Ilrolik sprinted down the hall of the crystal-encrusted building, likely the first steps the floor had felt in an eternity. In one hand, she held the Shaleclaw Grudge—the axe she’d gotten when the raid party had first entered the Cradle of Tomorrow—while her other went to a tattoo on her shoulder.

  Brand of the Mentor—the third time she’d used it—would immediately transport her back to the location where she’d used it, should she be threatened by a lethal blow. As an A-Rank tattoo, it didn’t have any functions beyond that, but the magic it used to predict whether or not something would kill her was pretty impressive. The story around the tattoo spoke of a magic school of some kind, with one particular teacher instructing through blood and experience. Not that any of that mattered right now.

  Far more important was the fact the Raze had basically killed her twice already, and she’d be a fool to think there wasn’t a third time in her near future. Even at S-Rank, she wasn’t powerful enough to straight-up take on the towering crystal giants. That wasn’t even taking into account they were in fact growing in power with each passing minute.

  And yet, she couldn’t deny the stretched skin of the wide grin on her face. Her legs pumped with speed and power, a sensation she hadn’t felt in nearly a century. Her wrinkled skin had tightened, growing smooth and regaining the luster of a thirty-year-old woman. Muscles that had only degraded with the terrible passing of time were now stronger than Tomorrow’s brass, like thick cables beneath her durable flesh.

  Her mind was sharper, her reflexes faster, instincts more accurate, and her energy supply seemingly endless. She was so far beyond the peak of what she thought any Shaper could be—let alone herself—that it wasn’t even a comparison. And, damn that Loan for filling her ear with the idea of a legendary battle. Any sane person would be scared out of their wits to be in the middle of the raging war that’d engulfed Visionary.

  So, why in the Nine Hells was she smiling? Especially after losing Yully and Dole?

  The answer was surprisingly simple. She didn’t expect to survive this any more than them. This was going to be her final hurrah. The fight that would either make people remember her name, or the one that spelled the end of everything. If she was going to die, well, hells, she might a well enjoy it. Give it everything she’s got.

  Her hand went to another tattoo as she rounded a corner, her shoulder shattering the wall as her momentum was too much for the sharp turn, before she simply bulldozed through another wall to get back on track. As soon as the Juggernaut tattoo activated, it wasn’t like anything in this building was going to stop her. Each powerful pace of her legs increased her speed, her momentum, and the purely unstoppable factor of the magic forming an armor around her.

  Big as she was, an outline of something even larger surrounded her, the magical suit of armor growing more visible with each passing heartbeat. At the end of the hall, a crystal-covered window gave her a glimpse of the outside word, the purple of a Bamf getting Loan out of the way of a crushing punch, while lining up the large target directly with Ilrolik’s path.

  While there wasn’t any way to know if Seeyela had planned that, Ilrolik wasn’t going to pass up on the gift. Energy surged in her Meridian Lines, her channels working overtime as she pumped power into her muscles. She didn’t have the—as Yanily like to say—overpowered Eloquently Enraged ability, but Juggernaut worked enough like Left’s Daggers of En and Sath that the Raze was in for a nasty surprise.

  Roaring as she punched through the side of the building, her powerful legs launching her like a ballista bolt at the Raze’s head, her left fist glowed with might. The distance between her and her target vanished in a heartbeat, and she twisted in a mid-air punch that would’ve made Loan and Right both green with envy.

  The gong-like blow echoed through the city, shattering windows and the crystal coating buildings for a block in every direction. Snapping back at the force of the punch, the Raze toppled sideways to crash into a tall building at its side, Ilrolik riding it as it went down. Back and forth, the Shaleclaw Grudge slashed at the Raze’s face the entire time. Though it didn’t do a lot of damage—it was only S-Rank because of Entwined Destiny—the glowing red of Infuriate in the Raze’s eyes showed the effect was taking hold.

  Good.

