Ethan was hastily bandaging a few of his more concerning wounds, mostly in places where his borrowed armor was thinnest. The damage was his own, reflected back at him from a Mystic copy of Thavin, the same ability Ethan himself possessed.

  “Thavin has a demon Familiar as well? There’s no other way?” he asked.

  “That Affinity does not exist naturally on this world,” Tomo explained. “There are illusions, and conjurations, but the unique blending of them is a product of Potentia. It can only be a demon, like myself.”

  Ethan shook his head. “Okay, what does that mean for us? I’ve never considered a scenario like this. Even if he does have his own demon sidekick, what are the odds he has the same damned ability that I do?”

  “Not as slim as you may have believed. Demons have fewer abilities than many of the monsters of Nexum, and that particular one is extremely useful, as you know.”

  “Can’t argue with that,” Ethan muttered as he struggled to tie a bandage on his upper arm. “Okay, so this complicates things, but that’s a mana-intensive ability, especially with the retributive effect added on. We know to be on the lookout for it, and I’m sure there’s signs if we’re careful.”

  “Indeed, but there are other complications to consider.”

  “Of course there are,” Ethan said bitterly. “I’m bleeding, you handle the thinking for the moment, okay?”

  Tomo looked abashed, clearly blaming himself for not recognizing the deception for what it was. “His abilities may be concerning, but not the most important part of this discovery. Ethan, if he has a Mystic Familiar, he can use illusions to hide many other things besides himself.”

  Ethan’s eyes widened, and Tomo nodded. “It is unlikely he is truly Dawn rank. The effect of that Ghost was suspiciously powerful, and having reached Dusk rank while being able to hide it would explain his confidence in challenging the prince.”

  “As well as why someone of his training and age wouldn’t have passed Dawn rank long ago. I’d bet Calevaro would have already left it behind as well, if he weren’t leaving an empty Bond for Flagras.”

  “That is my assessment as well,” Tomo said.

  “Okay. This doesn’t change our objective, we still need to find Calevaro–warn him if possible–and then take the battle to Thavin. I don’t love that the bastard is apparently Dusk rank, but it will be two against one. Besides, he doesn’t know that I have the Mystic Affinity, so we might be able to blindside him like he did to me.”

  “I should also be able to disrupt his demon Familiar, given our shared heritage. It is fortunate that I was able to attain Dusk rank before this duel,” Tomo said.

  “See? Everything is going great.” Ethan tightened his seventh bandage, disturbingly close to his groin. “God damned great,” he repeated.

  ***

  Ethan was moving through the jungle with far more care now that he understood what he was up against with Thavin. He was also aware of the prince’s other Bonds: Sand and Stone. He hadn’t faced any Sand Affinity monsters before, but understood it provided a number of versatile attacks.

  Stone would be a problem. Calevaro had explained that Thavin’s light armor was misleading; he used it not because of an agile fighting style, but because he could rapidly reinforce his body with stone armor. Tomo had been right to insist on pushing [Many-Faced Blade] to first Dusk, as its [Mystic Echo] evolution would be necessary to overcome that obstacle.

  As he moved, Ethan found more of Thavin’s Ghosts wandering around–one even stepped right into a ground worm without reacting. Given time to observe, he and Tomo were confident they could pick out the differences by looking into the Astral. Unfortunately the demon warned him that might not be true if the prince’s Mystic counterpart was actively disguising them with further illusions. This battle is going to be a pain in the ass.

  In the end, discovering the real Thavin turned out to be easy. As expected, he was talking. The two princes had evidently found each other in the closest thing to a clearing Ethan had seen in the jungle. They’d further opened the area up by knocking down some of the trees, and a small–and very dead–sandworm was already lying prone to one side.

  Calevaro was in a battle stance, uninjured, with swords drawn and ready. Thavin…Thavin was monologuing. Ethan grinned, he might just have enough time to even the playing field a little.

  ***

  Calevaro looked at his opponent warily, as the man paced back and forth. He seemed almost manic in his desperate need to be seen as superior.

  “Do you see now, little prince?” Thavin asked, voice shrill. “Do you see how pointless you are? All this effort to face me, delaying our duel, and for what? You think being Chosen is enough to overcome the raw difference in our power?”

  Cal continually adjusted his positioning, trying to be ready for any opening. Whatever else may be said of Thavin, he was unquestionably skilled. That he’d somehow hidden his Dusk rank was unheard of, and he was too far into it to have achieved the feat after asking for the duel. Likely this was part of how he’d won so many other matches.

