I reflexively stiffened from the intense pain spearing through my torso. Corrosive power poured out of the harpoon to infect me, but I surrounded it with convergence mana to prevent Nextharos from flooding my entire system with his dark power.

  The pain had to stop! I reflexively tried casting every last temporary spell I had available, focusing on Force Weaver to synergize them into something strong enough to stop the annoying underwater hunter.

  “You cannot synergize so many incompatible spells at the same time,” Eva announced happily and I growled in frustration.

  “I never fall for the same trick twice,” Nextharos gloated as he twisted the blade in my guts, making me scream. “And I appreciate you swapping for this armor. If you haven’t guessed, I get bonus damage and piercing against chitin.”

  Wonderful.

  “Here’s a new trick,” I said weakly, blood billowing into the water from my mouth. I craned my neck around, focusing on the blue-black scales of his armor and triggered Mass Transmute for the first time.

  Mass Transmute. Epic. Pick one inanimate object within 1 yard, plus 1 yard per Intelligence and change all instances of that thing into something else.

  I imagined the scales turning into bread.

  Nextharos gasped in shock as he stared in dumbfounded disbelief at the big slices of bread encasing his entire body. The bread instantly waterlogged and dissolved, revealing pasty white skin and a pair of frilly, white underpants.

  I triggered Phantom Step, phasing to incorporeal around the harpoon and sliding off of it. Reappearing, I slashed at his throat with my swords. This time I had him.

  Almost. He blinked away again. Even as I spun after him, a tremendous blow smashed into my head so hard it shattered my full helm and caused my Embersteel battle helm to flash a warning red. Without that invisible defense, he would have crushed my skull.

  “That’s a good look for you,” I teased as I faced my foe.

  “That armor was irreplaceable!” he shouted, then blinked away again. I tried to dodge, but he still hit me in the side. I managed to twist a bit with the help of Energy Ward, so the blow glanced off my armor and sent me tumbling.

  “I was going to finish you quickly to honor how bravely you fought, but now I will make you suffer,” Nextharos snarled, then appeared behind me and smashed me into the back again. My armor held this time, but the brutal impact shoved me into the stone wall again.

  Removing his armor had been fun, but had only enraged him. This situation was getting annoying. I had to turn the tables on this guy, but underwater he was too fast. So I activated Shadow Walk. The dark canal lit up in my view, revealing everything around me, including Nextharos, who appeared right beside me again, harpoon already striking.

  The rainy sky high above beckoned with the promise of respite, and I was about to step through the highest shadow to plan a different approach when I got a different idea. Just as Nextharos’s harpoon slowed from Energy Ward, combined with the protective shadows ringing me, I stepped.

  And landed on the smooth stone floor of the canal. It was about 50 feet deep and maybe 40 feet across from wall to wall, all smooth, slippery stone. I appeared about 2 feet from one of the walls and, using the weight-altering ability of my Heavyweight Grieves, I locked myself to the floor. If I could keep my back to the stone, he couldn’t hit me from so many angles.

  I took a single step backward toward the wall just as a pair of boots slammed into my back with immense force. Nextharos had blinked right behind me, but the space was too narrow for his harpoon, so he’d braced himself and kicked me.

  Perfect.

  With my grieves increasing my weight 400%, I barely stumbled forward a couple steps. More importantly, I knew where Nextharos was for a precious second.

  He even started monologueing. “Clever ruse, but you missed your target. You could have at least made this part of the duel challenging.”

  I flicked a Strobe Seeker marble behind me.

  Strobe Seeker Marble. Uncommon. Toss a marble to the floor and it will hit the target with a blinding strobe light that will dazzle, disorient, and confuse.

  The little marble unleashed a blinding beam of light that reflected wildly through the water, dazzling even through my goggles while I was looking in the opposite direction. Nextharos caught the overwhelming, disorienting light right in the face. He cursed enthusiastically, but didn’t disappear. As I’d hoped, he needed line of sight to blink away.

