Seena saw her sister vanish—after some grumbling—from the battlefield, off to run a quick errand for Hiral. Below her, the man in question worked on rewriting the burning rules of the universe. At least, the world. It was still kind of a big deal, and it took Seena an unquestionable amount of willpower not to reach up to rub at the bridge of her nose.

  How had she come from being a little Grower playing with dirt and roots to literally hurling small suns at giant, crystal behemoths who did things like rip worlds out of their own timelines as a hobby? Before she’d met Hiral, she’d had it all planned out. Slowly progress through the Ranks, just like every other Grower did, while imagining she would be the one who figured out the secret of the mysterious dungeon interfaces.

  Maybe, on her really ambitious days, she would envision being part of a group that would go up to Fallen Reach and punch an islander or two until they respected her people. Those were her big dreams. She had a good group. Good friends. They weren’t the best of the best—at the time—or anything like that, but they got by. They worked hard. The kept each other safe.

  Then, Seeyela went and didn’t come back up on time, leading to Seena’s group going down after them, a suicidal islander at their side. One who, it turned out, didn’t even have a class! And, yet, the man had been more influential in her life—and that of her friends—than any other single individual. Because of him—yes, she was blaming him here—she was now fighting for the fate of the whole damn universe!

  With her purely-internal, quiet, frustrated disbelief at the situation, Seena flexed at her abdomen to hurl the building-sized sun she held in her hands above her head down at the Raze giving her a look. All four of the thing’s hands came up to try and catch the powerful attack burning red-and-black, and it even succeeded.

  For a whole second.

  Like the sphere of plasma was a solid object, something about the Raze’s hands caught the thing like it was nothing more than a large ball. There was even a pulse of solar energy from the crystal giant, one that felt a whole lot like a dismissive tisk, before Seena flexed her own solar energy. And the control she still had over the sun.

  Lashes of plasma ripped free from the perfect surface, immediately snapping out like tentacles to grab onto the arms, torso, and head of the Raze preparing to toss the sun aside. As soon as those burning limbs had a solid grip, they pulled, while a fly-trap-like mouth split the sun in half.

  All of the sudden, the Raze went from holding a large glowing ball, to a plant-sun-hybrid thing looking to turn the crystal giant into lunch. Correction, and angry plant-sun-hybrid thing, with teeth forged from some unholy combination of Ur’Thul’s power and her own.

  Yeah, that should keep it busy for a second.

  One Raze temporarily dealt with, Seena looked at the rest of the battlefield. Without Hiral in the fight with them, they didn’t have his Domain of the Sun to count on, and it was noticeable. Not to mention the generally OP things he did. Then again, he wasn't the only one throwing around abilities that defied logic and…

  BOOOOM!

  Below her, the plant-sun-hybrid thing exploded as the Raze ripped it in half. The explosion washed plasma across the crystal giant, as well as the Endless around it, but left it standing there, glaring up at her. Before Hiral had killed Time, a blast like that would’ve turned the Raze into tiny little crystal shards scattered across half of Visionary. Now? It had some glowy spots, like the crystal had been heated up, and nothing else.

  “That’s dangerous,” Seena whispered under her breath, transforming into her Aspect and activating Eloquently Enraged+. Her Aura of the Mother of Flame came next, as well as her Pennant of Shadowy Reinforcement—boosting her Int by another three-hundred points—and then her Domain of Blazing Renewal.

  On its own, the domain wouldn’t be enough to really handle the Raze or Endless, but the minor healing effect that had been added to it would help out her raid group. The spitting fireballs from the bully-lilies—as Hiral called them—would add some extra damage too.

  “Mistress,” Li’l Ur said from her shoulder. “My cooldown is refreshed. I am prepared to aid you again.”

  Seena didn’t respond immediately, the six wing-petals at her back spreading to release her Pollenuption attack across her opponent and the Endless around it. The sticky, burning plasma didn’t have any more effect than the plant-sun-hybrid thing had, and…

  A huge fist came around at her like a meteor, slamming into her whole body at a speed even Hiral would be proud of. Then, like a meteor herself, she shot down out of the sky, crashing into one side of a crystal-covered building and out the other side. Her meeting with the ground wasn’t particularly cordial, and her burning body melted a path forty-feet long before she finally stopped.

