Mishell came to, nearly losing consciousness from the Bjornbane trying to crush her with his foot. At first, she thought there was something wrong with her sight. Everything was dark and bleary, like when she came to on the table with Gideon after she had almost died in Lucerna’s End, one eye gone, her bones broken and her skin split open.

Her chest tightened, panic squeezing her heart in its Nethercrux. That’s where Gideon and the Nether Sister placed it, apart from her body but she was still connected to it. Like how a mother was still connected to their children even after the umbilical cord had been severed. As such, she couldn’t perish in this form, where part of her torso was of the Nether Realm.

Her Nethercrux containing her heart would have to be destroyed. Only then would she move onto the next realm. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t still feel it beating. She didn’t understand the Nether Sorcery, but she was grateful for it. Without it she would be dead.

But she couldn’t afford to lose her remaining eye. So she nearly wept when her vision came back and she could see everything again. It had just been battle fog from taking such a battering.

With her vision returning, so did the sight of the Bjornbane stuck in the air above her, impaled with many bone harpoons. Her satchel slipped out of his hand and the purple Delicacy fruit fell out, landing on the ground in front of her.

She looked around and saw Gideon and Bianca fighting with the cook’s party. Fury fluttered in her heart at the sight of the cook stabbing Bianca with her weapons. She had craved revenge from the moment she had been restored. She had wanted to return to Lucerna’s End to rip out the girl’s heart, but her instructions were to follow and obey Gideon. So she didn’t think she would see the dumb cook again for a long while, not until the Nether Lord had been awakened from the Black Ice.

But here she was, going for the same Delicacy. And she had somehow become a Marrow Eater and had learned how to fight. This both intrigued and angered her. On one hand, she was glad she wouldn’t be such an easy kill. On the other handed, Mishell couldn’t rest until she had killed the girl and avenged her brother.

So it took all her willpower not to rejoin the fight now and go after her. But Gideon had commanded her to flee back to their camp on the surface once she had the Delicacy in her hands. Disobeying Gideon could bring unpleasant consequences. He and the Nether Sister had given her life again. They could just as easily take it away. She lingered, staring at the cook. It could be done fast. Open a portal and smash the back of her skull with Fleshbane. Let her companion feast.

But instead, she let out a cry of frustration, opened a Nether Portal, and fled, the Delicacy in her hands.

#

Nom was going to go help Nay when he sensed the Void-like substance that signified a Nether Portal. Curious, he looked over and saw a familiar figure flee disappear into it.

Mishell, the Fishmonger’s Daughter, but even in the quick glimpse he knew there was something different about her. What was she doing here?

Then he sensed the Delicacy moving with her. She had it with her and was on the move.

He took one last look at Nay and trusted the others here would be able to aid her. He couldn’t let Mishell get away with the Delicacy. He raced to the Nether Portal and entered it before it disappeared.

He floated through the staticky void, everything suddenly rendered in black and white. Much similar to the time he entered one of the portals during their encounter with the Nether Sister in Lucerna’s end. It was like being in an alternate shadow reality that was right next to the tangible one he knew.

He reached the corresponding portal and flew through it, reemerging back into the normal reality. He glanced behind him and saw how much ground they had just covered it. It was a faster way to travel.

Mishell opened up the next portal and disappeared inside. She didn’t seem to be aware of his presence.

Nom pursued.

#

Nay’s weapons sliced through Bianca’s Bronze-level armor imbue in four strikes. Thorn plunged into the healer’s side and ice scythe left a hooked gash from her stomach around to her back, dinging up two Kinetic Points.

Bianca screamed and twirled around, spinning her umbrella. She clicked a button on the handle and eight razor sharp spikes ejected out of the tip where the frame rib structure supported the canopy. The umbrella spun and sparks flew as it blocked Nay’s attacks and struck her armored suit.

At the same time, titian healing lightning crackled off the umbrella, mending Bianca’s wounds.

Nay noticed that even though the damage she inflicted upon Bianca with her blades was healed, her Kinetic Points still remained.

Nay tried make her way through the healer’s Bronze Level defensive umbrella moves, but the weapon pushed her back, creating distance. She wanted to keep away from those spikes. She lunged to the side with Thorn, but the spikes of the spinning umbrella were there to bat her away. She darted to the other side with a hook from ice scythe, but again the umbrella blocked her.

So if she couldn’t get around, Nay would get over. She activated Salvo of Knives and Bianca, with all her attention focused on Nay, blocked each blade, sending them back at the young Marrow Eater, who caught them and cursed.

Then Bianca raised her umbrella over her head to protect her from the rain of spirit blades. The spectral weapons hit the spinning umbrella and exploded into vigama that fluttered away into the atmosphere.

“Silly Iron Rank likes to play with knives,” Bianca said. “Hasn’t your Master taught you the dangers of trying to play with your superiors?”

“I’m what they call a problematic student,” Nay said.

“Then this should be a memorable lesson for you!”

