The Watcher moves first, drawing a line in the air, sending crackling ripples through space as reality is split. From this tear in reality, he draws a thin blade, unsheathing a dark silver rapier.

  “Fine then, let’s dance.”

  There is no spell cast, no gesture. One moment he stands still; the next, the space in front of him compresses violently inward, reality folding like paper.

  Neil reacts instantly.

  “SHIELD!”

  He steps forward, greatsword slamming into the ground as he braces. Mirana snaps a ward into place a heartbeat later, pale gold light flaring around him just as the distortion collapses.

  The impact hits like a siege engine. Stone vaporizes as the ward fractures. Neil is driven back a full yard, boots carving trenches through rubble as he grunts through clenched teeth. He rises, spitting a glob of blood onto the fractured stones.

  “Now!” Neil roars.

  Lothran doesn’t hesitate.

  Lightning detonates from him in a blinding surge. A massive, brutal lance of white lightning tears across the battlefield straight for the Watcher’s chest. The lightning tears into the watcher, sending him tumbling backwards.

  Wyn moves forward. She snaps her fingers and casts a series of illusions. With the last of her essentia, she painstakingly crafted duplicates of each of their allies. Each duplicate marches in time with the rest, moving with the group, and hopefully confusing the Watcher.

  The Watcher pauses, trying to discern which of the figures before him are illusory and which are real. It’s only a fraction of a second, but it’s enough for Neil to take advantage.

  He charges, greatsword coming around in a devastating arc. The two-handed blade howls through the air, carrying enough force to split a cart in half. Beside him, a pair of identical Neils do the same at Wyn’s command.

  The sword connects with its target, but it doesn’t do nearly the damage he wanted it to.

  Neil’s arms jolt violently as the Watcher catches the blade with one hand. In horror, Neil watches as he catches the blade by its edge, not the flat. Metal screams as dark wisps of magic tighten around it, locking it in place.

  Neil tries to pull the sword back, only to find it locked in place in mid-air. No matter how hard he tugs, the massive blade doesn’t move.

  The Watcher twists, sending a foot careening into Neil’s chest. Neil is hurled aside like a child’s toy, crashing through a broken wall in an explosion of stone.

  “Neil!” Wyn shouts.

  “I’m fine!” he yells back, already forcing himself upright. Blood runs down his temple, freezing mid-drip as Mirana’s magic snaps onto him. From his inventory, Neil equips a second, smaller sword, abandoning the thought of retrieving his greatsword, which still hangs in front of the Watcher.

  “Don’t make me regret that,” Mirana snaps, hands glowing as she knits bone and muscle back together. “I am not wasting good spells on idiots. This plan isn’t working.”

  “Got any better ideas?” Neil says.

  Wyn feels the piercing gaze of the Watcher land on her. She’s felt it a dozen times before, but now its intensity feels like a hot iron burning into her skin.

  “Well,” the Watcher says casually, eyes flicking to the illusions. “That’s irritating.”

  With a flick of the wrist, the shimmering illusions dispersed into nothingness. “Much better.”

  The Watcher lifts his sword and with a single downward stroke of his blade, the world buckles. Gravity inverts for a heartbeat. Wyn stumbles as the ground tries to become the sky.

  The last remaining soldier screams as he loses his footing, tumbling helplessly upward. He flails, trying to find anything to grab onto as he’s thrown. The last moment of that poor man’s existence is punctuated by a wet, final sound as space snaps shut around him, leaving nothing more than a red paste hanging in the air.

  Lothran snarls and slams his staff into the ground. Clouds darken, and lightning erupts, cascading downwards in a flurry of deadly strikes.

  Forking bolts crash down, converging on the Watcher from every direction. The earth cracks beneath Lothran’s feet as the essentia flows through him. Icy veins appear on his skin as his breath goes cold. Much farther and he’ll start freezing himself solid with Frostburn.

