Bloodlust. What a strange thought. Riven had always thought such a condition was played up in stories, that the phenomenon where people got drunk on battle until they were so chaos-inebriated, nothing else existed in the world save their need to fight. Their need to draw blood. It seemed too fantastical. Rational thought couldn’t just disappear, right?

But rushing at Wenster with his sword drawn, Riven understood it. Rage. That was the secret. Bitter anger, boiling hatred, incandescent rage, all of it combined to snuff out every other part of the mind until all he saw before him was Wenster’s ugly, moustached mug. All he was aware of was the rocks under his feet making it so hard to rush properly, the dust stinging his eyes, the bright blue Essence flickering all over Wenster’s body, making him glow from the inside as though his Essence was within him.

Riven’s sword never hit Wenster. As Riven charged, the other Essentier transformed in the blink of an eye, turning from a well-endowed man to a shrivelled corpse.

Then he dodged. Riven’s overhead strike clanged on the debris, and he didn’t move. Fast. Too fast. Wenster had moved as fast as he had changed, zipping away from Riven too quickly for his eyes to follow. He turned to see a severely emaciated Wenster standing a few yards away, grin making his face look like a skull with a tight leather cover and some hair.

The Chasm had his Essence done to him, and why?

Too fast. But didn’t matter. Riven just needed to anticipate. He charged in again, pulling his sword in a wide arc from the right, leaving no space for Wenster to dodge that way. Soon as he came close, soon as he saw the first hint of tension riding Wenster’s shoulders, Riven jerked to his left to stop his enemy from escaping that way too.

But Wenster had enough to go on with. He jumped. Riven’s eyes were just fast enough to spot him kicking off the ceiling to land on the rubble behind before he dashed forward again.

Riven swung his sword around, but he was too slow. Wenster shot past with a knife glinting, the Coral blade slicing thin air. Riven fell back. His heart thumped wildly, but when he checked, three was no wound on his side. The golden armour was cracked thanks to Wenster’s bullet-speed blow, but he was otherwise unharmed.

Scions, Wenster’s Essence made him nearly invincible. He still appeared no better than a skeleton but somehow, that sacrifice of his body had allowed him to become incredibly fast. Had to be his Essence glowing from within. It ate up his body mass to grant speed.

Riven stepped back until he was in the middle of the corridor. For all Wenster’s speed, he couldn’t hit very hard, going by the way his knife strike on Riven had done next to nothing.

With a little focus, he expanded his shield out until it was a curved plate covering the whole hallway, blocking it off except for the tiny spaces at the corners where the curved edges of his golden Essence didn’t meet with the wall connected with the ceiling and the floor. But those gaps were tiny. Even Wenster’s emaciated body wouldn’t be able to go through them. Speed was useless when there was no space to run into.

Riven charged, the shield rushing forward at the same speed that he was. All he had to do was get close enough to stab his sword.

Wenster didn’t allow it. He flew backwards, his body growing small as he landed on the pile of debris. There was another shift as the bright blue Essence flared within him. Despite the distance that Riven was rapidly closing with his onward rush, the sudden change was all too clear. Wenster’s body expanded again, this time turning thicker, larger, and obviously much stronger than before.

“Come rush to your death, Morell,” he crowed.

Riven didn’t stop. Not even when Wenster bent down and picked up a chunk of debris half the size of a car, lifting it as easily as though it was made of clouds. Then he threw it. Riven didn’t cringe or crouch, and as expected, his shield took the brunt of the damage, cracking at the impact but not shattering.

It seemed Riven’s initial supposition had been limited. Wenster’s Essence didn’t just give him increased speed, it could grant him greater strength too.

But what was he Sacrificing for that?

The pressure from within Riven raged out and his Essence reformed the shield and fixed the cracks. More rocks and debris came flying in, all of them held back by his shield. Riven had to slow down when he reached the rubble, taking care not to trip. Wouldn’t do to swing and then miss because his foot caught on a rod.

