“Your reputation precedes you.” The Hero grinned.

  Their bdes met. There was no ring of steel. There was a dull thud. The air around them warped.

  Boom

  Duke Adrian shot back. One moment, they were crossing bdes, and the next, he was standing a dozen feet away.

  The sound caught up to him only ter.

  “Quick indeed.” The Hero grinned, charged forward, and crossed the distance in little more than an instant. His approach was quiet. Empty.

  Adrian rushed forward, not towards the Hero, but in the space above him.

  Boom

  Another burst of his mana, and he plunged his bde down on the man’s exposed back. The hall shook from the impact. Dust clouded his vision. Everything about the blow felt wrong. There was no crunch of bone. No…resistance. The force of this blow should have destroyed the floor underneath.

  He only just saw the blur coming from his head.

  More power, and he was away again. The dust cleared. The Hero rose. The floor below them was now a rge hole filled with cracked tiles. The Hero didn’t even have dust on his cloak.

  “Not just on the ground then, eh?” The Hero’s smile widened. “Good. Good. Perhaps I’ll be able to make a proper meal out of you yet.”

  The Hero was toying with him. Adrian knew that. He also knew he was the only one keeping everyone in this building still alive.

  “You do talk too much, Hero. I ask again, what God do you serve?”

  The man just grinned. “I’d have thought you’d be more subtle. You should know better than to ask for that.”

  Without knowing the man’s God, without knowing the intent of the bde, Adrian was at an enormous disadvantage. There was no way to tell what abilities the bastard might have. Meanwhile, most people had at least a fwed idea of what he could do.

  ‘It’s fine. I just need to buy time. Keep him occupied.’

  The world itself seemed to warp around that bck bde. Something about it was very wrong. He knew that just from cshing bdes a few times.

  Boom

  Adrian pooled mana into his feet. Dashed forward. The Hero raised his bde to block, but Adrian didn’t csh bdes. He stopped just behind him, turned his arm, and swung with all the strength he could.

  Thud

  The Hero flew into the wall next to him, smming right through it. He’d put a lot of his mana into the blow, making a hole in the walls of the auction house itself. Light streamed in from the outside world. Duke Adrian stepped through that small hole, nding on the ground.

  He spotted the barrier Anias had mentioned almost immediately. A yer of shimmering blue cut off the hall from the world inside. People would have noticed, though a barrier of this size could only come from an Artifact, and a powerful one at that. They couldn’t count on help.

  The Hero sat on a patch of grass, not far from the barrier itself. There was no wound at all. The man's cloak didn't even look stained.

  The Godbde was glowing now. The steel looked heavier. It was as if it was eating his gaze. How could something so dark glow?

  Adrian didn’t know the intent, but he knew this man had leaned far into it. How could a Hero like this have gone unnoticed?

  “Uninjured after that.” Duke Adrian muttered. He had sent the bastard at speeds that would have liquefied most men. Heroes weren’t most men.

  Boom

  Adrian pooled mana and charged forward. He caught the Hero before he could react, his sword slicing into the man’s exposed chest.

  Thump

  Adrian did not cut him. He shot back, right before the Hero would have cut him in turn. He knew now what this sensation was. It felt like he was striking at an unimaginably vast ocean of water. He might stir a few waves, but the ocean didn’t care. The energy dissipated long before it could do any real harm.

  The Godbde’s glow grew darker.

  “You’ve come far with such a meager Gift.” The Hero commented. He did the st thing Adrian had expected. He cpped. “Not even teleportation, but a cheap mockery of it. They call you Quickstep, a shame that’s the only thing you can do.” He shoved a finger in Adrian’s direction. “You’re just shoving yourself, aren’t you? Perhaps if you'd been fifteen years younger, this might have been more fun.”

  Adrian froze. How? From simply crossing bdes a few times? From just watching him use his Gift? That shouldn’t have been possible.

  “I don’t need commentary from a Hero.” Adrian snarled. “Am I talking to the bde, or is there still a man left underneath?”

  The Hero ughed. Even his ughter was cold. “Ah, I see you do know something of Heroes then.”

