Jason slowly shook his head. “Why?” He pointed at the invading demons with his sword. “Why are you doing all of this? From any angle, this is completely fucked up. Who wakes up in the morning and says, ‘I’m going to help a bunch of soulless, bloodthirsty demons invade cities and eat people before turning the entire planet into a hellscape wasteland?’ You came here to harass me and my friends, kill us or stop us. Why? What can you possibly get out of this?” Anger and disbelief made his voice shake.

  “Now that is a good question.” Quissel chuckled. “I’m not a psychotic incarnation of chaos like Sidonia. But you know what? Following her will help me get what I want.”

  Jason had heard the name “Sidonia” a lot lately. He asked, “What is it you want?”

  Quissel laughed. “Didn’t we come here for me to kill you? Why should I answer any of your questions?” She arched an eyebrow.

  Jason gave an exaggerated shrug. The truth was, he wasn’t sure why he wanted to talk to this huge High Priestess. He didn’t even have the tiniest sliver of hope that he could avoid this duel to the death. It’d been his idea, after all. And the fact that people kept coming after him, threatening his friend and his family, his wife, was enough reason to kill them. If not for the equal number of High Priestesses, he had no doubt the Hull would already be destroyed.

  It was getting harder and harder to suppress his rage, and his magic’s need. But there was also something else. Maybe a sense of…respect? Decorum? Yes, Quissel has definitely come to kill him, but she was being sort of condescendingly polite about it. Jason realized his anger wasn’t even really at her. It was larger, less focused.

  His instincts whispered an answer. He wanted some answers, but perhaps so did his magic… or maybe the Dhu did.

  That’s right, the Dhu are in there somewhere, huh? Out loud, Jason said, “It won’t cost you anything and you believe you are going to kill me in a few minutes anyway, right? You don’t seem to be drinking the Kool-Aid–”

  “Kool–what?”

  “Drinking the– Uh…you don’t seem like a zealot, or…completely out of control. I met Biivan, remember? You and my High Priestess friends don’t like each other, so be it. But I want to understand how you can be okay with all of this.” He waved his hand around at the invasion.

  She gave him a considering look for a few seconds. “Fine. Freedom. I have been stuck on this world longer than you can probably imagine. War is coming, too. Something had to change. I want to be…elsewhere.”

  Jason’s eyes narrowed. “And now you don’t care who dies along the way for you to get what you want, huh?”

  “Pretty much. I could try to moralize it or make myself look better, but what’s the point? I’m going to kill you in a moment anyway. So I will just be honest, child. If you live to be a thousand or two thousand years old, can you imagine how many people you will meet, watch grow old and die? Now add in the fact that your peers who live as long as you do all hate each other. I have been lonely and miserable for…as long as I can remember.”

  Quissel laughed. “You know, I am not even a naturally born person. I was an experiment. You might have noticed that most High Priestesses are Areva. Dolos bought me from another Griseus that had been running experiments. They’d been trying to recreate the original Terrans. Of course, back then, Terra, as in the planet, might not have even had any humans living on it. I’m not sure what they were called back then. Anyway, I was a lab project. Then I was a servant. I had to go from living in a cage to learning astrophysics.

  “And the entire time, I was a freak. The other High Priestesses hated me for my size, my round ears, everything. To the people of Ludus, I was a High Priestess and a giant. Do you know what my nickname is, the one I’m known by, like Keeja is called Ravager? I am Truthshaker. The name was not meant to be a compliment but I’ll spare you the details. Suffice to say that filling dungeons with random nonsense to attract adventurers and running errands for Dolos has not been enough to distract me from an endless future looking forward to other High Priestesses whispering about the, ‘Proto-Terran’.”

  Jason’s lip twisted as he said, “So you have a toxic work environment and you don’t like your job. In my experience most people don’t like their jobs. You get to live forever and you are one of the most powerful people.”

  “You know nothing! I am a slave.”

