Princess swam through the air toward Keeper, her legs like dozens of oars as they pulled her through the sky. She accelerated like a derailed train. Crackles of Riftwarped Qi arced off her body and licked across the ground beneath her.
Keeper's hands moved in a wide circle. It might have been surprised by the sudden revival and empowerment of Alex's monsters, but it was far from caught completely off guard. The air around it shimmered.
Then, with a blink, Keeper vanished. A flash of moonlight marked its return about ten feet behind Princess. Strands of light wove between its gaunt, nail-less fingers as the monster raised a hand for her.
The shadows beneath Keeper twisted. They rose up, strands forming into a lattice-mesh hand that dripped darkness itself. The hand reached up for Keeper. Silver eye flicking down, the monster noticed it at the last moment.
Keeper's arms moved in a circle once more.
Once more, it vanished.
The hand closed on nothing as Keeper reformed safely to the side. As it sank back into the ground, a perfect copy of Spark rose in its place.
The original Knight Wraith pull a long, black blade from the shadows beneath him and his clone mirrored the motion. They both dashed at Keeper while Princess turned and refocused on her target, charging at the gaunt monster once more.
And as for Glint — Glint did nothing.
Alex wasn't entirely sure why. He'd ordered every one of his monsters to attack as hard and fast as they could. As much as he would have loved to go for a much more tactically sound approach, there simply wasn't time.
Encore would only give him a few seconds to work with. Empowering it with Qi had made his monsters more powerful, which probably meant it wasn't going to have any effect on its duration.
But Glint would have been able to process that. The Glasmir had never misunderstood Alex's orders before, and these weren't particularly complicated ones. That meant that this, in Glint's eyes, was the fastest and strongest attack he could muster in his Qi-empowered form.
I've never summoned him with Qi in this new form; I've only used a Qi-empowered Riftwarp on him. What the hell is he saving up?
Alex didn't get a chance to wonder. The ground beneath him buzzed, a wave of pressure building up within his ears. Keeper hadn't forgotten who the real target of the fight was.
Suppressing a curse, Alex dove to the side and shot back to his feet, already running. Another fracture in reality spun to life in the ground before him and he was forced to abruptly change directions.
He didn't have Princess' powers to rely on for the duration of Encore. If any of Keeper's magic caught him now, the fight would be over. He wouldn't have any way to recover in time.
And even if I did have her powers, I'm basically out of magic. Princess' healing factor draws way too much for serious damage. I wouldn't be able to heal from another nasty hit. If he does that world-reversing move again, I'm fucked. I can't give him a chance to use it.
Spark and Princess were doing a remarkable job of keeping Keeper under pressure. The centipede Dredge carved through the air where Keeper had been, forcing the monster to teleport to safety once more, only for Spark and his clone to descend upon him.
The shadows around Spark seemed to have come alive. They flowed with every movement he took, swallowing and blocking the monster from sight to conceal his movements. He only emerged into view to strike at Keeper and force the monster to teleport to safety — only for Spark to swap positions with his clone and collapse upon their target again.
If it had been a fight without a time limit, Alex would have liked his odds.
He was running out of time. Encore wasn't going to last much longer, and then it would just be Alex against Keeper without any magic left to call upon. And despite his best efforts, Keeper hadn't been hit once.
I need more. This isn't enough. Every time Keeper teleports, he moves his hands in a circle. If I can stop him from doing that, will that cancel his teleportation?
There was only one way he could find out. It was taking everything Spark and Princess had to keep the monster occupied, and Glint was doing… something. Alex didn't know what, but he knew it was important.
And that left only him.
Him, without any magic to call upon.
Alex's lips pulled into a grin.
The System really isn't messing around with this one, huh?
Then it looks like we're doing this the old fashioned way.
The only way he'd get a chance to even try to catch Keeper was right after the monster teleported. It wouldn't be expecting him to run straight at it. At least, he hoped it wouldn't.
It was his best shot. And so Alex waited, skirting around the cracks in reality that Keeper sent his way. He waited until Spark forced the monster to teleport once more, until Keeper took form in the very center of the room.
And then he charged. His feet pounded against the ground as adrenaline tore through his veins. He dashed around the glowing holes in the ground, moving so fast that he had to squint to keep the wind from biting at his eyes.
He closed the distance between them in moments, even as Princess and Spark did the same.
