Elijah did not enjoy killing people.

  Or that was what he kept telling himself. He almost believed it, too. Parts of it, at least. On the surface, it was true. He didn’t like the idea of killing sapient creatures. However, there was a part of him that very much reveled in the evidence of the power discrepancy. His might was undisputed, and despite their efforts to stymie him, the war elves fell, completely incapable of countering his might.

  Elijah lost count of how many he killed.

  The defenders had already dealt with thousands of attackers, though not without paying for it with their own casualties. In fact, the number of deaths on either side was fairly equal, telling Elijah that, without his help, the city would have fallen.

  They were lucky he was there to destroy the command hub, if only because it took thirty thousand potential fighters out of the equation. Unfortunately, the loss of their leaders hadn’t thrown the rest of the army into disarray. The command structure was too compartmentalized for that, with each squad capable of operating independently.

  And they were proficient fighters, too. The only reason Elijah was so effective was because of the massive gap in power between him and everyone else on the field of battle. Even so, his progress in the Shape of the Scourge was far too slow for his taste. To hasten his enemies’ demise, he shifted into his human form. As he did so, he continued to leap and whirl through the army, though instead of attacking with talons and fangs, he cut them down with his scythe.

  It too was effective.

  Yet, the use of that weapon was not the reason he’d changed shape. No – he’d gone that direction so he could access his spells. Specifically, Eternal Plague.

  He could have used it in his draconic form, but he wanted to avoid that if possible. It was just too taxing in the relatively low-density atmosphere. He could cope with the drain – both on his vitality and ethera – but it was anything but comfortable.

  And besides, his human form would work just fine for what he had in mind.

  Embracing Eternal Plague, he used his ability to dual cast to constantly toss out instances of Nature’s Claim. The first spell manifested in the form of a swarm of conjured flies. Their wings glittered with ethera as they fell upon the elves, and each bite inflicted a powerful affliction upon the fighters.

  Every few seconds, a shot rang out, destroying an elf. Gunnar had moved on from Tacticians and Warcallers to Healers. And without that trio of support personnel, the elves had no defense against Elijah’s conjured swarm. In seconds, thousands of flies sprang into being, but each passing moment saw that number increase. The additions weren’t quite exponential, but the longer he held the spell, the more rapidly they manifested.

  Of course, the elves quickly recognized the danger – especially when their fellows started dropping – and they turned their attention to destroying the swarm. Whole swaths of that insectile cloud were enveloped by fire summoned by the army’s Sorcerers, but their efforts were far too minute to make any real difference.

  Besides, those conjured flames marked them as high-value targets. Recognizing the shift in tactics, Gunnar focused on those mages. Elijah did as well, descending upon them with his scythe and Nature’s Claim. The air filled with insects and yellow spores while the defenders atop the wall continuously fired upon the attackers.

  A few shots hit Elijah, though they were little more than an annoyance. They were also easily countered by Wild Resurgence, which he wove between instances of Nature’s Claim.

  Moment by moment, the swarm grew. Hundreds became thousands, which in turn soared into six-digits. It didn’t stop there, either. Elijah had no way of knowing just how many affliction-delivering insects he could summon, but from experience, he knew that millions were more than possible. Theoretically, there were no limits. So long as he had ethera to spend, he could grow the swarm until it enveloped the entire planet.

  Of course, he didn’t have that much energy to spare. Especially now that he’d surpassed what Earth could support. Regardless, his spells were much more efficient in his human form, so he could keep Eternal Plague going for hours. Perhaps as much as an entire day if necessary.

  To hasten the war elf army’s demise, Elijah ruthlessly hacked through his foes, felling them like so much wheat. The only difference was that wheat didn’t bleed. Or scream in pain. Or ineffectually attempt to fight back.

  Elijah ignored it all, sinking into a trance-like state where he simply focused on the job at hand. The elves had come to Seattle with an eye toward conquest. Without opposition, they would have killed – or likely enslaved – hundreds of thousands of people. Perhaps even millions. Opposing them was morally justified.

  And yet, Elijah felt sickened by his own actions, necessary though they may have been. Not even the knowledge of his dominance served to dilute that feeling.

  Elijah sank deeper and deeper, with every facet of his mind focused inward. He was still aware of his actions, but he refused to reflect upon the following implications. The last thing he wanted was to think of himself as a killer, even if that label was indisputably accurate.

  He didn’t slow until he heard a voice cutting through the silence he’d so far refused to acknowledge.

  “You can stop, Mr. Hart.”

  Elijah whipped around, flinging mingled sweat and elven blood in an arc. In his battle trance, he very nearly attacked the drone hovering a dozen feet away, but he stopped himself just in time. His thoughts came flooding back to reality as he recognized the fruits of his labor.

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  Bodies, many of which had been dismembered, carpeted the desert. Their blood stained the sand just as it coated Elijah’s entire body. A yellow haze hung over the battlefield as the spores from Nature’s Claim drifted toward the ground. Mushrooms in various states of decay sprouted from the bodies, many of which had already begun to rot. Those that hadn’t were bloated, with black-and-blue bruising that came from his swarm’s afflictions.

  The flies themselves had already begun to dissipate, dissolving into motes of ethera that soon disappeared entirely.

  Elijah took a deep breath that he immediately regretted. The smell of blood, bile, and waste filled the air, tinged by the sickly-sweet aroma of fungal rot. It was the smell of an open sewer combined with a charnel house that someone had tried to cover with perfume.

  With that odor came a wave of nausea that he quickly suppressed.

  “Are they all dead?” he asked the drone. It too was covered in blood and looked a lot better armored than one of Isaiah’s typical machines. Still, it had taken damage.