  My swords were too slow underwater, so I triggered Convergence Wave. Pure energy blasted out in every direction, churning the water all around me and slamming the blinded Nextharos back into the unyielding stone wall of the canal with crushing force. More and more mana poured out of me, saturating the area with my power to help delay his ability to cast spells or use abilities.

  My tier-0 effective mana was 2580, so half of that pool was enough to fill the canal all around us so dense with my convergence mana, it felt solid enough to walk on. Coupled with the blinding light still spearing into his eyes, the effect stunned Nextharos for a second.

  Just enough time to unleash a flurry of Twilight Blades. Shadows lay thick in the water, so forming half a dozen sword-shaped blades came as easy as thought. I drove them into Nextharos, piercing each limb and driving 2 more through the center of his chest.

  He screamed and it was his turn to spew billowing blood from fresh wounds. For another critical second, he could not escape. I’d already used Divergent Strike and the cooldown wasn’t reset. I could use the Timepiece again, but got a better idea.

  Combining Brine Scourge, Gravity Spike, and his own Tidelash Coup back at Nextharos, I focused on Force Weaver to synergize them together, while using Elemental Harmony to toss in 3 potions of Earth Immunity. And for good measure, I added all 1500 charges of Potential Hammer that had accumulated during our fight. I also triggered Phantom Step since I wasn’t entirely sure what the combined spells might produce, and I was standing awfully close.

  Boom, baby!

  More mana poured out of me to fuel the multi-stacked synergized spell. A meteor of dense burning acid lava, ringed in absolutely black void, crushed Nextharos to the floor with an explosion of heat and pure force. Gouts of superheated steam smashed water away in every direction, rattling me even in ethereal form.

  Nextharos’s legs splintered under the immense, crushing weight of stone and acid and multiplied gravity, while his entire midsection basically evaporated under the concentrated blast of void and death magic. Water came rushing back in with another concussive blast that smashed him a second time, but couldn’t move his body still pinned by intense gravitational pressure.

  Congratulations, Lucas! You have created the epic synergized spell Devastation.

  Devastation. Epic. Smash an area 10 feet across with a meteor of burning acid lava 10 times denser than any natural stone, ringed in absolutely black void, then crush the area with 5 times normal gravity and coat it in restricting, superheated acidic salt, dealing ongoing damage for 20 seconds.

  Note: Tome of Callback has recorded Devastation as a single-use temporary spell.

  Another absolutely terrifying temporary spell. My arsenal kept growing, and I smiled in grim satisfaction. Nextharos had driven me to one of the most ambitious synergies I’d ever tried, and I planned to use it against other members of the court.

  As soon as the turbulence subsided, I phased back to material and stood over the shattered corpse of my clever foe. A layer of acidic lava coated what remained of his body, burning and eating through even more. His face was mostly melted off, revealing ghastly white bone that was pockmarked and splintering under the intense forces still gripping him.

  Incredibly, that overwhelming strike hadn’t killed him. Nextharos glowed with a soft golden light and some of the damage started to repair. Bones healed on his face and skin returned, while the gaping hole in his midsection stopped bleeding, and fresh skin crept over his stomach, despite the ongoing damage the spell was dealing.

  He had some impressive protective talismans, but they wouldn’t be enough. I extracted Tydrion’s signature weapon, Leviathan’s Grasp and willed it to shift into a deadly, black trident.

  “You can’t,” Nextharos wheezed, spitting acid, his face a weird mixture of melted flesh and half-healed skin, his one good eye locked onto the gleaming, barbed tips of my weapon. “I’ll swear my life to serve as your vassal.”

  I paused, weapon poised to strike, but his one eye glazed with the telltale look of someone accessing menus or sending messages. No way I’d let him warn the rest of the court. I was having way too much fun messing with them all.

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

  I drove the trident home, plunging it through his chest and triggering its ability Predatory Bind. Ebony tendrils erupted from the weapon, wrapping Nextharos’s body and squeezing with such power that acid-weakened bones snapped.

