Chapter 444

Mark unfurled adamantium into his environs, into the tumbling sky and rotating ground, Union expanding, Alacrity and Slowness pumping into his body, shredding his clothes and revealing the self-healing webweave underneath. That webweave began to slowly spread up and down Mark’s body. Mark breathed deep and righted himself.

He moved his head around, vision distorting under the strain of speed, as he took in an immense jungle down below that stretched out in every direction. Some of the trees were hundreds of meters tall and several meters thick, big bushy canopies shining green in the sunlight. Down below those tallest of trees was the main canopy, looking like a layered carpet of different varieties of green mold.

Birds flew frozen in time through the stilled sky. Monkey howls echoed deeply, the notes drawn out. Some trees were on fire, or on ice, or made of water, but everything was in balance down there. The fire trees didn’t burn anything overmuch, and if they did then other things grew back in their place. The river far below, between the trees, mirrored a secondary ocean of mist that flowed through the valley overhead, between the massive trees and the churned mountains. Old kaiju battles marked this land most deeply, and if newer kaiju battles should happen here then those would mark the land as well, but time was always moving forward. The green would reclaim every spot of land left exposed by any sort of battle, no matter the size.

The Wilds were thick and ever-churning.

Quark adjusted his speed, populating Mark’s focused eyes with overlays of the land below, but all of the overlays were fucked up because Mark was still distorted, himself. Quark was probably going off of records from ACCRR, too, or whatever he was using, and that was probably a new system for him to interface with.

Mark probably should have done some more research before he agreed to this. Maybe he should have asked about what happening, and what to happen to him after he accepted the transport, in particular when it came to what the monster looked like, but he was tired as fuck with all the talking and the planning and especially with the existential threats that he could do nothing about. Seriously! Fuck eldritch shit! Fuck all of that! And fuck Okuana! They were also too big to kill! And so, Mark really, REALLY needed to kill something that needed killing.

He wasn’t a fucking psycho like Buckler or Lancer, but he was a violent person with a violent job in a world that survived through the application of well done violence, and Mark truly enjoyed the satisfaction of a job well done.

Mark oriented and hovered, spinning his rotor fast, relaxing his Union of Alacrity and Slowness, and allowing Quark to come to terms with the situation before them. Flames scattered from Mark’s rotor blades, and the flames died down. His self-repairing webweave underwear began to spread over the rest of his body, now that he was uncovered, and soon a shiny black, skin-tight suit appeared on him, covering up and around his neck, and ending at his forearms and above his ankles. Superluminal white lines traced up the sides of his black webweave. Those white parts were ‘just white’ in person, but to a camera those white lines could be turned truly bright in order to pick him out of any visual range, as long as he was in that visual range.

‘How trustworthy is ACCRR, Quark?’ Mark asked with Sigaldry, eyes locking on what Quark was putting down, up ahead. ‘I know about ACC, but the RR is different… And that down there is very different from what I expected to see. But I suppose they are ‘puppetmasters’.’’

There was some sort of village in the woods. It was mostly overgrown but with heat signatures walking around and duller heat signatures nestled here and there in the village. Quark had outlined those lesser heat signatures as puppetmasters.

Quark said, “Aluatha Central Command is known to me as well, and so is Kaiju Response. Rapid Response deals with lesser threats; monitoring and tackling. I have never contacted any of those people, but I am in contact with them now, as per agreements you have made with Walaria as of 5 minutes ago. We have 8 minutes until Lancer and Buckler appear, and so I will put up a timer for them.” Quark did that, and then he added, “I believe that most of this particular situation is being used to gather information about you and the ITLKR system, and to expose you to Lancer and Buckler far away from civilization before such a situation becomes necessary in a more desperate situation, such as invasion.

“Knowledge of the puppetmaster village is highly restricted, and this whole area is a no-go zone. I am composing information about the village now.”

