Power surged in Hiral’s right hand, his black and white, Edict-forged blade of unmaking scarring air and reality around it with its presence. Ahead of him, the titanic Prince of the Swamp lifted its three, massive heads out of the craterous pit it had been resting within. Each of its necks had to be forty feet around, and stretched nearly a thousand feet up, up, and up toward the clouds flashing with thunder and lightning.

  In Hiral’s sensory domain, light rain pelted the rest of the hydra’s huge body, itself easily another thousand feet long, and half-that wide. That wasn’t even counting the thousand-foot-long, muscular tail thrashing behind it. Legs that made tree trunks look like twigs hefted its girth upright, while wet scales thicker than most castle walls reflected each flash of lightning. This monster was three or four times the size of Tomorrow’s 0M3G4 W34P0N.

  Then there was the sheer power that radiated off the thing.

  The last time Hiral had seen the Prince of the Swamp, he’d only been E-Rank. He hadn’t had a real appreciation for what power was. What it meant. Since then, he’d fought a lot of opponents. Defeated a lot of opponents. Everything from weak Troblins, to Abominations, Infested, Tomorrow’s constructs, and even Fallen.

  None of them—even Vorinal or Laapdoug—radiated the same level of threat as the Prince of the Swamp. The only thing close would be Stumpy, the S-Rank Enemy the party had seen from a distance in their previous journey to Trevallen, when they’d been searching for the locations of the Black Gates. Maybe, up close, it would feel the same way as what Hiral was looking at now.

  We’ll find out later, after we finish dealing with this thing and the Gates. The Enemies—all of them—are next.

  Despite the power—and the earth-shaking snarl—coming from each of the three heads, Hiral wasn’t worried. Wasn’t cowed or intimidated. Yes, the beast would have physical power beyond anything he’d fought. Yes, one head would breathe flames like they were birthed from the heart of the sun. Another would hurl lightning as if it heralded the storm to end all storms, while the third and final head would attack with a deadly combination of the pair. Yes, the armor protecting it would make a Runeocerous green with envy, and the Prince would have so much End and health, it may as well have been infinite.

  But, there was one thing it didn’t have. Allies.

  While the Prince of the Swamp towered in front of Hiral, his party stood at his sides.

  Each with a good thirty feet between them, on his right, Yanily, Seeyela, Right, and Left stood almost casually. The beast didn’t intimidate them any more than it did Hiral. Hells, Yanily would probably be dozing off if he didn’t look excited at the prospect of the battle to come, Tempest Roar—his S-Rank spear—twirling in his hands.

  On Hiral’s left, also spread out, Seena—with Li’l Ur on her shoulder—Laseen, Romin, and Wallop stood in a line. The Rune-o pawed at the ground, like he was eager to charge, one beast against another, while Romin’s hand rested on his side.

  Since the companion’s near-death at the hands of Laapdoug, the Fallen, Romin had been extra protective of his companion. Even after they’d gotten revenge against the Boss by returning to The Final Sunrise after reaching S-Rank themselves, the sentiment hadn’t faded. For his part, Wallop was happily soaking up the attention.

  “Everybody ready for this?” Seena asked over the party chat while the two sides maintained the standoff.

  “Just say when, Boss,” Yanily said.

  Seena cracked her neck side to side as thunder boomed overhead. “Let it off the leash.”

  Hiral couldn’t help but smile at the party leader’s statement. The Prince of the Swamp had to be wondering why ants would be coming to challenge it. To it, they wouldn’t appear to be even warrant being a snack. Unless it knew they were purposely containing their power until Seena gave the word.

  Like a line of bombs went off, each of the party members released their holds over their own power. Beneath their feet, the granite ridge they’d chosen to be seen by the Prince from cracked and split as if a dance-line of giants had stomped down all at the same time. On his left, pillars or fire and bloody energy shot for the clouds—that would be Seena and Laseen—while Romin’s display was more subdued. Without the same elemental oomph as the ladies, the man and his companion ‘simply’ blew the rain back in a wide sphere, followed by the air churning around them like the pair stood in the eye of a hurricane for a few seconds.

