An engulfing flame devoured the space between Spriggan and the stranger until it neared him, the intense heat already making him uncomfortably sweat despite the distance.

  Not allowing himself to be taken out so easily, Spriggan took a step backward off the edge of the tall, multi-storied apartment complex. As gravity pulled Spriggan downward by half a floor, the wild blaze flew over him, illuminating the night and burning through the area he had just been in moments before it quickly burned out.

  Dang, elemental magic or some sort of fire-based mutation—what a bad match-up, Spriggan thought as he analyzed the situation. And before the fall could drag him any further, Spriggan's vine gripped the same fire escape, and with a twisted flip forward, he was catapulted over the building's ledge.

  In a short flight, Spriggan spun and snapped his hips through a kick toward the stranger; Spriggan's conditioned shin was blocked by his foe's forearms, their bones audibly clashing.

  Without hesitation, the stranger redirected his open, hole-filled palm toward Spriggan, who only narrowly reacted in time. His left arm's vine yanked him toward a nearby steel chimney as a concentration of flames erupted from his hand.

  Spriggan's body, hitting the sun-bleached ceiling in a roll, sprang back to his feet with his right foot forward and guard high, as he whipped out the spare twine of stalky vine at the brown-haired stranger in a sweeping arc - an attempt to knock him from his feet.

  Quick to react, the stranger leapt over his sweep, and with exposed feet, he released an illuminating plume of fire—Spriggan's vine catching flame as the stranger, momentarily, with two controlled streams of fire, glided through the air toward it.

  Stepping back, Spriggan slipped past a jab, far faster and crisper than his own or Dawn's— the stranger following up with a quicker, snappier straight. Spriggan, only narrowly, created enough space to lean his head back inches from the fist, the inflamed part of his vine being cut off from the remaining length as Spriggan dodged.

  The stranger's red and black, fiery aura gave away his attacks. As Spriggan, despite that advantage, struggled to continue slipping past the relentless series of jabs and straights, Spriggan was unable to breathe between attacks.

  Suddenly, even while seeing it coming with his manifest, a hook cut through the air and penetrated Spriggan's slippery head movement—his hard fist stinging Spriggan's face with a punch focused on speed over power. Another straight came in as Spriggan's teeth chattered from the impact only half a second earlier.

  Refocusing on his aura, Spriggan, through the dull pain in his jaw, just managed to roll beneath the next straight as the stranger led into a relentless combo of jabs, straights, and sudden ranged hooks. His feet lightly pivoted on his toes with each attack, the footwork of an outfighter—a boxer whose best weapons were their use of quick footwork and the range of their arms to control the fight from a distance.

  Spriggan, struggling to get past his superior range, knew he needed to claim the momentum of the fight before he was drowned out by this unending pace.

  Taking a chance, while the stranger continued his fierce pursuit with another crisp jab, Spriggan, instead of evading backward, stepped inward as he lowered his knees. And with a punch narrowly avoiding his face, he threw his own uppercut, his legs releasing the tension as he sprang into the attack.

  With a spray of nasal blood, the stranger's head was whipped upward as he wildly swiped out his pores hand - the holes revealed the red flesh beneath his skin before he unleashed a short-ranged explosion of flames at Spriggan, who stood at almost point-blank range.

  Luckily, Spriggan, focused on the guiding aura of this skilled fighter, unraveled the burned vine. It passively restored to its previous length, rooted to a steel picnic table, before it tore him to the right.

  And before the flames consumed Spriggan, he slid over the floor toward his vine's pivot point, only narrowly avoiding the scorching conflagration. His body temperature increasing from the physical demands of this fight as the heat tested his will.

  Though judging by the visualized subconscious aimed toward Spriggan, there was no time to rest, think, hesitate, or doubt himself, as Baron tended to - the vine on his off arm climbed through the air until it securely knotted itself to the building's edge.

  The stranger, with greasy, unwashed hair, shifted his weight as he recovered from Spriggan's attack and fiercely followed up with another sparkless, cruel stream of fire.