Mark nodded a little, floating there, eyes active, Union spread wide. He investigated as he listened to Quark talk. The tallest trees down below were about 50 meters away, and to the right. The main canopy was 100 meters down there. Mark could reach all the way to the ground, but not much more than that if he wanted to reach the sky, as well. His range with Union was still lesser than it used to be, back when he didn’t have a house.

Still, he felt out a great deal of the world below, and that place was absolutely with dangerous wildlife. Some things were actually deflecting his Unionsense. Mark only knew they were there because Mark was rather tuned in to sensing voids in his range due to a great deal of practice with that sort of thing. But with a bit of force, Mark pierced those voids and he felt out hidden monsters, their vectors pulled in tight.

Mark felt one such void over to the right, by that big tree, where orchids, mushrooms, so, so many vines, and air plants, crowded the bark—

Quark saw what Mark did not.

Quark highlighted a barely-visible clam-like thing nestled into the wood, like a brown fungus with green tendrils wrapped up and down the brown bark of the tree. It was almost impossible to see, but Quark picked out the specific area that Mark was looking at, and then Quark picked out the barely-there heat signature of the dormant puppetmaster.

Mark let go of Alacrity and Slowness, time sped up to a normal degree, and Mark offhandedly said, “I think I’ve heard so many things be called ‘puppetmaster’ over the last year, Quark. But this one seems like a true puppetmaster? Whatever that means? Are those actually people down there?”

“Those are souls lost to demonic Contracts who are being forced by the demons to live lives inside puppetmasters, all for the pleasure of the demons. This is a very dangerous location. Approaching the village itself is a death sentence for even archmages. Aluatha does routinely bombard and destroy the locations of any puppetmaster villages when it finds them, when they achieve a sufficient population, otherwise it’s ‘a waste of resources’.”

Mark took a deep, angry breath. “So I can kill these puppets without issue. That is what I am hearing. I can release these souls from their torment.”

“ACCRR is suggesting you might be able to pull out a great deal of Powers from the people here, as well, before you send them on their way. If you had Necromancy you might be able to pack away a bunch of them and then take them back to Aluatha for resurrection through Jessie Stills. There are no normalized systems in place for that sort of thing, though, for Jessie Stills remains a deeply hidden asset. Also, all of the people here are infested with demonic riders, so the chances of you being able to pick them apart at all is assumed to be anywhere from ‘impossible’ to ‘harder than impossible’. They have never been rescued before, by anyone.”

Mark felt overwhelmed by duty, by purpose, and by necessity, all at once, as his entire idea of what this entire situation was going to be suddenly turned into something else. Was this a rescue mission, now? Or would Mark need to leave it as a treasure hunt, and ignore all of the tortured people? Or would he need to kill them all?

Mark hinged his final decision on a question:

“Are they in relative peace and simply living life down there, or are they being tortured constantly by the demons riding them?”

“It varies,” Quark said, “Mostly, they live their lives in the horror of the deep Wilds, and when they die, they die. Upon death, they are resummoned by their puppetmaster and the demonic controller tells them to keep living their lives. Sometimes they break completely, and then they are discarded to their final end, wherever that might be.” Quark added, “Mostly, when they are finally killed and the puppetmasters are erased, the disappearing dead are usually thankful. This is why Aluatha does sweeps of puppetmaster colonies every so often. They never try to rescue anyone down there, ever.”

“But they couldn’t really rescue them before, anyway? No Resurrection magic out there.”

“Correct. But they are summons right now, and so Necromancers capture them and turn them into summonable warriors. This has happened before in certain situations, like when a known warrior is Captured and they express the desire to be a summon rather than a demon’s plaything. There are historical records of this exact event happening, though the records are full of story and warning as well, and the person who captures the Captured soul always has to take a demonic Contract as well.”

“… Fuck,” Mark said. And then Mark decided, “Okay. So… deep psychological damage. Not currently-being-tortured. They can keep until I can come back and save them all with proper Necromancy.” Mark looked at the tree with the hidden puppetmaster nestled deep in the surface growth. “That one is the target, I guess.”

