The lightning hit Kristoff’s spear so fast that nobody had time to react. The effect had charged it, giving the weapon a ghostly blue glow along the blade and a subtle vibrational hum.

Before any of us could act, he leveled the spear at Elise and a stream of lightning shot out. Elise’s eyes widened, and she hastily used her staff to summon a large shield of ice to block the attack. The lightning hit the shield, and she gasped, falling to one knee while keeping the shield up.

Kristoff paused his attack and smirked. “Ice isn’t a great conductor of electricity, but it is still a conductor,” he said before throwing another lightning blast at her.

But Elise wasn’t there.

She’d left the ice shield in place and had snuck behind some nearby crates. Kristoff hadn’t noticed, and she came around the other side with an Air Blast strike that knocked the man off his feet and off the ship entirely.

I glanced at his compatriots to see if one would intervene on his behalf, but neither Jason nor Carina seemed particularly moved to help.

We waited to hear a splash from his fall, but the sound never came.

More lightning crackled in the sky above as a smug Kristoff slowly floated up. There was a small cloud beneath his feet and a gentle, swirling wind below it.

Elise wasn’t done though. She twirled her staff until it was pointed behind her and she Air Blasted herself up high into the air. Kristoff was content to remain where he was at first, but his face fell when he saw what she was doing.

Elise was flying towards their very vulnerable ships to destroy them.

He snarled a curse, and the cloud beneath his feet shimmered into a deeper shade of blue as he gave chase. The fighting continued before Elise could reach the ships and they disappeared out of sight amongst the dark clouds.

“Guess it’s our turn,” said Sebastian, summoning his large axe.

Carina’s eyes narrowed at his familiar looking weapon. “Where did you get that?”

He shrugged. “Took it off a dead bo—”

Carina slammed into him and he fell backwards.

Daisy, who was only a few feet away from him, looked at me and raised a questioning eyebrow. I shook my head. The hit had injured his pride more than anything else. Plus, Sebastian needed to be able to stand on his own. Both literally and metaphorically.

Carina in her grief, had mistaken Sebastian’s axe for her brothers, and while her first attack had been gentle by her standards, she might not stay that way.

I sent a party chat message to Daisy telling her to only step in if it looks like he might die. Sebastian would see it too, but he was too busy to respond.

Carina took her cloak off, revealing a new iron belt the size that wrestlers winning championships usually get. It had a dull grey unremarkable color to it, but the sense of magic was unmistakable.

Sebastian used his axe like a walking stick to steady himself. He was clearly still drunk. Carina summoned a hatchet and threw it at him. With unnatural speed, Sebastian batted it aside.

Good. He still has some fight in him.

He hefted his axe and the two Battleborn circled each other. Sebastian moved first, going for an overhead swing. A killing blow if it landed. Carina brought out two more hatchets and held them in an X pattern to block.

A thunderous clang rang out when their axes connected.

I grimaced. A single misplaced attack at their level of strength could sink the whole ship, but it wasn’t like I could tell them to be careful. Knowing Carina, Sebastian’s whisky-soaked brain needed every neuron focused on his fight if he wanted to survive it.

Sebastian followed up his attack with a low kick to her knee. Carina grunted, but didn’t buckle. Instead, she pressed forward, shoving his long axe aside and unleashed a series of blisteringly fast strikes with her hatchets. Sebastian tried to retreat to get more room to swing his axe, but her hatchets had a short range, which required her to maintain a close, aggressive fighting style.

“Your reactions are slow,” she said matter-of-factly.

He was about to respond, but she threw a spinning kick that connected with his head. He went down and his head bounced off the floor. Once again, Daisy looked at me and I shook my head. Not yet.

Sebastian coughed and spat to the side as he got up. His skin was starting to glow red, while Carina looked the same. I didn’t know much about Battleborn abilities except for the fact that they grew tougher the longer they fought.

Sebastian had clearly been pushed to the point where he needed an ability while Carina did not. This didn’t pose well for him.

Realizing he wasn’t going to keep her at a distance, he put his axe back into his inventory. Even in his bruised state, he could tell the long weapon was slowing him down. He was too sluggish with its wide, heavy swings. So he chose to use his fists.

He dashed towards her in a mad charge. Carina threw another hatchet at him, but Sebastian ducked under it and kept running. Once in range, she swung her other hatchet. He sidestepped it and headbutted her. Her head rocked back and the gush of blood told us that her nose was broken.

I thought she’d be angry, but she smiled, looking pleased. “not bad,” she said.

And then her skin started to glow red.

Oh no.