  Luckily, already prepared, Spriggan, while staring with a serious expression, was thrown into the air—his vine swinging him down below the building, where the stranger wouldn't be able to see him anymore after using his flashy magic. A young girl was watching from an apartment near the one Spriggan currently revolved around, her Noncognizant presence reminding him he needed to wrap this up quickly.

  You just need to counter the flames; that's no issue. You've done this before, Spriggan resolved, as the stranger's heavy presence weighed on him from above - the dense cloud making it near impossible to predict his next action without a visual on him.

  Spriggan peeked over the building, using his vine to pivot him upwards over the edge with its reinforced strength and elasticity. A loud, jet-like turbine blasted off from the stranger's bare feet while he rocketed toward Spriggan, his body, for a brief moment, moving faster than Spriggan's Manifest, Intent's Confession could predict.

  Directly colliding with Spriggan's tightened core, the stranger's shoulder led the force from the intense burst of movement, knocking the wind out of Spriggan before the stranger gripped his clothing.

  Wheezing as their bodies spun and plummeted multiple stories toward the concrete sidewalk below, Spriggan, reinforcing his vine with a controlled, boosted touch of mana, quickly pulled on the arm it supported. Against the weight of the two, Spriggan's joints were painfully pulled against the force of their suddenly slowed fall, only the added strength of that vine keeping them from dislocating.

  Spriggan suddenly threw a punch toward the stranger, his lip busting open before he grabbed the attack to contain Spriggan's spare hand.

  Rotating in each other's grip, the bigger stranger took advantage of Spriggan's preoccupied and trapped arms as he lifted his arm over their heads—his sickening psyche giving his next move away despite the nearly undodgeable position—before he violently slammed his elbow down.

  His elbow smashed into Spriggan's face, a painfully audible crack coming from Spriggan's face as a white flash of pain felt like it split his skull in half.

  In a pained haze, Spriggan's now crooked nose drained with blood, his eyes watering uncontrollably as he choked up on a nasal breath. Despite his vision being clouded by involuntary liquid, he managed to see that his nearby foe had already raised their arm to the same position as before, their fall's velocity increasing as Spriggan's grip of mana on the vine slipped.

  Again, the stranger's elbow smashed Spriggan's face. This time, Spriggan turned his head with the disorientingly painful blow, but the stranger still drove his sharp, bony elbow into his unguarded face.

  Though Spriggan deflected some of the damage, he still felt a brutish cutting sensation run over his cheek as more of his warm blood flowed over his nose and lower face, the droplets staining his hoodie. With a pained groan, Spriggan knew he needed to react as the stranger's arm rose to the same spot above him.

  Again, the stranger brought his elbow down, directed toward Spriggan's face; however, this time Spriggan wrapped his trapped arm's vine around the stranger's torso, the sudden force shoving him away with a knotted binding.

  Successfully creating space, the stranger's elbow whiffed only inches by his face as Spriggan's vine whipped toward the ground below, its grip releasing to launch him downward.

  The scarred stranger, plummeting only two stories from the sidewalk, directed a jet of flames from his bare feet to slow his fall with a controlled spin, his momentum dispersed into a blade of fire sent toward Spriggan from the same condescending flames used to move aerially, which quickly burned away the vine previously used to hold his foe.

  Avoiding the arced projectile and the flame climbing to his arm, Spriggan released it from his control before using the vine keeping him suspended to throw himself, feet first, toward the stranger, who stumbled back from the heavy, uncontrolled landing.

  Spriggan dropped to the quiet yet inhabited New York street—a new vine thoughtlessly climbing from his pocket to replace the one previously destroyed—as he speared into the stranger's chest.

  The collision sent the stranger rolling past a Red Maple tree planted on the sidewalk. Spriggan fell gracefully to his feet before sprinting forward; his body felt heavier as the fight went on, and his bloodied, most likely broken nose made it impossible to properly breathe, while his vision blurred with involuntary tears. A filled car slowly drove down the lane beside them, observing the fight as it passed.

