Published at 20th of September 2026 7:18 am

Chapter 375: Prize

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Severin came at him in a flood of melting grey Soul Sense and humming monowire.

Nicolai had hoped to use the assistance of the undead against the assassin, taking him apart while he was constrained by their lumbering forms. With the undead peeling off, eyes set on the box Severin had hurled away, that was no longer an option.

And so, his aggressive rush transformed into instant retreat. The assassins monowire and Soul Sense both possessed a range of roughly 20 metres, and they were powerful, dangerous weapons in isolation. Together, the monowires weaknesses offset by the weaponised Soul Sense, that 20 metres became a kill zone that even Nicolai wouldnt survive, not for more than a few seconds.

He reached with the Spectral Claw, grasping the nearby edge of the roof, wrenched himself away from Severin. Simultaneously his Hornet Wings blurred as he pushed them to their max and his Pegasi wings gave him a small extra boost.

Even with all that, Severin was almost as fast, his augmented body built to provide a speed and strength Nicolai yet lacked. He seemed like some kind of vicious creature from the deep sea as he pursued, a powerful body surrounded by writhing tendrils of Soul Sense and monowire. Still, almost as fast wasnt quite good enough. The distance between them grew, and Nicolais focus was on the terrain before him, ensuring he navigated the rooftops, the random pockets of battle, the gaps between buildings, all as perfectly and quickly as possible, the world a blur of vicious light and sound around him.

A spray of random gunfire crackled over the rooftops, both Nicolais and Severins Shields taking minor hits. Threat Analysis was certain that Severin possessed some kind of Silver-Net-adjacent Artifact, and yet the assassin showed no sign of it. Aiming pointed this out and the other Module, shrugging, said it might be wrong.

Nicolai gave Aiming the go-ahead and his gunlimbs squirmed into position and roared to life. A barrage of highly accurate 7.62 lanced out at Severin, cracking his Shield. Threat Analysis said the Shield was Tier 2, but even that wouldnt last long under such sustained fire.

The assassin didnt even slow, pursuing with all he had. And as Nicolai landed atop a new roof, one that was long and flat without anywhere good for him to grip with the Spectral Claw, the assassin began to slightly gain.

As he raced along the roof, tiles splintering beneath him, he considered leaping into the air and simply switching purely to flight, but decided against it. So far, Severin showed no signs of having much ranged capabilities, but he must have something. Not to mention up in the sky Nicolai would be unable to use his legs or the Spectral Claw. Once he was up there, Severin would keep pace easily.

This roof was tall, triangular, and as he crested the top the main battle came into the view. The assassin whod seized the box disappeared in an eruption of fire and metal as numerous attacks caught him. For a moment, all Nicolai could see through the resulting plumes of dust was a vicious tangle of struggling forms, assassins and undead. Then a figure leapt from the melee, clutching the shrieking box, and Nicolai adjusted his course to intercept.

Severin was pressing closer, verging on closing into 20 metres, but the edge of the roof was coming up. Once he reached with the Claw and pulled, hed widen the gap again.

No! cried Aiming, we have him! The Module was entirely focused on Severin, and it drew their attention to the assassins Shields. The gunlimbs were nearly spent, but simultaneously Severins shields were riddled with cracks, parts crumpling and puffing away. The assassin was shifting the unbroken portions forward, but in only seconds, the whole thing would puff into useless Oma.

The gunlimbs ammo counters hit empty just as the Shields broke apart entirely, and a tangle of thoughts erupted in Nicolais mind. Aiming wanted him to pull his rifle, turn and engage, arguing there was no need to worry about Severin closing into 20 metres when they slowed to focus him, because theyd eliminate him here and now. Threat Analysis, on the other hand, was convinced this was a trap. The Dark, ever hungry, also pushed him to turn and fight.

Nicolai went with Threat Analysis. Aiming was built to be aggressive and shoot to kill, Threat Analysis was there to spot traps.