  Two more slashes—for good measure—and Ilrolik leapt up and back just in time to avoid the massive hand that came around in an attempt to grab her. By the way the clawed fingers closed, it would’ve been more a crush than a grab. Too bad for it, Ilrolik had predicted exactly that, her free hand going to a familiar tattoo. One she rarely used, because Dole had cornered the market on making it useful.

  A short pang of anger and grief spiked through her at thinking about the man, but she pushed it aside to activate the Chains of the Uninvited tattoo, then moved her hand right over to Hundred Handed. Fast and experienced as she was, the two abilities activated almost simultaneously, with the spectral arms reaching out to grab the construct before her own leap took her too far away.

  Even as they pulled her right back down to its body, the chains looped up to snake around the fingers and wrist of the giant, then down and under its armpit to circle around its shoulder. She hadn’t put as much effort as Dole had into making the chains an absolute menace, but a flex of her solar power brute-forced them enough to temporarily pin the hand in place. By the time the Raze realized what was going on there, Ilrolik used her Hundred Handed to spider-crawl across its body, fist and axe hammering into it with every step.

  Predictably, it didn’t like that, more hands coming around to try to either squash or crush her. Exactly what she’d been waiting for, dozens of her Chains of the Uninvited spiraling out to grasp and bind the limbs against its own body. Within seconds, the giant had its upper body wrapped up like one of the Undead Hiral had told her about. Something called a mummy.

  Thinking of the man, she looked in his direction as she once against leapt back from using the Raze as a running-surface. Dozens of his runic inscriptions and equations surrounded him, the whole area outright vibrating with power. In a wide circle around him, the raid party fought tooth and nail to keep the Endless and Raze from reaching him. Like her, they were putting it all on the line, and trusting him to do what he’d been doing since he’d gone to the surface.

  The impossible.

  Part of Ilrolik’s mind couldn’t help but feel a bit nostalgic and a lot guilty as she looked at Hiral. The Everfail. As much as she hated to admit it—even to herself—she’d written him off for years. He was always a good kid, worked hard, and did not give up. He just hadn’t had the talent to succeed on Fallen Reach. If she’d been asked to guess anybody—even with a hundred chances—who would be responsible for saving the island, more than once, he never would’ve even been on the list of candidates.

  And yet, there he was, doing it again. Defying the odds. Just like he’d done when he’d lifted her out of B-Rank. Sure, she’d put in the work, but she couldn’t deny she’d been stuck there. Stuck bad. Ilrolik would’ve died in B-Rank in a few short years. Then Hiral came along with his party. Got her to join his raid group.

  Showed her she didn’t have to settle with her strength, or her age. She could do and be more. Gave her the chance to be there in Visionary, fighting for the fate of her home, and the people she cared about so dearly.

  Thinking about Hiral naturally led her to another thought, the Shaper tests. Even if they weren’t actually necessary, they were a fond memory as she activated one of the two new abilities she’d gotten with the Shaleclaw Grudge when she’d hit S-Rank. A fond memory, and a little saddening that she’d probably never oversee another one. Loan could take her place, if the buffoon stopped trying to match the strength of the Raze head on. Or, Hiral?

  No, the kid couldn’t use his tattoos. Besides, he’d just pawn the duty off on Left. Probably the best choice in the long run. The double was better suited for the test, and not just because he could actually use his tattoos in legendary ways. Left was a good kid too.

  Another, softer smile crossed Ilrolik’s lips at the thought. Fallen Reach would be fine without her. Elezad would keep the council in line—he might complain about it, but he cared too much to let them run amok—while Hiral and his friends would protect the place. The squids time on Genesis was coming to an end, assuming they stopped the Raze here and now.

  That thought sharpened Ilrolik’s mind back to the task at hand. At the ability manifesting on the axe taken now in both her hands. Solar energy flowed from her palms into the haft of the weapon, amping up its S-Rank power. The discomfort of using the ability wasn’t minor, like extreme pins and needles all the way up to Ilrolik’s shoulders, and a gnawing pit of hatred bubbling in her chest.

