- My game! I was in the middle of a ranked match! @Leaflegend498 (Realmer)

  ? Your game?! What the fuck is going on, did someone manage to sneak past the Tyrants? @Limousin (Verified, R8)

  ? There’s reports of multiple large impacts felt in Sector Eight. Dragonslayers are fleeing Sector Eleven, saying someone’s attacking the Witch Tyrant. @Fardinger (Verified, R9)

  —

  They’d been tricked, that was what every dragonslayer on the field recognized as they beheld the manifestation of a Legend. Indigo had promised them all that this fight was winnable, that they had the perfect plan with everyone else blocking the other Tyrants.

  It wasn’t completely unbelievable.

  Dragonslayers like the [Stallmaster Thief] and the [Master of the Blade] were capable of such impossible feats that it was believed that they could slay anyone, if given the chance. That was the theory. In practice the truth had been completely different.

  The [Thief] understood it with that stab in the back. They’d never had a chance, at least not until half of them were used as fodder to create Indigo’s Legend.

  Indigo did not care for accusations, she simply waved her hand.

  The air thickened and [Thief]’s broken hand started rapidly regenerating, everyone that had been injured was.

  For the first time in history, the [Archwitch’s Domain] had been broken.

  The display wasn’t enough for some. A [Dragonslayer Warrior] slammed on the barrier yelling loudly enough for them to hear.

  “Indigo! Break the barrier! We want out!”

  The new Legend ignored the demand, she was looking at her own hands, they shifted from mist back to solid, then back to mist again. Then she glanced at the one giving the command. Her hand reached out towards the distant barriers and the mist spread, rapidly moving towards the edge… then it reinforced them. A thick layer of red tinted on top of the invisible barrier of the Witch’s domain.

  “No, we slay the Witch Tyrant here. Come, come we are so close.”

  The [Warrior] looked in fear, his teammates had died and he’d lost the nerve for battle. He did not want to be the next fuel for the Legend. He looked to the Witch instead.

  “Witch Tyrant! Release your barrier! Let us escape!”

  The Tyrant didn’t even acknowledge his existence, she stared at Indigo’s mist like it was the only threat in the world. The [Stallmaster Rogue] was realizing it was true, nobody else had a chance at taking her head.

  Indigo the [Shaman], no, the [Oath] itself, glared at the man. Her hand twisting towards the dragonslayer.

  “A traitor, one who has broken his oath! If your spirit is not willing then let your body serve to fulfil your promise..”

  [Oath of Blood and Bone]

  “What? You didn’t tell us– AAAAAAAA”

  The man started screaming, blood started pooling from every orifice of the man’s body. He did not die immediately.

  Dragonslayers died hard.

  Blood continued to pour out as the gurgle of liquid from his mouth took over his screams, his Epic tier gear and skills doing nothing to stop the siphon from the [Oath]. He gurgled until he was nothing but skin and bones… and those joined the mist too.

  It lasted for twenty long seconds, far too long for dragonslayers of their level. Everyone looked on in horror, even the [Stallmaster Thief].

  Everyone but the Witch Tyrant and the [Oath].

  “Look at her!” Indigo pointed at the Witch Tyrant, “do you think that even if you escaped you would be able to live without watching your backs? Can you forgive everything she’s done?”

  The Witch Tyrant looked indignant, not a single pail of mercy was written on her face.

  A true witchly spite. She would rather fight to the death than let them flee.

  A [Gigant’s Cleave] slashed out from the [Bloodsworn Knight], the strike tinged with the Oath’s Legend, the skill met a beam of light–and unlike the other times the [Cleave] skill went through three beams of light and the Witch Tyrant had to dodge.

  All the dragonslayers focused on that. The domain was broken and healing was back up, if they were empowered by another Legend? They all turned to the Witch Tyrant.

  Skills began to fall. All enhanced by the blood of their fallen.

  –

  A beam fired at a pathetic [Dragonslayer Rogue], he did not dodge as the liquid of burning light reached his face. Instead he let it burn away in the red mist, by the time it reached his position, he did a simple slice and cut the laser down.

  Now even trash were fending off the light beams.