He kept going, seizing the rooftop with the Claw and slingshotting himself forwards, furthering the gap between himself and Severin. As he spun through the air he ejected the spent gunlimb mags and slotted in a fresh pair. Aiming resumed shooting, but by then Severins shields had had time to recover.

However, they didnt take any damage. Silver lines of light appeared around the assassin, a Silver Net taking the bullets and redirecting them for far less of a cost in armour than a shield would need. Doubtless in the event Nicolai had taken the bait, Severin had some kind of backup Shield ready to spring into place.

The assassin mightve stuck on his tail for quite some time, but there was one of those black spires up ahead. Cyberwarfare contacted the Defence System, and a moment later the spire crackled with energy. It projected out a line of something not quite Soul Sense and not quite ripple, more a merging of both, appearing like some ghostly lightning bolt. It earthed in Severins Soul Sense and faded away.

Nicolai recognised this as some kind of targeting lock, and he wasnt surprised when Severin did, too. The assassin extended a leg and tore a line through the tiles of the roof, coming to an abrupt stop, then he slashed with his monowire. The chunk of roof he stood on dropped downwards, and Severin was gone.

Just in time, as a bolt of green lightning blasted the roof where hed stood an instant later.

Nicolai turned his attention forward. He was closing in on the scramble for the Orb. Scrambling assassins exchanging gunfire and blasts of energy, disappearing and reappearing in shadows or turned into mist, sliced at one another with Artifact blades and monoswords.

Nicolai arrived into this mess with an explosion of violence. The Spectral Claw slashed out at an assassin with a weakened Shield. He tore through it in one, stabbed the unprotected Cultivator with the talons, and his eliminations ticked up by one.

His gunlimbs writhed like striking snakes, twitching to aim at one target then another as the Modules hunted for easy kills. Two assassins, busy frantically slicing chunks out of one anothers Shield with Artifact Blades, saw their duel come to an abrupt end when Aiming sent two precise shots through those holes.

Quiet Knife extended, Nicolais mad dash veered toward several more struggling individuals. He caught two with the Knife, angled for another but by then they were scattering, diving out the way.

He pressed on, leaving a small patch of the battlefield noticeably quieter than before, the remaining combatants fleeing in all directions. Reaching the edge of another rooftop he stared down into a street choked with undead, guardians, and assassins. The Infiltrator was off some distance to his side, clinging invisibly to its own rooftop vantage, and it had told him here was the place to be.

The box was down there. Its bearer was a male Cultivator who eschewed the typical robes in favour of dark, close-fitting armour. The Cultivator was on the street, hemmed in by a wall of undead approaching down one side of the street, surrounded by a mess of guardians and assassins in all other directions. The Cultivators bared teeth flashed in the sunlight, head twisting left and right as he took in what was coming for him. Earthers sighting down guns, Cultivators forming up spikes of energy.

The armoured Cultivator appeared to melt, dropping down and lengthening, dissolving into the tiny shadows that lived in the cracks between paving stones, shadows which visibly bulged as the assassin mlded into them. The swelling shadows darting over the street, in the direction of a sewer grating.

There was a beat of confusion, many trying to target the shadow, and the grating erupted with a great boom and flash of light when someone fired some kind of rocket launcher at it.

But even through the plume of choking dust and chunks of stone, the truth became apparent. The wailing of the box continued unabated, and on the street where the assassin had stood, so small as to almost go overlooked, the box remained. With the mass realisation the box hadnt transported with the shadow user, just about every being on the street lunged in its direction.

The street blurred around him as he leapt from the rooftop, landed in a roll, sprung out of it and into a full sprint for the box, Hornet Wings buzzing and Spectral Claw darting ahead of him.

Hed been quick on the uptake and moved sooner than most, but not all. Others converged on the box on all sides, the space between them all closing fast. Attacks came from all directions and he used his jets freely for quick bursts of forward mobility, avoiding bullets and further closing the distance.

