Dalton’s aura flared, electricity shooting out in every direction. The spear in his grip pulsed. His grin had stretched wide, giving him a demonic look.

  The air stung against my skin, every hair standing on end. The sword in my hand felt heavy. I got no boosts left. No finishing move. Just me, Ashbourne, and whatever grit I can scrape together. I guess it was time to Ranger up.

  Dalton hurled the spear skyward. The heavens answered; jagged bolts tore down, hitting random places, splitting stone and air alike. Balt’s staff flared, his force shield catching the worst of it for us, but each impact was dimming the shield.

  “Focus on what you can do, not what you can’t!” Lawson’s voice rang out, cutting through the static.

  Balt’s face was slick with sweat from maintaining his shield. He glanced my way. “You’ve got anything left?”

  “On fumes, but I can push through.” My gaze locked on Dalton. The madman was swaying now, like a marionette with half its strings cut but still dancing. I braced myself about to try for a Flash Step.

  As I was about to move, the lightning strikes coming down all died mid-strike, leaving the battlefield humming with leftover charge. Dalton laughed. The sound didn’t belong to a man. It belonged to something else.

  “You know,” he rasped through burned lips, “the people who lived here before begged me to go into the dungeon with them. Said they needed my strength. I had an Elite Class, granted by the System. They thought that meant I cared.”

  He tilted his head, exhaling out. “But why should I care? Let the world burn, I say."

  He looked me in the eye then. "Towards the end, they even sent emissaries to plead with me. Interrupted my tea.” His grin sharpened. “So, I killed them.”

  He took a step forward. The spear twitched in his grip as if it wanted out. “I had told them no before. So, it was really their fault for sending them to me. They all eventually failed and died anyway, as I knew they would. It was predictable. Boring.”

  Another step. The surrounding air shimmered with unstable arcs, snapping against Balt’s shield. “What they never asked me was what I wanted; I wanted something fun. I wanted chaos. I wanted to see what happened when you brought the storm into the eye. So, I stayed here. In the castle. In the safezone and watched it all fall apart.”

  His grin widened, fever-bright eyes locking onto me. “And look what I ended up getting rewarded with finally… something interesting. A hero ten levels below me with a death wish and an old man barely hanging on to life.”

  He raised the spear, its tip glowing with fractured light. “This is where you go to join the others.”

  I was now seeing red. This piece of shit had betrayed his own people. "I am beginning to see through you. You're just a whiny little bitch. You're not completely crazy, you're just a coward! A guy who was too afraid to fight with the real men and women of this world." I stated.

  Dalton's face contorted in rage, and sparks started shooting out from his spear. Balt leaned over with his staff still raised high. "I think you struck a nerve."

  Dalton came at me then.

  The spear tore through the air, trailing arcs of gold lightning, wrecking Balt's shield like it wasn’t even there. I sidestepped his downward strike, the tip grazing my shoulder. I cried out as I felt my flesh sizzle.

  I fought through the pain, bringing Ashbourne up in a brutal upward slash, silver flame reigniting across the blade in a burst of defiance.

  Dalton twisted, laughing as he parried the strike away. “Yes! Show me what desperation tastes like!”

  Balt’s voice rang out behind them. “Force Bolt!”

  A streak of blue light slammed into Dalton’s flank, staggering him just enough for me to press the attack. I spun low, blade carving a crescent through the courtyard, forcing Dalton to retreat.

  I put my guard up, ready to defend. Dalton’s aura was no longer overwhelming; it was flickering in and out. He had to be running low on mana by this point. He pivoted, spear sweeping in a wide arc that cracked the ground and sent a shockwave rippling toward me.

  Balt threw up a barrier protecting me. I heard Balt yell out, "Get out of there Riven I can’t keep that up much longer!”

  I ran at Dalton, then activating my armor for protection. A lightning bolt hit me and staggered me back. I Flash Stepped next to the madman, avoiding the spear aimed at my eye.

  I tried to pierce his chest, but Dalton retreated away, avoiding being run through, but Ashbourne had drawn blood.

  Dalton hissed out in pain, his blood making a sizzling sound as it hit the air.

  My breath was coming in ragged bursts. I saw another Force Bolt slam into Dalton's back. Balt was repositioning, flanking, keeping pressure on the elite.

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  "I am so fucking sick of that!" Dalton tried to charge at Balt then. I Flashed in front of him. Refusing to let him attack my partner. Our eyes met. And we started swinging.

  Our weapons continuing to smash into one another. My arms felt like lead but I was not about to quit.

  Balt was continuing his barrage, throwing everything at the crazed man. I had even seen a cobblestone hit Dalton at one point.

  My stamina was tanked. Not even enough for a single Flash Step. Lightning kept scorching my skin after every exchange, but my silver fire in turn scorched Dalton’s. Let's see who can take more!

