The world feels distant, surreal. I’ve never fought someone like this, all formal and scripted like we’re Victorian gentlemen in a pissing contest over a lady’s affections. It’s always been desperation, terror, instinct. Now, I feel like I should be in a fighting stance waiting for some booming voice to yell ‘fight’ or a bell to ring or whatever fighting people are into. I think we’re supposed to be trying to kill each other, but instead I’m standing awkwardly, wondering what the hell to do with my hands.

  Clug looks no better, his softly glinting carapace still, his slender limbs lacking the grace he displayed on the webbing.

  Do I make the first move, or…?

  He takes the choice from me, stepping forward smoothly. Confidently. I flinch backwards immediately, painting his form with violet light. He doesn’t seem like he’s attacking though. Just walking, strolling almost, his many legs glowing faintly.

  Alright. Well. Here goes nothing. Strength and Agility are weaknesses, so…

  Strengthen.

  I gasp as the Skill takes hold. He staggers and almost falls as his personal gravity multiplies. He trembles under the pressure, his thin legs creaking. I might be able to crush him completely. More. Just a little more.

  But I can’t. Energy gushes from my soul in a torrent, the number spinning down so fast it is easier to track in tens. His is a spiritual weight like the Deathlord’s, but more potent somehow. I burn a hundred points from my reserves in five seconds.

  Fall. Die. Break. Please.

  Rather than listen to my desperate prayer, the slender Laranya straightens under the pressure, a look of faint surprise creasing his face. His soul is too much, too strong. Not just his soul. His will defies mine, strong enough that my Skill can’t take effect. He takes a step forward, and I cut the flow of power, staggering backwards to put some distance between us. He matches me across the glade, and already I can feel myself running out of real estate in this impromptu arena. The will of the encircling Laranya is a wall of steel a few paces into the woods.

  The fight’s lasted ten seconds and my soul energy already reads 258/417. It took a hit holding Strengthen so long against the Soul Loom, and again trying to contend with this overpowered asshole. It’s plenty to play with, a fucking bounty compared to what I started the Tournament with, but not if I have to spend a hundred points just to make him stagger.

  “His will is too great to affect directly. So…”

  Stop targeting him. Right.

  The weight of the Deity's Bauble settles into my palm. I thread some energy into several Skills at once, building, building…

  Manipulation. Strengthen.

  The ball rockets out of my hand like it was shot from a cannon. It crosses the ten steps between us in a dull grey blur, almost faster than my eye can follow. He doesn’t dodge, doesn’t move. He doesn’t have time to. It’s on target, high on the left side of his thorax. But he… stumbles.

  A sharp crack splits the air. I wince, expecting to see him fall. Bleed. Die. Anything, really.

  No dice.

  What he does do is stop, turning his body to show me his profile. He stands there for a moment, unmoving, his eyes split between me and somewhere behind him.

  Did I hit him so hard it blew through him, movie style?

  As if in answer, an ancient tree, two hundred Earth years if it was a day, topples over on the other side of the glade, sending a discordant thrum through the web.

  That smack was the ball hitting the tree. Shit.

  Did I… miss? How? He didn’t dodge, barely moved, didn’t even stop walking…

  He looks back at me, and I imagine if he had eyebrows they would be raised in surprise. He resumes walking at the same steady pace. Confidence? Arrogance?

  The ball reappears in my hand, and I immediately fire it off again. Center mass. This time, there’s no way—

  He moves. It misses. Somehow. The sharp crack of the bauble hitting something echoes more distantly this time, and leaves on a tree past the edge of the glade shiver. What the fuck? It was right on him. How…?

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  My brain aches trying to piece together what happened. He moved, but… subtly. Barely shifting his center line. It wasn’t quick or graceful, but it was somehow perfect. A shift of his torso, a wave of limbs. Some kind of luck power? Premonition?

  Acidic fear gnaws at my gut, but I push it aside. Think. Work the problem.

  Before you die.

  Nope. Not like that.

  The bauble is small, even if it's fast. Maybe… maybe something—

  “Competitor! What are you doing?!”

  I blink. The distance between us has evaporated. I’m walking… towards him?

  “Do not be afraid,” he whispers, his voice almost gentle. “It is your fate to fall here, and mine to save my people.”

  Take another step.

  My instincts scream, but I’m not sure why.

  It’s the right thing to do. I’m going where I’m meant to be.