  “Yes.”

  That simple word said so much. Elijah wasn’t certain how many people he’d killed. They’d barely given him any experience, so he couldn’t use that as a gauge. But the initial estimates of the war elf army’s numbers suggested that his kill count had reached well into six figures.

  And this wasn’t like when he’d fought his way through various Primal Realms, where his victims would reconstitute when those pocket realms reset. These were real, irreplaceable people.

  His instincts told him that war elves were evil. Or at the very least, they were incompatible with peace. His experiences with them – both in the Trial of Primacy and on Earth – supported that supposition, Yet, Elijah couldn’t help but feel a note of guilt at the sheer magnitude of the slaughter.

  Were they all evil?

  Probably not. In the end, that didn’t matter, though. They’d attacked. They were the aggressors. If they’d made different choices, perhaps they would still be alive.

  He sighed, his shoulders sagging as he glanced at the city’s wall. It had not escaped the battle unscathed, and cracks spread across its surface in multiple places. Elijah could also sense that whatever ethereal defenses flowed through them had begun to sputter. Finally, he couldn’t help but notice that the men and women atop the walls were far less numerous than they had been in the beginning.

  Many of Seattle’s defenders had given their lives to protect their city.

  All because the war elves wanted to add another conquered city to their toll. Were they driven by simple conquest? Or were they otherwise motivated? Perhaps it was all just an effort to climb into their superiors’ good graces and earn better opportunities? Likely, it was both.

  And if that was a common sentiment throughout the multi-verse, it did not bode well for Earth’s future. The only solution was to lean into it, to make attacking Earth and its people so taxing that it just wasn’t worth the effort.

  But before he could worry about that, there were more important things to tend to. Like the people who’d been injured during the battle.

  After explaining his intentions, Elijah asked, “Where can I help?”

  Isaiah agreed to guide him to the largest hospital, and Elijah used a few instances of Cloud Step to mount the wall. There, he saw even more carnage, though mixed in with the war elf corpses were plenty of humans. Elijah also saw quite a few dwarves, a few tiny gnomes, and a handful of other races – all of whom were dressed in Seattle’s military uniform, which consisted of black tactical gear that had failed to protect them.

  Elijah chose not to focus on the losses. Instead, he decided to turn his attention fully to the people he could help. To that end, he followed Isaiah’s drone past the wall and to a large hospital he vaguely recognized from the city’s original incarnation.

  “Harborview,” he muttered, looking at the huge, fortress-like building. The main structure had an almost brutalist, no-nonsense cast, though there were a handful of annexes that had clearly been built in different decades. Stylistically, they reflected those eras, with older brickwork standing near newer steel-and-glass constructions.

  It also featured much denser ethera and a note of vitality that, when asked, Isaiah attributed to a variety of arrays and a domain created by the head Healer. Elijah could only nod and appreciate the much more comfortable atmosphere.

  That lasted right up until he entered the emergency wing, where he found a chaotic scene of carnage. People screamed in pain as Healers and their assistants – usually people without appropriate archetypes who still wanted to help – treated gruesome wounds. Smeared blood decorated the white tile floor, while every bed was filled with people waiting to be treated.

  More than a few had already died, evidence that there were never enough Healers.

  Elijah immediately sprang into action, summoning Blessing of the Grove. He didn’t open Grove Conduit, though. Instead, once the rejuvenating rain began to fall upon the patients, he found his way to the head Healer – a stern-looking woman who didn’t even introduce herself. Rather, she simply pointed him toward the worst of the worst, patients whose injuries were so severe that healing them had been deemed a lost cause.

  He took that as a challenge.

  However, that stopped the second he realized that, among the wounded defenders were a few war elves.

  Elijah turned to the Healer, intending to ask what was going on, but she was already gone, presumably to tend to her patients. After all, no one had the time to just stand around. Most of the patients’ injuries were time-sensitive, and every second counted toward their survival.

  Seeing that he would get no guidance, he returned his attention to his patients. Did he have a right to deny care to the war elves? Weren’t there laws against that kind of thing? Doing so was a war crime, at least as far as he could remember from college. Yet, those lines had been blurred the moment he’d weaponized rot and disease. He was a walking biological weapon of mass destruction, so he didn’t think the old rules really applied anymore.

  Especially when there were aliens that sought the destruction of humanity as a whole. International laws only really worked when everyone agreed to follow them, and the war elves had proven they had no intention to do so.

  Still, morality wasn’t about reciprocation. It was about doing what was right. And letting helpless and injured people die just didn’t feel justified.

  So, Elijah got to work. He didn’t discriminate between patients. In fact, the only reason he acknowledged their species at all was to ensure that the war elves were bound. The last thing he wanted was to heal them only to give them an opportunity to wreak havoc within the hospital.

  Like that, Elijah focused on the task before him, and in a lot of ways, it was a cathartic experience. Healing had always felt right to him, and in a way that killing never had. And he knew just how important it was to keep that at the forefront of his mind.

  The alternative would send him down a very dark road.

  Time passed, and his efforts continued. Despite that, he failed more often than he succeeded. Some people were just too far gone, even for his healing. But that only made the ones he saved mean that much more.

  Finally, after hours of healing, he reached the end of his patients. As he’d worked, someone had removed the people he’d already treated. Alive and dead alike. So, when he looked back, he saw nothing but an empty and bloody room.

  His shoulders slumped, though his exhaustion was more mental than physical. His actions in the hospital did not make up for the death he’d dealt outside the city’s walls, but they still felt like a salve to his spirit.

  Hopefully, that was enough to keep him moving forward.

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