  Still, it was far from a guaranteed victory on its own, as only Cal’s Bond with Kent, his new lava serpent, had yet to reach Dusk. If Ethan Bishop had succeeded in infiltrating the arena, they might even be said to have the advantage. He wished communication runes worked inside the fighting pit, as coordinating a strike would be the best way to overcome the power differential.

  Thavin actually seemed annoyed that Cal wasn’t reacting more strongly. “Are you even hearing me inside that damned helmet? Are you paralyzed with fear? You have no idea what I’m capable of! Dusk is nothing! I’ll show you something real!”

  He began to gather power for some kind of attack, but both princes froze as they heard sounds coming through the jungle. Calevaro wisely stepped back as three of the graystalkers emerged from the trees, right behind Thavin. The man contemptuously brought up his halberd, having no fear of the Dawn rank monsters, even if there were three of them. But perhaps he didn’t notice the strange orange glow covering their bodies?

  Before the Arinaen could attack, a voice echoed eerily from all around them.

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  “The progenitor of all flame, and the herald of destruction. The untamed radiance, and the death rattle of stars. Heed my call…nova!”

  Just as the monsters reached the prince, they erupted in explosions of terrible fire, bursting outward with remarkable force and pressure. Thavin was lost in the brightness of the attack, as Cal leapt into a nearby tree to avoid being caught himself. The clearing almost doubled in size from the force of the blasts, though the heat seemed to annihilate the trees rather than burn them properly.

  It took a moment for the scene to clear, revealing a furious Thavin, his red armor heavily damaged in places, and utterly destroyed in others. He’d managed to get his helmet on in time, a horned monstrosity that left only the tiniest gaps to see through, but his rage poured out across the Astral. Calevaro didn’t waste the opportunity.

  His blades burst alight with the power of lightning, before wind propelled him forward at incredible speeds. His opponent was obviously confused, unsure which direction to protect himself from, but chose to meet the threat he understood. He quickly brought his halberd to bear as Cal’s blades struck forward.

  The moment their weapons connected, Ethan Bishop made himself known, appearing from nowhere to strike at Thavin from behind. The prince was ready for it, his stone armor already forming around him. Shards of rock exploded outward as Bishop’s attack connected, but the prince took little damage. He managed to leap sideways, putting both his attackers in front of him.

  “What madness is this?” Thavin roared.

  ***

  Ethan positioned himself to one side of Calevaro, giving each of them enough space to use their various abilities, but staying close enough to help. Thavin appeared to be evaluating the two of them in their matching armor, but the truth would be obvious once the fighting started in earnest, if it wasn’t already.

  Ethan let out a long breath. The moment was finally here, and his vision slipped into the Astral as planned. The Arinaen’s burnt orange Spirit–clearly Dusk rank–was no real surprise at this point, but the deep, rumbling growl that came from Tomo was. The spectral demon was glowing fiercely as he stared down Thavin’s Spirit Familiar, which looked like an entirely different species.

  It was larger than Tomo, and bulbous, with short arms and legs emerging from a massive torso. It didn’t so much have a head, as its chest had a massive, grinning mouth and four wild eyes. It was made of the same pink-red shades of energy as Tomo, denoting its Mystic affinity, and seemed just as desperate for a fight. Ethan sensed that the power of Potentia was calling to each of them, echoes of the Throne pushing them to near-madness.

  The two began to clash without any prompt from their respective Hunters, Tomo’s twin katanas–each held in two arms–met conjured blades that danced before the larger demon. Thavin watched the clash with apparent curiosity for a moment before dismissing it, his own Spirit moving dangerously forward.

  “It’s time,” Calevaro whispered to Ethan’s right, then he charged in, his own Spirit following suit. Ethan was only a moment behind, trying to flank the sand prince as his own Spirit likewise began the assault. He didn’t even try for intentional Astral attacks, leaving that to Cal while he made himself as distracting as possible.

  Now the battle had truly begun. Thavin was every bit the threat they expected. As Calevaro attacked with speed and power, the Arinaen reacted with waves of sand to disrupt, and walls of stone to block. Where Ethan used tricks and distractions, the prince met him with raw force and power. Strangely he hadn’t made use of his Mystic Affinity yet, and Ethan could only hope it meant his mana was too low from all the copies.