  It wasn’t quite fast enough, though. He didn’t die instantly. So I left the weapon impaled in his chest and grabbed King Corvath’s trident, Kraken’s Fang. The sight of the weapon so shocked Nextharos, that he tried to speak again, lips moving feebly as he struggled to find the strength to talk.

  “I promise to use yours to help kill your queen.”

  Then I slammed the trident through his face and triggered its Widowmaker ability. Bloody barbs exploded out the side and back of his head. The third one must have plunged straight down his neck and into his torso.

  That did it. With a final convulsion, Nextharos died, his body torn apart and crushed to half its previous size by the ongoing damage from Destruction and the constricting tentacles of Predatory Bind.

  Congratulations, Lucas! You have defeated Count Nextharos Riptide, The Shadow Current. Level 99 Nymph Lord. Experience doubled for defeating him in a formal duel. You have reached level 45. Stat points allocated, plus 6 free points.

  The invigorating rush of new power wiped away pain and soreness from the long fight. I dumped 3 free points into Constitution and the other 3 into Strength. I was going up against Vhaernos next, after all.

  Congratulations, Lucas! You have won the titles, holdings, and possessions of Count Nextharos and are now the recognized legal head of House Riptide.

  “Yay,” I said with a tired smile. That probably meant I had another vault waiting to inspect back in my basement. I triggered Loot, Harvest, and Soul Feed, then headed for the rainy surface.

  Congratulations, Lucas! You have Harvested Eyes of the Hunter.

  Eyes of the Hunter. Epic. Level 9. See perfectly through water, rain, mist, and fog as clearly as you would on a sunny day, plus 100 yards per level. Sight can bend around obstructions or corners if the medium you are looking through continues past it. Uses remaining: 3.

  Note: Due to your class benefits, uses remaining increased to 6.

  The new spell sounded even better than snacking on another Lurker’s Eye. Honestly, I’d expected to get his phase or blink ability. Then again, I already had Phantom Step, so the phase wouldn’t have been as useful, and with Shadow Walk I could short-term teleport at least a few more times.

  Nextharos’s blink ability was more like Tomas’s short-range teleport, and the nymph lord had demonstrated just how powerful such an ability could be. Watching him leverage that ability made Shadow Walk tick up higher on my list of likely next permanent spells. If I didn’t have to worry about running out of uses, I might be able to make it a cornerstone of my fighting style in the future.

  Then another announcement rolled in before I could even pull up my stats page.

  Congratulations, Lucas! Your legendary weapon, Leviathan’s Grasp, has absorbed the power to pierce shadowy or ethereal beings from Count Nextharos.

  That was handy, making the transformable polearm that much deadlier. I still doubted I’d use it much, but it had come in handy against Nextharos.

  Since I was in my inventory checking my spells, I also scanned the other loot I got from Nextharos. Like Ashkaroth, he was loaded. I got 20 tier-8 mana crystals, a pendant on a chain, and a fancy blue shirt. I pulled out the shirt.

  Tidebreak Doublet. Epic. Commissioned by Count Nextharos from the famous tailor Nerissian Caelmore, this luxuriously soft doublet makes Egyptian cotton feel like rough canvas, while providing plus 20% speed boost underwater and plus 10% to your base regeneration speed. Self repair. Self-cleaning. Insta-dry.

  I loved my Scaled Wham of the Skies shirt, but I’d been wanting a non-black shirt. This one would do nicely. Not bothered in the least that I was donning a shirt from a guy I’d just killed in single combat, I willed the change.

  The long-sleeved doublet really was soft, like wearing a blue cloud, and moving through the water instantly became easier. The other item I’d looted, the pendant, was just a simple piece of green sea glass on a silver chain.

  Krakenthrone Pendant. Rare. Sometimes the simplest things are the best. Taken from the lair of a Great Kraken of the Abyss, this glass fragment was saturated with the monster’s mental power for generations. Plus 50% to Mental Resistance. If wearer has unlocked a Willpower stat, grants immunity to mental attacks, pierces illusion, and plus 50% to Willpower.

