“Seeyela, Yan,” Hiral said, slapping the palms of his hands together in front of himself and interlocking his fingers, at the same time solar energy poured out of him. All around, the rubble—some pieces as big as city blocks—jerked toward a central point immediately above the Raze.

  Quickly catching on to what he was doing, Seeyela and Yanily each added their own unique flavors to the ability. Gravity multiplied by over a factor of ten from the central point where the first pieces were just now meeting. As soon as they touched, they squeezed, crushed, and condensed into an impossibly dense ball of growing mass. From that enlarging sphere, ribbons of lightning stretched out, filling a huge globe of space with arcs of electricity that pulled on any stones that thought they could escape the pull.

  Even as far as the surface of Terminus, these ribbons stretched. As far as the six Raze.

  Already caught in the gravity wake trying to tear them from the surface of the planet, each of the giants reached down to grasp the ground or anything else they could hold onto. With their physical stats, they might just be able to outlast the attraction from above.

  Until two more types of solar energy joined the first three. The first came from Nivian, the Death Knight holding his right hand out to the growing celestial body. From his fingers, the blue energy of his spinal whip shot straight into the core. The instant it touched, a dozen replicas shot back down, two for each of the Raze. Wrapping their limbs, necks, torsos—anything they could reach—the whips pulled taut like chains.

  “Got some pointers from Dole,” Nivian said, voice grinding as he mentioned the fallen Shaper’s name.

  But, it was the second, roaring solar energy that surprised everybody. Seena, feeling like she was already scraping the bottom of the barrel of her solar energy transformed into her Aspect. Lily-petal wings unfurled from her back, then released a burst of seed-laden pappi. Some, landing at the feet of the Raze immediately sprouted into familiar roots that grew to push the constructs up from where they held.

  Other seeds, those that fluttered up to the growing gravity and the rocks getting pulled toward the central point, also sprouted as soon as they found a surface to latch on to. These, though, didn’t try to push the Raze with thick, almost-muscular roots. Instead, they lashed out with almost fine ropes that stretched down to tangle on the constructs. Now pulling as well as pushing, the roots, blue whip-chain, tethers of lightning, and magnified gravity took hold of the Raze.

  Another push of solar energy from Hiral set his Seeker’s Regalia flapping in a wind created by his power, and even the ground itself the Raze tried to grip tore free from the planet. As soon as Hiral held them, the Edicts joined in on the fun, and, suddenly, the pull toward the central point wasn’t so gradual.

  Rock, lava, crystal, and the Raze all collapsed more than two-thousand feet up in the sky. Continuing to squeeze his hands, Hiral pushed on all sides with Rejection, while Attraction and Gravity pulled from the middle.

  Within seconds, a new moon hung in the sky above the ruins of Visionary, the pressure continuing to build as the outer layer converged on the central point.

  All in all, it was a lot like what Hiral had done to the Ex-General, but on an entirely larger scale.

  “Will that hold them?” Seena asked.

  “No,” Hiral said. “They’re already adapting. Merging into one, stronger construct.”

  “Then what was the point?” Seeyela said.

  “Two points,” Hiral said. “The first is to buy time. The second. That one is easier. Yanily.”

  Understanding the assignment, Yanily leapt to the side, clear of the rest of the party, where three, large runic circles appeared in front of him. Each of these, the size of a street intersection, combined to form a truly massive Piercing Shot magnifier. Then, as Yanily transformed into his Spear of Punishment form, body bulging with raw power, and Dragon Breath began to swirl in front of his open maw, another dragon appeared underneath him, lifting the spearman up in it’s saddle.

  Drake, merging with a Resonance Echo forming under the spearman, raised his head just below Yanily’s line of fire, his own breath building. Not that Hiral was done there. During his battle with the Raze, he’d had the Fourth Movement of the Primal Chord of the Lost Echo trigger twice, though he’d repressed their activations.

  Now, he released them.

  The first appeared as a second dragon, The Fourth Crusade, whose huge body straddled over Drake and Yanily, its own Entropic Breath building in intensity.

  As for the final one, this wasn’t another dragon. Nor was it the incredibly powerful 0M3G4 W34P0N, or even the titanic Prince of the Swamp. No, this was possibly the most powerful entity Hiral could summon at S-Rank, even though he’d originally encountered the absolute beast when he himself was only B-Rank.

  It was, of course, an echo of The Archwizard in a blinding glory of power and bloodlust floating in the air above the white dragon. His hooked hammer hung from the belt of his armor, though he wore no helm this time. Instead, his goat-like face stared at his target, before he simply raised his hand above his head, one finger extended from his fist.

  And, from that finger, a portal opened directly to the heart of a sun that no longer existed.