Quark said, “Warning, sir. Do not approach a puppetmaster alone. Please wait for backup.”

“I guess so,” Mark said, glancing at the time-to-archmage-backup. “4 minutes left…” Mark got to thinking. Mark asked, “Are there any targets that are less ethically touchy that need killing? Just… Just pure destruction.”

Mark floated on what was effectively a blender, shards of cutting adamantium floated around him, and his heart beat hard, his fingers twitching.

He wanted something he could .

He’d come back and solve this puppetmaster village later, but right now… Fucking hell. Mark felt itchy all over.

“Shall I put in an application for random work, like you had at the settlement?”

“… No. Don’t want to do that. Not yet.” Mark frowned— And then he wondered something. “Who are you even talking to at ACCRR?”

“A collection of AIs overseen by human hands. Walaria notes that she is in attendance now, at ITLKR headquarters, and she is overseeing this as well. I am broadcasting to Eliot, as well, and your team is kinda mad at you, sir.”

Mark winced. And then he said, “Sorry guys. These things are really dangerous.”

“But you didn’t know that until you took off without us,” Sally said, voice strong in Mark’s ears.

Isoko said, “I could have come! I got Arcane PLs!”

Eliot just said, “Be careful, Mark.”

Mark said, “Walaria even said that I needed archmage backup for this, so you guys stay safe there, with Addavein— I’m concentrating, now.”

The timer for Buckler and Lancer ticked down to 0.

Mark heard some well-wishing in his ears, but mostly he focused on the presences coalescing about 150 meters away, up and behind Mark. He turned a little, spun his rotor harder so he floated upward to match their level, and he pulled on Alacrity and Slowness, just a little. If these fuckers pulled shit right after they appeared then Mark wanted to be ready—

Two small blips, and then the sadistic twins appeared.

Red-shirt was Lancer, blue-shirt was Buckler. Other than their shirts they looked exactly alike, from their brown hair to their tight black robes with gold trim, marking them as archmages, to their excited, almost manic grins.

Mark did not want to work with these Force Magic archmage psychopaths, but this was the best option given… and they were very far away from society. Mark almost hoped they tried shit against him, like they had when they were working for Doomo and trying to capture him. They even had Professor Redline, acting as a Sentinel of Aluatha and with some good illusions, working with them to make it happen.

Mark had never gotten a chance to ask them what the fuck that was about.

Doomo and Walaria would obviously never tell him what had been going on with that, but these two might spill the secrets just because it would scratch that psychopathic itch that their Contract with their demons demanded.

As they fully realized their new environs their vectors unfurled in every direction, and they locked onto Mark in a moment, both of them going from worried to calm and then all the way to almost-joyful. Mark wanted to talk with them. From the way they were focused on Mark, Mark got the impression that they wanted to talk, too.

“Hey-yooo~!” Lancer called out, “We gotta talk, Mark!”

“Figured you might!” Mark called back, keeping his voice cheerful. “Here isn’t the best place for it, but if needs must then needs must.”

“Believe us! Needs must!” Buckler said, coming in closer first, hovering about 10 meters away and outside of Mark’s downdraft rotor, ‘happily’ saying, “You’re so hard to get hold of, and we’ve got such a big offer for you!”

Walaria spoke on the comms, her voice a warning, “Twins—”

And then Lancer flicked the air and a 60-meter wide sphere of force splashed into the air, locking all of them into a room in the sky together. Force Magic was pretty much Glass Magic, but less permanent, and more like Air Magic but with vectors. Since they controlled vectors, they easily controlled what sorts of information could travel in their forced spaces.

Unsurprisingly, Mark’s Unionsense ended at the surrounding sphere.

From the way the sphere below seemed to crush into the land below, like giant crystalline pillars had shocked out of the bottom and locked into the treetops and everything, Mark figured the sphere was going to be sticking around for a while.