  Neither of those things phased her. Physical pain was nothing new in her long life. She pushed it aside, like she always did. As for the festering grudge that gave the axe its name, she’d been dealing with that from the moment she’d laid her hands on it. Like it was alive, it searched his mind—her soul—for a hatred it could latch on to. That it could magnify and manipulate. It would’ve been better off buying her flowers and taking her out for a nice dinner—it’d been decades since anybody had done that, not since her late husband had passed in C-Rank. Ilrolik simply didn’t hate. Not anymore.

  Somehow, that just made the axe more desperate for it. Made it promise her more power if she just gave in. It wasn’t an empty promise, either. If she did let the axe have its way, the power of them combined would be beyond anything she could do on her own. Only, there would be no coming back from that.

  “Hush now,” she told the axe, while the blade erupted in size. Suddenly, with an edge nearly eighty-feet long, Ilrolik twisted in the air to bring the axe up and under the Raze’s chin. Arms bound and tied, it had no way to defend itself from the headsman axe coming to reap its life.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Crystal cracked and split as the blade struck it, the building on the other side of the head bracing it so it couldn’t escape. With another roar tearing from her lips, Ilrolik pushed more power into her muscles, and into the axe itself, envisioning what she wanted. One foot, two, three, four, five… ten, her axe dug deep into the Raze’s throat…

  But went no further. A hand had torn free from the Chains of the Uninvited to grasp the hilt of the axe, preventing it from going any deeper. No problem, the Shaper had plenty of other tricks up her sleeves.

  A thought shrunk the axe back to its normal size, freeing it from the grip of the crystal giant, while Hundred Handed pulled her off to the side to evade another hand reaching for her. Too slow to catch her, she dodged a third, immediately looking for the fourth which she knew would be coming.

  It was still bound?

  A bright glow snapped her head around to look at something she’d forgotten entirely about—the twin cannons over the Raze’s shoulders. Specifically, the one the previous two hand attacks had herded her towards. She pulled on her spectral arms, if she could just…

  SCHWAAAAAH!

  The house-sized beam moved faster than her spectral arms could, washing over her and tearing her grip free. Energy tore at her skin and blinded her, before she crashed hard into the ground. Even then, the beam didn’t let up, the force of it grinding her across the crystal in a long path until she smacked into the side of a building. Finally, at that point, the beam ceased, revealing a burnt crevasse two-hundred-feet long tracing her path. Melted crystal ran in rivulets, while superheated air warped what Ilrolik could see.

  Across her own body, steam rose from burns in a dozen places, worst across her forearms where she’d protected her face from the attack. More pain for her push aside, and she rose to her feet at the same time the Raze did. Within a second, the two combatants launched at each other, their powerful strides devouring the distance.

  More chains and spectral arms emerged from Ilrolik to stretch ahead of her, reaching to bind any hands or offer her additional movement options. One of the chains drove into the side of a building above and to the side of the Raze, and a sudden tension in it yanked Ilrolik forward at twice the speed she’d been running. Completely caught off guard by the move, the Raze didn’t react fast enough to avoid the dropkick the Shaper drove into where its sternum would be.

  Knees and legs creaking from hitting something so hard, Ilrolik ignored the new pain—nothing serious—then used her Hundred Handed to reach and begin crawling around the Raze like she was scaling a mountain. There had to be vulnerable spots she could chop into, and…

  An unexpected, new tension on one of Ilrolik’s chains yoinked her back in the opposite direction. Ilrolik barely had time to spot where the Raze had purposely grabbed and pulled the chain, before a second hand came from above in a hammering blow. The bottom of the first whacked her out of the air, driving her straight down to hit—and bounce off—the crystal ground. Before she could hit a second time, the same chain grew taught again, and Ilrolik was swinging. Out and around, head ringing from the first punch, she collided with the side of a still-standing building.