I warned Daisy to step in, as she was still the closest to the pair, and I didn’t dare turn my back on Jasan and Oma.

Sebastian, unaware of the danger, tried for another headbutt but stilled as he felt something cold punch him in the stomach. He looked down just in time to see Carina remove the dagger she’d plunged into him. Sebastian tottered backwards, feeling numb. He stared down in confusion at his blood-stained hands.

Carina forced him to his knees before she summoned a longer, single-headed axe. It was the kind that could take a man’s head in a single blow, and she intended to do just that. She raised the axe high and swung down.

Daisy's scythe sprang out and blocked the attack.

Carina frowned. “Why interfere?”

“Because he’s a part of the team,” she said.

Shadows then burst forth out of her scythe, rolling up the axe to Carina’s eyes. Rather than the clumsy Heart of Darkness technique I’d used in the past to blind others, Daisy’s smoke receded until Carina’s eyes were two black orbs. Her control over the shadows was finely tuned that she could manipulate it to cover only the eyes and nothing else.

Carina swung her axe around in a blind circle, probing for Daisy, who’d already silently moved away. When that didn’t work, she forced herself to be still. I couldn’t even tell if she was breathing. She was like a statue.

Daisy plucked a green potion out of her inventory and hurled it at Carina. As the potion got close, her axe moved, and she knocked it aside. As the potion went overboard, she took a step towards Daisy.

Carina was using her other senses to compensate.

Daisy curled her lip, annoyed at how easily her shadows had been overcome. She attacked with her scythe and the pair fell into a prolonged battle with neither side giving an inch. Carina no longer acted like she was blind at all and I wondered if Daisy knew that her power would increase the longer that the fight went on for, so I told her in party chat.

Daisy: Could’ve maybe used that info a few minutes earlier.

Finally, Daisy backed off and fell into a shadow like it was a hole she’d jumped into. She’d completely disappeared. Carina cocked her head to the side, confused.

Behind Carina there was another shadow where the blade of her scythe struck out and caught Carina on the back of her leg with a shallow cut.

Carina grunted and started chasing after the shadows that Daisy was hiding in.

Jason sighed. “We might as well get this over with. The others look like they’re going to be at it a while.”

“Might as well get this over with?” I repeated, my voice rising. I stabbed a finger at the pair that were still fighting on the other end of the ship. “Look at them! Look at this meaningless conflict. Can’t you feel how empty this is? How pointless?”

“They told me you’d try something like this,” he said.

“Try what?”

“I know what you are. They’ve shown me what Blood Reaver’s become. You’re nothing but a mad wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

I threw up my hands. “So what? We fight, I win, and then I have to go kill all of your friends to stop them from coming after me?”

A helmet formed over Jason like liquid metal. “Only if you win.”

I sighed. “What is it with this place? So many big egos with small brains.”

Jason sprang forward to punch me. I took a step back out of the way, but an arm blade formed over his hand. It nearly took my head offs, and I was forced to duck.  

*Player Identified* [Jason Miller, Class: Quicksilver Knight, Level: 55]

Yeah, I figured that out already.

Good thing his level is slightly lower than mine. I guess he must have spent as much time out of the tower as I did.

I formed a blood sword. If the shape of his armor could be manipulated to throw me off balance, then I would do the same.

I doubled the sword’s length, hoping to force him back, but instead it cut into and grazed his side as he pressed forward. The attack had left a cut in his armor, which gave me confidence, but my heart sank when I saw his armor ripple and heal the cut.

So it can self-repair, but there must be some limiting factor. For me, it was the blood of others. Deprived of that, I would run out of power to fuel my abilities. So what’s powering the armor? Just his own magical store?

I decided to try a wear and tear strategy until the air around my feet rippled. Instinctively, I hopped away just as the ground near that spot shimmered and a fractal pattern appeared. I tried to move away again, but was too slow. My left foot had been caught. I tried to yank it free, but it wouldn’t move.

“Good work, Oma,” gloated Jason.

My Viper Fang knife appeared in my other hand and I slashed the air around my foot. The weak Air Slash attack cut a hole in the deck, but it broke the woman’s magic.

Free to move, I raced towards her before she could trap me again. I expected Jason to be right on my heels, but I could not hear him.

Oma tried to trap me again, but this time I was ready for them. She threw out floor trap after floor trap and I evaded them all. She turned to run, but it was too late. I leaped up into the light tunnel and put my sword to her neck.

She froze.

*Player Identified* [Oma Ebeid, Class: Kaleidoscope, Level: 61]

“Before you do anything rash, you should turn around first,” she told me.