  I whistled, and that still felt weird underwater. I couldn’t imagine an item more perfectly suited to Jane. I returned it to my inventory and sent a message to Jeeves to collect it and pass it on to Jane.

  That reminded me.

  Lucas: How is Nigel?

  Ruby: Thank god. We were so worried for you, Lucas. Nigel was critically injured, but we saved him. Are you okay?

  Tomas: You’re going to love the upgrade too.

  Ruby: Nigel said he wanted to surprise Lucas.

  Tomas: I didn’t say what it was.

  Ruby: Forget what Tomas just said. What happened? Nigel didn’t even know what hit him.

  Leave it to Tomas to give a non-spoiler spoiler. He’d been the worst about spoiling movies growing up.

  Lucas: He got ambushed by a guy called Count Nextharos, one of Queen Marisara’s court. Tell him, I took care of the problem.

  Ruby: Lucas, how do you keep getting involved in fights with Marisara’s people so soon?

  Lucas: Bad luck before now. Careful planning tonight. Tell Jane that Jeeves will have something for her. I’ll see you later. I’ve got a couple more things to deal with.

  Ruby: As in more members of Marisara’s court?

  Lucas: With any luck.

  Both Ruby and Tomas responded at the same time with the same message.

  “Be careful!”

  Then Steve added, “Can I be the first into the new vaults?”

  I closed out my messages and turned to the final 2 items I received from Nextharos: his signature weapon and house artifact. Holding the sleek, black harpoon, Oblivion’s Kiss, I marveled at its deadly lines. I’d felt far too intimately how effective that razor point was at piercing armor and flesh.

  It radiated a subtle power that made it feel like a leashed predator, straining to be released. It was a wonder my armor held up against it at all. I now received a far more extensive description.

  Oblivion’s Kiss. Legendary. The signature weapon of Count Nextharos Riptide, this infamous harpoon has slain many terrifying horrors of the Abyssal Trench. When piercing an enemy, the segmented barb can unfold into 4 razor-sharp blades to inflict 400% additional damage and lock the harpoon in place.

  The shaft is crafted from abyssal chitin taken from the carapace of Zyros, the Abyss Reaver itself. The grip is wrapped in scaled leather, taken from an unknown leviathan that Nextharos slew in his youth. Imbued with Unerring Pursuit, Drowning Wound, Abyssal Recall, The Drag Below, and The Final Kiss.

  Unerring Pursuit. Once thrown, the harpoon alters its trajectory mid-flight, subtly adjusting to strike even an evading target.

  Drowning Wound. Any wound inflicted will suffer double bleed effect and resist healing and natural regeneration for at least 30 seconds.

  Abyssal Recall. Returns to the hand at a thought, dragging prey back or dealing more damage when it tears free.

  The Drag Below. If embedded at least 8 inches into an enemy, spectral chains appear, shackling and weighing them down as if the depths of the ocean itself seeks to claim them.

  The Final Kiss. When a fatal wound is delivered, the harpoon explodes into abyssal tendrils, violently consuming the victim in a whirl of dark energy and feeding on the life force and abilities of the fallen prey.

  That was a lot of abilities crammed into 1 weapon, although given how many monsters Nextharos had supposedly defeated with it, shouldn’t it have absorbed even more? Regardless, it was a spectacular weapon. Almost tempted me to use it as my primary. I was lucky he hadn’t activated more of those abilities to wound me worse. It was one time his arrogance paid off in my favor.

  The house artifat, Zyros Fang, was just as impressive. The dagger-like fang, as long as my forearm, was worked into the blade of a vicious dagger with a molded, deep-sea obsidian handle. The weapon exuded a powerful aura of domination.

  Zyros Fang. Legendary. House Artifact of house Riptide, formed from the lone surviving fang of Zyros, the Abyss Reaver, a monstrous, many-tentacled horror that ruled the deepest trenches of Nextharos’s domain. Bound into a deadly dagger with Nextharos's own life force, this artifact is both a symbol of his dominance and a conduit of his monstrous will.