Wenster didn’t look concerned. Idiot. Just before Riven reached him, he focused again, creating a shield around Wenster. The man blinked, and Riven grinned at him. He was trapped.

Riven stabbed his sword forward, fast as a viper. His shield disappeared as soon as it was on the verge of hitting his Essence, and the blade rammed into Wenster.

It did nothing.

Wenster was solid as a rock. The Coral blade pierced his skin but the cut was hardly a hairsbreadth deep, Riven’s sword bending as his momentum pushed him against Wenster’s body. Riven let the shock ride him for only a heartbeat. Then he pulled the sword back and swung hard at Wenster’s neck but the impact this time jarred him enough to nearly tear the sword from his hands.

With a curse, Riven leapt back and pulled the longsword with him. What in the world? It was obvious Wenster had grown in bulk, but turning hard as a rock seemed a little too far even for him.

Wenster approached, each step heavy and thumping like a mountain’s footfalls. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with boy.”

Riven stepped back. “I know I’m dealing with an arsehole.”

“You’ve come to the end of your road.”

Riven would have thrown a biting reply but Wenster decided to attack. He was easy to dodge. His bulk made him slow and Riven swerved around, lashing his longsword across Wenster’s waist to see if there was a weak spot. There wasn’t.

At least Riven was safe from the bastard.

Wenster hadn’t been aiming for him, though. He bent down, thrust his hands into the debris, and lifted the whole floor. Riven stepped back, mouth opening to shout, but there was nothing to say. Nothing to do either, except throw up his Essence in an effort to protect himself. Wenster had pulled up the entire ground like it was little more than a carpet, the sound like boulders grinding right in Riven’s ears, the tiles cracking and rods bending.

Then Wenster flipped it like he was shaking free some tiny vermin stuck in the little spaces.

Riven went flying, his shield taking the brunt of the impact at his fall. Wenster’s flip had thrown up several of the debris too, rocks and rods and pieces of the broken wall all cannoning into him. His golden shield withstood them all.

Well, all except the last one, which clearly hadn’t come from the ones lying on the ground. A chunk of rock bigger than a car blasted into Riven, Wenster poised as though he’d just thrown it like a javelin. Riven’s shield shattered and he screamed, throwing himself flat against the ground. The crash against his Essence had broken the whole chunk of rock, pieces the size of his head pelting him like a hailstorm from the Chasm. Riven quickly used the bursting pressure from within him to pull up his Essence armour, but it wasn’t fast enough. He’d been struck too many times, every piece of rock falling on him like a hammer blow from Wenster himself.

Riven groaned. The rain of bursting debris had ended, and he pushed himself to his feet. He weaved around a little, his back lit up with blazing fire, every point where he’d been hit feeling like landmines. One wrong move and they’d go off, shattering him into a thousand pieces. He waved away the dust, the sword in his hand no longer the comforting wei ght it used to be. It was useless against Wenster after all.

Wenster, who was standing right in front of Riven.

Riven’s heart climbed into his neck, pulsing hard and making it impossible to breathe. He made to dash backwards but Wenster was already moving. His trunk-like arm clubbed Riven in the side, sending him crashing into the far wall.

No time to waste. No time to gasp at the pain. All Riven focused on was repairing his broken Essence armour and getting back to his feet, though the shock of striking the wall hard enough to break his Essence had turned his entire right side into mush.

He stared up, mind whirling to figure out some way of surviving. Easy. He had to stop being so dumb. All Riven had to do was run, for the bastard was so slow in his lumbering form, there was no way he could catch Riven.

But there was no sign of Wenster anywhere. Riven peered everywhere. His heart was trying to rise right into his brain space, the pounding now making it impossible to think. There was still a lot of dust, but it had lessened enough that Riven should have at least seen Wenster’s shadow somewhere nearby. He couldn’t have disappeared. The moustached bastard was big as an ox and about as stealthy.