  Then the [Dragonslayer Rogue] used [Triple Stab], from hundreds of yards away. His mastery over the skill meant that the deviated extra stabs could reach her from afar. Normally, she’d have let the barrier tank such a weak hit–but she couldn’t. The new Legend tinted each attack, buffing the spectral stabs into something far, far too dangerous.

  A Legend was terrifying indeed.

  She blocked the two distant stabs with her buckler. It didn’t matter, the opening gave the [Master of the Blade] a chance to slash at full force on her arm.

  Her form fitting barrier didn’t break, but the strike did send her reeling.

  A masked [Dragonslayer Warrior] leapt forward with her fists to smash her with a [Guardbreaker]. The skill alone should have done nothing. Buffed with Indigo’s sacrificial Legend? It cracked her barrier and forced her to stagger, unable to stand back up.

  Damned Legend, this was becoming impossible.

  That opening was all everyone needed to start piling on the ranged attacks. Again all tinted in red.

  Two shitty [Dragonslayer Rogues] slipped inbetween the volley, the ranged fire paused to let the [Rogues] have their chance.

  Her death was coming. She sighed, it looked like this wasn’t enough.

  “Now,” she whispered.

  The impossibly sturdy barrier of light shattered into countless pieces of tiny glass like shards. They exploded outwards with such force that the two [Rogues] were killed instantly. The [Master of the Blade] who was still in range parried most of the shards. A few embedding deeply into his torso and arms.

  She turned into a flash of lightning and disappeared into the air.

  “She’s in the air!”

  “Fire! Don’t let her flee!”

  Her barrier was gone, she did not ask for another one. Instead she took out a brilliant blue potion and downed it. Using her impossible speed to dodge all the other blows while she drank, she licked the sparkling blue liquid from her lips and smiled at the people below.

  “A mana regeneration potion.” She said simply.

  She let the words sink in. Regeneration potions existed, mana potions existed. The world had never heard of a mana regeneration potion before.

  She felt the effects of the potion as she smiled.

  “Now, shall we start round two.”

  –

  Mana potions did not work in the same manner that healing potions did. They restored depleted mana over time while healing potions simply fixed the wound. The higher the quality of mana potion the quicker and more mana it would restore. In a sense all mana potions were just like regeneration potions.

  So what the hell was a mana regeneration potion?

  Another [Meteor] began forming in the sky. The mana ripples interfering with Indigo’s own Legend manifestation.

  The Witch Tyrant was faster now that her barrier was broken, she flitted around like she was born in the sky, outmaneuvering everyone that tried to break her spell circle before it fully formed. They hadn’t expected the aerial superiority.

  How many cards had the Witch Tyrant kept a secret?

  She was bombarding everyone on the ground as the groups started huddling together in defense. The Tyrant used her orbs less and started throwing out lightning. Something was off but Indigo had no time to process it.

  Her [Bloodsworn Knight] shielded her as the [Meteor] landed.

  Nobody had died upon the impact of the third [Meteor]. Everyone had already been in their defensive positions when it landed. Unfortunately, they’d shown that card before.

  Somehow the Witch Tyrant appeared in the middle of a cluster of dragonslayers, she spun as the defending dragonslayers reacted far too slowly. A beam of light going through the side of one of the [Warriors] exposing bone and brain. Indigo felt her Legend begin to heal the woman but the Tyrant simply put her staff through the woman’s neck.

  “Wait-”

  Dragonslayers were resilient. It wasn’t always a good thing.

  The Tyrant started a slaughter, amongst the group of five, three died in moments as the [Master of the Blade] stepped up, giving the other two time to flee.

  “Keep up the assault, her mana isn’t recovering that quickly!”

  The potion now seemed like a ruse, something to break their morale, it mattered little. Her Legend was still growing, with every death, with every dragonslayer sacrificed, Indigo’s Legend grew. Her might did not diminish as she used it.

  In fact… Indigo reached out to the Witch, her hands grasping at the distant figure.

  The mist thickened around the Tyrant, uncaring about the [Master of the Blade]. The Witch Tyrant slowed, her speed, skills and even magic being drowned by the sin of blood.

  Her skill called out to her, the blood whispering at her of what needed to be done.