  But he doesn’t care. The amount of essentia poured into him left his body unstable, doomed to fail eventually. Lothran savors the opportunity to fight with reckless abandon, to hurl every trick up his sleeve at this impossible foe.

  With a snap of his fingers, the Watcher disappears. Wyn’s stomach drops. She scans the surroundings searching for any sign of him. She spots it. A slight distortion of the light, shimmering like heat, likely marked the Watcher’s location.

  “Behind you!”

  Neil pivots just in time, bringing his greatsword up as the Watcher reappears mid-strike. Steel meets steel in a shockwave that flattens nearby rubble. Neil’s sword bends, nearly snapping to the blow.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Neil plants his feet and pushes, shouting with all his might. Muscles scream and armor creaks under the extreme effort. He grits his teeth and forces the Watcher back half a step.

  It is the most ground anyone has gained so far.

  The Watcher raises a brow, something like mild interest surfacing. “You should have died already.”

  “Yeah,” Neil growls. “You first, asshole.”

  Neil lashes out with his bent sword, using it like a club. Mirana raises both hands, jaw clenched. Golden sigils snap into place around Neil, Wyn, and Lothran. They feel empowered; the pain lessening and stamina rising quickly. Even essentia recovers.

  “You have thirty seconds before the spell ends,” Mirana shouts. “Do something!”

  Wyn inhales and does something reckless. She targets the Watcher directly.

  Wyn, with all her remaining strength, manipulates the ambient essentia, warping magic to her whim. For a split second, his shadow detaches, lagging behind him. His reflection fractures across invisible surfaces that don’t exist.

  “This isn’t—” he starts, body going stiff.

  Lothran takes the opening. Essentia floods through him in a roaring torrent. Lightning coils around his body like a snake. With a shout, he hurls the spell forward.

  A catastrophic spear of lightning so dense it bends light around it punches straight through the space where the Watcher stands.

  The impact is deafening; the shockwave sending Wyn, Mirana, and Neil flying backwards a few feet.

  The ground around the Watcher collapses. The north gate’s last remains finally give way, stone pulverized into glowing slag. For a moment, the Watcher is completely engulfed, swallowed by blinding white fury.

  The column of light ends as Lothran falls to one knee, having exhausted his strength. Ahead of them, the Watcher’s pristine coat is scorched beyond recognition, his hat blown clean off and revealing white hair coated in soot.

  They all rise to their feet, weapons still held tight, waiting to see if the Watcher is defeated. For a moment, the battlefield was silent, offering them a fleeting glimpse of hope.

  But their hope was swiftly snuffed.

  The Watcher rises, dusting off his jacket.

  “Not bad, not bad at all,” he says, brushing the soot off. His face is almost unrecognizable as fernlike patterns of burn marks cover his face.

  “Enough playing around.”

  He raises his sword, tapping the tip against the ground. The sound echoes like a ticking clock. His wounds close, and his clothes restore as though no damage was done to him.

  He waves his hand again. With a resounding crash, every spell on the field vanishes. Wyn drops to one knee as the bolstering power of Mirana’s spells vanishes.

  Lothran staggers to his feet. Frost has reached his throat now. His breath comes in ragged, steaming bursts, every inhale burning cold.

  The Watcher points his blade towards Lothran. “You’ve got some skill, I’ll give you that. But you burn too bright,” he says calmly. “This ends now.”

  Lothran looks up at him, his hair still crackling with energy. And despite the danger, he can’t help but smile.

  In an instant, the Watcher is inches from Lothran, towering over him threateningly. “I will wipe that smile off your face.”

  “Doubtful,” Lothran says, still smiling.

  Lothran nods to Neil, unspoken words flying between them. Neil returns the nod, understanding his intention. Taking a shield out of his inventory, Neil waves over to Mirana and Wyn.

  Neil’s voice is steady when he speaks, making Wyn’s stomach twist with dread. “Mirana. Wyn. Now.”

