Lifeless figures attacked Deimos from every direction, though Percy and Micky kept their distance for the time being, intent on fighting more cautiously.

The Blue handled the situation just as well as before, dodging the charging phantoms with ease, still not drawing even a drop of mana from his core. Scythes spun toward him by the dozens, a rain of sharp icicles joining them, but neither the burning crescents nor the frozen projectiles ever came close to putting a scratch on him.

Percy used every trick under the sun to land a blow. His Thousand-fanged Maw spanned a wide enough area to surround the Blue once ready, and enough force to bite through the thick layer of willpower protecting him. Sadly, it took time to prepare, allowing Deimos to avoid it well in advance.

Percy tried to suffocate the Blue by slipping a few strands of silk through his defences, hoping that his Fifth Parade would work just as well as it had done against the assassin, yet Deimos never allowed a single strip of cloth to approach.

Every now and then, Percy resorted to his Winding Corridor technique, trying to cut off Deimos’s escapes, but the Blue’s spatial awareness was downright frightening. He nimbly dodged all of Percy’s blows, always landing a nasty counterattack in response, his hits leaving painful bruises beneath the Phantomwoven Cloak.

At some point, Deimos began firing his own projectiles – blasts of concentrated willpower that Percy’s dancing phantoms struggled to block. Several attacks landed on him and Micky, leaving their bodies battered and aching.

‘Just how the fuck is he doing this?! Does he have a bloodline that amplifies his domain?!’ Percy cursed, nearly biting his tongue.

The situation was even more ridiculous as he considered the quintet of Blues he and Micky had recently defeated, without even having to resort to his trollsfury tattoo. Granted, their opponents hadn’t been the most talented of their grade, but they had still probably possessed enough combined strength to keep a weak Violet busy for a while.

It just didn’t make sense that a lone Blue would be capable of doing so well by himself. This was the kind of thing Percy would have expected to see on a greater spring like Thess’kala, yet Remior simply didn’t have any elite disciples like the ones he and Kassorith had faced in the tournament – not to his knowledge, at least.

Even if a second prodigy had emerged on his world unbeknownst to everyone, it wouldn’t explain the sheer ease by which Deimos was handling him and Micky. The man was still holding back too!

‘Maybe he isn’t,’ the crow suddenly suggested. ‘What if there’s some price he has to pay to fight like this?’

Percy raised an eyebrow, thinking that his friend might be on to something. Perhaps, Deimos wasn’t playing around as much as he appeared to. What if not using his mana was actually a requirement to strengthen his domain to this extent? Well, Percy sure hoped that was the case, since his trollsfury tattoo wasn’t going to last much longer.

He was about to risk everything into an all-out attack, when Deimos seized the initiative for a change. An ocean of ink spilled out of his body, covering a colossal sphere of space that contained Percy, Micky, and all of their constructs. Suffice to say, Percy had never seen so much willpower gathered in one place. Then again, he hadn’t had his Sovereign’s Eye for that long either.

“You know… in the beginning, I wanted to wring the recipe out of you so badly. Not only was that my mission – the reason my superiors deployed me to the Alchemists’ Guild in the first place – it also aligned with my personal interests. After all, which Yellow-born wouldn’t dream of a path to divinity?” Deimos said, his voice reverberating through the domain in a manner that reminded Percy of Hermes’s transmissions, albeit at a far smaller scale.

“But it’s pretty clear that the gods don’t care about getting the recipe from you anymore. Either they have already figured it out, or they don’t mind waiting a bit longer for your mentor to spill the beans. And honestly, I’m done caring too,” the Blue continued.

The air around Percy grew thicker, vibrating violently. To his horror, his scythes shattered one after the other, though the cloaked phantoms seemed to absorb the shocks a little better than the weapons. A grating noise ruptured his eardrums, causing him to wince, two warm trickles rolling down the sides of his face. His bones shook, though his armour and enhanced physique kept them from breaking. Micky was doing even worse, his crystalline body cracking and regenerating constantly as he struggled to remain afloat.

“Waiting a decade is starting to sound like a small price to pay for the privilege of killing you with my own two hands. I wonder if Orin will feel the need to keep the knowledge to himself once you’re dead. And what will Archibald think when your family’s neighbours are no longer afraid to burn your House to the ground?”