And he was coming into range, stretching out for it with the Spectral Claw, while several others extended their own Soul Sense tendrilswhips of energy, spectral hands, biting mouths. Symbiote-enhanced Soul Senses thrashed and tore at one another like a bucket full of nightmare snakes, and Nicolai focused on guarding his own tendril while severing others every chance he had, and at the end of the frantic, seconds-long battle, only his Spectral Claw and two other tendrils remained, all seizing at the wailing box. It had grown tiny spiritual legs and was skittering about, looking for a way out, but the tendrils were coming for it from all directions.

Only for a woman with spiritual wings like those of a great eagle to drop out the sky. The Modules had spotted her and Aiming targeted her with twin rays of 7.62, but she possessed a Silver Net and they all went wide. She snatched the box and swept back up into the air, the wail of the boxs alarm stretching out and thinning as she rose up and away, releasing a peal of laughter.

She was fast, her wings granted a much higher top speed than his own, and quick on the manoeuvre, as she quickly demonstrated when numerous people began to target her with ranged attacks. She dodged the heavier, slower projectiles, and let her Silver Net handle the rest.

However, there were numerous undead guardians flying around up there, and her dive had brought her below them, allowed them time to form a clump that pressured her from above, blocked her rising too high. She was forced to stay low, and when her route took her over a roofNicolai and every other surviving assassin in the area following in a murderous swarmshe came tantalisingly close to his reach, only 100 metres away. He stretched his Spectral Claw to the full 60 metres of his Soul Sense range, reaching for her, debating whether to fly upwards. His wings were slower than hers, and without a roof to run on shed quickly outpace him, but a quick leap and a blast from his jets might do it. Hed have to close the distance near-instantly. She wasnt quite close enough.

She saw the Claw below and began pulling knives from a bandolier on her chest, hurling them down at him. The knives punched straight through the Spectral Claw, angling for him, but Nicolai sheathed his Quiet Knife and his hands danced, plucking them from the air, one then another until his grasp was full of them, and he felt their power. Some kind of Artifact Knives, capable of passing through Shields. He was preparing to throw one back when they began disappearing, tumbling into light and out of his hands. Threat Analysis, keeping a close watch through cameras, informed him the knives were reappearing on her bandolier.

A dive from a pair of guardians forced her even lower and Nicolai found his moment. His run turned into a leap and a quick squeeze from his jets turned him into a tiny rocket, Claw on the very tip of his Soul Sense, fingers spread. The talons grasped at her

The Dark spoke a warning. His jets launched him to the side, but not fast enough to avoid a surge of melting grey Soul Sense from directly below. Severin followed right behind the Soul Sense attack, erupting from the roof in an explosion of broken wood and tiles.

While hed hunted the Orb-bearer, Severin had hunted him. The assassin had found his moment, caught him within the 20-metre kill zone. His jet fuel was low, but as his Soul Sense melted away, the Spectral Claw dissolved, his Shield crumbled, and the monowire lashed at him, there was little choice but to use what was left.

He barely avoided the monowire when it snapped by, emanating a disconcerting hum that set his teeth on edge. But Nicolai just kept on jetting, even as Severin struck out again. He was low, but he had plenty enough to escape Severins range.

But the assassin surprised him. Places on Severins armour burst outwards, revealing jets of his own. Jets that had been so perfectly hidden that even the Modules hadnt spotted any sign. Severin jetted after him, matching his speed and keeping him stuck in range.

Nicolai was wary of using the Dark Spirit, but this was no time to hold back. He reached through the hole in his mind, found the Dark Spirit, sucked it into his Soul and spat it out at Severin.

It emerged, an inky black stain that bulged out from him, into Severins enwrapping Soul Sense, and Nicolai grinned like a child watching their rival take a beating.

But unlike the last times hed used it, the Dark Spirit didnt dig into Severins Soul Sense and from thence into his Soul. Instead it let out a teakettle hiss, reacting in some way with Severins strange Art. The assassins Soul Sense flinched in pain, but so too did the Dark Spirit. Both were releasing a kind of spiritual mist or smoke as though burning, and there was an odd sense of pushing.