  Even though it is not usually used as a weapon, Zyros Fang is imbued with the might of a legendary leviathan. Deals plus 300% base damage, plus poison damage that cuts the prey’s regeneration and all defenses by 50%. 75% chance of a critical hit if driven to the hilt.

  Passive Effect: Hunter’s Ascendancy. The artifact imbues powerful tracking instincts, allowing the bearer to sense the lifeblood of their prey at almost any distance.

  Active Ability: Blood of the Abyss. Temporarily imbue the bearer with the traits of the trench’s greatest monsters, such as hardened abyssal scales, enhanced regeneration, or crushing tentacles.

  Legendary Trait: Apex Sovereignty. The Zyros Fang compels lesser creatures of the deep to obey, with a chance of forcing even mightier beasts into submission or driving them into a frenzy against targeted enemies.

  That was . . . Scary. It explained Nextharos’s ability to track by heartbeat, but why hadn’t he activated Blood of the Abyss? Or had he? Was that what granted him the epic scale armor? Had he just been that arrogant and not realized he was going to lose until that last moment?

  Lucky for me. He’d battered my armor to the point of failure. If he’d slammed that fang blade home in my torso, he might have insta-killed me. Holding the dagger, a chill crept down my spine to think how easily the battle could have gone against me. As it was, I’d only barely survived, and that was with him toying with me. If he’d gone all out, I probably would have died.

  His mistake. My victory. I raised the dagger high and roared, savoring the win and the fact that I was still breathing.

  After returning the artifact to my inventory, I noticed a message in my Marisara chat links. A quick read made me scowl. I hadn’t been quite fast enough finishing him off.

  Count Nextharos: Tydrion has fallen! The man Lucas—

  Just like when Burns got knocked out by Noctarus down on stage 2, the partial message sent after I killed Nextharos. Still, he hadn’t gotten out enough. I could still work with this.

  I scanned the recipient’s list. The message looked like a reply to a previous all-court message. Smart. That was quicker than choosing new recipients. He’d almost made it. There were only 4 names on the list I didn’t know. One was the Countess Liranel, the one Syvelis had said was sleeping with Vhaernos. Was Queen Marisara’s actual court that small?

  Good. The counts and countesses were all immensely powerful, each worthy of being considered a boss alone. Together, they posed an astronomical threat, but now I’d winnowed down their list by 3. I wasn’t sure how many lower court members or other minions she might have, but the visions we’d seen suggested a lot of the winged nymphs and scores of gargoyles. Still, cutting out the inner circle would deal the queen a heavy blow.

  I messaged the group, responding to Nextharos’s message using my other recently-acquired title again.

  Count Blacktide: Nice try, you sniveling jellyfish. Let it be known that Nextharos the coward has attempted to assassinate me on my return with the man Lucas as my prisoner. My queen, I will complete my mission as soon as I terminate this traitor.

  Hopefully that would help keep my ruse going a bit longer. Almost immediately, I got a surprising respone.

  Marshal Thalorian: Stop. Both of you return to the castle immediately. You may both make your cases before the throne. Infighting now is utter stupidity. You will be lucky to both keep your heads.

  “Too late for that, pal,” I muttered with a grin. If the mighty marshal felt the need to step in, maybe their position wasn’t as secure as they liked to pretend.

  I did not plan to respond. Let them stew over that, imagining Tydrion and Nextharos battling to the death, their long-simmering feud finally boiling over into open confrontation.

  Phase 2 of my overnight domination plan had turned out a resounding, if painful, success. With a smile, I erupted up out of the canal and flew up into the sky, heading for the ruined mansion that we’d just destroyed in our battle.

  Just as I touched down, a searing pain exploded through my head and the world lurched. The broken stone pavers on the ground seemed to rush up to greet me. Blackness swallowed my mind before I hit the ground.