The radio also vanished.

Buckler instantly started with, “Now about this demon-killing magic that Okuana tempted you with. Does it actually exist? Or was that some sort of propaganda shit?”

“... The fuck? Seriously? This shit?” Mark asked. “I already talked about it, at length, all the time!”

“And we want to talk about it directly,” Buckler said.

Mark got the distinct impression that it was not Buckler asking that question, and that this was happening here and now because he had kept not being able to speak to Archmage Blackthorn, back in Memphi. Mark and Blackthorn had come close to meeting several times, but it just didn’t happen.

Did this mean that Buckler and Lancer’s demons were aligned with Planty?

Seemed plausible.

Mark said, “I’m rather certain that if Okuana has the tech, then they’re not stupid enough to actually use it, but they did try and dupe me into going to them with it.”

Buckler asked his real question, “So the thought of such capability does intrigue you enough to pursue it? Otherwise the taunt never would have worked in the first place.”

Lancer said, “Sounds about right to me, brother.”

… Okay. That tone and content was worrisome.

Ever since the return to the Two Worlds from Endless Daihoon, Mark had spoken with a lot of people. Most of those people were either human or AI or divine. He had not spoken to any demons at all, as far as he knew, though he did speak to a lot of intermediaries without really knowing about any specific instance of such an occurrence. People spoke to demons all the time, trading information and doing tasks for them, so yeah, Mark imagined he had already spoken with some demons. Just not directly.

He had spoken about the falsity of the demon killing magics of Okuana in the same breath as revealing them. Perhaps that had not been enough to keep them from going to war. Was this, then, the start of the demon war?

Buckler nodded sagely, saying, “And therefore, if it does intrigue you, then it must be something you will pursue, even without Okuana’s possible lies. So how will you pursue this prize, Mark? HMMM?! Through the Reset Quest, perhaps? Kill all demons that way? Rewrite the System and make sure we don’t exist?”

“I think he’s headed that way, brother,” Lancer said, moving slightly to the side.

Mark already felt like he was flowing into a battle, even before it happened. They weren’t flanking him yet, but they were headed that way.

Mark skipped ahead, saying, “I don’t want to kill you two right now, but I will if you keep this shit up.”

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“From our perspective you are already headed in that direction,” Buckler began—

—and Lancer completed, “It’s just a matter of time.”

“Are you here to talk, convince me of something, or egg me on to fight?” Mark asked. “Because I’ve already promised not to go for the Reset Quest. Nobody Important made the consequences for heading in that direction very clear.”

“We require a Contract,” Lancer and Buckler said at the same time, their voices overlapping and echoing. “You will accept a Contract agreeing to never pursue or entice others to pursue a Reset, or, through your inaction, allowing others to pursue a Reset.”

“No. And that is my final answer. Now do what you have to do, because I’m not attacking first and thus breaking covenant with Aluatha.”

For a moment, the air was tense. Mark was ready for battle. Blades hung in the air and his rotor was tight and steady.

Eyes locked.

… And then Buckler tsk’d.

Lancer flicked his finger through the air and smiled as the shell around them broke completely, like a soap bubble vanishing. The sudden loss of stress from the force pillars holding up the bubble caused the canopy below to slap back together and crack and break in a thousand ways.

They might have appeared to be standing down, but…

They were not standing down at all.

They had either decided to pretend it was over and stab him later, or to back off, or they had tried to call Mark’s bluff and they had failed, or maybe there actually was something to Mark’s ‘covenant with Aluatha’ play, or they were just being assholes the entire time. Of all the possible options, ‘they’re assholes’ was the most in-line with Mark’s understanding of the two Force archmages.

So Mark asked, “Why did you go after Sam and Lee?”

Lancer floated to the side, casually flicking his hand and sending a pillar of force through the sky, missing Mark by 20 meters but impacting some flying dude over the puppetmaster village and absolutely obliterating his body. Lancer twisted his hand and the pillar of force shocked out in tens of directions, further piercing the sprayed body parts and then cutting through a bunch of other people who were coming this way. Lancer smiled, looking and Unionsensing as truly happy. Lancer said nothing.