Percy couldn’t hear the shrill cries of his phantoms anymore, nor the howling winds around them. He knew that he partly had his damaged ears to thank for that, but Micky’s worked just fine, yet the only thing either of them could hear was a constant buzz – except of course for the Blue’s taunts that appeared to bypass Percy’s disability entirely. Deimos’s domain affected more than the physical world, however, somehow reaching into Percy’s mind to stifle even the clone’s Symphony.

Gritting his teeth, Percy forced the ambient mana to flow toward the fragmented weapons, igniting them. Restoring the army of phantoms was a struggle, but he knew he would need them if he wanted to end the fight before his boost expired. Micky seemed to agree, doing his best to shake the hostile willpower off.

Deimos smirked as he watched their desperate efforts. He aimed his palm at Percy, firing a storm of projectiles, forcing him to dodge by the skin of his teeth. The ink-coloured blasts moved fast and blended into the same-coloured background extremely well. If that wasn’t enough, Percy found it difficult to predict Deimos’s movements. The Blue wasn’t using his mana, providing Percy with fewer channels of information to study.

Not wanting to fall into his opponent’s rhythm, Percy broke three of the leaves on his forearm, allowing the potent Green mana to flood his body, relieving some of his fatigue.

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Stepping on a nearby pair of scythes, he began building momentum, circling around Deimos while dodging his attacks. Slowly, he increased his minions’ numbers again, spreading them like a grey blanket around the battlefield, trying to block his opponent’s vision.

‘We only need to land one good attack. That’s all it’ll take to bring the fucker down!’ Percy thought.

No matter how powerful he seemed, Deimos’s soul was just as vulnerable as any other Blue’s. A single strike would kill him, though there were two obstacles standing in Percy’s way.

The first was his opponent’s speed. Even while enveloping the entire battlefield with his domain and firing a flurry of powerful attacks, Deimos appeared to have enough willpower left to manoeuvre extremely well. Thankfully, this was a relatively easy problem to solve. Percy was confident he could create an opening with Micky’s help.

The second obstacle was greater. Deimos’s defence was clearly difficult to breach. Percy wasn’t sure any of his attacks would be powerful enough, except perhaps for his Second Parade, but he doubted he’d ever land that one against such an opponent. The next best thing was his Soul-crushing Needle, but it might never make it through the wall of willpower.

‘It doesn’t matter. If none of my attacks are good enough, then I’ll just have to come up with a new one,’ he thought, turning to his companions. ‘Give me as much soul-freezing mana as you can muster. Fast. We’ll only get one shot.’

The tattoo would probably last a bit longer than that, but refuelling his spare channels took time, and Percy didn’t think he’d be able to charge multiple blasts.

Micky and the clone nodded through their connection, already borrowing his excess mana to fuse with their own. Percy had no space for it in his body, but he was about to make some.

Moving the exotic resource along his arms, he shuddered as an indescribable chill seeped into his bones. The cold substance was much easier to bear after the ritual, but not when concentrated in a single body part. Percy’s muscles and joints stiffened, the blood in his veins slowing to a crawl as his fingers grew numb.

Some of the frigid resource spilled into his Cloak, inadvertently activating a few of the adaptive enchantments in the unit cells. The wrong mana type twisted the shape of the fabric, distorting the intricate network of runes. What was normally an orderly weave of enchantments became unrecognizable, the cloth on Percy’s sleeves now resembling a bunch of tattered rags, fluttering in the wind. He was forced to pour some of his phantom mana into the self-repairs to restore the Cloak to its normal shape, the two mana types fighting a tug-of-war over ownership of the construct.

Most of the soul-freezing ice flowed toward the weapon, however. Percy had discarded one of his scythes, clenching the other with both hands as he poured the substance into its shaft. Much like with his clothes, he pumped phantom mana into the construct as well, trying to keep its shape intact. As powerful as the soul-freezing ice was, he wouldn’t be able to deliver it properly if the weapon fell apart.

‘Not enough. Send me more!’ he told the clone as he emptied his spare channels.

Over the next minute or so, Percy dodged Deimos’s attacks while multiplying his phantoms and fuelling his weapon. He was certain the scythe was humming with unprecedented power, though his damaged ears still couldn’t register any sound besides a constant buzz, along with the Blue’s occasional words.