Keeper turned his one eye to look right at Alex. The knew what his plan was. And, even as Alex was nearly upon him, the air between them buzzed as pressure fluctuated. Keeper had formed a crack in reality right in his path.
If I bail out to reposition now, Encore might run out. No time to dodge.
After all… I'm going to die anyway, right?
Might as well make it count.
Alex threw himself forward. He threw himself into the crack in reality — and through it. Moonlight flashed behind him, and a searing pain ripped through the lower half of his body. Keeper hadn't missed his spine this time.
The magic clamped down on Alex's legs and torso. It twisted them like a piece of dough. And with a wet squelch, it ripped them clean off.
Alex wasn't sure how the pain didn't knock him out on the spot. The System's modifications to his body must have been applied to his psyche as well.
At that moment, it didn't matter.
Keeper's arms were already moving. The monster was about to teleport away before Spark and Princess could reach it.
A final moment of resolve ignited in Alex. His body — or at least, what remained of it — slammed into Keeper. His arms clamped down on one of the gaunt monster's hands, locking it to its body, and he held on with everything that he had left.
And out of the corner of his eye, Alex finally saw Glint move.
The Glasmir's wings snapped down. And, with the ringing sound of shattering glass, they broke. Mirror fragments spun through the air as if in slow motion. They caught the fading moonlight from Keeper's magic and sent it dancing across the room.
Glint shot free from the shimmering rain. He flowed through the room, slipping past the holes riddling the ground effortlessly. The falling glass froze in place behind him, as if the world was holding a breath in await of a performance.
The air between Keeper and Glint buzzed as a fracture in reality formed in the Glasmir's path.
Glint's hand swept down through the air, carving deep purple furrows into it that stretched into a portal before him. He slipped through it, and a second portal opened at nearly the exact same instant, putting him out directly behind Keeper.
And every fragment of glass that had hung suspended behind Glint suddenly ignited with burning Riftwarped Qi as they finally remembered their purpose.
Not as fragments of glass, nor as a pile of broken mirrors on the ground, but as his wings.
The falling shards snapped back to life. They shot through the air like streaks of light, heading straight for Keeper on their path back to Glint's body.
Keeper jerked its hand free of Alex's grip and lifted it to teleport again, but it was a moment too slow. The shards carved across its body, leaving crackling purple furrows in their wake.
They slammed back into Glint and reformed along the wings on his back. But, even as the wings rebuilt, their form shifted. Glint raised a hand, rearing back as his wing coiled down his arm.
The glass shards built upon themselves and formed the blade of an enormous executioner's axe at the edge of his arm. Its edge was jagged and buzzed with ravenous Riftwarped Qi. Compared to the graceful, haunting angel wielding it, the massive weapon was like a scar upon a beautiful painting.
The axe rose above Keeper.
Spark and Glint charged, both of them mere instants away from their target.
It slammed right into Keeper's head. It embedded about an inch into the monster's skull — and then ground to a complete halt.
Spark and his shadow both drove their weapons into Keeper's sides. Both weapons broke apart without so much as scratching the monster. Princess slammed into Keeper at full tilt and her body crumpled under its own weight, spraying sludge across Alex and the ground all around him as she pancaked herself.
And not once did Keeper flinch.
The smile on Alex's face froze as Keeper's head lowered so the monster could look straight at him with its one eye. A single drop of blood rolled down its head from where Glint had struck it.
Alex's monsters evaporated, dragged back into their Spatial Mirrors to recover. His arms dropped from Keeper and he fell back to the ground, the strength draining from his body at a rapid rate.
"You bastard," Alex said, a disbelieving laugh slipping from his lips. He could feel his body going numb, but he barely even cared. "I could never hurt you, could I?"
"No," Keeper agreed. "Not in any meaningful way. But it was a good fight. You performed exceptionally. It reminds me of… no. Nothing. It reminds me of nothing."
"Why'd you even bother running around if you didn't need to dodge?" Alex asked, pushing the words from stiffening lips. Every breath he drew was harder than the last.
The faintest smile pulled across Keeper's features and his head tilted back, eye turning up to the golden letters shimmering in the air far above. "It certainly made quite the challenge, didn't it?"
Alex followed his gaze. The words had changed.
Hidden Objective Completed: Draw a drop of blood from the Trial Overseer.
Town Potential: 200/100%
"Well done," Keeper said. "You are a most interesting one."