  The Hero stood up. Everything around him seemed to simply fade in some way. The air felt thinner. The ground grew grayer. All of the colors simply dulled.

  “I suppose you’ve earned a name at least, Old man.” The Hero raised his bde. It wasn’t just that the surroundings were dulling. Some part of them was being consumed.

  “Mordain.”

  It came in just a whisper. Adrian had almost missed it.

  This man knew the truth behind Adrian’s Gift. That meant there was no point in hiding anything. Adrian turned. He put his hand on a tree trunk next to him. Three seconds.

  Boom

  The tree shot forward towards the Hero, moving as fast as Adrian himself would have. The Hero didn’t block. The tree moved too fast.

  The tree simply…stopped in pce. It fell back to the ground, just inches away from the man. Then, it started to decay. It withered into little more than sawdust. Those motes of dust trailed off into the bde, leaving behind nothing.

  The Godbde was purple now. “Hey, you don’t think you can just stay back, can you?” Mordain’s voice was quiet now. “Tell me, have you ever starved, Duke?”

  The Hero sank the bck bde into the ground. It sank in smoothly, with no resistance at all. The ground began to melt around it. Light seemed to get sucked into the metal, all in a small but growing radius around the bde. No, things weren’t just melting. They were being consumed. Even the barrier behind the Hero trembled, the blue glow slowly but surely dimming.

  Any other attack Adrian did would likely not work any better. Not only was the man a Hero deep, but this was a terrible matchup.

  Adrian knew. He knew now which bde this was, which intent. It was a bde that should have been sealed in the royal vault. One that should have never seen the light of day.

  It was Gluttony.

  He’d never had a chance at all. Oddly, he felt at peace. He had bought enough time, and he trusted Anias.

  ‘Perhaps this is what I deserved after all, Esra.’

  People screamed all around her. Many of them rushed as far away from the front of the hall as they could, all at the same time. They bumped into each other. Fell over each other. It was chaos.

  Anias felt the hovering bdes in her mind. Each of them was a tiny pinprick in the back of her head. She sent them hurtling towards the two attackers. The bdes crossed half the distance between them before simply disappearing.

  “Did you really think I would throw weapons at someone that could be thrown back?” The Wolf Mask commented, obviously amused. “I do admit that catching so many is impressive. It’s just a shame you couldn’t catch all of them.”

  “I’ll leave this one to you then.” Fox moved forward, blurring.

  “No, you don’t!” Anias reached out with her telekinesis and grabbed three of the chairs next to her. She smashed them together so hard they became a single bundle of metal. She unched them as fast as she could.

  Thud. Thud. Thud.

  Three rge swords smmed into that ball, knocking it aside.

  “Seriously?” The Wolf Mask sighed.

  Anias reached out with her Gift again, this time trying to wrap it around the Fox Mask. He only paused for a single moment, and then he was running again.

  Damn it.

  Anias moved to cut him off with her body. Another sword lunged for her, stopping just at the bounds of her mana, six feet away from her. She turned towards the Wolf Mask.

  “Hey now, you don’t need to worry about him. You should be worrying about me.”

  Anias reached out with her Gift, mana extending outward. She wrapped invisible arms around the man. His body twitched. Anias tried to hold on. The man’s mana sliced through hers.

  “Did you think my will was that weak?” The man almost sounded insulted.

  “You’d be surprised by how often it is.”

  Anias needed to deal with this man as quickly as she could. She stepped forward, into the empty clearing made by everyone retreating far back. She was sure that some of these bastards must have had a useful Gift or two. They didn’t step forward, no doubt hoping Anias would deal with this.

  Bdes materialized behind the Wolf Mask. Seven daggers, floating in the air behind him. Anias reached out, grabbed them with her mind. She rained them down. The man leapt to the side, the daggers vanishing. One of them pierced his side, drawing blood.

  “Your mana goes that far?” He was staring at her now, a slight breathlessness to his voice. “Not just any ordinary maid, are you?”

  Anias didn’t answer him. She felt something stir around her, reaching out with her telekinesis.

  There were more screams.

  Five daggers had spawned behind her back, all of them aimed at her. Anias had caught them all easily. The problem wasn’t those. Anias' defense was strongest around her immediate self.