Cold flames danced around the blade as a layer of grey frost formed over its surface, a row of jagged teeth made of ice sprouting along its burning edge. Only when Percy was certain that it couldn’t contain another drop of mana did he stop, lifting his gaze toward his opponent.

‘Here goes nothing,’ he thought, guiding the others toward Deimos.

Micky and the phantoms moved, closing into the relaxed Blue. Seemingly unbothered, the man withdrew much of his domain, before sending a violent shockwave outward to fend off his attackers.

Everyone got pushed back, many of the constructs breaking in the process. Still, Percy and his companions didn’t give up. His surviving minions resumed their offensive, flowing toward Deimos like a tide of grey fabric, pushing against his domain with brute strength.

The Blue condensed his willpower into a bubble around his body, navigating the tumultuous ocean of magical silk and reinforced blades, blasting holes into the mourning figures’ ranks in his effort to not drown among them.

Micky joined the fight with little regard over his safety, entire chunks of ice crumbling from his body as he clashed with Deimos’s barrier to force him to stay put.

Meanwhile, Percy continued to build up speed, jumping from one pair of shafts to the next, his empowered weapon held tightly in his grasp. His new technique was based on his Soul-crushing Needle, but the enchanted scythe should boost its penetrating force even further, the adaptive heating enchantments raising the lethality of the exotic mana.

And Percy was going to deliver the blow himself, to make sure it connected.

Scanning the space carefully, he waited patiently for the clone to signal that Deimos had slowed down, the ghost army having finally overwhelmed him. Of course, the Blue had still done an admirable job guarding his body from their scythes, and Percy knew this fleeting opening would be gone in a second.

Even so, it was enough.

Some of the phantoms moved aside to open a path for their master, as Percy shot toward his opponent. The colours in his vision blurred as he closed the gap in an instant, his scythe mere metres from Deimos’s silver silhouette.

This was it!

Deimos was admittedly quite agile, but there simply wasn’t enough room left for him to dodge as the dancing crowd swarmed him. Furthermore, Percy just couldn’t imagine any Blue blocking such a powerful attack!

‘Carnival of the Savage Gods, Sixth Parade, Winter’s Edge!’ he tried to yell, though no sound escaped his lips. Even so, he swung the weapon with all his might.

The violent impact stopped Percy in his tracks. The enchantments on his Cloak lit up to protect him from the shock, though he still felt like his arms had turned to mush, his previously numb palms suddenly registering a wave of searing pain.

At the same time, the scythe exploded into shrapnel, clearly unable to withstand the blow. A small shard lodged itself beneath Percy’s right eye, nearly blinding him as colours returned to the world, revealing the aftermath of the attack. Percy ignored the pain in his limbs, watching with bated breath for the result.

His heart skipped a beat upon seeing Deimos hovering in front of him, alive and well, a sly smirk plastered all over his face. A grey shard covered in cracks was pinched between the man’s thumb and index finger, its tip mere centimetres from his chest!

Percy’s eyes widened in horror as he realized that his opponent had actually survived the attack – blocking the most powerful spell he had ever unleashed with ease. Examining the man carefully, it wasn’t very difficult to figure out how this had happened, however.

Mana was finally flowing out of Deimos’s core, blending with the willpower in his hand, dispelling Micky’s optimistic theory that this shouldn’t be possible. If that wasn’t bad enough, Percy finally understood why his opponent’s domain was so much stronger than it had any right to be. It had nothing to do with a willpower-strengthening bloodline or any cheap tricks like that. The true reason was far simpler.

A Blue star was still glowing brightly in Deimos’s sternum, but the mana flowing down his arm wasn’t Blue.

The man’s smirk widened into a proper grin. Grabbing his robe with his free hand, he tore a patch off his chest, revealing a set of bandages wrapped tightly around his core. Percy hadn’t studied Remior’s runes as well as the Vault’s but, these, he recognized. After all, he’d used something similar in the past.

‘Concealment runes!’

Beads of cold sweat formed on Percy’s forehead, as he registered at last how dire the situation was.

Deimos was a Violet!

And not just a weak Violet with a common affinity that he and Micky might be able to barely win against – or flee from.

No.

He was a Violet with a sound affinity – a composite mana type known primarily for its speed – and quite possibly a blessing too!