Nay’s whole body ached.

Her forearm throbbed. She had wrapped the wounds Icescythe’s spines had inflected on her skin. She dipped the arm in sea water, hoping the salt would help prevent infection, and she had almost passed out from the searing sting. The cauterized wound on her thigh pulsated with pain and her fingertips and toes tingled from the bite of the cold.

The recovery biscuits and all the Buffs she had been continuing to stack seemed to be keeping her on life support.

All in all, she thought death would at least be a sweet release from the misery of this glacier.

The ice formation holding up the ice boulder finished melting at its thinnest point, where Nay had thrown up the ring of heat, and the frozen boulder fell from its perch and crashed into the ice.

The boom echoed across the island and Nay waited for Caraxus to arrive, drawn by a noise he wouldn’t be able to ignore.

/////////

Nay smoked an iceflint cigarette she found in her inventory, a leftover artifact from her life at Quincy’s Lodge, which felt so long ago. Gracie had rolled it for her and she wondered how her friend was doing.

She wondered how Nom was doing if she would ever see her friends again.

Nay had chosen a crag above the sea for the location of their duel. The viridescent aurora, although fading, signifying that dawn would be arriving in due time, danced across the sky. The rippling curtains of light created a psychedelic absinthe backdrop for their stage.

Nay’s legs were hanging off the cliff as she stared at the otherworldly horizon, wondering how lucky she was to experience such a sight. How the rest of this day went would determine if she got to experience more of this world, or if her journey ended here.

She saw him approaching along the cliff top, the ice troll’s silhouette appearing far away. She took a hit of the iceflint, exhaling the frost over the sea stacks.

When he drew close enough that Caraxus was no longer a silhouette, Nay took one last drag of the iceflint cigarette and flicked it off the cliff. She stood, drawing Thorn. The longer ice scythe appeared in her off-hand.

She had wound the blunt end in butcher twine from her inventory, creating a makeshift hilt. She wasn’t sure how to use the scythe, but she figured swinging the sharp end at her opponent would be a good enough start.

“You lie to Caraxus,” the ice troll said. He was maybe fifty yards from her, standing on the edge of the cliff. “You no Epicurist.”

“I’m an Epicurist,” Nay said. “Just not one meant to help you.”

“You come to hunt Caraxus?” he said.

Nay didn’t say anything at that. She just nodded and turned ice scythe in her hand.

“I never know you,” Caraxus said. “But you come to my home, want kill me. Why?”

It was a fair a question.

“So that I can live,” Nay said.

Caraxus understood.

“Then we see who deserve vigor more. You…or me.”

He drew his stone battle-ax and charged her.

She mentally clicked on her Dire Knife ability and vigor auras suddenly flared up around Thorn and the ice scythe. The weapon imbues flickered like spirit fire and she looked in amazement at the weapons.

A meter appeared near the center of her HUD. It was the outline of three knives. The word ‘rupture’ was above the icons. She knew what it was then. It was a meter to track her Kinetic Points.

And to her surprise, she found herself running to meet Caraxus, instead of running away from him.

Her blood rushed to her ears and suddenly she was side-stepping to avoid the stone ax coming down at her vertically. It shattered the ice where her feet just were, and as Caraxus pulled his weapon out of the ground, Nay slashed the inside of his wrist, drawing first blood.

One of the dagger icons on her interface turned red as if it filled with blood. She had one Kinetic Point.

Caraxus roared and swung the ax at her with both hands, twisting his body.

Nay, taking care to pay attention to her feet and stances, took a step away and there was a loud crack as the stone ax hit her ice scythe.

The vibration travelled down the bone and elemental ice matter and travelled into her hand, shooting up her arm. With the vibrations came pain. It took everything Nay had to hold onto the weapon.

Here’s the thing Nay was learning about combat that she never expected it. The toll it took on the hands. The muscles cramped, the skin blistered, the grip weakened.

Not knowing if she would be able to use the ability again, Nay mentally activated her Gore ability.

The rupture icon flashed and the knife meter depleted, her Kinetic Points returning to zero as the ability procced.

Caraxus cried out in pain as blue phosphor blood erupted out of his wrist, the wound bursting.

That’s when one of his own abilities procced. He released a guttural roar and grew a few inches. Not just in height, but all of his muscles engorged and expanded. Tendon, bone and sinew enlarged.

A blood red glow spread from his core up and down his body until he was encased in the crimson steam rising off his skin.

He had become enraged.

He lowered his head and charged Nay like he was a bull, his tusks aimed at her.

The only move that made sense to Nay would have seemed counter-intuitive to anyone watching. But she moved towards him.

He was heading up the slope of the cliff, she was going down.