An instant after hed summoned it the Dark Spirit disappeared, shoved back into the Interior. A section of Severins Soul Sense disappeared along with it, leaving a momentary gap and a thought in Nicolais mind. I need that Symbiote set.

Nicolai flowed into that gap, using it to reform his Skin Shielda barely-visible film of energy that covered his body and equipment. The monowire sliced over him, droning like an electric bee, but it was unable to penetrate the Shield and slipped right off, fingernails on glass.

Severins Soul Sense plugged the gap and melted Nicolais Shield, then he slashed his arm and the monowire came straight back. Over the frozen, frantic seconds that followed, the pair of them suspended in the air by the blasts of their jets, Severin attacked him half-a-dozen more times. Whenever without a Skin Shield Nicolai enacted full-body contortions and jet-enhanced jerking, twitching and squirming like a rat flinging itself away from the claws of a cat. The rest of the time he bought himself brief moments of protection, as the instant he felt the Dark Spirit return to roost he launched it straight back out. He could feel it was sustaining some kind of damage from Severins Soul Sense, but it was doing damage in turn. Each time it appeared it took a chunk of Severins Soul Sense with it, made a gap in which he could activate his Shield.

His mind was consumed by the Zero-Twelve state, Modules and Mask and Dark all fused into one, every iota of his being tuned to Severins movements. He could feel the assassins rising rage and disbelief as he avoided strike after strike, and for a moment was delighted, but he knew it couldnt last. His fuel readout was approaching zero, whereas Severins must be close to full.

He was reminded, then, of his fight with the assassin in the theatre. There, the assassin had been entirely safe and able to threaten him from range. But the moment Nicolai closed the space, his plan fell apart and he lost his nerve.

Here, Nicolai was the one who neede to maintain the space, and Severin the one who wanted to close up and overwhelm with aggression. At a time like this, the only answer was to hold his nerve, and fight back against the odds.

In a flash he and the Modules made a plan. Hed been using his wings purely to retreat away from Severin this whole time, the only way hed kept at the edge of Severins range, but it wasnt enough. At the edge of the range he had more time to react to the strikes, but hed be caught out and killed in the end regardless. He slowed the beating of his wings and abruptly the space between them began to close.

Severin capitalised instantly, flicking his wrist oddly, setting the monowire to undulate. It moved slower through the air but covered far more space, slashing once again, and the Dark Spirit had just been pushed back to its realm once more, Nicolais Shield offline.

Nicolais entire being focused on the tangle of monowire coming at him, then he twisted and positioned his body just so, spine tilted, legs and arms angled strangely, until hed made of himself a piece to fit through the puzzle of the monowire. For the moment it passed around him he felt as though he was a car in a car wash, surrounded by buzzing and humming on every side. Alas, he didnt make it entirely cleanly. His gunlimbs were bulky and one tumbled away, cleanly severed by the buzz-saw whine of the monowire.

But they were closer than ever, the monowire for a moment out of way, and Nicolai used the last of his jet fuel to reverse his momentum, blasting at Severin. As he went he drew the Quiet Knife.

The man twisted to receive him. Severin attempted to jet sideways in his own dodge, but hed been jetting at high speed straight at Nicolai, and the sudden reverse of momentum meant that for just an instant, they were approaching one another at well over a hundred miles an hour.

Severin was far better than his previous opponents. The assassin didnt even bother attempting another monowire attack. Midair his stance shifted, arms extended and ready, eyes focused on the knife in Nicolais hands. Arms that were certainly stronger and faster than Nicolais own.

But instead Nicolai bowed his body, pulling his legs up even as he slashed with the Knife. Severin had no choice but to keep one hand up to guard against it. However, with his other, which bore the monowire glove, he made a slashing motion.

