They ran. The last dregs of the stimulant cocktail sloshing around Nestra’s veins kept her going at a good pace, for now. She focused on keeping one foot in front of the other. “We have to catch up with the others,” she said. “I told them to go for the wreck.” “It would be better if we do not try. You are slowing down, and they’ll be safer if pursuers follow our trail instead..” Nestra could believe her. She was so tired now, and her mind couldn’t stop wandering. Did Ilar really not know about the coup preparations? Did the patriarch? Should she have done anything more? Wait, she’d already asked herself that, and found no answer. Maybe there was no answer. But what did she want to do now? “I want no one else I care about to die,” she informed Camille. Fox Mask stopped and stared. They were past the incline now, and if they wanted to go to the crash site, they should have turned right a moment before. “I think you’re exhausted. I’ll carry you.” “Ah?” Nestra asked, and then she was being princess-handled and moving at high speed. Manh struck the ground. Lava erupted from under Nestra’s feet, forcing her to jump back. When she looked up, Manh was staring at his blood smeared over his fingers. He was struck with disbelief. Nestra attacked, but it only made him more angry. And now, he was taking her seriously. Pain. Immovable had not sufficed. Something bit into her flank, deflected at the last moment by Camille’s blade. Riel dammit, that hurt. Nestra charged immediately while Manh frowned, perhaps surprised. She was a tough girl. She wasn’t going to fall from something named after a damn unicorn. This time, Camille was prepared. While Nestra took the lead as a storm of powerful attacks and teleportations, Camille hit with precise techniques and a flurry of panels to hinder Manh. They landed several blows but unlike Nestra, they failed to penetrate Manh’s armor. He let the blows glance off, apparently no longer worried. “Be ready,” Camille whispered, in Japanese this time. Manh frowned. Nestra could see his confusion. Maybe he didn’t speak the language at all? It was such a common sentence in Threshold vids that everyone home knew it. Camille’s next technique incorporated Nestra’s movement. It was a seamless mix of enclave and Threshold and Palladian-exclusive moves. Nestra resisted the urge to say ‘hey that’s mine!’ “What? You DARE!” Manh roared. Camille’s final strike caught him in the cheek. He moved back, bleeding. It was an opening. Nestra filled herself with electricity and rushed at blinding speed. Her next strike was barely parried but Manh was off balance. She unleashed the electric charge at point blank rage. He screamed in pain. It was a nice sound. Nestra aimed for his head but he was currently protecting it, so she aimed for the chest instead. The dot of potential found his heart. The bolt landed true. His armor exploded. It was good, but not that good. Blood fell from the hole in thick rivulets. He screamed in pain. The scream turned into a roar of rage. Heat slammed Nestra like a wall. Camille screamed. Nestra grabbed her shorter friend to protect them. It didn’t stop, neither the scream nor the heat. Mana droplets rained down on Nestra who started running away. Around them, the jungle burned. A mountain of fire emerged from the ground, under the floating form of a furious Manh bathed in fire. “He’s going to use a secret ability,” Camille warned. A fire dragon was dancing in the air above their heads. Yeah, nah, that wasn’t good at all. Nestra needed a solution. “Wait, do you feel that?” she asked. It was a small, temporary one and probably high D-class only, but it was there. Nestra raced while Manh screamed insults in Vietnamese. She threw Camille at the portal and slipped in just as the spell reached a crescendo. Immediately, the temperature dropped to a more comfortable level. She wasn’t sure, but her space sense shivered from what must have been the impact. So close yet so far. Nestra looked around as she caught her breath. This was also a jungle world, but here the trees were blue and made out of some crystalline structure. A primate covered in blue gems screamed in the distance. Camille was kneeling, breathing hard and applying some sort of healing paste to open burns. Her infiltration set was half melted. Nestra checked her own Skin. The symbiote was sipping on her blood, but otherwise unharmed. “Is… is there a plan?” Nestra smeared some of her blood on a nearby rock. Her wound was already closed. “Maybe? Let’s just try and stab him anyway.” The truth was that she had used both aces up her sleeve to get that wound in, hoping it would be enough but… damn B-class and their resilience! Now they would have to improvise. A shape moved through the world’s entrance portal. Nestra aimed her bolt and released it immediately, catching Manh in the left hand. He