Buckler was happy to talk, saying to Mark, “I don’t recall that incident? Who are Sam and Lee?”

He knew damned well who Sam and Lee were.

Lancer slaughtered a bunch of other flying people, and then he sent wave after wave of clear force into the forest canopy between here and the village, killing things that were moving a bit too fast in their direction to be anything other than puppeted people. It was a horror. The people flying, leaping, running on the ground their way, almost Unionsensed like suicidal people, but there were other vectors inside of them, like someone was angling them internally toward anger and murderous intent. It was enough to goad the entire village in this direction in the general direction of Mark, Lancer, and Buckler.

Most of the people seemed ready for death, anyway.

Lancer had killed a few right off the bat, but now he toyed with them, clipping off legs and arms and scoffing when the guys jumped right into the path of his force.

Buckler told Mark, “These guys always want to die too fast.”

… They came here all the time, huh?

That was… Disturbing.

Mark Unioned with Lancer and Buckler, hitting them with Good and draining all the Bad away. It was likepuncturing pus-filled wounds, just like that first time Mark had done this. The Archmage Twins relaxed with subtle, deep joy, as darkness pulsed out of them, into the world. There was a of Bad, so Mark shoved it toward the trees below, and toward all those people who came in his range, that Lancer wasn’t killing fast enough.

People died, and Lancer gave a sound of annoyance.

Buckler smiled, saying, “He’s trying to keep them alive for more torture, Mark! You’re killing them too fast.”

“Why did you try to capture me for Doomo?” Mark said, finishing off everyone that Lancer clipped, sending tens of people to their deaths. They took to death rather easily. A lot easier than people should. Probably because they were people who had been turned into mana constructs. Mark added, “Or were you trying to capture me for someone else?”

Buckler scoffed at the very nature of the question itself.

Lancer laughed.

Buckler asked, “Why would we ever tell you the truth to any questions at all?”

Lancer asked, “Why would you ever us?”

Mark said, “Because a war is starting, and I’m not going to work with you in that war if you keep playing the true villain.”

Buckler laughed and Lancer scoffed.

Lancer said, “We are true villains, though.”

Buckler said, “You’re too goody goody. Even now, you support us with Union when we were threatening you just a minute ago.”

Lancer added, like it was a fact, “But who the fuck cares about that! Here’s the real deal: If we’re in the same theater of war, then you’re supporting us.” Lancer lanced down several more people, and there were no other suicidal runners to take their place. He told Mark, “Go down there and support those puppetmasters! Give them some mana and make them conjure more people for us to kill.”

“It’s really good for scratching that itch,” Buckler said, as he flicked his hand and several pillars of force shot out, growing fast, slamming into the heart of the puppetmaster village and splattering people who had remained there. The pillars turned into rivers of force, supported by Mark’s Union, and Buckler’s slamming force splattered a bunch of other people. “Quite good!”

… They were quick deaths, at least, Mark supposed.

Mark spoke on the comms, “Walaria? Can I trust them to watch my back while I go after this puppetmaster over here?”

Buckler and Lancer both filled with mirth and with the expectation of a real fight.

Mark was they were falsifying their vectors.

… But maybe they really were waiting for him to lower his defenses, even if momentarily.

And then Walaria said, “No. Come back and go grab Necromancer from one of the other targets.”

Buckler instantly, worriedly, said, “We’ll be good! I swear!”

Lancer echoed his brother, adding, “We promise!

Buckler said, “Please let Mark be vulnerable in front of us!”

Lancer said, “We won’t do anything to him while he’s in the process of weakening himself to extract the soul of a soul extracting monster!”

They weren’t able to fake their vectors when Mark was Unioning with them and they were lying so very, very badly. Mark pulled his Union of Good/Bad away from the archmages, and the archmages slumped.