  As if that was a signal, the world went monochrome, Yanily’s Dragon Breath releasing with a WHOMP that pushed him back on Drake’s saddle. That only lasted a heartbeat, before Drake’s and The Fourth Crusade’s breaths joined the spearman’s beam to spiral around it. Finally, the exhaust from the heart of the sun joined the other three, adding a supercharge factor that launched the entire combination into the rings of the Piercing Shot.

  With each ring they passed through, the combined Dragon Breath picked up speed, and gained power, then tore a line through the sky directly at the heart of the hanging moon. At, and then through, the blast ripping into the moon like it was made of wet paper before blasting out the other side.

  From the initial point of impact on the nearest side of the moon, the shockwave rippled outward even as the back side exploded, before that ripple turned into a shred. Stone and broken debris gouged tears along the outer layer, before peeling apart from the force that’d just blown through it.

  Meanwhile, on the far side of the moon, it was even worse. While the near side had a street-sized entry point—that was expanding—the entire back half of the moon had been blasted off, and now soared through the dark sky in a wide shower of falling debris.

  And, among that detritus, one, particular shape didn’t follow the momentum of the rest. No, instead, it shot straight down to the ground, and crashed to the surface of Terminus with a colossal WHAM. Dust and stone flew back into the air, but neither the devastation of the moon-attack, the Dragon Breath, or the fall were enough to stop the Raze.

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

  Though, instead of stomping out of the dust cloud as six individuals, they instead came out as massively combined construct. Like it had the lower half of a horse—though with eight legs instead of four—and the top half of a man, it charged in their direction. From its torso, six arms sprouted, while that same number again stood connected to its back and shoulders, below where a six-faced head sat, looking in all directions. Along the horse-like body, several of the shoulder cannons leaned out to the sides and opened fire.

  Despite the offensive it immediately went on, the Raze had not come out of the moon unscathed. Cracks marred its entire body. Chunks of missing crystal stood out against the otherwise facetted surface. Three of its arms hung broken and useless, and two more looked like nothing more than molten slag. One of its legs ended at the knee, and two more on the other side had been fused together into one limb. And, even with three cannons on its back firing in the party’s direction, seven more hung limp or busted.

  They’d hurt it.

  “How much longer?” Nivian said, stepping forward and growing into his Aspect form. In his hand, the skull-shield he’d gotten so long ago in the Necropolis of Ur’Thul, grew with him to deflect the huge shots that came in their direction. He didn’t even flinch with each impact.

  “Just over one minute,” Hiral said, then looked down at the PIMP construct Seeyela had fetched for him from Trevallen, and he’d snagged again with a scarf when the others had joined him. Keeping it close was a risk, but it needed to be. “You ready to do your part?”

  “Everything is in place,” the construct said. “Under your suggestion, I did not suppress the resident PIMP, but instead integrated with it. The result has been… enlightening. The universe was a large place.”

  “It will be again,” Hiral said. “And I’ll need your help to protect it.”

  “I shall be ready,” the PIMP said.

  “Sounds like somebody has a plan,” Yanily said, while Nivian took another six shots on his shield, the gigantic Raze charging in their direction.

  “Always,” Hiral started.

  “Liar,” Right coughed into his hand.

  Instead of glaring at his double, Hiral smiled. Having these people beside him—the gang back together, as Wule said—felt right. Sure, he loved Laseen and Romin, they were good people, but to finish it with the people he’d started it with?

  That was how it should be.

  It was too bad the echoes from the Fourth Movement—The Fourth Crusade and The Archwizard—had faded with their moon-shot. Having a certain S-Rank, bloodthirsty goat on their side would’ve been quite the advantage.

  Nah, what am I saying? We don’t need him.

  “About one minute,” Hiral reminded them, the Raze now only two-thousand feet away. “If they get past us, they can still stop it. Don’t hold anything back.”

  “Then I guess you might need these,” Yanily said. A pulse of solar energy rushed out from him, his Turn Back the Clock resetting all their cooldowns.

  “Oh yeah,” Seena said, immediately activating Eloquently Enraged+. The flood of power and attributes surging in her body helped her stand straighter, and a little lich even emerged on her shoulder, bolstered by the buff.

  Beside her, each of the others—all with the same powerful ability—activated the buffs, and pillars of colored energy shot to the sky to join Seena’s red. Even Left and Right joined in on the fun, and Hiral could only quirk an eyebrow at the secrets his doubles kept.

  Right just winked at him.

  “Left,” Wule said. “I’ll take care of the healing. Help Nivian.”

  “Understood,” Left said, solar energy from his Spear of Clouds summoning more of the storm clouds to lift him up in his giant form. Unlike how he’d come out of the tear in reality, though, he took it several steps further. Massive, blue-flame wings burst from his shoulders, while a mix of shadows spread through the cloud-body now taking on a more animalistic shape.

