monologue? The gall of it.”

  “See, I’m willing to bet that you don’t have any powers of your own, really. They’re all for manipulating and using others. You’re just stalling for time in hopes some of your minions make it here.”

  “You’d stake your life on that assumption?” She raised an eyebrow and drew a dagger from her belt. A jagged thing of dark metal that glowed red slightly. “Your first mistake was to come here being so misguided.”

  I smiled and shrugged. “Yours was installing this neat soundproofing.”

  Her eyebrow raised. “What do you-”

  The thirty-odd magic circles blooming around the room cut her sentence off short. Her actual mistake was sending an army against Wolf. More than just a blockade, even if we couldn’t hear my cannon, I had fired it off three times. That number of Dazzle icons was unprecedented.

  Hell-hounds popped from the walls and floor in droves, all eager to take a bite of the woman.

  To her credit, she was fast with the dagger. Being over ten levels over the hounds put her at an advantage, but for each of them she stabbed, she received a bite herself. I could see that she was healing, however. While only looking vampire-esque, I had a hunch that her dagger had Health Steal or similar enchanted on it.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  While I powered up a card in one hand, I sent ten of the dogs out of the room to assist Wolf. I had stolen the cannon blocking the way, so it was only fair I assisted him a little more.

  I whipped the card toward the distracted Lady and she deflected it from the air with her blade, turning to cut through one of the hounds. More than just being quick, she seemed to be increasing in power the more she killed. I wasn’t likely to win a war of attrition.

  She swiped down at a dog and struck a barrel instead, confusion on her brow as it shattered into parts. The next hound just completely vanished, allowing others to tear at her dress.

  Up until this point, she had been my harshest critic. For the first time, I saw Dazzle icons appear over her head. Oh, right next to the one tallying up the strength boosts from killing. I should be paying more attention. Her next attack struck a chair, and then a large rock—her blade sparking as it connected. Some of her stacks of… [Bloodlusted] were now fading away as the hungry dagger found no purchase.

  “Fool!” she yelled, pausing in place briefly before a pulse of crimson energy pulsed away from her, bursting apart my poor demons. The rest cowered and growled at her as this bloody aura persisted along the floor. “You truly seek to test me?”

  Rudely, she didn’t give me the opportunity to respond, as two giant crimson hands burst from the wall on either side of me. Rather than get squished between them, I swapped positions with one of my hounds, sending out a trio of cards at the Lady.

  First was deflected, the second took a slice from the brim of her hat, and the third barely missed her neck. She growled and took the hat off, throwing it to the floor.

  “Only fair as I don’t have mine,” I said. She didn’t see the humor in it.

  In fact, she lunged at me—an impressive distance covered, all things considering. A cloud of smoke burst up around me as I also turned invisible. My hounds jumped into the fray again. The inability to see me didn’t seem to dissuade her as she lashed back and forth, the red glow illuminating the dense fog.

  “Quit hiding!” she yelled, cutting down another hell-hound.

  Then she paused as a vibration shook through the keep.

  Ren had destroyed or disabled the last of the beacons. That was my queue to step in. She reacted by instinct, lashing out and cutting me across the chest. I ducked and rolled beneath her follow up, before I hopped up and activated . The crack of my wings blew away the smoke, and the Lady stepped back with her arms crossed to deflect my next attack.

  But I didn’t attack.

  Her intense glare fell from my new form, down to her wrist. The Nullification Cuff sat there.

  “What is… what have you done?” Despite already being pale as a ghost, any color drained from her face.

  “What’s the matter?” I cooed. “Don’t even believe in yourself anymore?”

  “Bastard!” Her eyes blazed wildly. “I don’t need my abilities to cut you to shreds.”

  Perhaps she was right. My Dazzle icons on her had faded already, barely lasting any time on her at all. Possibly something to do with willpower? I stepped away as she swung; the dagger slicing through the air. She was trying to exert her presence over me again. I could feel the hesitation in my brain like an illness. I dodged her next strike before realizing this was not the play.

  I stepped into the next attack, taking the dagger through my left forearm. I swung around with my right holding a purple card, mentally unable to bring out an actual weapon. She caught my wrist and held me at bay, a sinister grin on her face.

  “Thanks, asshole.”

  The pain of the stab wound radiated down my arm. I could feel my bones split and crack, the muscle fibers separate under the vibrating thrum of the dagger's power. Before I could jerk away, my left arm exploded, covering the area in droplets of gore. Unlike the time in the dungeon, I wasn’t left with a bony appendage to show for it. Nor was there magical smoke to fix me anew.

  It was now just a stump, ending a few inches above my elbow.

  Before the Lady had time to continue to gloat, her own face twisted with shock and pain, as my patron demon ran her through from behind. A burst of energy sent us flying apart from one another, and as I regained my composure, I could see a bubble of red light shimmered around her.

  While darkness spread from the wound, soaking through her dress, she glared at me. A magical shield coming from one of her equipped pieces of gear, no doubt. Powerful enough to prevent her death.

  I smiled and shook my stump, bemused by the lack of limb. “Just when I was thinking of joining you, you went and left me feeling disarmed.”

  “Idiot,” she repeated, spitting blood on the floor. “I don’t believe you.”

  Of course, it was entirely a fib, based on wanting to make a dumb pun. The amount of conviction used to admonish me was staggering, however. She didn’t believe me so hard that she actually forced the System to give her a Dazzle icon, solely because that’s how she thought my powers worked. I would have loved to investigate that notion more, but that singular Dazzle was all I needed.

  I clicked my fingers and cast .

  Gone was the stonework of the keeps second floor. Now varnished wooden planks sat beneath my feet. Rich velvet curtains labored the sidelines as bright stage lights illuminated me from above. An audience of empty chairs lay in wait, while the Lady stood, still clutching at her wound. Rather than sit and be stunned, the area around her remained the stone flooring of the keep, as if her willpower had bored a hole through my domain.

  “What is this?” she spat. “Trying to woo me with parlor tricks now?”

  I held up the bright red critical card in my hand. “Oh no,” I said. “You don’t deserve a performance any more.”

  With all the mana and health I could afford to pool into the card, it snapped away from me like a gunshot. I dropped to my knees as it exploded - her shield overloaded and bursting itself. My Domain washed away as if the power expended had created a vacuum to suck it elsewhere. It was never going to be enough to hold her captive, but I just needed to keep the Lady frozen to one spot long enough to break her shield.

  She stepped over to me, blood running from the side of her face.

  “That doesn’t solve anything, Max. My shield is gone, but so is your strength. What good are you now?”

  “You’re already dead,” I replied. My smile was genuine. “Time for you to leave this world you detest so much.”

  Confusion and anger furrowed her brow. “What are you…”

  A classic case of misdirection. While I wasn’t looking to pull a coin from behind her ear, I did something a little better given her attention had been solely on taking my arm.

  My patron wasn’t meant to be the killing blow, but my demonic ace that was flat against the blade as it pierced through her was.

  I grinned and clicked my fingers.