  Picking himself up with a parked car on his left, the stranger steadily rose to his feet with a loose, open palm aimed toward Spriggan, who, despite not seeing the intent to attack, hesitated – the two of them facing each other in front of a shady laundromat, its' sign flickering while parts of the lettering remained entirely dark.

  And with no time to think, the stranger threw out a weak wall of flames. Spriggan easily sidestepped, but the attack wasn't over. His fist, while covered in breathable holes that seemed to exhale a coating layer of flames, stabbed in with the same flicking jab.

  Backpedaling, a vine grappled onto something behind him, Spriggan leaned back to narrowly avoid the fiery storm of punches before he zipped back toward a fire hydrant, which Spriggan had noticed earlier during their descent.

  Skipping backwards across the ground, Spriggan retreated from the barrage. The stranger quickly closed the gap as a scream of terror came from a mundane spectator, the attention of the mostly empty street drawn to their overly showy fight.

  Already within his void, the stranger threw a quick series of jabs and straights, each followed by the other, with no room for Spriggan to make a mistake. The previous light punches, mostly focused on volume, were suddenly much more dangerous while inflamed.

  But Spriggan, despite the teary gloss over his vision, kept a razor-sharp focus on the telegraphing aura as he slipped, rolled, and stepped back to dodge. His forehead was sweating heavier than it already was, as the small facial hairs on his cheeks got singed from a near miss.

  The wrinkled, middle-aged stranger jumped a stride backwards mid-jab before firing an accurate, basketball-sized collection of flames from that same attack, Spriggan noticing him follow up behind the flames.

  Finally taking the chance, Spriggan flipped backward, his vines unwinding during his quick time in the air as they wrapped around the fire hydrant he had previously stood in front of. With a mana-empowered pull, Spriggan began to notice his mana reserves lowering, indicated by the growing difficulty of controlling his magic at a finer level.

  Unwilling to let that slow him, Spriggan landed on the other side, and as the ball of flames neared him, the fire hydrant, with a continued tug, was forcefully torn from the ground. The fireball and flamed-enhanced fists fizzled out due to the blast of cooling water into the air.

  After the extinguished attack, the stranger flinched from the explosion of water, clearly surprised by the use of the environment. Spriggan swiftly moved toward him with sharp, focused eyes, believing this was his chance to end this crazy, attention-drawing fight before it continued to escalate.

  Spriggan, who wasted no time getting past his long-range, kicked his rear leg like an arched bat swing, and with the force of the momentum, he chopped down on the stranger's thigh at a sharp angle, the leg-kick causing his knee to buckle from the colliding force of his shin as the continuing spray of water soaked them.

  After leg-kicking him, Spriggan pivoted to the stranger's left before planting himself firmly against the ground and cracking his vulnerable jaw with a stiff jab.

  A bruising, throbbing sensation ran through Spriggan's knuckles as the stranger's lip tore open and his neck whipped back; Spriggan grit his teeth through the pain.

  Spriggan, after buckling the stranger's knee and stabbing his face with his fist, continued the assault with an overly telegraphed overhand, which landed only because of the stunning strike beforehand.

  With a spray of blood, the impact crunched the stranger's nose and drove him a step back—the continued protection of water still raining on them from the destroyed hydrant.

  Spriggan, after stunning him with the previous jab and most likely breaking his nose with the risky overhand, was determined to finish the fight with this continued combo. His lead and rear foot switched with an efficient shuffle as Spriggan threw a quick switch kick—a roundhouse kick with the stance's non-dominant leg—to his torso.

  As Spriggan's lower shin bashed the bloodied stranger's tightened core, his combative gaze sharpened through the droplets of water, his faltered aura roaring back to life with his unnervingly murderous presence. But despite his growing activity, Spriggan knew he needed to end the fight now, or else the screaming couple, frozen in fear further down the sidewalk, and the rest of Noncognizant's inhabitants, could get seriously hurt.