  Got to… cancel… the chains… her thoughts moved like they were coated in molasses, while her body crashed through one wall after another. It took her four such walls before her mind took the necessary steps to dismiss the ability. She only crashed into—instead of through—the fifth wall. That new pain, that was a little tougher for her to simply push aside, and she instead struggled to her feet. Just in time for a crystal fist to come though the stupid, fifth wall like a battering ram and send her flying back in the opposite directions.

  More walls fell to her flight, before she exited the building and gravity dug its dirty claws into her. Arcing almost gently down, her descent could be called pleasant compared to the last few seconds of her life. The landing, not so much. She hit, bounced, and rolled, this time plowing through a series of crystal-coated trees in some kind of park.

  The Raze had clearly gone through another one of its power-ups. More disturbing than that, though, was the fact her Brand of the Mentor hadn’t triggered. It was definitely still active, but it was like the Raze had realized the threshold of what it would take the activate the ability, based on the previous two uses of it. If Ilrolik had to guess—and what was exactly what she was doing—those last few hits had been just below the limit of what the magic would consider a threat to her life.

  Meaning, it was basically useless. At this point, even if it went off, it wouldn’t do anything about the beating she’d just taken. And, with Wule and Laseen having their hands full around the city, she couldn’t count on them to rush over and help fix her up. Right now, Loan was doing what he could to slow the Raze down, but it wasn’t enough. The thing smelled blood, and it was coming in Ilrolik’s direction to finish what it’d started.

  Ilrolik laughed and spit out a wad of blood that’d pooled in her mouth. More crimson ran down her forehead, and she used the back of her hand to wipe it out of her eye. At least one rib had been broken from all that nonsense. This was the kind of fight Loan had promised her.

  Life on the line. No second chances. Blaze of glory. A legend in the making.

  Except, Loan missed one important part of all that. The legend didn’t matter if there was nobody left to tell it. She could keep fighting like this, enjoying every second of adrenaline and challenge, and make the fight one to remember for anybody who saw it to tell the tale.

  She’d lose, though. It was clear as day to her. She’d lose. She’d die. Then this Raze she was supposed to be keeping busy would go off to help one of its friends. Or, maybe it would go after Hiral before he could complete his task.

  It wasn’t the fight that mattered, it was the result. That’d always been Ilrolik’s mentality.

  She lifted Shaleclaw Grudge at her side, eyes boring into the axe-head while it clawed at her heart. At her patience. Looking for a crack in her armor to get at what it craved.

  “I’ll make a deal with you,” she said, focusing on the second new ability the weapon had gained when she’d reached S-Rank, and the intent of the axe immediately stilled. A deal was something the axe understood. It was born of a deal between two powerful entities. A wolf-like creature that had protected a tree, which in turn nurtured and empowered the wolf.

  A deal that had turned to a grudge, when a more powerful creature had come along and killed them both. Neither resented dying—that was just the part of the path, the price, and the risk of power—but they each had resented watching the other get killed.

  The axe understood deals, protecting something they cared about, and revenge.

  Ilrolik would offer them all three.

  “Make sure you protect my friends from these crystal bastards, and I’ll let you in.”

  The battle didn’t matter. The cost didn’t matter. Only the results.

  The Shaleclaw Grudge didn’t even need to consider, immediately agreeing to her terms with a hunger that nearly overwhelmed her then and there. In front of her eyes, a notification window popped up. Deeper than even Entwined Destiny, the axe would bind itself to her soul, and she to it. The cost, though, that was something new.

  “Hiral,” Ilrolik said into the raid chat over a private channel, the Raze stomping in her direction.

  “Ilrolik?” Hiral said. “I’m a little busy.”

  “I know,” she said. “Take care of Fallen Reach.”

  “What are you…?” Hiral started, but she cut the channel, and opened one to Loan.

  “You big oaf,” she said. “Thank you for being a friend all these years. Make sure you get home, maybe find yourself some friends who aren’t twice your age.”

  “Ilrolik,” Loan said. “Why does it sound like you’re about to do something stupid?”

  “Not stupid, Loan. Necessary,” Ilrolik said. “But, hey, do me a favor and tell the tale, would you? It should be legendary. Especially this new tattoo.”

