Gina raised her hand, Cursed Energy swirling. "Not after everything, Julius."
Her fingers wrapped around each other, forming an inverted double-fist. I knew what was coming, but this time I was too slow to stop it.
"Domain Expansion: Heart of the Dying Star."
Cursed Energy bubbled out of her like an expanding bubble. It swallowed me in a fraction of a second and stranded me in the vast expanse of space, astral anomalies spread out around us. The bright blue light of a dying star hung overhead, painting the man-made space in blinding white.
It was breathtaking—a somewhat odd thing to admit when I was seconds away from death.
My posture shifted, and I called on New Shadow Style, using Simple Domain for what it was built for—protecting you from the guaranteed sure-hit effect of Domain Expansions.
My vow was bog-standard—so long as I didn't move my feet, Simple Domain would disrupt the barrier of the Domain Expansion, canceling its sure-hit effect.
That meant when Gina brought her fist down, spiking gravity, I only let out a loud grunt instead of a full-throated scream. The technique missed me, but her Domain Expansion pressed hard against my barrier—pressure that mounted when Priya made her move.
She exploded forward, entering my Simple Domain and swinging with a scalpel, channeling Ratio. My palms split open, and twin daggers flew out. I crossed them, channeling my Inverse through the materials. Bone and metal clashed in a teeth-grating crash.
She pulled back with a slow kick that would've shredded through my abdomen because of Inverse. It seemed Gina had told Priya about my weakness—but I had more options than yesterday.
Bone extended from my ribcage, catching her on the flat of her foot and drawing blood.
Priya hissed and shot me a glare before rushing back in, striking harder this time. I broke off the extending bone and parried, slashed, kicked, and stabbed, while merging my two daggers into a longer sword.
I grew bone spikes whenever she slowed her attack to try to catch me and flexed Inverse when she struck harder, trying to overwhelm the technique.
It was hell juggling Inverse, Physical Reinforcement, and Simple Domain.
Sweat dribbled down my face. After nearly thirty seconds of battering, I went on the offensive. My blade bit into her forearm after a blistering-fast slash, courtesy of Overdrive, and I warped the blade's shape on a whim, creating a hook that took her off balance. I yanked her close and fired a small Expanse into her face. It blew her off her feet, but not before she managed to slash my liver.
Thanks to Ratio, the wound was perfectly placed and nearly split me diagonally. RCT handled most of the damage, but the shock made my Simple Domain buckle, losing ground fast.
I had just over a minute of fight left in me if I was lucky—and I intended to make the best of it.
Priya leaped at me like a cheetah possessed, chaining strikes I could barely keep up with. Funneling Overdrive into my perception let me read her movements more clearly.
It wasn't long before I found an opening. I lashed out with a low kick meant to distract, pulsing Ratio, with every intention of taking off the offending leg—but she twisted, throwing a fast kick at my neck. I grew a trio of spikes from my collarbone. They punctured her leg while I activated my Pain Tolerance subskill, amplifying the pain by threefold.
Before she could scream, I stabbed at her heart with a flash of Overdrive. She twisted, so the blade went through her lungs instead. I commanded the blade to shatter just before she pulled away, scattering shards inside her body cavity.
She collapsed in a wet heap, coughing blood, and I reversed the flow of Inverse before she could recover, teeing up an Expanse.
I unleashed the blast. Priya managed to wrap herself in Domain Amplification, gritting through the pain. I hefted my bone sword, adjusted its balance quickly so it could fly like a spear, and let it rip with a flash of Overdrive.
A spark of fear crossed Priya's eyes as the spear left my hand, tearing through the air with a sonic boom. Suddenly, the weight pressing down on me dropped, and the vast space surrounding us faded.
Gina was standing over Priya's body, one hand held high. The spear had gone halfway through it.
She pulled it out and let it drop. Behind her, Priya started to change physically—triggering her Blockbuster Transformation. I had no intention of standing by to watch.
I shot forward, growing bony spikes out of my knuckles, and swung. Gina parried, guiding my hand under her armpit as she punched at my face. I turned my neck sharply, avoiding the hit, while growing a spike from the center of my other fist and another from my trapped wrist. She was forced to free me and barely ducked out of the way of the spike. It ripped through her clothes but didn't quite touch flesh.
Her knee snapped forward, but I flared Inverse at the last moment. Predictably, she dropped her Reinforcement just before impact so that she could hurt me and that slowed her perception dramatically. It let me slip past her with Overdrive and fire a point-blank Expanse at Priya's recovering body, tearing open fresh wounds along her writhing body.
A punch slammed into the side of my head—nearly too fast to register—and sent me flipping back into a hard stop.
I reset my jaw and spat blood to the side, eyes never leaving Gina.
She looked furious, her gaze darting between me and a brutalized Priya, who was stuck mid-transformation, trapped in her own body, wheezing, gritting her teeth.
"What did you do to her?" she demanded.
"Nothing she didn't have coming," I said.
"Fix her or I'll—"
"You'll do nothing," I cut her off, "because you're weak, Gina. At least for however long this technique backlash lasts. You two might've won if you fought me straight—but then again, you wouldn't have been able to keep me from the surface. In some ways, you're worse than Priya or Artisan. You watched as I was tortured and flayed. You stood by while my mother and sister were butchered. And you have the gall to apologize and pretend!"
Gina didn't even flinch. In that moment, I found my resolve.
"I'll see you in hell, Gina," I said, gathering Positive Energy.
She moved immediately, and I bounced off a pillar and shifted direction. She adjusted quickly, racing straight for me—but it was too late. I let out an omnidirectional Expanse: Maximum
Energy flooded out of me in a monstrous wave that tore through my muscles and shredded my clothes. The building came down, burying us under thousands of pounds of rubble and topsoil. I activated Inverse before the worst of it. When the noise and shattering stopped, I found myself several hundred feet below the surface in what was left of the facility.
Dozens of notifications blinked across my blurred vision. Everything hurt, but I was recovering quickly. Inverse might be strong now, but it was hardly perfect.
I climbed to my feet, resetting my broken leg in the process. I gasped at the breadth of the carnage—it was like a bomb had gone off down here, which I suppose wasn't far from the truth.
My first instinct was to dig for them and finish the job. I'd gotten a ton of notifications, but none confirming what I wanted—Gina and Priya dead. But I knew I was on borrowed time. I needed to leave now. Before somebody truly dangerous showed up.
The fight had brought me down to 7000 CE and left me more or less perfectly healthy. Two leaps brought me out of the crater. I sped off after throwing on some clothes.
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