Riven stilled. Unless—

He whirled, heart now trying to escape to before it died because of his foolishness. Wenster was walking languidly towards him along the wall, his hand raised with the knife in his grip glinting with the promise of death. He had turned back into his skeletal form, his virulent Essence glowing like blue coals.

Then he charged. Riven’s answering sword swing was far too slow. He was too close to the wall too, the Coral blade scoring a deep groove in the plaster and throwing up a shower of sparks as he tried to strike.

He failed. Wenster zipped past him, and Riven staggered to one side, breathing deep and heavy. The knife was sticking out of his armour, the tip a finger’s breadth away from his chest, stopped only because his Essence had prevented it from doing so. Scions, he’d be a dead man if he didn’t have his Essence.

Wenster came at him again, and Riven’s swing once again missed. There was a sharp tug that nearly threw Riven off his feet. The knife on his chest was gone. He looked. Wenster dangled it from two fingers for a second before gripping correctly and charging in once more. Maybe Riven couldn’t hit back but he could defend himself. As Wenster charged, he had enough time to raise his sword so that the blue blade covered the hole in his Essence armour. There was no time to focus and fix it.

Not too soon. Wenster’s knife clanged against Riven’s Coral blade, a shower of sparks making Riven stagger back in shock. He swung the sword once the first spark went off. Too late as always. Wenster was already well past him.

But he came back quicky. Riven kept his sword close to his body as Wenster charged all around him, his knife seeming to strike at every point on Riven’s body, seeking out some hidden weak point in Riven’s Essence armour.

Riven was too busy trying to focus and draw more Essence to use his sword. Besides, it wasn’t like he could hit Wenster anyway. He was drawing too much Essence. Mirren had given him extra Sept but using this much so quickly meant he’d run out soon enough.

He had to speed up. Riven had to find a way to beat this insane bastard before he did something that made Riven use up all his Sept. He’d be royally screwed then.

Riven’s armour was a battered and bruised thing after Wenster made liberal use of it as a scratching post. Cracks ran in white rivers all over him, and Riven could hardly spare the concentration needed to paper them over and fix his armour. Once or twice, he caught Wenster’s strikes on his sword. But it was nowhere near enough. No, his armour wasn’t going to last no matter what he did. He needed some other plan.

Riven ran. He wasn’t trying to escape for Wenster was much faster, which he proved by keeping up with Riven’s mad dash and stabbing in again. Riven’s armour took the hits though.

He jerked to a stop, then rolling back and quickly propping himself back up with his sword. Now he could focus. Wenster’s momentum had carried him well past the spot where Riven had halted, affording him all the time in the world to stop and redraw his Essence. More golden lines burst out, repairing his armour and expanding into a spherical shield around him.

Wenster was done shooting forward. He zipped back fast as a lightning bolt, striking Riven’s shield directly with his knife and embedding into the shield. It cracked, the fractures spreading out from the point of impact like a river delta.

Riven focused on pelting more Essence out from within him. Didn’t matter if he ran out after the fight was over, so long as he had enough to beat back this insane Essentier. His shield began to grow, the cracks freezing in their progress. Wenster blinked as he was pushed back. Riven grinned. Just as he had suspected. In his current emaciated form the moustachioed Essentier had no defensive capabilities to speak of at all. Just a little shove from Riven’s shield and he was stumbling backwards and tripping over the debris.

Then it stopped. His blue Essence flared bright within him, glowing like a clothed comet. He grew, muscles bulging, skin growing taut over expanding flesh. Wenster turned back to a giant again.

Riven focused, pushing more Essence out in an effort to shove Wenster back. It didn’t work. He was big and strong again, immovable as a cliff as he stood tall and undaunted by anything in the world. Riven might as well have tried to move a mountain. He might have even had better luck.

Wenster pushed back on the shield this time, and it bulged inwards, the Essence cracking with white fractures. Riven’s heart hammered as he threw more Essence out to repair his flagging shield, but it wasn’t working. Wenster was pushing harder and harder, the shield ready to bow and shatter any second now.