  Jason decided to channel a little bit of his friend Henry and said, “A slave has no choice. You have proven you have some choice, here. Being stuck on one planet while basically working part time is not exactly a fate worse than death. It’s been a long time for you, I get it, but there is a big difference between quitting and mass murder. There has to be a better way. So you don’t have any friends. So what?”

  She smiled with flat eyes. “So I hate this place and I just want to leave. And that was before finding out it’s likely about to be right in the middle of the next Great War. You would have a very difficult time understanding. Your viewpoint is too small, too young. For what it’s worth, none of this business with you is personal. And I know you won’t appreciate my perspective here, but you’ve been alive for what, less than 50 years? You’re just some Terran who came to Ludus and you’re orb-Bonded now? Why would I care more about you than any of the Adom in this ugly city?”

  The fact that Jason could understand her point of view didn’t mellow his anger, just made it change, become more flat, less spikey. Maybe this was more what Henry felt when he was fighting. Jason’s rage was normally hot, but it felt cold now. Like ice. “Worth? And what about you? You aren’t a real demigod. You’re a Holder, you have an Artifice, right? What makes you better than an orb-Bonded like me?”

  “‘Real demigod,’ huh?” Her verbal quotes around the words were obvious and she laughed. “I’ve met real gods and let me tell you, I could at least give them a good fight. Dolos and his kind would crush them. Real gods would likely disappoint you. But what makes me better? Power. Everything boils down to power, boy. Keeja and Enheduanna are two of the strongest Holders on Ludus, but Sidonia is at least their equal, and she has more followers. Maybe if your High Priestesses had cultivated more friends and wound up with more followers, things would be different. They haven’t been taking part in the politics of Ludus for a very long time. When things were set in motion, they were not even at the table. I just want to win, boy, and I want off this planet.”

  Jason shook his head. “And you are fine with just watching all of the suffering that will cause, or even doing it yourself. It’s hard for me to believe. How many people need to die just so you can go to the shopping mall in the rest of the universe, or whatever it is you want to do?”

  “How many need to die?” She chuckled. “This will likely offend you, but it doesn’t matter. Honestly, whether it’s zero or ten million, it won’t change anything in my mind. Would you have any moral crisis about the number of weeds you have to pull in a garden? Each weed is a living thing. You just don’t value its life. I don’t value yours.”

  “And that doesn’t seem cold to you?”

  “Of course it’s cold! Again, I’m not Sidonia or any of her inner circle. I am not crazy. But what I am is a realist. I’ve been alive a long, long time, but I don’t want to die, and I don’t want to feel like a slave anymore. It was time to…change teams. War is coming, war in the entire universe. Getting off of this rock is no longer an option and the way the winds are blowing is obvious. Dolos is outmatched now as much as the loyalist High Priestesses.”

  Jason almost chuckled at that, even through the boiling anger he was holding at bay. Calling Enheduanna “loyal” regarding pretty much anything was a stretch. He asked, “So if you are just trying to escape, and you are mostly here to help your new demon buddies, what about us? What about me and my friends? My wife?”

  “You all are in the way. At the very least you are not part of the solution and not part of the winning team. One way or another, you’re not going to survive very long. Again, it’s really not personal, not even this. But you chose this duel. I’m going to kill you, then eventually the rest of you will be finished off, too.”

  “So be it,” said Jason. He finally relaxed his control and let the magic wash through him. The sensation was a vast relief and a seeming eternity of pain at the same time.

  Limitbreak.

  This time he knew what was happening. During his first limitbreak, he’d been much less focused. Now he felt the pain of all his cells transforming, every part of him becoming new, greater. Someone watching him would have seen his body seem to explode, become living darkness with winking starlight scattered throughout.

  Strength filled his body. Incredible strength. And like a switch was flipped, Jason became completely focused on the task at hand. It wasn’t his job to understand this person. He was here to destroy her.

  The opening riff from Awake, by Godsmack, vibrated through his bones. His soul song had changed, apparently. There was probably a reason for it, but he didn’t care.