  What the hell? That isn’t me.

  And I feel it, hovering like an invisible silk cocoon.

  There’s something smothering my thoughts, dragging at my attention. I fight, but too late. Clug’s glowing limb sweeps towards my neck slowly, almost leisurely. Like its contact is inevitable. Fated.

  My body finally responds. My foot plants, my chin lifts. I am doing what I want to, moving how I want to, and yet it feels like I’m only making what is certain more inevitable. My neck comes more perfectly in line, my body shifts more out of position.

  And that’s fine. It is my time to die. Maybe not the death I would have chosen, but the right one.

  Stop fighting. Stop resisting. It is your time. You can rest.

  Something blinks in the corner of my eye. Something distracting. I frown and try to flick it away, but it opens instead. Three forms of various sizes appear, one glowing a bright and cheery green. Burl. One a strange wash of colors impossible to parse. Zara. The last, though, a small figure, far smaller than the others, is blinking orange around its head. Threenut. My friend.

  He’s in pain.

  I scream. Power pours through my shroud. White light flashes. The Laranya’s strike slows to a crawl, grinding against a glowing defensive shield. Against, and through, with the creeping surety of time. But it buys me a second.

  What the fuck was that? Accepting my fate? This is my time?

  I don’t believe in any of that shit.

  I throw myself into my Soul Sight. Shimmering strings of intent ensnare me like a web. No, like a puppet. My soul itself is under attack, something that should be impossible.

  Well fuck you, Clug.

  Psychic Telos isn’t a Skill, per se, but it drinks my soul energy readily enough when I offer it. With a flare of violet light, my body comes free. I stumble backwards as he finally forces the strike through, drawing a line across my neck that would have separated my head from my shoulders. My skin stitches itself together in a wash of hot blood and hotter pain.

  He hesitates. Shock, I think. It’s only an instant, but it’s all the time I need.

  The bauble manifests in my palm. I blast it out instantly.

  He’s moving before it even leaves my hand, maybe even before I formed the thought to attack. Even then, he’s not fast enough to prevent the ball from cracking into his shoulder. He spins with the impact, his limbs spasming.

  He turns the spin into a lunge, glowing limb stabbing out straight at my stomach.

  My shield manifests again, slowing the strike.

  You’re right where you need to be.

  Tearing myself away from the absurd thought, I throw myself away. He catches my side anyway, cleaving through a rib like butter.

  I roll in the dirt, but he’s already there. His carapace drips ichor onto my chest. His eyes are pained. He even looks… droopy, kind of like Zara does after a long healing session. But he looks nowhere near dead.

  “You are brave and honorable, human,” he says, offering me a quiet nod. “I am glad fate led you to me now, here, while you are yet raw and unformed. Had we met later in this contest, I do not believe I could have touched your soul. It is… remarkable. When all of this is done, I will not let your song die.”

  The bauble appears in my hand again, and I punch him with it. Or try to. He sways aside, a soft chuckle wheezing from his chest.

  “Brave to the last.”

  “Yeah,” I say, settling my back against the soft earth. “Though I think it’s spite more than bravery.”

  Manipulation. Strengthen.

  Weakness floods my limbs as the rest of my soul roars out into the ether. Clug pauses, noticing the power permeating the air. A low sound rolls across the glade. He doesn’t react. Probably too quiet for normal senses to pick up. He knows something’s off, though. Most of his eyes remain locked on me, but many flick about, looking for the effect of whatever the hell I’m doing.

  It takes him a split second too long to realize it might be behind him.

  With a groan of tortured wood, the fallen tree rips from its broken stump and falls along the ground under the web, picking up speed. The Loom shrieks as twisted branches rake across its silken strands. Roaring, cracking, breaking, the massive trunk comes in an avalanche of serrated leaves and flying splinters.

  Clug spins to see his doom, but there’s nowhere to go. Webbing above, ground below.

  Inexplicably, a laugh bubbles up from my chest. The words come to me, cheesy as hell but so fucking perfect I can’t stop myself from saying them. Gotta get the intonation right if I want it to sound cool, like she did.

  “Hey, Clug?”

  He turns, horror burning in his eyes.

  “Dodge this.”

  With the last bit of energy left, I take a deep breath and activate Strengthen, pressing myself deeper into the earth. It isn’t much, but it’ll have to be enough.

  And with a deafening rumble, the world goes dark.