Lancer fired off a lightning lance of force that came within a meter of Mark—

Mark ignored that lance, and said, “So it appears… this was a mistake.”

Buckler and Lancer chuckled darkly.

And then Walaria said, “Kill those archmages, Mark. This is both a request, and an order.”

Buckler and Lancer froze.

Ah…

That was not a joke.

Walaria had just said that. And yet…

“Requesting confirmation,” Mark said.

Walaria’s voice carried a power of Truth to it, even when transmitted through Quark, as she said, “The archmages Lancer and Buckler are now Not Welcome in the Empire of Aluatha. They are to be killed on sight where their Falling would do the least amount of damage to the Empire.”

Mark felt something in the dream, just beyond normal sight, flicker and fade. It pulled away like a protection stripped. Lancer and Buckler’s black and gold archmage robes turned stiffer, their faces paled. They seemed sicker in that moment, and Mark wondered, as he poured on the Alacrity and Slowness, if this was part of Walaria’s plan all along, or if she had been giving them a chance to start with, or if something had happened outside of her ability to control… probably the last one, really. Stuff happened outside of peoples’ control all the time, and these two were unrepentant torturers and killers. Up until now, they had been useful to Aluatha.

They had outlived their usefulness.

Mark told them, “Thank you for your service,” even as he began speeding up into pure Alacrity.

The last sensible thing said by either of the brothers came from Buckler.

“Wait!”

Mark was already whirling at Buckler, who was still 20 meters away. Lancer was further, at 25 meters away. The Slowness Mark stabbed into them delayed their reaction, but something shifted in the vector of the world behind Buckler, flowing toward Lancer, and Mark’s Union snapped off of Lancer.

Lancer covered himself in a small sphere of force that blocked out everything, and a lance of force exploded out toward Mark. It was not an attack, though. The extended lance remained where it was, shocking into the air just a little, probably for more stability than as an attack, and then Lancer and his container orb went shooting off into the distance, rippling the air with force and the heat of moving too fast.

Buckler opted for defense, surrounding himself in a complete sphere of force.

Mark mentally prepared himself to kill two people.

And then he went for it.

Mark moved fast enough that he didn’t need to support himself on his rotor anymore. He swam through the air, fire breaking all around, the sky igniting as Mark wrapped his rotor onto Buckler’s orb. Mark crushed. Force cracked, sending spiderwebs of broken clarity across the surface.

Mark also tried to just cut through the force, but Force Magic was all about vectors and angles and solidification, and it was uniquely strong against pretty much any interruptions. Adamantium was very, very strong against many things, but against a denial of action adamantium was still pretty good.

Mark’s adamantium blades traced across the surface of the sphere like blades on ice. That wasn’t gonna work.

Crushing still worked, but it wasn’t fast.

At least Buckler’s defensive sphere didn’t suck down Mark’s adamantium and use it for his own strength. Adamantium was mana, after all, and force could do that to adamantium. Mark had already experienced such when the twins tried to lock him into that containment sphere. When he had touched the edges, his body had been literally sucked away.

Buckler couldn’t do shit against him right now, though.

Buckler’s stressed-out face was frozen in time. He kinda looked like he had back when Mark had done the Alacrity/Slowness trick when the two archmages had tried to capture him for Doomo. That time, they had both been sweating and working hard to enclose Mark. This time, Lancer was far away, running, and Buckler was alone and looking terrified. Sweating. Sickly, too, from whatever power Walaria had stripped from the twins.

Mark applied more pressure, fully wrapping the sphere in three different encirclements, on three angles. He tightened each wrapping one after another, like one would tighten the straps holding down cargo—

The first strap cracked through the entire sphere of force, shattering the too-much-power that Buckler had tried to surround himself with. The cracking of the sphere broke through Buckler, almost bisecting him, but just breaking his spine.

He was still too slow to even realize what had happened, and the force was similarly speed-deficient.