And just when one would expect a horrible collision of bone and flesh, Nay slid as if she was a softball player out-juking a catcher. She hit the ice and slid leg-first underneath him and between his legs.

She didn’t so much as swing but hold the ice scythe out, making sure to lock her wrist.

The point of the blade entered the back of Caraxus’ ankle and partially ripped his Achilles tendon as she slid past him. The resistance of tendon and bone sling-shotted her at a different angle down the slope.

It was a bad wound, but because the troll was enraged, she might as well have been a child scraping him with a butter knife as far as pain recognition went.

He chased after her down the slope.

Nay conjured a ring of heat in front of her feet that melted the ice enough to make it slick, creating a moving slip’n’slide. She rooster-tailed wet ice down the slope.

Caraxus stepped into it and stumbled, careening. He tumbled down the slope after her. He righted himself and activated another ability.

He held up his hand and a spinning ball of snow appeared hovering in his palm. It grew and grew until he was holding an ice boulder.

He hurled it at Nay below him.

She looked just in time to see the boulder of ice descending towards her. She used the ice scythe like a pick axe climber and caught the ice below her. Chips flew as the point dug in.

She used the leverage to pivot herself and change direction, sliding down the slope at another angle.

The boulder cratered the slope next to her. Shards of ice cut her face.

---

[Error Message]

[Error: Marrow Ability Detected at Base Rank]

[All Marrow Abilities Require Minimum of Iron Rank]

[Not Enough Vigor To Sustain Abilities]

[Please report to a DMA Agent]

---

The dizziness came, and when combined with the sliding and fighting, gave her immediate vertigo.

“Fuck your DMA Agent!”

An ice imp core appeared between her fists as she held onto her weapons. She had summoned it from her inventory. She pressed it into her chest, absorbing it.

The injection of vigor made the error message disappear. She shook her head, trying to see straight.

She looked up to see Caraxus creating another ice boulder. She waited for him to throw it.

He took aim and lobbed it at her.

Nay halted her slide with her ice scythe, stabbing the slope. The sudden halt of momentum almost yanked her arm out of the socket.

The boulder flew over her and Caraxus was sliding straight for her.

He saw her, her hand hanging onto the scythe dug into the ice, her other hand holding Thorn. There was no way he could stop his slide so he aimed straight for her. He readied his legs for a kick that would smash her face.

Nay counted, timing his arrival. “One…two…”

“Three!”

She let go of the scythe, grabbed it with her other hand, and moved Thorn to her scythe hand. Then she twisted.

It was just enough room to dodge Caraxus’ rocketing body.

She thrust Thorn into his side.

The blade entered his torso and scraped along his ribs as he slid by, opening up a long gash from his abdomen to near his arm-pit.

Her rupture menu upticked. More blood glow filled the second dagger icon.

She had her second Kinetic Point.

He continued by her and the dagger was out of him. He rolled down the slope, shouting.

Nay ripped the ice scythe from the slope and continued her descent, reaching the bottom of the slope. Nay rose to her feet, her body flooded with adrenaline and dopamine.

They were in a chasm with pillared ice stacks.

Caraxus got to his feet, still enraged and glowing bright red with blue phosphor dripping out of his wounds.

“You fight like jellyfish,” he said. “You seem pretty and harmless…but you sting Caraxus!”

He came at her then like an unstoppable train. They were on even elevation and Nay found herself on the defensive.

His stone ax took out a chunk of ice formation next to her head. She darted and dodged as he came at her with a combo of ax swings, the ax shattering the ice stacks around them. Her agility Buff was putting in work.

She rolled backwards, the axe cutting a deep furrow into the ground.

She bobbed and weaved, keeping her neck away from the swiping axe blade.

She half-assed parried with the ice scythe, diverting the ax enough so it didn’t bite into her flesh.

And though Caraxus was physically enraged, her speed and slipperiness served to emotionally enrage him.

As he pursued her, bellowing and swinging through the ice stacks, she conjured heat rings, melting parts of the pillars above them so ice and slush would come tumbling down, creating an environment of chaos.

Every time the error message appeared on her interface, she injected herself with an ice imp core from her inventory.

But she was losing steam, on the precipice of becoming gassed.

And she was running out of ice imp cores.

She had to end this.

Caraxus got his axe stuck in an ice stack and Nay saw her chance.

She swiped Thorn and ice scythe through the air, crossing her arms in front of her. She activated the most powerful ability she had.

“Decapitate!”

A violet spirit pincer manifested, flowing out of her weapons and spinning through the air at Caraxus. It left a vigor trail in its wake. They looked like ridged and razor sharp supernatural hedge clippers twirling through the air.

She felt an outpouring of vigor leave her body. She fell to her knees.

