When Karmion finally found the second projecting device and crushed it, he demanded that the next round of the tournament fight began immediately, then took off with Nilsenir and Kalawen, racing toward the port.

  Glade had nothing to complain about. His mana was full again. Everything was there, except for Varion’s overwhelming power. Desperately, he cycled Arcara to the swordwyrm but nothing more happened.

  Still, dutifully, like a bedraggled sailor pulling himself ashore, he walked out into the center of the arena.

  “Ready for yet another beating?” Varion sneered. “Look at you. Dirty lock of coloured hair, ornate uniform. You’ve abandoned everything your Order stood for. This is where disloyalty gets you.”

  “Yeah.” Glade narrowed his eyes. “I am ready to fight you.”

  The trumpet sounded, and immediately, Glade attacked. If he didn’t get aggressive right away, Varion would seize the victory. This was his last chance.

  He let desperation fuel his strikes, imbuing his techniques with ferocity and his strikes with extra power. But he was still a disciple of Elder Eman-Fa, and he knew better than to let desperation ruin his form. Each swipe ended where he wanted it, each began where he chose.

  If he let Varion get close to the outer moat, it’d be too much water to deal with. Instead, he kept the man ahead of him and circled around. If Varion stayed in the center of the arena, he could only use the comparatively miniscule amounts of water from the orb beside him.

  But in the end, Varion kept up with everything. Each retreat was tactical, each dodge set him up to counter-attack.

  And when he landed a punch in the center of Glade’s chest, it flung Glade to the edge of the arena—right into the range of the moat.

  Varion hoisted up a pillar of water. It rose behind Glade and loomed over him, dropping a deep shadow across her face.

  Then it froze into spiky shards.

  Varion was going for as flashy of a defeat as he could muster. Glade sprang up to his feet, and with the swordwyrm’s help, struck the base of the column. Blades enhanced, they sliced right through the ice. The column’s base shattered and spilled downward, and, like a tree toppling, it fell.

  Glade had specifically cut so it’d fall outward.

  The column plummeted backward and smashed into the audience stands behind. Those who didn’t scatter were crushed into red smears.

  Glade’s eyes widened. Karmion had completely abandoned the arena, and there was no one protecting the crowd.

  The audience scattered, spilling across the risers and racing toward the exits. If they weren’t trying to abandon the Moon before, they would be now.

  But the pact remained, and if Glade won, he’d still get the godhood—audience or not.

  He spun around behind Varion and sprinted back to the center of the arena, deflecting ice shards behind him. Ameena and King Tallerion’s Aide still stood on the brink of the waiting room’s opening, directly ahead, watching him.

  Maybe, if he tried to win for them—

  Before he reached the center of the arena, a shard of ice speared through his calf and tripped him. Varion pounced. He threw punch after punch into the sand, and though Glade rolled to avoid them, Varion was faster.

  One collided with his shoulder, shredding skin and flesh. Another impacted his gut, knocking the wind out of his lungs and making him cough up blood. The swordwyrm swooped and harried him, but with a spear of ice, he flung the creature across the arena. It tumbled across the sand and embedded in the earth tip-first.

  Glade was going to lose.

  He was going to die. The moment he deflated, his spirit would collapse. If Varion didn’t kill him, he’d be a cripple, barely able to move. A chunk of falling debris from the sky would crush him.

  He hadn’t thought he’d be afraid, but he was. He still had so many more people to save. He was supposed to have a life after this. The galaxy wasn’t supposed to end, nor be subjected to tyranny like…this.

  He raised a hand and tried to catch Varion’s fist. He held the man’s hand back for a few seconds before Varion flung Glade’s arm out to the side, nearly popping it out of its socket.

  “Why? Why did you think that’d work?” Varion demanded. “Any of this? You’re a half-mortal at best. You’re nothing.”

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  “And what are you?” Glade coughed up another splatter of blood. “I had not heard your name until a few weeks ago.”

  “I am my father’s loyal servant, and that is enough.” He pulled his hand back again, ready for another punch. He aimed at Glade’s forehead.

  The strike would cave in Glade’s skull.

  “It’s not enough for me,” Glade said, raising his hands in a desperate defense. “It was never enough.”

  Vayra skimmed over the surface of the water. She analyzed the naval skirmish ahead, trying to pick out the Harmony in the cluster. Amidst the smoke and flotsam, it duelled with an Elderworld frigate, staying mobile and downwind, so it could retreat at any moment. The wreckage of at least one Velaydian ship floated in the wake of the slowly-drifting skirmish, and a few Elderworld ships limped along. One retreated, its hull and sails burning.