With the force still fully-powered, because Mark was moving that fast, Mark crumbled it with further crushing adamantium, partially exposing the archmage. Buckler’s back broke completely, separating the archmage into two halves. That wasn’t good enough. Mark tightened the bands of adamantium and the top half of the sphere cracked from Buckler’s shoulder to his waist, breaking his chest open. Another tightening cracked the bottom half of the sphere, separating his legs from each other.

And then Mark sent his adamantium soaking into the cracks of the sphere, all the way to the middle, to the tough-as-fuck meat that was the archmage Buckler. He was a PL 100 archmage, for sure. Mark was PL 99. That 1 point was a major difference. Some kaiju weren’t even as tough as the archmage, and Mark suspected that the force sphere around the archmage was also in his body, further strengthening him. That’s probably why, when the sphere broke, the archmage broke, too.

It was something to keep in mind when Mark went after Lancer.

With crawling, crushing adamantium scoops, Mark scooped out the meat inside, making sure to take the archmage apart at the brain first. Perhaps the brain wasn’t actually necessary for his functionality, but Mark did not want to torture Buckler if he could help it. Mark absolutely knew that Buckler would not have done the same for him, or anyone else, but that was fine.

Mark wasn’t going to become a monster like these guys.

Rapidly, with the broken sphere of force hanging in the burning sky all around, Mark gathered the bits of meat and blended them into fire, burning everything about Buckler away, hoping that it would be enough to kill the demon inside of him, too. And then Mark amped up the flames, the heat, the ripping and tearing. Mark beat his breath, blood, and brain with Speed and Alacrity, the fires of his movement incinerating the world around him with even the smallest of movements. That great fireball consumed what was left of archmage Buckler.

When nothing remained but broken force all around, Mark relaxed his Speed, the fire raging even stronger now that it actually began to move relative to Mark. That fire became a shockwave, spreading out across the sky in a detonation of flame, consuming the canopy below and a great deal of land far, far below.

With the wind flowing and fires raging in the deep Wilds, Mark hovered on a rotor of adamantium, his webweave regrowing.

“Signs of Buckler?” Mark asked, in normal time, keeping his head and Union on a swivel. Good and Bad flowed in and out briefly, to hopefully kill whatever small things might have remained in the area, and then Mark switched to Adamant and Ethereal to fortify himself against any possible countermeasures. He glanced toward where Lancer had escaped, and the archmage was still there, in the far distance, still running. “Lancer is mostly offensive, yeah?”

Mark knew a lot about the public capabilities of the archmages. Their Contracts were on public record at the Collective, so of course Mark had read up on these particular archmages. They’d have tricks, of course. Big, battle-swinging tricks, but hopefully Mark had gotten the drop on Buckler fast enough to make it a 1-on-1 fight, instead of trying to fight both at once.

And then Walaria said, “Buckler isn’t dead. The demon he’s Contracted with is also Contracted to his brother. They share the same demon, and that demon will revive Buckler with the temporary capability to overcome whatever killed him. It’s a hidden tactic that rarely activates, but it will activate now. . The other becomes vulnerable to true death, so go after Lancer. He should be much slower than the revived Buckler, but if you keep focusing on Buckler then Lancer will just keep getting away and the battle will never end.”

Kilometers away, with Quark helping, Mark could already see red-shirted Lancer’s body convulsing and then splitting down the middle—

And then Lancer was broken, half his body exploded open and slowly coming back together all on its own, a scream of pain echoing in the air.

A blue-shirted Buckler was little more than a speedster line of movement in the sky—



Buckler was 300 meters away and smiling wide, covered in blood. He noticed the instant Mark noticed his movement, and so he shifted to the side instead of straight at Mark, flying fast, circling, calling out,

“HELLO AGAIN, MARK!”

And then the sky became a solid hunk of force slamming Mark down into the forest, shoving him through half a kilometer of sky and tree and some small amount of land in less than a speedster second.