Then Bianca let out a yell and an eruption of black vigor energy flowed out of her spirit veins and into her umbrella. She danced forward and thrust the canopy at Nay. A kaleidoscopic beam of burning light streamed out of the umbrella and hit Nay in the chest. Suddenly she was air borne. Her Damage Absorption meter ticked up to the halfway mark. The attack blasted her off the wave of bones, stunning her in her suit.

But not before she activated Gore, re-opening the wounds Bianca had just mended. The Bronze Rank healer dropped her umbrella and fell to a knee, seizing in pain.

Nay landed on the ground hard. Her suit absorbing much of the impact.

Quincy appeared at her side. “You stubborn girl.”

“It worked, though,” Nay said, gasping in pain. “The healer is distracted.”

Quincy looked at Bianca, who was in the process of focusing on self-heals. Gideon was exposed. Quincy grunted and re-loaded his crossbow with a strange bolt he pulled off his bandolier.

It was black and veins of vigor light glowed on its sides. He loaded it into Samuel and took aim.

As he readied his shot, Ilyawraith flew over them and engaged Gideon again. Flying on her cloud, she raced straight at Gideon on his wave of bones.

He slashed the air with his bone scythe and a spectral slash flew at Ilyawraith, but she held up her arm and ice and coral formed, covering her forearm and forming into a shield.

The ice and coral shield blocked the line of vigor energy, but the ends of it continued into the chamber and hit the far wall. Tremors of energy ran through the necropolis and cracks began forming in the earthen and stone walls.

Ilyawraith landed a side-kick into Gideon’s chest, knocking him off his wave of bones. The two Silver Ranks traded attacks and parries with their weapons. The leader of the Banshee Sect spun, Hoarfrost twirling over her head, and she planted the end of it into the necromancer, knocking him back.

Quincy pulled the trigger and the strange bolt flew through the air and exploded right before it hit Gideon. Dozens of vigor-enhanced steel flechettes hemorrhaged out of the bolt. For a moment, it was as if the air was full of deadly, metal butterflies.

The razor flechettes flayed the skin off one side of Gideon’s face, nearly scalping him. He spun and fell to a knee. He crouched there, injured, his hair hanging in front of his face, his black blood spattering the ground. When he looked up, his face was a horrific sight to behold.

The bone of his cheek and skull were visible, the shredded skin hanging off one side of his face. On one side of his mouth, the lips were torn off and his teeth were visible in a now permanent rictus. He leaned on his bone scythe. He trembled as he pushed himself up, visibly weakened.

He saw Bianca struggling with the maugrim and the polar bear. She blocked the maugrim’s rocket mace with her umbrella. The polar bear charged herbut she jumped and her umbrella spun, lifting her into the air. She floated away from her attackers, who pursued her.

“Now, we finish this,” Ilyawraith said.

“Forgive me for underestimating you,” Gideon said. “I should have shown more respect for the last surviving member of the Banshee Sect. I don’t suppose it’s too late for me to yield?”

Ilyawraith grimaced and raised Hoarfrost for the coup de grace.

Gideon sighed. “I thought not.”

A glass vial fell out of one of his bone gauntlets and hit the ground with a tink. It seemed to be full of some kind of yellow dust or powder. Then he crushed it with the end of his bone scythe handle.

An explosion of vigor energy radiated out from him, knocking everyone to the ground. There was a rumble and every single loose bone or lifeless skeleton in the chamber sat up or rose into the air. Suddenly animated with Gideon’s vigor.

Dust fell from the ceiling as the entire chamber rumbled. Skeletons burst from the ceiling and the walls and joined the ones already in this central chamber.

“Oh no,” Quincy said.

Nay rose to her feet, her back against Quincy as the storm of skeletons gathered. It seemed like every damn bone in the necropolis had come alive to gather here.

Everyone else was getting back to their feet to discover their new situation.

Nay saw the skeletons swarm around Gideon, surrounding him in a bubble. Aided by the wave of bones he summoned, he reached Bianca and put his arm around her, and protected by his undead retinue, exited through one of the tunnels.

“No!” Quincy said. He tried to follow but was met by a wall of skeletons. He swung Gertrude back and forth, cutting a swathe through them to try and reach the fleeing Gideon and Bianca, but another wall of skeletons filled their place.

Nay joined him, cutting down a line of skeletons with ice scythe. They battered her suit of armor, but couldn’t get to her inside. She punched out with her hand holding Thorn, knocking them off her. She pushed against the storm of undead, her Absorption Meter slowly ticking up as she trudged through the horde.

Soon, her and Quincy had joined up with Fluxwell and Tuk-Tuk. The maugrim was churning through the army with his rocket mace, the air in front of him like the exhaust end of a woodchipper, filling the air with bones and dust. Tuk-Tuk swiped through the seemingly endless bone mass.

They fought against the skeletons, their backs to each other, a small pocket of resistance in the skeletal swarm. They moved in the direction they saw Gideon go, but it was futile.

The necromancer was gone.