  She targeted the largest ship, a two-decked second-rate ship, and jumped up onto its deck. With a twirl, she sliced through its mainmast with newfound ease, then sliced up its ratlines so the mast plummeted outward.

  The crew and bluecoats fired a volley of musketshot at her, but most of it missed—she was already past, moving with the speed of the Astral Shroud. For good measure, she Warded her side. A few stray shots bounced off the shield.

  She leapt from the deck of the crippled second-rate ship and landed on the forecastle of a crumbling Velaydian galleon. A crew of Redmarines and an Order disciple duelled with a Master’s Mate Stage god-heir on an ocean Path, but the God-heir was winning.

  Until Vayra grabbed the woman by the back of her neck and threw her into the ship’s deck with her mechanical arm, then blasted a Starlight Palm into the woman’s chest. The God-heir fell still and silent instantly.

  The marines and Order Disciple stared at her and nodded, and she nodded back, then poured a Ward into the railing to intercept a barrage of cannonballs. They thudded off and tumbled into the sea before they could cause any real damage.

  Then she leapt across to a different Elderworld vessel, which had latched onto the Harmony with a spiderweb of grappling hooks. She ran along the ship’s railing, slicing the hooks off and blasting away the nearest bluecoats, then turned back to the center of the ship.

  A hole waited in the center of the deck. She leapt through and landed on the gun deck in a crouch, then drew her pistol and blasted a line of white starlight from the bow aftward. It didn’t cleave through the hull entirely, but it blasted through the ship’s main chambers with burning heat.

  When it hit the powder magazine, a shockwave blasted through the entire ship. She Warded her front as the blast flung her back out of the ship and into the water, but before she could sink, she rolled and sprinted along the surface of the water.

  She circled around to the prow of the Harmony, then swung up over the railing and climbed up to the main deck.

  Gunners scrambled around, rolling barrels and tossing cannonballs into the weapons. Redmarines leaned against the deck railing, firing blast after blast from their muskets.

  Vayra turned and sprinted back to the quarterdeck, weaving between sailors and marines, then scampered up the stairs. When she arrived at the top, a God-heir stood in front of her. Two Order Adepts chased after the woman, panting but determined to defend the quarterdeck’s officers.

  A First Lieutenant. The God-heir unleashed a flurry of water-Bracing enhanced punches, but Vayra blocked them all. She was about to retaliate with a scythe swipe when a spear of gunpowder pierced the God-heir’s heart and flung her overboard.

  Myrrir leapt up onto the Harmony’s stern railing, holding his sword in one hand and a swirling orb of gunpowder in the other.

  “Vayra!” Captain Pels called. “Nice of you and your…friend to show up!”

  “Glad we could help!” she said.

  “Is Glade with you?”

  “Not at the moment. He’s finishing up at the arena.”

  “Then I take it we’re not leaving, eh?”

  “Not yet.” She flooded the stern railing with starlight, blocking a barrage of cannonfire from behind. Myrrir pointed his palm out at a different ship, holding its gunpowder back and causing its main battery to backfire. “I came to make sure you guys were surviving, and to hold the way open.”

  “Oh, we’re surviving. Can’t say for how much longer.”

  Already, another three ships were breaking off from the blockade to reinforce the Elderworld squadron. Without breaking rank, they’d slowly whittle away the few survivors until there was nothing left.

  Vayra exhaled, then rested on her scythe. “We just need to survive a little longer. Glade will be here. He has to.”

  “I’m less worried about him, and more about how we’re going to break their lines,” Pels said. He flinched when one of the Velaydian ships’ masts fell, splashing into the water right beside the Harmony.

  “I don’t mean to pressure you,” said Myrrir, “but the horde of space monsters is getting closer.”

  Above, the Ko-Ganall floated halfway between the Shattered Moon and its parent world, now, and they were getting closer. The blasts of light from Nathariel and the other Gods’ techniques washed across the sky, becoming enormous northern lights.

  Vayra opened her mouth to argue, but before she could say anything, a ridge of water rose around the skirmishing ships, containing them in a mile-wide circle. Karmion floated to the west, hovering above the sea. Globs of water hovered in the air behind him.

  To the southeast and northeast respectively were Kalawen and Nilsenir, both floating above the waves as well.

  “And now they’ve caught us,” Pels grumbled. “Did you have a plan for these guys? Is Nathariel here, by the way? Did you rescue him, seeing as you have the fancy darkness weapon?”

  “He’s up there,” Vayra whispered, pointing at the sky. “We’re on our own.”

  “Up there…? Oh, we’re doomed. Well, boys, it was a good run, eh?”

  “This is your last chance!” Karmion shouted, projecting his voice across the waves. “Surrender, Mediator, and I will make their deaths quick.”