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  Spriggan, after his overhand landed flush and the quick switch-kick shook his fiery foe's core, was unrelenting as he followed up with a strong hook. Except this time, the stranger shifted back to narrowly avoid Spriggan's inflamed knuckles, his mutated palm pointing toward him.

  Unexpected to Spriggan, the stranger's aimed palm, instead of releasing flames, heated the water in a flash of steam, his eyes blinded by a spray of painful, scorching-hot water.

  The stranger, taking advantage of Spriggan's obscured sight, reached out with the same hand to grasp his vulnerable head. Despite not being able to see, Spriggan, as before, felt a death-filled breath run down his spine, which made it clear he needed to move, or he'd die.

  Just as a compressed combustion imploded between his fingertips, Spriggan dropped to the floor, the force of the stranger's attack booming above his head—a seemingly homeless person watched their fight from the secure darkness of a nearby alley.

  Before the stranger could follow up on his compromised position, Spriggan planted his hands against the ground. Already soaked, a stream of water ran down his chin as he tirelessly drove a part of the remaining mana in his diminishing reserve through the concrete sidewalk and feet of soil until his extended touch, within seconds, brushed against a slumbering root.

  As Spriggan took hold of an imaginary bar—something he visualized to help him control his magic—and dragged it through the air with a fictional pull, to command the tree they had passed earlier, swung at the stranger from behind with a mana-infused extension of twisted branches and limbs.

  Knocking the stranger from his feet, the tangle of wood and bark recklessly drove him through the nearby laundromat's window; the building's thin layer of glass shattered as Spriggan's mana guided the tree to wrap around and bind him before he could summon more flame.

  Unfortunately, a plume of wrathful flames exploded from the broken window. The magically enhanced tree limb burned to ash in a hopeless attempt to secure the stranger - Spriggan noticed a subtle black trail of terror, much weaker than the stranger's, crawled from an unseen corner of the fiery building.

  Spriggan, looking from his foe to the rising stack of smoke, felt a surge of self-frustration; he was supposed to stop him before something like this happened.

  He couldn't change that now, but he could do what it took to save the person in that building and stop this homicidal Cognizant. The same stranger, while appearing hesitant to cast again, clumsily stumbled over the fragments of glass with durable bare feet.

  Before the stranger could jump through the window, Spriggan shouted out to the street, "Somebody call 911! There's a fire!" Spriggan, as he spoke, fired a healthy, mana-guided vine through the burning business to secure itself around the scared presence. "Get somewhere safe!" Spriggan finished, as some of the small gathering of spectators fled, while a few stayed to record or call the authorities.

  Feeling the warmth of skin through his extended, stalky touch, Spriggan's vines hurriedly hooked onto his torso, and despite feeling a sharp, migraine-like pain in his head, pulled him free from the building's window with a tiring tug. Spriggan successfully freed an elderly man as his vine caught fire.

  Spriggan, through the pain, best described as being shot through the head, gritted his teeth as the effects of the Veil's lashback buckled his knees and made his vision spin with a fit of vertigo. But at least he's safe, Spriggan told himself as the fire spread to the rest of the writhing vine, which he released from his arm, while the stranger's aura aimed toward him.

  Faster than Spriggan could react to the dissipating headache, the stranger, with a jet-like boost of flames from his feet, rocketed toward Spriggan.

  Before Spriggan could blink, the full weight of the bigger man slammed into his chest through the stranger's shoulder, and he unexpectedly came to a complete and sudden stop as Spriggan was hurled backward through the air. The stranger's stare cut through him as the head-splitting pain passed and was replaced by a more palpable pain in his chest.

  Spriggan, after soaring over the sidewalk, crashed against a parked car, and despite the air being forcefully knocked from his lungs, it left him painfully wheezing and gasping. Fortunately, the metal folded in to break most of his impact, but that didn't mean it didn't leave his back aching.

  With a loud, pained moan, Spriggan bounced from the car to the floor as the stranger, unseen to Spriggan, faced the floor as he fought for breath, and propelled himself into the air with a controlled flame on both feet.