  Give me more, I give everything for vengeance. Let my hate never wane.

  The Tyrant slowed to a crawl and the [Master of the Blade] swung with all his might.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Only to find his own sword blocked by the mist.

  Indigo cared not about him anymore, she focused on her Legend. Victory would be found through that.

  This is your debt, your blood debt to my tribe, bleed for us, break for us.

  Break, break BREAK.

  The Witch Tyrant’s leg snapped.

  A blade swung, a flurry of skill enhanced strikes waiting for this singular moment. The Tyrant tried to dodge but she’d been fighting with a true master the entire time. The [Master of the Blade] had enough time to learn her every tic.

  A true master.

  The blade cut through her fingers, her arms, blood and flesh flew off, Indigo’s Legend devouring the target of its grudge. The blades continued to slice away at the torso of the Tyrant. The body of the Witch exploded in flesh and bone as something reached out from the middle of her torso.

  [Stolen Time]

  The [Master of the Blade] disappeared. Something appeared in the middle of where he was standing. An enormous draconic fist clenching at nothing.

  What? Indigo had never seen anything like this from the Witch before.

  “A piTyYYYyy, I wanNted To KilL hiM.”

  The fist went back into the torso of the Tyrant as she started healing. Her wounds starting to knit back together, her bone moving back into place, cuts closed like she had just taken a regeneration potion. The potion from earlier wasn’t a mana regeneration potion, it was just a normal regeneration potion, colored in blue.

  “No!” Indigo screamed, “you who have denied others claim to recovery shall suffer the same fate.”

  She tried to push her Legend but the Tyrant just looked at her with a pitying look, her mismatched bloodshot eyes shining through the mist. Red–Pink eyes?

  “Indigo another [Meteor].” Her [Bloodsworn Knight] said.

  Far above the sky was another ring, and another ring stacking on top–how?

  Even now, at the peak of her power she couldn’t imagine casting something like a [Meteor] so many times in a row.

  “My cooldowns,” he said, “I can’t handle another [Meteor].”

  Indigo gritted her teeth and swallowed them both in an orb of blood. She strengthened the defensive skills of the surviving dragonslayers. What an impossible amount of mana capacity. She looked up and braced for the [Meteor] to land but it shattered like light upon impact.

  A fake? An illusion? What?

  The Tyrant was in the middle of another group of dragonslayers, tearing them apart with her light orbs and staff. Where had the [Master of the Blade] gone? She had no time to register the discrepancies as she focused on buffing the dragonslayers. It didn’t matter if they died but she needed more time to practice with her Legend.

  Her Legend was beyond anything Indigo had imagined. She just needed more time–

  That was when the very real, but very invisible [Meteor] landed on her.

  –

  The Witch Tyrant sipped at a blue drink from a wine glass. She sat by a lovely wooden tea table crafted by the Dwarven Tyrant himself, the open field completely peaceful as she watched the festivities from thousands of miles away.

  Like it had nothing to do with her.

  Little Pinkie was working overtime pretending to be her. Fighting off multiple dragonslayers at speeds that they believed her to be capable of. She chuckled at that. Why would she show her hand and fight all those dragonslayers by herself?

  Contest against those skills that could break reality itself?

  It was better to offload the work to someone else. Not let her guard down, that was how [Mages] died.

  The [Lightweaver Archwitch of Memorials] took another sip of her mana potion.

  “I’ve done too much,” she sighed, “the little observers will learn from this.”

  “You’ve done too much?! You barely did any of the work! Poor Pinkie!”

  Gamielle leaned on her mother’s back, shaking the [Witch]’s hat in a childish fit of anger. The Witch Tyrant flicked her daughter’s nose with a finger.

  “This is all my work.”

  The Witch Tyrant stood up, tumbling her daughter off of her back.

  “Either way, I believe it’s time to close the curtains.”

  Gamielle looked across in the distance, she was looking at a particular [Thief] carrying a [Blademaster] far, far from the caged area. The [Thief] had managed to break through.

  “You could let some of them live, you know.”

  Another voice laughed. A rich male’s voice, recognizable and haunting.

  “Hah! If that were possible then your mother would have stopped years ago.”

