“Beqai has awoken,” I said and spat blood. “He’ll tear you and your Straight Path out by the roots.”
“Our fingers are everywhere, disciple,” Horix whispered. “A local lord like King Beqai is simple enough to remove. But others of our path hover over every clan and guild in this region. The Diamond Coast is moments away from our control. Your own beloved Wysaro City buckled easily enough. You walk a failed path.”
Horix raised the trident high and plunged it toward my head with all his strength. I lifted the Sundered Heart and caught the blow, but its force was too much for me to stand. Exhausted muscles gave way, and I sank to one knee as razor-sharp points hovered half a foot away from my face.
My arm trembled as Horix kept pressing down. The tips of the trident sank toward my eyes as their points gleamed in the last of the moonlight. Smoke drifted out of the hall as the fire from my battle with Cadrin spread, and I heard something crash down inside. The sound of battle faded far below us.
“You hear that?” I said through gritted teeth. “The battle’s almost over. You lost.”
“As long as I stand, I will never lose,” Horix said. “I will kill you and then, I will bring this building crashing down, as I planned to from the moment your pathetic army arrived. The Depthless Dream is mine and with it, I will remove the undisciplined and the aberrant from the Diamond Coast.”
Horix leaned in on the trident as sweat ran down his face. But his cold eyes never left mine for a second.
I dropped to the floor and let his movement drive the trident into the ice beneath my sword hand. I gathered the ash from my body, produced a small spike with Compress Ash, and plunged it into his hand.
Horix screamed and jerked his wounded hand back. I smashed both of my feet into his gut and shot him back over the slippery ice to the balcony. I grabbed hold of the trident and wrenched it out of my hand. Then, I stood with the Sundered Heart Sword in one hand and the Depthless Dream Trident in the other.
“Well played, lo Pashat. But you’ve only bought yourself a moment longer.” Horix removed the ash spike I’d created with a swift tug and tossed it behind him. It sailed out into the night and vanished from view.
He wrapped his good hand around the injured one. Fire flashed between them and when they parted, the injured hand was charred on front and back. Blood had blackened around the wound and sealed his fingers into a single curled fist.
I swayed drunkenly as I fought to control my wobbling limbs. My vision blurred and refocused from one moment to the next.
Horix shook his head in disdain and flung his arms up. Sickly green clouds swirled as a storm gathered above him and daggers of acidic ice rained down. They didn’t seem to touch the guildmaster, but the ice around him became dotted with tiny craters as the acid melted holes where it fell.
“I might not be the Swordslinger yet, but I have two Immense Blades now.” I held the weapons out in front of me. Power ran through them, ancient forces of fire and water far deeper and more powerful than anything I’d ever worked inside myself.
“They are nothing! The Swordslinger is a lie!” Horix ripped his arms forward as he yelled. The Toxic Blizzard crossed the space between us and melted the surfaces of walls and balcony to leave steaming green puddles in its wake.
I took a deep breath and found the last of the strength and Vigor left within me.
“Sweet man, what are you doing? You have nothing left to give.”
“This ends now,” I told Nydarth.
I instinctively called forth the power of the weapons. Flames curled around the Sundered Heart. Water streamed off the floor in a huge torrent and focused around the steel of the Depthless Dream.
I called upon the two elements of fire and water. Their channels were almost completely empty and threatened to crumple. I focused on the pathways for two techniques with the last remnants of the Vigor within me. The internal threads of Untamed Torch and Crashing Wave spiraled around each other and joined together into a sizzling route that seared my insides.
I gritted my teeth, crossed the weapons, and held them toward Horix. A house-sized column of superheated steam erupted from the ends of the spirit weapons and slammed into him. His feet vanished from the floor as my dual techniques obliterated his defenses and blasted him off the balcony.
The elf screamed an earsplitting-note that echoed throughout the guild house. Skin and flesh evaporated beneath the fury of the blast, and his bones shattered like glass as his corpse twisted into the sky. The guildmaster’s ashes fluttered in the breeze of the ocean, and the Toxic Blizzard dissipated.
The blasts of fire and water died as the last vestige of Vigor left my body. The last of Horix’s storm of acid faded. I stood alone and exposed on the balcony, and my eyes looked out across the ocean beneath a gray pre-dawn sky.
The weapons fell from my exhausted hands and clanged on the ground. I sank to my knees and closed my eyes. It was over. I could rest.
“Stay awake, Ethan,” Nydarth begged. “You must. Do not fade into the darkness.”
But I had no strength left to stand. I barely even had enough to open my eyes.
The notes of a song somewhere beneath the crashing of the waves and the crackle of flames drifted from the hall behind me. Something cool and wet touched the back of my head. It flowed across me, drew out my aches, and restored small pockets of my energy.
I took a deep breath, raised my head, and looked