  On Hiral’s other side, one pillar of toxic green energy shot for the clouds from Seeyela. Beyond her, Right and Left didn’t have pillars, but the shockwave caused by the release of their twinned energy burned at the air in red and purple, from their entropic and infernal flames. Then there was Yanily. Unlike the others, nothing burst out of him. Instead, the sky above—and the storm filling it—bowed to the spearman. Lightning and thunder ceased their chaotic play, while the heavy clouds lowered themselves in the sky, as if in supplication.

  That just left Hiral, and there was no way he was going to be outdone. With the release of his power came his pseudo-aspect, now finally complete. The unbelievably soft fabric of the Second-Skin of Amin Thett burst into white energy, pieces of it floating up before dissolving and getting replaced by new energy. Around him, black lightning crackled in an aura, while licks of flame of such a white purity there was no better word for them than holy raced across his form.

  Around him, the others hadn’t used any of their really powerful buffs yet, so Hiral wasn’t about to either. They all wanted to stretch their legs a bit. Get more of a feel for what it was like being ‘base’ S-Rank before they started ramping up. There was one exception to that, though. An ability that acted like a passive modifier to few very important things.

  Reinforcement—Your solar energy is more than fuel for your abilities, it is power itself, allowing you to enhance your body with it directly.

  Note: Enhancing your body with Reinforcement will increase your durability and damage reduction by 3% per Rank, with an additional 3% per advanced class.

  Note (2): Enhancing your body with Reinforcement will increase all attributes by 4% per Rank, with an additional 4% per advanced class.

  Note (3): Reinforcement stacks multiplicatively with other attribute-boosting modifiers.

  Note (4): When Reinforcement is used in conjunction with an Aspect (or Aspect-like ability), modifiers granted by Reinforcement are increased by an additional 10%.

  For Hiral, that meant an additional twenty-seven percent increase to his personal durability and damage reduction, along with a thirty-six percent increase to his attributes. And, since he was already in his pseudo-aspect, those modifiers got improved by an additional ten percent, bringing them up to twenty-nine and thirty-nine percent respectively.

  And, the most broken part of it all—or, OP as Yan would call it—was that these boosts modified his parameters after things like his pseudo-aspect did their magic. This wasn’t thirty-nine percent of his base attributes; it was thirty-nine percent of his already increased attributes. Since his pseudo-aspect increased his stats by one-hundred-and-fifteen percent, Reinforcement was more like getting an additional eighty-percent of his base stats. Not even taking into account the other percentage boosts he had.

  Insane.

  It would even do the same thing for Eloquently Enraged+ if he needed to use it later. Unable to resist, he opened just the attribute section of his status window.

  Name: Hiral Dorin

  Race: Builder

  Class: (Lost) Seeker of the Runic Cycle

  Rank: Low-S-Rank (Level 3)

  Attributes

  Strength (Str)—18 (135+506) = 3169

  Endurance (End)—18 (135+506) = 3169

  Dexterity (Dex)—20 (135+1178+174) = 7843

  Intelligence (Int)—18 (135+506+190) = 4099

  Wisdom (Wis)—18 (135+506+152) = 3913

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  Attunement (Atn)—20 (135+1178) = 6930

  Solar Energy Processing

  Absorption Rate: SSS+-Rank

  Capacity: SSS+-Rank

  Output Rate: SSS+-Rank

  Look at how far he’d come, and again, that wasn’t even with Eloquently Enraged+ or something like Overwhelming and Allied Killing Spree+, which would add even more multipliers. Overpowered might be an understatement…

  Body filled with power, that was barely the opening act. Hiral was powerful on his own, there was no doubt about that. But, he had one more set of allies that truly tipped the scales, and they stepped forward.

  At S-Rank, the Edicts tore their way into reality, the ground for a dozen miles in every direction bucking and heaving, forcing even the Prince to brace itself. Rain fell down, up, sideways, and even in endless circles, like it wasn’t sure where it was supposed to be going, while cracks spread across the air, eerie black energy bleeding through.

  A passing touch of Sealing made sure the cracks didn’t spread too far, but the world simply wasn’t ready for the sudden and condensed release of power. With the Edicts now there in person, and a few more tweaks from Hiral, things stabilized, the natural disasters calming, while Restoration spread out to repair any damage done.

  That completed, the Hiral-size Edicts seemed to take a moment to size up their opponent—the Prince of the Swamp—before shrinking down to barely egg-sized, and moving to circle at Hiral’s back. The blade of unmaking in his hand pulsed with their presence, stronger with them this close, while the Rune of Eclipse formed across his chest.