  She’d gotten an arm, a leg, and a flaming shield up to block the worst of the blow, but it still stung. And it was only the opening blow, Seena hurling herself to the side as another fist from the same Raze slammed into the ground where she’d just been. Her feet sparked along the crystal coating the ground as she skidded and spun, the wings from her Mantle of the Phoenix spreading at her sides. With a thrust forward of her arms, arrows of condensed fire spit from the Mantle’s wings to pelt the giant already stomping in her direction.

  Remembering—far too well—just how much getting kicked by one of these jerks hurt, Seena jetted flame from her left hand to thrust her in the opposite direction. On her feet, an often-overlooked piece of gear they’d gotten a long time ago activated, her Crystal Skates, speeding her across the ground. Just in time, too, with a foot as big as she was coming down like a falling building. The sheer strength of the stomp shook the ground and kicked Seena up into the air for a second before her skates came back down.

  Legs pumping, along with bursts of fire from her back propelling her along, Seena strafed around the giant construct looking down at its foot, under which she should’ve been a red puddle. More of the flaming arrows pinged off its crystal body, while her flaming totems emerged from the ground to add their own spitting salvos. Not that Seena was going to settle for that.

  As she completed her first complete circle of the stationary Raze—it was doing one of its drug-induced pauses—the plasma spears at her sides finally finished condensing. Four on each side of her, she launched half of them at the Raze’s face, a satisfying series of explosions making it rock backward. The other four spears, well, as much as she wanted to hit the Raze with them, she had Endless coming out of the woodwork around her.

  Like the Raze, the spears weren’t enough to stop these smaller—only twenty-feet tall—constructs, but they did throw them back from the explosions. They also provided great cover, since Seena could harmlessly pass through her own flames without worry. Which is exactly what she needed, two Endless sprinting at her from both sides in an attempt to cut her off.

  Churning fireballs appeared in each of her hands as she raced along, powering towards a space next to an incline of crystal formed by a fallen building. Behind her, the Raze was back on its feet, the shaking ground telling her it was headed in her direction. Fast.

  The Endless would reach her first, though, and her head swiveled back and forth, keeping track of each of them. Thirty feet out from her, they stretched out their long arms as she leaned forward, eyes locked on her and the attacks she had readied in her hands.

  She could only imagine their surprise going through their minds behind the static crystal of their faces when she didn’t throw her fireballs at them, but instead at the ground at her feet. Even as she did that, she saw them move to intercept where she would come out of the small passage formed by the toppled building and the one next to it. Just because they couldn’t see her within the sea of flames, it didn’t mean they couldn’t predict where she would exit.

  If she’d really been aiming for the space between the buildings, instead of the incline itself. With fire roaring up fifteen stories, Seena’s Crytal Skates carried her up the leaning building, her momentum hurling her from the top of it at the same time the dual explosions reached their peaks.

  On her shoulder, Li’l Ur held on for his little unlife, the ride only kicking up a notch from there.

  Twisting in the air, Seena had a new ability she hadn’t shown anybody—not her party or the Raze—that she’d been working on. Frankly, it wasn’t fair only the boys had death beams. She wanted one too. So, she’d made one. Yes, maybe, Hiral adding the Edict of Energy to her PIM might’ve offered a bit of assistance, but she was sure she would’ve gotten it eventually anyway.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  And now it was time to debut it.

  Flipping until she was hanging upside down in the air, Seena positioned her hands horizontally in front of herself. One palm up, the other down, they framed the metaphysical space where her Twin-Star Solar Heart sat within her body, between her waist and chest. More than any of the others, she was sure she had a better connection with that ability. The sun was the source of life for so many plants, while also being a pinnacle of flame. It represented a convergence of her abilities, and her advanced classes.

  It did more than power her. In a lot of ways, it represented her. This ability she’d crafted would use both of those things to an extreme.

  Between her hands, the air shimmered as a ring of vines grew in an instant, creating a perfect circle. These special plants weren’t anything like what Seena normally used, though they also weren’t uncommon. That was because these were the same plants that ran along the ground of Genesis between dungeons. The ones that stored, carried, and gently released solar energy.

  Seena had made a minor—but important—modification to them. She’d taken out the gently part.

  “Take this,” she whispered, power flowing from her hands and Twin-Star Solar Heart into the vines acting like a magnifying glass. In the next instant, a beam of pure, concentrated fire and life—sunlight—connected her and the Raze.

  As an entity forged of crystal, the construct would probably have a certain level of resistance to the attack.