  A series of force jolts came, then one after the other, hitting Dalton. “Would you stop that shit already!”

  Dalton swung wide then, and a web of electricity formed from the strike, pushing me back and blocking me. Lightning rained down from the sky towards Balt then. “Die!” sneered Dalton.

  I activated my armor and sprinted toward the lightning blocking my way. Ashbourne held up in front, point forward, trying to find a way through.

  It worked. I was getting through, but the pain was excruciating. “No, you don’t, hero.” Dalton broke off his attack on Balt and slashed the spear trying to cut me in half. I didn’t stop my charge; I felt the spear slash me.

  The armor slowed it enough not to bisect me. I continued forward. The spear stuck in my side, my mana armor holding it as it continued to shock me. The world narrowed to Dalton’s fevered grin and the taste of blood in my mouth.

  Ashbourne flared in my grip. The pain sharpened my focus. Dalton’s momentum had overextended his stance, his chest now wide open and exposed.

  My blade drove forward, point-first, cutting through the shimmer of Dalton’s electric aura like it was paper. The blade pierced armor, flesh, and finally the Elite’s heart.

  Dalton’s eyes went wide. His maniacal grin faltered.

  I staggered back, Ashbourne buried to the hilt in Dalton's chest, silver flame licking out in jagged bursts. Golden blood spilled out of the boss, sizzling where it touched the ground.

  “You... ” Dalton rasped, voice cracking. “You weren’t supposed to—”

  I leaned in, voice low. “Supposed to what? You wanted chaos. I brought you consequences.” I twisted my blade.

  Dalton screamed. The lightning aura shattered.

  I dropped to one knee, armor gone, bleeding and burned.

  Dalton hit the ground hard next to me. To my horror, Dalton's hand started to move toward his spear again. Before I could try to reengage, Balt was there. The butt of his staff came down with a crack. Dalton dropped his hand, twitching once before going still.

  My vision was becoming blurry, and I was fading in and out of consciousness, but I could swear I'd seen Balt continually bashing Dalton’s head in with his staff. I focused all I could and listened. “And stay dead this time, you creepy bastard.”

  I never got the chance to read it as the darkness took me.

  Carson sat in a comfortable chair dozing in his room when he heard a knock on his door. "Enter."

  A man dressed in a Faction servants' uniform of grey and black entered the room. "Sir your father requests your presence in his study."

  He moved through the fortress quickly. His father summoning him after just returning from one of the deeper floors must mean he wanted to praise him for his handling of the Outlier. He had written to his father about the happenings of the past few days, telling all the good things he had done to procure them the subservience of the Outlier and possibly another one in the making in Liz.

  Carson stepped into the study, boots echoing against the polished obsidian floor. The room smelled of old parchment and iron, his father’s domain, where silence was currency and words were weapons radiated out from the walls.

  Robert stood by the hearth, his back to Carson, one hand resting on the mantle. The flames cast jagged shadows across the war maps pinned to the far wall.

  Carson bowed and then stood. “Welcome back, I did it,” voice brimming with pride. “We have the Outlier in the palm of our hands. And Liz, she’s showing signs. Early resonance is what the healers say.”

  Robert didn’t turn.

  “What have you done?” he said, voice low and razor-edged.

  Carson faltered. “The Faction gained leverage on a new Outlier. I captured his sister. I have been keeping them alive. I even...”

  “All you've done is kidnap a child,” Robert snapped, turning now, eyes like frostbite. “Making a blood enemy of a potential calamity-grade threat. You didn’t have the System damn sense to at least kill him then and there. You think he won’t spend every second getting stronger until he can kill us all?”

  “He’s one man," replied Carson.

  “System-born anomalies aren’t men. They’re calamities waiting to awaken. And now he’s got a direct grievance with us," yelled Robert.

  Carson swallowed. “But we have leverage.”

  “No,” Robert said. “You have liabilities.”

  He crossed the room, each step deliberate. “You think this is a game of trophies and bloodlines. It’s not. It’s survival. If you had killed him there, I could have seen the logic, but if you think you can control one of them, you’re a fool.”

  Carson opened his mouth, but Robert raised a hand.

  “I’m dispatching Blackthorn squad to wait for him before he can enter floor 1. Tonight.”

  Carson’s breath caught. “The entire kill squad for one man?”

  “He’s not just a man; he’s an Outlier! Get it through your skull that just because you think you think you know what they are, you don’t understand what they're like to deal with. You can never reason with any of them. He dies now!”

  Carson went down on one knee and bowed his head. Robert’s voice calm now as he spoke, “Riven dies now, son. His name will be erased from system memory. And if you ever act without sanction again, you’ll join him.”

  The silence that followed was suffocating. Robert turned back to the hearth. “Leave. And pray Blackthorn finishes what you should have.”