  The bloodied stranger flew toward the roof of the burning laundromat, the flames quickly spreading to the rest of the building despite it just starting. Spriggan, on shaky arms, pushed himself up to his knees while the dangerously malicious stranger landed on top of the run-down business, which he destroyed for seemingly no reason.

  Despite the ringing in his head and the aching throughout his body, an insurmountable will brought Spriggan to his feet with a labored groan, his breath ragged as his last spare vine grew to replace the lost one; the other, without Spriggan thinking, zipped upwards toward the building's ledge many stories up.

  As Spriggan ascended after him, the stranger sprinted across the rooftop before rocketing through the air with a fire-boosted leap, clearing a block in a single bound, Spriggan swinging after him without landing.

  Releasing him at the apex of the swing, Spriggan swung after the stranger, who kept a secure distance, and as he leapt again, Spriggan soared after him, the wind pulling on their hair and clothing at these high-speed movements.

  Finally, a much-needed chance for Spriggan to catch his breath and think appeared during the less strenuous chase. Spriggan turned a tight corner to slingshot forward in a controlled flight.

  Why am I still doing this when I'm not sure I can win this fight? Spriggan asked as he flipped into a dive at the apex of his trajectory, the momentum used to shoot him forward with an elastic vine whip.

  Still in pursuit, Spriggan slung himself toward the stranger, who glided past the block until he suddenly shot up the side of a taller structure from the rooftop he stood on; the distance between them was largely unchanging.

  I could have been with Abel, Dawn, and Rose. I could have, maybe, kissed Rose if I had just minded my own business. Spriggan, landing on the same roof as the stranger, sprinted across the distance while he imagined an alternate reality where he didn't get involved and leisurely spent a relaxing night with friends and his 'girlfriend' – though he wouldn't say it out loud since they were still unclear on titles.

  With immensely hot and powerful, streamlined flames from his feet, the stranger flew upwards past many stories to dauntlessly reach the top. Spriggan's vines alternated, continuously tugging him upwards after the fearsome arson, dove after the stranger, who glided from their vantage point.

  Before swinging after him as he had, the stranger, accurately, missile'd through an open window of an unmarked complex, his body vanishing from sight as if it were never there. Spriggan immediately understood it as the Veil that covered the entry of an interdimensional gateway.

  He couldn't breathe through his, most likely, broken nose. His brain throbbed, blood from a loose cut ran down his cheek. His back ached with every movement, and worst of all. Spriggan wanted nothing more than to be with Rose, but regardless of his own suffering and doubts, Spriggan didn't slow. As both vines slung him through the gateway after the stranger, whom Spriggan felt nervous to engage with again.

  Slipping through the gateway hidden many stories above without a noticeable sensation, Spriggan entered the passage to The Haven and catapulted with a short, tight angle in the restricted apartment space toward the stranger, who barreled through the open window parallel to the one they entered.

  Enough! No more thinking like this! You've got to focus on stopping this guy, or at least keeping him busy until someone more qualified from The Haven handles it! Spriggan steeled himself as he drifted through the restricted space of the empty room, until he shot through the open window on the other side of the room—the space between dimensions subtly pulling on him as he entered the Cognizant city.

  Spriggan, keeping focused on following the trail of malice, grappled a tall stack of cargo containers before launching himself toward the stranger. He leapt from the edge of a crane's still platform, his vine used to swing after him the lifting machine. While they both soared high through the air, Spriggan quickly recognized the area as Aegir Harbor, the port district on The Haven's coast, primarily used for the transportation of goods.

  Landing on the large roof of a warehouse, the stranger continued to run. His stamina seemed endless compared to Spriggan's own as he rolled with the impact of his fall before springing up to continue the chase, his body growing heavier as this dragged on.

  The stranger leapt from the roof as Spriggan dove after him, pivoted in the air with a slight shift of the fires produced by his feet, and despite the warning from his red aura, there was little Spriggan could do as he suddenly rocketed toward his exposed position in the air.

