Several wet thuds sounded over Greg’s head as all the air evacuated his lungs. Arrows made of light stuck out of the alchemist’s neck and shoulders, blue steam whistling from the wounds until the magical projectiles vanished. He gulped in air, but at first his lungs refused to work. The nude behemoth that had once been the handsome alchemist reared back with both hands to deliver another world-ending blow, but he was able to roll away at the last moment. The mountain vibrated under his hands as he forced himself to breathe and lurched to his feet.

  “Greg, you need to get Horatio, or we’re not going to make any headway.” Seraphae sounded in his head. “Autumn, you’re doing great, just keep him busy.”

  “Yeah, easier said than done,” Autumn called back.

  Greg glanced over to check how she was doing. The sword came down hard on Doran, but he crossed his forearms and blocked the blow like they were having a fun pillow fight. He dodged to the side as a chunk of ruby from the fake fire in the center of the room flew at him.

  Get to Horatio.

  How the fuck was he supposed to do that?

  His eyes landed on the harpoon he’d lost when the force of a falling star tried to cave his chest in. Maybe if he could get to it, he could make something happen.

  Greg sprinted forward, pulling Light Drinker from its sheath again. Brycen’s sumo abomination form wasn’t slow for how big it was, but it was much slower than him. He got in as close as he could, focusing on landing as many strikes as he could. They didn’t need to hurt him. Not yet, at least.

  Volatility: 31 of 100

  Divine Resonance: 12 of 100

  Demonic Resonance: 15 of 100

  “Very fancy footwork, but really need you to take out the healer, Greg.” Seraphae’s was clearly losing her patience with him.

  “I just need another minute.” Greg replied as he slipped another punch, landed several more alternating strikes, and then ducked beneath a leather sofa that Kael had to bring a pillar of earth up to stop from crashing into him.

  “Watch where you’re throwing that, you big disgusting meat lump!” Kael yelled.

  He watched his meters climb with each strike.

  Forty volatility.

  Fifty volatility.

  When he hit sixty, he buried his rapier into Brycen’s undulating belly and vanished. His feet touched solid ground again immediately behind Horatio. Ash and dust filled the area around him and Kael immediately. Middle finger in the air, Greg spun as the shield extended out of the bracelet and he delivered a vicious spinning back first. His legs went like overcooked pasta, and he crumpled to the ground.

  “What the fuck?” Kael coughed out, waving his arms about as he tried to feel his way out of the cloud.

  He vanished again, this time landing on top of the harpoon just a handful of yards away and dropped another cloud of ash and smoke, extending it in hopes it would take Kael longer to find his way out. He sprinted over to Horatio again as the mountain flesh started lumbering toward Autumn.

  He needed to be fast. The last thing she needed was Brycen disrupting an already sketchy fight. He looped his rope around one of Horatio’s shoulders and then again around his thigh before making sure it was fastened tight to the harpoon.

  “Don’t fail me now, rope.” He mumbled before taking a couple quick hops forward and launching the harpoon at the alchemist. Murray’s indestructible rope had proved resilient, if not indestructible. This time was no different.

  Brycen let out a guttural wail as the barbed harpoon head dug into the small of his back. He vanished again, using the last of his built up volatile steps to land right behind the giant and drop kick the harpoon deeper into his gelatinous back.

  More ash and smoke erupted from the duster, and the colossus panicked. He fruitlessly pawed at his back, trying to grab at the haft of the harpoon where thick blue steam now shot out and mingled with the smoke he left behind. Meanwhile, Horatio, who was slowly regaining consciousness, was now being flung around like a chihuahua being taken on a walk by a mastiff.

  Greg’s eyes fixed on Kael still fumbling through the clouds of smoke. He took a couple steps back, just enough to get a breath of fresh air as his insides seethed. Horatio flew in front of him with a yelp, but all Greg could see was Maeve face down in the leaves. Motionless. He gripped Light Drinker again, his hands shaking as he dashed across the chamber.

  How Kael saw him coming was a mystery, but even through the magic smoke only he was supposed to be able to see through, a pillar of stone flew up in front of him to block Greg’s strike. He spun around it, and his blade made purchase, but only just. Another pillar of rock rose, but this time right under Kael, lifting him up and out of the smoke where he jumped onto the stairs.

  “Nice try, Baby Greg,” Kael called out.

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  “Help Autumn, I’ll take care of him.” Seraphae commanded through the communication link.

  Greg hesitated for just a moment. If any of the three of them were going to deal with Kael alone, logic said it would be her, but he didn’t like it. With a grunt, Greg turned and ran toward where Doran backed her into a corner. If he noticed him closing the distance from behind, he didn’t react. When he attempted to stab the man, he realized why.

  The rapier ricocheted off Doran as if he’d just tried to stab a brick wall. Not a single knick to his skin. Greg ducked as the man’s hips shifted and a bare foot shot up with speed he could barely register. He swung again, this time activating a radiant strike and keeping an eye on his gauges. The strike swiped along his inner thigh, but his volatility and resonance didn’t move. He wasn’t dealing any damage.

  “That’s not good.” He mumbled as the leg that had tried to take off his head dropped with more force than even the alchemist could have produced. He got the shield up at the last moment, taking the brunt of the blow and deflecting it off, but the vibrations that rang through his bones told him taking one of those strikes could be a one-and-done situation.