screamed in pain as soon as he was through. “You fight like a coward!” he screamed in English. “And you fight like an idiot.” Manh rushed her, this time. Scattered pieces of crystal trees peppered Nestra but she grinned. He was trying to beat her with technique, but also his superior physique. It wasn’t working because she was an Aszhii and it was making him so mad. She dodged to the side, then used momentum to get out of the way of a powerful thrust. A well-positioned barrier slowed the next blow, then Camille caught him in another weird technique that seemed to infuriate him to no end. Nestra noticed he was still bleeding. Void mana was a bitch. A horizontal attack slammed her against a rock, killing a monkey thing as it was attacking her. She immediately jumped back to her feet for a vicious counter. At this point, she and Camille had reached a good level of cooperation. When Nestra had the lead, she pressed Manh with powerful, precise attacks that he was struggling to block. When Camille had the lead, their mixed technique upset and angered him. It wasn’t enough. The trio ravaged the world, leaving only minced monsters and crushed trees in their wake, but Camille was tiring and Manh was not. Compared to them, he had endless mana and stamina to draw on. “This is how it ends,” he finally said. “The spy and the traitor, together, dying to their betters. All your skills and your tricks don’t matter. In the end, only power does. We will leave you behind on our ascension with all the other weaklings.” Next to Nestra, Camille paled. “Any last word?” he smirked. “Behind you,” Nestra said with false alarm. Manh’s face was an expression of condescending pity. And then, Sashimi bit his leg. Blood sprayed on the ground. He screamed in agony, but Nestra was already on him. A last bolt finally hit his face, leaving it a red ruin. Camille’s blade caught him under the armpit. He kneeled. Nestra used momentum to slip behind. Her strike decapitated him cleanly. Power filled her. It was enormous and so incredibly tasty. She’d gotten help and not been taken seriously but it was a B-class raider. A sphere above. She kneeled over the bleeding corpse to peel the armor off like shell off the meat of a crustacean. That core. That sweet, sweet core. “What are you doing?” Nestra refrained from hissing. This was her… well. Camille looked down at the body, her thoughts carefully hidden. “You… feel like the type. Promise you won’t ever sell it.” “You have my solemn word,” Nestra replied, excitement bubbling beneath the surface. She carefully picked the gore-drenched red core, pocketing it for later when she would be alone. She felt giddy at her victory, but the hunt wasn’t over just yet. There was the small matter of a revolution. “We need to get out of here,” she said. Camille cast a last glance at Sashimi hovering carefully out of range of their blade. “Can you explain this? Some sort of summon? I thought you had transformation mana.” ‘It’s a package deal,” Nestra lied through her teeth. “Sashimi is her own creature though. I don’t truly control her.” Camille shook their head. The lack of reaction made Nestra a little worried, but the fact the blade master’s entire universe had collapsed was probably their biggest concern right now. Nestra recovered for all of one minute before deciding that Chandra Satya and her diplomats were still her charges, and maybe it would be nice to make sure they were saved. She pulled a shell-shocked Camille out of the portal world while conspicuously leaving Manh’s body in range of a very hungry squall. The first thing Nestra did was try to contact Chandra. Unfortunately, the gunship’s com system was down and her visor didn’t connect with anything. She didn’t even know if her fellow enclavers were alright. “Hmm, we could find the wreck,” Nestra mentioned. “As strange as it sounds, I think we should get back to the enclave,” Camille replied with a shaky voice. “Wasn’t it what we were trying to avoid?” Nestra asked. “Threshold’s gunships should be here soon. I think this will mark the end of the conflict anyway, and also, I need to pack my belongings.” “You’re coming back with us?” Nestra asked, interested. “No. Well, yes, but by my own means. There is nothing left for me there.” “Right. You should contact me. I can help set you up as a masked gleam! We’ll partner up. Hell, you could even crash on my sofa and have some slow-cooking stew if you have nowhere to go..” “Maybe…” Camille grumbled, then after a while, “Thank you. Sorry I just need a moment. I think… I need a moment.” Nestra nodded. Poor Camille didn’t even get a Kero Nut to cope with those drastic changes. Better give them some time. The pair soon left without words to return to the enclave where all would end, one way or another. The Sword Kings’ mountain was calmer. Embers still smoldered behind