The spirit pincers hit Caraxus in the neck and clamped shut like a bear trap. An explosion of vigor filled the atmosphere.

Caraxus grunted and fell to his knees.

The decapitate chance procced and a cut formed around his neck. His head was still intact. Blood trickled out of the thin wound around his neck.

He was still alive.

It must be because he’s still enraged. That ability must Buff his defenses. It saved him.

He shrunk a few inches then, his muscles, bones and tendons returning to normal. That red glow dissipated.

The Enrage Ability had depleted.

His hand went to his neck and he felt the wound. He looked at his phosphor blood on his fingers. He touched the long gash on his side, and took a limping step and looked at his injured Achilles tendon.

He trembled, anger rising.

He howled and charged her, leaving his stone ax in the ice.

Nay quickly summoned the last ice imp core from her inventory and injected it. She screamed and swung out at him with ice scythe.

But he backhanded the weapon away and collided into her.

She felt his tusk enter her side, scraping the edge of her ribs. The bone on bone sensation was so painful it almost paralyzed her.

They crashed into the side of the chasm and everything went black as Caraxus punched Nay in the face. She felt her nose crunch and flatten under the blow.

He hit her again, breaking her cheekbone.

He was going to beat her to death.

There was one last thing she could do before the sweet release of death ended her violent suffering.

As she spoke, the words didn’t come out right. Her jaw was fucked up. But she said it when his fist was reared back for another strike. It came out and sounded like, “Rushtur…moddfuzzer.”

“Rupture, motherfucker.”

Gore activated, her finisher, channeling three Kinetic Points.

In simultaneous fashion, his wounds burst.

The severed Achilles tendon.

The long gash along his side exposing his ribs.

The garrote shaped cut around his neck.

Nay was showered in blue phosphor blood as his wounds exploded as if a nail bomb went off inside the lacerations. His ankle disappeared in the gore, his foot falling off. His entire torso opened up on one side, cracking his rib cage open and blowing out his organs.

Lastly, his neck disappeared in a mist and the only thing left connecting Caraxus head to his body was his exposed spine.

His lifeless body fell against Nay, pulling her to the ground.

---

[Quest Complete]

[Slay Caraxus the Ice Troll Completed!]

[Congratulations]

[You have been rewarded Vigor Points]

---

She was crumpled on the ice with the ice troll’s body on top of her. She was vaguely aware that something was wrong with her head. Everything hurt. And every time she inhaled or exhaled she wheezed blood.

As the golden vigama flew into her, she knew she was dying.

---

[You have been awarded Ice Troll Core]

---

Light emerged from the ice troll’s still corpse. And the top of Caraxus’ neon blue core pushed out of his physical body. It pressed into her and she leaned into its warmth.

The core was the size of a basketball and as it passed out of the troll’s dead body it pushed into her. She let herself absorb it and a neon blue light burst across her interface.

Her Vigor Rank meter filled out her Base Rank.

---

[Congratulations!]

[You have cultivated enough vigor to Rank Up!]

[Procedure from Base Rank to Iron Rank Starting…]

[Please Find a Safe Distance Away from Others]

[And Please Brace Yourself]

[Purging Impurities]

[Metamorphosis to Iron Rank Activated]

---

Her vision went from bright blue to white and she lost control of her muscles as her body went into a seizure. There was an exhalation and something started spraying out of all her pores before she lost consciousness, the white light blinding her.

/////////

Nay clawed her way out of some kind of embryonic sac or cocoon that was flesh colored. Her lungs inhaled the icy air and gray sludge poured out of the sac. Was she surrounded in that?

Her head no longer hurt and she no longer felt wrong. Her facial bones and jaw seemed normal. She looked at her forearm and thigh. Her wounds had healed into scars.

It was the same way on her thigh.

“Congratulations, Iron.”

Nay looked up to see Ilyawraith standing above her in the chasm. There was a smile on her face.

The new Iron Rank looked around and saw the remnants of her battle with Caraxus. His body was lying next to her.

Ilyawraith called her snow eddy to ferry them back to Ianthe, but Nay took another look at Caraxus’ corpse. The ice troll deserved a better resting place.

“Wait,” Nay said.

Ilyawraith looked at her questionably.

/////////

Nay lied Caraxus prone next to the skeleton of his mate in his cave. She then took his stone ax and put it on his chest and put his hands around the handle.

In her peripheral vision she knew Ilyawraith was watching her perform this grim ritual.

Nay stood there a moment, staring at the remains of the two trolls. It was awkward and she wasn’t sure what to say or do. So she settled for just nodding, knowing she had done the proper thing.

The beast whose death helped her get to Iron Rank deserved that much at least.