From the corner of my eye, I saw a human in a jetpack focused on me. His hands twisted in weird, unnatural gestures. Disgusting green Spirit spiraled from his fingertips and drilled into my side.
I snatched the guy’s ugly green life point. The second the Miasma closed around it, pus oozed into Dead Man’s Hand, turning it a sickly green. The disease crept back along the connection toward me.
I dropped the attack before that deadly plague could reach my Spirit sea. The jetpack guy zoomed up higher and renewed his assault on my screwed-up left side.
Three Corpse Sickness exploded off me, the humanoid blobs careening toward him. He flinched and refocused on them like they were the real threat.
Before I could make another grab for his life, Dead Reckoning pinged at my side. A kick crackling with electricity sliced through the edge of my vision, headed for my face.
I spun, swinging the scythe. It was a bird guy. I saw his eyes bug out the second he realized that blade was coming for him, but he was already committed. It was too late to stop his forward motion.
The scythe sheared through his shin. His wings flapped crazily as they dragged him up and out of my reach.
The bottom part of his leg lay on the arena floor, still in the boot. Blood soaked into the dirt.
Part of me knew I should be feeling disgust at what I’d done, but I didn’t. Righteous anger thrummed through my veins. He’d come at me, and this was what he got.
Dead Reckoning freaked out overhead.
I threw up a one-handed Death Metal. A huge, curved sword weighted with metal rings slammed into the shield so hard that I dropped to one knee, losing my grip on the scythe. It ripped back into my chest.
The rings jangled as the winged alien who’d attacked me cocked back for another swing.
Before I could counter, Rali leapt off my shield and slammed into the winged alien, knocking his ringed sword aside and hitting him with a lightning-fast chain of punches before the dude could blink. A blast of orange flashed from the last punch.
The winged dude’s head snapped back, eyes rolling up. He slapped the dirt, unconscious. Rali landed behind him in a cool kung fu posture, legs wide, one palm out.
“Thanks,” I breathed, getting to my feet.
Rali nodded, but the lace in his eyes shifted uncertainly. He had something to say.
“Later,” I said.
“If we survive,” he agreed.
He tagged me with a Healing boost, then he ran off to help Warcry, who was fighting a swarm of Contrails one-legged.
“You’re both going to survive,” I promised under my breath. “I’ll make sure you do.”
Miasma drifted through the stands as probationary Dragons fought the surrounding Contrails. It was an all-out gang war. People were dying so fast that there was no way that Hungry Ghost and I working together could suck up all the Miasma in a week.
I searched the chaos until I found the Contrails’ Shogun. The winged demon was still just standing there, watching the fight like it was something on TV he didn’t particularly care about but nothing else good was on.
When Shogun Araddon saw me glowering at him, he smiled. Perfect white teeth gleamed under the arena lights.
“You’ve got potential, Death cultivator,” he said. “Come over to the Contrails, and we’ll make sure you’re treated in accordance with your worth. The best of anything you could ever want, served to you on golden platters by gorgeous women. Admiration, respect, the freedom to do anything and everything your heart desires.”
Something inside me stirred. Not the longing he was trying to provoke, but something dark and disgusted. He thought he could buy me, but I was better than that, better than him and his revolting swarm of flies. He didn’t even see how repulsive they were. They were the disease, everything that was evil in this universe, and I was the cure.
I grabbed his life point, ready to crush it with Dead Man’s Hand.
But something grabbed me back.
Look, the Shogun’s voice hissed in my head.
Everything went into super slow motion. I saw Warcry thrown backward by an exploding Spirit attack from one of the Contrails circling overhead. The winged guy Rali had knocked out was crawling to his feet beside the ginger, about to take his head off with that ring sword. The heavy blade dripped with blood, and I realized the shark lady and Rata were both lying chopped to pieces in the dirt.
Rali was healing Yoki nearby. Behind them, a falcon-looking guy dove at them, a glaive pulsing with magenta light ready to skewer the big Selken and the jackal. Straight over their heads, a guy hurled a pair of explosive attacks like the one he’d chucked at Warcry. From either side, beetles spewed blinding clouds of blackness. The blinding attacks were going to hit first, then Rali wouldn’t be able to see the glaive coming, and whatever was left of his life after he was impaled wouldn’t outlast the explosions.
I’ll put an immediate stop to the slaughter if you agree to join us, Shogun Araddon’s voice hissed. Even now it isn’t too late. Drop to your knees before me, and I’ll save your friends.
The laugh bubbled up from inside me, but it didn’t sound like me at all. The voice was the same, but there was something new and confident in it that hadn’t ever been there before.
You’ll save them? I thought at the Shogun. Dead Man’s Hand ratcheted tighter on his cold blue life point, embracing the sensation of him grabbing it back like that would save him. Spirit claws pierced the Miasma fist, and he started dragging my consciousness into his.
He wanted to pull me in? So be it. I barreled in full bore, until the whole arena dissolved around me, and the world was nothing but my fist clenched around the demon’s guttering life point and his fist clenched around mine.
You don’t have the power to