Riven pulled it back. He focused and held the pressure within him, his Essence fading and Wenster’s momentum throwing him forward.

Just what Riven had been hoping for.

The moustachioed Firstmarked charged with the grace of a bull, and Riven shifted to one side. He pulled his sword back and swung forward, mustering every bit of his remaining strength, swinging with all his might at Wenster’s midsection. The power of the blow combined with his rushing moment should have chopped a Coral tree in half.

It didn’t work. Riven’s sword hammered into Wenster’s guts, but his barging momentum took the blade from Riven’s hands. The Coral sword flew from his hands. One second he held the blade, the next, it was nowhere to be seen. Riven turned as Wester checked his progress, whirling to face Riven again. The blade clunked to the ground several yards behind him. There was no damage on him save a thin red line across his stomach.

Wenster looked down at his wound. “Look what you’ve done, Morell. I got this uniform pressed and laundered just yesterday, and now you’ve ruined it.” He looked up, face sheathed in mock anger. “I’m going to dock the charge from your pay before I kill you.”

Riven tutted with a bravado he didn’t feel at all. “So cheap you have to steal my money too. What have you been doing here, eating swine shit?”

“Oh, you have a death wish, don’t you boy?”

“Hah! You can’t kill something you can’t catch you big boulder.”

Wenster laughed. It held no mirth. Then he rushed forward, his every step making the whole corridor shake as he came at Riven.

A split second. That was all Riven had to decide if he was doing the right thing. He could charge and meet Wenster, risking getting crushed by his immense power, or he could run. Leave everything and save himself. Get away and maybe come back to fight another day, once he’d figured out how to catch someone who was too fast and beat back someone who was too strong.

Too late. His decision came too late. For all the bulk slowing him down, Wenster had reached him.

He swung. Riven had already pulled his Essence to reform his armour around him, trying to protect himself from the massive force behind the blow.

It worked, somewhat. The Essence armour shielded him from the raw brutality in Wenster’s strike, but Riven still went flying. He crashed through the far wall, the bricks giving way and avalanching down on him, iron rods trying to poke holes through his Essence.

Coughing and waving away the dust, Riven stood up. Wenster’s blow had rammed through his flimsy armour on his shoulder, and it seemed to glow in agony. Or maybe that was due to reforming his Essence. Nothing felt broken though. His shoulder was stiff but he was able to move it without causing agony to erupt across every nerve. The pain had to be from a bad bruise.

Riven pushed himself out of the debris and stepped forward. He made sure not to trip over the broken bricks and rods, looking everywhere to see where Wenster was.

Then he saw Noll.

The man looked even worse from this angle. Riven’s fight with Wenster had removed a lot of his rubble that had been covering his corpse, and now he was fully on display.

Wounds. So many wounds. Half his whole body had been crushed, blood spurting from all the wounds covering every inch of him. It was impossible to recognize this was the same soldier who had accompanied Riven to the basement not so long ago.

The same soldier Riven was thinking of abandoning to this monster.

A shadow loomed in the dust, and Wenster made his grand return from the dust as he surged forward. Apparently, he’d spotted Riven. The choice had been made. There was no running from Riven. Not from any of this.

With a little focus, he pulled on his Essence armour. As Wenster ran at him again, he charged forward this time. No running. No cowering. He was facing his enemy head-on, Chasm be damned.

Riven met his foe face to face.

Wenster hammered his hands down as soon as he reached Riven, fists joined together to form a club. Riven slipped past and punched the big bastard in the guts. It was like punching a bag of bricks. The Essence around his knuckles cracked on impact, and Riven jumped back as Wenster swung his own fist. Slow. His bulk made him slow.

Riven didn’t let up, striking forward with his fists flurrying in a storm. He was going to take down the bastard, one way or another. None of it left any mark. Riven struck, one punch after another as he dodged Wenster’s return blows. Nothing worked. Not a single hit.