  He flickered forward, flexing his magic, and came out of a short-range teleport swinging an electrically charged Breeze with savage power. Quissel had been caught completely off guard, her eyes wide. She still managed to produce a metallic, round shield from thin air in time to block the strike. Breeze’s enhanced, null-time edge shrieked against the silvery, dull metal.

  The high priestess generated a weapon from nothing the same way she had the shield.

  Quissel swung at Jason with her short, wide, straight blade. He wouldn’t have time to block so he didn’t even try. With a thought, he’d teleported away, leaving behind the pop of displaced air.

  The last time Jason had fought a High Priestess, he’d been much weaker, his mind had been fuzzy, and he’d been much greener. Now he was a higher-ranked orb-Bonded, which seemed to affect his limitbreak. He was in complete control of himself and he’d been practicing in the World Jar non-stop since he’d had access to it.

  But Quissel was definitely stronger than Biivan had been.

  Jason made several random, probing attacks. He came out of teleports from every direction, launching murderous strikes with Breeze. Every attack was surgical, aimed at openings or to create openings. All of Jason’s time training in the World Jar had made him polished, dangerous. But none of his strikes managed to do much more than make superficial wounds that healed almost immediately.

  The big woman masterfully protected herself with her unbreakable, mysterious shield. Her sword was definitely made of the same metal. Jason could never seem to fully get the drop on her. Even with his mind spinning like a top, his sense of time slowed to a crawl, making plans within plans, he couldn’t seem to surprise her. After her initial shocked reaction to his first, sudden attack, she’d become cold, calculating, much different than Biivan.

  Jason teleported high in the sky before unleashing hell. Godsmack music thumped in the back of his mind. He summoned a few bronze knives from sideways space and threw them down, multiplying them all into tens, then hundreds of destructo disks. A rain of spinning death descended on Quissel.

  She raised her shield and gave a primal yell as a dome of blue energy erupted into a shimmering protective umbrella. All of the destructo disks that hit it were partially disintegrated and stopped in their tracks. The rest of them practically blew up the beach and nearby ocean. Blasts of sand and water filled the air.

  Jason teleported beneath Quissel and stabbed with his empowered sword, aiming for her armpit. She swung her arm in a circular motion, a shimmering blue energy covering her hand like armor. The back of her hand hit the flat of Breeze’s blade and barely knocked the strike wide.

  Her sword swung through the space Jason had just been, creating a ripping, tearing arc of blue light that sped out over the ocean, slamming into the waves in the distance and creating a temporary, frothing trench.

  Power raged in Jason, raging through his body, through his soul. Voices whispered at him from a place he couldn’t explain, around his soul. They told him what was possible.

  He listened.

  Jason flashed forward, teleporting to one side of his target. He swung with Breeze, discharging thick bars of electricity that hit the beach sand below, turning it to glass. Screaming true-demons were burned and blown to pieces. With his other hand, he threw dozens of Matter-magic generated throwing knives, teleporting them. When Quissel met the attack with her metal shield, he teleported behind her, throwing out a hand and delivering null-time needles at her eyes. At the same time, the knives he’d thrown before teleporting arrived, scything in at the big High Priestess from the sides.

  She didn’t try to dodge. Instead, she brought her magic shield tighter to her body and a bubble of blue energy erupted, spreading outwards like a silent explosion that consumed all of Jason’s attacks. He barely escaped in time. Then the moment he oriented himself on his enemy again, it was his turn to be on the defense.

  Quissel had summoned stars of blue energy that hung over her head like an angry constellation. One by one, they changed form to spinning discs, not unlike Jason’s earlier attack. They buzzed at him, machine gun style, like a horde of angry wasps. When he teleported away, all of the blue stars immediately changed their trajectory and came right for him again.

  Jason created null-time shields in layers, and as the stars crashed through them one after another, he vanished before any of them could reach him. He buzzed straight up into the sky, moving even more smoothly than he had before with his last limitbreak. Moving as he wished through three-dimensional space was a simple matter, at least at low speeds.