the walls. From the outside, Nestra could see the high walls topped by the Sword Kings’ most important buildings. Camille and Nestra crossed the wall at a slow pace. A tense expectation made the air heavy under rumbling thick clouds. No one stopped them. No one was even looking in their direction. As they approached, they saw the deserted farmlands and facilities populated by small squads of colored robes brandishing blades, but the center of attention remained the smoking ruins of the training hall. Lit with lanterns and floodlights, a circle of rebel Elders stood there next to the bound form of Watanabe. So he was still alive. Chandra and the others weren’t here, a sign they might have successfully escaped. Nestra wasn’t sure what they were still doing out there. It had been more than fifteen minutes since the entire thing had started, possibly more, so holding position here was just asking for grid coordinate deletion by a fleet of gunships or worse. Perhaps they were counting on the presence of a hostage to stop that. Actually, they were probably right because there wasn’t a single sign of Threshold’s presence. Nothing. Nada. No gunships, no explosions, no squads of army gleams in high-tech armor. Hidden in the shadows, Nestra whispered to Camille. And then Nestra felt it too. A presence. She looked up above, under the cloud layer to find a single figure drifting down as if floating. It was a woman with gray hair dressed in a black bodysuit. Metal floated around her in a constellation of spiked balls, chains, blades, and esoteric shape that seemed to change as she watched. Nestra’s mouth fell open. “Riel. I thought she wasn’t fighting.” Ragnhild Lindstrom’s aura blanketed the entire city. It was massive, oppressive, and felt like having a metal blade pushed against one’s tongue. Nestra couldn’t speak. A cold chill traveled up her spine, even in her Aszhii form. She remembered the feeling of facing the old woman in a duel all those months ago, like it was a chained beast using a toothpick to test the limits of a pup. Nestra didn’t feel that exhilarating joy of pushing herself to the limit, this time. No, this time, the beast was unchained. There was only one reason for someone like her to come in person. “You are here to fight Threshold,” she said. “We do not Fight. We are the City that Guards the Gate. We do not Fight.” Nestra dragged Camille to cover, the fencer barely protesting. They could feel it coming as well. The squads of rebels were also scattering, answering the call of their animalistic brains. Only the Elders still stood, though Nestra couldn’t tell if it was pride or stupidity. Or both. Her instincts were telling her to run but she was too curious. This was, after all, a once-in-a-lifetime kind of experience. This power, radiating from the human shape… intoxicating. Nestra gripped a nearby stone, cracking the rock. She wanted to see. She needed to see. One of the Elders made to speak but his voice was drowned by Ragnhild’s sheer presence. Almost there. Almost there. “We will recover our children,” she said. Watanabe’s metal restraints were undone, and his unconscious form rose through the air. The Elders who tried to interfere were pushed away by debris. “Your consent is not required. We do not Fight. Not with you. I will show why.” Contact. The pressure rose to such an overwhelming level that Nestra had to kneel. A torrent of mana smashed through everything, the wind pushing tools and trees aside with the speed of a hurricane. Despite the flying debris, Nestra couldn’t look away from the flickering presence above her. Ragnhild extended her arms. Metal wires emerged from nothingness around her, encasing her entire body into the form of a werewolf and it grew, grew, until it looked like it would blot out the stars. Nestra forced herself to breathe. For an instant, the world quieted, and a voice emerged from the titanic steel beast. “Jag är vargen som slukar solen.” Nestra didn’t need her visor to understand. The meaning pierced her mind like the strike of a whip. “I am the Wolf that devours the Sun.” Ragnarok landed on her feet, cracking the earth beneath it. In a gesture so fast Nestra only saw as an afterimage, she struck with a clawed hand. Wires tore the ground open, peeled buildings off the ground, turned every bit of greenery on its path to splinters. House-sized boulders held to fragments of walls by crumbling masonry flew off at dazzling speed. The subsequent ‘crack’ was deafening. It took twenty seconds for enough dust to settle so that Nestra could see again. The pressure returned to ‘tickled Shinran’ levels of suffocating. From the training hall, surrounding buildings, even the stairs that led them or the Elders that guarded it, there was nothing left. Only naked rock and the occasional piece of broken electric line. Nestra breathed deep.