  “Something weird about his skin,” Autumn informed him a little late. “Seems to take blunt damage still, but I couldn’t cut him.”

  Blunt damage. Not exactly his forte. He dodged back as Doran started shifting back and forth, keeping them both on their toes with his absurdly fast strikes. He threw open his inventory screen, searching for anything he could try to bash the man with that wasn’t his only line of defense while desperately dodging fists and feet. Somewhere behind him, he could hear Horatio desperately yelling at an enraged Brycen who was still trying to dig the spear out of his back.

  Greg took a palm strike to the chest that lifted him off his feet and flying backwards. Landing flat on his back, he stared up at the high-ceilinged chamber. Kael and Seraphae had each drawn a blade, Seraphae’s looking much like her arrows, pure white and glowing. They were fluttering along hoisted dragon bones like the fight had been choreographed. It was almost beautiful.

  Wait, he had dragon bones. Close enough to a club, right?

  He groaned as he rolled over and forced himself to his feet for the second time this fight, then started running back to Doran. Somewhere in his head, he thought dragon bones would be something like bird bones. Maybe not totally hollow, but surely light enough to allow them to fly.

  He was very wrong.

  Greg reached into his inventory, grabbing a bone with one hand with the intent to pull it from the extradimensional space and strike right off. He was able to keep hold of it, but maneuvering where it went was a whole different story. The stupidly heavy bone fell from just over his head, about eight feet, and instead of striking Doran in the head or the back, bounced off his rock hard thigh and clattered out of his grip.

  “Good thinking!” Autumn dove to the side, snatched up the bone in both hands, and swung it like a bat at Doran.

  “Yeah, totally what I meant to do.” Greg glanced to the side as the heavy stone doors to the chamber opened. Ten more people were bounding into the room, including the giant titanblood woman that had greeted them on entering Wyrm’s Gap, and Horatio had finally calmed Brycen enough to get the rope off him. “Fuck me…”

  There were too many. Even if Seraphae and Autumn could handle their fights solo, he was supposed to fight twelve people alone? There was no way. They needed a miracle, and he was fresh out of them.

  Blaze of glory, it is.

  Greg gripped Light Drinker and burnt another ten volatility to teleport directly to the entrance, dropping a ten-foot smoke cloud from Brannoc’s Duster at the choke point and diving into the group. He whipped through the group, abandoning all hope of defending himself as blades and blunt objects slammed into him with the same frequency that he doled out strikes.

  The hammer struck him in the chest, some of the impact getting absorbed by the coat thankfully, allowing him to slice into the massive woman a few times before spinning and cracking another with his shield. A sword ripped through his thigh, a dagger into his shoulder, and then some kind of purple magical beam hit him in the chest. By the time he’d pinballed through the group to arrive at the back, they’d ravaged him to the point that even the massive damage reduction Seraphae’s boon provided wasn’t taking the edge off.

  He’d done a decent amount of damage, but it wasn’t enough. Half of the group turned on him, the other pushing through his cloud into the chamber. Greg vanished again, landing in front of the group in his smoke cloud to continue the assault, only for a massive, blubbery hand to clap onto his chest and send him flying to the center of the room.

  “Greg! Are you alright?”

  He’d heard Seraphae call out to him as his back cracked against the couple large gemstones that remained in the center of the room. Now looking up at the ceiling again as she spoke, it was like having a front-row seat to a Shakespearean tragedy. She’d taken her eyes off Kael for one second, probably because her boon let her track how much damage he was taking. In that moment, iron ripped across her throat.

  He’d always heard that in particularly traumatic or stressful times, time could feel like it slowed. He'd never experienced it himself. Not until now. It was supposedly your mind’s way of analyzing situations that required important decisions. This, though. This was just cruel.

  Seraphae’s hands went to her neck, but blood was already showering down onto the floor just feet away from him. It was thick and vibrantly red. Definitely not the dark crimson or purple he’d seen from titanbloods. He couldn’t be sure if it was the shock, or some injury he took from the blow, but he couldn’t move. He stared at the growing pool of blood for what felt like an eternity before looking back up.

  She was falling.

  Gaining speed with every moment.

  The buff under all their status bars started to blink.

  He needed more time.

  More time to think.

  His eyes went wide, and he suddenly shoved one hand into the pocket of the duster and the other into his inventory. The duster had its own extradimensional space, but he’d never bothered to use it. His inventory was so much more convenient. The powdered dragon heart crystal appeared in one hand as his other pulled out a small, polished silver pocket watch. The same watch Brannoc had shown him when he was first learning about the artifacts.

  Burrowed Time

  Artifact—Legendary

  Allows the user to stop time in a one-mile radius around them for fifteen minutes. In this time only the user may move. Should the user physically interact with any sentient life form during this time frame, the effect will fade. Should the user lose consciousness during the time frame, the effect will fade.

  Status—Inert

  Requires four ounces of crushed crystal dragon heart to power

  “I’m sorry, Isabella.” His eyes hadn’t left Seraphae, getting closer and closer to the ground as Kael jumped down after her.

  “It’s okay,” she said, no longer bothering to hide her presence. “Just hurry.”

  Greg flipped the clasp on the pocket watch to open its face and flicked the cork off the vial of powder. The hands on the clock started to spin as he poured the powder onto it, glowing brighter and brighter, until he pushed in the button at the top.

  Everything around him stopped.