  It was the other daggers, the ones that had targeted the crowd.

  “Well? I don’t think I can hurt you, but what about all the others?” The bastard was probably grinning behind the mask. “You can’t protect all of them, too. Don’t spread yourself too thin now!”

  “Why would I care?” Anias finally spoke up, taking a step forward. Her telekinesis wrapped around her own body, coloring it with a purple glow.

  “What?”

  Anias unched herself forward, adding a push with her Gift even as she used her own momentum. She didn’t have a weapon. She didn’t need one.

  The distance closed. The Wolf Mask had only just started to move when Anias’ fist smmed into his mask. She sent him crashing back into the wall.

  “I’m a maid of House Veyne. It doesn’t matter to me what happens to anyone else here.”

  Mana swirled around her. More weapons. Anias grabbed them with her Gift before they could fire at her. She charged forward again, stomping down on where the Wolf Mask y. Her foot smmed into his stomach. It should have broken a bone, all it did was make him gasp.

  One of his legs kicked out. Anias ignored it even as it smmed into her stomach. The blow didn’t feel like anything.

  Pain.

  Anias grunted and stepped forward. There was a bde sticking right out of her stomach now. Anias grabbed it, hissed, and wrenched the bloody dagger out before throwing it aside. Then, she focused her will on the wound, closing and sealing it.

  The bastard had formed a bde on his own foot, hiding it in his mana and making it near impossible to detect.

  The Wolf Mask was back on his feet again. Anias’ blow had shattered half of his mask, the parts covering the left side of his face. Angry brown eyes stared back at her, framed by red hair.

  “Edict and Tenet both? What the hell are you doing working as a damn maid?!”

  Anias stepped forward again. This time she would snap the man’s neck.

  “Alright, fine.” The Wolf Mask raised his hands. “I guess I can’t beat you. Not right now. Honestly, it’s just a bad matchup, Lady.”

  Anias paused.

  “You said you didn’t care about anyone.” He grinned, enough that Anias could make out half a smile. “Isn’t there someone here you have to care about?”

  More daggers behind her. Too many. A dozen. Two dozen.

  Anias turned. None of these were aimed at her. They shot forward, right towards the cowering Duke Greenward and his daughter.

  Experience told her it was impossible to stop that many weapons at once. Instead, Anias reinforced herself, pushing herself with her mana and her Gift alike. None of the weapons had materialized close to the Duke. She crossed that distance, hoping against hope to make it in time.

  Cordelia cowered underneath her father. Duke Greenward seemed to have noticed what was happening. Anias saw walls of stone trying to close around him. They wouldn’t be nearly fast enough.

  The bdes whizzed through the air. Anias ran right past them, a blur. There was only one thing she could do. She held out her arms, covering the Duke and his daughter.

  Bdes pierced her. The rain of bdes eventually stopped. A dozen different bdes protruded from her back; a dozen more were on the floor behind her. Blood ran down her back, pooling at her feet.

  Anias didn’t dare try to close the wounds or pull the bdes out. That would split her concentration. If she were that bastard, that would be the moment to strike. The most concentration she could spare was to try to seal the wounds around the bdes.

  “My Lord,” Anias grunted. “I hope you are safe.”

  The Duke stared up at her. There was no gratitude on his face. Instead, he gave off the impression that he was annoyed she hadn’t done this earlier. Maybe Anias should have let him become a pincushion.

  But her gaze fell on his frightened daughter.

  ‘Esra wouldn’t have liked it if I’d let her die.’

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  Anias turned her head, just enough to stare at the Wolf mask.

  “There really was no beating you, was there?”

  Anias was starting to feel something she was unaccustomed to feeling: annoyance.

  “A shame. Though it seems like we already got what we needed and that damn bastard destroyed the barrier, so….” The Wolf Mask turned, almost like he was about to walk away. He turned back, half-smiled past the mask. “A gift, from me to you.”

  A giant sword started to materialize in the air above him, longer and wider than the man himself. It was too far away for Anias to touch with her power. It shot into the air.

  Bang

  For the second time that day, Anias saw the roof coming down on her.