  Cal’s lava attacks were countered by stone. Ethan’s fire and explosions were smothered by sand. Familiars appeared and disappeared as each warrior struggled to find the advantage. Thunder drake battled a sand crab, Revan burned away at a stone golem. Each was pulled away just before the opponent managed to strike them down, denying a Bond for the rest of the fight.

  “Look at you, Cal!” Thavin mocked. “The honorable Chosen, and you were already cheating? What would your brother think?”

  Calevaro didn’t deign to respond, merely increasingly the pace of his attacks.

  For a time the three combatants did little more than dance around one another, matching power against power, and making little progress. Ethan tried what he knew, using feints and distractions to find opportunities for stealth attacks. At first, some of his strikes connected, and he even managed to make Thavin recoil in pain as one [Knife in the Dark] punctured deep into the man’s side.

  Unfortunately that put him on his guard, and after that point he would not only concentrate his stone armor each time he lost sight of Ethan, but he managed to punish the attacks as well. More than once Ethan found his opponent spinning to face him at the last moment, his halberd slicing out in a blind, but deadly arc. Another time when Ethan thought he did have the element of surprise, the stone armor exploded outward in spikes, knocking him back.

  “Who are you, trickster?” Thavin called as his weapon moved forward in a blur. “Who dares interfere in a royal duel? Do you know what will happen to you after I’ve killed Calevaro? I’ll take my time with you. We’ll get to know each other then, I promise you that!”

  Ethan wasn’t deterred, by the blocked abilities or the prince’s rage and jibes. He kept cycling through his abilities as he’d been taught. At the very least he was forcing Thavin to react, and buying time for Calevaro to hopefully wear the man down in the Astral. When stealth attacks didn’t work, he tried [Hydra’s Reflection], and for a time there were three identical warriors attacking in a relentless flow of blades.

  Once again Thavin showed his experience, however. His superior Dusk rank strength and speed allowed him to control the pace of the battle, and he continually repositioned so that his back was trees, or rock. This left no room for three sets of blades to attack, and so Ethan finally dismissed his twin.

  The battle was frustrating, but not unexpected after weeks of training with Calevaro. With the element of surprise Ethan’s power set might have allowed him to do considerable damage against an unsuspecting Thavin, but head to head the duel was turning out exactly as predicted: devolving into a ragged melee. Each of the three put aside most of their tricks, and fought with wild abandon around the clearing, each with weapons glowing with power.

  Thavin was a blur with his halberd. Any disadvantage the long weapon may have had was offset by his late Dusk power, and a lifetime of training. He spun and twirled, always keeping at least one of the opponents back as he sent out jabs with the spear-point, and slashes with the ax.

  The battle was equally fierce in the Astral. Tomo and the mysterious demon clashed in explosions of light and power, their blades not capable of matching the savagery in their expressions. Nearby, the three Spirits warred.

  Ethan and Calevaro’s were both an off-yellow color, hinting at the Dusk rank power their Spirit Familiars had reached. They faced off against Thavin’s Astral reflection, larger and orange, but unmistakably the prince. In this realm he wore no helmet, and his face was locked in a mad, rictus grin as he unleashed a seemingly endless series of attacks at the two weaker opponents.

  Through all the complexity and back and forth of the fighting in the physical realm, Calevaro’s focus and discipline had proven a match for the sand prince’s fury. Now, Ethan turned as much of his mind as he could onto the battle in the Astral, and together, the two managed to slowly turn the tide in their favor.

  When Cal’s Spirit finally made it through the other man’s defenses, it wasn’t clear who was most shocked. They all felt the stakes rise as Thavin grasped at his chest, one of his Bonds wounded, but still intact for now.

  “Enough of this!” he roared, and a massive wave of sand burst from his outstretched hand, throwing the other prince back. Ethan had little time to react before the Dusk rank warrior fell on him, but he managed a reasonable defense as he backed up over the precarious footing. In his surprise, it took a moment to realize Thavin was whispering a spell.

  “Banished to a world of endless corridors, cursed to wander and lost in pain! Mystic Cage!”

  If there was a defense for such a spell, Ethan didn’t know it, and in a flash of light he was simply somewhere else. He found himself panting and confused, staring down at his feet. He was dressed in his own equipment again, and he was outside the arena. He was in…he was in a familiar village.

  He looked over and was shocked to see Glenn, just in time to watch an ax slash across his chest. Ethan felt rage and pain rising up within him, and let out a scream of fury. The Assassin was unleashed.