  Unable to react in time, even with foresight, the stranger violently jutted into him with his shoulder, his momentum hurling Spriggan backward toward the building they had jumped from, the stranger holding his position in the air after the impact.

  An immensely sharp pain filled Spriggan's back as he flew backwards, his body flying through a thick glass pane, the enhancements of his Cognizant body making it possible to survive the trip through a window—though he could feel the terrible sensation of something within his body cracking.

  With his bloodied, mundane clothing flapping in the wind, sharp glass shrapnel shallowly sliced his face and exposed skin as his body plummeted into the warehouse. Spriggan noticed the lights were still on despite the late hour, unlike the others they had passed.

  The falling Spriggan watched helplessly as the stranger hovered through the broken window. Seconds before his fall, he destroyed a filled crate; the box, full of soft, rolled-up scroll papers, broke the majority of his fall.

  Letting out a loud, pained groan, Spriggan, with tired, drawn-out breaths, rolled over in an attempt to get up, an almost debilitating pain in his right upper back making it difficult to think or focus on the fight.

  Spriggan didn't let his potentially serious injuries bring him down yet; his legs stood firm while he held himself against a nearby container, though the stabbing pain from the ribs on his back threatened to floor him. Spriggan gritted his teeth as he looked at the stranger, who slowly descended—the unchanging, callous combination of reds and blacks swirling around him.

  The stranger, throwing an overarching swipe, sent a cloud of flames at Spriggan. His adrenaline carried him through his injuries as he dodged, using a yank of his vines; the missed rapture of flames engulfed the scrolls as they burned beneath a steel beam.

  Although Spriggan dodged, the heat from the flames caught the sleeve of his hoodie, and his skin burned before Spriggan tore it off.

  As the looming thought of death hung over his shoulder, Spriggan was filled with a conquering fear.

  Before he could prepare his next move, a volley of flames rained on him from the stranger's vantage point atop an industrial shelf. The vine on his burned arm reached out for a steel shaft supporting the building.

  Spriggan pivoted around the room with constant pain in his back. He swung through the warehouse's open air space, the balls of fire hitting the flammable merchandise instead of him; a fire spread across the floor, smoke filling the air as it burned more of the stored product.

  Damn it! I can't die here! Spriggan said to himself fearfully, his teeth gritted as the desperation finally set in—a new edge found, sharpening him and drowning out the immense pain he felt while in this symbolic corner.

  Another stream of fire chased him as Spriggan rotated through the room to avoid the encompassing inferno.

  Spriggan's spare vine swooped down to grab a hefty crate as the other catapulted them at the stranger. As Spriggan flipped forward toward him, he launched the wooden box at him with the momentum of his acrobatics. Immediately after throwing it, Spriggan looped around to swing and kick him from the side.

  Easily, with a fiery swipe of the stranger's craterous hand, fire burned through the improvised attack, while at the same time, Spriggan curved the trajectory of his force into a kick.

  Unexpected to Spriggan, the stranger caught the attack with both smoking arms instead of blocking it, the two of them plummeting to the concrete flooring. Luckily, their fall was broken by a stack of boxes; the room getting hotter as the fire raged in clustered areas around the beams Spriggan had used to travel through the building.

  Slower to rise than the stranger, Spriggan narrowly avoided a hammer fist with a quick roll backward. The momentum was used to bounce onto his feet, and while stumbling back, Spriggan barely slipped away from repeated jabs.

  Quickly finding his footing, Spriggan rolled under a straight punch before, despite the gnawing pain in his back, snapping his hips into a tight roundhouse kick with as much force as he could generate in his condition.

  Unfortunately blocked by both forearms, the stranger lashed out with a hook, the force whipping Spriggan's head sideways as his own elbow dropped onto the stranger's face. Though both took damage, neither retreated, the two of them in an unspoken agreement to end this as they planted their feet and swung in with their next attacks—Spriggan's breath considerably more labored than the stranger's seemingly constant inhalation.