Nicolais double-leg kick slammed into Severins torso and he attempted to kick off with all the power in his legs, all the momentum of their collision. It felt like kicking a rock, and for a moment his legs struggled and he experienced the possibility of failure, and his plan to wait until he could strengthen himself with spiritually resonant materials seemed the worst kind of foolishness, but then the gears hed set in his legs bit down, and fused with the strength of his muscles, and he sprung and shoved all in one explosive movement.

Nicolai springboarded off Severins torso, launched the assassin away. As he went he angled his outstretched arm, tilted his wrist and spread his fingers, and there came a boom as his handcannon jerked.

Almost at the same time there were two more booms as Severin made his reply. The assassin had snapped his arms up and fired both of his own handcannons.

The moment he saw the arms rising he knew what Severin would do. There was no time to react in any meaningful way to bullets fired from so close, but he could predict.

The possibilities poured through Nicolais mind, a glut of maths the Modules rove over, combined with a rush of simple instinctive feeling and instinct fuelled by Nicolai, the Mask and the Dark. Not only where Severin would most likely shoot, but where he would want to shoot.

What would he do, in Severins place?

One at the head, one at the heart. Both crucial, but one more than the other. However, the poison construct in his heart changed things.

Nicolai thrust his free arm out, held it at an angle, and tilted his head.

And so, when the.50 cal rounds caught at him, the one aimed at his chest hit him first. It impacted on the side of his angled arm, and the Shield glistening over it. Even angled to encourage it to slide off it still broke his Shield instantly, tore a jagged line through his armour, and broke his arm before it went tumbling away, but it was redirected from his chest.

The other one caught on the side of his hopefully angled helmet and if it was deflected, it was only by a minuscule amount. The side of his helmet and skull blew away in a mist of red and black white, the force smashed his head to the side like the like being punched by a train, wouldve broke his neck were it not for the engaging of the emergency stabilisation system built into his skinsuit.

Nicolais world became a blur of confusion, the Modules taking over. Through the blackness he numbly felt his lips wrapping around the spout of a Rejuvenating Orb, and an instant later he was back online.

The moments hed missed poured into him, replaying in a flash.

He saw Severins backward jets releasing screeching plumes of red-and-white burning fuel as the assassin attempted to force his tumbling body back at Nicolai, but it wasnt enough. By the time hed reversed and started coming back Nicolais rocket-like leap had taken him to the edge of the assassins 20 metre killzone.

But Severin had one weapon remaining, and the attack was already made. The monowire slashed out and caught at him, tearing into his side.

It wrapped around his un-Shielded form, and the Modules piloting his body simply pulled the wire off and tossed it, because it was no longer anything but a thin wire.

In the moment theyd come together hed aimed his handcannon not at Severin, protected by the Silver Net, but the root of the assassins monowirewhere it was most vulnerable, as that part did not vibrate. Any other part of the monowire would have simply cut through the.50 cal round without sustaining damage.

He returned in a rush at this moment, as he passed out of Severins range. With the successful disabling of Severins monowire he almost considered turning around, pushing for a kill, but his thoughts were too scrambled by the still-healing injury, and he saw Severin was already repairing his weapon. The gloves root-part hinged open, stripping the dead root smoothly and fluidly, slotting in a fresh loop of wire, and Severins monowire was back in action, and the eyes hidden behind his helmet burned with a near-insane desire to see Nicolai dead. A desire Nicolai was beginning to mirror, but there was no true death to be had in this trial. Victory revolved around the Orb of Trouble.

His jets were at zero but he passed out of Severins Soul Sense and immediately reactivated his Hornet Wings and Spectral Claw, reaching and seizing the corpse of a handy undead guardian. He wrenched himself through the air, slingshotting himself, and was barely able to maintain the gap as Severin jetted straight at him. His only saving grace was that the assassin was unable to combine the speed of running with the speed of his jets, and the jets were only slightly faster than running.