  “Shut up! Shoo! Shoo! Nobody likes you!”

  The Witch Tyrant sighed.

  –

  When the dust on the real [Meteor] had settled only eight dragonslayers were still left on the field. It was a devastating tactic. Significant cooldowns were used on the fake meteor that they weren’t prepared for the invisible one.

  Then the Tyrant had come in and started slaughtering them all.

  It wasn’t just the [Master of the Blade] that could memorize patterns and cooldowns. The entire time the Witch had been plotting for this singular moment too.

  The six remaining dragonslayers started a retreat. Too much had died to listen to Indigo’s threats.

  “Fools. You wish to retreat now?”

  Indigo raised her hands towards the fleeing cowards.

  A [Grand Mage] stepped out in front.

  “Enough! We promised to help kill her, we did not agree to be sacrificial lambs to your madness! For that you are no [Shaman] of ours! You are not of our tribe.”

  Indigo felt her authority over them weaken, yet… she pulled and the final six dragonslayers started screaming. They all tried to refute her claim as they grabbed at their faces, trying to stop at the siphon. It mattered not, hers was a Legend, it was something they had not. They screamed and screamed until she had taken them all.

  The challenge to her authority had only drawn out their deaths.

  Just her and her [Bloodsworn Knight] left.

  “I guess that’s that then.”

  A second Witch Tyrant appeared next to the haggard one. Indigo bared her teeth as she felt her Legend recognize the true target of her oath.

  She hadn’t realized the other one was a fake, she’d had no practice with her own Legend before. Indigo bared her teeth about to say something but realized the Witch was ignoring her, the fake Tyrant flopped onto the ground, her hair turning pink, she became shorter with scales–a drake. She looked hopefully at the Witch Tyrant.

  “Was that good enough?”

  “No.”

  “Aw.”

  Indigo gritted her teeth in anger, how dare she ignore her? She wrapped all of her power around slowing her target, it worked better now that the target of her hate stood in front of her. She empowered her [Knight] with the remainder of her might.

  Armor began to coalesce around the [Knight], an armor of savage bones with a thick mist of red. His [Gigant’s Cleave] looked like a giant blade of bone cutting through everything, except the skill wasn’t going for the Witch, it cut Indigo in half.

  For a moment Indigo thought that Tristan, her [Bloodsworn Knight], had betrayed her. Her body regenerated, knitting the two halves back together. She tried to siphon him only to find her Legend tugging at the ground at her feet. Tristan was there, dead, holes throughout his body.

  She hadn’t even seen how Tristan had died.

  “A Legend of illusions,” Indigo muttered, “how funny. You can fake everything, even my [Knight] from my senses.”

  “You simply didn’t have enough time with your Legend,” the Witch Tyrant said, looking casually at Tristan’s body, “unfortunately, your Legend ends here.”

  Indigo started laughing, broken, mad. But not hopeless, she was already those things before she had come here. The Witch had made one mistake, and it was to come here with her real body.

  Her oath told her so.

  “Come with me Tristan, let your death be the final push I need.”

  Indigo’s eyes burned in fury. The world turned crimson as the manifestation of her Legend began to pulse across the sky. Blood began to drop from the sky, it seeped from the ground and pooled in the craters. The Witch Tyrant flew above the rapidly forming lake of blood, dragging the pink haired dragonslayer with her.

  Indigo only had eyes for the Tyrant, she raised the mass of crimson liquid to drown her out. The Witch Tyrant simply let herself be overwhelmed as she threw the dragonslayer far away.

  “Such crude control.”

  The words echoed out from behind Indigo, a hand pierced her from behind and through her ribs, the Witch Tyrant held Indigo’s heart right in front of her.

  “Any last words?”

  Not yet. There was one more thing to sacrifice.

  Her body healed around the arm, locking the Witch Tyrant in place. Indigo held a bloody laugh, her body itself began to mist, giving it all to her Legend. It peaked even higher, eating away the Witch’s arm. The arm started to dissolve into her Legend. Her oath starving for more.

  It grew further.

  Then she felt a dissonance. Her Legend, her Oath pulled at a different location. The Witch behind her was just another fake. Another illusion.