  In his sensory domain, the air simultaneously burned and crackled with electricity on his sides. The rain fell thicker, a hint of crimson to it, the clouds above bleeding, and the ground sizzled and popped, toxic energy eroding it in an expanding sphere. Lightning flashing in the clouds didn’t look so random or forked, but instead straight. Long. Like spears…

  Through it all, the Prince of the Swamp’s eyes narrowed, realization of the force that stood before it dawning. And, with those eyes locked forward, it didn’t see what waited for it off to the side in the distance.

  As soon as the Edicts had emerged, Hiral had reached out with Connection, Gravity, Attraction, Rejection, Impact, Increase, Separation, and Energy. What had he reached out to? Something the rumbling earth had hidden the terrible cracking of it being ripped from the stone. Something that had Yanily smiling like a schoolboy. Something Hiral hauled on as he jerked his left hand across in front of himself. Something so big it cast a shadow even across the massive Prince of the Swamp.

  Until it crashed down onto the huge monster with enough force to shake the ground yet again, dust, stone, and debris rocketing into the sky in arcs that sent it for miles in every direction. In the blink of an eye, the Prince of the Swamp was buried beneath thousands—tens of thousands?—of tons of stone.

  “Yes!” Yanily shouted.

  “Did you just throw a mountain at it?” Seena asked, her head locked forward, like she couldn’t believe what she’s just seen.

  “A D-Rank mountain,” Hiral chuckled.

  “Who cares?” Yanily said. “You threw a mountain. Without even touching it!”

  “Impressive as it was,” Seeyela said. “It didn’t kill it.”

  “I sure hope not,” Yanily said, the man bouncing up and down on his toes. “I want a turn.”

  “You’re about to get your chance, knucklehead,” Laseen said.

  True to the old—young?—vampire’s words, the rubble shifted for an instant, before it all got blasted away. A second stone-shower filled the sky as the hydra’s three heads burst upward, its triple-roar drowning out the thunder and chasing away the rain from the volume of it. Just like that, the entire mountain was hurled to the far corners of the zone, and all three heads turned their attention on Hiral.

  “Not me you should be watching,” Hiral said. Whether the beast understood his words or not, none of them had the chance to find out, the clouds high above belching out a bolt of lightning that had to be a hundred feet around.

  The S-Rank Skyfall crashed down on the Prince’s back with enough force the ground at the beast’s feet crunched and shattered, burying the thing’s legs up to its knees. At the same time, its back bowed beneath the power, while dragon-shaped arcs of lightning clawed and tore their way across the heavy scales.

  Scales that—impressively—resisted Yanily’s unrestrained power. It was possibly the most powerful Skyfall the world had ever seen, and the Prince and the Swamp had barely bent its legs beneath the weight of the attack.

  “Oh yeah,” Yanily said, completely undeterred. “This is what an S-Rank fight should be!”

  Like the others agreed, the party launched from their starting positions, Aspects and abilities rolling off them in waves of solar energy. The Prince, too, was done playing target dummy at that point, its three heads acting in brutal independence of each of other.

  From one head, a strafing line of plasma-like flames in a cone two-hundred-feet wide scoured the earth where the party had just been standing. Most of them, each with powerful movement abilities—or absurd amounts of Dex—found a way to avoid the terrible blast that scarred the landscape in melted stone.

  Most, because Seena hadn’t moved a muscle. In fact, the progression of gushing flames had stopped when it had reached her. Even as the Prince’s head continued to the side, the flames had curved back to where Seena stood, until even the massive hydra realized something strange was going on. By the time it cut off its breath—another head snapping out to try to bite a Blink-Charging Onslaught, and another roaring lightning at a cackling young woman—Seena floated in the air, a ball of condensed flame held above her outstretched arms.

  “Let’s see how you like it,” the party leader said, before leaning forward and hurling the house-sized ball of plasma at the Prince.

  Like it recognized the danger, the massive Raid-Boss’s three heads twisted and opened their mouths, energy leaking from the three of them to instantly form into a powerful barrier. Composed from each of the elements the beast commanded—including fire—it was bound to have an impressive resistance to flame.