  He’s combining that cloud body with Way of Shadow and Touch of the Primal.

  At his back, the Herald of the Unending Cycle—now on a giant scale—formed, with buffs like the Auras and Circles of Peace and War taking hold on the party. Finally, the merged Herald did something nobody had been able to accomplish as far as Hiral knew. They opened their mouths.

  For each arm a Herald had, they possessed an ability. Ilrolik’s Herald of War had only had two arms, and, therefore, two abilities. Left’s had all four arms, but the fourth and final ability was something of legend. There were no recorded entries in the last three-hundred or so years—likely because of the resets—of anybody activating either of the abilities.

  Left called on both.

  The Songs of War and Peace.

  From one came a melodic chant or mantra. Hiral couldn’t hear the words, but it calmed his mind, bolstered his vitality, and weaved into his Chord of the Lost Echo to offer additional protection. The other song was entirely different, more akin to the music Hiral and the others had played during the Battle of the Bands. It got his blood pumping, like a shot of adrenaline, and extended out to coat his weapons.

  One song was a shield, and the other a naked blade.

  Other, almost nostalgic, buffs joined a second later, such as Nature’s Bulwark and Nature’s Blade, among a slew of others from Wule. No, not just Wule.

  Hiral glanced back—leaving the worry of the now-one-thousand-feet-away Raze to Nivian and Left—at where Sera stood at the mouth of the hidden cave. She wasn’t joining the fight directly, but her raid-wide buffs had bolstered their strength even further.

  He knew what she’d done. How she’d put herself between him and the blasts from the Raze, even though Loan had done the same thing. Unlike the big Shaper, she wouldn’t have survived. That… raised conflicting emotions in his chest.

  Emotions for later. He nodded his thanks for the buffs, whether she could see it or not, then turned back to the Raze. Standing there with his friends felt peaceful. If there was anybody he would go to war with, it was them.

  His scarves reached out from his pseudo-aspect, touching each of them to give his passive Increase to their attributes, and made sure each of them had a buff from Emperor’s Decree. No, never mind, that ability had changed names as well. Now it was Seeker’s Decree.

  Seeker's Decree: Abilities of weapons stored within the Seeker's Arsenal can be imbued onto bearer, party members, or the Seeker's Unmaking.

  Note: Seeker’s Decree has a 1-minute cooldown per recipient, and abilities cannot be swapped within that time.

  Note (2): All abilities bestowed by the Seeker’s Decree benefit from a 50% bonus to effectiveness.

  The name wasn’t the only thing that’d changed, with the extra note at the end there showing the ability had gotten stronger as well. And, reading the first note more carefully, Hiral realized he’d missed something very important. The bearer and Seeker’s Unmaking were separate entries. He… could’ve been benefitting from two boons the entire time.

  Resisting the urge to facepalm, he instead reached into his Seeker’s Arsenal for a pair of weapons he’d gotten back in the Cradle of Tomorrow, and hadn’t used at all. The Twinned Blade—a pair of swords apparently once owned by a twin-bladed hunter—hadn’t seemed particularly beneficial compared to the other weapons he’d been using. Now that he could layer a second buff directly on his sword, though? At a fifty-percent increase to boot.

  Even as he pulled the buff from the Twinned Blade out of the Arsenal, his mind went back to his advanced class benefits. Two of them, in particular.

  Class Ability (Passive): Runic Infusion – Through connecting your soul to your PIM via your runes – How did you even come up with that idea? – all abilities granted through the PIM can more easily be improved by rune or Edict-based enhancements. Amount of empowerment is… unknown.

  Class Ability (Passive): Custom Made – Due to the development of Runic Infusion, your PIM has been conditioned to more easily interact and benefit from abilities stemming entirely from runes (eg. Claws of Separation, Pseudo-Aspect, and Gravity Bombs). While these abilities will not appear within your Status Window, they will see increased compatibility with you PIM, resulting in greater effectiveness.

  On a whim, he reached out with his Edicts of Dreaming, Expansion, Compression, Breaking, and, of course, Separation. Why did he do this? It became clear as the benefit of the Twinned Blade activated.

  Three more Seeker’s Unmakings appeared around Hiral, each floating—waiting—in the air. A lot like when he’d used the Arsenal of Amin Thett to remotely wield weapons, he could feel a connection to these new blades. While they weren’t nearly as earth-shatteringly powerful as the true Seeker’s Unmaking, they came with a few benefits that made him smile.

  “Show off,” Seeyela said beside him.

  “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” Hiral said at the same time Nivian and Left leapt forward to engage the Raze directly, and the party burst after them.

  One minute until the end of the world.

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