  Yeah. No.

  When the beam struck, it immediately refracted within the crystal body, but it did not do so harmlessly. As the beams bounced around the shoulder she’d struck, they cut and melted the crystal they passed through, leaving a honeycomb of damage before exiting the far side. It wasn’t quite as dramatic as she was hoping—no huge explosions—but it had actually damaged her target. Really damaged.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t damaged enough to stop the thing from dashing ahead to catch her with a brutal backhand that sent her careening into the side of a nearby building. Luckily for her, she went through a window to slide across a stone floor—instead of splatting against a wall—but it still hurt like hell. Worse, it proved one of her best shots wasn’t enough to take these monsters down.

  Hiral wasn’t kidding when he said these would get stronger. I can’t keep fighting like I normally would.

  Her head turned in the direction her PIM told her Hiral stood, his spectral hands working on changing the rules. Practically defenseless while he worked, it was up to all of them to keep him safe enough to finish. Safe enough to get a dog with, hopefully.

  Really, the thought of taking that step still made her a bit nervous. It wasn’t the same for the islanders, from the sounds of things. For a Grower, though? It was like a first step to starting a family. It was as much commitment as anything else she knew. Was she even ready for that?

  With him? I think I am…

  Except they both had to survive this fight to make it there. And, pushing herself back up to her feet on the broken and empty floor of the building—dead civilians entombed in crystal all around her—she wasn’t doing anything to protect him right now. Somehow, she still wasn’t taking this seriously enough.

  She’d told herself she had the same dedication and willingness to do whatever it took, just like Nivian and Ilrolik did. She sure hadn’t shown it, though. There were cards up her sleeve she hadn’t brought out yet. Hadn’t dared bring out.

  As the crystal eyes of the Raze gazed through the hole she’d made entering the building, and the heavy footsteps of the Endless climbed in her direction, she couldn’t keep those cards hidden any longer.

  “Ur,” she said. “It’s time to use those abilities.”

  “Mistress, are you sure…?” he started.

  “I am.”

  “I understand,” Li’l Ur said, floating out beside her. “Remember, once the duration on my ability ends, I will be under a long cooldown, and unable to help you at all.”

  “If we’re still fighting at that point,” Seena said, the air bubbling around her from the heat her body was starting to give off. “It’ll basically already be over.”

  “True,” Li’l Ur said. “And, Mistress, if anything should happen to either of us, it has been my honor to be at your service.”

  “You’re a friend, Ur, not a servant,” Seena said. “And that’s what I need right now. It’s time for a little world domination. So, go on, show them the true power of Ur’Thul the Undying. Ur’Thul of the Limitless Tome.”

  ***

  “As you command,” Li’l Ur said, his voice suddenly becoming deeper as he grew in size to stand almost eight-feet tall. Gone was the cute Li’l Ur, entirely replaced by the full-size version. Standing beside Seena, the shackles around his throat, wrists, and ankles still connected to the small of her back, with his power flowing into her.

  It was an incredible power-up, but it came with two limitations.

  The first was, of course, that it meant Ur’Thul wasn’t under direct command of his own, reduced power. The chains simply couldn’t transfer what he could output quickly enough. So, with his skeletal right hand, he reached over to take hold of the chain on his left wrist. Blue and black flames erupted from his digits, and he squeezed, shattering the chain like nothing more than fragile ice. The process repeated for his other hand, and his ankles in short order, before he reached up and put his hands on the binding around his neck.

  With one last look at the Mistress he would gladly die for, the ripped that shackle free, and his true power exploded like a bomb. Gone was the building around them—the Endless that had been closing flying through the air now in the other direction—while even the Raze stood embedded in an adjacent building.

  Power rippled around him, while the second limitation clawed at his mind. Without his Mistress’s influence, the sanctuary of his direct connection with her soul, the sins of his past came rushing in. The guilt and shame at the things he’d done. The friends he’d tossed aside, or worse, killed to further his goals.

  The loss of the partner he’d loved just as much as his Mistress. He remembered the look in her eyes when she’d finally sealed him in his urn. Anger. Disappointment. Agony. It had hurt her just as much as it had him to do what she needed. And, thinking back, part of him had felt relief she had stopped him before he’d been able to accomplish his goal.

  Part of him felt relieved that he’d… held back.