  Both were committed to their attacks. Spriggan threw his body into a looping hook as the stranger stabbed a powerful straight toward Spriggan, the two driving their fists into the other's face.

  Knocked back, each of them stumbled a step from the other, though Spriggan's world spun as a shot of pain ran through him, while the lean stranger stood tall. From the sight of his subconscious and raised hand, Spriggan understood he'd die if he didn't move.

  Through the nausea, a vine grappled onto a nearby shelf to drag Spriggan out of the way, only a moment before another wave of fire nearly burned him to ash—the metal shelves melting as his fires raged hotter.

  Directionless, Spriggan failed to swing away; his disoriented vision caused him to slam into a supporting column. Thankfully, Spriggan fell into soft, yet-to-be-ignited crates of papers as a ball of fire exploded on the same structure he ran into.

  Finally, the world settled around him, the stranger diving after him with his most likely Mutation-based ability boosting him. Spriggan only narrowly avoided the divebomb as he slammed into the box beside him, the papers catching a flame while Spriggan's vine crawled through the air to latch onto a hanging light.

  The vine didn't travel far; the stranger flew upwards to grab a hold of it and incinerated it with an exhaust of fire. To avoid burning his arm, Spriggan released it, though the stranger dropped on him again, his fist lit aflame.

  Barely side-stepping the inflamed strike from above, Spriggan, out of breath, stayed quick on his feet as he rolled under another quick hook—the flames burning the small hairs on Spriggan's face.

  Seemingly gifted with endless stamina from his Mutation, the stranger threw another rapid combo of jabs, straights, and hooks. Spriggan weaved through them until a burning fist impacted his stomach, bloody snot shooting out of him as he let out a pained moan. The material of his shirt melted to his skin instead of catching fire.

  Knowing it was now or never, Spriggan, instead of retreating, stepped forward, rolled underneath another hook, and threw up a risky head kick toward his foe in the second between attacks. Spriggan, hopeful to end it here and now, was surprised when the stranger, as Spriggan had been all fight, rolled beneath his attack and planted his feet.

  Followed by a precise uppercut, the stranger sent Spriggan's scorched face whipping back, as a white light buckled his knees and brought him to the floor.

  Spriggan's brain and face ached worse than he could describe, and, though he tried to rise, he couldn't seem to find his footing, nor did he have any idea where the person trying to kill him was—his mind racing with panic as he flailed around wildly with his remaining vine.

  While not hitting anything, nothing came in to finish the job, either. Spriggan, after getting the seconds he needed to recover, stood through the nausea as his head whipped around to find the stranger's aura.

  After quickly trailing it back to the stranger, Spriggan, with exhausted breaths, found the bloodied stranger floating in the air with an expression Spriggan couldn't exactly make out, but it almost looked pained as he flicked open a silver Zippo lighter.

  "You'll be burned to ash and your boss next," the stranger said coldly with an apathetic voice, and with a flick of its flint, a wrathful, more intense inferno ignited through the room in a blade of sharp, horizontal fire.

  Desperately, Spriggan used his remaining vine to zip upwards in an uncontrolled tug; the fire was more powerful than anything he'd experienced so far, burning through the room as he safely managed to clear it, despite the intense flame making his already hot body feel overheated from its proximity.

  On unsteady legs, Spriggan landed where the fire had yet to spread. When he turned his head toward the pyromancer, he saw the stranger flying through the window they had entered. Spriggan limped after him, dragging his arm upwards to aim his vine—his body unbelievably heavy, while his exhausted mana reserves made it hard to think straight.

  But before he could even attempt to swing after him, a loud creak came from above. Spriggan noticed it almost as the beams supporting the building melted beyond function from their fight or burned in half from that final attack.

  Spriggan looked up as the structure collapsed. He had no time to react or think before large pieces of metal roofing and scaffolding plummeted onto him from above; his raised arms protected his lowered head, hoping hopelessly to protect his vitals.

  …