  That was fine, I will find you no matter where you hide.

  All the blood evaporated as the mist expanded at a terrifying pace, miles and miles in an instant, it spread out and shattered the Witch’s barrier enclosure like it was paper.

  It spread like a plague, vaporizing anything that was still in the vicinity.

  It spread into hiding dragonslayers that were watching from the beginning. It swallowed them whole as they began melting in place.

  It spread until it caught the traitorous [Thief] and the [Blademaster]. The [Master of the Blade] cut through the mist. The [Thief] threw something on the ground and they disappeared.

  The mist spread and spread.

  And spread.

  …And she still couldn’t find the Witch Tyrant.

  How?

  She has to be hiding, hiding from my senses. An illusion of Legend.

  At the peak of her power, with over half of herself sacrificed, the [Shaman] finally noticed it. A foreign influence diffused in her blood, it was suffused in the air, in the very land itself. Everything was tinted with the signature of the Witch’s magic. So subtle that it had just seemed like ambient mana.

  IT WAS IN HER VERY BONES.

  The voice echoed out from everywhere, even her own Legend.

  “Well done, you are the first other than the Archmage Tyrant to have noticed that.”

  There had never been a chance at all.

  “Coward.”

  “You simply were not worthy of my full attention. You never have been. This entire fight was mere training for my student.”

  How far did the Witch’s Legend reach? There seemed to be no end. A figure coalesced in front of her, the Witch Tyrant looking as arrogant and uncaring as always. Looking down on Indigo as she stood above the carnage that she had caused.

  “It seems this is as far as your compromised Legend will go.”

  Not yet, Indigo checked at her own bones, she was mostly one with her own Legend now. Her skill had completely taken over, but there was one more thing to sacrifice. Just…

  Why was she being given so much time to do this? Why did the Witch drag this out?

  “Why do you want my Legend to grow?”

  A damning silence. The Witch Tyrant sighed.

  “I wished to observe just how far a sacrificial skill would go, but I guess this is it.”

  Five orbs of light spun in front of her, creating a spell circle Indigo had never seen before. It kept charging, and charging…

  And charging.

  “Any last words?”

  Indigo looked at the Witch Tyrant with all the hatred in the world. The [Oath of Blood and Bone] sneered.

  “I curse you, I curse you and your ambition. Your peace is mounted on an altar of blood. Both worlds have moved on, but I see it in your eyes. May you never find peace, may you forever be stuck in that hell.”

  Indigo’s Legend coalesced one last time as it took her away entirely. The [Oath of Blood and Bone] made to look like she was crafting a curse to end all curses.

  Then it simply–dissipated, blood diffused into the air, becoming nothing more than droplets of bloody rain.

  “Fuck you.”

  The last thing Indigo saw as she scattered her consciousness was the real Witch Tyrant appear and try to grab at the remainder of her bloody Legend.

  –

  “Oof she got you good.”

  “Not now.”

  “Aw but c’mon, I did say-”

  “I said, not now.”

  The Witch Tyrant hissed at her daughter. It was another piece to her impossible puzzle. She was rapidly crafting nets of brilliant light, pulling on her authority as a Witch in her domain, pushing her mind to pull with the mental force of millions.

  The damned Legend resisted everything she tried like it had a mind of its own.

  With all the spite a [Shaman] could muster.

  She should have asked the Archmage Tyrant for aid. She was crafting nets she’d only theorized about, using both magic and mental force as her desperation grew. Some of the [Oath of Blood and Bone] would catch on the threads but then simply became inert.

  “Aw it’s not work-”

  “GAMIELLE!”

  Xie Lihua finally lost it, she looked at her daughter’s face, cheeky, unafraid and defiant. With the look of disappointment and death hiding behind her eyes.

  She grabbed at her errant Legend’s face and threw her far, far away. Xie Lihua isolated her thoughts from that thread.

  Her hands shook.

  So close. The direction, the sacrifice, will it be enough?

  Indigo’s Legend had touched upon something that wasn’t just magic. Something Lihua was sure she needed.

  “A sacrificial skill elevated three Epics to a Legend. How many Legends would be enough? Or is there something more?”