One of Wenster’s return punches caught Riven on the shoulder. He had dodged it but not completely. Wenster’s fist brushed against his shoulder, and that bare touch was enough to send him flying. Riven crashed into the debris, his armour protecting him from any damage. He groaned. Enough was enough. With a grunt, Riven rose to face Wenster again. The big brute thumped towards him, fists clenched and blue Essence running through him all over.

Now or never.

Riven focused, letting go of his Essence around himself. Instead, he focused on his opponent. Golden lines shot out of him and formed a sphere around Wenster’s head. He stood unsteady for just a heartbeat before his face twisted at the realization that he was going to suffocate. The Firstmarked stopped, suddenly unable to breathe any longer. He raised an arm and clubbed Riven’s Essence sphere. One blow, and that’s all it took to shatter the Essence, the golden sprinkles glittering everywhere and fading to nothing.

But it all lasted enough for Riven. The distraction worked. He charged forward, jumping and ramming his shoulder forward into Wenster’s face, encasing himself in his golden armour as the sphere around Wenster’s head broke apart.

He crashed into his opponent and Wenster actually staggered. He fell back a few steps, but Riven didn’t fall back to the ground. Wenster grabbed him before he could do so, large hands crushing his forearms, eliciting a harsh scream. His arms would turn to pulp at this rate, reduced to little more than broken, bloody mush. Riven kicked Wenster, headbutted him, cursed him with every breath, but nothing worked. So he jabbed his knees right into the big brute’s groin.

Wenster howled. His grip relaxed, though not enough for Riven to escape. Instead, the Firstmarked threw Riven like a no-longer-fun toy. Riven flew back, but he expanded his shield into a sphere around him once more as he crashed back the rubble.

The sphere let him recover quickly. Wenster was a little bent over, and at first Riven assumed it was the blow to his crotch that had made the brute bend low, but then Wenster grabbed the floor. Riven cursed. The last time he’d flipped the whole place hadn’t been fun. Riven focused hard on the rocks littering the ground at Wenster’s feet. Golden Essence flew forward and latched onto one of the chunks of rubble. It sparked gold for a heartbeat, and in the next, it expanded faster than Wenster himself had been when he turned into a skeleton.

Riven’s rapidly growing shield slapped Wenster, the impact coming fast and hard enough to make the big brute step back a bit again. Riven smiled. Yes, it was possible to throw that bastard off his feet.

He bent to the task. With a shout, Riven shot forward. The shield around the rock disappeared and Riven reformed his Essence armour around himself. Wenster was ready to block him, or punch him back, or beat him some other way, but Riven didn’t give him the chance. He had his greater speed to count on. Riven slid forward, falling down and diving feetfirst between Wenster’s widely-spread legs.

The view wasn’t nice, but Riven made him pay for that. He lashed out with his legs, hooking Wenster in the back of his knees and making the Firstmarked fall forward. The expression on his face was priceless. Fear, surprise, and supreme shock. The bigger they were, the harder they fell after all.

But even as he fell, a leg thick as a stone column shot at Riven, who jumped. Getting hit by Wenster’s kick would be like getting hit by a battering ram with the force of a cannon. Riven landed awkwardly, and so did Wenster, but he wasn’t buoyed down by excess weight. Throwing himself up as rapidly as he could, Riven shot towards his sword lying a few yards away. He grabbed it up, wheeling around to see Wenster pulling himself up and face Riven.

No matter. Riven had done enough to make Wenster baulk. Now it was time to take the final fight to the Firstmarked. No relenting his assault.

Riven charged, yelling out his fury. This was for Noll. For an innocent soldier who had done nothing to deserve a death like that. Wenster stood, waiting for Riven’s ineffectual sword swing. It wasn’t going to work. Wenster knew it just as well as Riven did. Well, not in its current condition.