Nicolai pulled the spent canister of fuel from his back and tossed it aside, slotting in a fresh one from storage, and his speed reached a new height. Severin fell away behind him.

The flying Cultivator with the box was directly ahead of him, not even far off. While avoiding her pursuers, her random flight had brought her back around and in his direction. Even while fighting Severin some of the Modules had kept in contact with the Infiltrator, kept track of the box, and in the moment of his escape hed aimed himself at her.

His body ached and itched and burned. The air felt painful cold on the side of his knitting-together skull where the hole in his helmet exposed it. But he wouldnt stop, couldnt stop. He felt a pressure in his broken arm, stretched it out and experienced a delicious pop as the elbow joint snapped bak into position.

Nicolai rose upwards like a vengeful angel, angling towards her with his wings ahumming. She was busy hurling knives at those chasing her below, and watching out for the guardians that were taking passes at her.

She might not even have seen him coming, were it not for Severin. The assassin was keeping pace with him below, and he pulled a gunsome kind of revolverand started shooting. First at Nicolai, then at her. The shots didnt do much, as Nicolai either snaked out the way or deflected them with his angled hand shield, and she had a Silver Net, but they did make her look up and notice him bearing down on her. The Dark was salivating with its sudden desire to slaughter Severin, but he channelled its mad fury at the woman with the box.

She saw him and immediately peeled off to the side, but by then it was too late.

His jets screeched as he dumped a full third of his fresh fuel in the space of two seconds, closing in, stretching out the Claw. She threw knife after knife at him, but compared to.50 cal rounds from two feet away these projectiles were nothing, childs play, and he flicked them from the air with twitches of his Quiet Knife.

And at last he was close enough. He slashed at her with the Claw, tracking her as she attempted to dodge, dealt a heavy blow to her Shield, then struck again and broke it. The next hit caught one of her spiritual wings and it puffed into Oma.

Her flight became a mad spin, and with a yelp then a screech she plummeted toward the ground and the hungry assassins gathered below. He tilted and dove after her like an hawk sighting a field mouse.

As she was swallowed by the crowd below his Claw snapped up back toward him, and Nicolai turned, beat his wings and darted away. The Spectral Claw, when it arrived beside him, proffered his prize. The box, at last in his grasp.

Attacks were already coming at him from below, but not as many as one mightve expected. The number of assassins in this trial had been constantly reducing and now, at last, the number was reaching something slightly more manageable. But the ones who were left were likely to be more dangerous, too. He spied a few significant looking individuals loitering here and there, all watching him with hooded eyes, Severin amongst them. With fewer triallists, the chaos between them had reduced, too. None of them were attacking the others.

As he veered out the way of a hail of bullets and dove down through the air, seeking the cover of a nearby lightning-spire, he eyed the guardian undead floating around him. Great undead bats, winged serpents, robed undead Cultivators. None of them were coming for him, simply flying passively. Waiting for command. Not as many enemies as there had been, and he also possessed a number of allies.

However, it was also becoming apparent to him that simply holding the box caused some trouble, because it was screaming at him. It had an angry little face that was issuing a constant barrage of insults, and it was trying to bite his hand. It also began charging something, some kind of Symbiote-based power.

He found himself forced to use a tendril to suppress it, weakening him slightly, simply because he didnt want to find out what would happen if he let it charge that power to full. Presumably every other holder had felt the same way.

Good, you have it! I will protect you, take the Orb back to its resting place, spoke the Defence System, communicating with the Infiltrator. It had worked out that speaking to the Infiltrator was the same as speaking to him.

Cyberwarfare sent the system an affirmative, but begged a moment to rest and recover, while Nicolai settled onto the side of the tower, keeping it between him and the bulk of his enemies. He noted the Infiltrator, positioned on a neighbouring tower.

A tricky situation, to be sure, and played wrongly he could end up with the system coming after him along with all the other triallists. Hed seen how that worked out for everyone else who took the Orb. But he was sure there was a route, ideally one that would look suitably impressive to the watching nobles

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