  He dropped Breeze and willed it to hang in the air, suspended by his will. His fists touched. Quissel was confused at first, but seemed to locate him quickly. She looked up, murder in her eyes. But before she could rocket upwards, Jason spread his clenched hands in her direction.

  The attack ripped apart time and space, stronger than the first time he’d done something similar. Quissel’s blue shield flared and she was thrown back toward the ground below. Jason had caught her off guard. He didn’t waste the opportunity. With a flex of his will, he slowed his perception of time as much as he could temporarily tolerate and took hold of Breeze again. As fast as he could, he slashed again and again, delivering terrible, violent arcs of destructive energy at his enemy. The beach below was still being stirred from his first attack like a giant blender when the arcs of energy hit. His savage blows slammed into Quissel like the hammer blows of an electric giant.

  When it was over, the demigoddess was breathing heavily, but only had a single cut that healed so fast, it was practically gone before she moved again. Her image blurred and sand kicked up on the beach in yet another explosion as she seemingly disappeared.

  Only Jason’s experience fighting Keeja, his slowed perception of time, and his limitbreak-enhanced psionics magic saved him. Quissel practically appeared right next to Jason, swinging her sword with deadly intent and tremendous speed at his neck.

  He actually felt her appear before his vision had even registered the fact and tried to teleport away. The magic didn’t work. Thankfully, time was stretched like a rubber band for his mind to chew on the problem and he realized the explosions on the beach had thrown too much sand into the air. The debris was blocking his teleportation. Jason barely blocked Quissel’s attack in time. Breeze’s null-time edge shrieked, making the air quiver.

  With a shout, Jason extended a rapidly expanding, thin barrier of space-time that made the sand around him fall to the ground. The powerful magic also began pushing his enemy away, but Quissel responded with a shove of her own blue energy. Her raw power clashed with Jason’s, but he didn’t stay long to test it. Instead, since the air had cleared, he teleported higher into the sky.

  What followed was a blistering, incredibly fast series of strikes, teleports, charges, blocks and parries across the sky. Jason closed with Quissel from above her, descending with crushing speed, delivering a downward strike in a modified, mid-air pflug, or posta breve stance. His hands were below his center or gravity and all of his body weight was behind the strike.

  Quissel stopped him cold. Her sword arm barely quivered. Jason didn’t hesitate, he swung his pommel up at her face, but the High Priestess easily caught it on her shield. She smiled and her eyes flashed as she prepared to do something with energy…

  …when the hail of blades Jason had thrown about ten seconds earlier all hit her in the back. He hadn’t enhanced them with null-time in an effort to make them harder to see or sense, but they still staggered her. And since she was off balance, Jason finally got in his first solid strike. He raised his off hand and delivered a stream of null-time needles into his enemy’s side, then another at her head. She reeled, and he kept up the attack until she finally managed to block with her shield.

  “I see you want to do this the hard way,” she grated.

  “Always,” Jason growled. He flashed forward, trying to capitalize on his momentum but almost immediately fell back. His enemy’s ruined face was healing, and even with only one eye, she began to press him. Quissel delivered blow after blow that made the air quiver.

  Jason was staying a step ahead. Barely.

  ***

  Uluula turned to Light. Stress made her feel like she had a dried stick in her lower back and a bowling ball in her stomach. “We need to be ready to go the second we can get out of here! Is everyone on the ship?”

  “No,” said Light. She and Everr stood close to each other nearby, arms crossed, almost like they were hugging themselves through their armor. “Grace is missing. She’s gone.”

  “Understood. Nora!” Uluula waved at the orb-Bonded woman. “We need to get a search to–”

  “No point,” said Light softly. She turned over her wrist and showed two bracelets that both had a small stone. One was slightly glowing, the other was dark. “All three of us wear these. They’re tied to our vital signs. Grace isn’t coming.”

  Uluula put her hand over her mouth. “I’m so sorry.”