I looked over my shoulder to Jason standing in the entrance to the captain’s quarters with Hugo’s sleeping form in one of his hands. I almost cursed them both. I couldn’t believe Hugo was still sleeping through all of this. His Psychopomp abilities would’ve made this fight a whole lot easier. Still, even in my frustration, I was scared of what could happen to him.

“Put the bird down,” I said coldly.

“Let Oma go first,”

“If I do, she’ll just trap me or collapse this tunnel and send me into the water. So why don’t we get onto the deck first?”

I motioned for her to move. She threw a look at Jason, who nodded, and we stepped down onto the deck. Oma tried to stop there, but I nudged her forward to get closer. In my other hand, I pulled out the map and held it up. “This is what you’re after, right? Let Hugo go or I’ll throw it into the sea.”

“How do I know you won’t hurt her once I do? You don’t trust me and I don’t trust you. I don’t see a way forward.”

As soon as he’d said it. I had an idea.

I moved the blood sword away from Oma and returned it to my bracer as a gesture of good faith. Jason was surprised, but he followed through and put Hugo back in the captain’s quarters.

When he came back out, he held his hand out for the map. This part was harder. He had better ships and a larger crew manning each one. It would make catching up with him difficult if he left with the map.

When I didn’t take the last few steps, Jason rolled his eyes, thinking it was some ego move on my part, and stepped closer.

Oma’s eyes flashed white, and she moved her hands to weave her trap. I gave no reaction when I felt my feet sink slightly into the deck to keep me stuck. Nor when Jason tried to snatch the map from me and failed.

An arm blade formed over his fist. “You know I could just cut off your hand for it,” he warned, trying to sound menacing. I doubted he would. It just didn’t seem like his style. Also been there done that.

I smiled. “You could, but you should’ve done it sooner.”

Blood pooled around us as I activated my Crimson Domain. Jason didn’t notice the blood until it was too late, but Oma did. Perhaps it was due to her own magic being disturbed, but she rushed forward. “Jason!” she yelled.

She was too late and suddenly the three of us were bathed in darkness, standing in a shallow pool of bright red blood that seemed to stretch on forever. Oma’s trap around my feet had been destroyed but physically moving wasn’t as necessary in this place. Not when all the blood was connected to me.

With my blood senses heightened to their peak, I formed a blood spike to attack Jason. He tried to fight back, but the blood would turn to liquid and then solidify. I used it to slice away at his armor piece by piece. I wanted to know how long his armor could keep healing itself.

His armor would reform and I would cut again. Reform. Cut. Reform. Cut.

Oma tried to use her powers, but as soon as she raised her hands, a second blood spike shot out of the ground, stopping just shy of her face as a warning.

I continued hacking away at Jason’s armor, barely even aware that I was controlling multiple blood shapes at once. Eventually, Jason started slowing down. Then parts of his armor wouldn’t heal. His upper legs became bare as he prioritized maintaining his chest plate and helmet. But eventually his chest plate too fell to ruins.

Jason’s helmet melted away to make his final plea. “Do whatever you want with me, but let Oma go!”

My frustration boiled over. “I don’t want to do anything with you! You came to me!”

Despite my words, I could see that his mind was made up. I raised up the blood spike, ready to pierce his heart and be done with all of this. Talking hadn’t worked out, the fighting was over, and now it was time to remove them entirely.

Clap, clap, clap.

I paused at the sound and let out a long string of curse words. There, standing in my domain, was the Officiator. He clapped twice more, as if counting to a certain number of claps, like that was part of the applause ritual humans engaged in.

“Well done,” he said with a flat smile. “You’ve won not only the map but this round too!”

“Round?” I asked wearily.

“Of course. Can’t have things end now. That would be far too soon. You’ve still got several days to battle for the chance to open the door.”

“So this fight really was for nothing?” I said.

“Not for nothing. You’ll get a head start out to sea and you’ll each get an appropriate amount of experience points despite the fact that no one was killed. It’s quite the generous bonus, if you ask me.”

“Generous bonus?”

He nodded, thinking I would find it as agreeable as he did. Instead, I launched a blood spike at him.

The Officiator tutted and snapped his fingers. The blood spike along with the rest of my domain collapsed, and we were suddenly back on the deck. But not just us. Kristof, Elise, Daisy and Carina were standing there too. All torn and bloodied.

He snapped his fingers again, and the others disappeared, presumably back to their own ships.

“You’ll understand eventually,” the Officiator winked before vanishing as well.

Sebastian glanced at me. “So what did that deus ex asshole want now?”