  Wyn opens her mouth to argue. Logically, she knows what has to happen. There’s only one way for them to get out of this, but that doesn’t stop her from dreaming up potential solutions. A dozen clever ideas claw at the back of her mind — half-formed plans, illusions she hasn’t tried yet, angles the Watcher hasn’t seen. But none of it matters.

  Lothran plants his staff into the shattered stone. Lightning crawls up its length in thick bands of concentrated sparks. The air hums with energy. Wyn feels it in her teeth.

  “Don’t,” she snaps. “That’s stupid. There has to be another way.”

  Lothran exhales. Frostburn has taken hold of him completely now. Frosted breath spills from his mouth, drifting down like ash. Icey veins crawl up his neck, chilling his speech.

  “It is stupid,” he agrees calmly. “But I know it will work.”

  The Watcher’s irritation sharpens into something uglier. He sees it now too, and his casual boredom is replaced by rage. “You wouldn’t dare!”

  There is no flourish this time. No theatrical bending of the world or magical flair. He punches his rapier forward, directly into Lothran’s side.

  Wyn feels it like a blow to the chest.

  Blood sprays from Lothran, dark against the lightning-white glow wrapping his body. The force of the blow threatens to knock Lothran to his knees, but he stays upright.

  Mirana cries out, already reaching for a spell.

  “No!” Neil barks, grabbing her arm hard enough to hurt. “It’s too late.”

  The Watcher wrenches the blade free and strikes again. And again. Each thrust lands a devastating blow, piercing Lothran’s flesh and tearing him apart. Lothran’s body jerks with each impact, each stab making his lightning spell stutter.

  But he doesn’t stop casting his spell. A magic circle appears on Lothran’s staff, wreathed in lightning. The circle floats in the air before landing at his feet.

  “You idiot. You’ll die anyway!” The watcher spits at him, landing yet another blow.

  Lothran grits his teeth, blood freezing along his ribs where it spills. His hands shake as he drags them through the final pattern, lightning tearing at his own nerves as much as the world around him.

  Wyn examines the spell. Despite her interface having been disabled by the Watcher, she somehow knows in her bones what Lothran is casting. Why the Watcher is so upset.

  This isn’t an attack spell; it’s a displacement lattice. A sort of forced relocation. He’s anchoring it to himself because anchoring it to anything else would fail instantly under the Watcher’s interference. Lothran is going to get himself killed trying to teleport himself away.

  “You—” Wyn starts, furious now. “You absolute—”

  Another strike. This one takes Lothran in the chest. Bone gives way with a wet, hollow sound. A raw, broken sound is torn out of him as the Watcher loses patience.

  “Enough,” the Watcher growls.

  But it’s too late. With a flick of Lothran’s staff, the magic circle shifts from his feet. It flies across the battlefield before landing right at Wyn’s feet and activating. Wyn’s vision goes white as reality shifts, bringing her away from the battlefield.

  “NO!” the Watcher shouts.

  Wyn feels herself tear sideways, reality yanked out from under her feet. Sound drops away, replaced by a ringing void. Her stomach lurches as space folds, lightning wrapping around her like chains and pulling her to places unknown.

  Back on the battlefield, the watcher howls with rage, his plans falling apart all due to one clever lightning mage, and his old enemy. He grabs Lothran by the throat and hoists him off the ground. The last of Lothran’s essentia forms into lightning arcs that carve glowing scars into the air.

  The Watcher dismisses the flippant use of essentia with a thought, the rage in his eyes strong enough to kill. Lothran, despite the blood freezing in his veins from overusing Essentia, keeps a grin on his face, infuriating the Watcher even more.

  “I will kill them, you know. No force in this world can possibly stop me.”

  Lothran laughs. “You know what she is, right? That power she wields? It’s no wonder you want her gone so badly. You don’t—”

  Lothran’s neck snaps, sending him straight to the logout screen. The Watcher screams in frustration, the ruins of Lethisburg shaking at the sound of his voice. He failed, and there will be hell to pay for it.