  Looking around at the life of death battle of his Mistress, her—and his—friends, not to mention the would-be apprentice that, really, Ur should study under, one thing was very clear. The time for holding back, for feeling guilt and shame at what he had become all those millennia ago, was over.

  The Raze had defeated Ur’Thul of the Limitless Tome, as shameful as it was, but he had become Ur’Thul the Undying to extract his revenge. And now he was going to get it. With interest.

  Up went one of his skeletal hands, black flames spilling from the tip of his finger to scratch through the air. From his mouth, ancient, forbidden words of power leaked, like the breath across a forgotten grave. Symbols that brought pain to any who dared look at them surrounded him, while his crown glowed with the power of undeath.

  Unknowingly, Wule had tapped into an echo of his power to achieve his second advanced class, along with the powers of life and death. Great as those powers were, they were still an echo.

  “Arise,” Ur’Thul said, the word tearing from his skeletal mouth at the same time robes forged from Limbo itself manifested across his body. And, to his call, an army answered. Clawing their way free of the ground and shattering the pathetic crystal that had trapped them, the fallen citizens of Visionary threw back their heads and howled.

  Howled their pain. Howled their loss. Howled their rage.

  As they screamed, blue fire burned inside their chests, the flames so terrible, their flesh and organs vanished within the inferno that consumed everything from waist to neck, before the blaze hardened like new flesh. With just the bones and heart visible through the fire, ribbons of the same flames sizzled down the skin of their legs, empowering the muscle as it went. Where it passed, the limbs grew stronger, ascending through the Ranks with the new undead.

  E, D, C, B, A, and finally S-Rank, the limits shattered, while the flesh across their necks and faces incinerated like their torsos had. All that remained was their skulls, engulfed in the all-consuming fire that would very shortly take their lives in exchange for the brief power they’d been granted.

  One on one, even with what Ur’Thul had granted them, these Blightfire Spites wouldn’t be able to stand up to an Endless. Good thing they were legion.

  As one, the terrible keening from the risen ceased, all their rage pouring into the flames already destroying them.

  “Take this world for our Mistress,” Ur’Thul commanded, and the tens of thousands attacked.

  That step done, it would be time for Ur’Thul to get more directly involved, and his eternal gaze fell on the Raze pulling itself out of the building across from it. It’d been a thousand years, and now a chance he never imagined possible had been presented to him. A chance for him to punish those who had taken Amin Thett.

  He would…

  His thought cut off midway as the temperature around him spiked. Like he’d stepped from a cool winter shade to the heart of a scorching desert, he suddenly remembered there was indeed a third drawback to remaining bound to Seena. Or, in his eyes, it had been an advantage. A way to keep his Mistress safe.

  Ur’Thul had acted as a limiter on her power. In part, because as long as she relied on him, she didn’t need to use her true trump card. A powerful cooldown she’d gained through merging all the different aspects of her gifts. Her origins as a Grower, her penchant for flame, her joining with Ur’Thul, her near-death at the hands of the Unnamed, and finally, her absorption of the power from Laapdoug’s dangerous weapon—the weaponized malice. It had acted as a catalyst to grant her a spontaneous ability evolution Ur’Thul had hoped she would never need to use.

  Because, the ability the Blightfire Spites possessed—increasing power at the cost of burning away their own lives—was not his ability to give. He had borrowed it from his Mistress.

  And, now, looking over the flames coating—consuming—her body, it was clear she had activated the ability as well. As long as she ceased using the dangerous ability within a reasonable time frame, Ur’Thul was sure one of the healers could repair most of the damage. However, if she went beyond those limits, the damage would become permanent. Worse, it would burn her away in such a fashion, even her Is That All You Got? couldn’t save her.

  Both of them floating there, he looked over and met her eyes. “No matter what,” she said, lines of plasma leaking from the sides of her eyes to rise into the air, while steam jetted from her mouth with every word. Gone was her hair, replaced by a roaring inferno, while her Aspect-form constantly burned and regrew. Worst of all, though, the sign of the danger of the ability she had used—a flicker of black flame floating in the center of her chest that would quickly grow over time.

  As it spread and replaced the glorious red and orange of her nascent flames, her power would continue to increase, in exchange for her life.

  “No matter what,” Ur’Thul repeated, his words a promise to himself he would do whatever was necessary to make sure his Mistress didn’t have to go too far.

  Because, at the look in her eyes, he saw just how willing she was to do that.

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