But Riven had other ideas. As he neared the giant he focused again, drawing his Essence around the sword itself to form a golden club, creating it too fast for Wenster to react. But big, brutish, and slow though he was, the Firstmarked brought up his arms fast enough to square off against Riven’s impromptu club.

Not that Riven was going to give him the chance. He focused again as he charged, letting go of the Essence around his sword to create a plate in mid-air before him. Riven jumped onto it, and then another plate formed as the previous one died, upon which he jumped as well.

Wenster’s eyes widened. Riven had come too close for him to do anything. With another minute moment of focus, Riven jumped forward and recreated his Essence club. Then he swung.

He rammed his club-sword forward, screaming as he summoned every bit of strength he had. This high, the blow evaded Wenster’s arms and went straight for his head.

Just what Riven had been aiming for.

It connected. The Firstmarked started to topple, falling back at the force of Riven’s blow. His arm lashed out. Riven was past him too fast and he dragged his sword with him, aiming to swing around again.

Wester staggered as Riven landed on the ground. He was unbalanced. Perfect moment for Riven to strike.

He did so. But it was a feint. Wenster’s arms were already even higher up to protect his head as he righted himself far too quickly, his foot already lashing to kick a surprised Riven.

Riven jumped. Damn the Scions, why would this bastard fall already? Creating more platforms with his Essence, Riven jumped higher and higher, getting well beyond Wenster’s reach. He raised his sword high, recreating the golden Essence to form the club again as the Essence under his feet disappeared. If direct blows wouldn’t work, ramming himself down from a great height would surely quash the bastard like the overgrown insect that he was.

It didn’t work. Not completely. Oh, Riven landed his blow all right, and it even made Wenster bow down like nothing else. The Essence-wrapped Coral sword hammered into Wenster’s head and the Firstmarked was forced down by the pure energy imparted by Riven’s tall fall.

But that also meant Riven’s sword was too close to him. Wenster’s arms were already near his head, and he grabbed the Essence-wrapped sword with ease. He staggered back, but pulled Riven along with his sword, dragging him forward as though he was going to wipe Riven across the whole corridor.

Just as Wenster was about to fling Riven, he focused and withdrew the Essence from around his sword Wenster had nothing to hold onto. The Coral sword was free. Riven was free.

And he made good use of it. He rammed the sword forward right through Wenster’s hollow grasp and jabbed him in the face. Wenster shrieked though all he got was a shallow cut on his cheek. It was hardly a scratch. Riven didn’t care. He tried to drag the sword and score bloody grooved across the whole moustachioed face, but Wenster grabbed the blade with his bare hands. With a jerk, he threw Riven backwards.

But Riven had let go of his sword, so the only thing that had gone flying was the Coral blade. Which was fine. Better even. It gave Riven the perfect opening and he jumped forward, using more of his mid-air Essence platforms to reach for Wenster’s big brutish face. He encased himself entirely in glowing golden armour, pouring his Essence out in quantities he didn’t think he possessed.

Then he rammed his fist into Wenster’s face.

Scions, the impact felt powerful. It was so fast, Wenster didn’t have time to react or defend himself. It was also so strong, Riven’s armour around his knuckles shattered immediately, shards of his Essence flying everywhere.

Shards. Flying shards of extremely compressed air. Ones that sliced right into Wenster’s right eye.

The next shriek was even louder than the last. Wenster’s scream was guttural and his arms shot forward, throwing Riven back hard. Riven barely got out a curse before he crashed into the walls again, both shield and bricks breaking apart at the impact.

Groaning, Riven kept himself on his feet, even though the waves of pain possessing him all over his back and shoulders made him want to cry out. No. Not yet. He was beating back Wenster. Little by little, that arsehole was dying at Riven’s hands. He had to finish the job.

Riven tried to pull up his Essence armour again, but the golden lines sputtered around him. The same thing happened again when tried to pull his Essence up once more. He swallowed. Shit, he was running out of Sept fast.

Off all the times, it was now that Riven would have to fight without his Essence?