  “New tattoo? What are you…? Never mind. I’m coming,” Loan said. “Don’t do…”

  “Goodbye, Loan,” Ilrolik said, hitting yes on the notification window floating in front of her eyes.

  As soon as she did, she felt something in her chest open. A doorway directly to her soul. One the Shaleclaw Grudge kicked open and charged through. Energy surged through her limbs, power she could only imagine eclipsed even something like Eloquently Enraged. On her skin, the tattoo of the Juggernaut began to glow, like it was burning her flesh from the inside out. The lines of it shifted, moving of their own accord, until a new shape took its place. One that glowed an ominous red.

  Its name filled her mind with meaning. With purpose. With promise.

  Her tattoo of the Juggernaut—an unstoppable force—had been transformed into something just as overwhelming. The Rune of the Berserker.

  It was so far beyond what she imagined, a final smile creased her lips as she threw back her head and screamed.

  One, last pain surged through her body, and this one she purposely didn’t push aside. If it was going to be the last thing she felt, she was going to enjoy it. From her lips, the scream turned into a laugh, echoing across the battlefield like one of Laseen’s cackles.

  Inside her body, it felt like everything was simultaneously burning and getting torn apart. Honestly, that was probably pretty close to the truth, with her arms and legs growing and changing shape. Her back—her damn spine—stretched and curved, hunching her over. Her jaw cracked, snapped, then extended, starting with the bottom of her mouth. A second later, her nose followed, while the bones between her eyes and across her forehead spread and grew thicker. On the sides of her head, her ears rose, then extended into points, thick hair bursting from them.

  In her right hand, the Shaleclaw Grudge seemed to shrink. In reality, it was burrowing into the palm of her hand, then spreading itself through her body at the same time her bones, muscles, and organs rearranged themselves. Whatever it was doing didn’t stop with rearranging either, adding growing to the list very quickly.

  Like the rest of the transformation, the pain was agonizing.

  Ilrolik just laughed at it, while the ball of hatred coalesced in her chest. She’d given the grudge a target, the Raze. She’d also given it something to protect, like the wolf had protected the tree: her raid party. Add those two factors into the way she’d been able to resist the weapon’s temptations this whole time, and her soul was a fertile field from which the new grudge could grow.

  Seconds that felt like an hour—during which the charging Raze stopped at the power rolling off Ilrolik—transformed her body into something else entirely. In her place, shale-like claws flexed and scarred the crystal ground beneath the towering, wolf-like body. More of the stone-like material grew from her elbow and shoulder joints, while a skullcap of it covered her head, and ran down her spine to her tail.

  Even the end of the lashing appendage had a curved blade tipping it. Additional sections of her new body stood protected by armor like plates, including her entire, bottom jaw. Almost looking like something Tomorrow would add to give the bite more power, additional stone—shaped like teeth—protruded from the stone, and Ilrolik snarled at the Raze.

  Like it didn’t know what to make of her, it stood there, transfixed by the wolf big enough to look it eye-to-eye.

  Not that Ilrolik met its eyes yet, the hatred and purpose of the axe spreading from the center of her chest toward the last vestige of her self in her head. With the last seconds she had, she looked once more at the rest of the raid party, though her eyes lingered longest on Loan.

  With her new power, she could see the expression on his face clearly. If she still had control over her body, she would laugh. Tears ran down his cheeks at the same time his pumped his fist at what she’d done.

  “Legendary,” he mouthed.

  Legendary, Ilrolik agreed as the grudge finally reached her mind’s last hiding place. That was fine, she’d made the deal, and she’d honor it.

  Letting go, the red tendrils of revenge—against anything—enclosed her like a coffin slamming shut. She didn’t mind. She’d made her choice. One that would protect the others, serving her role as tank.

  She was satisfied.

  And, with that sense of relief, Ilrolik—the party leader, the mentor, the Shaper, the council member, the friend, the woman—was no more.

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