  Too bad for it, the ball of plasma met something else before the shield. Namely, a hanging curtain of black that swallowed it whole. For all of zero-point-five seconds. A second sheet of black unfurled horizontally right above the unsuspecting Prince’s back. At the same time the sun fell on the Raid-Boss, a third sheet opened under Yanily’s feet, depositing him well above ground zero.

  Despite its small size—in comparison to the Prince—nobody on the field doubted Seena’s firepower. At S-Rank, the woman did not disappoint. While Hiral had thrown a mountain at their opponent, Seena’s attack was like the birth of a new star. The instant the sun touched the back of the Prince, sound and color vanished, all replaced with a perfectly silent, mile-wide sphere of white destruction.

  Shields of Decrease, Energy, and Rejection protected the party from the heat of it, while forests for another mile in all directions instantly combusted and turned to ash, and stone bubbled and melted. To call it devastating would be an understatement.

  It also wasn’t nearly enough to stop their S-Rank opponent, so Hiral lifted his blade of unmaking above his head in both hands. Behind him, the Edicts pulsed, and the sword in his hands solidified, black with a core of white.

  Across the zone, weight pressed down, those cracks he’d Sealed earlier threatening to break further in the second he held the pose. Then he swung.

  Even more than half-a-mile from his target, Hiral only had one thought running through his mind. One purpose. One command. One Edict.

  Separation.

  In a perfect vertical line extending from the tip of his sword, sky to earth, reality seemed to slip. On the right side of the cut, the white sphere of destruction suddenly hung lower than the left. Beyond the sphere, the storm clouds parted in a line stretching to the horizon, and the earth gained a new crevice, reaching down toward the core of Genesis.

  Now, Seena’s attack made a sound. A BOOM from the implosion of the collapsing star, then a second BOOM from the ensuing explosion. The pillar of flame shot for the sky like a city-sized volcano erupting.

  Even before the flames vanished, thunder rumbled with a deep pounding, like words rode the stormfront.

  “Dragonflight Breath,” Yanily said, energy pulsing from him like he’d—of course—had a spontaneous ability evolution. A Yanvolution.

  If Hiral had expected a beam of black destruction to lance down from the hovering spearman in his Aspect form, he would have been disappointed. Instead, knowing his friend, he just waited to be impressed. It didn’t take long, with balls of dark grey clouds growing to the size of a two-story building in an instant. Not like it ended there, either, those same clouds each taking on the familiar shape of a dragon’s head.

  A second after that, the dozen dragons’ maws opened simultaneously, the whole sky going monochrome as twelve balls of churning energy formed. Sorry, thirteen, because Yanily had one too.

  Then, in unison, only two seconds after announcing the name of his new ability, Yanily released it.

  The twelve heads weren’t coordinated enough to all focus on a single spot, but the wide dispersion of the terrible blasts created a field of destruction across the Prince of the Swamp just as Seena’s flames faded. Each criss-crossing breath had to be thirty-feet wide, filling the space with devastation that took the Raid-Boss from all sides. There simply wasn’t anywhere to avoid all the attacks, especially not when the target was that big.

  Then there was the thirteenth blast. Yanily’s personal Dragon Breath, that came straight down on the same path his Skyfall and Seena’s sun had. Concentric shockwaves followed the descent of the attack before it struck, drilling into the Prince’s back and smashing it down into the ground beneath its feet.

  A chorus of powerful ROARs bellowed from the beast’s mouths, but even after all that, they weren’t roars of pain. No, the Prince of the Swamp was well and angry at where the scales bad been blasted from its back, and the perfectly straight cut that’d caught it between two of its necks.

  Hate and power raged within the three sets of eyes, another chorus of raging roars shaking the zone, while each of the heads looked in a different direction. Then, in its own display of dominance, solar energy poured of out of the hydra, and the three necks split into six, then twelve.

  New mess of writhing necks and draconic heads atop the body, the next ROAR was nothing like the previous ones. It dared them to challenge them. To try and put up a fight. It had taken their best shots and still stood strong, barely a scratch on its powerful scales.

  Taken their best shots? Hah. That’s what it thought. They were all just getting started.

  “Yeah, this is what S-Rank is all about,” Yanily said, excitement leaking out through his voice, while even more solar energy crept between the scales of his Aspect.

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